A REPROOF TO THE Rehearsal Transprosed, IN A Discourse to its Author.  
By the Author of the ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY.  
London, Printed for James Collins at the King's Arms in Ludgate-street, 1673.   

TO THE READER,  
WHen I first condemned myself to the drudgery of this Reply, I intended nothing but a serious Prosecution of my Argument; and to let the World see that it is not reading Histories, or Plays, or Gazettes, nor going a Pilgrimage to Geneva, nor learning French and Italian, nor passing the Alps, nor being a cunning Gamester that can qualify a man to discourse of Conscience and Ecclesiastical Policy; in that it is not capping an Argument with a story that will answer it, nor clapping an Apothegm upon an Assertion that will prove it, nor stringing up Proverbs and Similitudes upon one another that will make up a Coherent Discourse. And for a great while I kept close to my resolution, and contented myself to expose the man's Ignorance, without laughing at it: But he is all along so ridiculous, that at last Flesh and Blood could not refrain from being a little pleasant with him. And as it chances it happens not unluckily, for I hope I have hereby given an Example, how it is possible to be serious and merry with a Buffoon without violating the Laws of Decorum, and to discourse with a Clown as long time as I have been writing without being rude or angry. I have been much more tedious than at first I designed, and indeed than was necessary to correct such a Yelper. But as I would not have you think that I have taken all this pains for his sake, so let me tell you that when I undertake an Argument I love (as far as I am able) to handle it to some purpose, and how mean soever the occasion of my writing may be, to contrive a Book as useful to the Reader, as if I had not been bound to trace another man's follies, but had been left at liberty to pursue the Results of my own mind. Thus did I heretofore deal with J. O, and thus have I now dealt with this Trifler, from their Impertinences to take advantage of discoursing upon material and pertinent Arguments. And therefore the main design of this ensuing Treatise, beside justifying my Grand Thesis of the King's Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction against Perverseness and Impudence, is taken up partly in carrying on my old War against Faction and Nonconformity, and putting an end to all my trouble in it, not only by baffling them but forcing them to see themselves baffled, and convincing the Ringleaders that they have nothing left to trust to, but their own Impudence and the People's dulness: But chiefly in showing that certain and inviolable confederacy that there has always been between Nonconformity and the Good old Cause; so that whenever one of them appears at Top, the other is sure to lurk, at Bottom; and if I have proved it (as I think I have sufficiently) I may leave it to others to make out the Consequences. But judge you whether I have not been hard put to it by this bold man, when the hardest Task he has put me to, has been to prove that the King and the Loyal Party were not the only guilty Persons in reference to the late Rebellion. And now I think I have born Testimony enough for the Peace and Welfare of my Country, and so I have done; if it be to any effect, I have a double reward; if to none, I have my own. I have no other Civility to request of the Reader, than only to desire him, that if he shall think what I have written worth his perusal, to read it over with an unprejudiced Mind and an ordinary Attention, and then if he do not conclude this trifling man that has put me to all this trouble as despicable a Scribbler as ever blotted Paper, I must confess I have lost not only my labour but my Understanding.   

SIR,  
I Have perused Your Book, and of This you might have been sooner informed, had I not (immediately after I had undertaken your Correction) been prevented by a dull and lazy distemper; but being in some measure recruited, I have, as my health and leisure would permit, given myself the divertisement of these following Animadversions. You have indeed taken the Advantage (though it is cowardly and dishonourably done to take it) of accosting me in such a clownish and licentious way of writing, as you know to be unsuitable both to the Civility of my Education, and the Gravity of my Profession. And this is so like the Ingenuity of the Brotherhood, that I all along both foresaw and foretold it. It has ever been their old Artifice, that when they are baffled out of all their impotent Pretences by dint of Reason and Argument, that then they should hire some Buffoon to recover their Credit and Cause by downright Rudeness and Impudence. But this device shall not serve their turn, no fooling shall divert me from the serious prosecution of my Design. And though I shall not balk any good jests (if they will thrust themselves upon me) for 
Pag. 198.  fear of the day of judgement, as you forsooth ridiculously and impudently enough pretend to have rejected thousands merely upon that account; yet however I shall for a better reason forbear hunting after them, (viz.) to convince the world how little Wit is requisite to prove that you have none at all. There is nothing more required to make some Creatures ridiculous, than barely to show them. And by that time I have dispatched all that I shall think convenient to chastise the folly and rashness of your Undertaking, I am pretty confident you will have so much occasion to look simply, that the company will be fully satisfied there will be but little need of sending for a witty man to put you out of countenance.  
In the first place then after a long train of Beginning of 96 Pages, that might indifferently serve against all the Ecclesiastical Politicians from the beginning to the end of the World, I find you at length begin under pretence of Animadversions upon a Preface, to attaque all my Discourses of Ecclesiastical Polity, and immediately fall on front and rear, and with an horrid deal of noise and astonishment warn all Mankind that the Grand Thesis upon which I stake (you all along speak the language of a gamester) not only all my own Divinity and 
Pag. 96.  Policy, Reputation, Preferment and Conscience, but even the Crowns and Fate of Princes, and the Liberties, Lives and Estates, and which is more, the Consciences of their Subjects, is this; That it is absolutely necessary to the peace and government of the world, that the Supreme Magistrate of every Commonwealth should be vested with a Power to govern and conduct the Consciences of Subjects, in affairs of Religion. Is it so? why what then? what then! why nothing at all but this is the grand Thesis. For you are not provided with one syllable of objection against it, and have not spent so much as a Tale or a Jest or a Quibble in its confutation. You are a right Champion for the Fanatique Cause, that can confute any Argument with face and confidence. There is no disputing such an Adversary without an head-piece. This is only tilting of foreheads, where the hardest skull, not the fullest, must get the victory. Away you trifling Wretch, talk you no more of Ecclesiastical Policy, and hereafter never pretend to any knowledge that pretends either to Reason or Modesty! for had you any sense of the former, you would never have been so silly as to be so seriously scared at such an innocent and undeniable proposition; or any of the latter, you could never have been so impudent as to bray forth such a confident and heinous censure against it, as if it were notoriously evident without proof that it directly subverts all the Principles of Religion and Government. And therefore I would fain know in good earnest what your meaning was, in making your first onset upon this Grand Thesis? If you intended its Confutation, why have you not discharged so much as one semi-vowel of exception against it?. If you did not, to what purpose is it to trouble yourself, and the world with its Quotation? A man (in my Opinion) had as good altogether, unless he be very idle, keep his mouth shut as gape and yet say nothing. If this be the Grand Thesis, in comparison whereof the rest of my Assertions (as you inform 
Pag. 98.  us) are to be reckoned no better than sneaking Corollaries, and if I bottom all the foundations of Government and Religion upon it, and make it more necessary to the support of the World than the Pillars of the Earth, or the eight Elephants; one would think this, if any thing, should have been battered down with knocking and dead-doing Arguments, and here, if any where, one would have expected you should have given an hot and fierce alarm, and have drawn up all your squadrons of vowels, mutes, semi-vowels, and liquids, and by the next Gazet to have heard of a sorer and more dreadful battle than ever was fought in your Grammar-War, or my Roman Empire. Now after all this Threatening and Preparation, what a disappointment must it be to the Readers and Spectators to see so proud an He that bore up so bravely, and with such a manful Confidence, come off with this soft and gentle Rebuke, Verily and indeed now it is a naughty Proposition, ay, and all that. Thou a Rat-Divine! thou hast not the Wit and Learning of a Mouse; when thou endeavour'st to bite, thou canst not so much as nibble. Thou talk of Government, of the Crowns and State of Princes! to School, Truant, mind your Push-pin, and con your eight parts of Speech, and presume not hereafter to cavil at things that are above the capacity and concern of Boys and Girls, and sucking-bottles.  
And yet to the same purpose (that is, to none at all) is that tedious train of Quotations that you bring in at the tail of this, without passing any smarter remark upon them than the same general censure of Malignancy; though if they are chargeable, there was no need of your Edition, for they were in print before; and therefore it is but sit you should be indicted for a scandalous Plagiary to transcribe so much of my Book to no other purpose than only to make up 6 pages towards your full tale of 326. I believe it will be found against the Laws of the Stationers-hall, for your Bookseller to print so much of another man's Copy, after it is entered according to Order, without his leave and consent, and I hope Mr Martin will seek his remedy against the Assigns of John Calvin and Theodore Beza. They are bold and saucy fellows, as it is the nature of every thing to be so that relates to Geneva. But you and I will not concern ourselves in their Controversies: they know without our information, as well as any Vermin in Christendom, how to manage their own Affairs by the intrigues and mysteries of their own Trade. At least it more concerns me to keep close to yourself, for they tell me, that if a man will keep continually running after a mad dog, it is the only way to secure himself from being bitten. Tell me therefore quickly in answer to the Grand Thesis; do you seriously believe, that his Majesty has no Power in matters of Religion? What then becomes of all your Acts of Parliament against Popery ever since the Reformation, nay, what then becomes of the Declaration itself for Indulgence and Liberty of Conscience, in which his Majesty declares, that he therein only makes use of that Supreme Power in Ecclesiastical 
Pag. 4.  Matters, which is not only inherent in the Crown, but has been declared and recognized to be so by several Statutes and Acts of Parliament. Beside, do you not think it possible for men to create public disturbances under pretences of Religion? Was there never any Rebellion carried on by popular Zeal and Reformation? Did you never hear of any men that set up Christ's Standard in defiance to their Princes, and that fought against his Person at least, only to carry on the work of the Lord, and that have murdered and banished Kings, only to dethrone Antichrist and the Whore? You so great a Traveller! and did you never hear the Country people tell stories of the merry pranks of John of Leydon, and the Anabaptists of Germany? You so great an Historian! and never read of any Kingdoms and Empires some time or other embroiled or destroyed by Arts of Religion? You would be an Historian indeed, if you could but name any one Nation in the World, whose Annals do not afford us variety of sad stories to this purpose: And then after all this, dare you be so confident as to declare it is absolutely unlawful, and in all cases, for any Prince to claim or exercise any Authority over Conscience or Religion? If you dare not, but allow a necessity of Coercion in some cases, then after all your confidence you grant the truth, and justify the innocence of the Grand Thesis, (viz.) That it is necessary to the Peace and Government of the World, that the Supreme Magistrate of every Commonwealth should be vested with a Power to govern and conduct the Consciences of Subjects in affairs of Religion. An Assertion so obvious and so harmless, that never any People in the World had so little brains, or so much forehead as to deny it to all Intents, but only the savage Anabaptists of Germany; and they indeed claimed an absolute exemption from the Civil Power for themselves, and that only upon the privilege of Saint-ship, but then they equally cancelled all Government, and protested against all manner of Subjection either to Secular or Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction. But excepting these inhuman Cannibals, this Grand Thesis that you suppose to be so grossly absurd, that barely to name it is enough to expose the person that shall maintain it as an open enemy to God and Man, is so granted and undoubted a truth, that it is plainly ratified by the unanimous consent of all mankind.  
Nay, when a man has demonstrated its certainty from that unavoidable influence that Religion always has upon the peace of Kingdoms, and the interests of Government, and from those intolerable mischiefs that must follow upon its exemption from the Civil Power; from the natural tendency of Enthusiasm and Superstition to public disturbance; from the boldness and insolence of Fanatique Zeal, from the nature and original of Government, from the practice and prescription of all Ages, and from all the topics of Reason and Experience; and when he has stated and confined its exercise within easy and discernible bounds, and has prevented all cavils and pretences of dislike, unless only such as dash as fiercely upon the very foundations of all Civil as well as Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction. After all this pains is it not a sad thing to see all blown up with mere confidence and presumption, and if a bold man will but say Tush, 'tis false, without any proof or reason for his dislike, away it all flies in fumo. I have insisted the longer upon this, because as it is the Grand Thesis of my Books, so it is the first Essay of your courage, that by this first Specimen of your Wit, the World may take a true scantling of your parts and abilities. But having thus nimbly dispatched this general Thesis, you proceed to your particular Exceptions, where you sum up your Charge in Six Heads, which you sometimes entitle Plays, sometimes Hypotheses, sometimes Aphorisms; and why not Plots, and Scenes, and Walks, and under-walks, & c? The first is the Unlimited Magistrate, or as you eloquently 
Pag. 107.  express it pag. 246. his unhoopable Jurisdiction. A Metaphor taken from a Tub, I suppose, because you find Power in your Book of Apothegms compared to liquor, for a certain Reason known to every body, though no body has expressed it so happily as yourself, viz. because if it be infinitely 
Pag. 206.  diffused or extended, it becomes impotency, even as a straight line continued grows a circle. I will leave it to the Mathematicians to consider how it is possible for a straight line to become a circle by being infinitely straight. But however for this reason it is necessary to hoop up the Authority of Princes, lest they too soon weaken themselves by too great a leakage of their Power; so that methinks according to your notion, there is nothing so patly emblematical of Sovereign Princes, as Dufoy in his Tub, or a Pig under a washbole, and if you would define them suitably to the conceit, they are nothing else but so many vessels of Authority, some Kinderkins, some Hogsheads, and some Tuns, according to the circuit or hoop of their Government. Though as you and your Puritan Cooper's, or (as Mar-prelate words it) Tub-trimmers, have been pleased to contract their Power, all the Empire in the world might easily be contained in a pipkin or a quart pot, and he would pay dear for it, that should purchase the King's Supremacy at the price of a jug of Ale. For when you have once exempted Conscience out of the circle of humane Laws, the greatest and most absolute Monarches upon earth will be reduced to as scant a measure of Authority as your Mock-kings of Brentford, in that there is nothing in humane nature directly liable to their Obligation but only Conscience: and therefore if that must be let loose from the commands of Superiors, nothing else can bind them. So wretchedly are such bunglers as you wont to talk, that only suck in, and then pour out your phrases by rote and at random: and because some of the Ancients have sometimes discoursed of Conscience in Metaphorical and loose expressions (as they do of all things else) calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Domestic God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Guardian Angel, etc. you must by all means take them in the literal sense, and discourse of Conscience, as if it were some little Spirit or Puppet Intelligence within you distinct from yourselves, so that though you are His Majesty's most humble and loyal Subjects, yet as for your dear and tender Consciences you must have them excused by the Laws of Hospitality, that is to say, you owe him Obedience in all things, excepting only those in which he does or can require it, for wherever the man is bound to obey, his Conscience, and only that is bound to obey, it being the only principle in him that is capable of Obligation: and therefore if that be absolved from all engagements of Allegiance, and all ties of Duty, the case is plain, the whole man is at perfect Liberty. And all Subjects may huff and rant it to their Prince's teeth, as well as your proud Almanzor. 
Obeyed as Sovereign by thy Subjects be, 
Conq. of Granada.   
But know that I alone am King of me.   
You see then there is no remedy but Conscience you must submit to the Jurisdiction of your Prince, if you will submit yourselves. Yes, but you would not have it unlimited and unhoopable as I have stated it. But Sir, give me leave to tell you, that though it should be unlimited, it does not at all follow that it would be unhoopable, because it would be (as you inform us) like a straight line continued into a circle. Now I will maintain it against all the Mathematicians in Europe, Asia and Africa, and the Terra Incognita of Geneva too, (you must bear with me, for in some cases I cannot avoid this confidence) that all circles, as well as all other figures how big soever, are hoopable things.  
But for all my jesting, my own words are upon Record, where I have vested every Supreme Magistrate with an universal 
Pag. 140.  and unlimited Power, and uncontrollable in the Government of Religion, that is to say (say you) over men's Consciences, and that is to say (say I) that some men's Consciences are concerned in nothing but matters of Religion. Well, seeing you are content to give Macedo for a finished and burnished piece of modesty; now then welfare J. O. for a modest thing, for he had the Grace to load me with this Calumny before you, but then he had the Grace to take his Answer too. And it is possible, though it is scarce credible, that he might stumble into such an horrid mistake through haste and inadvertency, for you know he always writes post. But what a Coloss of Brass are you, that after I have given him such humbling and convictive rebuke for it, persist so obstinately in the very same tract of forgery and falsification.  
The Answer I gave him was easy enough for your understanding as meek as it is, viz. That in that Paragraph where I asserted the Supreme Government of every Commonwealth to be Universal, Absolute and uncontrollable in all affairs whatsoever, that concern the Interests of mankind, and the ends of Government, it was only in opposition to the pretences of a distinct Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction here on earth. For having first asserted the necessity of a Sovereign Power over the affairs of Religion, from their concernment in the Peace and Government of the world, I thence proceeded to inquire where and in whom it ought to reside; and having shown the inconsistency of erecting two Supreme Secular Powers, one over Civil, and the other over Ecclesiastical Causes, I concluded that the Supreme Government of every Commonwealth must of necessity be Universal, Absolute and uncontrollable, in that it must extend its Jurisdiction as well to affairs of Religion, as to affairs of State, because they are so strongly influential upon the Interests of Mankind, and the Ends of Government. And now is this to make the Ecclesiastical Authority of the Civil Magistrate absolutely Paramount without regard to any other Jurisdiction of what nature soever, when I only maintain it in defiance to the claims of any other humane Power? For this was the only subject of that enquiry. And when I asserted the Sovereign Power to be Absolute and uncontrollable, 'tis apparent nothing else could be intended than that it is not to be controlled by any distinct Power, whether of the Pope or the Presbytery (for they are the only Rivals of the Princes of Christendom.) And when I asserted it to be Universal and Absolute, no man unless he would give his mind to misunderstanding, could understand it in any other sense, than that it was not confined to matters purely Civil, but extended its Jurisdiction to matters of an Ecclesiastical Importance, upon which account alone I determined it to be Absolute, Universal and uncontrollable. This is the main and the fundamental Article of the Reformation, and that which distinguishes the truly Orthodox and Catholic Protestant both from Popish and Presbyterian Recusants, and is the only fence to secure the Thrones of Princes against the dangerous encroachments of those bold and daring Sects; and therefore from so plain and avowed a Truth to charge me for ascribing in general terms an Absolute, Universal and uncontrollable power to the Civil Magistrate over the Consciences of men in matters of Religion, argues more boldness than wit and discretion, and gives us ground to suspect that these men are not less forsaken of shame and modesty than they are of Providence: for it must needs be a very bold face and a very hard forehead, that could ever venture to obtrude such palpable and disingenuous Abuses upon the world. This I think was answer enough for him, and is I am sure too much for you.  
But when beside this I have drawn up a brief and plain account of the parts, the coherence, and the design of my first Treatise to prevent you from abusing the People for the future with such rude mistakes and pervertings: for you to repeat the very same Leasing is (if any thing is) false Heraldry, 'tis brass upon brass. And when I have there so stated the Controversy as to provide with equal care and caution against the Inconveniences of both extremes, an unlimited Power on the one hand, and an unbounded Licence on the other; when the bounds I have proposed are so very easy to be observed, and so unnecessary to be transgressed by all Parties concerned, viz. that Governors only take care not to impose things certainly and apparently evil; and that subjects be not allowed to plead Conscience for disobedience in any other case; and when I have so carefully avoided all kind of severity more than is absolutely necessary to the preservation of Government and the peace of Mankind, with many other things so easy and so obvious that there is scarce any thing to excuse me from Impertinency in taking so much pains to prove them but their Manifest Necessity.  
After all this I beseech you (by the ties of ancient Friendship) deal clearly and candidly with me, and tell me upon what other principles I could have discoursed more safely or more innocently upon this Argument, though it is possible I might have done it more wittily by the help of your friend Bays; who supposing two Kings of Brentford, one for example a Secular, the other an Ecclesiastical King, remarks upon it that the People having the same Relations to both, the same Affections, the same Duty, the same Obedience, and all that; would be divided among themselves in point of devoir and interest how to behave themselves equally between them: these Kings differing sometimes in particular though in the main they agree. And therefore what if they should agree to divide their Empire, and one be King of the Land-men, and the other of the Watermens, or one to rule by night and the other by day, or take their turns of Government by weeks or months? but this device would not do, for where there are two supreme Powers in the same Commonwealth, there can be no avoiding civil jars and bloody-noses. So that for this reason had I been a Senator of Brentford I should have humbly proposed that either King Phys or vice versâ King Ush might be vested with the absolute and uncontrollable Power of the Empire, i. e. with both kinds of jurisdiction, because otherwise (as he proceeds shrewdly) the People being embarrast by their equal Ties to both, and the Sovereign's concerned in a reciprocal regard to their own Interest, as to the good of the People; may make a certain kind of a— you understand me— upon which there does arise several disputes, turmoils, heart-burnings, and all that— Ay, this is pregnant and demonstrative, and does not sob us off (as you always do) with empty tittle tattle, without any colour or pretence of reason. And had it come to hand time enough, I might have been as much beholden to it for sense as you have been for wit; for so you will have it that I have pilfered all my best, or (in your own Poetic phrase) rapping flowers out of Playbooks, and several choice ones you have in spite of Almanacs and Chronology discovered in my first Book that were by all means filched out of this very Play, though as fortune would have it this was not made any way public till above two years after that. But waving the advantage of Bays his Assistance and every body else, and relying upon my own single strength and presumption, after all my care and pains to waylay Calumny could I ever suspect any thing in the shape of a man so desperately fallen from all sense of Conscience or Modesty as to upbraid me with ascribing an infinite jurisdiction to Princes without any regard to the Divine Laws? Well! I now see what it is for a man to live in his study, and be unacquainted with the world; for my part I could never have supposed it possible that Mankind could ever by Travel and Conversation emprove itself to such an height of Confidence. Especially when there is not any one Writer extant either ancient or modern, that I know of, that has so vehemently and industriously asserted the hoopableness of all humane Authority as I have done; And when in particular I have spent two whole Chapters in my first Book to prove, that as the opposite opinion is no less than rank Atheism or Blasphemy, so it utterly subverts the Power of all Government, and irrecoverably destroys the safety of all societies in the World. This Confidence of yours is so provoking that I cannot but wonder your ears have not done Penance for the rudeness of your Tongue. Macedo! thou art able to outforge and outbrazen ten Macedos. And yet so assured are the drivers of the dissenting Herd, and so silly the Creatures they steer, that there is scarce a Shop-Divine in the whole Nation, that does not as heartily believe this unhoopable Jurisdiction to be the only design of all my Books as he does the ten Commandments to be obligatory, or the Apostles Creed to be true. But when my innocence as to this charge is so infinitely clear, and when they have nothing to object against me or to plead in their own behalf but upon its presumption, that is a demonstrative Argument of a bassled and defenceless cause, that can be defended with no other weapon but impudent and bare-faced Calumny. And now when you have once taken this for granted, away you run clattering with abundance of noise and nothing, till you fall into another story full as loud and rattling as this. That I have complemented 
Pag. 110.  his Majesty so far as to inform him, that he may, if he please, reserve the Priesthood and the exercise of it to himself. So said J. O. too, and was very pleasant in his remarks upon it, but was I suppose sufficiently satisfied or at least silenced with this plain and simple Answer. That in the Paragraph (against which this Objection is levelled) I undertook to give a brief Historical account of the Original of all Civil and Ecclesiastical Government, where I showed how in the first Ages of the World they were vested in the same Person, and founded upon the same Right of paternal Authority: and in this State of things antecedent to all superinduced Restraints and positive Institutions, I asserted the supreme Magistrate might, if he pleased, reserve the exercise of the Priesthood to himself; And so all Writers, that I know of, assert as well as I. Though afterwards the Priestly office was in the Jewish Commonwealth expressly derogated from the Kingly Power, by being settled upon the Tribe of Levi and the Line of Aaron; and so likewise in the Christian Church by being appropriated to the Apostles and their Successors, that derive their Priestly Office and Power from our Blessed Saviour's express and immediate Commission.  
Now what I affirmed of things in the bare State of Nature without the guidance of Revelation, for this man to represent it, as if I had applied it indifferently to all Ages and Periods of the Church, by whatsoever positive Laws and different Institutions they may be governed, is wonderfully suitable to the Genius of his own Wit and Ingenuity. But though I think I have passed so high a Compliment upon his Majesty, this only 
Pag. 111.  troubles you, how his Majesty would look in all the Sacerdotal Habiliments, and the Pontisical Wardrobe. Alas good man! Your tender heart would not serve you to behold the Ceremonies of the Coronation. The Rebels Wounds bled too fresh in your Memory, it would have rubbed up all the late sad spectacles at Cheering-Cross, and minded you of all those choice ones that were hanged to make way for this great Solemnity, for whose sakes the 29. of May is annually observed among the secret ones as a day of private humiliation to bemoan the loss and commemorate the Martyrdom of so many anointed and precious Brethren. But as for the malicious Consequence, that you out of stark staring Love to the Church (of which you are so enamoured, that it even joys your Heart to hear any thing well said of her) suggest upon this Occasion: that then he may (and it is all the reason in the World he should) assume the Revenue too, it only shows your Judgement at nicking a Lucky juncture of Affairs: When you have put the King in mind of his Coronation-Oath, in which he swears, to protect and defend the Bishops and the Churches under their Government, to preserve their Canonical Privileges, to confirm the Laws, Customs and Franchises granted to the Clergy by the glorious King St. Edward, and all other Kings of England his Lawful and Religious Predecessors: Immediately, whilst this Oath is piping hot, to advise him to disfranchise them from the common rights of all Subjects, and to invade their Proprieties not only contrary to his solemn Oath, but to the most ancient and most ratified Laws of the Realm. But methinks it more concerns the Parliament than any private man to chastise such bold and lavish talk, as plainly subverts the very foundations of all our Proprieties; in that the Church's Rights and Revenues are vested in her by as firm and fundamental Laws as any by which you or I can hold or claim our Estates; so that the Laws of England have made but a very silly provision for any man's Birthright, if they are not a sufficient security for the Church's Patrimony. And it becomes such a tender assertor of the English Liberties to insinuate the subversion of those Laws upon which alone they are founded. I hope you will be considered for your pains, at least for your good will: it is no wonder to see you upon all occasions so afraid of Pillories and Whipping-Posts; for if you are resolved to follow these courses, and at last go uncropped to your Grave, it will be a scandal to the Justice of the Nation.  
But before I quit this Master-Calumny of the unhoopable Magistrate it will not be improper to take an account of your Hoops and Hola's that relate to it; for when you have acted over your six Plays you begin them all afresh, (for you have at least eleven or twelve distinct Beginnings) and run them (together with some few coincident passages) all down with Hoops and Hola's, i e. with noise and confidence. The first next to these I have answered is that I have asserted the unhoopable Power wherewith I have invested Princes to be their Natural Right and Antecedent to Christ, etc. But oh 
Pag. 143.  the Consequence! then his Majesty may lay by his Dieu and make use only of his Mondroit. Hoop and Hola! hold, not too loud, for it does not so necessarily follow, that because he has his Patent under the Broad-Seal of Nature, that therefore he derived it not from God, for as much as Nature itself has no power of making grants, but all its Commissions are signed only by the Author of Nature, and all Natural Rights whatsoever are the Immediate Gifts of his Providence, that has ordered and disposed the frame of Nature according to his own Sovereign Will and Pleasure; and therefore you must resolve all Natural Rights as well as all Natural Laws into his Authority, for though Nature may discover, yet it is only he that passes and enacts them. But I know this Inference was not made for any great opinion you had of its Logic, it was only intended for a boast of your Antiquary-Learning, to let the World know how deeply you skill in old Coins and Inscriptions; and so take this occasion to acquaint us with this ancient Motto, that you have picked out among the Marmora Arundeliana, Dieu & Mon-Droit. But seeing you are given to these Curiosities, here is a Trial worthy of your skill. I have seen and (pardon my Vanity) was once Master of an Antique Medal, 
On the Reverse whereof was graved  
Th' alliance betwixt Christ and David.  Expound me the meaning of the Device, and tell me in what Emperors Reign it was Coined, and I will upon the word of a Clergyman of Honour requite your Information with ten of the largest Decus & Tutamen: and that is a very scarce Medal (you know,) though not altogether so antique.  
But however (say you) this Power I have ascribed to the Civil Magistrate, is not derived from Christ, or any grant of 
Pag. 143.  his, but is antecedent to his coming, or any Power granted by him as Head of the Church, being given under the Broad-Seal of Nature, so that his Majesty is next under that, and immediately before Christ, over all Persons and in all Causes etc. This is very shrewd, but than it is none of your own, J. O. had it before you, and in truth you are so given to purloining, that I expect ere long to hear of you among the Advertisements at the bottom of the Gazet, with a description of your Stature, Complexion and clothes. But the result of all that we discoursed upon this point was that he said I, and I said no, because though Magistrates 
Pag. 276.  were vested with an Ancient and Antecedent Right, yet its Continuance, ever since our Saviour commenced his Empire, depends merely upon his confirmation, in that whatever Prince does not reverse a former grant confirms it. And therefore, though they were empowered to govern the Church of God antecedent to his Supremacy, yet that they are still entrusted with the same Authority, they owe it entirely to his Sovereign Will and Pleasure, because it is now in his Power to divest them of this or any other of their ancient Prerogatives: so that seeing he has thought good to continue the Government of the World in the same state and Posture he found it in, Princes are not now less indebted to him for the grant of their Imperial Power, than if they had been at first instated in it by his immediate and express Commission. This is a pretty reasonable answer to any plain man that has any stomach to be satisfied, but it is too homely a Truth for your Palate, nothing forsooth will down with you under the Geneva race of Capons and Mathematical Similitudes. The straight Line continued into a Circle! that is a Treat for a Gentleman that has Travelled and understands the Orthodoxy of modern eating and drinking.  
The last Essay of your shame-facedness (for it is a great symptom of Modesty that you will not venture to be confident in any Objection for which you have not some Authority; so that you dare not say one word that J. O. has not said before you) is to stand in it that when J. O. affirmed that I confine the whole work and duty of Conscience to the inward acts and persuasions of the mind, it was no downright Lye. By this I perceive your whole family of the secret ones are incurably addicted to leasing, and therefore as then I gave him the Lie, so now without any farther Compliment I give it you Sir. It is but a blunt and Yeomanly Jest, and I must confess smells somewhat of Garlic and Onions, but it may serve for once though it were only for variety; downright English is in some Cases as good a Flower as the fairest Trope in Aristotle's Rhetoric. And I still declare that though it is no extraordinary conceit, yet it is the best and most proper Repartee, that my barren fancy is yet able to suggest to me upon so rude an occasion. And tell me Sir, for I have already made my appeal, that suppose it were your own case, that should any Person be so bold and disingenuous as not only to pervert the meaning, and disturb the method of your Book (I mean if you could write one with either) but fasten upon you assertions equally false and wicked, without any Reference to Page or Section, and without any imaginable foundation of his mistake, what other return would you vouchsafe to such an unmannerly attempt than what I have made? If you would not return the same, thanks to your Cowardice more than your Civility. And therefore as for what you seem to threaten, that such a provocation must needs come to a quarrel, fear not, there's no danger of Bloodshed: We that are no Brothers of the Blade know how to put up harder and more girding Repartees than this with Patience and Philosophy. This is all the answer I will vouchsafe you for your own sake, and revenge yourself as you can. But because both yourself and J. O. have this Rapper perpetually in your mouths when you have nothing else to say, I will for the Readers sake bestow upon you another Reply somewhat more soft and gentle, especially when I hope it was not altogether lost upon J. O. because as you have 
Pag. 200.  observed most gravely and Senator-like that serious words have produced serious effects. Thus when upon another occasion the tells no body but all the Nation, that the thing by me asserted is that a man 
Pag. 252. of J. O.  may think, judge or conceive such or such a thing to be his Duty, and yet have thereby no Obligation put upon him to perform it: for Conscience we are informed has nothing to do beyond the inward thoughts of men's minds. In answer to this it was inquired who gave in the Information, because the Informer (whoever he is) would in some Courts of Justice have jeoparded something that he would be loath to lose for so lewd and bold a Forgery. Fie! fie! for shame give over this pitiful Legerdemain. Such open and visible falsifications serve only to expose the lewdness of your Cause and your Conscience, and if you delight in such wretched Practices they will in process of time betray you to more pernicious Courses: for what should hinder a man that can pervert and falsify at this rate, from forging Wills, and setting counterfeit Hands to Deeds? Neither fear nor modesty can ever restrain him, that dares venture upon abuses so palpable, when it is so absolutely impossible you should ever hope to escape the shame and rebuke of discovery. The Assertion itself is one of the chiefest and most fundamental Maxims of Knavery; and yet it is boldly charged upon me without the least shadow or syllable of pretence, either to justify the Accusation, or excuse the Mistake. You know as well as I that all I attempted was only to exempt the inward Acts of the minds of men from the Jurisdiction of Humane Power, and so to confine their Government to the Empire of mere Conscience: Now from this assertion, that our secret thoughts are subject to Conscience only, to infer that Conscience has no Power but only over our secret thoughts, is a conclusion too absurd for you to make either in good earnest or through mere mistake. This is your Answer, if you are not satisfied with it, you know my mind and my weapon.  
Your last and loudest hoop and hola is at my Censure of the Clause in the Act of Parliament quinto Eliz. and you make every where an horrid noise about it, and I am confident you have in more than twenty places of your Book rended your throat against this presumption. But be that as it will, the aspersion you would fasten upon me from it is so silly, that I am not at all concerned to wipe it off; however I have discoursed enough already to satisfy, nay almost to surfeit any reasonable man, and if that will not suffice you, I am resolved I will not be impertinent to gratify your Clownishness. I will only challenge you and all your party of mankind to maintain That whoever enacts a Law with this Proviso that it shall not bind in Conscience, enacts no Law: For if it does not oblige that, it obliges nothing. Whether therefore the Clause were added by Cecil or by the Parliament, I am not concerned, and though you should throw in the Queen and Convocation and all, I care not, I must and will declare they were all miserably out in their Divinity.  
And as for what you intimate that I have endeavoured to prove a whole Parliament Coxcombs, that is Language rough enough for your Mouth. For I expressed myself modestly enough, and though I observed how manifestly through this mistake they abated the obligation of the whole Law, yet I hope it is no Crime against the Privilege of any Protestant Parliament to suppose it fallible in any speculation of Divinity. I know their meaning was, that they did not intend to enjoin that Fast upon a Religious Account, but that was their Mistake, in that all Laws Civil as well as Ecclesiastical equally oblige the Conscience, so that no Lawgiver can make a Law with an intention not to oblige that, and though he do, it is in vain, in that his Laws are bound upon it by virtue of the Divine Command and not his own. But they were then so amused and confounded by the Clamours of the Papists on one hand, that Conscience was only subject to the Church, and by the Puritans on the other, that it is only subject to God, that they durst scarce own the proper Obligation of their own Laws, and so through mere Modesty clapped in this blind Proviso.  
And now as for all these goodly slanders, when they were first vented by J. O. they were little more than an unkindness to my single self; and though it argued a fair deal of Confidence in that precious man, to load me so briskly with so many, so great, and so ungrounded Calumnies, yet it was a sign that he had some little sense of humanity left, that he could desist when his forgeries were so laid open, as to leave the Rat no Craney of excuse or evasion. But after such an ample discovery of his wretched Cheats and Leasings, for you to stand in them with such a Brazen Brow is a palpable Affront both to the understanding and ingenuity of Mankind. What soft and changeling sots must you suppose the people of England, to be imposed upon, and born down by such rank and bold faced Impostures? Did they all walk with their Legs scambling in, and their hands dangling down, you could not have more presumed upon their silliness than you have by going about to abuse their Credulity with such shameless and unpalliable Lies.  
The Title of your next Comedy is the Public Conscience, I suppose in imitation of the Public Faith. And here all your Plot too is borrowed from J. O. and the great subtlety of it lies no deeper than only in representing what I have determined in the Case of a doubting, scrupulous and unsatisfied Conscience, as if I had intended it of Conscience in general in all matters and as to all events. This is pretty well for Legerdemain, and cleaverly enough performed, and the People have swallowed it with a glib and round Assurance that I have exhorted them to disgorge their Consciences instead of their Scruples, and to renounce all Obligations of Virtue and Religion but what are tied upon them by the Laws of the Commonwealth, and to know no other Rule or Measure of their Duty, but the will and Pleasure of their Prince, and when once the outcry is taken, 'tis to no purpose for me to plead that this is the very Divinity of the Leviathan, that I have laboured to oppose with greater Zeal and Vehemence than I have modern Orthodoxy and Fanaticism itself; so as to prove (and that I am confident past all Contradiction) that those men who profess to own no obligations of Conscience but what are laid upon them by the Commands of their Governors, own none at all; and that without a sense of Duty to God, it is impossible to bring any subject under a sense of Loyalty to his Prince. But whoop and hola, what is that to them if I contradict myself? Now what should a modest man do in this case? should I betake myself to your refuge of Dulness, that when you have nothing else to reply, appeal to the day of Judgement? That indeed is a Trial I hope hereafter to stand by, and it is comfort enough to support an upright man, that then at least his integrity shall be for ever cleared; but alas! I have too tender a sense of my present Reputation among good men to be willing that so great a Blot (were there any way to wipe it off) should lie so long upon my Innocence. And therefore Sir, you must pardon me for once if I dispense with a point of friendship, and leave your credit at pawn to redeem my own. For after you have given in this heinous Charge against me, it is not in my power to salve both our Reputations. If I am guilty, I do confess it, I am a very Secret one: if I am not, I will be so civil as to give you the Choice of your own Title.  
The case than is plainly this, that next to the Paganism of Symbolical and the Popery of Latin Ceremonies, the two grand Pretences, or rather excuses of Nonconformity are Scandal and an unsatisfied Conscience. The first is the shelter of their Leaders, who being at length ashamed of those Scruples, and little Principles that scare the People (though they themselves at first set them up to fray them away from the Communion of the Church of England) pretend now to comply with them only out of good Nature and Condescension. For they would not by any means be thought so weak and unlearned in their Conceptions of things, as seriously to fancy that there is any Idolatry or Immorality in our Ceremonial Constitutions. But yet because there are some simple and well-meaning Professors that are not sufficiently assured of their Lawfulness, and by Consequence are apt enough to be scandalised at their Use, they think themselves out of pure tenderness and compassion to these weak ones obliged altogether to forbear their Practice. A goodly pretence this to weigh against the Commands of Authority, that because some of the common People forsooth of weak heads and strong necks are afraid of something though they know not what nor why, that therefore Government must tack about, and strike sail to their folly and ignorance. But the triflingness and petulancy of this Scruple I have represented upon its own proper Principles; 'tis enough at present that it resolves itself into the pretence of a scrupulous and unsatisfied Conscience; i. e. though as yet they know no harm or danger by the things they boggle at, yet they are suspicious and jealous lest they should not be altogether so harmless as they appear to be, and therefore desire to be for a while excused their Obedience till they can give themselves and their Consciences some better and more assured satisfaction of their Innocence. Now would not any prudent and sober man think it enough to advise them in this perplexity, that this Scruple has long since outworn and outlived itself; for though it might be allowed of in the days of Queen Elizabeth, when at first it was started, yet after so long time and so much enquiry it is intolerable; for if with all their search and examination they have not been able to descry the Evils they suspected, that is a sufficient Principle of presumption that their jealousies are ungrounded. So that if they are now able to object any certain crime against them, than this plea of a doubtful Conscience ceases, and the certainty is to be pleaded instead of the doubt. If they are not, an hundred and fifty Years is (one would think) a sufficient time either to satisfy or to cancel Scruples. A man cannot (if he would) always doubt whether if he handle a Frog, it will sting him, or if he touch the tail of a Glow-worm it will burn his Fingers. And if after all this men will be scrupulous and afraid of nothing or they know not what, it is because they will be old Boys, and resolve when they have once blown a soap-bubble, to pursue and keep it up as long as they have breath to follow it. So that it is infinitely unbecoming Authority to submit its Laws to such an exception as this, that can proceed from nothing else but invincible Peevishness and Impertinency.  
But if this will not prevail, what can be more effectual upon ingenuous and upright minds than to represent that this weakness and tenderness of Conscience is so far from being any allowable Reason of disobedience, that it lays upon all them that pretend to it peculiar obligations to obey. Not only because (if they are what they pretend to be) it is of a modest, a yielding and a pliable temper as arising from diffidence and distrust of itself: but also because doubts and scruples are rarely employed unless upon trifling and inconsiderable matters. In that the material parts of duty are too plain and easy to be almost at all liable to so much uncertainty; and therefore obedience to Authority being withal one of the greatest and most indispensable duties of mankind, in that it is in itself so absolutely necessary to their well-being, and enjoined upon them by the most positive Precepts and severest penalties of the Gospel, that alone is more than enough to outweigh all scruples and determine all doubts of Conscience. But more especially in doubtful Cases of a public Concern, it is not fit that men should be suffered to talk too peremptorily of their own private persuasions, because they are incompetent Judges of the public good, and therefore they are to be determined and overruled by the Judgement of those, to whose care the management of public affairs is entrusted, and this to prevail universally and without exception, unless in case of certain and unquestionable disobedience to the Divine Law; for we are no other way free from the supreme Authority on earth, but as we are subject to a Superior in Heaven, so that unless where our duty to God manifestly interferes, there is no other plea of exemption against the Commands of Government. So vain a thing is it for doubts and scruples, fears and jealousies to be put in bar against them, when the result of all that can amount to no more than this, that they refuse obedience because they dare not obey, and they dare not, because they dare not, for as yet they have no reason to produce, and only desire to be born with till they can find one, and when after so long a search there is none to be found, still and still they crave leave to be satisfied till they can, i. e. for ever. This is the plain account of all that I discoursed of the public Conscience.  
And now to represent what I have determined concerning the submission of private Conscience to its guidance in doubtful and difficult cases of a public concernment, as if I had affirmed it of conscience in general, in all cases, and to all purposes, is such a strain of kindness and ingenuity!— That face of thine is of so good proof, and so true metal, that were it upon my shoulders, I would not exchange it for any crowned head in Christendom: I would stare with the great Turk for all his dominions, and though the great Cham boasts himself the Lamp of the world, and son of the everlasting Son, I would look him out of all his Conquests of China.  
But here you thicken your plot upon us, and under this scene of public conscience you bring Christian Liberty upon the stage, and are all upon the sudden so civil as to make your Leg, and con me 
pag. 113.  thanks for this new and important discovery that the great Privilege of Christian Liberty is, that Thought is free. This I know you intended only for wit, but that is your want of Judgement; for, I will assure you it is a very serious truth, and a very important discovery, and you had been a very ungrateful Wretch had you not acknowledged it: all the misfortune is, that it is neither new nor mine. Pay your acknowledgements to its right Authors; and be not so partial to your friend as to entitle him to the honour of othermen's inventions. That such a master of Systems and Syntagms! that one so well acquainted with Germany and Geneva should ever suppose me the first inventor of so old a discovery! Alas poor wretch! it is the known and received doctrine of all Divines whether ancient or orthodox, the first that taught it (as I remember) were S. Paul and S. Peter, and your great and infallible John Calvin has not been able to go beyond them in this, though he has in most other Articles of Religion. Freedom of thought was the utmost that he could discover upon this Argument. And no man was ever suspected to think otherwise, but only the Gnostick fanatics of old, and the Germane Anabaptists of late, that whenever occasion was pleased to be debonair, had this pretence always in ready pay to warrant any Rebellion and disobedience. But at length from them our English Puritans got the word into their mouths, and then it might signify any thing as it happened to chime to their purposes. Sometimes it was the same thing with the Liberty of the Subject, when they pleaded it for an Exemption from all Ecclesiastical Impositions. And sometimes it was nothing else but the Liberty of Contradiction, when they will have it that whatever the Magistrate commands in matters of Religion, though before they were free to do it, yet for ever after they are bound to do the contrary. Sometimes it is this, and sometimes it is that, and sometimes they know not what, for never did any generation of men so shuffle and prevaricate with themselves and the world at the rate that these men have done in this pretence; and no wonder, for every cause must be defended as it can, and if when they once fall into an absurdity, they will think themselves obliged to justify it, the more they contend to get off, the more they vex and entangle themselves. But however this mystery of Libertinism is so easy a cover, and so fruitful a Nursery for all manner of Treasons and Seditions, that it highly concerns all Christian Princes not to suffer any of their Subjects to stretch its Plea any farther than the Apostles intended it. For it is very observable with what zeal and caution they bestirred themselves in all their writings to confine it within its proper limits, that it might not be extended (as the Gnostics would have had it) to the prejudice of Government. So that from them we must take the only certain account of its nature and notion, especially when beside their care to state it, they were the first Founders both of the name and thing. Now it is undeniable, that the controversy that was managed about it between the Jews and the Christians in their days concerned only the eternal obligation of the Law of Moses, which the Jews supposed unalterably established to all ages, whilst the Christians thought it not only capable of a Repeal, but to have been actually abolished by the Christian Religion. And though the Apostles might and did suffer them for some time to conform to the practices of their sturdy Countrymen for ends of prudence, yet they would never be brought to do it upon the account of the Mosaic Law; and if at any time they condescended to humour them in their old customs, they still protested against the opinion of their necessity. So that their Christian Liberty plainly consisted in nothing else but the rescuing of their minds from the obligatory force of Moses' Law, that was tied upon them by Divine Authority in the Old Testament, and rescinded by the same in the New. And therefore it can relate only to the freedom of men's minds, and thoughts; and that too only in such cases, wherein the immediate Authority of God is, or may be pretended. This then is so far from being any invention of mine, that it was a trite and vulgar notion in the Apostles days. And now I hope you see that you are as far to seek in my trade of Divinity, as I am in yours of Buffonery. We are all bunglers out of our own Profession; but you will be snearing at every thing, though it be only to betray your ignorance, and show your want of teeth.  
The Hypothesis of the third play is moral Grace. Yes, so it is, and I will maintain 'tis as pure terse Orthodoxy as any grows upon the banks of the Lake-lemane. What, would you have an immoral Grace? I see you are still for the old Grace of the secret ones, a Grace that is invisible to all the world beside yourselves; a Grace that can maintain itself upon plunder and sequestration; a Grace of which we formalists and moral men, that are strangers to the secret, could never perceive any other effects beside Confidence and Knavery. This is the Grace you would be at, to show your zeal for the Lord and against Antichrist by preying upon Kings and Bishops Lands. It is the Grace of Beggars and Bankrupts, that have the face to look demurely, and amuse us with talk of their intimate Communion with God, whilst their fingers are in our Pockets, and their Daggers at our Throats. We have seen and felt so much of the goodly Pranks of this your Grace already, that you have no great reason to blame us, if we are a little concerned to get Morality joined in commission with it. But this same Morality is an arrant Cavalier, and would quite defeat the Act of Indemnity. It is so unkind and so unmerciful to God's People, that it would force them to refund all their Plunder and Sacrilege; It is so severe as not to accept of any pretences, or offers, or compositions of Repentance upon any milder terms than of entire Restitution; and (oh more than Church-mens Cruelty) it would even after an Act of Oblivion require them to undo themselves, before it would so much as allow them to sue out their Pardon.  
But Sir, how come you to be concerned either in Grace or Morality, but that it is the nature of some Vermin to be nibbling though they have no Teeth. What if I have confounded them, what have you to say against it? Why! you need say nothing at all, because 1. I myself 
Pag. 118.  have discoursed it large enough even to surfeit. I easily believe you, for what I have discoursed is more than enough to make any man that will or can understand sense to disgorge all your fanatic Nonsense. But 2. If Grace be resolved into 
Pag. 117.  Morality, I think a man may almost as well make God too to be only a notional and moral Existence. Indeed now! do you think so in good earnest? Is this an inference for a man to make that talks of nothing under Divarications, Dilemmas and Mathematical Similes? That thou shouldst make thyself so pleasant, i. e. (in Bays his sense) so ridiculous to no purpose! This is mere and witless Impertinence, the Prentice-Boys shake their heads at this idle talk, and there is no professing she so silly as not to understand the dulness of this Consequence; this Logic is below the apprehension even of the Blue Apron-strings. But 3. White Aproned Amaryllis was of the same Opinion. 
Ibid.  The honester she. 4. If the Archbishopric should ever fall to my Lot, you are resolved instead of his Grace, to call me always his Morality. I thank you Sir, it is a much more civil and cleanly Title than his Belzebubship of Kanterbury, which yet was the softest word your meek-spirited Puritan could in the days of your Predecessor Martin afford to that pious and humble man Archbishop Whitgift. But you may set your mind at rest, I have no such vehement design upon the Archbishopric as you imagine; and if I had, I would not care how you loaded me with all the filthy and dirty Language that your Party has vomited out against the Church of England; though out of their Pamphlets you may furnish yourself with more Flowers and Embellishments of your own eloquence than are to be gathered out of all the Libels in the World beside. His Grace, and his Morality! a surprising Conceit this! it is lovely worth a whole Tester in English. And seeing you have still a faculty and (they tell me) once had an employment that way, I would give you more than it is worth, or perhaps yourself either, to translate or transprose it into Latin: It is pity but so acquaint a fancy should be preserved in the Universal Tongue. And now (as you inform us) Clementia is the Latin word for his Grace. And then the Crisis of the Wit would lie thus: If Grace be Morality, than instead of calling the Archbishop his Clemency, I would call him his Morality. But then no foreign Critic would ever be able to pick out where lay the Picquancy of the Conceit; and yet that the Learned affirm is the most certain Symptom of a Quibble, when the jest cannot live in another Language. But if this be no more than a Quibble, the next and last remark is 
Pag. 322.  scarce so much as a Semi-quibble. 6. Methought I never saw a more bold and wicked attempt, than that of reducing Grace, and making it a mere Fable, of which he gives us the Moral. Sure, your Muse pinched you for this Conceit. Bays talk of elevating and surprising! an impudent Fop! no mortal man could ever have luckt upon this feat fancy beside thyself. It is the very Non ultra of Spirit and Flame. I will warrant it thine own, Virgin-new, and never yet blown upon by Mankind. Take no farther care, it shall be inscribed upon thy Tomb; thou art its undoubted Author, and no man will ever be so presumptuous as to rob thy Ghost of the Glory of its invention. Make Grace a mere Fable, and then give us its Moral! Hold, you either juggle or conjure; I thought I had fast hold of the Jest, and yet when I open my hand it is quite vanished, and there is nothing left behind but a gross and palpable mistake. For I never in the least attempted to make Grace the Fable (there is not the least syllable to that purpose in all my Books) you yourself know I only made it the moral, so that at last it plainly appears, that though I have given the moral of Grace, it is only you and your party of modern Orthodox, that have turned it into a Fable. And so in truth you must, if you will make it any thing beside Morality; for if it be not that, it can be nothing else but cheat and enthusiasm. And therefore, to be serious, do we not write to very great purpose, when such whifling tools as you are able to defeat our most rational discourses by squirting at them with such trifles as these. I have asserted (and I still believe it to be undoubtedly true) that there is no real difference between Grace and moral Virtue, and I have proved it by a particular Induction of all the most material duties of Mankind, and have reduced all the Branches of Christian Religion either to the Virtues or the Instruments of Morality; have shown that they are but different names of the same thing, and that they are nothing else than moral Virtues that are called Graces in the Gospel, because they are wrought in us by the assistance of God's free Grace and goodness. I have challenged them to produce any ancient Writer that gives any other account of them than what I have done. I have appealed once and again to their own Understandings, that when they have set aside all manner of Virtue, they would tell me what distinct duty remains to be called Grace, and give me any notion of it different from all morality. If they can, they are more abstracting and subtle Metaphysicians than J. O. that has in a large Volume described that distinct Communion that every Believer is sensible of in every Act of Worship with each distinct Person of the Blessed Trinity. And now (by the way) because I have smiled at the ridiculousness of this Attempt, you (according to the custom of your Ingenuity) charge me confidently, as if I had blasphemed the Mystery itself. But this (I have already told you) is no fouler Play than you have ever shown to all Adversaries; for whoever is so hardy or so unadvised as to correct any of your wild and crazy triflings in any Article of Faith, is immediately traduced as if he had rejected the Article itself. It were very easy (were it not tedious too) to give you a large Catalogue of the worthiest men of our Church, that you have from time to time branded with rake-shame names. But I suppose it will be caution enough to all Prudent men, not to give too easy credit to our malicious suggestions, when Mr. Hooker (whom one would have thought no body could suspect either of Heresy or Infidelity) was immediately upon the Publication of his Eccles. Pol. taken to task by a Smectymnuan Club of your Orthodox Divines, for broaching such Doctrines as overthrew the foundations of the Christian Religion, and the Church of England. But this I must pass by with a Thousand more of your friendly and Candid bobs, because they are too trifling to need or to deserve an answer. And therefore to keep close to our present debate of Grace and Virtue, the argument itself is so plain and obvious that it carries along with it its own Evidence and Conviction. In so much that J. O. himself, notwithstanding all his Zeal and Reluctancy, is at length forced 
Def. Pag. 335.  over to my side of the Question (as you know where I have charged it upon him) 
Truth and Innoc. vindic. Pag. 104.  for as much as all the difference he himself is able to assign between Grace and Virtue relates not to the nature of the things themselves, but to the Principlès from whence they issue, viz. that the same Instances and Duties of Moral goodness, that are called Virtues when they proceed from the strength and improvement of our own natural abilities, are called Graces when they proceed from the Assistances and Impressions of the spirit of God: so that even in his account Grace is nothing but infused Virtue, and infused Virtue is Virtue still. I am not apt to be over-positive in my own Conceptions of things, yet in this Article I must crave and will take leave to be peremptory and confident, because I am seriously persuaded that as Religion has been of late trifled with among us, great Numbers of well-meaning People have merely through this mistake been abused both out of the Notion and the Practice of all real goodness. And my heart even bleeds to consider how woefully they have by this means been gulled with rank Nonsense and Imposture. For whilst their gracious Preachers work their Lungs, and water their Handkerchiefs to decry Moral Righteousness as a thing not only useless but dangerous if void of Grace, and therefore drive them on with furious Exhortations above all things to get this secret of Grace; if any of them chance to inquire what it is, and wherein it consists, they are forced to amuse them with abundance of general talk in Scripture Phrase of an uncertain i. e. no signification. And presently they begin to make a grievous noise of the Lord Christ, talk loud of getting an interest in the Lord Christ; tell fine Romances of the secret amours between the Believing Soul and the Lord Christ, and prodigious stories of the miraculous feats of Faith in the Lord Christ; all which, and infinite Loads more of the like crude stuff, that they are perpetually pouring forth upon them, is at last no better than mere gibberish; they are perfect Barbarians to the People, & prophesy in an unknown Tongue; they gaze at the Mystery, and perhaps lay up the Phrase, but yet understand its meaning no more than if they had discoused to them in Chinese or High-Dutch. Now the unavoidable consequence of this way of trifling is to betray the People into Enthusiastic and giddy conceits of Religion; it fills their heads full of something, they know not what; and this heats their Fancies, and sets their Brains a-work, and makes them talkative and impertinent; and then they abound and overflow with Mystery and Nonsense, and the whole neighbourhood is annoyed with the Rattle of their Phrases, and canting Noise. But that which is worst of all is, that if once men fall into this Crazedness of mind, as there is little hopes of their recovery, so there is no end of their Frenzy. Nonsense and Enthusiasm are unbounded things, and they seldom stop till they run stark mad with zeal and reformation. 'Tis the natural humour of this sort of people to dislike, and (if they are able) to subvert all established order for something else that they would have, though they know not what; for what can restrain mad men from railing at their Keepers and Governors, and what more grievous to Enthusiasts than sober discipline? because that fetters them up from those outrages, that they are eager to act upon themselves and the public. But to spare these political considerations, 'tis enough and too much that this mistake has this sad effect, that it forestalls all the real obligations of Religion, and gives men up to the invincible delusions of hypocrisy and false godliness. They are possessed with a confident persuasion of their own Grace and Saintship, and thereby they are already endeared unto God and engrafted into Christ, and then this avoidable stifles all thoughts of change or amendment, because their conversion is passed already: so easy is it through this mistake for the common people to abuse themselves into a strong opinion of their being insured in the state of Grace, when they are upon terms of utter defiance to all the practices and obligations of Religion. And hence is it usual with them to style some of the grossest enormities of vice by the civil title of sins of infirmity and such as are the peculiar spots of Gods own people. For if they can but once find or fancy in themselves those characters of Grace that they are told are the marks of God's secret ones, they roundly conclude all their accursed Lusts and Vices to be rather weaknesses of their natures, than obliquities of their wills. And then they take the measures of good and evil, not from the nature of actions, but from the conditions of persons, and with them an action is not thought gracious so much because it is agreeable to the Law of God, as because it issues from a child of God. So that if a man be once in a state of Grace, all his sins are presently turned into infirmities; and what is a crying sin in other men, is in them at worst but a pitiable weakness, and vice in the people of God ceases to be vice suitably to the doctrine of the Stoics of old, (for they too had found out an odd kind of Wisdom, much like this secret of Grace, peculiar to their own Sect, that no body could understand beside themselves, and that was reconcileable to all the folly in the world,) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that a sage or a long beard of their Sect might indeed be sound overcome with wine, but could never be properly drunk. Though to be overcome with wine were downright drunkenness in a carnal Epicurean, yet it was only to be full of the Creature in a grave Stoic. To be adopted into their Sect and Conventicle, was enough to enchant a man against all the powers of Wine, in spite of all the debauchery and intemperance in the world. And thus is it with these men, they list themselves into some party and faction of Saints, in which after they have been for some time trained and exercised, and are prettily well skilled in the arts of their own way of godliness, and thereby secured of their interest in the love of God, which if once they can get, they can never lose; upon this presumption how smoothly and contentedly do they slide into an habitual commission of those sins, to which their natural propensities, or their worldly interests most incline them. And they protect all their lusts and passions under the privilege of Grace, and by wearing the Livery of God's people.  
And what is still more fatal, they do not only excuse and dispense with their rank and froward passions upon the score of their imaginary Grace and Saintship, but they adopt them among the choicest virtues of their Religion. They will be angry and spiteful for the Glory of God, i. e. to gratify their own fancy; rude and malicious against all that are enemies to the godly, or (what to them is the same) their own party; and they may and aught to hate their brother, if he hate the power of godliness, i. e. if he loath and despise their way of hypocrisy. And when they have thus consecrated their passions by separating them to religious Uses, they are so far from cooling or allaying their unreasonable and brutish heats, that they think nothing more their duty than to feed and cherish them; till they blow up the sparks of zeal into glorious blazes of Reformation, i. e. into public Combustions. And thus when their Religion is nothing but zeal, and their zeal nothing but an heated rage, it is so far from controlling their passions, that it not only justifies, but causes their excesses, and instead of sweetening their humours, it tinges them with malice and malecontentedness. 'Tis made a Sanctuary for ill-nature and ill-manners, where they not only shelter, but abett their pride and insolence. Those vices that mere moral Philosophy would banish humane conversation take shelter under the protection of zeal; and those heats that bare reason would quench in humane nature are kindled at the Altars of Religion; and they usually nourish this glowing coal in their bosoms till it burn out all their bowels of natural pity and compassion. This is enough, but yet it is not all; for as their zeal is implacably fierce and bitter against all that oppose them, so is it salvagely rude and censorious against all that are not as extravagantly mad & raving as themselves, aspersing men of a silent and composed piety with the odious names of hypocrites and Lukewarm Formalists, and abhorring nothing more than the virtues of Christian meekness and discretion. But if this be Religion, then farewell all principles of humanity and good nature, farewel that glory of Christianity an universal love and tenderness to mankind, let us bid adieu to all the practices of charity, let us renounce all pretences to the meekness and innocence of a Christian Spirit. Let our B. Saviour be branded as the greatest Incendiary in the world, let his Laws be cancelled as arts and precepts of Sedition, let us banish Religion humane converse as the mother of all rudeness and incivility, and let us at last go to the school of Atheism and Impiety to learn good manners. And yet all this is the unavoidable event of fixing people's care and zeal upon this imaginary godliness, called Grace as distinguished from all morality or the obligations of natural Religion, in that whilst their minds are busied and satisfied with this fantastic nothing, it appeases their Consciences in the neglect of their useful and material duties, and prevents all endeavours of possessing them with serious and effectual Resolutions of virtue and true goodness. I must beg your pardon if I have discoursed too warmly and copiously upon this Theme; it is you see of very weighty Consequence both to the welfare of mankind here, and their eternal salvation hereafter, and upon this mistake merely are founded all Abuses and Impostures of Religion whatsoever, viz. when men fancy it to be some secret they know not what; and therefore I here declare that I still adhere to my opinion with the seriousness of a dying man, and that I shall be content to stand or fall for ever by my integrity in this belief. But what can we think of you? must you not be deeply concerned in a matter of such sad and serious importance, to whiff it all away with so childish a conceit as this, that this is first to turn Grace into a mere fable, and then to give the moral of it. At least must we not suppose you profoundly learned, to be so very fond of such a poor crawling fancy, that were it not ridiculous for its sense, would be unpardonable for its wit, and yet you are so highly opinioned of it, that you have reserved it for the disert of your book, and serve it in for the last jest, to give a farewell to the whole entertainment. One pregnant conceit I had almost overpassed in haste, give me but leave to record it, and I have done, viz. that I have made the passage to Heaven 
pag. 76.  so easy, that one may fly thither without Grace, as Gonzales to the Moon, only by the help of his Ganzas. Now I would fain know what likeness there is between flying without Grace and with Ganzas; do but make me out the wit of the similitude, and I will cast you in the sense of the argument into the bargain.  
The Plot or Hypothesis of the fourth 
pag. 119.  Play is debauchery tolerated. That is to say, I have in some of my Books represented his Majesty this Declaration to issue out to all his Loving Subjects, for the toleration of debauchery, in opposition to that of the fifteenth of March for the indulgence of tender consciences. Whereas ever since our happy Restauration, we have, out of our special zeal and care for the interest and security of the Church of England, executed with all severity all penal Laws against whatsoever sort of Non-conformists and Recusants; but yet finding by the sad experience of 12 years, how ineffectual all forcible courses are either to reduce or restrain dissenters, We think our self obliged to make use of that unhoopable Power, that is naturally inherent in us, not granted by Christ, but belonging to us and our Predecessors under the broad Seal of Nature next and immediately before him. By virtue whereof we have and claim an absolute dominion not only over the consciences of all our subjects, but over all the Laws of God and man, so as to repeal or dispense with their obligation, as shall from time to time seem good to our Royal Will and Pleasure. And therefore that we may obviate and prevent those mischiefs that are likely to befall our Kingdom from the sobriety and demureness of the Non-conformists, our Will and Pleasure is to give a free and uncontrollable Licence to all manner of vice and debauchery; and of our Princely Grace and Favour we release to all our Loving Subjects the obligation of the ten Commandments, and all Laws of God, and Statutes of this Realm whatsoever contrary to the contents of this our Declaration: And we require of all Judges, Justices and other Officers whatsoever, that the execution of all manner of penalties, annexed to the Laws aforesaid, whether by Pillories, Whipping-posts, Galleys, rods or axes, etc. be immediately suspended, and they are hereby suspended. From whence we hope by the Blessing of God to give some check and allay to the insolence of fanatic Spirits, and by debauching our good people out of all tenderness of Conscience to free our Kingdoms from those great and grievous annoyances, wherewith they perpetually disturb our Government, and at last bring back all the advantages of peace and good-fellowship, both to ourselves and all our loving Subjects, etc. Such a Declaration as this had been a stabbing proof against me and home to your purpose. But when you have exhibited so foul a charge without so much as referring to any passage of mine to make it good, you prove nothing at all but that you have a bold face and a foul mouth. For we all know you are not so unskilful at improving the smallest and most inconsiderable advantages, that had you been furnished with any shadow of proof, you would have smothered it; and therefore when you have produced none, your Readers easily conclude that the only reason is, because you know none. Yes! but however I have said as much as amounts to the same reckoning. But what have you to do with my reckonings, mind your own accounts, and take care to balance your expenses with your incoms. Assure yourself, I shall never trust you to be any of my Auditors, for I find you are as ignorant in Computation as in Logic. But yet that which amounts to this sum is this, that it is less hazardous to Government to give toleration to men's debaucheries, than to their religious persuasions; and therefore debauchery is to be tolerated. A fair reckoning! But what this amounts to I have already accounted largely enough to J. O. And if you are not satisfied, that concerns not me, I will not trifle because you are peevish; I have both computed and proved it at large in my answer to him, from p. 678. to p. 697. If you or he or any body else have aught to object against it, you know the Press is open, do your worst, it defies all your Forces; but as you value your own credit hereafter cease to trouble me and the world with such silly and childish surmises. But to be short, the sumn of all that can or need be determined upon this argument is, that offences are punishable by humane Laws, not according to the degrees of their intrinsic evil, but according to the malignity of their influence upon the public Weal. So that those offences that are of most dangerous consequence to the welfare of the Community, usually are or aught to be provided against with severer penalties, and punished with more rigorous executions. From hence it is evident, that it concerns Government to keep a more watchful eye, and to hold a stricter hand over the freaks of Enthusiasm, than the exorbitances of Debauchery. Because though Debauchery always may, and often does its share of mischief wherever it prevails, yet it rarely proves so dangerous, as either serious or affected pretences of Religion. For as much as this is the most necessary and most plausible disguise of all Rebellion. And therefore if men are not in good earnest, this is the fittest mask under which Malcontents and ambitious minds can hide their crafty and disloyal designs: If they are, than they are always so much the more bold and confident in their disobedience, and pursue their seditious courses with greater courage and assurance of mind, than those that are conscious to themselves of their hypocrisy and disloyalty. But the main mischief of all is, that in all Seditions under colour of Religion there is always an unhappy mixture of both these sorts of people; the crafty knaves drive on the zealous fools, and they never want for trinkling Maxims to wheadle them out of all duty of Loyalty and Allegiance; and if they do but beat the Drum, or blow the Trumpet to Reformation, they will do or venture any thing for the Cause. So that it is plain enough that Fanaticism is very often more dangerous to the peace of Government, than downright debauchery: which as mischievous as it is can never proceed to any more daring wickedness, but under this fair and deceitful Vizor. And this is so notorious that it is almost a shame to appeal to the experience of mankind to make out its proof; when there have been so few if any Rebellions in Christendom that have not been commenced, or at least maintained by factions of Religion. And as for what you affirm (confidently enough) that 'tis demonstrable that for one war upon a Fanatic or religious account, there have been an hundred occasioned by the Thirst and Glory of Empire, that has inflamed some great Prince to invade his neighbour; Were it true, it is lamentably impertinent and like yourself. For the only wars that do or can concern our present debate are Rebellions and not Invasions. That being the only argument I all along chose to insist upon, to represent how much it imports the peace and security of Government to prevent all religious contentions. Because they are either the Causes or rather the Covers of all Rebellion: But you add immediately and it is done like a man of Algebra: That more yet have sprung from the Contentiousness and ambition of some of the Clergy. And yet you know the Cause or at least the Pretence of Religion is the main ground of all their ambitious Contentions; so that they very rarely involve their Country in a Civil War, but upon a Religious Account. But yet because it is possible they may be pragmatical upon other scores, I will deduct all out of this additional number but one, and then thus your reckoning casts up itself, That for one war upon a Religious Account there have been an hundred occasioned by the thirst of Glory and Empire, but more, that is at least an hundred and one, by the Ambition and Contentiousness of Clergymen; and now lay all this together, and the resolution of the Problem is, That for one war upon a religious account, there have been an hundred and one upon a religious account. But (you proceed) however 
Pag  comparisons of vice are dangerous. It is a venerable Sentence and worthy the wisdom of a Senator, and I should have supposed it entirely your own, but that it jumps so exactly with as wise a Paradox of the old Stoics, that all Crimes are equal; so that it is as heinous a wickedness to kill a Robin-red-breast, as to murder one's Father or betray one's Country; and therefore they were wont to be very angry if any man would be making comparisons between vice and vice, though he did it but in jest and waggery. But as for all other Sects of learned men, whether Moralists or Divines, they unanimously allow the degrees of wickedness, and are so far from thinking these comparisons always odious, that they often think them necessary. And certainly there can be very little harm or danger in teaching children that it is not altogether so naughty a thing to cheat one another at Push-pin as it is to pilfer half-crowns out of the Shop-box. But the great mischief of all would be; that if a greater severity (as 
Pag. 119.  I teach) ought sometimes to be exercised over men's Consciences, than over their vices and immoralities, debauched persons will be ready hence to conclude, although it be a perverse way of reasoning, that when the severity ought to be less, the Crime is less also. But can I help the perverseness of mankind, when it is in their power to draw any thing out of any thing in the perverse way of reasoning? Name me if you can any one Assertion never so true or so harmless from whence perverse men may not force perverse Conclusions. Thus when I affirmed the Sovereign Power in Church-matters to be so absolute, that it ought not to be controlled either by the Conclave or the Classis; I hope you are by this time better informed than to think your perverse Conclusion from it even to my denial of a Deity, an allowable objection either against the honesty or the discretion of asserting his Majesty's Ecclesiastical Supremacy. However as long as their way of reasoning is perverse, it can never reflect any disparagement upon my Premises. Ten thousand perverse exceptions cannot in the least impair the credit of any Truth, but it is enough that if it be a perverse way of Reasoning, it is your own.  
Your fifth Play is Persecution recommended; and here in the opening of 
Pag. 123.  your first Scene you bring the Emperor Julian upon the Stage as a more cruel and execrable Monster of Persecution than Antichrist or the Dragon himself, and you throw your slaver upon him with so much scorn and rudeness, that the People take him for as very a rake-shame as Bishop Bonner or Pope Hildebrand. And yet poor Gentleman, he was a very civil person, and a great Virtuoso, and though he were somewhat Heathenishly inclined, yet he had nothing of the persecuting Spirit in him against the Christians, as you may see at large in Ammianus Marcel. l. 22. unless you will suppose (as he did) that there is no such effectual way of persecuting an established Church as by suspending all Ecclesiastical Proceedings against Schismatics and Heretics, and granting an Unlimited and Universal Toleration. So that you might have found out some other Emperors that might better have become your Character of Cruelty than Julian. And how you will reconcile this hard usage of him with that deep Respect you profess to Sovereign 
Pag. 254.  Princes is passed my Understanding. I am roundly taken up for my Irreverence to Queen Elizabeth, only because I seem not to approve the humour of some Writers in her time, that affected to stuff their Books with Shreds and Remnants of Poetry; and it must by all means be for her sake, that I will not endure the Wit and Learning of her times. And when elsewhere I happen to use this expression of old Elizabeth Pretensions, concerning the Puritans foolish talk of their Holy Discipline, it is no less than a spiteful piece of Unmannerliness to her Majesty to call her old; though it is manifest I spoke it not of the Queen, but the Fanatic Arguments; and if I had intended it of herself, yet I hope it is no ill Manners, notwithstanding she was a Woman, and never married, to call Queen Elizabeth old under the Reign of Charles the Second. But yet for all your severity upon me, you cannot find in your heart to speak with any kindness of any Prince out of hearing. Nay, you cannot so much as afford his present Majesty one good word, but only for his Gentleman's Memory, and when you have occasion to mention your comfortable Act of Oblivion and Indemnity; and how many bad things you have suggested of him, I will not be so unmannerly as to repeat. 'Tis too plain that it was the least part of your design to fall upon Ecclesiastical Policies; your Plot was under that pretence to take advantage of bolting ugly suggestions against some body's Person and Government. And it is obvious to all Readers with what violence you force opportunities of hinting spiteful and unmannerly Reflections, and then think to bring yourself cleanly off by pretending to discover naughty and secret meanings in my words, though after your rate of Construction a Quarrelsome man might raise an Action of the Case out of your humble Servant Sir. I forbear Instances, because I will not be so far assistant to your insolent and bold Aspersions. But it were easy to specify some saucy remarks that you have darted without any other ground than your own Malecontentedness, for which, if you had your due, the Rods, the Axes, the Whipping-posts, the Galleys, the Pillories, and the Strappadoes would scarce be all together a sufficient Correction. But so it is that no Person that was more than ordinarily branded for a dissolute and sottish Life in ancient times can be so much as occasionally mentioned (though the occasion of mentioning him be the vulgar and Proverbial use of his name) but as if the resemblance were as obvious and natural as it is forced and malicious, you take upon you to conclude, that some Person now in Being must be for certain intended, and then plainly enough unriddle the Secret, and make the Application. It is happy for you that I have so tender a sense of respect and reverence where it is my Duty, that I had rather an impudent Libeler should escape uncorrected than serve his design and promote his Slander by bringing him to public Punishment; I say no more, but if you have any gratitude I expect you will shortly thank me for the possession of your Ears. Certainly you were so provident as to take leave of your Comfortable Importance before you set Pen to Paper. And though you dare not speak out plainly against every body now alive, I am sure you have bolted it out broadly enough against his Majesty's Royal Father, when you represent him no better than a Jailor to all his Subjects, and accuse him for turning his three Kingdoms into one great Prison, in 
Pag. 295.  so much that many thousands of his Subjects that had no mind to rot in Jails, were constrained 
Pag. 296.  to sack another Habitation, and every Country, though it were among Savages and Cannibals, appeared more hospitable to them than their own under his Government. But yet for all this, I have good reason to believe that your Pick at Julian was not taken up against him either as Emperor or Pagan: But (as you suppose) he once belonged to the Clergy, and then because of his Indelible Character he is the eternal Mark of your Malice. And if you can but get scent of any thing that smells of a Priest, away you run with full Cry and open Mouth. And were your Fangs as good as your Throat the whole Order would in a very little time be torn and woried in pieces. For so, (it is your own Remark) of all Beasts none are so fierce and cruel as those that 
Pag. 240.  have been taught once by Hunger to prey upon their own kind; as of all men, none are so inhuman as the Cannibals. The shrewdness of the observation makes some amends for the dulness of the Similitude. For take but an Hungerstarved Whelp of a Country Vicar, and enter him in a Committee-Pack for plundered Ministers, and let him but once draw blood of the Church, and taste the sweetness of Ecclesiastical Sequestrations, and if ever after he get view of any regular Clergyman, though an Archbishop, he opens and pursues with all the rage of a Fanatic Bloodhound. I know your outrage springs from another Principle, because forsooth you were cheated by a Dignitary at Picquet; yet had you been a Committee-Cannibal, you could not have been more inhuman to your own kind, than you have shown yourself upon this frivolous Provocation.  
Having arraigned Julian, your next Article 
Pag. 124.  is against myself for inveighing against Trade. Ay, that is to the purpose, Purse-persecution strikes deep, drain away our money, and you draw out our Blood and Vital Spirits. What, Young man, are you not content to whip the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple, but you must whip them out of the Nation too; and when you have already shipped away Grace, will nothing appease your rage, unless you may send Trade after it too? Is it not privilege enough to blaspheme the Blessed Trinity, to travesteer the Bible, and to revile the King, but you must be wrecking your Ecclesiastical Malice upon the best and most industrious part of his Subjects too. This is beyond either the Rage of Julian, or the Zeal of Archbishop Laud, or the Salvageness of a Capon-Cannibal; for that is your Name for a Presbyterian. Here I see I have raised a Devil that I can never lay; there is no Calumny, how black soever, so effectual to expose me to popular hatred as this Clamour; and therefore do what I can, it is resolved I shall never get clean from it, and let me bestir myself never so nimbly in my own defence, they will throw it on as fast as I can wipe it off. I thought I had given J. O. his Answer, but it seems that will not edify with their Zeal and Choler. It is and shall be decreed that I have with all my might persuaded the discouragement of Trade, for this strengthens their Interest, and combines both God and Mammon in a Confederacy against me, and endears the Trading and the Puritan Party of the Nation to each other, and then whoever ventures to reprove one shall be voted to rail at both: And now in this case it is to no purpose for myself or any of my friends to make Apologies, as good preach to the Wind and Tide, as remonstrate to the prejudice of the wild Multitude: though it is so very notorious that were all I have said put in Practice, no Trade could ever be in the least endamaged, but that of the secret ones, the Trade of Plunder, and Sacrilege, and Conventicles, unless possibly the Pin-makers Trade by my having declared so frankly against the usefulness of Push-pin Divinity; and I wonder you have not exasperated that whole Company in particular against me for the rashness of that Attempt. But what, (say you) do not I 
Pag. 151.  say there is no such ungovernable Beast as a Wealthy Fanatic? I beg your pardon Sir, I was mistaken, I am now convinced by you that a beggarly Fanatic is somewhat worse, though of all wild Creatures I find none so fierce and implacable as the Gaming Fanatic, especially when he is rooked of all, for that is the trick of all broken Gamesters, who having nothing of their own to lose are ever for serambling. However it is plain here from your own Quotation, that it is not the Tradesman I meddle with, but the Fanatic, nor with him as wealthy, but as Fanatic. Yes, but (say you) many a proper man has marched up Holborn 
Pag. 151.  for distinguishing betwixt the wealth and the Fanatic. This may pass for a Clinch, (and I presume you intended it for no more) but not for an Argument; and therefore seeing you have nothing serious to prove your Charge, if you had any Conscience or Modesty you would have forborn it, and not have endeavoured to expose me to the Violence of the Multitude by such false and knavish Abuses. In short then, I am so far from bearing any ill will to Tradesmen, as such, that when I see one that keeps his Shop, obliges his Customers, delights in his own fireside, lives lovingly with his Family, behaves himself quietly, and converses cheerfully with his Neighbours, keeps his Parish Church, pays Parish duties, bears Parish Offices, relieves the Poor, and is kind and civil to his Minister, methinks he looks like a Venerable Relic of the meekness and modesty of the Primitive Christians; and is beside as good and useful a member of the Commonwealth as any private Subject of what Rank and Condition soever, and deserves too as much respect and encouragement. But— I was about to give a Character of some People of another Kidney, that I shall forbear, because I foresee it will grate too severely upon too many guilty Consciences. Especially when you have (as a token of your ancient Friendship) given me secret Advice that I presume too much upon the good nature of the fanatics in thinking to walk night 
Pag. 128.  and day in safety, when it is so easy a thing to deify me, after the ancient manner, and no body be the wiser. Hitherto you have put me to no great pains to acknowledge and compliment your Civility, but now, dear Sir, you overwhelm me with love and kindness. You could not have made a fairer invitation to the Rascal-multitude to attempt some Violence and Outrage upon me as I walk the Streets. This is such a Villainous piece of Malice, as could never have offered itself to the thoughts of an English man, that had not travelled abroad to learn Italian Cowardice and Cruelty. But had I exasperated any of my Countrymen so much as you would insinuate to the unruly Rabble, yet I should never fear such attempts as you suggest but from such as are debauched with Foreign Villainy. This is offered so like a Wretch that has forfeited all Sense of Honour and Conscience, that you could scarce have spoke more broadly, had you a mind to be hired for the Executioner. And yet 'tis no fouler Play than what was shown to the late Archbishop himself; for when such another civil Gentleman as you had loaded his Grace with a vast heap of Calumnies, than (according to the Ingenuity of the times) called Cumulative Treason; he at last falls into an Admiration (as you did) that the People did not stone him, as they did him that acted the part of Bellerophon in Rome. Thereby animating the Rabble to some Violence, that might save the credit of his Judges, who otherwise must have been forced to murder him in form of Law. And to the same purpose I suppose it is intended that you intimate your knowledge of my Lodging, to invite 
Pag. 130.  the Apprentices and the Southwark Rascality to bestow another Visit upon Lambeth-House; but I doubt things are yet scarce ripe enough for these Long-Parliament Tumults; though if they were, I doubt not but that there are seditious Bankrupts enough who would be forward enough to thrust themselves into the head of the Riot; but then, my friend, take you heed lest your Zeal and good service be rewarded with Captain Bensteads pay, a bold fellow that was only hanged, drawn, and quartered for heading that Tumult. You can expect but little Mercy if I am not defeated of the Hangman's Office, that you have been pleased so generously to bestow upon me; 
Ibid.  it is no very Honourable Employment, but yet however he is one of his Majesty's Ministers of Justice, and you know and rue the time when he has done him admirable Service, and as meanly as you think of the place and as much as you despise it, set your heart at rest, it is an higher Office than ever you are likely to be preferred to in the Commonwealth; and in truth it was a place of very comfortable Importance in the Roman Empire (which for your sake I will venture to mention once more) and yet (as little as I love you) I would not care though I recommended you to the Employment, because this is an age whereinGentlemen, (i. e. 
Pag. 131.  Gamesters) cannot well support their Quality, without some Accession from the Public. So that had you this or any other honest way of livelihood, it might stop your mouth from bawling perpetually for the seizure of Church Revenues, only in hopes of creeping into some small Office at the division of the Prey; for I am apt to believe (though all that know you, know so ill of you, that they will take it for a very strain of Candour and Courtship) that all your rudeness to the Church does not proceed from mere malice to that, and revenge upon the Dignitary. Want will put any man that delights in Gaming out of humour; but of all discontents there is nothing so peevish and so clamorous as when pride and poverty meet together in the same Gamester. But that which seems to strike the greatest damp upon your mind, and of which you make the oftenest complaints is that I talk so much of Pillories, Whipping-posts, Galleys, Rods and Axes, that is to say, the Pod●strabae, the Tilethrae, 
Pag. 132.  the Otagrae; the Rhinolabides and the Cheilostrophia; these are villainous Engines indeed, but take heart Numps! here is not a word of the Stocks, and you (since the Act of Indemnity is past and sure) need never stand in awe of any more honourable Correction; however suppose the worst, you have read Seneca and Epictetus. And what though your worth should sometime or other prefer you to the Pillory (and that is not impossible) yet it is no very painful Engine (and Philosophers can endure any thing but smart) it is only intended to make men look a little simply, and put them out of countenance awhile; but for confidence let you alone.  
And now having thus far followed your dance, it is time (I hope) to advance to serious Counsels. You cry out of persecution! So did Hugh Peter's, and so did Venner, and so might all Malefactors, when brought to Justice, but that most of them are more modest than the most of you. This is but seizing upon words, and forcing them to sound or signify any thing to your own purpose. But unless all execution of Laws upon offenders deserve this hard name, it is not enough for you to complain you are persecuted, when you are only punished. It is the cause that makes the only difference; and you ought first to make out the iniquity of the Laws, and to make good your obligation to disobedience, before you can set up this out cry. But to this you reply that you suffer for Conscience; for Conscience! what is that? but that you would take advantage of it, and report that I affirm there is no such thing as Conscience, I would say it is for nothing. For Conscience itself is an indeterminate thing, and has no more certain signification than the clinking of a Bell, and that is as every man fancies. And though you are wont to discourse of it, as though it were an infallible Oracle in your breasts, or a Pope in your bellies; yet had you but skill enough to anatomize yourselves, you would find nothing there beside Lights and Liver and Stomach and Guts, and perhaps a deceitful heart; for in the heart the Jews seated it of old, though the Cartesian Philosophy has of late parched it up into the Glandula Pinealis. But wherever it resides, it is not any principle of action distinct from the man himself, being the very same individual thing with the mind, soul and understanding; so that there is no other real difference between a man and his Conscience, than between a man and his mind, or rather between a man and himself. And therefore when you make such an heavy ditty about your being persecuted for your Conscience sake, the result of it is, that you are persecuted for your mind sake, or suffer only because you have a mind to suffer. For whatever Conscience is, this is certain, that it is neither the rule nor the reason of its own Actions, but it is bound to guide and govern itself, and all its determinations by the measures and prescriptions of its duty, and that only can warrant either the wisdom or the innocence of its proceedings. And therefore in any case to plead only Conscience for any action, without specifying some particular Principle, upon which it grounds itself and its dictate, is in effect to plead any thing, or rather nothing. For without some certain direction distinct from itself, it may signify any thing what you please, or if you please nothing. And it may as well be called Pride, Ignorance, Passion, Humour, Peevishness, Melancholy, Rudeness, Frenzy, and Superstition, as Conscience; for whenever a man's mind is possessed or abused with any of these unhappy Passions, that to him is his Conscience. And therefore if ever you intent to make out the justice of your Cause, or the equity of your Grievances, you must give over this hover and uncertain pretence of Conscience in general, and betake yourselves to some more distinct and particular pleas; and that is to appeal to the adequate rule and measure of humane actions, and that is to all divine and humane Laws; and if from either of these you can plead any express warrant to excuse your disobedience to the Constitutions of the Church, in God's Name plead it; and then, but not till then, it will appear that you indeed suffer for the Cause of a good Conscience: But if you have none, than the case is plain, that you suffer for nothing. And yet it is as plain that you have not any other imaginable ground or pretext of reason to justify your peevishness to the Ecclesiastical Laws, beside the indisputable pleasure of your own proud and imperious minds; for you are run off of all your old Cavils, and know not what you would have beyond the satisfaction of crossing the Commands of Royal Authority. For as for all your general clamours against the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Princes, that they invade God's Royalty, lay waste the Consciences of men, usurp upon their Christian Liberties; first they signify no more than the general plea of Conscience, that whenever Superiors impose any Commands upon Subjects that they have no mind or stomach to obey, they then entrench upon God's Supremacy, as the only Lord of Conscience; and than it subverts all Government, and cancels all Humane Laws, in that they neither do nor can pass any Obligation upon any Subjects, but only as they are bound upon their Consciences; and lastly, they will never stand to this themselves, when they are urged with those horrid mischiefs, that must perpetually overtake the Government, if the plea be once admitted in general terms, and without exception. This then being quitted, the Magistrate may, and sometimes must restrain men in their pretences or persuasion of Religion, without seating himself in God's Throne, or invading their Subjects Consciences, or offering violence to their Christian Liberties. And then have they nothing to pretend in their own excuse, but the unlawfulness of the particular Commands themselves; and this brings them to a sweet pass, when they are kept to it closely to prove out of the Holy Scriptures the wickedness and abomination of our Liturgy and Ceremonies.  
And though you are here wont to roll up and down in rambling and uncertain talk, yet still the last resolution of all your Impertinency (as you have been told often enough) is the great Mystery of unscriptural i. e. symbolical Ceremonies, for excepting these all of you allow the lawfulness of all other unscriptural Ceremonies, and here, after you have done your poor utmost at sending and thrusting, are you forced to shelter both yourself and your Cause; and at last your Quarrel against them is, That they want nothing of a Sacramental Nature 
Pag. 218.  but Divine Institution; that is to say, they want nothing of a Sacramental Nature, but a Sacramental Nature. But the 
Ibid.  grievance it seems, is, that these Humane Institutions should be made of equal force to Divine Institutions, in that they are imposed with so high a penalty. But what is that to you or me, if our Governors should be over-severe in their making of Laws, as long as they thereby enact and enforce nothing that is in itself unlawful? Beside, that this is such an Objection as may be equally thrown against all Laws whatsoever, in that they are all established upon their proper Penalties, so that if it once pass, there will be no Remedy left to prevent mad people from playing the Apes and Baboons in the worship, as you have done the Wolves and Tigers in the Cause of God; in that to restrain them by penalties (and yet there is no other way of doing it) will be to make Humane Institutions of equal force with the Divine. But here lurks the great mischief of all your peevishness (as you have been too often informed, seeing you will not attend) that your complaints are so impossible to be redressed, that though we would save you from persecution, yet it is not in our power to do you so much kindness, in that Divine Worship cannot possibly be performed without some Arbitrary and unscriptural Ceremonies. And make choice of what others you please, refine and purify them as long as you will, they will still retain their symbolical Nature. And then as it is necessary to the nature of external Worship to express itself by symbolical Ceremonies, so is it as necessary to prevent madness and confusion that some particular Rites be determined and enjoined by Authority; otherwise after what a ridiculous rate must the public Service of God be every where performed, when every humorous and conceited Fellow would be at Liberty to affect his own singular posture and extravagance. And for this reason all Churches in the world have ever taken upon them to determine their own rules of Order and Decency, and exacted Conformity to them of all the members of their own Communion. And so do all the particular Clans and Conventions of the fanatics among themselves; and without this uniformity all their Assemblies would be no better than a wild and confused rabble of people: For do but suppose a mixed Assembly partly of a Congregation of Presbyterians, and partly of a meeting of Quakers, what an uncouth and fantastic medley would this appear to the Spectators, when upon the very same Principle that the Presbyterian refuses to kneel at the Communion, the Quaker refuses to be uncovered, and so still they would quarrel and combat each other as much as they do the Church. This is so plain and obvious to every man's experience, and they have been so often upbraided with it, that no man, whose confidence had not devoured his understanding, could have taunted us so perpetually as you do with the indifferency of our Ceremonies in their own Natures; when it is so plain, that the determination of some indifferent things is absolutely necessary to the exterior performance of God's worship, and when it is so certain that this exception, if once admitted, would fall as foully upon all your several Customs, as upon our Constitutions: So that the Quarrel relates not so much to the particular matters in controversy between us, for no man is, or ever was so fond as to pretend an antecedent necessity for their particular injunction; it is enough for us, and too much for you that it is absolutely necessary to enjoin either these, or some other symbols as unscriptural and arbitrary as these: But our main concern relates to that dangerous and exorbitant Principle upon which your Dissent and Nonconformity is founded. A principle so fond and so mischievous, that it will not suffer the settlement of any Church or Commonwealth in the world. So little reason have you to complain of the severity of the Laws, whilst the Laws are only levelled against such Principles as must eternally oblige you to be seditious and unpeaceable under all Governments and in all Churches; insomuch that should his Majesty condescend to grant you a Commission to order Divine Service to your own humours, if you would but be constant to the peevishness of your own Prinoiples, that would bring you under as indispensable an Obligation of Nonconformity to your own Constitutions, as you now pretend to lie under to ours. So that you see the last Issue of this Plea is plainly nor more nor less than this, that you are persecuted for your Conscience sake, i. e. only because you are resolved to keep yourselves under a necessity of being persecuted. And this I hope at present may suffice to stop your Cry of Persecution; but if this will not do, then there is no remedy but I must muzzle you and your whole party, and that I hope to do to the purpose when I come to your State-Policy. In the mean while it concerns Authority to consider whether as simply as your pretences look at top any thing but the Good Old Cause, or (as you mince it) the Cause too good be lurking at the bottom, whilst they observe such blessed Saints as you that are known to boggle at nothing yourselves, and withal to be the fiercest and most vehement enemies to the present form of Government, to be the only men that come forth to Witness against Prelacy and Antichrist, and preach such silly scruples to the Rabble as you know must be unremovable grounds of discontent between the King and his People. For as much as your general pretence, viz. that if His Majesty shall ever challenge any Authority over Conscience he invades the Divine Prerogative (which yet you know and sometimes acknowledge to be false) destroys all Government in general, in that Princes have no other secure and fast hold upon their Subjects, but only by virtue of their Consciences; and then as for all your particular exceptions, they as apparently destroy all Church-Government in particular, and are so remediless that it is not in the Power of Princes to avoid them, as long as they will leave any outward appearance of Religion or Divine Worship in the World. For if they will admit of any more Rites than the two Sacraments, it must be performed by something as liable to your own Scruples as any thing enjoined or practised in the Church of England, i. e. by some Symbolical Ceremonies that are not enjoined in the word of God, seeing it is plain that all outward Devotion can be expressed by nothing else, and seeing it is as plain that there are no more prescribed in the Gospel than barely the two Sacraments; from both which Premises nothing can be more plain than that Nonconformity to all customary and established ways of worship whatsoever must upon your Principles be for ever unavoidable.  
Your Sixth and last Play is pushpin-Divinity; from this one would conclude I had written at least a Treatise upon this Argument; and yet it is so far from being any head of my discourse, that I only used it once as the most proper Term to express those childish Controversies that some men manage upon almost all the Articles of Religion, and that signify no more to the Edification of the Church than Boys Play does to the Government of the State. But because you have so utterly mistaken the meaning of the Phrase, and because I perceive you have not Divinity enough to set you up at Push-pin, I will furnish you with a small stock of Instances. 1. Whether Conversion be performed in an Instant, or whether it be divided into several Acts and Scenes. As 1. the work of Vocation is the Prologue, 2. this vocation infuseth Faith, (only say some, but Faith and Repentance say others) and then 3. this Faith must be acted (so that it seems Believers may have Faith before they act it, i. e. they may believe before they believe) then 4. by this Act we apprehend Christ's Person, and by this Apprehension we are united to him, 5. from this Union proceed the Benefits, 1. of Justification, 2. of Sanctification. 6. This Sanctification infuseth all other gracious habits, and hath two degrees, 1. Regeneration, 2. Renascentia as they call it, or the New-birth. Upon this dispute a great many weighty Arguments are pushed pro and con, and a great number of grave Divines engaged on both sides, though (in my opinion) they had been as wisely employed in playing with the Boys at Push-pin, as in finding ten real differences in one and the same thing. 2. Whether the Word and Sacraments have only a moral Operation in the Conversion of a Sinner, as a man draws an Horse to him by the sight of Provender, or an Hog after him by the Rattling of Beans; or whether they are only the Instrumental Cause to convey the Physical Operation of the Spirit, as a Conduit-pipe does water. But this Heresy the more Orthodox will by no means endure, because it is evident to all that understand Metaphysics that none of Suarez his conditions of an Instrumental efficient Cause are to be found in them, and then the case is clear, and the Controversy out of danger. And yet there is a very moderate man, and one that is much given to reconciling, who ventures to declare that if any man had rather say that the word is Causa efficiens minus principalis Procatarctica, that for his part he will not contend. What a Condescension is here! Were all the Divines in Christendom of this yielding temper, how quickly should we see and rejoice in that Catholic Unity, that you in your deep Wisdom and Policy have set down for as crazy and impracticable an Undertaking as to dig through the separating Istmos of Peloponesus; 
Pag. 30.  or to make a Communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. 3. Whether common and saving Grace differ only gradually or specifically, and if specifically, then whether it be only by a Moral or a Physical specification; and when they discourse upon such heads and points, they are wont to set as strong a Guard upon them of Chapter and Verse out of St. Paul's Epistles, and to as little purpose as the Assembly-men did upon their darling and fundamental Doctrine of absolute and irrespective Reprobation, though they were not satisfied with that, but for greater security were solicitous to place it next to the existence of God, and the Being of Providence. Blessed Apostle! shouldst thou but make a visit to the Christian World, how wouldst thou stand aghast to see such a vast Body of Modern Orthodox Faith framed out of thy Writings distinct from and for the most part opposite to the old Christian Belief! Shouldst thou peruse those strange Glosses and Commentaries that have of late been made upon thy Epistles, how would it recover to thy Memory all that Gibberish in which thou wert so idly busy whilst thou sattest at the feet of Rabbi Gamaliel! How would it grieve thee to see so many Churches of thy own Plantation overrun with the Barbarism either of Turks, or Heathens, or Schoolmen! Little didst thou dream that ever thy Epistles should be brought upon the Stage to decide the difference between moral and physical Specification. But yet to confess the Truth, these were not the impertinent Fopperies I intended in that Expression; the only thing I then glanced at was the undertaking in the Grotian Religion to prove that the disputes between the Calvinists and Arminians are more about words than matter, which is pursued warmly and eagerly enough, from Sect. 5. to Sect. 20. of the Preface; all which the Reverend Bishop gravely and prudently balked as a matter altogether impertinent to his Argument, and that would bear Eternal wrangle in the way of playing Scholastic heads and points. And that you may be forced to acknowledge his Wisdom, I will give you a summary Account of his Adversaries performance. Imprimis to reconcile Gods absolute decree of Election of the lesser part of Mankind Antecedently to any Consideration of their Faith and Obedience, and his absolute Decree of Reprobation to all the rest Antecedently to the deserts of their Impenitence and Infidelity, to the Justice and Goodness of God. Item to reconcile Christ's suffering death for the Elect only, that are the least part of Mankind, without having any intent to make satisfaction for the sins of the whole World, with the design of Universal Redemption. Item to reconcile the loss of free will in all the posterity of Adam, so as that they lie under an unavoidable necessity to do or not to do, whatsoever they do or do not, whether it be good or evil, with the first Principles of Morality or the Right of Rewards and Punishments. Item to reconcile God's Method of saving his Elect from the corrupt Mass, by begetting Faith in them with a Power equal to that, wherewith he created the World, and raised up the dead, (insomuch that such unto whom he gives that Grace, cannot reject it, and the rest being Reprobate cannot accept it, though it be offered to both by the same preaching and Ministry) with the Power of Election and Free Will. Item to reconcile the Impossibility of falling away finally and totally, notwithstanding the most enormous Crimes, with the Power of Apostasy; or the necessity of perseverance with the liberty of falling away, because it is only a necessitas consequentiae; though to you and me that are not so deep read in Modern Orthodoxy every necessity of what kind soever is a necessity, and then call it what you please, it plainly destroys all Power over our own actions. This may serve for a compendious Syntagm of push-pin Divinity.  
I might be very large and particular upon this Subject, but for the present I shall desire those that would be farther satisfied in the Mystery, to repair to Pin-makers-hall every Tuesday about ten of the clock in the forenoon, and there in six week's time 'tis ten to one but they shall find two or three of them at it. And thus having represented as briefly as the Subject would bear the plot and contrivance of your six Plays, I shall make no other Epilogue than to desire the Company to give me their impartial judgement first of your own Modesty, Wit, Learning, and Honesty; and secondly of the understanding and ingenuity of the whole Faction, that are so strangely elevated with such a crude and indigested heap of nonsense and nothing. These Arguments I have pursued somewhat farther than was necessary to blow up your idle Cavils, because I was willing to do something to the edification of those Readers that have some understanding of their own, as well as to the Conviction of those that have none. And that the company may be sensible how much they are beholden to me for their entertainment, I will give them a short Bill of Fare of your Provisions. First, the Grand Thesis is served in, and at this you spread your arms, and cock your train, and chatter (as one would think) in token of courage and victory; but alas! under all this Pageantry there is nothing to be found beside tail and feather, and after all this cackling nothing to be discovered beside noise and amazement, not a word discharged at the Grand Thesis itself; only you are scared out of your wits to see one so presumptuous as to assert what all the world have always believed and practised, and so you immediately fall to transcribing a lump of quotation, being sentences accidentally culled backwards and forwards out of several discourses; and these you will have to be sometimes such Corollaries, and sometimes such Superstructures as are necessary to justify the Grand Thesis: Though Corollaries justify Theses just as superstructures support foundations. But however from hence it is evident with what presumption I treat His Majesty in my Books, though in the conclusion you tell us very judiciously, that they are not to be answered for certain invincible Reasons.  
1. Because they are so full of contradictions, and therefore you cannot answer them.  
2. Because no man can do it without bringing himself within the Statute of treasonable words, and at least a Praemunire, and therefore you dare not.  
3. Because whoever goes about it must of necessity either be, or be thought to be a Fanatique, and therefore you will not. And for divers other Reasons, some whereof you dare not discover, and some you discreetly reserve to yourself; and so leave them to be sound out by God's Providence, or our own Sagacity, and if both ways fail, to wait with patience till the day of judgement: Only you inform His Majesty, (1.) That I have given him too much Power; (2.) Too much advice; and (3.) Taken them both away again. And now while two or three other dull people can in the tumult of other business consume eight or ten months in one single Book of seven or eight hundred pages, for one man even without any Partners after forty months' travel, to be able to Transprose three leaves, and find out the Grand Thesis, and the Corollaries that justify it, and from thence to irradiate his Brethren with this beam of discovery, that such Divinity with such Policy cannot be good, no really by no means: This (I say) if duly weighed, is such an enterprise, as cannot but strike yourself, and all the world with admiration. And thus having dispatched the Grand Thesis, you advance with huffing train against all its subordinate Hypotheses. And here first you cannot proceed well without a Preface, and so as if you had treated me hitherto with as much reverence as the Emperor of Russia, you humbly crave leave to treat me according to Decorum, i. e. like a Buffoon; the very same Request word for word that Martyn-Mar-Prelate has often put up to his Readers to be allowed the same freedom with his Nuncka John the Archbishop of Canterbury; though Sir, you might have used this familiarity with me without all this ado, for I perceive we are so intimately acquainted, that we have no doubt sometime heretofore either robbed Orchards or lampooned the Court together. And then from this Apology in the strength of another Apology to Kings and Princes, lest by reason of your private condition and breeding you should trip in a word, and fail in the mannerliness of an expression, you proceed from Apology to Apology, (for one half of your Book is written to no other end than to beg pardon for the other) till you compare his Majesty saucily and unmannerly, and that without Apology, to a mad horse kicking and flinging most terribly. And all this being premised out of tender regard to the rules of Decorum, you enter upon the unlimited Magistrate, where if you intended any thing against me, you ought first to have made it evident that I had really invested him with an unhoopable Jurisdiction, and after that you would have had scope and advantage enough to have made me an Example to all Ecclesiastical Politicians to the world's end. But you are a Civil Gentleman, and will say nothing more severe than only to admonish me,  
1. That Bishop Bramhall would have censured this of Erastianism, though Erastus never dreamt of any Opinion half so dangerous as unhoopable Jurisdiction.  
2. That the Bishops and their Chaplains would never have licenced it without clauses or provisos.  
3. That the King does not love to hear of concealed Lands. Only if he may exercise the Priesthood himself, he may with all the Reason in the world assume their Revenue too, which is as much as to say, if he may discharge the Function of the Secular Magistrate, he may (and it is all the reason in the world) assume all Secular Revenues too, which would be a better Subsidy than twenty Church Revenues: But truly otherwise (i. e. were it not that he is not guilty of Sacrilege) you do not see but that the King does lead a more unblameable conversation, etc. And so you forsake the fantome of unhoopable Jurisdiction to proceed to Public Conscience. But here too you are out of your element, and begin first with a wretched blunder about Christian Liberty, and then pick up here and there some passages out of my discourse of doubtful and unsatisfied Consciences, and impose them upon the Reader, as if they were intended of Conscience in general, and as if I had persuaded men that they may and aught to act against their Consciences where the Commands of the Magistrate intervene, because forsooth I have proved that when the Command of the Magistrate intervenes in doubtful and uncertain Cases, by obeying they do not nor cannot act against their Consciences, if they really are what they pretend to be; and if they are not, that then they are Knaves and Hypocrites. But the Opinion is brutish, and the consequences devilish; though whether it be so, it is no matter of your Judicature, and therefore must be referred either to a Jury of Divines, or the day of Judgement. And so we have you at Moral Grace, where you warble forth a pleasant ditty of Fortune, Prudence and Honesty in three several Languages, and the Song ended, we might have had a dance upon the high ropes, but that lightly one time or other by that means men break their necks; and for this reason you make haste to bid adieu to moral Grace, of which not a word more, only he that is not satisfied, may satisfy himself if he can. And so immediately you get to debauchery tolerated, and this you understand a little better than moral Grace, but yet all that you have to say upon this subject, is, to acknowledge that I never asserted any such thing, only debauched persons will (as you do) by a perverse way of reasoning conclude so and so, i. e. if I had affirmed (as you do) that it had been safer to give toleration to men's Blasphemies and Heresies than to their debaucheries, than it would have been Heresy tolerated. And so after a drivelling and Schoolboy's Declamation against the debauchery of the Sibarites, you are at Persecution recommended. And here it is God's Mercy that Julian was Emperor and not I, and though you dare jest upon him and the Galleys as the more remote, yet you sculk by the Axes, Pillories, and Whipping-posts, as the more practicable and dangerous instruments of Persecution; and being yourself a most gracious and conscientious Coward admire at some body's courage that dares walk the streets so confidently, when it were so easy to deisy the Divine after the ancient manner, and no body be the wiser, and so cunningly insinuate as if you yourself would be glad to accept the Office, provided you may gain some accession from the public stock of the Party, because in this age Gentlemen cannot otherwise well support their Quality; but if ever you undertake it, I shall never fear any other weapon than a Spanish Fig, or some more secret Italian dispatch; for though you talk so much of fight and duels, you are so far from being so hardy as to see any man die upon the spot, that it is manifest you never had the Courage to attend the event of a war between two Boys in the streets, in that among all the wise and politic remarks you have made upon the transactions of Oheering-Cross and Lincolns-Inn-fields we have not one Observation upon that subject. And so at length we come to Push-pin Divinity, but because you understand nothing of the Game, I have directed you to the School where it is weekly practised: Only to hide your ignorance you tell us what you have to say upon it, and perhaps you may have a stomach, but perhaps you may not, for when you come to it, you only repeat it all over 
Pag. 247.  again, and tell us, that though you indeed have not, yet the King himself has considered all these things. Strange that a man of such private condition and breeding should be so intimately acquainted with the studies and retirements of Kings. These are the Acts and Scenes of all your six Plays, but yet when all is over, the Plot of the Grand Thesis and Ecclesiastical Policy stands stock still. And now among friends was ever any thing so monstrous? you see what some men may come to with high feeding and no Divinity. Did ever any man run such taplash as this at first Broaching? Well! for your sake may I never live to outlive myself and my little Understanding so much as to be proud of such witless and insipid stuff as this upon the usefullest and most pregnant Arguments in the World.  
This a Merciful man (as I am) would have thought Correction enough for one man's back; but you are so pregnant and awkerd a Dunce, so emproved in Ignorance, so dexterous in the knack of being impertinent, and so addicted to all kinds of Leasing, that though you had Truth on your side, yet it would never please you, till you had dressed it up and set it off with all the Colours of Falsehood, and whatever the cause is in which you engage, you will be sure to make yourself ridiculous; and therefore but for a proof of this peculiar giftedness of yours, I shall (to avoid Ink-shed) content myself, and (I fear) more than satisfy my Reader with three or four of the goodliest Instances of your Wit, and so leave you to chew the Cud upon your own shame and folly. Thus when J. O. had (and that without blushing too) pleaded in Justification of his own Nonconformity, that he dares not conform to Socinianism, Arminianism, and Popery, as if he could be admitted into the Communion of the Church of England upon no other Terms than of Popish and Socinian Subscriptions, and when I had scourged such an insolent Libel with some smartness of Correction, though not so much as it deserved; you (in your bashfulness) call it railing. So that it seems if any man impudently belie the Church of England, and I take him in it, and expose him for it, it is but telling me I rail, and I am answered. This is too like the stubbornness of your shrew; that when she was ducked 
Pag. 160.  over head and ears, still stretched up the Symbols or (as your Pin-Divines will have it) the Sacraments of Lowsiness and Cuckoldry. Nothing but such incorrigible Scolds as you and she could have persisted so obstinately in so rude a Calumny as this of J. O's. But when among other passages, I tell you that to the Isme of Socinianism, he might as justly have added all the Ismes in the Old Testament; out of this you rear two thwacking Objections, the one against myself of profaneness, the other against the Church of England of Schism. And this is yelped like a true Whelp of Old Martyns; for no man, be he Bishop or Archbishop, could ever open his mouth against the holy Discipline, but this dull Buffoon presently run him up into Blasphemy and Treason. Blasphemy; because he reviled the Lord Christ's own Institution, and set up a form of Church Government of man's devising, in defiance to his unalterable Platform. Treason; because he persuaded her Majesty to keep out Christ's true Officers and plant Antichristian Bishops in their steads, and by that means to draw the Judgements of God down upon herself and her Kingdoms.  
This was the Sum not only of all old Martyns' Buffonery, but of all the serious part of the old- Elsibeth Puritanism. But as Martin was just such another Wit as you, so are you just such another fool as Martin, that as despicable as you make yourself when you would play the Monkey, are ten times a more ridiculous sight when you would look serious. For here forsooth you would fain make up your Mouth and turn up the white, and put on as rebuking a Countenance as you fancy J. O. did when he spoke of the day of Judgement, and take me up with rueful face for that peculiar delight and felicity I 
Pag. 184.  have (which no man envies me) in Scripture Drollery. My friend, this is too severe reckoning; what, can we not make mention of any Name recorded in Holy Writ, but we must abuse the sacred book itself? shall we not dare so much as to take the names of the Hivites, Perizzites and Hittites into our Lips because we find the story of their wickedness recorded in the Holy Scriptures? shall we not call a Traitor Judas, or a Rebel Achitophel for fear of profaning the Old and New Testament? This is a shrewd and a sad symptom of wretched Poverty of Cavil when you are every where forced to make so very much of so very little. I only wonder how the Bramble escaped this severity, especially when one would think that of all the Books of the Bible, you should have been acquainted with the Book of Judges, because though it be no Gazet, yet it contains the Transactions of a certain time when there was no King in Israel, and yet even here you betray the Grossness of your Ignorance, and declare in the Simplicity of your Heart, that you cannot imagine what the Mystery of Shiboleth is no more than of Categoricalness and Entanglement. And yet the story of Shiboleth is recorded in the same Book of Judges with that of the Bramble, so that it is not improbable but you might be equally ignorant of both; and that you might look for this story in Gerhard's Herbal, or AEsop's Fables. But as for the other two words, you know as well as I that it is only for my dear J. O's sake that I am so fond of them, as well as divers others, that you might as well have insulted over; viz. Self-wrought-out-mortification, Eristicalness, Songs upon Sigionoth, the high places of Armageddon, Providential revolutions and some other affected Phrases that are the peculiar Language or Shiboleth of your secret ones. But perhaps you had a mind to reserve this Parable (for all its being found in the Bible) for your own Drollery; and you are wonderfully pleasant both upon that and me, because after I had (in allusion to that) transformed Calvin into a Bramble (not a Bishop Bramble as you notably clinch it for the nearness of the sound to Bishop 
Pag. 50.  Bramhall) I should ascribe indefatigableness to him, a Liberty that has ever been allowed of by all Critics, and must be practised by all the Writers of Apologues, and without it what pleasant work would such a Sarcastical Wit as you make with Aesop's Fables and Reignold the Fox. But if I am guilty of a solecism (and I do not much care if I grant it) I am not alone, you yourself stick as fast in the same absurdity, for when you have turned the Clergy of England into an Ivy-bush, 
Pag. 133.  you in the same breath ascribe cunning and contrivance to it; now if you will but undertake to teach a shrub how to plot and contrive for its own self-interest, I will undertake to teach it how to take pains to compass its ends, so that your Politic Ivy will be a fit match for my Indefatigable Bramble, and I hope in time will overcome it too, i. e. that the discretion of the Church of England may at last be too hard for the Zeal of the Geneva Faction.  
But though it be profane enough to droll upon the word of God, yet wilfully to pervert or (in your own unaffected language) trinkle it, is somewhat worse, and that is the next Article of my charge; that when I quote St. Paul to prove that the fruits of the spirit as he enumerates them, Gal. 5. 22. are only Moral Virtues, I translate (say you) joy to cheerfulness, peace to peaceableness, and faith to faithfulness, 
pag. 193.  as if either the Apostles Original were written in English, or I had translated it out of English into English; no, that is your own way of translation, to expound the Greek Text by the English Version as you do the Chapter by the Contents. It was not then joy, and peace, and faith that I translated into cheerfulness, peaceableness and faithfulness, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. But what ignorance, or rather what forgery is this of Scripture and Religion? Who is there of the Systematical, Germane, Genevah, Orthodox Divines, but could have taught you better? Who is there of the sober intelligent Episcopal Divines of the Church of England, but would abhor this interpretation? So say you, but then say I, what honest and upright dealing is this with Scripture and Religion? Who is there of the Systematical, Germane, Genevah, Orthodox Divines, that could have taught me better? Who is there of the sober intelligent Episcopal Divines, that would not approve of this interpretation? And so Mr Impertinence you and I are even, you see how little Answer will serve to stop your mouth, though you open never so wide. But this confidence is worth all our Moral Virtues, and is able to make such stuff as this pass among the Party for Wit and Demonstration. And with what Triumph here do you bear me down, and rescue this Text from my violent interpretation, and carry it off as bravely recovered out of the Enemy's possession, and yet it is but dropping one simple No-forsooth in your way, and your career is stopped, and there may you stand gaping till the day of Judgement. For as for this Text, when all your Orthodox Divines have sifted and bolted it to the Bran, they will with all their search and canvasing never get any thing out of it, or discover any thing in it beside Moral Virtues. And if you have credit enough to borrow a Bible in the Neighbourhood, you will quickly find (if you can find the Epistle) that St. Paul is there describing the opposite Effects between the Flesh and the Spirit; and therefore as all the fruits of the flesh there reckoned up are immoral Vices, so must all the fruits of the Spirit there opposed to them be moral Virtues; but particularly cheerfulness must answer to envy or discontentedness, peaceableness to strife or contention, and faithfulness to the Gnostick treachery or perfidiousness. But in the Name of Mercury, tell me to what end you quarrel my preferring the word cheerfulness before that of Joy, when (as I have told you) they are but synonymous expressions of the same thing, and may be, and often are used promiscuously, and differ no more than Reason and Reasoning. And what if instead of this I had made choice of the word Alacrity, What ignorance or what forgery had that been of Scripture or Religion? But yet after all your swaggering all your own Orthodox Divines will vote cheerfulness as a much more proper expression in this place than joy. Because St. Paul here speaks of the temper or the habit of the mind, whereas Joy in its proper acceptation denotes only the particular acts of rejoicing. Oh! but say You and J. O. to grievous purpose, that this Joy is not cheerfulness, but that spiritual joy which is unspeakable, yes, but then say I, this spiritual joy that is unspeakable might more properly have been translated that spiritual cheerfulness that is unspeakable, in that it is that habitual tranquillity of mind that arises from the testimony of a good Conscience, and a right to Eternal Life, and therefore is best expressed by cheerfulness that denotes the habit, and not Joy that denotes the act. And so Peace (cry you both) is not peaceableness but that peace which is wrought in the hearts of believers by the holy Ghost: though this is plainly coincident with your former notion of joy, in that the holy Ghost works this satisfaction of mind only by joining its suffrage to the vote of our own Consciences, so that according to your account joy and peace would be but one thing in two words. But beside this it is manifest that the Apostles design here is to enumerate the Vertucs, or the Duties, or the Graces of the Spirit (call-them what you will) whereas this Peace you talk of is a privilege or a felicity of good men, but no proper effect of the spirit of Sanctification, and therefore cannot without plain violence to the Text be understood of any thing else than peaceable-mindedness, especially when it is so manifestly opposed to contentiousness, and when there are so many parallel Texts of Scripture, that do not only warrant but enforce the same interpretation, as you may easily inform yourself by the help of a Concordance, if you cannot procure a Bible. And this (without forgery) is that Peace that passeth all understanding: not because it is some secret and unintelligible thing, of which no rational and sober account is to be given, or aught to be demanded. But if you can find out the Epistle to the Philippians (it stands not many leagues off from that to the Galatians) you will perceive that its grand design was to exhort them against breaking the Peace and Unity of the Church by Gnostick disputes and contentions, to which purpose he recommends to them above all things a peaceable and quiet temper of mind, as a thing much more excellent and valuable than exactness of Wit and Knowledge, or (as we render it) that passes all understanding. But than lastly, as for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I know there are several acceptations of it in the New Testament (and that is more than you knew before) though none so common as this of faithfulness, at lest none so proper in this place, where it is not only opposed to the perfidiousness of the Gnostics, but is reckoned up as one of the fruits of the Christian Faith, and therefore must be something distinct from it, and consequent to it, and then unless it be the Faith of Miracles, it can be nothing else but the virtue of Fidelity. And now I hope you see what reason I had to slight J. O's Cavil as too trivial to need or require a set and serious Answer, though your impertinency has forced me to your shame upon such a tedious and needless Task, Notwithstanding that the Fortune of Caesar and the Roman Empire depend not upon it. But no sooner can I any where mention Caesar or the Roman Empire, but your blood immediately rises, and you are passed all patience. I cannot imagine the ground of your Antipathy, unless it be, that when Caesar took the Empire upon himself, he turned the Commonwealth into a Monarchy. But whatever the picque might be, this I am sure of, that there is not any one passage in which these words occur through all my writings that has escaped your wit and fury. You think it a pleasant conceit to find me so often meddling with the Roman Empire. And yet not so often neither, for what is it to quote something of its affairs and transactions six times in above a thousand pages, that is about once in a Book as big as yours; It is no more to a man that reads Livy and Tacitus than six kicks was to Daw after he had read Seneca. At least it is not half so often as you have hooked in Gazette, and that you know is in comparison a very Modern History. For if you will consult your Almanac, it is a great while since the building of Rome, 2424 years; and yet from its very foundation it has always been a place of very great action, and bred more business for Heroic Song than Gondibert or all the Princes of the Lombard Race, and its Story is not so much the History of a particular Nation as of the whole World; and yet after all, you are pickeering at the Roman Empire five times for my once. You have informed Princes that Julius Caesar 
Pag. 251.  was stabbed for subverting the Liberties of the Commonwealth: And another Roman Emperor for giving the word 
Pag. 244.  unhandsomely. From you we learn, that 
Pag. 34.  in his time the Empire was stretched to its largest dimensions, though the learned say, that happened not till the Reign of Trajan. From you we learn that it 
Pag. 232.  cost the Roman Empire some Millions of Men to gain the Dominion of Words, and yet that Augustus though so great an Emperor, 
Pag. 230.  and so valiant a man, (but being withal a very wary Prince) was used to fly from a new word as studiously as a Mariner would avoid a Rock for fear of splitting. From you we learn that the 
Pag. 164.  Emperor Tiberius when he was very angry would curse a little; and that Julian was not only a powerful Holderforth, but the first Founder of the Inquisition. From you we learn that there was no love lost between the Guelphs and Gibellines, and that Geneva was the Helvetian passage that Caesar speaks of in his Commentaries. From you we learn that there was a certain Roman Emperor, who triumphed 
Pag. 219.  over the Ocean, because he had gathered Periwinkles and Scallop-shells on the Beach; with an hundred more that you have told as but idle stories, and yet Kings can tell how to make use of them, and learn to behave themselves dutifully to their Subjects, and not force them to Conform, remembering Caesar's 
Pag. 251.  bloody Coat. Here is twice as much Roman Empire in 300 Pages, as I have in 1300. And now though no other Urchin-Pamphleteer, no not Martin nor his Cubs, would have pelted me with such lean and meager Cavils as these, yet this is not enough to assuage your Fanatique zeal and malice to abuse me for perverting the Texts that I have quoted, unless I may be abused for those that I never (for any thing you know) so much as mentioned, or read; and thus when you cite for your own convenience this passage, That Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft; 
Pag. 120.  you are pleased to add too, that this Text will scarce admit my Interpretation. And yet you know no more what my Interpretation would be, than you do what Rebellion and Witchcraft are. But fear not, you are I perceive concerned (for what reason you yourself best know, I know none) lest I should interpret it of the Rebellion of Subjects against their Prince. No, but (if it will do you any service) we will resign up this Text to the Long-Parliament side, and you know a friend of ours that has vindicated its true meaning against a learned Man abroad that indiscreetly and injudiciously enough objected it against the late Rebellion.  
But that which is still more pleasant is to see such a one as you seriously reproving the Divine for making merry with the day of Judgement, because forsooth, when I had baffled J. O, and he had cited me to answer for it at that day, I laughed at the silliness of his summons, and thought it a very peevish and impertinent Appeal. For to what purpose should he or any man else write Eristical Books to satisfy the World in the Innocence and Justice of their Cause, when at the last they have nothing to plead in their own defence but by appealing to the World to come? 'Tis (I say it again) an easy matter by this dancing and capering humour to perpetuate all the Controversies in the World, how plainly soever determinable, to the coming of Elias; and after this rate shall the Barber's Basin remain Mambrino 's Helmet, and the Ass' Panel a furniture for the great Horse till the day of Judgement. You seem much pleased with this Quotation, and travelled a great way to fetch it in, and it is a very pertinent story to represent the folly of such impertinent Appeals. For Sir you must know that once upon a time a Knight-Errant (you may have read of) despoiled a poor Village Barber of his Basin, (which the poor man in rainy weather was wont to wear upon his head instead of an Oyl-case to preserve his Hat) supposing it to have been the enchanted Helmet of one Mambrino a notorious Magician of those times. But a while after the Barber happening into the same Inn with the Knight, spies his Basin and cries stop Thief; at this an uproar is made, the Lie is given, and the Inn is immediately filled with nothing but plaints, and cries, and screeches, and confusions, and fears, and dreads, and disgraces, and flashes, and buffets, and blows, and spurnings, and kicks, and twecks, and effusions of Blood. But at last by the mediation of some that had more Wit and less Courage than others, the Tumult was appeased, the whole business between the Knight and the Barber was referred to the Arbitration of some pleasant fellows, that were present at the Fray; but they resolving to turn all into Mirth determine at last upon grave and solemn deliberation, that the Basin indeed to them seemed an Helmet, but yet they durst not swear that it was so in good earnest, and therefore for the greater safety enjoined both parties to refer its Decision to the day of Judgement. No doubt, much to the Barber's comfort and satisfaction. And just thus has J. O. dealt with me, who having fallen as rudely upon me as the Knight did upon the poor man, and coming off with no great advantage either to the Justice of his Cause or the Reputation of his Wit, gravely summons me to the day of Judgement, where though I am prepared to answer him and all the World, yet I cannot but deem it a very simple and ridiculous determination of any Controversy that concerns the Affairs of this present Life, to adjourn it to the Life to come, because as to the present purpose the decision will come somewhat too late. Now methinks it is a very hard case if a man cannot despise this Confidence and Folly without making a mockery of the supreme Judge and Judicature. But that which most troubled me was to see proud men abuse themselves and the World with so serious a thing, so as whenever they expose their own discretion by any rash or silly Attempt, they presently call down for Fire from Heaven upon any man that does but smile at their weakness. And it is a sad and prodigious thing to observe how some men feed and pamper their Malice with Religion, and depute the Divine Justice the Executioner of their Rancour and Bitterness, and make the World to come a mere shelter for Anger and Discontent. When their minds are throughly soured with ruminating upon Injuries and Disgraces, and this World seems to run counter to their designs, then they'll take refuge and sanctuary in the other, that so if they cannot bear up against their Enemies here, than Hell and the day of Judgement may make amends for all. And if you had indeed marked J. O's looks (as you pretend you did) when he spoke of this day, you could not but have observed what a mighty ease and satisfaction it was to his discontented mind, and that the very hopes of some revenge than did as much allay his Maladies, as if he had really executed the utmost of his spite and Malice now. I am sure any man that reads the Character of the Persons that he in his Christian meekness summons to this judicature, will easily conclude he was in no very kind and loving humour, viz. that they are such as have no regard to Truth, or Modesty, or Sobriety towards God or Man, that they are only animated by their secular Interest or desire of Revenge, that they are hard hearted and incompassionate, that they have no thoughts but of Rage and Destruction; that they are for nothing less than Massacres, and cutting Throats, etc. This is a sweet and obliging Character, and it is not to be doubted but that J. O. made no question of being too hard for such Rake-hells as these at the day of Judgement. And against such as these it is that he has denounced these 
Expos. on 130. Psal. Pag. 275.  Curses. Cursed be you of the Lord with all the Curses that are written in the Law, and all the Curses that are denounced against despisers of the Gospel. Yea, be you Anathema Maranatha; cursed in this World always until the coming of the Lord; and when the Lord comes, be ye cursed from his Presence into everlasting Destruction. Yea, Curse them all ye Holy Angels of God, as the obstinate Enemies of your King and Head the Lord Jesus Christ. Curse them all ye Churches of Christ, as despisers of that Love and Mercy, which is your Portion, your Life, your Inheritance; let all the Saints of God, all that love the Lord, curse them, and rejoice to see the Lord coming forth mightily, and prevailing against them to their everlasting ruin. Why should any one have a thought of Compassion towards them, who despise the Compassion of God? or of mercy towards them, who trample on the Blood of Christ?— Nay, God forbid, we hope to rejoice in seeing all that Vengeance and Indignation, that is in the right hand of God, poured out unto Eternity upon our Souls. By this you may perceive what J. O. means by talking of the day of Judgement when he is angry, and that he then designs for himself no small Devils Office. Oh! the day of Judgement! how does it allay all Maladies and Discontents! Then shall it be one part of his Eternal Bliss to behold his own and the Lord Christ's Enemies lodged in Eternal Flames. The Brimstone of the damned shall shed a perfume up into his Heaven, and their shrieks and howl shall be as musical to him as the Hallelujahs of blessed Spirits. Not that he is in the least unwilling to forgive all affronts and unkindnesses, but that God never will. Ay, that is the comfort of their Spite and Malice. They snatch not the Sword out of his hand, only because they hope the strokes of an Almighty Arm will light heavier than theirs. They put out their Revenge to Interest, and are content to stay a little for it till hereafter, because than they expect to have it paid in with infinite Emprovements, and hope to rejoice in seeing all that Vengeance and Indignation, that is in the right hand of God, poured out unto Eternity upon their Souls. Truly a very comfortable spending of Eternity, and a ravishing Description of the Joys of Heaven. But as for your part (had I made too light of that terrible day) your seriousness looks more abusively than my Mirth; you bring it in in such a sly and snearing way, and you preach upon it in such untoward and light Expressions, as would give occasion to any man, though he were endued with some more Charity and Civility than yourself, to make a shrewd Conjecture of your Opinion. How many good jests 
Pag. 198.  have you balked even in writing your Book, lest you should be brought to answer for every profane and idle Word! A wicked Knave! it seems you had them all in your Heart. But whilst you conceal your good Jests for fear of Damnation, could you ever hope to be saved by so many bad ones? Can a man strain so much and beat so far about to hale in a poor malicious and smutty Conceit, and yet study to balk good Jests though they always come in easily and of their own accord? Could you take so much pains to mistake through so many Pages I O for one word, and then I Vowel for I Consonant to rear a few despicable fancies, and yet think to persuade the World that you have balked a Thousand good Conceits for fear of accounting for idle words? But seeing you 
Pag. 197.  are pleased to attribute something to my Judgement, and desire to know what I think in good earnest of these things. If it weigh any thing with such a one as you, that dare not trust either your Soul or your Money with one of my Robe since the sinister Accident of Picquet, I declare frankly that I would by no means advise you to check and mortify your wit for fear of the day of Judgement, for I will ensure you that neither yourself nor any friend of yours shall then far the worse for a good Jest. But yet you are afraid of being brought to answer for every profane word; poor man, never be scrupulous, for good jests are never profane. Thus have you unawares given the public a trial of your judgement of good wit, whilst you think it consistent with profaneness. But could ever any Creature in the world beside thyself have been so scandalously impertinent as to beg excuse for the sparingness of his good jests only to avoid the danger of entrenching upon profaneness, and yet at the same time stuff a witless and ridiculous Libel with so much impudence, malice and ribaldry? Your last charge upon this Article is so silly, that out of mere pity to your ignorance I could almost pass it by in silence; viz. that whereas I affirm that our Saviour, when he whipped the buyers and sellers out of the Temple, took upon him the person and privilege of a Jewish Zealot, that is (say you) the second person of the Trinity did Personam endure of a notorious Rogue and Cutthroat. But to omit the classicalness of your translation out of English into Latin, I perceive you are as much a stranger to the Rabbis as to the Push-pin Divines (and the truth is they are both much of the same understanding) and therefore at present I shall only advise you for the cure of your ignorance to consult Mr Selden de Jure Naturali & Gentium, Lib. 4. Cap. 4. and a little Treatise of Dr Hammonds upon the Subject, and there you will find a vast difference between a Jewish and a Fifth-Monarchy Zealot; or between the Order of Zealots in the Jewish Commonwealth founded in imitation of Phinees and Elias, and that was impower'd, or at least licenced by Public Authority to execute notorious Malefactors without form and process of Law; and those bloody Cutthroats that under this disguise played such reaks in the City at the destruction of Jerusalem. I say no more, but I hope you will acknowledge my civility to let so great a miscarriage escape with so mild a correction. Take warning, and play no more at my heels with such trifles as these; if you do, thank yourself, if you go yelping off.  
But of all the gall you have licked up from J. O's vomit, methinks there is none so rank and bitter as your Charge of Schism against the Church of England upon the account of your Fanatique Separation; and that for no wiser Reasons, than first, because Schism rhimes to Ism; and secondly, because Mr Hales has written a Pamphlet upon the Subject. As for the first I scorn to answer it, though it is surprising beyond all Bays his Plots, and martin's pranks. As for the second, if Mr Hales have printed any thing that reflects upon the Church of England (though I have a very deep respect for his worth and piety) it is no more to be regarded than if it had been bolted by such despicable Scribblers as yourself and J. O. and that is your answer. But if he had any such design, it is enough if he will stand to his own definition of Schism, that you have set in the Van of your long Quotation, that it will concern the Church of England no more than J. O's charge of Socinianism, viz. That Schism is an unnecessary separation of Christians from that part of the visible Church of which they were once Members. Now he must be a bold man and something more, that will venture to assign any Reason (beside yours of Rhithm) that shall convict the Church of England of being the cause of any unnecessary separation from that part of the visible Church, of which it was once a Member, only because you and your Clients the Nonconformists tie yourselves by confederacy not to submit to her necessary injunctions; for if the things she requires and imposes in order to the due and decent performance of God's Worship are not necessary of themselves, (as you plead) yet either these or some other as unnecessary as these are. And then good Noble Marquis you might have put up your trumpery too, and spared that grateful Penance you have undergone in transcribing so many pages for your own proper use out of that Author. For whatever he has suggested after this, you may assure yourself the Church of England neither is nor will be concerned. I am not ignorant that he has dropped some loose passages in that Treatise, for which himself was then censured, and the Book is still, though the Author be pardoned, because as he did not first publish it, so he afterwards recanted it. At least it is too well known that this learned man was in his younger years too much tainted with the Socinian Tenets (perchance for their novelty and singularity) and so might vent some expressions derogatory to the established discipline of the Church in which he lived conformable to the mind and doctrine of Socinus. Who (you know) had an ambition to set up for as great a Patriarch as Calvin, and therefore laboured as Calvin did to erect a New Church of his own, and distinct from all other Communions, only that it might bear his own Name. In pursuance of this design he was forced to contrive such Conditions of Church-membership, as flatly condemned the Constitution of all the established Churches in the world, and consequently warranted his separation from them. Of this if you are not satisfied you may see enough in his own Epistles to Radecius upon this Argument, where you may too (if you have any mind to it) trace Mr Hales his Books of Schism, and undergo another as grateful a Penance in transcribing and construing as much more to your own, i. e. no purpose. The next time you nose the Church of England with Mr Hales, let the Disquisitio Brevis be your Book. I will add no further censure of him, he was a good man, and therefore if he had any defects, I shall choose to cover them with that additional Civility that (you 
Pag. 18.  say) consecrates the ashes of the deceased. I see you are a friend to the consecration of Relics though not of Chapels, for you have made bold to trample upon the Learned and Venerable Bishop Andrews his ashes for leaving behind him a form of Consecration of a Church or Chappel, 
Pag. 309.  and of the place of Christian Burial, i. e. for being a little concerned that Posterity should know some difference between St. Paul's and a Stable. However I shall not treat Mr Hales for your sake so as you have Bishop Bramhal for mine, whom because, as you enviously think, I have over-praised, though you profess yourself utterly unacquainted either with his Person or his Writings, you will not allow the truth of any one period of all the Commendations I have given him, but represent him as a crackt-brained fellow that was stroke with a notion, and crazed 
Pag. 43.  on one side of his head, and so busied himself, and troubled the world as other mad men are wont to do with extravagant and impracticable projects, or in digging through the separating Istmos of Peloponesus, and making a Communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Nay, you are not satisfied with making the Bishop alone an undertaking Coxcomb, unless you may throw in Grotius, and all the wisest and learnedest heads of Christendom into the same basket, they only talked like conceited fellows that went big forty years with impossibilities. 
Pag. 29.  And this is as modestly chattered as can reasonably be expected from such an Urchin as you, that are so sufficiently unqualified to give a competent judgement of the best and most probable terms of Reconciliation, that you are as yet to learn the differences of the several dissenting Parties among themselves. Go to your Systems and your Syntagms, your sucking-bottles of Orthodoxy, before you presume so lavishly to spend your Censures against the most pregnant wits, and best improved Scholars in the Christian world. But to all wise and discreet men the accommodation is feasible enough, when the truly learned and sober of all interests are so inclinable to it; especially when the best part of the Church of Rome itself are as desirous to abolish their corruptions out of their own Church, as we are to keep them out of ours. The two hindrances are the pride of the Jesuits on their side, and the sierceness of the Calvinists on ours, so that neither of them will part with a pin (though it have neither head nor point) for the peace & prosperity of the Church, but the former are resolved one and all to adhere unalterably to their old Innovations, and the latter to their new ones. And here snap me not up too nimbly, for it is no Bull to style the Innovations of the Church of Rome old, so they are when compared to the Calvinian Novelties. But shutting out these two fiery & waspish Sects for eternal wranglers, it is no such difficult thing for all sober men to agree upon a form of primitive simplicity; or if it be, I am sure it is not encumbered with so many difficulties as was the attempt of the Reformation, and yet so zealous a Protestant as yourself would not, I suppose, have discouraged those men that arose to that great work, from the consideration of those many and great inconveniences that might probably ensue upon it. However though they had been favoured neither with Power nor Opportunity to effect it, yet it had been worthy the greatness of their minds to recommend so brave and pious a work to the Princes of Christendom. And so it was of Bishop Bramhal and H. Grotius (that prodigiously-erastio-arminio-socinopontificio-politique Head-piece, as a certain longwinded Presbyterian calls him) to inform the world that the distance between Party and Party was not so wide and irreconcilable as some hot and eager Bigots would represent it, and their endeavours have been kindly enough accepted by the best and most judicious men of all Communions. But here I am snapped, for how cleverly do I contradict myself, when I say, that the Bishop was not so 
Pag. 27.  vain nor so presuming as to hope to see his design of Catholic agreement effected in his days, and yet but two pages before I had told you, that he finished all the glorious designs he undertook, here no doubt I am trapped in a palpable contradiction, and yet the escape is as easy as the pitfall, for the Bishop only undertook to propound the way of a Catholic agreement, not to effect it, so that though he were not so vain as to hope to see it effected in his days, yet for all that he might finish all the glorious designs he undertook, seeing he only undertook the proposition not the execution of this glorious design. You see how little you get by fastening upon any of my Assertions, no more than one of the Curr-dogs (you speak of) would by starting and worrying of an Hedgehog. As for the rest of my Character of the Bishop, I scorn to justify it, it were an affront not only to the greatness of his Worth but of his Name, that will bear a much loftier Panegyric than I am able to compose for the consecration of his ashes. Though I could tell you how by his skill and courage he forced back the Revenues of the Church of Ireland out of such hungry men's hands as yours, for there you must know they had finished the Reformation that you only propound, that is, they had unrevenued the Clergy, and in Conformity to the Primitive Times had turned all the Tithes into Lay-fees, only allowing the Vicar's comfortable stipends of about twenty or forty shillings per annum. Now to me it seems as difficult a Task to force men of sacrilegious stomaches to disgorge their Prey after it has been so long pouched, as to you it does, to dig through the separating Istmos of Peloponesus. But I will not, only to satisfy your petulant exceptions, give a retail of all the proofs of this great man's prudence and courage; it is enough that he related to the Earl of Strafford, and if he had not an hand in all his enterprises, yet (though he were none of his Secretary) he had an head in all his Counsels, and that alone, if all the reports I have heard of that Great Man be true, will suffice to entitle him to ten times greater Eulogies than those wherewith I have consecrated his ashes, especially when you yourself allow some additional civility to the praises of the deceased. But if my character of him be too termagant (abuse me not for this fantastic word, as you do for several of J. O's, when it is your own) yet it is not so romantic, as your own luscious and fustian lines wherewith you would embalm the ashes of your own Hero, in whom you cannot but admire that Majesty and Beauty which sits upon the forehead of masculine Truth and generous Honesty. This is properly to trick up the good Old Divine in a yellow coif and a bulls head, to set Majesty and Beauty upon the forehead of his Masculine Truth. The forehead of truth is a single flower of a stronger and more rapping scent than a whole posy of Dr Bailiffs. But we still take an higher flight, He was a man that had cleared himself from froth and groans. As scurvy a Commendation this as one shall lightly meet with! when the loftiest thing that can be said of so Great a Man as Mr Hales, is, that he was neither a Madman nor a Fanatique. But seeing I have acquitted myself so ill-favouredly to the Bishop, that were he alive he would be out of love with himself, and that you (though a stranger to his worth and person) account it a work of some piety to vindicate his Memory from so scurvy a Commendation. I will (to make him some amends) trick him up in some of those elaborate and studious periods wherewith you have with an additional civility endeavoured to Consecrate the ashes of the deceased. I am confident the Bishop studied to do both God and His Majesty good Service, so that he ought never to be mentioned without due honour; but alas, how utterly was he mistaken, though so learned, so pious, so wise a man, he seemed to know nothing beyond Ceremonies, Arminianism, and Manwaring, and seemed to place all the business both of Christianity and State in persecuting men for their Consciences differing from him in smaller matters; with these he begun, and with these he ended, and thereby deformed the whole Reign of the best Prince, that ever wielded the English Sceptre, turning his whole Kingdom into a Prison. What Censures, what Excommunications, what Deprivations, what Imprisonments? I cannot represent the misery and desolation, as it has been represented to me. But wearied out at home, many thousands of His Majesty's Subjects, to his and the Nations great loss, thought themselves constrained to seek another habitation, and every Country even though it were among Savages and Cannibals, appeared more hospitable to them than their own. Happy had it been for the King, happy for the Nation, and happy for himself, had he never climbed that Pinnacle. He was indeed a Person, whom my age had not given me leave to be acquainted with, nor my good fortune lead me to converse with his Writings; but sor whom I had collected a deep reverence from the general reputation he carried, beside the veneration due to the place he filled in the Church of England. So that had any man a mind to show a proof of his good nature and eloquence, he could not in my opinion have fixed upon a fitter Subject of commendation. And therefore (here mark the Connexion) I could have wished for my own sake that I had miss this occasion of being more fully informed of some of the Bishop's Principles, whereby I have lost part of that pleasure, which I had so long enjoyed in thinking well of so considerable a person. But however I recreate myself, with believing that my simple judgement cannot, beyond my intention, abate any thing of his just value with others. And seeing he is long since dead, which I knew but lately, and now learn it with regret, (tender heart!) I am the more obliged to repair in myself whatsoever breaches of his credit, by that additional civility which consecrates the ashes of the deceased. And for a proof of this my additional civility, I tell you he was an undertaking Churchman that had a vast opinion of his own sufficiency, and went big forty years with an useless and impracticable project, and however he were otherwise a person of excellent prudence and learning, yet was he struck with a Notion and crazed on one side of his head. And so neglected not only his own Charge and Diocese, but the whole Protestant Interest both Foreign and Domestic, to take an Ecumenical care upon him, which none called him to, and none conned him thanks for. Being upon his own single judgement too liberal of the public, & retrenching upon our part more than he had Authority for, and granting more to the Popish than they can of right pretend to. And indeed he all along complies much for peace sake, and judiciously shows us wherein our separation from the Church of Rome is not warrantable. And in fact made a bridge, as Grotius too did, for the Enemy to come over, or at least laid some of our most considerable passes open to them and unguarded, and the bottom of all this most glorious design was only to fetter men straiter under the formal bondage of sictitious discipline. So that this enterprise of Bishop Bramhals, being so ill laid and so unseasonable, deserves rather an excuse than a commendation. And beside all this he had a great respect for poor Readers, he was no friend to preaching, he was a zealous Patron of Sports and Maypoles, he was an enemy to the reading of the Scriptures, and the observation of the Sabbath; and lastly, he did not prevent the Irish Rebellion, or if he performed any such wonderful things as are ascribed to him, the honour of it is due, and aught to be given to General Usher. In short, an accusatory Spirit would desire no better play than he gives in his own vindication. And now whatsoever all this may have glanced upon him, it was directed only against a certain Author, that has ill-favouredly commended him, and intended out of pure piety (and pure piety it is) to vindicate his memory from so scurvy a Commendation, and to repair the breaches that he through his unskilfulness had made in his Credit, with that additional civility which consecrates the ashes of the deceased. And have you not done it to purpose? no doubt were the Bishop alive, this flattering Panegyric would reconcile him to himself again. But certainly such improbable Eulogies as these are of the greatest disservice to their own design, and do in effect diminish always the person, whom they pretend to magnify. And the result of all these elaborate and studious periods of Commendation is to prove him only a most egregious Knave and Fool; such is your piety and additional civility. I would know whether this be to trick him up in a yellow Coif and a Bull's head, or to furbish him in martial accoutrements, like another Odo of Baieux, though in your account they are all one, and you have been so inconsistent with yourself as to compare the same commendation to both, in one page it is as effeminate as a Lady's dress, and in the next it is as martial as a fight man in armour. Well! you of all men are in most danger of being choked not with the swelling of truth (as you ridiculously speak, for truth itself never yet choked any man) but of falsehood and calumny. Was ever civility graduated up and enhanced to such a value? Had you been the very pink of courtesy you could not have endeared the Bishop with greater sweetness. Had you spoke the language of a Lover, and transcribed the Grand Cyrus and Cassandra, you could not have courted your Mistress in a more luscious and extravagant stile. Poor Bishop Bramhal, whether you or I are most unfortunate I cannot determine; whether you in being always courted, or I in being always railed at. But in good earnest I think I have the better of it; for though an ill man cannot by praising confer honour, nor by reproaching fix an ignominy, and so they may seem on equal terms, yet there is more in it; for at the same time that we may imagine what is said by such an Author to be false, we conceive the contrary to be true. This I am sure of, it is hard to disparage a man more by slander and calumny than you have the Bishop with all your elaborate and studious periods of commendation. And this I hope is enough to convince you of your insolence in passing your malapert censures upon a man so great in a matter so foreign, not only to your judicature but understanding. But this is right Fanatique Malice and Impudence to bespatter the most worthy persons with such foul reproaches under profession of so much love and sweetness. And so go your way like a wretch as you are, and if you have any spark of Virtue unextinguished, lament and pine away for this desperate folly, for the disgrace you have, as far as in you is, brought not only upon this venerable Prelate, but all the Church of England, by this undertaking, and for the eternal shame to which you have hereby condemned your own Memory.  
To this your new Edition out of Mr. Hales, I care not though I cast in that other long lesson, that you have been at the pains to construe out of Archbishop Parker (for should I altogether balk it, as impertinent as it is, I know your way of insulting) wherein he censures the Ceremonies of the Church of Rome as too troublesome and too numerous. Why, what then? nothing at all, but you have gained by this in English and Latin five pages, as you did eight by Mr. Hales, a good days work and wages easily earned, and you were too hard here for the Assigns of Theodore Beza and John Calvin; had they been aware how cheaply you came by these 13 Pages, they would no doubt have deducted proportionably for it out of that days Pay. But if you intended it to any other purpose than barely to fill up, you ought to have proved either that the Archbishop intended this against the Church of England, though certainly by his Office he could be as to Ceremonies no Nonconformist. Or if he did not, that yet his words fall as heavily upon the Church of England as upon the Church of Rome. But to say only in general that in this passage he girds us no less than J. O. himself does in his Treatise of Evangelical Love, though he does there in broad terms indite us both of Socinianism and Popery, is such an additional Civility to the Ashes of this Venerable Prelate, as was not long since offered him by some of your dear Brethren, when they translated his Urn out of the Chapel at Lambeth into an Unconsecrated Dunghill. Yes, but however (say you) if we once grant the Church a Power of establishing Humane Institutions in the Worship of God, they may accumulate their number till they become as burdensome as the Roman or the Mosaic Yoke, and therefore though the Ceremonies already enjoined are neither many nor troublesome, yet they expose us to the peril of Superstition, for the same Authority that appoints three, may (if it please) appoint three Hundred. And when it does so, then complain; in the mean while it is (to say no worse) but a saucy and uncivil deportment towards your Governors, to refuse Obedience to their reasonable Commands, that you may not encourage them to proceed to unreasonable Impositions. And if this may pass with you for an allowable Objection against the use and exercise of any Authority, only because it is possible it may be abused, then farewell all the Laws and all the Government in the World, when 'tis so impossible for any of them to prevent or avoid this Exception. But methinks it is a pleasant Entertainment to hear you tell so many sad and heart-breaking stories of the Yoke of Moses and Superstitions of Rome upon Occasion of three innocent Ceremonies; when they are so easy and so natural, so without labour and distraction, that to lift up a finger requires full as much pains and trouble. Whereas their rites were so numerous, so chargeable, and so troublesome, that it was almost impossible any care should constantly attend or exactly perform such an intricate service. But men that are resolved to be seditious, are forced to be unreasonable. And what can silence their Clamours that have the face to compare three easy and harmless Rites with the Yoke of Moses, and the Tyranny of Antichrist. But thus split a Straw and lay it cross a fanatics forehead, and (as hard as it is) it shall break the back of his Conscience.  
I could have wished you had been as much refreshed and edified with the Archbishop's Testimony as with Mr. Hales', that so instead of quoting a single Passage, you might have taken upon yourself the grateful penance of transcribing his whole Book, and then you would have obliged us with that remarkable Prophecy wherewith he shuts up his Antiquities. There is nothing more to be feared and provided against in this well-constituted Church of England, than lest the Clergy, whilst it takes pains in the Word and Truth, and is with the greatest Observance subject to the Sovereign Power, should be set forth as a Prey and Spoil to the Lavish and Spendthrifts, and be torn by the Reproaches and Contumelies of the Ignorant, and exposed to the Affronts and Insolences of the Rascal-Rabble; If this shall ever happen, more heavy Scourges from God, and sadder times than those of Queen Mary's Reign may justly be expected. And yet thus it has been, and thus it must be, wherever it is the humour and fashion to vilify the Priesthood, Religion becomes contemptible with its Officers, and where that loses its Esteem and Reverence, Government loses its support and security. And this was at the bottom of our late wild and wanton Rebellion, that the People were debauched into a slight regard of all things Sacred and Civil by the bold and juggling suggestions of a few ambitious and sacrilegious Malcontents, and then it was not only easy but natural to put Affronts upon all the Proceedings of Authority, to bear down all its Remonstrances, and run the Commonwealth into flat Anarchy and open War. You see how little Execution is to be done upon the Church of England with the Butt-end of an Archbishop, as you express it with 
Pag. 281.  equal Wit and Manners.  
Here the Quotation of my Lord Verulam, which you could produce to my 
Pag. 166.  confusion, would in my opinion have been much more to the purpose; but to tell us what you can say without saying it, is only to talk to yourself. Or the story of Pork, that you forbear to tell too, because you say I know it, but I say I do 
Pag. 320.  not know it, or if I did, you should however have had the Manners to have told it for his Majesty's sake, because he knows how to make use on't.  
But another Qualm that is upon every turn throwing you into groaning Fits is, that after all my seeming and pretended zeal for the Church of England (for which you have the greatest kindness in the World, were it not for the Pick-thankness and Pick pocketingness of the Clergy) I shall be found by any unpacked Jury of Divines little better than a rank Erastian; a word you have picked up out of Bishop Bramhal, though for any thing you know, that may signify a Wizard or a Magician, yes, or a Jewish Zealot, i. e. a notorious Rogue and Cutthroat. But be it what it will, this too was (as all the rest are) J. O's grievance. And you are both Crafty Colts, that when you know yourselves unable to answer Arguments presently spurn at them with some false and foul Recrimination. I scorned to take any notice of his Braying, and so I should of yours; but that I perceive some weak and well meaning Brethren, that are only wont to skim and skip over Books, to be a little startled at the Impeachment, because I all along discourse of the Power of the King and not of the Church, though the reason of it is very obvious, viz. because the Subject I designed and proposed to treat of was the Power of the King, and not of the Church; so that if you and J. O. are aggrieved at any thing, it is for no other cause than that I have stuck close enough to my own Argument, and too close to yours. Now Sir, as you well remember, you have for want of wiser remarks calculated at least ten times over in what Year of the Lord, and upon what day of the Month my several Books were born, and then, if you will compare it, you will find that the juncture of Affairs to which the first was accommodated, was at a certain Season after the Chatham Adventure, when you began to lift up your Heads, and to Nose your Governors, and to make bold demands in the name of your Consciences against the late illegal Impositions of King and Parliament. And you know what innumerable swarms of Pamphlets you were perpetually sending abroad only to declare to all his Majesty's good Subjects (that either were already out of humour, or had a mind so to be) that if himself or any other Civil Magistrate whatsoever shall presume to challenge or exercise any Authority over their Free born Consciences in any matters of Religion whatsoever, he usurps upon the Royalty of God, and involves himself in the guilt of Tyranny and Persecution. This was loud and broad enough to alarm the Church of England, we understood the men and their meaning; and had no mind (believe me) to have that comfortable settlement restored to Church and State by his Majesty's happy Restauration unravelled by these Men's bold and insolent Pretences. And therefore divers Persons out of pure Love for the Church, and Loyalty to their Prince, and Zeal to their Country, set themselves to beat back all your new Republican Pleas of Sedition, and to assert his Majesty's Prerogative against all your old Shifts of Dis-loyalty. Among the rest I had no more Wit than to thrust myself too forward into the Scuffle, and to pursue you too close through all your peevish Clamours and Pretences. For when I saw men of known and approved Enmity to the present State, buzz abroad such Exorbitant Principles among the Common-People, as flatly contradict all the Principles, and defeat all the Obligations of Government, I could not, I ought not to refrain from lashing such Lewd Designs with some Warmth and Smartness of Reproof, and if I have any where overlashed, it was out of an over-vehement Concern for the Peace and Prosperity of my Country; though for my own part I am not sensible of any one Expression that is chargeable with the least Harshness or Incivility; I have only expressed ill things by their Proper Names; and whereas both yourself and J. O. pour fourth in every Page incessant complaints of Railing and Reviling, that is but an Uncivil Word that you may throw at any man that you are not fond of; and it proceeds merely from your Old prodigious Pride and Partiality to yourselves, who whilst you make it both your Recreation and Employment to invent or blazon Slanders against the Innocent, rave and foam at all Conviction of guilt against yourselves. I have challenged you often enough to specify but one foul or false word in all my Writings, to name but one good Quality, that you possess, that I have not granted you, or one bad one, that you disclaim, and I have unjustly charged upon you, and I will be content to suffer all the Engines of Clergy men's Cruelty, the Pillory, the Whipping posts, the Galleys, the Rods, the Axes, and the Rhinolabides; nay what is a more desperate Penance than all this, I have stipulated to write a Panegyric in praise of the Good Nature of the Presbyterians, and the Sincerity of the Independants, and I think it would puzzle the Wit of Mankind to invent a severer Penalty, unless it were to write another in Commendation of your Wit and Learning. But whilst you continue this outcry against me only in general Terms without being able to produce particular Articles to vouch and justify it, you prove nothing but your want of breeding and better Arguments, and the Calumny when you cannot drive it home, recoils upon your own Heads. He that charges another of an uncivil Crime, when he cannot make it good, indites himself. And yet perhaps in spite of my Integrity I may have been too zealous for my King and Country, Plaindealing is too rough a Virtue for this false and self-designing Age. But be that as it will, and as for the decency of the manner of my treating you, when I have said all I can (and I have said too much already) I must leave it to the Judgement of the World. I am now only concerned to vindicate the matter of my discourses against you, and here I have laid open your juggling so plainly that 'tis a Reproach to Mankind that you should still persevere so immodestly in the same Impostures. This is no bragging, no man that had any consisistency in his Skull could have performed less in so plain and palpable a Case. For what can be more notorious than that  
1. When you exempt your Consciences from the jurisdiction of your Prince you exempt yourselves, both in that a man and his Conscience are one and the same thing, and in that he is not capable of any obligation of Laws, but purely by virtue of his Conscience.  
2. When you exempt matters of Religion from the same Power, you in effect exempt all things, there being nothing of any considerable weight or concernment in humane affairs, that is not matter of Religion, and much more so than those things that you contend about; and this dashes in pieces all your general pleas. But then  
3. As for your particular pleas of Scandal, and an unsatisfied Conscience, and unscriptural Ceremonies, etc. what can be more evident than  
1. That they are precarious and depend purely upon your own humours?  
2. That they are unavoidable in all Churches and all Constitutions in the world?  
3. That they are so unreasonable as that they may be adapted or applied to subvert all Government in the Church as well as ours, even your own? And if after all this you will not learn to be quiet and peaceable, you will first or last thank yourselves for something that must follow; and then your being big with conscience will not serve to reprieve you: You are ferreted out of all your subterfuges, and they are laid open to the view and scorn of all men. And you have now nothing left to shelter yourselves, but only by slandering your Adversaries, and persuading the people (for you presume strangely upon their ignorance and stupidity) that whilst we assert His Majesty's Ecclesiastical Supremacy, we invest him with an unhoopable Jurisdiction; which being so bold and rank a forgery it is to all intelligent men, (i. e. all such as can either read or understand) an ample demonstration of a desperate and baffled Cause. But by the way, how is this consistent with what you as often suggest, that my design was to write against the Power of the King, and to animate the People against the exercise of his Ecclesiastical 
Pag. 278.  Supremacy? Are you not sufficiently furnished with informations against any man, that can in the same indictment charge him for plotting and attempting at the same time to assert the unlimited Power of Kings, and yet to allow them none at all; certainly between two such wide extremes a man can never want for materials to make out an impeachment. But how have I animated the People against the exercise of His Majesty's Supremacy? How! have I not written expressly against his Indulgence to tender Consciences? Not one syllable; you know well enough, I have only beat down and witnessed against your demands of Indulgence, when you challenge it from the King by virtue of your Natural and Religious Rights, and charge him as a Tyrant towards his Subjects, and a Rebel against God, if he presume to claim or pretend to any Jurisdiction over your Consciences or Religious Pretences; the insolence of this kind of talk was not to be endured, and therefore it was that I set myself to clear and defend His Majesty's Supremacy against such plain, and yet (to the Rout) plausible Principles of Anarchy and Confusion. But I was no where so presumptuous as to censure or condemn the measures 
Pag. 264.  he has taken of his Government; pardon me Sir for that, we of the Bran of the Church of England have modesty enough to submit to the wisdom of our Superiors, when ever they are pleased to declare their will and pleasure. And whatever may be my own private Opinion, neither I (nor any other good Subject) shall ever go about to confront it to the public Declarations of the State; so that as long as the Government shall think good to grant you Indulgence, assure yourself (whatever you simply surmise) I shall never trouble them with 
Pag. 144.  Remonstrances. They understand the turns and junctures of their own affairs, and are the most competent Judges what methods are fittest to procure both their own and our quiet. And though they should at any time mistake, yet if there were no other tye of duty, it is more eligible they should be complied with, than that their Government should be affronted, and the Commonwealth disturbed by every man that thinks himself wiser than his Governors. But Sir, though we are so dutiful to His Majesty as to submit to his granting Indulgence, if he apprehends it seasonable for his present Affairs; and as for his power of dispensing with Laws, by virtue of his Prerogative, we have nothing to do with it by virtue of our Office, it is a matter foreign to our Judicature; and therefore it is not only manners but duty in us to leave it to our Governors to adjust such disputes among themselves. But yet though we are so entirely submissive to our Prince, yet assure yourselves we shall never be so civil to you, as to suffer you to challenge a right to it in spite of his Power, and to extort it from him as he would not stand charged before God of Tyranny and Usurpation. You see now the vast difference between opposing the King's Power to give Indulgence, and yours to demand it; and whether he give it, or give it not, as he sees it most convenient for the ends of Government, concerns neither Me nor my Writings, seeing in both he exercises that Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, that I have asserted to be inherent in the Supreme Power. At least you see what reason I had to discourse of the King's Power, rather than the Churches, because that was the only Principle you endeavoured to batter down, and if once you could but tie up the Secular Arm, you valued not the strokes of the Spiritual Rod; so that had I opposed the Power of the Church to your attempts of Anarchy, it had been as wisely designed as to send forth a party of Churchmen to encounter a Brigade of Horse with their Spiritual Weapons. But because I see you are resolved not to spare for laying on load enough, and have the confidence to impeach or suspect a man of any thing that is odious, if he do not expressly protest against it, and because some other men that I have more reason to satisfy than yourself, have fallen into the same suspicion of Erastianism, take this short and plain account of the whole business, for the prevention of future mistakes. Religion then has a twofold End, either as it relates to the affairs of this present life, or of that which is to come, and so is enforced with a twofold Jurisdiction or Power of Coaction suitable to its respective ends. Now its design in reference to this present world is the peace of Societies, and the security of Government, and therefore it must be enforced by such sanctions as are proper to the attainment of that end, and those are secular rewards and punishments; so that this being the Office of the Civil Magistrate, or (as you word it according to that deep respect you profess to Princes) the trade of Kings, to provide for the safety or welfare of the Commonwealth, all his Jurisdiction must be temporal, and backed only by external inflictions, as suited only to the ends of his Authority. His Power then over Religion is of a Political Nature, and is intended to the same purpose as his Power over all other affairs of State, i. e. the public peace and prosperity, and therefore need only be exercised in the same way of Jurisdiction, and this is that Authority that I have all along asserted to be the natural and unalienable Right of all Sovereign Princes. But than secondly, its design in reference to the world to come is purely spiritual, and relates only to the welfare of the Souls of men hereafter, and therefore is to be prosecuted by such enforcements as are apt to govern Souls without laying restraints upon their bodies. Now the only sanctions proper in this case are the rewards and punishments of another life, and this is the power of the Ecclesiastic State Authoritatively to declare the Laws of God to the People, and to enforce their obedience to them from the threatenings and promises of the Gospel. And to this purpose did our blessed Saviour depute the Apostolical order or succession of Apostles to superintend the Affairs of his Holy Catholic Church; it is the right of their Office and Commission, to consult, advise, and determine in all disputes that concern the Government, and the welfare of all Christian Assemblies; and their Decrees are obligatory upon the Consciences of men, by virtue of their own proper Authority, and under their own proper penalties. For as all their Power is merely spiritual, so are all the Sanctions of their Laws, and therefore though they cannot by virtue of their own inherent Jurisdiction punish the disobedient with Civil and Secular inflictions, yet may they require and demand obedience to their constitutions under pain of the Divine displeasure, and the lash of the Apostolical Rod; and their sentence when regularly passed upon refractory offenders is valid and terrible as a decree of heaven; and if there be any truth or sense in our Saviour's words to the College of Apostles, that whatsoever they shall bind on Earth, shall be bound in Heaven; their Censures shall be approved and ratified by the judgement of the Almighty. And that man deserves the wrath of God that is want only rebellious and incorrigible to the soft and gentle discipline of his Church, this is such a desperate and malicious peevishness, that it does of itself consign a man up to final contumacy and utter impenitence. He is too stubborn, and too impudent to be reclaimed that dares rashly bid defiance to the wisdom and authority of his ghostly guides and governor's; but when the exterminating sentence is passed upon the Offender, it smites like the sword of an Angel, it throws him out of the Church, and the ordinary capacities of Mercy, and delivers him up to the wrath and judgement of God. And this is no more than what is necessary to the very Being and Preservation of all Society; in that Society cannot subsist without Order, nor Order without Authority, nor Authority without a Power of requiring and enforcing Obedience; and therefore if our Saviour have founded a Church in the world, and does design its continuance to the end of it, it is necessary he should provide for its Preservation by delegating some peculiar persons to govern and guide the Society by Laws and Penalties, otherwise his Church were no better than a wild and ungovernable Rabble, that only meet together by chance or by humour, and are under no enforcements of orderly and peaceable behaviour. And this would be a worthy representation of the Church of Christ, that it is only a Rout of rude People without Law or Government. But as it is necessary that Ecclesiastical Affairs should be governed, so is it that this should be done by Ecclesiastical persons, whose profession, and peculiar employment it is to study and understand those matters; and 'tis but reasonable to rely upon their judgement, who ought to be presumed best skilled in the nature of the thing, it is no more than what common prudence directs to in all other affairs of life to consult and trust every man in his own profession; we do not apply ourselves to Physicians for the settlement of our Estates, nor to Lawyers for the preservation and recovery of our healths. But men are to be entrusted and employed with regard to their own proper skill and office, and therefore though we should set aside the express Authority of our Saviour's commission to the Apostles and their Successors for the perpetual Government of his Church, the very rules of common prudence will cast the management of Ecclesiastical matters upon Ecclesiastical persons; and this is so avowed a principle among mankind, that the Jurisdiction proper to the Church was never yet invaded by any Laics, till t'other day the Tradesmen and Burghers of the Corporation of Geneva banished 
Vid. vit. Joan. Calvini.  their Prince and Bishop, and then took the Government both of Church and State into their own hands; and seated the Power of the Keys in Mr. Mayor and the Town-Clerk, and issued out Excommunications under the Town Seal, and every Fisherman upon the Lake Lemane, if he were a Livery man of the City, immediately became an Apostle, and the Spirit of Infallibility forsook the whole Order of Churchmen, and settled upon every illiterate Mechanic that had a bold Face and a loose Tongue. And with what Apostolical Wisdom and Gravity they made Religion itself ridiculous, Mr. Calvin himself has informed us particularly in the cases of Bertileir 
Vid. Epist. Calv.  and Perin, who were absolved from the Sentence of Excommunication by the 
Pag. 122.  Common-Council and under the Town-Seal. And 'tis observable that those States that have made bold to despise or disregard the Power of the Clergy, have always first prostituted the Revenues of the Church to the worst of men, and in a little time the Government of it to the Scorn and Contempt of the Common Rabble. And therefore all wise and pious Princes have ever chosen to govern Religion by the Counsel and Assistance of their Clergy, and to be determined in Inquiries of Faith by their Decrees and Declarations, for though all Power of External Coercion be vested in the Civil Magistrate, yet that of teaching and declaring the Law of God is the Right and Office of ecclesiastics; so that though they cannot force Princes to confirm and ratify their Decrees, yet may Princes be obliged by Virtue of an Higher Authority, by regard to Piety and Religion, by the Order and Decency of things, to have reference to their Judgements; though if they will not, it is not in the Power of the Church to call them to an account for their Proceedings (as the men of Rome and Geneva talk) That shall be demanded at an higher Judicature; they can only declare and discharge their Duty, and leave the pursuance of their Cause to the Judgement of God. For in all Affairs whatsoever capable of External Cognizance the Supreme Civil Power must and will overrule; this is absolutely necessary to the Order and Preservation of Government, and the World must be governed as they will, or not be governed at all. And thus have I briefly proved that the Clergy must be vested with some Power peculiar to themselves both from the Institution of Christ and the nature of Society, for as much as the Constitution of the Church as such is distinct from that of the Civil State, so that all Christians are obliged to the Visible Profession of the Name of Christ, not only without the leave, but against the Edicts of the Supreme Authority of Kingdoms and Commonwealths. The next thing to be considered against Erastus is that their Office is not merely declarative or ministerial, but carries proper jurisdiction in all the Acts and Exercises of its Power, and enforces all its Decrees by Penalties and Inflictions; and wherever we find Coercion, there is all that can be required to the Nature and Exercise of Jurisdiction, that is nothing else but a Power of Imposing Laws and Inflicting Punishments, and whoever has a Right to both these Acts of Government, has all that Authority that is proper to Empire and Dominion; and whatsoever Privileges and Prerogatives of absolute Sovereignty we can imagine, they are all reducible to one of these swo Heads either a Power of requiring Obedience to its Commands or of punishing Disobedience by its Penalties, and both these are apparently included in the Priestly Office, that consists of two parts, first the Authoritative Power of Preaching, whereby they are enabled to declare Divine Laws under Penalty of the Divine Displeasure, and this is proper Legislation, and is declared to be so in his Original Commission granted by our Saviour to his Apostles and their Successors to the End of the World, in that he sent them as his Father sent him, to teach or disciple all Nations, whereby he derived upon them the same Power that himself was furnished with from above to pursue the same ends, so that if he himself were entrusted with any proper Jurisdiction, he has conveyed and imparted the same to the Apostolical Office and Order, and that he was so is an unquestionable and granted Case on all sides, and therefore he himself found'st the Validity of their Commission upon the Right of his Power. All Power in Heaven and Earth (says he) is given me of my Father, therefore go, etc. I am now enthroned Sovereign Lord of the whole Creation, and the Exercise of all my Father's Power is entrusted to my Management, and therefore in the first place I appoint and Authorise you and your Successors in my Name and by Virtue of my Supremacy to take care of the Guidance and Instruction of my Church, this is the Office and Power to which you are deputed next and immediately under myself, in the Discharge and Execution whereof I engage all my Power to be immediately assistant to you to the end of the World. So that it is plain that their Power of Preaching and Declaring the Laws of the Gospel is properly Authoritative and of the same Nature though of a Subordinate force with our Saviour's own Dominion over Mankind, and all Men by Virtue of his Command and his Commission are bound to give Obedience to their Doctrines, in the right and Faithful Discharge of their Trusts, as to the Authorized Stewards of his Mysteries. And then as for the other part of the Power of the Keys or Church Censures, it is as full of Jurisdiction as any Secular Power whatsoever; it judges, gives Sentence, and inflicts Punishment in Criminal Causes, and though they do not execute their own Judgement but leave it to the Divine Justice, yet where God has promised to abett their Censures by his immediate Power, 'tis the same thing as to all the purposes of Government, as if it were done by the stroke of their own Arm, and though they did but only minister to the Divine Judgement, as to these immediate Inflictions of Heaven, yet the sentence itself is a severe instance and exercise of Coercive Jurisdiction; it cuts a man off from all the Advantages of the Communion of Saints, and of our Saviour's Incarnation, and that is a Capital Execution, and more affrightful to any man that makes Profession of the Christian Faith than all the Rods and Axes and Pillories and Whipping-posts of the Secular Power.  
And as their Authority carries in it true and proper Jurisdiction, so is it in its Kind, Supreme, Universal and uncontrollable; and extends to all Nations; Ages and Conditions. Kings and Princes are subject to the Spiritual Authority of their Doctrines, they have Souls to be conducted to Heaven as well as their Subjects, and therefore stand as much in need of Spiritual Guides and Instructors; for if Christ have entrusted the Spiritual Government of his Church in the hands of his Apostles and their Successors, than all its Members of what Rank and Quality soever are regularly to make inquiries, and receive determinations of Conscience from their Mouths; and when the Bishop reproves his Prince of any enormous Vice, if he refuse to hear him, he sins against the Command of God, who has given him Authority in his name to declare and to bind every man's Duty upon his Conscience under pain of the Divine Displeasure, and it is an equal Aggravation of Gild in all men before God to break his Commands against the Sentence and Declaration of his Officers. This is so clear and obvious a Truth, that if there be any Divine Institution or perpetual Necessity of a Priestly Office in the Church, the greatest must be equally bound with the least to Obedience, not by the Coercion of Secular Penalties, but by the Ties of Religion and the Judgements of God. I mean not hereby to excuse the boldness and insolence of those men that take upon them to upbraid and expose their Prince with public and Pulpit Reproofs. This is to abuse the Dignity of their Office into the Ill-manners and Sedition of the Kirk, that insulted in nothing more than putting affronts upon Kings, and exposing them and their Authority to the contempt of the Rabble. No, but all Addresses to Superiors must be private, and prudent, and modest, and though Kings may and aught to be informed of their duty as well as Subjects, yet it must be done with all the Arts of Gentleness and Humility; and if any man shall abuse his Sacerdotal Freedom to vent unhandsome and disgraceful Reflections upon his Superiors, he deserves (as much as you do) the Scorn of a Buffoon and the Correction of the Stocks.  
And now from these Premises it is very easy to determine the bounds of the Imperial and the Priestly Power, notwithstanding that both are and must be acknowledged Supreme in their several Kind's. The Prince is Supreme and Absolute over all things and persons within his own Dominions, as far as they concern the Affairs of this present Life, but yet when they are considered purely as relating to the Life to come, the Priest is Superior; and therefore in all cases of Competition (whenever they happen) he can only refer the Justification of himself and his Cause to the future Judgement of God, but at present he must be content either to obey the Commands, or (if in Cases of manifest Obedience to God he cannot) to submit to the Authority of his present Superiors; and if it be his Fortune to oppose the Judgement of his Prince, there is no remedy but he must suffer his Lot, and rather choose to be endamaged in his own private affairs than that Government should be disturbed or defeated for his sake. Here then is no interfering of the two Jurisdictions, the exercise of the one is Spiritual, and of the other Secular; and so being of different natures, and to different ends, they may both without any material inconvenience be supreme in their different kinds, and if the Ecclesiastical State shall at any time think itself obliged to controwl the civil power, it is only of a spiritual efficacy, and brings no direct disadvantage to the supreme Authority, because it has ordinarily no visible force but in the World to come, and that makes no alteration in the present state of things. So that the exercise of the supreme civil Power is as uncontrollable as if it were absolute and not limited by the spiritual, because at present it must prevail as to the Government of the World, and the effectual execution of its Decrees. And thus have I (to avoid dull or wilful mistakes) as briefly as the nature of the Subject would permit, proved the necessity of a spiritual Authority in the Church as a distinct society by itself, and in order to its peace here and the salvation of its members hereafter. And then that it is not a merely ministerial Office, but is Authoritative to all the intents and purposes of Jurisdiction, and in the next place that it is supreme and uncontrollable in its own kind by any other Power whatsoever, and lastly that its spiritual Supremacy is no infringement to the civil Rights of Sovereign Princes, in that their Power must notwithstanding all Countermands whatsoever overrule in the present Government of the World. And now I hope you see how plainly the spiritual Power of the Church is reconcileable with the Ecclesiastical Supremacy of Kings, and that there is no necessity (as you dream) that whoever asserts one must unavoidably cashier the other. And upon review of the whole ●●ate of the controversy, 'tis some comfort and satisfaction to me, that as I have not vested the civil Magistrate with any other Power than what is and ever has been challenged by all Commonwealths in the World, so I never could meet with any thing objected against it, but what proceeded purely from malice or inadvertency. And that is all the trouble I have been put to both by you and J. O. to vindicate easy and honest assertions from wilful or sleepy Mistakes.  
But the great Misprision of all, and that approaches nearest to Treason against modern Orthodoxy is my presuming to trample upon your great secret of symbolical Ceremonies, which hard word is now become the only remaining Palladium of your Cause, and Idol of your Conventicles, for in our days it is not with you as it was from the Reign of good Queen Elizabeth quite down to that of the Good Long Parliament. The Good Gentlemen of those times had the Holy Discipline, and the Sceptre of the Lord Christ to rattle in the People's and the Prince's ears; but those good days are gone, and the Kirk-discipline when it came to be put in practice, though it were an Iron rod upon the backs of Kings, yet it proved such a wooden Sceptre among the Common People, that it quickly wore itself into sport and contempt, and all the little Folk that waged War with so much zeal and fury against Prelacy and Antichrist, only aimed their strokes at random, and railed and raged at they knew not what, till at last they became ashamed at the littleness of their own Pretences, and how little all of them were able to perforn in behalf of the Divine Right of Presbytery sufficiently appears to the world by the great Smectymnuan labours. Nothing but a complicated dulness could ever have brought forth such a phlegmatic and insipid Pamphlet, and no man has now so little wit, or so much confidence as to own, much less to appear in defence of such a contemptible and baffled Cause, or if there should remain a Scot or an High-Lander so unalterably peevish, he lies below both our scorn and our confutation. But though their Principles have forsaken them, yet they (so invincible is their constancy) will never forsake their Principles, but having once been drawn into a Revolt from the Church by a manifest Imposture, they have too much stomach to confess their fault so far as only to return back to her Communion; and therefore Covenant one and all to stand firm to their party, and justify themselves as they can. And then the result of all their Messages, Remonstrances and Declarations is the illegal and arbitrary imposition of unscriptual Ceremonies, by which (when we come to treat more closely) they mean nothing else but only those three established in the Church of England, for they themselves never stick to allow or practise any others, so these be excepted. And had you wit and learning enough to judge of Nonsense, you would even cross yourself (were it not a Popish Symbol) to observe what a deal of Metaphysics J. O. has lavished away upon this Argument. But alas, you show so little judgement, as to slide over his great depths of subtlety, and fix upon speculations so wretchedly shallow, that every man has wit enough to fathom their folly. Thus I verily believed I had in my first Book acquitted myself manfully enough towards battering down this Theological Scarecrow, that you have set up in the high places of Armageddon to fray away the People, or rather Boys and Girls from the Communion of the Church; by showing that it is so far from being a crime in any Ceremonies to be significant and symbolical, that it is their only nature and office so to be; that the signification of all Ceremonies is equally arbitrary; that it is of the very same kind, and to the very same purpose with that of words; and therefore that all tender Consciences have the same reason to be offended at the one as the other. These I thought in the simplicity of my heart solid and satisfactory notions, and counted upon it that we should never more be annoyed with such a thin and empty bubble. But behold out stalks the great Leviathan J. O. and pours upon me such a volley of Distinctions, as would have stunded a whole Regiment of stouter and more experienced Schoolmen than myself. In the first place he distinguishes (very subtilely!) between the Appointment and the Institution of 
Pag 277, 8, 9, 10.  Ceremonies, the first he allows of, but the last is or may be blasphemy. From hence he advances to distinguish between natural and customary signs, and then of customary signs, between Catholic and Topical, and these all pass muster. But as for all such wicked signs as signify neither by Nature nor by Custom, but only by virtue of their Institution, they are full of such rank and desperate Idolatry, that the people of God ought rather than suffer themselves to be defiled with them, to tear the Church into Schisms, and the State into Wars, to murder and banish Kings, to subvert the Government and destroy Religion. At their own peril therefore be it (as he threatens them) if Magistrates will be venturing at such a dangerous extravagance of power, because  
1. They have not any absolute Authority over the sign and thing signified.  
2. They cannot change their Natures, nor create a new relation between them.  
3. They cannot give a mystical and spiritual efficacy to them. And then lastly, as for the signification of words that I have paralleled with that of Symbols, the Schoolmen have demonstrated it, that when they are signs of sacred things, they are signs of them, only as things, but not as sacred. Here are dragons and deeps; it were worth a man's while to work in the Mines of Metaphysics for such Jewels as these; this is gibberish strong enough to make a Rosi-crucian mad, and were J. O. in good earnest, I should (notwithstanding all Quarrels) be so much his friend as to provide him a dark lodging and clean straw. But what wretched fooling this is, any man that has a mind to the sport, may see in my Reply to him where I gave myself the divertisement of ferreting him from distinction to distinction, i. e. from nonsense to nonsense. And methinks it is no unpleasant sight to see a poor Rat thus to work and traverse it about, to find some little hole wherein he may hide his baffled head, & when he can hope for no other shelter then to stand still and wink hard. But as for your part though you are in the very same straits, yet you have the confidence to think yourself close, with your eyes open, and all the world staring at you. Thus whereas your most astonishing objection from Cartwright downwards (for just where he begun you have all left off, and stand like the statue of Erasmus in the posture of turning over a leaf, but without ever turning it over will stand in the same posture to the day of judgement) against the Institution of Symbolical Rights, is, that it is no less an attempt than to entrench upon the Divine Prerogative by offering to institute new Sacraments, J. O. in particular expresses his sense of it thus, that to say that the Magistrate has power to institute visible signs of Honour to be observed in the 
Pag. 277.  outward worship of God, is upon the matter to say, that he has power to institute new Sacraments; for so such things would be. For this I took him up somewhat roundly as he deserved, I upbraided him with the precariousness of the Cavil; I challenged him with that plain answer that he could not but know had always been returned to it, viz. that Divine Institution is the only thing necessary to the nature and the office of a Divine Sacrament, and so at last I dared him to renounce his Argument if he would not take notice of his answer. And I could do no less, when they have for above one hundred and fifty years together vexed and haunted us with such a new-fangled nothing. To all this what do you reply? why, after a tedious deal of forced mirth and grinning you gravely inform us that the Non-conformists were never 
Pag. 218.  so silly as to attempt to prove that these Symbolical Ceremonies are indeed Sacraments. Nothing less, 'tis that which they most labour against. And now is it not time for me to cry Victory and Triumph, when I have put an end to so long and bloody a War, when I have gained all that we have fought for ever since Cartwrights Rebellion, when you yourself have resigned up the Controversy, and tied all their Champions and their Chiefteins to my Chariot wheels? Are you not a trusty Patron of the dear Brethren and their dear Cause to give them all up thus broadly for a generation of egregious and incorrigible blockheads, should they ever be so weak as to go about to prove that these Symbolical Ceremonies are indeed Sacraments? When it is the very Curtana of the Cause, when it is the only weapon wherewith Cartwright gored the Bowels of the Church, and that has been transmitted successively to all their Champions down to J. O. and the Cobbler of Gloster; when it is so undeniably upon record in all their writings; when it is the subject of so many whole Books; and when it is still the last word of all their brawls and contentions. So that you say well, It is time indeed for the 
Pag. 218.  Non-conformists to desire a truce to bury their dead, nay, there are none left alive to desire it, but they are slain every mother's son of them. But it is you that are Sir Solomon or the dead-doing Scanderbag, that have laid them all a gasping, and not left such a Creature as a Nonconformist in Nature. Was ever Cause thus defended, or men thus abused, to be marked out for a succession of incurable dunces for spending so much zeal and logic in so absurd a Cause. But poor J. O. what an unfortunate wretch art thou, that thou art an old Cob-nut in Controversy, conqueror of Scores upon scores, in comparison of whose Eristical prowess both Sir Solomon and his Sword were but wooden tools; that when thou wert so unfortunately and so unexpectedly dashed to pieces, that then thou shouldst be so strangely unhappy or unadvised, as to hire such an empty and unkerneled shell as this to avenge thy ruin, a thing so soft and harmless that a pellet of dough or soft clay would have done as much execution, and yet so silly and ignorant too that he knows not on which side to play his strokes, and as lamentably bruised as thou art, has discharged all his little strength upon thine own head. He has droled upon you (as far as his wit would give him leave) in as many capacities as you have passed through Providential Revolutions; he sometimes abuses you, as tall I the Consonant, and sometimes as little I the Vowel; sometimes he makes sport with you, as in Conjunction with O, sometimes as at opposite points; sometimes you are a Talisman i. e. (as much as you detest it) an Idolatrous Image, and sometimes an He-cow, i. e. either a Bull or an Ox, and at last a very man with an hot head, a wide mouth, a rude tongue, rotten teeth, and long nails, with abundance more of such small tap-lash and blue- John that he has wantonly squirted upon your venerable and immortal Name. And then after all this has recorded you for a dull and senseless tool upon supposition that you could be so simple and weak-headed as to assert, what he could not but know you have given under your own hand in legible black and white. And now have you not all reason to join throats to rail down that villainous Engine the Press, and the drunken Dutchman that would not be content with the Winepress; not for contriving (as you accuse him) those innumerable Syntagms of Alphabets that have ever since pestered the world; for there is not one Alphabet now extant, that was not reduced into the Syntagm of a Cris-cross row some ages before the Dutchman was born, except only the Universal Character, and that was invented some Ages since. I had almost forgot J. O's Primer, that would never suffer the Letters to be ranged under the Conduct of a Cris-cross: For having of his own head disbanded the Lord's Prayer, he was Commissioned by Authority of Parliament to cashier or at least new model the Cris-cross-row; and what reformation he wrought in the several squadrons of vowels, mutes, semivowels, etc. I shall not here relate; but as for the poor Cross, that was without any mercy turned out of all service, not because it kept always so close to the Loyal or malignant party, but because it was a mere symbolical Ceremony set there on purpose to transform a plain english Alphabet into a Popish Cris-cros-row. A great and pious work! worthy the pains of so great a Divine, and the Wisdom of so long a Parliament.  
But to return; has not your beloved Press after all your fondness sold you a sweet bargain, and more than turned her tail upon you? With what zeal and courage have you asserted its Liberty from the bondage of Imprimaturs and the Inquisition of Prelates? What stiff and stubborn Homilies have you made to make it good that the suppression of a good Libel is no less than Martyrdom, and 
Areo pag Pag. 4.  if it extend to the whole Impression a kind of Massacre, whereof the Execution ends not in the slaying of an Elemental Life, but strikes at that ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of Reason itself, slays an Immortality rather than a Life? Such fustian bombast as this past for stately wit and sense in that Age of politeness and reformation. Have you suffered Banishment and Persecution together; has the Engine been content to wander with so mean a fellow as Newman the Cobbler through almost all Counties of the Kingdom for the sake of publishing seditious and abusive Pamphlets; has it drawn yourselves and your un-cris-crossed Letters into seditious words and meetings? and then (villain as it is▪) does it turn informer? and when you had thought you had confidence enough to outbrazen all accusations by word of mouth, & to forswear your own most avowed Principles and most notorious practices, what a surprising trepan is this, that this perfidious and apostate Engine should betray all, and produce your own Writings and Records against yourselves? What think you now of a public Tooth-drawer to wrench out its old ugly rotten teeth? there is no outfacing this printed black and white, and nothing could be more rashly and indiscreetly done than for you to attempt it. You had been a prudent man indeed, had you applied yourself too J. O. and the rest of your good masters that set you on work, and paid you your wages, and told them plainly, Gentlemen you engage at such mighty disadvantage on that side of the question that you have hitherto undertaken, that it is not possible for humane confidence to defend your cause. Burn therefore all your old Puritan books, wheel about to the opinion of the Church of England, and force them to wheel about to yours, and then if you yourselves will but stand stoutly to it for face and conscience let Crop alone. But now when you have done this of your own head, and without any of their Commission; you have as it falls out, only betrayed their cause and your own ignorance, to cross thus awkerdly with their great and master-principle. And this, as it happens, proves at last the most pleasant scene of all your folly (though you have blundered so shamefully in every thing you have offered at) for as if you had long owed yourself a shame and were now resolved to pay off all Arrears with Interest, in the very same unhappy Paragraph where you deny it with so much resentment and indignation in the name of all the Nonconformists in the known and habitable parts of the Earth, that to institute new signs in the worship of God is to institute new Sacraments, you are (so unhappy are you) wonderfully enamoured of that pertinent passage directly to the contrary cited out of St. Augustine's ten Volumes by J. O. Signa cum ad res divinas pertinent, sunt sacramenta, (so his M S. reads it, though in your own and all other printed Copies it is read Sacramenta appellantur.) Now by this J. O. without doubt intended to prove (as he immediately subjoins) that these things are real Sacraments or pretend to be so fully and effectually to all intents and purposes; could any man than that were not bewitched or bereft of his Understanding, be so ravishingly taken with this little scrap as you are, if he were not seriously of J. O's mind, that our symbolical Ceremonies are Sacraments indeed? And yet this ignorance (as wretched as it is in itself) is sadly aggravated, if we consider from how small advantage and to what little purpose you have raised all this noise and triumph. For J. O. having (as you confess) forgot to quote Book and Page, I thought myself under no indispensable engagement to examine its truth or regard its Authority, and therefore vouchsafed it no other answer than to tell him that it was neither civil nor ingenuous to trouble me or any man else with such objections as could not be answered without reading over eight or ten large Volumes in Folio. No man is bound by the Laws either of duel or disputation (as you know and no man better) to supply his enemy's defects, so that if J. O. forgot book and page, all the World will throw all the blame upon him alone; and yet here (after the manner of your modesty) you crow and insult over me as a timorous and cowardly Craven, that was glad of any excuse to shift or escape the challenge, though I am confident no wight living could have had the confidence to do it beside yourself; for say what you will, it is too unreasonable to expect that I should search ten Voluminous Tomes for one line, only because J. O. either did not or could not quote Book and Page. Yes, but I could not possibly miss so remarkable a passage, when it was so dirtied with the Non-conformists Thumbs. But that is more 
Pag. 212▪  than I knew or could be obliged to know before; and this is the first time that ever I heard of such familiar acquaintance between the Fathers and the Non conformists, however I read them not either with their Glosses or their Spectacles, at least I find none of their dirty Thumb nails in my Patron's Library. Who but such a Wit as you could put himself into so good humour with so small taplash as this? But yet if I will promise not to laugh 
Ibid.  at you, you will tell me in the simplicity of your heart, where even you your own self have met with it, viz. Ep. quintâ ad Marcellinum. And because you profess to do it in the simplicity of your heart, for once, if I can refrain at so unhappy a blunder, I will not laugh, no, you rather deserve to be scourged for so gross and impudent a falsehood; for it is undeniably plain from your own Quotation, that you never read it in St. Austin himself, but either J. O. or some other secret friend transcribed it to your hands, and so have unwarily imposed upon your ignorance a fifth Epistle to Marcellinus, whereas (as Fortune would have it) the fourth is the last that ever he writ to him, and that which you quote for the fifth is the first. But had they been as careful to prevent your mistake as they ought to have been either for your or their own credit, they ought to have set it down thus, Ad Marcellinum: and then have added Epistola Quinta, i. e. the fifth Epistle in order as they are placed in Erasmus' Edition; but when you quote Epistola Quinta ad Marcellinum, you need not have informed us that you did it in the simplicity of your heart; tho' when you add that you have done this out of your own reading, you betray something else beside your simplicity. And whereas you profess that you have taken all this pains to save me a labour, I do not see but you have left me as much to seek as J. O. did, unless you had set down not only Book and Page but Tom and Edition; for otherwise after all the directions you have given me, and your Author gave you, there is no remedy but I must be forced to turn over all St. Augustine's Works, to find out his Epistle to Marcellinus, and that had been a pretty task of itself, but if I had searched after the fifth Epistle to Marcellinus I might have pored till the day of Judgement: so that it was great Fortune that I at first light upon the Edition of Erasmus, where the first Epistle to Marcellinus happens to be the fifth of that Tome. But now after all to requite your kindness (I mean your good will) I care not though I confess to you in private; that I was not ignorant of the passage itself, not that I have ever read it in St. Austin, or observed it dirtied with the Thumbs of the Non-conformists, but I remembered that it was much teased and bandied up and down by the Schoolmen in their taplash disputes upon Sacraments and Sacramentals, yet I shifted it off upon himself to find out his own Quotation, because I knew either that he had picked it up at all adventure, or if he had not, then (which is somewhat worse) that himself knew it to be both false and impertinent. And I did not think it worth while (as I then declared) to trouble the World with too industrious a gleaning of all his impertinencies after so plentiful an harvest, but now those little Misadventures that I then refused to prosecute for their triflingness, I am forced to expose only to stifle your more daring and unlearned Clamours. In short then J. O. had made very bold with his Text, as he always does for his own convenience, and confidently read sunt Sacramenta instead of appellantur Sacramenta; a good reasonable improvement of the Father's words, and becoming the modesty of the man. And now have you not raised this great noise upon this little Quotation to very wise purpose, when all you gain by it is only to discover that your friend has grossly prevaricated? This might have been your answer had the Quotation served at all for your purpose, as it does not; for St. Austin speaks not there of the Institution of signs in general, but only of such as are established by Divine Authority, and 'tis these and none but these that he says become Sacraments of Religion by virtue of their institution. For the plain design and occasion of his discourse was this: Marcelnus had been disputing with some body in defence of the Christian Faith (as there are in all Ages a sort of little conceited Folk, that have no other way to pass themselves for wits than by picking up Quarrels against Religion.) His Adversary objects to him, that if the Jewish Sacrifices were at first well and wisely instituted, they ought never to have been abolished; if they were not, that then it is certain they were never instituted by Divine Authority. For a satisfactory Answer to this difficulty he writes to St. Austin, who flatly denies the consequence, because all sacrifices are of the nature of Sacraments; and all Sacraments are positive and arbitrary pledges of some intercourse between God and his Creatures, and so are in their own nature capable of change and variety, because their goodness and usefulness is not intrinsic, but depends purely upon their institution. So plainly does the good Father make Divine Institution, and nothing but that necessary to erect the office, and confer the dignity of a Sacrament. Who then beside J. O. could have been so unhappy as to press this passage to vouch that all signs whatsoever any way appointed and used in Divine Worship without Divine Institution are and must be Sacraments? I know no man more unfortunate in every thing he meddles with unless yourself, for though you flatly deny (what he positively affirms) that the Symbols of our Church are really of a Sacramental Nature, yet are you fond of this Quotation that can prove nothing else but that they must be so. But (proceed you) not content to affront the Holy Fathers, I defy the learned Schoolmen too, and that notwithstanding I had before owned them 
Pag. 2●3.  for the Authors of the Church of England's Divinity. Bravely sworn Crop! after this rate such pleasant company as you can never want for proofs; and though this is no flower of the Sun, yet I am sure it is something that justly deserves to be called a Rapper. I make these budgefellows the Patrons of our Church! no, I ever thought them (since I understood them) the greatest enemies of Christendom next to the Great Turk of Genevah. It is these that are your implacable Divines, your Jewish Zealots, your Guelphs and Gibellines, that are always stabbing one another with their Obs and Sols, and though I do not remember that they were wont very much to frequent Gaming Ordinaries, yet were they the greatest players of their age at push-pin and picquet, though they were not so venturous as always to stake pieces, that is for Dignitaries and Jack-Gentlemen; but they were true Gamesters that loved play for play sake, and the delight they took in wrangling, and to that purpose ranged themselves into several Factions, only to exercise their wit in dispute and contradiction. So that the Schoolmen in general, that were so divided in all points among themselves, could not be the Authors of the Church of England's Divinity; and therefore if it descended from these Doctors of the Game, it must have been from some particular Cast or Family, as of the Thomists or Scotists, the Nominals or Reals, etc. for they are branched into as many divisions and subdivisions as a Jewish Genealogy, or the Millecantons of fanatics. Now I doubt it will be found upon enquiry, that the design of the Church of England in her Reformation was to cashier all these Scholastic Innovations, and to retrieve the Old and Apostolical Christianity; and that the platform she propounded for her direction were not the decisions of the Schools, but the Holy Scriptures, and the four first general Councils. And therefore (as confident as you would seem to be in so course an untruth) I shall never be persuaded that I could ever be so far overseen as to make these brawling and contentious People the founders of the Doctrines and Articles of our Church. Who is able to deal with a man that is able to invent at so brave a rate? But farther yet, I did not put any direct slight upon the Authority of the Schoolmen, I only rejected J. O.'s quotation out of them for the same reason that I did that out of St. Austin, in that he was so far from vouchsafing a particular reference to Book, Chapter and Page, that he did not so much as deign to name any particular Author, no not so much as a particular Sect. Now I do verily believe there are very nigh a thousand great Books of Scholastic Divinity in the world, and then no man, I trow, could think it reasonable that I should sift so many heaps of rubbish only to examine J. O's integrity in a matter of such trivial concernment; especially when I was so fully satisfied of it at much smaller pains. And though it is a long time since I conversed with the Schoolmen, yet for all that I dare lay your own odds (it is the best argument in impudent cases) that there is no such idle subtlety in all their writings as this that J. O. has cast upon them, viz. where words are signs of sacred things, they are signs of them as things but not as sacred; for though I have no great opinion of their wisdom, yet I cannot believe them so palpably foolish. Though if any of them were so, I have already sent them their Answer by J. O. But here methinks you yourself after you have forsaken your Friends, and renounced their Cause, grow more nice and abstractive than these great Doctors of subtlety themselves, whilst you tell us, that though these Ceremonies are no Sacraments, yet are they so applied as if they were of a Sacramental Nature and Institution, 
Pag. 210.  and that therefore they are unlawful. If you mean that they are so applied by the Church of England as if they were of Divine Institution, you mean impudently; if you mean any thing else, you mean nothing. Yes, but they are imposed with 
Pag. 218.  so high a penalty, as that they want nothing of a Sacramental Nature but Divine Institution. That is to say, 1. That they want nothing of a Sacramental Nature, but a Sacramental Nature. 2. This is no more than what may be objected against all Laws and provisions of decency whatsoever, that have and must have a penalty annexed to them to enforce their Obligation. 3. This starts new Controversies, that were never so much as thought upon by the Schoolmen themselves, viz. 1. Whether to impose any thing that is in itself no Sacrament under an high penalty be to make it an as it were a Sacrament; and then 2. Whether it be unlawful for any Humane Authority to institute as it were Sacraments. These are weighty Controversies, and will no doubt at the day of judgement bear out all the enormities of Schism and Rebellion. And now if any man can play the fool at smaller Game than you have done, push-pin is too high for him, he is fit for no other employment than to catch shadows and Jackalents, for though they are mere nothings, yet to Children they appear as it were something.  
But the great thunderclap is still behind, for whereas I concluded that the Magistrates Power of instituting significant Ceremonies could be no more usurpation upon the consciences of men, than if the Sovereign Authority should take upon itself to define the signification of words, little suspecting any dangerous Plot against the State could have lurked itself under such a well-meant and (as I thought in the simplicity of my heart) such an harmless supposition as this, that a Sovereign Prince might, if he pleased, refine and alter the language of his Subjects without offering any violence to their Consciences. But upon this your blood rises, and your zeal kindles, and you thunder and lighten as if I had shaken the pillars of the Earth, and of the Government, and blown up the fundamental Liberties and Privileges of the Subject. Princes have Power over the signification of words! Heavens forbid! Such a penetration or transubstantiation of 
Pag. 231.  language would throw all into Rebellion and Anarchy, would shake the Crowns of all Princes, and reduce the world into a second Babel. This would destroy all the Records in the Tower, and Magna Charta, and the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity, and divide the whole Kingdom into Guelphs and Gibellines. Sure, the young man is seized with a fit of Lycanthropy, and will certainly run a Muck before next Full Moon; this is a madder attempt than that of digging through the separating Istmos of Peloponesus, or making a Communication between the Red-Sea and the Mediterranean; verily it is like continuing a straight line till it becomes a circle. So ignorant are these implacable Divines of the true Idea of Wisdom and State Policy. And if there be any Council more precipitate, more violent, 
Pag. 301.  more rigorous, more extreme than other, that is theirs. They never consider to what woeful straits the great Sancho reduced his Government by usurping to himself the Empire of Proverbs and Apothegms. Nor how even Augustus Caesar, though he was so great an Emperor and so 
Pag. 230.  valiant a man in his own Person was used to fly from a new word, though it were single, as studiously as a Mariner would avoid a Rock for fear of splitting. Is not this one of Bayes' similes, that was made before you had thought how to apply it? The Emperor avoid a new word as a Mariner does a Rock for fear of splitting! If it had been an hard word, it might have born a quibble, but sure that a new word should be able to split so great an Emperor, is very strange, unless it were very ridiculous; and any thing would have served the turn as well as the Mariner. As a Coward shifts a challenge for fear of being beaten, as a Child avoids a Wasps nest for fear of being stung, as a Mouse does a Cat, or a Thief does the Gallows, or as any thing does any thing, for there is nothing but is afraid of something. Ay, but young man this is too serious a thing to be jested with, what! must you be flouting at the Emperor Augustus as well as Doomsday and Queen Elizabeth? When you name Augustus, let me tell you, as I have elsewhere upon the bare mention of Sardanapalus, that though I would not willingly be such a fool, 
Pag. 148.  as to make a dangerous similitude that has no foundation, yet it is manifest that some body else is intended, for he was a Prince, and his Father was murdered too; and every similitude must have though not all yet some likeness; So that whenever 
Ibid.  you speak any ill thing of Augustus, or Julian, or Sardanapalus, or any other of your uncontrollable Creatures, we know your meaning, and who it is you aim at. And thus by this ridiculous way of forcing a mystical sense out of my words do you take leave to dart such impudent and ignominious reflections upon your Superiors, as are not to be expiated by whipping posts and Pillories. But now it is no wonder to see you every where as angry at Roman Empire as at Ecclesiastical Policy; for that too is perpetually selling you bargains. Would you but tell me in the simplicity of your heart where you your own self read this story of Augustus; I am confident it was either in the second Decad of. T. Livius or the fifth Epistle to Marcellinus. For Sir, whoever imposed here too upon your ignorance, assure yourself there is no such saying of Augustus upon record in Roman story. But to deal plainly with you and undeceive you, this passage is fathered upon one Julius Caesar, That was a lover of elegancy of stile, and could endure no man's Tautologies but his own. And yet nothing could distaste him more than an affected and fantastic word, he would have turned a man out of his Secretary's Office for such language as this, Lycanthropy, Trincling, Disvalising, Pick-thankness, ornaments of Deformity, unhoopable Jurisdiction, etc. and would sooner have split than have been so pedantic himself. The passage I speak of is a certain fragment of a lost Book that he writ de Analogiâ, cited by Agellius l. 1. c. 10. and Macrob. l. 1. Saturn. c. 5. Habe semper in memoriâ atque in pectore, ut tanquam scopulum sic fugias inauditum atque insolens verbum. A round and well couched period as it is here expressed, though as you have translated it, nothing can be more flat and insipid, fugias tanquam scopulum, i. e. fly from it as studiously as a Mariner would avoid a Rock for fear of splitting. Your way of translating is not like fat Sir John Falstaffs singular dexterity in sinking. Even thus Personam endure signifies to put on the person of, and to put on the person of signifies to act a part in a Play; so that if our Saviour did Personam endure, or put on the person of a Jewish Zealot, it follows, that he was a Player as well as a Cutthroat. You have truanted so long about Charing-Cross and Lincolns-inn-fields, that you have forgot all your Latin. Go you old dunce to your Phrase Book, and there learn the signification of Personam endure. But what if J. Caesar avoided the affectation of a new word as he would a splitting rock, it was not out of any reason of State, or for fear of raising Tumults and Rebellions, but purely out of that aversation that so great a Wit as he could not but have to pedantry; so that this story is calculated for the use of Schoolmasters, and not of Kings, and by consequence might have been spared here. But you proceed, Come, come young man forbear your mirth and mockery, assure yourself this Dominion of words is a dangerous thing. How many millions of men did it cost your Roman Empire to attain it, did you never read the sad stories how many childless Mothers were made at Languedoc 
Pag. 230.  by the difference between Faves and Haves at one time, and at another between Crabe and Crabre, with many other bloody tales that might be enlarged upon, if one would be learnedly impertinent? And do you think you have not 
Ibid.  all this while been unlearnedly so, to hunt up all these impertinent stories to no imaginable purpose, unless it be to warn Kings not to provoke their good Subjects to Rebellion for every trifle, but to condescend to them for peace-sake, 
Pag. 243.  and the quiet of mankind? For you are admirably skilled, no man better, in the History of Revolts and Seditions, and Princes are obliged to con you thanks for the pains you have taken to mind them of all the slight causes and pretences that have been seized on by wanton and stomachful Rebels, that they may beware of the like provocations, lest they meet with the like events. And these idle stories you are continually preaching in the ears of Princes, but not a syllable of advice or exhortation to Subjects to persuade them to a modest and peaceable behaviour towards their Superiors. No, though Kings, and men of Courtly breeding and great Quality have or aught to have so much manners and civility, as to condescend to their Inferiors, 
Pag. 248.  and if one have got a cold to force them to be covered, or if a man have an antipathy against any thing, to be so civil as to refrain the use of it, however not to press it upon the Person, with many more pretty resemblances, though (as you inform us) there is no end of similitudes, and as you employ them no use neither. But alas! such mannerliness as this is not to be expected from men of private condition and breeding, and if His Majesty be pleased to stand cap in hand to a high-shoons Clown, though he have a cold, who can blame the Boor if he have not so much Courtship and Ceremony, as graciously to desire his worship to put on? The Common People are to be pardoned their rudeness for their want of education: and if at any time they behave themselves stubbornly and saucily to their Superiors, they will out of discretion connive at their infirmities, and out of common humanity yield to their follies. But no wise Prince will ever by unnecessary impositions disoblige his good Subjects, and force them to rebellious practices for a trifle or an uncivil word. And what a lump of History have you here presented to Kings to terrify them from making too bold, and being too saucy with their people, Pag. 244, 5, 6? And if we take away some simpering phrases, and timorous introductions, your Collection will afford as good Precedents for Rebellion and King-killing, as any we meet with in the writings of J. M. in defence of the Rebellion and the Murder of the King. But that which most of all betrays the wretchedness of your design, is, that you throughout either misreport or equivocate so elaborately, that you cannot but be fully convinced within yourself that you have forged Relations to no other purpose than to represent the weakness of Government, and the feasibleness of Rebellion as we shall have occasion to examine hereafter; in the mean while be your idle stories never so false, they are much more impertinent. For, what if wise Kings be taught by these examples to condescend to their Inferiors, and to connive at the infirmities (i. e. seditious spirits) of their people for fear of daggers and revolts? What if it be as dangerous for a Prince to take a man by the tongue, as a Bear by the tooth? What if bloody wars have been occasioned by the difference of an accent or a syllable? And a letter in the name of Beans and Goats have set a whole Province together by the ears? And what if Empire's have been shipwrackt upon a new word as Mariners split upon a rock? This only proves that it is an unwise and impolitic attempt to hazard a Crown out of fondness to an affected word. And though it may be an usurpation upon the People's Liberties, yet certainly it is none upon their Consciences, if the Sovereign Authority will take upon itself to define the signification of an uncertain and ambiguous phrase. And that is the parallel of our Case, viz. That whereas these men have from time to time and at all times raised such prodigious yells and clamours of Conscience against the determination of significant Ceremonies, 'tis enough to show that their signification is of the very same use and nature with that of words; so that people have no more ground of offence upon the score of Conscience against that than this. And yet no man's Conscience howsoever tender or peevish can ever pretend to be aggrieved with defining the signification of a doubtful word; and if it cannot, then has he as little ground upon that pretence to complain of the determination of any significant Ceremony. Though if the change of words may be of dangerous consequence to the Government of the State, that is a consideration of another nature, and that concerns not my Analogy between words and symbols, that are in this debate to be considered only as matters of Conscience and not of Policy. So that if a new and unpresidented word do not endanger the shipwrecking of a man's Conscience, that is enough to evince that neither is a new Ceremony a more splitting rock than a new word; and is this may prove mischievous upon other scores, viz. that it would render all Laws uncertain, that it would defeat the Act of Oblivion, that it would spoil the Declaration of Indulgence to tender Consciences, and throw all back again into Anarchy and Rebellion: Yet what is all this to the signification of Ceremonies, that may be altered ten thousand different ways without making any alteration of the Laws? So that howsoever impracticable and of whatsoever ill consequence the imposition of words may sometimes prove, there is not the least shadow of ground from thence to conclude (as you do) that of Ceremonies to be no less pernicious. And this I hope is enough to prove that you have been sufficiently impertinent, though how learnedly you have been solsuppose needs no proof. And yet after all this astonishment (if it were to any purpose) this very power of defining and circumscribing the signification of words, that you fancy so splitting a rock, has ever been used and challenged by all Lawgivers as an essential ingredient of the Sovereign Power, in that without it, it is very difficult if not altogether impossible to avoid ambiguity of Laws. A man of your humour that had a mind to be learnedly impertinent might heap up innumerable instances to this purpose. But if you have either will or leisure to consult the Civil Law, Lib. 50, Digest. Tit. 16. de verborum significatione, you will there meet with three or four hundred particular examples. I shall only trouble you that are or may be an English Senator with two or three out of our own Laws. The first occurrs in an Act of Parliament Primo Eliz. for the Uniformity of Common-Prayer and Service in the Church, and administration of Sacraments, where it being enacted that the Book of Common-Prayer and no other form shall be used at all open Prayer, the Act itself fixes and defines the meaning of open Prayer, viz. that by it is meant that Prayer, which is for others to come unto or hear, either in common Churches or private Chapels or Oratories, commonly called the service of the Church. And in another Act (as I take it) of the same year it is positively defined that no matter or cause shall from that time forward be adjudged Heresy, but only such as heretofore have been adjudged to be Heresy by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first four general Councils, or by any other general Council, where the same has been declared Heresy by the express and plain words of the said Canonical scriptures, or such as hereafter shall be adjudged Heresy by the high Court of Parliament of this Realm, with the assent of Clergy in their Convocation. And within our own memory there have happened Cases in which the Parliament have ventured to define not only the signification of words but the nature of things, as you know they determined not long since without advising with the Royal Society that Brandee belongs properly and formally to the specific Essence of Spirits. So that it seems this Power has sometimes been reduced to practice without throwing all into Rebellion and Anarchy, and shaking the Crowns of Princes, and reducing the World into a second Babel. Though such an exorbitant and arbitrary exercise of it, as was challenged by your Presbyterian Long Parliament, was enough to dissolve all Governments and break up all societies in the World. For they had the impudence to impose such bold meanings upon words as flatly contradicted their common and customary signification. Thus could they make such sentences to be just and legal as were not fit to pass into Precedent in the like cases, that is to say such as themselves confessed by their own provision to be unjust and illegal; in that there can be no hurt or danger in lawful Prescriptions. Thus could they make a new and unheard-of sort of Treason called cumulative Treason, that is a great many no Treasons to make up a Treason. Thus a Delinquent signified any man that they had a mind to cut off for his Loyalty; and thus to make open preparations for Rebellion was to put the Kingdom into a posture of defence against all the King's enemies whether foreign or domestic, i. e. against the King himself and all his friends and Allies. But the dismal Calamities and Earthquakes that followed thereupon were the Consequences of the abuse of this Power, not of the Power itself, and so all Power of what kind soever if stretched to the same degrees of Tyranny, is as naturally productive of the same effects of Confusion.  
And now after all these nice and stubborn speculations about the abstracted and metaphysical Idea of symbolicalness, and after the Champions of your cause have for so long a time kept up this Ball or rather Bubble of Contention, even from Cartwright down successively to the present Age, you would like a cunning Rook turn the Tables upon us, and charge us as the Aggressours in this ridiculous dispute, i. e. after you have played the Children so long with this hard word that signifies nothing, and now too late perceive your folly in raising such an inveterate and implacable War upon such a slender pretence, you would (just as you dealt with his late Majesty, when you rebelled against him) lay the War at our doors, and upbraid us as if we had made all this stir about this wretched trifle, as if it were our Sir Solomon's sword, our dead-doing Tool wherewith we flatter ourselves to have done so much execution upon the Puritan Cause, and as if I myself had set up this hard word on purpose to be my Opponent. And thus would you 
Pag. 214.  cunningly slide your own wooden Dagger into our hands, when it is manifest that we are altogether on the defensive part, and are so far from using any weapons of offence, that we never so much as employed a Shield to ward off your Thrusts, but have always put them by with neglect or a mere denial, and have scorned and pitied your simplicity in laying at us so fiercely with such a wooden tool. The Church of England was never so idly employed as to concern itself to determine the nature of Symbolical Ceremonies, whether it be Sacramental or not. It has indeed defined the number of such Sacraments as are necessary to Salvation, that is to say such as are instituted by Divine Authority as the perpetual Pledges and Symbols of the Christian Faith. And if men have a mind to any more Sacraments, they may for her have as many as they please, provided they pretend not to Divine Institution. And whereas you often insult upon some great Prelate that (you say) wrote a book of seven Sacraments, (though there was never any such book written,) he might if he had nothing else to do have written one of seven hundred, for there is nothing in nature that may not in the Puritan notion be applied to a Sacramental use, i. e. be appointed as a pledge and signification of something or other. Keep then your impertinencies to yourselves, you shall not pin them upon our sleeves, and when you have worn this fool's Coat so long till you have worn it threadbare, think not that we will then suffer you to put it upon our backs. Neither tell me of setting up an hard word for my Opponent, when it is your own scarecrow; and withal such a despicable and woeful pretence, that at last I scorned to dispute against it, I only despised its intolerable silliness, and exposed it to the contempt of your own Herd; It is below the seriousness of an argument. And if it be an hard word that signifies nothing, blame not me for mumbling and mousling it till I have made it contemptible, for it is your own, and you know I was so little fond of it, that I offered to exchange it for Syncategorematical, because it is more frightful by three or four syllables, and rattles through the throat with a bigger and more terrible accent, and any other hard word that sounds bravely, and signifies nothing and that no body understands, would serve the turn as well, and I am content (if you are) hereafter to call them by common consent either flying Dragons or Usinulca's. Keep your Goblin-nonsense to yourselves, we have nothing to do with it but to despise your folly. And if it be Taplash (as you call it) it is of your own brewing, and is both the first and the last running of your brains, but hereafter let us hear no more of it for shame, such thin and spiritless stuff as this, as it is not worth keeping, so it can never hold tilting.  
And now upon review of this whole matter it is well worth our observation how the state of the question is changed with the state of affairs; The controversy is not now (as it has been heretofore) between the holy Discipline and the established Government of the Church of England, that contest has put an end to itself; but whether men of rebellious spirits, and Democratical Principles shall under counterfeit shows of tenderness of Conscience be suffered to work the Common People into a disaffection to the Government. For it is notorious that the most zealous Agents and Patrons of the Cause are so far from being seriously scared with their own pretended scruples, that they have given the world too many undeniable proofs of their being above the most avowed Principles of Justice and common honesty; and withal that they have been and still are (for any evidence they have given to the contrary) the most vehement and implacable enemies to the present Government; and therefore being stormed and beaten out of all their old pleas of a Divine Right, are forced to abuse the people (that may be abused with any thing or nothing) with such grounds of sedition as are not to be removed by all the Wisdom and Power in the world. It were to some purpose if to all their noise about Conscience in general, they could assign any principle to justify their clamour beside printing it emphatically and in great letters; but when every man th●t understands common sense or an hard word sees through the vanity and idleness of all their Cavils, what greater assurance can they give us that there is some other design lies lurking at the bottom, that they dare not own, till some seasonable and propitious juncture of affairs shall invite it forth into open action? In short, their whole Controversy with the Church of England lies in so narrow a compass, and the exceptions wherewith they assault our present settlement are so shamefully frivolous, that to me it is one of the greatest riddles in the world, where they should find confidence enough to bear up thus long in such a desperate Cause. For as to their general pretence against the power of Princes in matters of Religion, as if they thereby invaded Gods own Prerogative, they in many cases forgo it themselves, and acknowledge it sometimes necessary to the public peace to restrain by force of Law some Sects and pretences of Religion; and though they grant it but in one case, as in the Laws against Popery, or in provisions against the attempts of Prince Vennor and his forty men, that overthrows the whole force of this Argument, in that it allows the exercise of this Power without entrenching upon God's peculiar Royalty. And then have they nothing to plead but the peril of our established Ceremonies, and here the whole debate is plainly reduced to these two questions, whether they except against any but what are symbolical? And whether they can assign any that are not so? And if they cannot (as it is plain they cannot) what follows every body sees as well as I. So that when they pitch upon such grounds of discontent, as they themselves know no Government can avoid, it is manifest that all this pretended niceness is only made use of to disguise something worse. And if they would clear their integrity to the State, or at least hide their hypocrisy under more passable and likely vizards, they would do well to invent some more material scruples, for which they crave their Gracious Indulgence; but till then, whilst they keep up such clamorous and importunate demands of Toleration, though no body knows for what, they only give their Governors fair warning to beware of the malignity of their intentions. This I hope they will consider of themselves, or if they will not, that some body else will do it for them.  
And now methinks (Sir) after all your fury you are as reasonable an Adversary (would you were as modest and civil too) as a man could lightly expect to encounter; so meek and gentle as to turn both cheeks to correction, and to accept of being boxed on both sides, for now I hope you yourself see there is not one Paragraph in all your Libel, that pretends to be serious and argumentative, that is not notoriously both false and impertinent. And that is too much advantage in such a trifling engagement, for it is scarce worth any man's while to spend so many words as are necessary to discover both, when it is to no other purpose than to correct one man's pert and conceited ignorance. But from the Premises 'tis manifest that the Body of your whole Book consists of these three sorts of Materials, 1. Your impudent repetition of the same enormous pervertings and falsifications; for which I thought I had sufficiently convicted J. O. of boldness and disingenuity. And this takes in the Grand Thesis, the six Plays, and the Hoops and Hola's. 2. Your stubborn adherence to the same dull and childish Cavils, which I refused to rebuke in him because of their manifest trifling and vanity; as in the charge of Erastianism, perverse translations of the Scriptures and false Quotations of Authors. 3. Your starting some new Absurdities of your own so wild and extravagant, that never any man before yourself was frantic enough to believe or assert, as in all the shattered talk of Sacraments and Symbolical Ceremonies. By all which you see what brave things a wise man may perform, and how dully a witty man may come to play the fool by being learnedly impertinent. As for the remainder of your Book, it is all such course and unserviceable rubbish, that it is not worth the sisting; it is such loose and empty talk, as is as applicable to confute any other Book in the world as mine, in so much that I might, if it would but have recompensed the pains, have turned three parts of your own Pamphlet upon itself. As all your professed fooling either by way of Similitude or Rithm or Story; your playing upon single words, your confuting introductions and transitions, your smutty imaginations, your general and insolent censures, with abundance more of such bold and immodest stuff, that though it signifies nothing by itself, yet is almost enough to beat any modest man out of countenance by pure force of brow and confidence. But in answer to your Ribaldry I can only blush and say nothing; and as for your rude and uncivil language, I am willing to impute it to your first unhappy Education among Boat-Swains and Cabin-Boys, whose Phrases as you learned in your Childhood, so it is not to be expected you should ever unlearn them by your Conversation with the Bear-herds of Barn, the Cannibals of Geneva, the Boys and Lackeys at Charing-Cross, and in Lincolns-Inn-fields. But as for your bold and general censures, that you may not pretend that I either balk or slide by any thing of weight and moment, or frown it away with big and burly looks, as you have dealt with several modest propositions of mine, that when you have not been able to produce one jota of proof against them, yet have rated them with such an haughty and magisterial assurance, as if you expected to make them sneak and slink away out of sight by mere sternness of look. That (I say) you may not complain that I pay you in your own brass coin, I will present you a brief Catalogue of your own Drama Common places of confidence and leasing, and then refer it to any Jury of your own empanelling whether such paltry trash can deserve any other reply than neglect and scorn. First of all (say you) I am offended 
Pag. 320.  at the presumption and arrogance of your stile; whereas there is nothing either of wit or eloquence in all your Books, worthy of a Readers, and more unfit for your own taking notice of. Then your infinite Tautology is burdensome. And your profanation 
Pag. 321.  of the Scripture intolerable, for though you allege that it is only in order to show how it was misapplyed by the fanatics (though I remember no such Allegation) you might have done that too, and yet preserved the dignity and reverence of those Sacred Writings, which you have not done; but on the contrary you have in what is properly your own, taken the most of all your Ornaments and Embellishments thence in a scurrilous and sacrilegious stile (admirable sense!) insomuch that were it honest, I will undertake out of you to make a better, that is a more ridiculous and prophaner Book, than all the Friendly Debates bound up together. I cannot but make use of this admirable way (like fat Sir 
Pag. 191.  John Falstaffs singular dexterity in sinking) of answering whole Books or Discourses, how pithy and knotty soever, in a line or two, nay sometimes in a word. And as the Friendly Debate is ridiculous and profane, so I observe 
Pag. 279.  that all the Argument of your Books too is but very frivolous and trivial; you bring nothing sound or solid. For the excellency of your Logic, Philosophy, 
Pag. 263.  and Christianity in all your Books, is either as in Conscience, to take away the subject of the Question; or as in the Magistrate, having gotten one Absurdity to raise a thousand more from it. In all your writings you do so confound terms, leap cross, have 
Pag. 158.  more doubles (nay triples and quadruples) than any Hare, so that you think yourself secure of the Hunters. You endeavour so to muddle yourself in 
Pag. 159.  Ink, that there shall be no catching nor finding you. You so confound the Question with differing terms and contradictory 
Pag. 103.  expressions, that you may upon occasion affirm whatsoever you deny, or deny whatsoever you affirm. You have face enough to say or unsay any thing, and 'tis your privilege, 
Pag. 139.  what the School-Divines deny to be within the power of the Almighty, to make contradictions true. You neither 
Pag. 47.  know or care how to behave yourself to God or Man, and having never seen the receptacle of Grace or Conscience at an Anatomical dissection, you conclude therefore that there is no such matter, or no such obligation among Christians; you persecute the Scripture itself unless it will conform to your interpretation; you strive to put the world into blood, and animate Princes to be the executioners of their own subjects for well-doing. I looked further into 
Pag. 156.  what you say in defence of the Magistrates assuming the Priesthood; what for your scheme of Moral Grace; what to palliate your irreverent expressions concerning our blessed Saviour, and the holy Spirit; what of all other matters objected to you; and if you will believe me, but I had much rather the Reader would take the pains to examine all himself, there is scarce any thing but slender trifling unworthy of a Logician, and beastly railing unbecoming any man much more a Divine. You distribute all the territories of Conscience into the Prince's Province, 
Pag. 66.  (that is to divide a thing into one part) and make the Hierarchy to be but Bishops of the Air, and talk at such an extravagant rate in things of higher concernment (than either Conscience or Government of Church and State) that the Reader will avow, that in the whole discourse you had not one lucid Interval. Had you no friends to have given you good counsel, before your 
Pag. 61.  understanding was quite unsettled? Really I cannot but pity you, and look upon 
Pag. 163.  you as under some great disturbance and despondency of mind; and in as ill a case as Tiberius was in his distracted Letter to the Senate. There wants nothing of it but the Dii Deaeque me perdant, wishing let the Gods and Goddesses confound him, worse than he finds himself to be every day confounded. So all that rationally can be 
Pag. 70.  gathered from what you say, is that you are mad. You incite Princes to persecution 
Pag. 185.  and tyranny, degrade Grace to Morality, debauch Conscience against its own Principles, distort and misinterpret the Scripture, fill the world with Blood, Execution and Massacre. And as for Subjects, no Pimp did ever enter into seriouser disputation, to vitiate an innocent Virgin, than you do to debauch their Consciences. And to harden their unpractised modesty, embolden them by your own example, showing them the experiment upon 
Pag. 28.  your own Conscience first. Nay, you threaten, you rail, you jeer them, if it were possible out of all their Consciences and Honesty. Really I think you 
Pag. 215.  have done the Atheists so much service in your Books, by your ill handling, and while you personate (i. e. Personam endure) one Party, making all Religion ridiculous (I mean the serious part of it) that they will never be able to requite you but in the same manner. It is true, you sometimes for fashion-sake 
Pag. 143.  speak of Religion and a Deity, but your Principles do necessarily, if not in terms, make the Prince's power paramount to both these, and if he may by his uncontrollable and unlimited Universal. Authority introduce what Religion, he may of consequence what Deity also he pleases. This is a faithful 
pag. 209.  account of the sum and intention of all your undertaking, for which I confess you were as picked a man as could have been employed or found out in a whole Kingdom. And I have herein endeavoured the utmost ingenuity 
Pag. 146.  towards you, for you have laid yourself open but to too many disadvantages already, so that I need not, I would not press you beyond measure, but to my best understanding, and if I fail I even ask your pardon, I do you right. And so you are a dangerous Fellow Bays, you are an Hypocrite Bayes, you are a mad Priest Bayes, you are a Buffoon Bayes, you are an Opprobrium Academiae Bayes, you are a Pestis Ecclesiae Bayes, Hola Bays, whoop Bays, whoop and hola Bayes; Bays, Bays, ay, and all that Bays. Quod erat demonstrandum. You and I Sir have hitherto been good Friends, and if you had but told me all this in private, you had done a friendly office, and upon your advice and admonition I might have reform all miscarriages; but whether to blazon them abroad thus publicly without proof or instance, and before you had made any trial upon my ingenuity, whether (I say) it were either civilly or discreetly done, because you are a wise man, and I have a great opinion of your Integrity, I shall refer it altogether to your own judgement. However if you or any friend of yours can really think, that such Demonstration as this needs any other Answer beside being pitied and laughed at, do but signify your minds to me by the next Post (provided you will superscribe Frank) and I will promise to do you reason and give you satisfaction. This is but a taste of what I might have transcribed, in that the greatest part of your Pamphlet is manifestly rather Censure than Confutation.  
But the main and most serviceable topic of impertinency is to picqueer at single words in Introductions and Transitions, and animadvert upon them with the Similitude, the Aphorism, the Rithm, the Story, and the Parenthesis; your wit is strangely fluent upon such passages as are altogether collateral to the drift and substance of my discourses: Though when you come to any thing of Argument, your mind runs upon nothing but the day of Judgement, and you grow reserved for fear of being called to an account for every idle word, and from hence it comes to pass that you are forced to answer whole Books in a line or two, like fat Sir John Falstaffs singular dexterity in sinking. What fearful work have you made with my Introduction to the Preface, you have mawl'd every word so unmercifully, as if you had undertaken to pound every Period into the twenty four Letters. And had you held on as you begun with the first forty lines, the Book of Martyrs had been but an Almanac in comparison to the Rehearsal.  
First I am caught in my own Dilemma for writing at all, after I had declared that if I must answer every impertinent exception and Cavil, I would write no more; Now this expression (say you) lies open to my own Dilemma against the Nonconformists 
Pag. 1.  confessing in their Prayers to God such heinous Enormities. This is the only passage that I find repeated but once more in all your book, I suppose because you thought it so shrewd and pressing, that it need not be inculcated so often as some other remarks that were not so easy and obvious to common understandings. But (Sir) my promise was conditional, if I must endure the Penance of answering every peevish Caviller, and I had never broke it, had I not been absolutely overpowred both against my own Judgement and inclinations to write this Reply to yourself. For which I heartily ask forgiveness, and will enter into bond, be the condition of the Obligation what you please, never to commit the same fault or need the same excuse a second time. But what if I had dispensed with a point of Civility to the public to get an honest Bookseller (especially if he be importunate too) eight or ten pound in the long vacation? It was only to give some encouragement to Trade, however you would calumniate me as an utter enemy to it; and though it is possible I may not have so great an opinion of the honesty of all of this sort of Tradesmen, as it is possible I may of some others, and if I fail herein, I ask their pardon, I do them right and recreate myself with believing that my simple judgement cannot beyond my intention, abate any thing of their just value. Yet however I am sure it is a much more honourable way of Livelihood and more serviceable to the Commonwealth than Gaming or any other lubberly way of subsistence. So that say what you will it was kindly done of me, and if I made bold with my Reader, I have made him an Apology submissive enough to excuse my own good nature and engage his. And what could he desire more? If he be candid and courteous this is enough of all Conscience to atone his displeasure, if he be not, he is not concerned, for Prefaces are addressed to none but the courteous Readers. But after all this solemnity when all things are truly considered, this is no such serious matter as you would make show of. For though Authors are wont partly because it is the fashion, and partly because it is an engagement of the Readers favour (for all people love to be courted) to make them humble addresses and Apologies in their Prefaces, yet to speak plainly 'tis more than they owe them (for if they do not like, they may let it alone) and is at best no more than a formal compliment. So that I do not see but a man may break his word with his Reader without being concluded indifferent as to 
Pag. 2.  the business either of Truth or Eternity; as you have ridiculously aggravated my Crime, if I had been guilty; such swollen Hyperboles are the Cavils of such people as want wiser and more material Objections. But now is it not shrewdly thought on to parallel such a trifle as this against the Non-conformists making such constant and familiar Confessions to the Divine Majesty of the most heinous and enormous Crimes, even of all that can be reckoned up, Disloyalty and Rebellion only excepted, and that no doubt out of pure respect to his Majesty's Act of Oblivion and Indemnity. Now if they stand really guilty of their own Charge, they may vie lewdness both with the Spanish, the French and the English Rogue, (with whose stories, so great an Historian and so accomplished a Statesman as you seem to be, cannot be unacquainted) and all their Debaucheries will appear but puny & Schoolboy's villainies in comparison of their daily practice; if they are not, than this is plainly such a trifling piece of Courtship as is not to be endured in a matter so serious as is our Devotion to the Almighty. But I see they are incorrigible in their follies. And though they are convinced past all denial that their common confessions are plainly inconsistent with their most solemn Pretences; that the Scripture Language wherewith they usually indite themselves expresses the lewdest and most desperate Impieties; that those expressions they borrow out of the Old Testament are descriptions of no worse people than only such, as had apostatised from the worship of the true God to Idolatry and all kinds of Moral Wickedness, and those out of the new are Characters not only of Hypocrites and wicked Christians, but even of such as had revolted from the Christian Faith into open Outrage and Blasphemy against it, with many other such horrid Crimes, that should their own Prayers be turned into Inditements, their Clerkship would stand them in little stead, and it would never be put into the power of the Ordinary (no, nor scarce of the Judge or Jury) to do them a courtesy. And yet notwithstanding all this they will continue still as lavish of their Tongues against themselves at Church, as they are against their Neighbours and especially their Governors at home. So that it is no small advantage to a Fanatique Congregation, when their Holderforth wants fancy and invention, in that they always come resolved (especially upon more solemn occasions) to load themselves and the Company with all the sad Texts and Burdens in the Bible; and the man that is more fluent and eloquent than his Brethren is but so much the better enabled to slander himself and all his Auditors: And to tell you plainly were I a brother, and should any man that pewed within my reach tell me before witness that I am guilty of but one half of the confession, wherewith the dullest and most costive of them all familiarly charges himself and all present, I would teach him better manners in Westminster-Hall. Every man has liberty to abuse himself as he pleases, but if he will make bold with my reputation, I must and am bound to right myself as I can.  
But whether it were lawful for me to write at all, or not, is now too late to inquire; but having written so I began. Though I am none of the most zealous Patrons of the Press. How! (say you) the Press, it is a Villainous Engine. Why! What is the matter, did it ever cheat you at Picquet, that the very mention of it should put you into such a Fit of Lycanthropy, and set you like the Island of Fayol on fire in threescore and ten places? But why Villainous Engine! fie, fie! does this Language become a Gentleman that has cleared himself of Froth and Groans? You learned it at Charing-Cross or in Lincolns-Inn-fields. But however the Engine may have offended or disobliged you, it concerns not my grand Thesis, and as little myself, having professed to be none of its Patrons. And it is of Age and parts sufficient to manage its own quarrel (for it is as old as the Reformation, and yet still as talkative as ever) and therefore I shall not interest myself in the left in it, no more than if John a Nokes were railed at by John a Styles. Otherwise I have already informed you that you have more reason than you dreamt of to rail at its Villainy: It has (Traitor as it is!) after all its pretended Zeal to the cause, betrayed all your secrets, and produced your own hand-writings against yourselves. There is scarce a crime to be named or thought of, for which it has not an information ready at any time to prefer against you, notwithstanding the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity. And therefore I would wish the Non-conformists (as little as you think I love them) to be always upon their Guard, lest it first Trepan and then Peach and then hang them; I am sure it is much more likely and able to do it than myself. I cannot see how it can ever expiate all the mischief it has done your Cause already, unless it would print the fifth Epistle to Marcellinus. But be it as perfidious as you please, it is not half so wicked as that villainous Game of Picquet, that has done more harm to the Church of England than all the Brawny Printers and Schismatical Preachers of Germany and Geneva: Not excepting the Assigns of John Calvin and Theodore Beza that live in Chancery Lane on the South side of the Lake Lemane, as the matter is mended in the second Edition of your Geography. And thus having treated the Press with as much rudeness and malice as if you had taken it for a Clergyman; The next thing you chop upon is the matter of close and comfortable Importance. And here never did Country Whitefoot stiffen and leer more eagerly upon three legs at any thing in a tuft of Fern than you do at the meaning of these words. But the leering and the Ecstasy somewhat abated, they must be reduced to one of these three, either Salvation or a Benefice or a Female, now for the Jests sake it must be neither of the former, and therefore for the same jests sake it must of necessity be the latter. But from hence men of observation will be forward to conclude that you move far above the troubles of this World as to Honour and Coin and Estate and all other trifles of humane Life, else you would have found something else to be important beside a Benefice or a Female, though it were but a Game at Picquet. You have (I thank you) bestowed upon me a Prebend, a Sine-cure and a Rectorship, now why might I not at the time of writing that Preface be busied in attending the Seals for my Sine-cure, and in taking order for the repairs of my Parsonage Barns, and in providing Goods and Furniture for my Prebend-house. These I take to be close and comfortable things as well as a female Importance. And what if beside all this I had newly sold my little inheritance and engaged in a purchase elsewhere that lay better for my own convenience; and what if at that very nick of Affairs a stop were put to the payments of the Exchequer, and my Money in the Bankers hands, do you think it did not closely concern me to disengage it from their keeping, and whether it would not have been some comfort to have effected it. But it seems there is nothing so far from the thoughts of you Gamesters as purchasing of Lands. However you see how short your induction is from taking in all particular matters of close and comfortable Importance. Beside, either the meaning you have pitched upon was mine, or it was not; if it were, I would fain be satisfied where the wit of it lies, for you to understand the right meaning of my words; if it were not, I would then be satisfied where the wit of it lies for you to obtrude a wrong one upon them. But I know your advantage, though thus publicly to betray the mirth and freedom of private conversation, is but Clownishly done and like a Jack-Gentleman: you know the meaning of the story better than I do yours of Pork, and I hope all ingenuous men will take warning by my example to avoid your company for the time to come that can make such a rude and spiteful use of an innocent piece of mirth. And if the Remark be of any value there is nothing of it beside the malice and incivility that is your own. But after all suppose for the Jest sake it be a Female, what have you made of it? You are such a stubble-Goose-wit that you are not able to raise your dull fancy by the advantage of another man's conceit. One would have expected some handsome mirth and raillery upon so pleasant a Theme, but you have emproved it so Clownishly and so phlegmatically, as shows you equally void of all capacity both of wit and manners. For who beside yourself would upon such an innocent occasion have vented the most spiteful and immodest reflections upon the whole order of the Clergy? It is the highest Pinnacle of Ecclesiastical Felicity to assuage their concupiscence and 
Pag. 11.  wreck their malice. Though you were not restrained by any fear of the day of Judgement, you had reasons enough to have balked such impudence as this, that is so far from being a good jest, that it is a public affront to good manners. And ill manners pass no where for wit but at Charing-Cross or in Lincolns-Inn-fields. Go your way for a smutty Lubber, that can make no other improvement of so fair an advantage, than to spit your malice and ribaldry; these are the top of your wit, if they are not the pinnacle of your felicity. Certainly had the jest been ten times more elevating than it is, any civil or witty man (especially one that has so many to spare) would have balked it for modesty, though not for Conscience or the day of Judgement. And so you may go and consider whether you had not only leisure enough but cause too much to have cooled your thoughts, and corrected your indecencies.  
But turn over the leaf, and there you will find that giving the Reader an account of the heads of the ensuing Discourse, I tell him that I intent to bestow some Animadversions upon one J. O. But would I had told you of this fooling at first, for than I had saved you the labour of your first fourteen Pages. Now is it credible, nay is it not most preposterous to think that you should begin your remarks upon my Preface, before you had read (as you call it) so much as the Preamble? Or that you perused only three or four lines at a time, and so fell into your Animadversions in the same order that they are published? No doubt you saw this fooling before you set pen to paper, but had no power to save the labour of all the former Pages. That had cut off the pleasant Animadversions upon the Dilemma, the Press and the Importance. This wit is such a tempting and bewitching thing that a man has not power to forgo a good jest, unless it be now and then, i. e. very seldom, when he chances to think of the day of judgement. But though this fooling as if you had finished your Animadversions upon the first Page before you had read the second be silly enough, yet it is not altogether so bad as confuting the first part of a sentence before you came to the full period. For thus, when I affirm, that as for the danger of the return of Popery into this Nation, I know none but the Non-conformists boisterous and unreasonable opposition to the Church of England. Here you stop in the middle of the sentence, and clap down a full point 
Pag. 267.  after I know none. And then if there be none, the consequence is very easy, what a fool I am for my labour to print a Book upon such an impertinent Argument, and so away you run with a great deal of insulting and scorn, and never stop career till you come to p. 271. and there you crave mercy for taking me a little too short, and so add the latter part of the sentence, and then gravely confess that this indeed has some weight in it, for truly before you knew none too. And now though one would think no pretender to Controversial skill could ever match such trifling as this, yet I remember J. O. served me just such another trick, that was full as foolish and somewhat more knavish. Thus discoursing of Christian Liberty I had laid down this assertion. That mankind have a Liberty of Conscience over all their actions whether morally or strictly religious, as far as it concerns their Judgements, but not their Practices. He very honestly mangles this into two distinct propositions: The first, that Mankind has a Liberty of Conscience over all their actions, whether morally or strictly religious. And this he closes up with a full period, as if it were an entire Problem by itself, and then gravely insults, (as well he might) over so magnificent a Grant; and yet after all was not so ingenuous as you are, to cry me mercy, but suffers his unwary Reader to go away with an opinion of its being the Grand Thesis of that Chapter. These are Polemic Divines for the Pope and the Good Old Cause, that though they can say nothing for themselves are resolved never to hold their peace, and rather than give out will tyre their Adversaries with such wretched and intolerable trifling as this. And that was the only intention of your Libel to divert people from attending to the serious Argument; but you shall not escape so, I will never leave my advantage to traverse your impertinencies, for I have you all at my mercy, and there I am resolved to keep you, and assure yourselves you can never gain any thing by offering any resistance. Your Cause is so lamentably weak and defenceless that you can only betray it, and expose yourselves by giving an occasion to the Controversy.  
And now after all this lost labour, that you are of opinion might much better have been spared, we are at length arrived upon the brink of the Preface: But here before you leap in, it will be convenient to pitch upon some standing jest that may give relish and picquancy to all the other insipid and phlegmatic parts of the discourse; and now because neither Author nor Chaplain nor pink of Courtesy, nor Priest, nor Buffoon, nor Prince Volscius, nor Cicero are tuant enough, what think you if three or four times in every page I call my Adversary Mr. Bayes? Will it not be an admirable jest to repeat the word Bayes three or four hundred times for the pleasant conceit, and the pure elegance of avoiding Tautologies? Yes by all means, it is just as much wit as if the word had been in the language of Charing-Cross or Lincolns-inn-fields plainly Bastard, or more politely Son of a Whore: Or, as if you had kept to the language of your own more serious Buffonery, and the word had been Baal's Priest, or a Locust of the bottomless Pit, or an Antichristian Beast. For though it might pass for a very trim fancy in Mr. Lacie to fasten this nickname upon a vain and pedantic Poet, yet for you to borrow it without leave, and apply it to a Person of a Sacred and Serious Profession without reason, is flat dulness and impudence. For who can imagine where the conceit of it should lie to repeat a Word of another man's Invention three or four hundred times together, and that chiefly for this very reason, viz. to avoid repetitions. Next to the kill jest of whoop and hola, I never met with any thing like it. You are such another man! But yet so transporting was the conceit among the Brotherhood (for they are most implacable wits) that at your first appearance, there was nothing to be found among them but Joy and Jubilee, the 15th of March was not a more jovial day, neither was there a greater destruction of Cheesecakes in Islington at the opening of the New River. All preciseness was laid aside, not a gloomy look nor an erected white to be seen, but they let down their eyelids as their honest neighbours do upon better occasions their shop-windows. And all upon the sudden they are become the most jolly and most humorous companions of the Town: And the very mention of Bayes is such a splitting conceit! It even endangers both their spleens and their lungs, yes, and their Gloves too, they rub them so heartily. There is great hopes that it will alter their humours and mend their complexions, at least there is no doubt but it will prove hereafter an admirable specific for Fanatique obstructions. And for this you were immediately horsed upon the shoulders of the people (where folly and ignorance always rides) and carried off with victorious noise and uproar, and shown in triumph to your old Companions (that little suspected you would ever have come to this) in Lincolns-Inn-fields and at Charing-Cross, and there leave you to be preferred to the service of Punchanella, to prompt jests and repartees to his Puppets, you are just a fit Oracle for such an Audience. I might easily have requited this civility of yours with twenty more symbolising nicknames, but that I both loath and scorn such a Porterly rudeness. For you that have observed the management of Arguments in the street, cannot but have taken notice that the Disputants never come to throwing of dirt, or calling of names till they are basiled, and have nothing else to reply. And if you had told me all along that I disputed with a dirty Face, it had been full as Tuant. But if I would revenge myself it is not in my Power, for I cannot now stick upon you any name that is more ridiculous than you have made your own; that is already among all ingenious persons become the proverbial term for a dull and clownish pretender to Wit.  
And thus having been all this while hover about the Brink, you at last venture to commit yourself to the dangerous depths of my Discourse. But after your diving come up only with a vinegar face and a dirty mouth, you look sowrly on Bishop Bramhal, and do by no means like his Character, because it is forsooth too much for one man, and envy will not down with it; and so to vindicate him from my Scurvy Commendation you have very piously composed 23 pages of studious and elaborate periods to prove him no better than an undertaking & crack-brained Knave. This is the very syrup of Additional Civility. Had the Bishop been the Dignitary of Lincoln you could not have treated him more Scurvily. But of your Piety to his Ashes we have had proof enough already, and so you proceed to do the same office of kindness to 
Pag. 49.  Mr. calvin's Memory, and by as scurvy a commendation vindicate him from my scurvy Reproaches; in that whatever I have said to his disparagement is incredible for two Reasons: 1. Because I do not say true; and 2. Because I lie. For Mr. Calvin was an honest Divine, and spoke contemptuously of the Liturgy 
Pag. 59  of the Church of England; and those that will may charitably suppose he repent of it on his deathbed, though for your part you yourself know nothing of it. To this you might have added, that he scorned to call any body old Elsibeth so long after she was dead; no, though he too were an implacable Divine, yet he was more a Gentleman than so, and had the courage to call another Queen of England Proserpina in the time of her own Reign. But the greatest thing that can be said in Mr. calvin's praise, is, that he was the first founder of that Modern Orthodox Doctrine. That it is the duty of Subjects to moderate the licentiousness of Kings, and to punish or depose them when they play the Tyrants, or wantonly insult on the Common People. And now pray Sir tell me by the way what Bishops they are that you have the honour to be acquainted with, that differ 
Pag. 71.  in nothing from Calvin but in point of Episcopacy. But thus Calvin (in his Epistle to Cardinal Sadolet, as I remember) justifies the Mayor and Bailiffs of Geneva, that had wrested the Supreme Authority of the City out of their Bishop's hands, and vested it in their Common Counsel, partly because he had abused his Power into Tyranny, and partly because he had no other Title but of ancient Usurpation; and though by virtue of that he had long claimed both the Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, yet it was at first extorted from the Lawful Magistrate, i. e. the Syndicks, and therefore it could be no theft or felony in them to rob him of their own goods. A plea, if admitted of, that would as easily overthrow all the established Governments in the world as the Bishopric of Geneva, seeing there is no Kingdom that cannot within the compass of some few Ages pretend defrauded Titles against the present Prince as well as Geneva, and this pretence is so unavoidable, that it is not in the Power of any established Government to secure itself against it, and therefore it has always past for a Maxim in all Laws, that long possession or ancient prescription gives a sufficient Title of Right; and though possibly it is not in itself sufficient to vest a man in a true and real claim, yet it is enough that no man after so many years can set up any opposite Pretence without manifest violence and intrusion: For supposing his Ancestors to have been once seated in the Throne, yet if they have been displaced whether justly or unjustly time out of mind, and almost memory too, that wears out their Right; especially when it rarely if it ever happens, but that if Usurpation may be objected against the present Possessor, the same exception might as justly have been put in against the former Title, so that if Prescription be not sufficient to create a Right, yet it is at least a sufficient Bar against all Intrusion, otherwise there can never be any fence against this Principle of Rebellion. And this is enough to secure the peace of the world, and the settlement of all established Governments and Commonwealths. But however upon this Principle that is ready to serve alike in all Causes, he was no sooner established in his Divinity Throne, but he tampers and prevails with the People to abjure all Allegiance to their Bishop for the time to come, and swear obedience and submission to his own Discipline.  
But the Signiory of Geneva was too narrow a Diocese for his aspiring mind, and he had no sooner settled his own new model of Government, but he bestirs himself to obtrude it upon all Churches of the Reformation, Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia, Poland, Savoy, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Scotland, and the Church of England. And though he at first looked upon it as a project of his own devising, and acknowledged it had not any Authority from the pattern or prescript of the Primitive Church, and begged its settlement at Geneva, only as an expedient for the present exigence, till they might have leisure and opportunity of agreeing upon some more Apostolical Platform, yet no sooner had he brought the Town and Territory of Geneva under his yoke, and established his Throne there by swearing all the Citizens to a submission to his Doctrine and Discipline; but he began to think, as all prosperous and ambitious Princes are wont to do, of enlargement of Empire, and labours might and main to impose his Discipline upon all Churches of the Reformation; and nothing will satisfy Him and his Followers unless all Christendom will embrace the device of his warm brain upon pain of the Divine displeasure, and under an obligation of Divine Right. And to this purpose he sends his Dispatches and makes his Applications to all the Courts in Europe, and if any Prince entertained any thoughts of Reformation, he forsooth must immediately thrust himself into his Privy Council, and if they were not entirely obedient to his Counsels, he either rejected them as people that were not in good earnest, or despised them as people that understood not the management of their own affairs; and all his Epistles to Princes and Prelates were written with the confidence of Papal Decrees. You may satisfy yourself with a multitude of instances in his Letters to the King, Princes and Castellans of Poland, to the Prince Elector of the Palatinate, to the Church of Strasburgh, to the Duke of Wirtenburgh, and to the Landgrave of Hess, beside his particular missives and instructions to his Vicars-general residing in several Kingdoms and Provinces. But to keep more closely to our own concernments, by his Letters Patents to the Exiles of Francfurt, the English Liturgy was cashiered to make way for the entertainment of the Order of Geneva, and Dr. Cox with his Associates, Grave and Reverend Men, (cum gregalibus suis as he styles them) were rated for endeavouring the establishment of the Liturgy of the Church of England. And when Mr. John Hooper Bishop Elect of Gloucester had picked up a quarrel against Caps and Tippets, and Gowns, and Rochets, and Chimeres, who forsooth must solicit the Duke of Somerset (than the Great Minister of State) to have these idle scruples dispensed with in despite of the Customs and Constitutions of the Church, but John Calvin? Not to mention his Letters to the King, to the Archbishop, to the Bishop of London, to Cecil, and to the Lords of the Council, in which he very frankly, and before his advice is asked, makes his exceptions to the English Liturgy, and finds fault with many Popish and superstitious Rites; and with an Apostolical Authority advises the Lay-Lords to set aside all prudence and worldly wisdom in carrying on the work of Reformation, and admonishes the Bishops to strip themselves of all Secular Power and Jurisdiction, and charges it upon the Bishop of London in particular, as his duty to inform the Queen that she ought not to trust or trouble them with any more Authority, than what they might challenge and exercise purely by virtue of their Spiritual Office. And all this (I suppose) to make way for the more easy admission of his Discipline, with a great many stories more that I could tell, and of which Kings might by the help of their Royal Understandings make excellent use. And now after all this it matters not much whether Geneva be situated upon the Southside of the Lake Lemane, or the South-west, or the South-west and by West, for peace sake I will grant you any point in the Compass, though as far as I can learn by Maps and Books of Geography, they all inform me that it stands where it always did on the Southside; and if they are mistaken, it is none of my fault, for I am no Traveller; and had I been imposed upon in a matter so collateral and impertinent to my main design, yet no man that had not been to seek for more material exceptions, would ever have attempted to make so much noise and advantage of so small a trifle; for though Geneva were removed at as great a distance as Surat and Grand Cairo, yet for all that Calvin was an overbusy and pragmatical man, and intermeddled with several Affairs foreign to his Judicature, and out of his Diocese, not only before his Advice was asked, but after it was refused. And therefore I shall not at all concern myself to examine the Debates of your Ecumenical Council about the situation of Geneva; the discourse is 
Pag. 51, etc.  suited to the wit and wisdom of the company, that consists (I suppose) of your particular Friends that you so often remember, Gilian the Cookmaid, and Abigail the Chambermaid, and Mopsa the dry Nurse, together with some of your Charing-Cross and Lincolns-Inn-field wits, you yourself being Precedent, for after having condemned their remarks for crude and cold conceits, after a frown or two with your mouth, and some smiling with your forehead (they being both performed by the same Muscles) you gravely determine that it was well and wisely done of me to choose a South-sun for the better and more sudden growth of the bramble. It is such an Oracle! as if there were not a South-sun on the North as well as the South side of the Lake. And thus having finished your serious counsels you are at leisure to advance to a dance, and recreate yourself and the company with Anagrams and Acrostics upon calvin's Name. And to confess the truth (for I love wit in an enemy) Lucianus and Usinulca are very pretty conceits, but yet I have heard of an old Elsibeth one that in my poor Opinion is more worth than both of them, though I recreate myself with believing that my simple judgement cannot beyond my intention abate any thing of the just value of your wit with others. And thus having done you right (as you did the Bishop) by making you this pious Apology, I will venture to let it out, and it is Culina, for beside the transprosing Wit that is common to it with all Anagrams, it is an unhappy Omen to betoken how much his followers should delight in Dripping pan comforts. For beside our own experience at home, if we may rely upon the relation of your Travels abroad: The Presbyterians are in all parts the very Cannibals of Capons: in so 
Pag. 55.  much that if Princes do not take care, the Race of Capons is in danger to be totally extinguished. The Race of Capon's man! This Geneva certainly is the most breeding soil (whatever some Travellers may report of Africa) in the whole Universe. For who ever heard of any other Climate so fruitful, that even Capons are able to propagate their own Race? But how should Princes take care lest this Race be totally extinguished by the sharpsetness of the Presbyterians, when there is no such Race to be found in any King's Dominions; for as I take it ever since the Bishop's banishment, there has been no King of Geneva. His Majesty's Curiosity has replenished St. James' Park with all sorts of Fowl from all parts of the World, but could never yet, that I can hear of, procure one single Bird of this Capon Race. So that I perceive notwithstanding all his great Alliances and Correspondences abroad, he has no great interest in the Court of Geneva. But you Sir have travelled those parts and have no doubt contracted acquaintance with the good Housewifes' of the Country; it would be a very considerable piece of service to the Commonwealth in general, and to your dear Presbyterian brethren in particular, whose mouths (you say) hang so much Capon-way, if you could but help us to some of the Chickens of both Sexes of this Capon-brood. I am confident it would be so well accepted both in Court and City, that you might easily obtain a Patent for the Monopoly and a Pension for the service. Especially when they are of the greatest size of any in the reformed World, so that if this race should be totally extinguished, it might prove of fatal consequence to the Growth and Interest of the reformation in Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia, Poland, Savoy, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Scotland, etc. for I have heard great Statesmen say, that if his Holiness were but Housewife enough to rear a larger Race than that of Geneva, he might easily draw over the whole shoal of Presbyterians to the Church of Rome, because (as they observe) these Cannibals are for any Communion that promotes the Ordinance of Capon-eating. Their Stomaches are so set towards this Race by an instinct of nature, that (as we read in your Memoirs) they were no sooner spawned, but immediately they drive in whole shoals for the Land of Capons. This is their natural food without which they cannot subsist, and should this Race be ever totally extinguished, they must all starve for want of their proper nourishment. Is it not then cruelly done of you to instigate Princes out of a superfluous care for the Race of Capons, to endanger the total extinction of the Race of Presbyterians? 'Tis matter of Stomach Sir (and some 
Pag. 〈◊〉  say their Conscience is nothing else) and if Kings are so civil as not to press any thing upon their Subjects against which they have an Antipathy, will you be such an hard hearted and inflexible Tyrant, as to deny them what they long for, and without which they cannot live? And not only so, but provoke Princes to be the Ministers of your cruelty? But they, as they have gentlemen's Memories, so have Royal Understandings, and do not think sit to require any thing that is impossible, unnecessary, or wanton of their People: And are fain to consider their tempers, their Constitutions and their Stomaches. They reflect upon the Histories of former times. They have heard how a Roman Emperor was stabbed for giving the word unhandsomely; How the Parliament of Poland suffered the Turk to enter, because the King would not suffer them to be his Tailor; How Alexander the great had almost lost all by forcing his Subjects to conform to the Persian habit; How the King of Spain is forced to ride bare-leged lest the Biscainers should dismount him; How a certain Queen gave a certain Broad-seal, of which there came no mischief; How the Queen of Sweden was forced to resign for an uncivil word; How a sturdy Swiss would not conform; How the King of Spain lost Flanders (of which he is King still) by the Inquisition; and an hundred more that I could tell you but idle stories, that you may read at your leisure in the fifth Epistle to Marcellinus; but however you may think them but idle stories, yet Kings can tell how to make use of them. And after all these fatal Consequences of Rebellion, which can only serve as Sea-marks unto wise Princes to avoid the causes, can you think any of them so precipitate and unadvised as to provoke such a fierce and cruel Race of Cannibals for the sake of a few Capons? For if once they revolt, there is no withstanding their fury, but they pour in upon him like Goths and Vandals from Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia, Poland, Savoy, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Scotland, and enter into Covenant and Arms. And then you know no men fight so keenly as those whose Courages are whet by their Stomaches. And now how had the King been served if he had followed your advice to interess his Government in defence of the Race of Capons? He had run himself into a fine Praemunire, had he not, to bring all the Presbyterians in Christendom about his Ears? No, let the Race of Capon's shift for itself; it concerns them to secure their own Race of Kings against these Cannibals, they are as great devourers of Kings as Capons.  
But under pretence of making Calvin 
Pag. 42, 3.  and Geneva ridicule I kill whole Nations, Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia, Poland, Savoy, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, England, Scotland, Charing-cross, and Lincolns-Inn-fields, with six Country's more, and many more, and a long & caetera beside. This I must confess is more than I was aware of, and yet if the Inhabitants of all these Countries are Cannibals of the Race of Capons, I defy them all, though you should cast in over and above, Tartary, China, the great Moguls Country, Prester John, and the King of Guiney. Let but the great Turk stand Neuter, and I do not fear all the Calvinists in the World beside. I will make Cimarrs of their very Whiskers, and the Puny Bishops of Munster, Cullen, and Strasburg shall be my Chaplains. But how comes Geneva to be the Catholic Church? Or did all these Country's ever submit to Calvin's Yoke? Why then must they of necessity follow the fortunes of Calvin and Geneva? I know indeed he endeavoured to extend his Empire over all these and many Country's more, but I cannot find that ever any Prince swore Allegiance to his Discipline excepting only Mr. Mayor of Geneva. Nor do I know where his Discipline has any Power at this day, unless in the Netherlands, (if it have or ever had any there) But that part of my undertaking his Majesty and the French King have taken out of my hands. And I hope you do not mean them by the two others that you say I have taken into Partnership 
Pag. 44.  with me. For though I am page 42. the Draw-can-sir, that fight single with all these Countries, yet page 44. I do nothing without the assistance of two others. This is a pretty contradiction, but what is that to a man that can make Corollaries to justify Theses, or build superstructures to support Foundations? But yet what is it we do? What! we club to travesteer the Scripture, and render all the serious part of Religion odious 
Ibid.  and contemptible. The serious part of Religion! Why, is there any part of Religion that is not serious? But it were worth the while to know who these two wicked men are, why, lest we might be mistaken as to the persons you mention, you will assure the Reader that you intent not Hudibras. Of all your Apologies give me this for Civility: that you cannot make mention of any person that is remarkable for profaneness, but as if the Character suited this Gentleman so exactly, it were necessary to except him in particular, lest all your Readers should immediately conclude he was the Person intended. This is such an ill-favoured piece of additional Civility, that an accusatory spirit could desire no better play than you have given in his vindication. It is a mighty compliment this, though I am speaking of some ungodly Wretches that make it their business to render all the serious part of Rebellion odious and contemptible, I beg your pardon Sir, I will assure you upon my word it is not you I intent at present. This it is to be a person of private condition and breeding. Had that worthy Gentleman called you to an account for making any unhandsome reflections upon him, this weeping Apology had been somewhat excusable, but otherwise (as you excellently observe) there cannot be a more dexterous 
Pag. 266.  and malicious way of Calumny, than by making a needless Apology for another in a criminal Subject. But yet however you may assure yourself that he will never take any notice of such a despicable yelper as you, unless with a Dog-whip. Thou Prevaricatour of all the Laws of Buffonery, thou dastard Craven, thou Swad, thou Mushroom, thou Coward in heart, word, and deed, thou Judas, thou Crocodile, thus (though it were in thy greatest necessity) after having professed wit and rithm these fifty years, to sniule out such a whining submission in public is past all precedent of Cowardice from the Trojan war to this very day; but that thou shouldest do it of thy own accord and without any provocation is more sneaking than the flattery of a Setting-dog. Thou shalt wear a Collar, and thy name shall be Trey.  
And so we arrive at the Character of a Noble-man's Chaplain; for having heretofore (among other your juvenile Essays of Ballads, Poesies, Anagrams and Acrostics) laid out yourself upon this Subject also, and your Papers lying useless by you at this time when your Muse began to tirè and set, it might be very convenient to fill up twelve pages with this Character whilst she baited and recovered Breath. But the greatest part of it is so very trite and vulgar, that none but a superannuated Wit would ever have accepted of such out worn and old fashioned Jests. And the rest of it so Garagantuan and Legend-like, v. g. the raising of a man's Hypocondria into the Region of his Brain, his being lifted up into the Air so high as to crack his Scull against the Chapel Ceiling, with a deal more of such wild and incredible Stuff, that I shall wave it all because I am sure it is impossible that Kings should ever make use of such idle and extravagant stories. And if I would study revenge I could easily have requited you with the Novels of a certain Jack Gentleman that was born of pure Parents, and bred among Cabin-boys, and sent from School to the University, and from the University to the gaming Ordinaries, but the young man being easily rooked by the old Gamesters, he was sent abroad to gain Cunning and Experience, and beyond Sea saw the Bears of Bern, and the large Race of Capons at Geneva, and a great many fine sights beside, and so returned home as accomplished as he went out, tries his fortune once more at the Ordinaries, plays too high for a Gentleman of his private condition, and so is at length cheated of all at Picquet. And so having neither Money nor employment, he is forced to loiter up and down about Charing-Cross and in Lincolns-Inn-fields, where he had leisure and opportunity to make remarks (among other Subjects) upon the wheel of Fortune, from whence with the help of a little skill in Mathematics he at length makes out this new and important discovery in Politics, as a strait line continued grows a Circle, even so Power infinitely extended becomes Impotency. Which with many more of his choicest Observations he at length discharges into a certain Book called the Rehearsal, which as soon as you have finished this, I would willingly recommend to your perusal, that you may see how much pains a witty man may take to make others merry and himself ridiculous. Where you will meet with many more that perhaps you will think but idle stories, but Kings know how to make use of them. For how modestly soever the Author may speak of his own private condition and breeding, his Memoires will be very serviceable to the instruction of Princes. It is he that first observed how the Clergy have in all Ages obstructed the Clemency of Kings; how they can deform the whole Reign of the best Princes that ever wielded Sceptres; how by their leasings they keep up a strangeness and misunderstanding between the Sovereign and his Subjects; how they trinckle with Parliaments, and by their pickthankness make them expose both their own and his Majesty's Wisdom to posterity. It is he only that can with Authority from above (for he could have it nowhere else) ensure Princes, that the reason why God does not bless the Clergy in affairs of State, is because he never intended them for that employment. It is he that first discovered the Sea-marks of Government, and by the Histories and Originals of all former rebellions instructed Princes how to avoid the like causes. It is he that has informed them that the body is in the power of the mind, and the mind in the hand of God, so that to punish either of them is to correct the Divine Majesty. It is he that has advised them how to humour their Subjects, and not force them to conform to a fashion or ceremony, for the sake of Alexander the Great, and the Emperor, the sturdy Swiss, and the Town-seal. In brief, it is he that has taught them gentlemen's Memories to forget all injuries, and Royal Understandings to prevent none. These stories would have been more instructive to Princes than a pitiful Legend of a cracked Chaplain, and for that reason I shall not pass them by so lightly, but reserve them to their proper place of State-Policy.  
From the Chaplain you are immediately led by a certain train of thoughts to J. O. upon whom you spend an horrible deal of Abecedarian wit, that was taken out of his own Primer, as the rest of your Book was out of his Survey. I suppose the intention of it is to neck all Capacities, for having made the rest to please fools this was designed for the entertainment of children, and to them I leave it, only I cannot but observe from your pursuing it to such an irksome and tedious length, that you have not the judgement of a Jack-pudding to discern when you have played the fool enough. And here follows the delightful story of Gill and Triplet, but this too I shall keep cold for your Politics, because it is a story that Kings may make use of. And thus are we arrived once more at the Grand Thesis, that stands just as it did at the beginning. For whether it were lawful for me to write any more, or not; whether the Press be a villainous Engine, or not; whether Importance be a Female or not; whether Calvin were a bramble or not; whether Geneva stand on the Southside of the Lake Lemane or not; whether there be a Race of Capons propagated there or not; whether it be possible for a man's Hypocondria to rise up into his head or not; whether J. O. be an Hee-cow or not; and whether Triplet were legally whipped by Gill after he could plead adultus or not; I will maintain it against Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia, Poland, Savoy, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Scotland, Geneva, Germany, Charing-Cross, Lincolns-Inn-fields, Grubstreet, Pin-makers hall, J. O. and your Self, and any one man more, I care not though it be the sturdy Swiss, That it is absolutely necessary to the Peace and Government of the World, that the Supreme Magistrate of every Commonwealth should be vested with a Power to Govern and Conduct the Consciences of Subjects in affairs of Religion. And now to conclude, is it not a sad thing that a well-bred and fashionable Gentleman, that has frequented Ordinaries, that has worn Perukes, and Muffs, and Pantaloons, and was once Master of a Watch, that has travelled abroad and seen as many Men and Countries as the Famous Vertuosis Sorbier and Coriat, that has heard the City Lions roar, that has staved and tailed to the Bears of Bern, that has eaten of the Race of Capons at Geneva, that has past the Alps, and seen all the Tredescin rarities and old stones of Italy, that has sat in the Porphyry Chair at Rome, that can describe the method of the Election of Popes, and tell stories of the tricks of Carnivals', that has been employed in Embassies abroad, and acquainted with Intrigues of State at home, that has read Plays, and Histories, and Gazettes; that (I say) a Gentleman thus accomplished and embellished within and without, and all over, should ever live to that unhappy dotage, as at last to dishonour his grey hairs, and his venerable Age with such childish and impotent endeavours at wit and buffonery.  
Thus having coursed you through eleven beginnings from the Preface into the Ecclesiastical Polity, from thence into the Defence, from the Defence back again into the Preface, from that into Bishop Bramhall, anon into the Preface to the Ecclesiastical Polity, and straight back again into the Bishop's Preface, and from thence away to Dr. Thorndike, the Friendly Debate, Mr. Hooker, to Mr. Hales for 10 pages of Rithm to Ism, thence to J. O's discourse of Evangelical Love and Unity from p. 127 to the end, and then from page the first to page the 127th, and so backward and forward to the conflagration of London, the burning of the Ships of Chatham, St. Paul's Church, and Diana's Temple, Ben. Johnson, Horace, the 5 Chap. to the Galatians, and the 5 Epist. to Marcellinus. After all this I thought I might begin to expect a little rest, and to hope that we need not despair that you began to design to conclude to begin to draw an end of beginning to begin, as knowing that all raving fits usually end in a Lethargy; and it began to succeed just according to my wishes, when I heard all on the sudden Mr. Bays good night: But whether it is, that some body has strewed Cow-itch in your Bed, or that your Conscience is very restless, or that you only slept dogs sleep, immediately in the very next line I am awaked with good morrow Mr. Bayes, and am teased as freshly for a certain Preface showing what grounds there are of fears and jealousies of Popery, as if this had been our first salute, and we had never exchanged word before. And here (to borrow one of your Schemes of Speech) it seems that England is no stranger to rumours of Popery; it seems that it has been the Puritan Artifice ever since the Reformation to possess the People with these panic fears; it seems the Church of England has perpetually been traduced by them as Popishly affected; It seems I vindicate the Church from this aspersion by pregnant and undeniable instances of Religious Loyalty and Obedience; it seems I have charged the Rebels as justly and undeniably with the direct contrary Principles and Practices. It seems I do not recriminate any designs of Popery to the Non-conformists, but charge them most righteously with a constant and boisterous opposition to the Church, thereby creating dangerous disorders and disturbances to the State; It seems Atheistical and Irreligious Caitiffs, out of a peculiar hatred, and most exquisite malice to the Church and Churchmen, are never wanting to promote and abett these mischievous disorders; It seems if crafty and sacrilegious Statesmen join in the Confederacy, they are apt enough to run the Kingdom into such miserable necessities, that there is no support of their interest without rapine and sacrilege; It seems that if the Church of England should ever be hereby destroyed, no other Religion can be established in lieu of it but Popery, because Fanaticism is so wild and untractable a thing, that it is uncapable of any settlement upon any Principles; It seems all this either is, or for any thing you are able to oppose to it, may be as true as Gospel, and though it seems you dare not answer it, because you cannot, yet it seems you have the confidence to deny it all, and confute it with abundance of censure and cavil; and more it seems you could have done were it not for falling under the penalty of a certain Act of Parliament against spreading of false news, 
Pag. 261.  even as you durst not answer what you had quoted out of my Eccles. Pol. for fear of bringing yourself within the Statute of 
Pag. 104.  Treasonable Words. Sweet Gentleman! What a misfortune it is when a Godly, Loyal, tender Conscience, bearing so much awful Reverence and sultry affection to the Supreme Magistrate, should in all his Disputes so cross with Authority, that he dares not speak out his mind plainly, only for fear of being hanged. But were it not for the Statute against Treasonable Words you would make me an Example to all Generations. But yet though you dare not Reply for fear of these sanguinary Laws against Treason, yet you can do what is more serviceable to your purpose, you can take occasion to raise calumny enough from my Discourse to render myself and all the Clergy odious to all Interests within the King's Dominions; And first you begin with the King himself, and discover, that after all it was neither the Bookseller, nor Geneva, nor the Trout, nor the Sprats, nor the Race of Capons, nor Presbyterians, nor Millecantons of fanatics, nor B. Bramble, nor Usinulca, nor the Hobgoblins, nor J. O. nor Nonconformity, nor Hungary, nor Transylvania, nor Bohemia, nor Poland, nor Savoy, nor France, nor the Netherlands, nor Denmark, nor Sweden, nor Scotland, nor Germany; but the King was the person aimed at from the beginning. 
Pag. 264.  And it now sufficiently detects my malice to His Majesty to stir up matter of such dangerous and seditious Discourse. Though not above a page or two since, he was abundantly assured and satisfied of my Loyalty, and we were all three very good Friends, and yet here you tell His Majesty nine times over, how I bear an evil eye to him and his Government, that I publish Manifesto's against his Indulgence, that I make his proceedings odious, etc. by raising a public and solemn Discourse through the whole Nation concerning a matter the most odious and dangerous that could be exposed. When yourself, and all your Readers both know that most men's heads were filled with these jealousies, and all men's mouths with these Discourses before my Preface was published or thought on; and withal, that I am so far from adding any encouragement to the fears and jealousies of the people, that my only design was to show that it was a thing impossible in itself ever to be brought about by any other means than the folly of the Nonconformists. So that whatever designs the Popish Party might at that or any other time have upon our Religion, we had no great reason to apprehend any danger from their attempts, were it not for that advantage that is given them by the giddy and incessant opposition of the Fanatique Faction to the Church of England. So that it is manifest by this, that you intended nothing but cavil and wrangling, thus to charge me with stirring up this odious Discourse of Popery, when as to that all the Nation are able to convict you of notorious falsehood and leasing; and whether the Discourse of that occasioned my Preface no body can know beside myself, but this they all know, that my Preface never occasioned that Discourse. And now after all, it seems there was more danger than you or I dreamt of, by that Alarm that the King and Parliament have taken upon this matter. I know you and your Party will never acknowledge that my Preface was the cause of this new Act against Popery, and yet you may do it much more safely, than to make it the original of that publiok and solemn Discourse that run through the whole Nation upon this Argument, in that the Act was enacted since my Preface, and the Discourse was public before it. And now you would do well to charge the Parliament as you have done the Bishop for being enemies to the State in raising all this din and obloquy, and disquieting His Majesty's good Subjects with such fears, when there was no danger. But you are never concerned either as to the truth or the ingenuity of your Cavils, so they do but reflect some odium upon the Clergy; and I have very good reason to believe, that as much as you have magnified the Declaration for Indulgence, and decried all dangers and suspicions of Popery, yet had you been a Member of this present Parliament, you would have been as forward as he that was most so in remonstrating to the Declaration, and voting for the Act. And now you see what reason you have given the Public to have any great opinion of your Integrity. Should I have prevaricated at this rate with the world, have been so inconsistent in all my actions, have thus cut and shuffled in all my words, and have clapped on so many disguises and contradictory Apologies upon every thing I say; I must confess I have not face enough to presume so confidently upon the dulness and simplicity of mankind, as to flatter myself with any hopes of escaping without discovery and discrace: every body has wit enough to see through such stupid and inartificial Leasings.  
But had you been Solicitour-General to the High Court of Justice, you could scarce have been more dexterous than you are at framing and aggravating Inditements out of nothing; they were forced to amass together heaps of accusations to make up one cumulative crime, but you can hang a man for his Courtship, and extract Treason out of a Compliment. Thus because I suppose it possible for his Majesty to die before the day of Judgement, and then that some Prince may arise in after Ages endued with less Wisdom, and by consequence possessed with less kindness to the Church of England, that is so admirably accommodated to the interest of the Crown beyond all other Churches in the World. This (say you) is pretty plain dealing, 'tis to take the pillow from under his head; you should have thought it better Courtship in a Divine to have said, O King live for ever. What a Miscreant am I! sure I can be no less than another John Chastel or Ravillac. What draw the Pillow from under my Prince's head, that is dispatch him by fraud or violence before the course of nature brings on the period of his dissolution? Search the Villain, his pockets are full of poisoned Daggers and screwed Pistols; for how else could he foretell that the King must one day die, unless he were resolved to fulfil his own Prophecy, for otherwise, if it please God, the King may live for ever. Does this Language become a Subject, much less a Divine to his Prince, O King you are mortal and must die like other men. Is not this to upbraid him with his Mortality, and to beat down his esteem with the people by informing all the Nation that he is no more than a man? At least is it civil or dutiful thus unseasonably to show him his winding sheet, and mind him of the day of Judgement, to spoil the wit and cheerfulness of his Conversation by forcing him to balk good jests for fear of an after-reckoning for idle and profane words. This sufficiently detects your malice and ill 
Pag. 265.  intention to his Majesty's Government, for all your Sleights and Legerdemain, to take this occasion altogether foreign and unseasonable to raise a public and solemn discourse throughout the whole Nation concerning a matter the most odious and dangerous that could be exposed. That no man can pass by a Booksellers Stall, but he must be minded of the King's Mortality. These are the marks and Characters of your displeasure against him; whilst you were pleased to vouchsafe him your favour and countenance, you were not wont to talk after this rate; but now because he will not take up Arms upon your Becks, and listen to your implacable and sanguinary Counsels, and tear in pieces the sacred Act of Oblivion and Indemnity, there is no remedy but die he must, whereas otherwise the compliment had been O King live for ever. This is almost as heavy an accusation as the rudeness you have upbraided me with against Queen Elizabeth; when suddenly with undaunted Courage down goes your Gauntlet in her Majesty's quarrel, for though she were dead some years ago, yet it seems she was much disobliged to be thought old, and if any body called her so, could not for her heart stay till the day of Judgement, but must up and at'em. And therefore to revenge this Affront you have let fly at me seven pages of Latin and English, which had you rendered into Italian or Spanish, might as well have revenged King John of the Pope, and Scanderbag of the great Turk, for they concern us all alike. But certainly never were any Princes wont to be thus irreverently treated by their Subjects heretofore, as to have the least suggestion whispered either of their Age or their Mortality.  
And yet you are not content to bring me into disfavour with his Majesty and Queen Elizabeth, but you must expose me to the displeasure of the Privy Council, and make bate between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Politicians. For really he 
Pag. 316.  doth speak of King and Counsellors at such a rate, and describe and characterise some men so, whomsoever he intends, that though I know there are no such, I dare not touch, it is too hazardous. You tell us, I remember, upon another occasion that every similitude must have if not all, yet some likeness, that is to say every likeness must have some likeness, though it does not follow that if it must have some it must have all as you would emprove it in your conclusion against me, viz. that because Sardanopalus was a King, and a good Spinster, that therefore every King must be as good a Spinster as Sardanapalus. But here is a very like Picture, and yet like no body. I describe and characterise some men so, that though you know there are no such, you dare not touch, it is too hazardous. Whoop and hola! is all our talk of Duels and fight come to this, to be afraid of no body? If there are no such persons, fear not, they will never challenge you for taking them by the Beard. I did not set down the first letters of any man's name, nor describe the features of any man's face, nor give intimation of my knowledge of any man's lodging, I only characterized the qualities of some Persons that are to be found in all Ages to oppose the Clergy of all Ages in their opposition to the Clemency of the Kings of all Ages. Now that any man's qualities should be characterized, when there is no such man in the World, no man can understand but a man of Contradictions. For the persons cannot be pointed at but by the Character, and therefore if the Character happen to suit no body at this time, than it is certain no body at this time can be characterized. Nor indeed did I ever hear of any such Persons, who gave the King such Counsels of Sacrilege as I there described, beside yourself, that have nothing to lay to his charge (since the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity) beside his not seizing the Church revenues, otherwise though the Clergy are the vilest men in the World, you do not see but that he leads a more unblameable Conversation. A very obliging Testimony, and when his Majesty wants a Living, he will no doubt come to you for a Certificate. But to let that pass, this intimation against the Council is as stabbingly suggested as the story of Sardanapalus; that a man cannot give a general Character of a sacrilegious Statesman but some of his Majesty's Privy-Council must immediately be glanced at, this indeed is too hazardous to be touched, and yet you cannot keep in your fingers from pointing, though you dare not touch. A man of your reading cannot be ignorant that there are too many of this sort of Vermin in all Ages, and that there are enough of them at this time, though they dare not appear in public view, but if ever affairs should at any time seem to require it, they will be ready and officious to instruct Princes in this dangerous Lesson, to encourage them to burn Temples, to plunder Churches, to trample upon all the Laws of Justice, and affront all the solemnities of Religion, to scorn the pedantiok stories of Honour and Conscience, and to set down to themselves no other measures of Government but falsehood, oppression, and cruelty. These are the Sejanusses that I described, and I took my Character from the monsters of former times, and you may find the men in the deformed Reigns of Nero and Tiberius. They are engendered under Tyrants, and out of the corruptions of Government, and they cannot usually lift up their heads under a merciful and gracious Prince, (though the last King it seems had the ill fortune to have his whole Reign deformed by being unhappily trinkled with Ceremonies, Arminianism and Manwaring.) Were it possible that ever his Majesty should degenerate from the goodness of his own Nature as much as (they say) Nero did, we might then, but not till then, fear such Favourites and Counsellors as should dare to tell him it is below a Sovereign Prince to submit to the Pedantry of Conscience, and to be imposed upon with the solemn cheats of Religion; these are fit stories to trinkle his People into servitudes, but he must own no other Rule of Good and Evil, Justice and Honesty beside his own pleasure or reason of State; and for his own convenience he may break Oaths, murder the Innocent, and care not how he oppress and defraud his Subjects, and sacrifice the welfare of a whole Kingdom to his own Pride and Luxury. And therefore Sir, you must not stick at Rapine or Sacrilege for the support or the ease of your Government, but seeing your Reign is short, be so provident as to make the best advantage of your Fortune; and seeing you received your Power by the chance of inheritance, and are no way accountable for the discharge of any trust, make your own days as pleasant and easy as you may, and burden not yourself with a superfluous care for the happiness of your Subjects or Posterity. Now to say that in such a general Character of wickedness as this I must speak particularly concerning King and Counsellors is such an height of impudence, that his Majesty can never sufficiently requite it by assigning you a Nitch in the Old Exchange, that is honour enough for such vulgar Wits as King James and myself. He can do no less than perch your Laureated Effigies upon the Imperial Grasshopper. The only public place that I can think of, where you may sit out of danger of rotten Eggs and Turnip tops.  
But you fall so often into these throws and pangs of Ingenuity, that it is impossible for me to correct all your Leasings, and therefore I will only exemplify two or three of the goodliest ones, lest I should be cast and condemned for baulking a legal Plea. And thus, Imprimis, have 
Pag. 307.  I cast a mischievous aspersion upon His Majesty of thinking to convert the Revenues and Dignities of the Church to his own use. To lay such an heinous act of Insolence to my Charge without any reference to my Writings, were not to be endured in any person living beside yourself, who when you have cast all the foulest aspersions in the world upon any special friend whom you design to treat with an Additional Civility, can easily wipe off all again with an impudent and counterfeit Apology, it is but protesting, that You recreate yourself with believing that your simple judgement cannot beyond your intention abate any thing of my just value with others, and then you have done me right and merited my pardon, though you had accused me of poisoning my Parents, and eating up all my Brothers and Sisters. But these are your leasings, for it was but just now that the King and I were very good friends, and that he was assured of my Loyalty; and yet here am I aspersing him with a calumny the blackest and most odious in the world. Whereas you cannot but be conscious that I have given His Majesty as large and fair a Testimonial as he (or any man else) can desire of his Zeal and Conformity to the Church of England. Though had I been so disingenuous as to dart this aspersion upon him, yet it had been less disobliging than your scurvy Commendation; who when you set yourself to strain for elaborate and studious Periods of flattery, the highest Elegy you can find in your heart to vouchsafe Him, is, that you do not know but he may lead a more unblameable conversation than the worst and wickedest men in the world, were it not for one inexcusable fault, his obstinacy in not assuming the Revenue of the Church to his own Use. So that my aspersion, if it were true, is upon your Principles so far from detecting any malicé to His Government, that it would clear him of the only blemish that lies upon his Reputation. Sure you are half Guelph and half Gibelline, you are every where so cross and contradictory to yourself. But as I have aspersed the King with the only thing for which you would commend him, so I have all along appropriated or impropriated all the Loyalty from the Nobility, the Gentry, and the Commonalty, and dedicated it to the Church. Why! did any of the King's Subjects fight for him beside the Clergy? Had he any Commanders in his Army beside Bishops and Dignitaries? Were not all his Battles fought under the Conduct of General Ʋsher and Captain Bramhall against Dr. Cromwell and Dr. Ireton, for with that Title were they Dubbed at Oxford by one J. O. in their Return from the bloody Conquest of Ireland? Did not the King's whole Infantry consist of poor Readers, as the Kirk Foot did of Mass-Johns, who brought in Covenant and Reformation in exchange for shoes and stockings. But if you can name any of the Nobility, Gentry, or Commonalty, that ventured Lives and Fortunes for the Royal Cause, I believe we shall never be so impudent as to deny them their share of Loyalty and Service to their Prince. And if you cannot, I am sure I can name amongst them as gallant Examples of Courage and Integrity as perhaps no Age can parallel; they fought and they suffered with the constancy and resolution of Martyrdom, and nothing could in the least abate their zeal and their devotion to an oppressed and an afflicted Prince; and this because their Loyalty was founded upon Principles of Conscience and Religion; and that is it that I have appropriated to the Church of England, that it teaches the duty of Subjects in absolute and indispensable terms without leaving shifts & evasions for disobedience, whereas all other Parties tie it on with false and counterfeit knots, so that by the help of reserves the Subject may be as much as ever at liberty to obey or disobey as himself shall deem convenient. And when sometimes they shall have preached up the necessity of Allegiance in the most positive and comprehensive terms, they will bring themselves off with so many clauses and exceptions, as must utterly evacuate the obligation of their own Doctrines. And if at any time they happen to be stubborn in their Loyalty, their Prince is indebted for that either to chance or interest, or inclination, or some other uncertain and changeable Principle. But the thing that I have appropriated to the Church of England is Loyalty upon firm and effectual Principles; in so much that a man must be an Apostate before he can be a Rebel, and renounce his Religion and his Duty to God before he can neglect his Allegiance and his Duty to his Prince. This is the peculiar and distinguishing Article of the Church of England, so that when you infer that I have impropriated it to the Clergy from the Nobility and Gentry, you must first suppose that none of the Nobility or Gentry belong to her Communion. And now are you not a modest and an honest Gentleman to charge me with such an unsufferable rudeness and disingenuity against so great a number of the bravest and most gallant spirits in the world. Though this I know was intended only in pursuance of your Grand Design, by such impudent Leasings to raise up a misunderstanding between the Clergy and all other Orders of men in the Kingdom. And that is the bottom of all your malice and hatred to them, that as long as they are able to keep and make good the Pulpits Loyalty will be the Religion of the people, and they will not easily be wrought upon to listen to your Factions and Democratical insinuations. And that is it (whatever you pretend of the Dignitary of Lincoln) that makes you and your Partners to gnash your teeth, and knit your fists with so much impatience against the Order itself. But were you capable of wit in your anger, you would have let fly at them with some more plausible and probable aspersions, and not think to bring them into discredit among wise and sober men with such rank and notorious fictions. For this can only betray your malice and ill intentions, and though you had right on your side, it would be an invincible prejudice against your Cause and your Party, that scruple not any Arts, howsoever dishonest or dishonourable, to do a despite to the Church of England. I remember another Accusation, which though it be not altogether so impudent as this, yet when I first read it, methoughts it was somewhat more pleasant, that my Preface intermedles 
Pag. 7.  with the King, the Succession, the Privy Council, Popery, Atheism, Bishops, Ecclesiastical Government, and above all (it seems this is more saucy than all the rest) with Nonconformity and J. O. Why truly not unlike; but it seems, if you had resolved to write a Preface, it is like you would have mentioned nothing more than your own private affairs, and only informed the Reader of your losses at Picquet, and the Gaming Ordinaries, your adventures at the Bear-garden of Bern, your encounters with the mighty race of Capons at Geneva, your remarks upon the wheel of Fortune, and whipping of Jigs, and your studies in the 5. Epist. to Marcellinus. But alas! my breeding and condition are too private to bless the world with such great and observable Memoires; and therefore not having the advantage that You and Caesar had of writing my own Novels, I was forced to intermeddle with the affairs of others; the King, the Council, and (above all) J. O. And towards them all I have endeavourd the utmost Ingenuity, and if I have failed, I even ask their pardon, I do them right. And then though I have abused them never so unworthily I make them ample amends by this clause of additional Civility. But however I have treated them I must confess I am bound to beg your pardon in particular, because you yourself have intermeddled with none of these things. And now did ever any fool in the world make so much noise and pother to so little purpose?  
But of all the Examples that ever I read of the undue and brutish stirring of Passions, I never met with any like that horrible and boobily noise that you have raised upon my pitying the folly of some men that can smell Jesuits and Gunpowder Plots upon every ordinary and 
Pag. 170, 71.  accidental firing of a chimney, upon this away you run like a man scared with the horror of the discovery, crying and roaring out to the Citizens nothing but fire, fire! and if they inquire where, why it began from some sparkles that flew out from a late Discourse, and caught hold of your chimneys. Neither is the Wretch satisfied to lay your City in ashes, but he makes himself sport with your Calamities. And though that sad Accident is yearly by Act of Parliament observed with due Humiliation and Solemnity, yet he turns all into mirth and derision, and bids you the next time your City takes fire to blow up the Thames to quench it, etc. And then in all your foam and froth you stand astonished that I am not afraid of the fury of the wild multitude, and that I dare after my late Severity against Tradesmen so much as touch the fire, etc. What a ridiculous and discomposed rage is here raised out of nothing, did ever Sophist or Impostor counterfeit such a mad and foolish melancholy, on purpose to try how brutish and driving the passions of the Rabble are? Had I been convicted of setting the City on fire, you could scarce have raised more fierce and frenetick Rants than you have upon this slight and frivolous occasion. The Oration of the Old Fellow (that I remember I have somewhere read of, I think in Apuleius) if it had been as serious, would have been much less ridiculous than this your brutish bellowing; when he came forth with all the solemnities of sorrow and a discomposed mind to declaim in the presence of the whole City against a little Boy. And as soon as he could for sighs and groans, begins with weeping tears to let them know that he had something to communicate, that required all their attention as they tendered the preservation of the Commonwealth; and so proceeds to conjure them by all things both sacred and civil, by their Altars and their Chimneys, not to let the Murderer escape unpunished; and having screwed the people's expectations even to impatience, he was vehemently desired to declare the crime, that so they might atone the anger of the Gods, which otherwise they might expect upon their City, if they should suffer such an horrid villainy to pass unrevenged. At last, after he had moved all this indignation, he produces three Bottles broken all to pieces by the young man; here, here (says he) behold the cruel murderer. At which (you may suppose) all the Audience fell a laughing then as all people do at you now; only with this difference; that then they laughed at themselves for being abused into so solemn a passion by a trick, whereas now they laugh at you for endeavouring with so much seriousness to raise as furious a passion out of such a nothing. But thus have you after your rate of Oratory done my business both with the King, the Council, the Nobility, the Gentry, and the Citizens; and no doubt but they all take you for a most incomparable Booby. I have laid all these Articles of Indictment together, only to let the Reader see the forces of your Ingenuity, because as they lie scattered at a distance, they are not altogether so observable to every ordinary understanding.  
Having been thus shrewdly handled for traducing his Majesty's Government, by stirring this dangerous and Seditious Discourse concerning the Return of Popery; the very next words you produce against me, are, that for my part I know none. Was there ever such an unhappy Caviller as you to arraign me of ill intentions to the Government by aspersing it with jealousies and suspicions of Popery, and yet in the very next breath laugh at me for saying that I know none? And if there be none, and that were the design of my Preface to prove that there were none, I would fain know which way that can be improved into a reflection upon His Majesty's Government. Both these Cavils can never pass, they run atilt at one another, and yet notwithstanding that they are contradictory, they have the ill fortune to be both false; for if these fears and jealousies had overrun the whole Nation, I hope I might concern myself to lay them, without any ill intention to the Government; and if they were causeless, I might without any impertinence or absurdity prove that they were so. But your trifling in this period I have shown already, by cutting it off in the middle, and confuting the first part before you proceeded to read the second; for I no where say that I know none: but that I know none beside the Non-conformists boisterous and unreasonable opposition to the Church of England. And therefore to railly me for saying absolutely that I know none, and then to cry me mercy three or four pages after for taking me short, is such a Scheme of writing that I dare say is peculiar to yourself, and without precedent in any Writer in the world. But however this would serve turn (as you then thought) to throw odium upon the Bishops, and that is all you aim at, viz. because they gave 
Pag. 268.  the word, and delivered Orders through their Ecclesiastical Camp to beat up the Pulpit Drums against Popery. That they might do, and yet have no ill intention against His Majesty's Government, as I am sure now you dare not deny, but if any of them did issue out any such Orders, I am as sure it is more than you know; so that in you it is an impudent lie to lay such an action to their Charge without any proof, only because (as you then supposed) it might be thought to bring them under some suspicion of ill-will to His Majesty's Government, and whatever they did, they are sufficiently justified. But this is right Fanatique Ingenuity to bring the Bishops into a Praemunire for their zeal and watchfulness against Popery; you are true Gibellines, rather than not spite them, you will side with Antichrist itself; the slander has hitherto been that they are Popishly inclined, but now their crime is, because you imagined it might do them a mischief, that they are the very men that oppose Popery: And so for Ingenuity give me a Puritan- Gibelline! But here upon supposition of this Alarm you raise such a fearful clattering of Arms and Armour, as if the Bishops of Munster, Colen and Strasburg were come over to the assistance of the Church of England. And what the reason of it is I know not, your fancy runs upon nothing but wars and fight, and turns every thing into battles and bloodshed. One while what a din do we hear of Duels, Hectors, giving the Lie, Brothers of the Blade, blemishes of Honour, Challenges, Quarrels, Combats, Villain thou liest, sending the length of the Weapon, naming Seconds, appointing time and place, gaining the Enemy's Sword, making home-thrusts, and dying upon the spot. By and by what a dreadful noise do you make with Camps, Magazines, Carasses, Habergeons, Culverins, Steel-bonets, Swords, Muskets, Bandaleers, Match, Bullets, Powder, Back, Breast, and Helmet, taking Alarms, fortifying Trenches, guarding Approaches, marching up into Counterscarps, ranging Forces in Battle, placing Cannon, sounding the Charge, giving the Word, falling on, fight through Squadrons, beating whole Armies single, mowing down whole Countries, killing Friend and Foe, and eating up All, Men, Women and Children. He that came off with Honour in threescore and seventeen Duels before he was one and twenty, and in forty years more by Land and Sea fought as many pitched Battles, could not have made a more warlike sound. Certainly you go (as I have read of one in the 5 Epist. to Marcellinus, for why should not I read your Fathers as well as you read mine) always hung like a Justice of Peace's Hall with Pikes, Halberds, Peitronels, Callivers and Muskets. And if you could but victual yourself for half a year in your Breeches, it is not to be doubted but you would be able to overrun whole Countries, Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia, and all the other territories of modern Orthodoxy.  
The first Argument I made use of to remove all popular suspicions of Popery from the Government was the manifest inconvenience to the State that must arise from any alteration in the Church; and this I proved from those impregnable principles of Loyalty that are peculiar to our Communion from all other Dissenters; so that all design of Change being so manifestly imprudent and impolitic, I thought it too wild a surmise for the Wisdom of the Government, unless it were not only trinkled but bewitched to expose itself, and therefore that there could be no other probable ground of danger but from the restlessness and seditious practices of the Fanatique Party, that might possibly some time or other make way for the return of Popery by making disturbances in Church and State. And to this purpose I gave a large Character of the peculiar Genius, and the distinguishing principles of the Church of England from the Gibelline Faction. But it seems you do not like my Characters; and what is that to me, am I obliged to justify them because such Jack-Gentlemen as you do not approve them? If you have any thing to except, you know the Law and the Press is open, but your bare dislike will no where pass for a confutation. And to tell us that you find on either side only the natural effect of such Hyberboles and Oratory that is not to be believed, is in a great many words only to say, I lie. It may be so, but yet that satisfies no body. And yet tell me, can you deny the Loyalty of the Church of England both in its principles and practices; if you cannot, whatever I have said in her commendation is undeniably true, and then it is you that lease. Can you deny that the regular Clergy are the most zealous Assertors of the Rights of Princes, and that they, and only they teach subjection to be an indispensable duty of Religion without false reserves and limitations? Can you deny that those Subjects that stuck to the Communion of the Church of England ever stuck to hazard Lives and Fortunes out of devotion to their Prince? Can you prove that every any forsook the Royal Cause in its greatest distress, that did not first forsake the Church of England? Can you deny that the main Article that distinguishes ours from all other Communions is that we vest the Crown in an Ecclesiastical Supremacy (which is one half of the Sovereign Power) whilst they challenge it either to themselves or some foreign Jurisdiction, that has no more ground of Claim beside bare confidence to exercise any Authority in the King's Dominions than the King has in his? These are the Eulogies I gave to the Church of England. If they are such Hyperboles as are not to be believed, that is to say, if they are lies, make it good; or else confess your impudence to call them so, not only without proof or evidence, but against Experience and Demonstration. And so for my contrary Character of the fanatics, that too is all a lie or such an Hyperbole as is not to be believed, and so I am answered; but if that be all you have to say, I am very well satisfied too. You had done them some kindness, if you had undertaken to prove either that the Preachers never taught the people Aphorisms of Disloyalty and Rebellion; or that they were never engaged in actual War against their lawful Prince by their Instigation; or that any of them have renounced their old Principles, though they could never be prevailed with so much as to acknowledge their Crime either to God or the King. These are plain Cases of Conscience, so that till they have done this, if they were ever guilty they are so still. And therefore when you only tell us that I have dressed them all up in Sambenita 's painted with all the Flames and Devils in Hell. All the service you do your brethren is to inform the World that whoever will draw a Fanatique to the life, must get the Devil to sit for his picture, and if a man cannot describe them without dressing them up in Sambenita's, I cannot help that; this I am sure of, that I have not made one false stroke or ill feature, that I cannot justify to any Artist. I am not concerned how ugly the piece is so it be but like, and yet you yourself have not been able to tell me one fault that I have committed. I am only sorry that they are so very deformed as you have represented them, for I never suspected before you informed me either that they were so bad or the Devil so good.  
But I know what it is that so much girds you, though your guilty Conscience dares not touch it, viz. that I have there proved that nothing but the Good Old Cause lies at the bottom of all your present Schism; and that the most zealous Patriots of Conventicles are such as have given the World but very little ground to suspect them from their professed Principles or open Practices of the least tenderness of Religion and kindness to Monarchy; so that nothing better can ever be expected from them than factions and republican Designs. I know this twinges to the quick; it is so observable all the Kingdom over that as you cannot endure to hear it, so you dare not deny it. And now your appearance has amply verified the truth of the Observation. When at the same time that you come forth to vindicate the Innocence and Peaceableness of the Non-conformists, and pass your word to the King that they shall never lift up disloyal thought against him; you cannot forbear to let us see how warmly you are concerned to justify the late Rebellion. In that the King had turned his whole Kingdom into a Prison, that many thousands of his Subjects were constrained to seek habitations abroad, & every Country, even though it were among Savages and Cannibals, appeared more hospitable to them than their own; that his whole Reign was deformed with Sibthorpianism, i. e. with his affecting an absolute and arbitrary Government; that himself and his party were the cause of the War; that the Parliament took up Arms in defence both of their Liberty and Religion; and that their Cause against the King was (like that of Christianity) only too good to be fought for, etc. And now when you ensure us that the fanatics shall never rebel, it is for this reason only because there neither is nor can be any such thing as Rebellion; for if the last War were none, you are safe for ever forfeiting your Loyalty; and if that cause were too good to be fought for, it will be hard to find one too bad. It is well you have declared, that if you can do the Non-conformists 
Pag. 282.  no good, you are resolved you will do them no harm, and desire that they should lie under no imputation on your account. I am confident you intended honestly, but they are more indebted to your good will than your discretion. When your very Apology in their behalf brings them under the greatest imputation. For this not only makes good my suggestion (which you would lay by your Caveat) that they are acted by men of Democratical Spirits, but withal it is a stronger evidence of their continuing constant and stubborn to their old Principles, because as they would never be brought to disclaim them, so now it seems they are resolved to justify them, and lay the whole guilt of the Rebellion▪ upon the King himself. I know you are a wise and wary man, and designed when you set pen to paper to take upon you the Person, that is, Personam endure of a royalist, and not to betray the least kindness to, or concern for the Good Old Cause. But you are a Gamester and know what vast odds a man may lay on Nature's side.  
And thus have I more than enough vindicated every page and period of my Preface, and yet the main of your business is still behind, for that was the least of your design to confute me, your Plot was to take occasion to fly out into invectives against the Clergy of all Ages in general, and of the Church of England in particular; first, as the cause of the late War, and secondly, as the hindrance of our present settlement; and then having barred them from trinkling with State Affairs, and wheadled the King against harkening to their Counsels, (though you do it so grossly, and with such an impudent malice, that it is like stalking by the side of a Butterfly, with a face as broad as a Brass-Copper) you advise Princes to a more moderate course of Government, and teach them from many sad examples to behave themselves dutifully to their Subjects upon peril of their displeasure or worse. I shall as briefly as I can consider your performance in all these particulars, and so leave you to the shame of your own Meditations.  
First then, having with mighty exultation 
Pag. 95.  of Spirit, and words much too good for your heart congratulated His Majesty's most Happy Restauration, just as Malefactors cry God save the King, because they have escaped the Gallows; and so do you magnify his Clemency, Mercy and Goodness for carrying the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity through. But this serenity is suddenly overcast, and you knit your brows, and depress your Superciliums', and at length with much fleering, and more reluctancy (for you are mighty sorry to speak it) yet because it is a sad truth, tell it him you must that the Ecclesiastical Part would not accomplish 
Ibid.  his Felicity, and no wonder when the Animosities and Obstinacy of some of the Clergy have in all Ages been the greatest obstacle to the Clemency, Prudence, and good intentions of Princes, and the establishment of their affairs. Which is to say, that the Clergy has not only in all Ages (nay and places too) been the bane of Government; but more particularly the Clergy of England murdered His Royal Father, and are more accountable for His Majesties and the Kingdoms sufferings than either the Rebels that took his Crown off of his head, or those that afterwards took his head off of his shoulders. But they shall answer for themselves anon, we must first traverse your first Bill against the Clergy in general. But who are you that are thus acquainted with the Clergy of all Age's time out of mind, sure you can be no less a man than one of the Patriarches, or a fifth from Methusalem, or at least Andrew de Temporibus John's elder Brother, you have so general an acquaintance with the Clergy of all Ages! As for the Clergy of the Ages before Noah's flood I will not contend, for for any thing that I know there might be Bishops of Munster, and Cullen, and Strasburg in those times, and I cannot disprove it but that King Nimrod's Chaplains were his Huntsmen; but in all Ages since I cannot find that they have been more cruel than other men. Aaron I am sure was remarkable for his meekness and mercy; for though the Grand Remonstrance of Corah were intended against himself and his Bran for trinkling Moses, and the Members of the Sanhedrin, yet did he bestir himself to atone the Rebellion, and procure pardon for the Offenders. Though I must confess his Grandchild Phinehas was an arrant Jewish Zealot that is (as your modern Orthodox Rabbis inform you) a notorious Rogue and Cutthroat. And as for the Heathen Priests, though they were very famous Trinklers, I do not find that they were any great Men-eaters. In my Roman Empire I do not read that they were fiercer Cannibals of the Race of Man or Capon-kind than the Laity, nor I believe can you prove out of your 5 Ep. to Marcellinus, that the Clergy were the Authors of Julian's Persecution. But the bottom of all this is, that the Priests have in all Ages, and in all Kingdoms been advanced to places of greatest Authority next to the Sovereign Power itself. The Druids of Brittany, the Magis of Persia, the Priests of Egypt, Judaea, Assyria, AEthiopia are a sufficient Indication, that however fanciful men may fool themselves and their Country with other Philosophical Models and Theories of Policy, yet Religion and the Ministers of Religion will have the greatest share in the Government; and the reason is as evident as the experiment is Catholic, in that nothing can so truly and effectually awe the greatest part of mankind as the dread of the world to come; and therefore they whose peculiar Office it is to guide and instruct men in their future concerns, must and will in spite of all the witty Statesmen in the world have the greatest reverence, power and interest with the generality of the People. And thus though the Authority of the Clergy of England be at this time by reason of some malignant effects of the late war, at as low an ebb as perhaps the power of the Priests ever was under any Monarchy, yet it is manifest, that for all their▪ disadvantages all of the Loyal Party, Nobility, Gentry and Commonalty that are sober and serious in the belief and profession of their Religion, cannot but have a veneration to their Persons, and a deference to their Judgements. How else think you, could they be so easily trinkled? And as for all the several Casts and Clans of Non-conformists they are perfectly enslaved to the Authority of their several Teachers: So that do what we can, the Clergy will have a strong influence upon the people; all the present contest is, whether it be not more beneficial to the Government that such should be protected and encouraged who profess Loyalty and have given no ground to doubt the sincerity of their profession, than such as have heretofore incited the people to Rebellion, and never since gave any the least assurance of their having renounced their former Principles (which if they had, they would have done it loud enough) and still as far as they dare venture, disturb the present quiet and decry the present settlement of the Nation. And this is the last issue of your Advice to rebate the Power of the Regular Clergy, thereby to enlarge and advance that of the Non-conformists; for as our Interest weakens and moulders away, it is unavoidable but that some others that pretend to the same Office must gain as much Power as we lose; unless people fall into downright Atheism and contempt of Religion, and that sets them lose from all effectual obligations of Loyalty to their Prince, and Duty to their Country, and Honesty to one another; and if the humour grow strong and prevalent, they in a little time grow barbarous and ungovernable, and with looseness of manners, and a general neglect of the public quickly bring on disorders, and for the most part dissolutions of Government. So that this is plain enough, that no State can be tolerably governed or secured but by the assistance of Religion. And then if that have so powerful an influence upon affairs of State, and over the minds of the People, its public Officers that have the greatest share of Power over that, cannot but have a proportionable share of Power over them. And for this reason have wise Princes in all Ages entrusted them with places of greatest Authority and Reputation in the Government; and good reason too, for if they are but qualified with parts and abilities equal to others, that makes them as fit Statesmen as any, but then the interest proper to their Office gives them a mighty and unimaginable advantage over all. And hence it is that they have in all Ages been envied and maligned by every proud man that thought himself qualified for the great places that they filled; and these have always set themselves to asperse their Government, and to expose them to the hatred of the People, by charging all necessary severity and just execution of Laws upon their Tyranny. The Prince is a gracious Prince, but it is these men that thrust him upon these cruel and sanguinary courses, and were these bloody Counselors once removed His Majesty would quickly return to His Natural Clemency, and we should see no more of these Merciless and Arbitrary proceedings. And this has been the cruelty of the Clergy in all Ages, that they have not trifled with their Authority, but have been watchful to nip Sedition in the bud, and by a little severity at first save all those executions that would be necessary to suppress it afterwards. For if once it gets head and form itself into a Party, it is then upon even terms with the Government, and nothing but the event of War can decide the Controversy. Whereas all beginnings of mischief are easily withstood, and to take off one Malcontented Head of Faction, may ordinarily save the lives of thousands of well-meaning people. And that is the grievance of such as you would seem to be, that the Clergy have always been watchful upon their designs, and kept the innocent people out of harms way by snapping the contrivers of mischief. And wherever their precipitate, violent, rigorous, and extreme Counsels (as you call them) have been effectually followed, it has usually saved the trouble and expense of Civil Wars; unless when the storm was grown too great, before they came to the Helm, and then it is not in their power to lay it, that must be done by other men and other instruments. It were easy for them by timely care to prevent Wars, but when the people are prepared and resolved for it aforehand, they cannot force them to be peaceable by Laws, and nothing can reduce them but beating them into obedience. And these are the two things that may make them sometimes seem more rigorous than other Statesmen, in that 1. They are usually more watchful upon the artifices of ambitious or discontented Grandees; 2. In that they are more aware of the Impostures of Religion, and understand the mischiefs of Enthusiasm more perfectly, than usually Laymen can or (at least) will do; and this puts them upon that kind of severity, which those that suffer by it though justly, call Persecution, though it is notoriously manifest to any person of common prudence, that for the most part the offenders are not punished for their private conceits, but only for the security of the State, in that either they themselves carry on ill designs under that pretext, or if they are simple and well-meaning, they are carried on by those that do. I cannot conjecture any other grounds you have of charging the Clergy with rigour and obstinacy in all Ages, unless it be that they are of all Orders of men the most faithful and zealous servants of their Masters, and the most vehement assertors of the Supreme Power against popular encroachments. This I am sure was the only ground of the late Long-Parliaments hatred to the Bishops, because they were (as one expressed it) the trustiest agents of Tyranny, because of that stubborn and invincible opposition they showed to their Rebellious and Democratical designs; and for that reason did the Cabal (that trinkled all the rest of the Members) petition the People to petition themselves to remove them both from the King and out of the House, because whilst they stood in the way, they could not come at the King, that is the Crown. And this too (Mr. Trinkle) is the ground of all your indignation; for it is purely out of displeasure to the English Clergy, that you are transported into this modest and mannerly censure of the Clergy of all the world. And your enmity to them is nothing else than that they preach Doctrines so contrary to yours, and after all the fatal Consequences of the late Rebellion will not be prevailed upon to persuade the people that the good old Cause was the Cause too good. And this becomes your Brazen Modesty to indite the most sacred and serious Profession in the World of all the mischiefs and miseries that ever befell Mankind without alleging any instance of proof unless it be the Clergy of the Church of England, and that 1. because they will not be reconciled to a good opinion of those men that have been engaged in actual Rebellion, and yet are so far from acknowledging their Error that they justify their Cause, 2. because they do not think it convenient to indulge and connive at the Propagation of such Principles as prepare People for the like Practices upon the like opportunities.  
But in the next place as the Clergy of all Ages have ever been the greatest Obstacle of the Clemency and Prudence of Princes, so are they not so well fitted by Education as others for Political Affairs. 
Pag. 300.  Good now Sir Pol! what is the defect of their education? Is it that they have not that liberty that others have to frequent the Gaming Ordinaries, or make Observations at Charing-Cross and in Lincolns-Inn-fields? Excepting these wonderful advantages, in which you indeed (though very few Gentlemen beside) outstrip them, I cannot see what breeding other persons can boast of, that Clergymen may not have as well as they. They are born as other men are with variety of natural Parts and Abilities, and they may emprove them as Kings and other mortal men do by reflecting upon the Histories 
Pag. 243▪  of former times and the present transactions to regulate themselves by in every Circumstance. And though it cannot reasonably be expected they should have Royal Understandings, because they were never born with them, yet what hinders but they may have gentlemen's Memories, and so be as fit for Government as any of their fellow Subjects? and if they are not as fit as Kings themselves, that is no disparagement of their abilities, especially when as they have not the education, so they were not intended for the Trade of Kings. So that you have shown nothing but the Impotency of your spite and Malice to pass one and the same censure upon all men of a Profession, when you might with as much truth and ingenuity have passed it upon all Mankind. However the Clergy are born capable of Wisdom as well as others, and then why may they not acquire it too in the same methods with others by Study and Travel, and Experience, and Observation; and I do not see what greater advantage you have made of these than any poor Reader might have done, beside being hardened in Malice, and Impudence, and Shreds of Latin.  
But still you improve when next to this Remark upon the unfitness of the Clergy by reason of their Education for political affairs, you immediately add, That they have the advantage above others 
Pag. 301.  and even if they would but keep to their Bibles would make the best Ministers of State in the World. So that it seems by their Education that is peculiar to them as Clergymen, viz. the study of the Bible, they have the advantage of all others to make the best Ministers of State in the World; so ridiculous was it for you to intimate that they are not so well fitted by Education as others for Political Affairs, when your very next words acknowledge that they are the best fitted of any men in the World. Was ever Malice so inconsistent with itself? You have an implacable mind to vent your Spleen and Rancour against the Clergy, but you are so conscious to yourself of Impudence and Disingenuity, that you are ashamed of the folly and the foulness of your own reproaches, and that perpetually runs you up into these ridiculous Contradictions. Could any man in the World beside yourself have been so precipitate as to suggest that the Clergy are less fitted than others by Education for Political Affairs, and yet in the same breath confess that they have from that Education, that is proper to themselves as the Clergy, the advantage of all men in the World beside? Yes! If they would keep to their Bibles, but God therefore frustrates 
Pag. 301▪  them because though knowing better, they seek and manage their Greatness by the lesser and meaner Maxims. Good Mr. Insolence! Why not they keep to their Books as well as such Truants as you? This is but a ridiculous and incredible Paradox, that those that are best acquainted with the Rules of Justice and Government should for that reason be under a fatal necessity not to observe them: But if they are not, then seeing they have the advantage of knowing better than others, and seeing there is no peculiar reason to hinder them more than others from making a right use of their knowledge, than it is unavoidable by the Confession of your own Malice, but that they must be most likely to make the best Ministers of State in the World. Nothing can possibly hinder unless God Almighty after he has blessed men with the greatest advantages for Wisdom and Integrity should by some miraculous and immediate stroke from Heaven blast and infatuate all their Counsels. Why! rather than fail of your spite to the Clergy, he shall come down as he did at the building of Babel, to confound all the contrivances of Churchmen. For truly I think the reason that God does not bless them in Affairs 
Pag. 301.  of State is because he never intended them for that Employment. Good Mr. Secretary! is there nothing can escape your knowledge? Are you not content to be admitted into the Privacy of Kings, but you must be God Almighty's Colbert, understand all the intrigues of his Providence, and be of the Cabinet Council to the Most high? Is it not enough that you are acquainted with the King all over; you have observed his parts, and given an account of his memory and understanding, you have kept him company, and given him your Testimony of the unblameableness of his Life and Conversation, you have been admitted with him into his Privy Closet, and can tell what he studies, and what books he reads, what he censures and what he approves. Great favours these for a Gentleman of private condition and breeding! and yet they are not sufficient to satisfy the ambition of such a Gonzales as you, but you must be flying to Heaven forsooth by the help of your Ganzas, even as I would 
Pag. 76.  fly thither without the help of Grace. And there you must be prying into all the secret Councils of Divine Providence, and you can confidently tell all the thoughts and designs of the Almighty, and write Gazettes of what News in Heaven. Of all the secret ones that ever I met with, give me you for a bold one! No doubt you are no ordinary Mortal, and have your habitation at least in the High Places of Armageddon, where J. O. dwelled when he discovered all the Methods and Maxims whereby God order the Dispensations and Revolutions of his Providence. He is the Will. Lilly, (as you are the Poor Robin) of the Churches, in so much that he is able to give them an exact Ephemeris of all turns and alterations of Wether, and to advise them in all changes of Affairs still to keep on the same side with God himself, let him shift parties never so often: when it is seasonable to sail by a side Wind against the seeming opposition of his Providence, and when to sing Songs upon Sigionoth, and by some secret intimations knock quite off with him from any Good old Cause or Good old Principles. That such bold Impostors should dare to challenge any interest, how much more familiarity with the Most high! You know that he never intended Churchmen for Ministers of State! You know what he intends! away you wretch! if you have any spark of Modesty unextinguished, retire into your Closet and lament and pine away for these desperate Blasphemies. The Ruac Hakodesh dwell in such a distempered and polluted mind as yours! it may as soon unite itself to a Swine. Fatuos & hujus terrae filios quod attinet (says a Jewish Zealot) non magis nostro judicio prophetare possunt quam asinus & rana. Asses and Tadpoles may as soon expect the Impressions of the divine Spirit as such dunces and sots as you. And yet you do not think it enough to pretend acquaintance with the present thoughts and intentions of the Almighty, but you must be betraying his future designs, and blabbing what shall be hereafter. Thus you dare 
Pag. 162.  divine, augurate, and presage mutual felicity to his Majesty and the Kingdom from his gracious Declaration of Indulgence, and that what ever humane Accident may happen, they will, they can never have cause to repent this action or its Consequences. Amen! I wish you a true Prophet with all my soul, nothing recreates me so much as to hear of the prosperity of my King and Country. But, if you should ever live to see this Declaration repent of, would it not be a sad rebuke to your confidence? I am sure if it were my case, I should never be able to lift up my head after it. And though we have no Laws against counterfeit Prophets, because it is rare for any man in these Northern Climates to arrive to that degree of Impudence and Vanity, yet among the Jewish Zealots they were punished more severely than notorious Rogues and Cutthroats. And if you do not pretend to some particular insurance from Heaven, you add rashness to your impudence to be thus confident in your predictions of future Contingencies. For you your own self know how uncertain the success of the best 
Pag. 105.  Contrivances may be, for after all things may be laid with all the depth of humane Policy, there happens lightly some uggly little contrary Accident from some quarter or other of Heaven, that frustrates and renders all ridiculous (I should have been so modest as to say) successess, for wise Counsels are not rendered foolish by disappointment. Now was it not possible that some of these little ugly Accidents, that might or might not be fore-seen, might spoil all the success of so wise and so well-laid an Action? And therefore, (I say it again) it was not discreetly done to ensure success so boldly to so contingent an Event. There are thousands of little and great Accidents that it is not possible for humane Wisdom to prevent, that might frustrate all its good consequences, and there are some that my slender judgement could easily have foreseen and foretell. It was possible that the Non-conformists might have made ill use of his Majesty's goodness and condescension to embolden their Party to more saucy and insolent demands. This I say is possible for all the King has so obliged them by his late mercy, that if there were any such Knave, 
Pag. 252.  there can be no such fool among them, that would ever lift up an ill thought against him. I know as well as you that there is not in the World a more grateful and good natured Generation of men in all other cases but the case of Loyalty and of the Race of Capons. So that still I say it is possible they may forget his kindness and their own Duty; and that they will not, I think your word is no competent security. For you have passed it but once before, and that with your hand upon your heart, and that was when you protested upon your Honour and Integrity your own reading of the fifth Epistle to Marcellinus. Beside as it is possible for the Non-conformists to be unmindful of their Duty and their Obligation to the King, so is it (you know) possible too for the Members of Parliament to be some time or other so trinkled, that nothing shall put them in good humour but cancelling this Declaration or any other Act of Indulgence to the Non-conformists. And then that (though no other sinister Accident should intervene) may for all your Prophecy prove an occasion of some Repentance. You know how much I might here insult over your baffled Impudence, but this is enough to let you see how unadvised a thing it is to be too positive in Predictions. And now to return to the Clergy, have you not made an admirable speech to have them thrust out from all Offices in the State, because they are unqualified for them by their Education and that because by their Education they have peculiar advantages to make the best Ministers of State, were it not that God that has prepared and qualified them above all other men for that employment will not bless them in it because he never intended them for it? For a lucky hand at Contradictions you are the man. And had you not thus demonstratively baffled your own malice, I might have confuted your rash censures of all Ages by the experience and opinion of most Ages, and shown that as none are better qualified for State-Affairs than Churchmen, so none have acquitted themselves with greater Art or Success; and that things have rarely miscarried, but when their Counsels have not been effectually followed (as I shall show anon in the Cases of Cardinal Granvile and Archbishop Laud) though when all is done, you know the wisdom of a design is not to be measured by its success. But your insolence is not worth so much Correction. Only look upon our next Neighbour's o're-sea, and tell me to whose conduct that King and Kingdom owe their present flourishing condition. Who were they that brought it back from the very point of dissolution to that Settlement and Grandeur it now enjoys? Were they not Churchmen and did they not do it by such Counsels as you think (& perhaps as the case stood were) precipitate and sanguinary, viz. when the Nation was divided into two powerful Factions by resolving to break one to pieces for ever, that so they might not be embroiled in Civil Wars upon every slight occasion, whenever the People grew wanton, or any Great Man happened to be out of favour, whereas the former Statesmen that were for the trinkling Policy entailed an hereditary Civil War upon the Kingdom from Generation to Generation, even, as I remember, J. O. says the Lord had sworn a great while ago to destroy the Amalekites and the Kerns.  
But having taken upon yourself the Office of Vicar General to the Clergy of all Ages, and all Nations, Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia, etc. you are not content to turn them all out of public employment in the State, but you would wheedle them out of all the comforts and advantages of life, and persuade them to strip themselves of all the secular conveniencies wherewith the wisdom and the bounty of former Ages have endowed the Church, and to accept of no other Interest or Reputation but what they gain by abstracting themselves from the world, by humility and strictness of Doctrine and Conversation, things being best preserved by the same means they were at first attained. Yes, yes, the Authority of the Priesthood consists purely in the people's Opinion of their Virtue and Piety, and their Revenues in the Alms and voluntary Oblations of Christian People, and not in endowments of Lands and Lordships, nor grants of Secular Powers and Jurisdictions; that is to say, that because the Primitive Christians were perpetually exposed to Persecutions and Martyrdoms, therefore bring forth your Rods, and Axes, and Pillories, and Whipping-posts, and Strappadoes, and Cheilostrophia, and Rhinolabides, and boil them, roast them, crucify them, hang them, for things are best preserved by the same means, they were at first attained. But then (good Mr. Trinkle) the calamity of those times was the common fate of all Christian People; Clergy and Laity were equally involved in the same miseries, and yet I hope no Layman is so weak as to suppose that when Christianity has got the upperhand, and the favour and protection of the Government, that he lies under any obligation to quit those comforts and possessions of life, that he may honestly and lawfully enjoy, because it was the hard and unhappy fate of the Primitive Christians to suffer the loss of all for the sake of their Religion; and why then should the Clergy be tied more than they to an impertinent and unprofitable self-denial? or if it be their duty to be poor and miserable, I am sure it is equally the duty of all. And therefore in all States as Christianity prevailed Churches were endowed with Lands and Revenues, and Churchmen privileged with exemptions and immunities; and when it was settled as the Religion of the State, the Clergy were every where admitted to a share of the Government, as they are in all other Religions of the World. And indeed who can more safely be trusted with the welfare of mankind, than such persons whose very profession in prudence lays upon them peculiar obligations to justice and sobriety, not but that they are liable (though not so much) to the same miscarriages with other Mortals, but yet if they have better means to preserve them from unjust practices, they are less likely to fall into them; for the world is to be governed in humane ways, and though the Divine Providence may in some rare and extraordinary junctures over-bear the wisdom of men, yet in its ordinary conduct of things it makes use of the most probable means, and gives a blessing proportionable to the natural effects of things themselves. So that it is a pretence only fit for such as are void of all other pretence, to say that though Clergymen are the best qualified of all men in the world for the managery of public affairs, yet God will never bless their endeavours, how good or pious soever, because he never intended them for that employment. But such is the unhappy fate of the Clergy, that they must be subjected to the lash of every proud and wanton pedant, and if there be any man in any Age more remarkably illnatured, he is sure to be venting his malice and choler upon the Sacred Office, though in ours every thing can be laying heavy and unreasonable burdens upon the backs of the Clergy; and as rare a thing as it was in the time of yore, in our days every Animal has confidence enough to bray forth his reproofs of the Prophet's madness. And nothing more familiar than for such men as have a mind to exempt themselves from the great and indispensable obligations of Religion to be always prescribling idle and unnecessary severities to Churchmen; and though they indulge themselves in the most licentious courses, yet they will by no means allow them the common and ordinary comforts of life. It is a crime in a Clergyman to be happy, nay to be a man. And if he will but be unkind and uncivil to himself, they will love him for that, though for nothing else. This is very hard dealing, and one would think very strange, and yet there are two very obvious reasons of it beside the general principle of ill-nature.  
1. There are some men that dare not bid open defiance to all Religion, and yet have no mind to be brought under the obligations of real virtue and goodness, and therefore in excuse of their own neglect are willing to stretch the Precepts and Duties of the Gospel to an impracticable severity, and thereby they make Apology to themselves for their own negligence, in that it is not to be expected from men of business,) and that live in the world, and in the midst of temptations, that they should attend so constantly to that height of rigour and austerity, that (as they will have it) the Laws of Religion require. No, this concerns Parsons and Churchmen, and such whose Trade it is to profess and pretend to a greater strictness than their neighbours. But for them it is enough to be solemn and serious at certain seasons of devotion, and to expiate all the wickedness of their lives by doing penance now and then in some childish and unprofitable instances of mortification. People will endure any thing in Religion rather than be truly virtuous. And this is the great disadvantage of the Church of England (as to interest) that it teaches men the plain and practicable precepts of the Gospel, such as concern their lives and conversations, and does not allow any tricks of eluding or baulking their duty, it does not feed them with push-pin. Orthodoxy and Scholastic Nothings about Faith, and Justification, and procat●rtick causes, nor commute Penances and Prayers for the habitual practice of Virtue and Holiness; but if men will mortify their own vices and passions, join the love of God with the love of their neighbour, and endeavour after an entire conformity to the Laws of their Religion, well and good, she will administer comfort to an uniform and universal obedience. But these though they are very plain, are grievous hard sayings; they grate upon men's pleasures and profits, and pluck out right eyes, and cut off right hands, for there is scarce any man but has his peculiar and darling vice, for which, so it may be indulged, men are content to make any satisfaction. And when I discoursed of the Return of Popery I might have insisted upon this as one of the greatest grounds of danger; that men will not endure the plain dealing of the Church of England, but they must have a Religion that will be more compliant with their humours, and reconcile some vices with the hopes of Eternal Life. And this is the main subtlety of the Church of Rome, she has found out ways at the same time to ease the Consciences of wicked men, and to advance her own wealth and grandeur; though that which is most of all taking is, that their Priests whatever burden they lay upon the people seem to take the heaviest end of it upon their own shoulders, and take off their envy by divorcing themselves from some of the most desirable comforts of life for a state of self-denial and austerity. And whilst those self-chosen mortifications are looked upon as the main exercises of Religion, that satisfies the minds and excuses the engagements of others, in that it is plainly inconsistent with their condition in the world, and therefore cannot reasonably be required of them but only at some certain seasons of looking demurely, and with a solemn face, and that quits all scores. This I say is that which makes some men deal so hardly with the Clergy as to except them from all the rights of humane nature, and comforts of humane life; it is only that they may make them their Asses to carry their burdens, and excuse their compliance by placing their Piety in some foolhardy or slovenly trifle that is made peculiar to their profession. And then if they are but nasty or melancholy they are brave men and deserve preferment. But whilst we deal plainly with the people, and make no distinction between Seculars and ecclesiastics as to the necessity and obligation of constant and uniform obedience to the Laws of Christ, that is intolerable, and in revenge to this severity, they will task us to some troublesome and impertinent drudgery, and if we will not submit to the insolence of their folly and malice, rail at us for refusing to submit to the rules and orders of our own Profession.  
This is the first, and perhaps main account of some men's impertinent impositions upon the Clergy, the second is more obvious and easily betrays itself, for if at any time we pursue this Doctrine to its Application, we shall find it preached, and chiefly insisted upon in matters of Right and Wrong between Churchmen and themselves. If they demand their Deuce, oh Sirs! Ministers must not be covetous and worldly minded, but it seems themselves may be so and knavish too, for so they are if there be any justice and equity in the world, when they defraud them of their Legal Rights. If they renew a Lease, they must abate of the old Rents; for Ministers must be merciful and charitable, and because they must be so, they must for ever suffer themselves to be cheated, impair the Church-Revenues to bestow an Alms upon a Great Man, and commit sacrilege to avoid covetousness. But alas! these are knavish and ridiculous devices, fit for none but Sots either to use or to regard; as if it were covetousness in them not to suffer themselves to be oppressed or defrauded; as if it were hard dealing to keep off private men from preying upon the small Remainder of the Church's Patrimony; as if it were a sin in them to demand their Right, but none in others to withhold it; in a word, as if the measures of justice and common honesty were not the same to all men. And yet a goodly Casuist of the Modern Reformation, viz. from the bondage of Prelatical and Regal Tyranny, has set it down for a certain rule of Conscience, that in Ministers of the Gospel, contention (that is demanding their Tithes) though for their own Right is scarce allowable. These things certainly are too fond and unreasonable of themselves to be seriously believed by those that pretend them. But they are resolved to be dishonest, and then it is easy to take up maxims suitable to their resolution. Though I am apt to think that in you this Levelling Principle of reducing the Clergy to a Pension according to the Dutch Modern Orthodoxy, proceeds rather from envy than interest, and yet you may as well make the same proposal to all mankind to forgo all their Proprieties, because it was your ill fate to be rooked of your own Fortune at Picquet.  
But yet whilst you recommend the virtue of Sacrilege to His Majesty, as he would clear himself from the only blemish of his Conversation, you do but lose your labour, and it is well if you do not lose something else. For you must entertain a very mean opinion of his wisdom and understanding, if you think he can be so weak and unwary as to be wheadled to divest himself of one of the strongest and best securities of his Crown. For whilst all Ecclesiastical Dignities are held immediately of that, all that enjoy them are engaged as well by Interest as Duty to its Service; whereby the Prince keeps that part of the Nation at his own Devotion, that ordinarily keep the greatest part of it at theirs: Whereas if these Preferments were alienated, and the Clergy forced to depend more upon the Charity and Contributions of the People, they would lie under some shrewd temptations (I mean as many of them, whose Consciences are not touched with any high sense of Honour and Loyalty, and men that are poor and despicable are not wont much to regard those virtues) to carry on any design to please their proud Masters. And of this our late Rebellion affords a very remarkable instance, in which none were more conspicuous for Loyalty than the Dignified Clergy, and none greater Incendiaries than the Mercenary Preachers and Lecturers, who subsisted purely by the Benevolence and arbitrary Pensions of the People. All this is so infinitely plain and obvious, that whoever thinks our Governors capable of any such designs, must first have so mean an opinion of their Wisdom and Abilities, as to think that they have no more wit than directly to weaken and enervate their own interest. Neither can I think so dishonourably of the People of the Nation (Gamesters only excepted) as to imagine that they should desire the dissolution of the Church's Patrimony; seeing it is a public inheritance, and of equal advantage to all, in that the Ecclesiastical Demesns are not confined to a Tribe or a Family, nor entailed upon the Men but the Service, so that every man has liberty to participate the public benefit, and here is an handsome provision for any man, that will render himself capable of it, and there is no Gentleman but may, and ordinarily does, dispose of one Son to the Church, as well as a second to the Law, and a third to Merchandise, whereas if it were preyed upon and devoured by hungry Gamesters, there are few families but would suffer loss as well as the present Possessors. At least you may much more reasonably envy the Old Gentlemen of Suttons Hospital than the Dignified Clergy, because that is a provision for Persons after they are grown useless and unserviceable in the world, whereas the Dignities of the Church serve to reward and encourage the industry of such as are of all men the most necessary and useful to the Commonwealth. And yet so unconceivably spiteful is the envy of the Fanatique Hirelings, that because themselves are maintained upon the Alms, and out of the baskets of their followers, labour to raise the people's indignation against all Ecclesiastical Revenues; insomuch that if any of them have at any time a mind to exercise their zeal and malice, they fall a whetting their claws upon Gowns and Cassocks; and to be always inveighing against any comfortable subsistence of the Clergy, is the most undoubted symptom and discovery of a Zealous Brother. And every Mechanic, that for his parts and education is qualified for nothing higher than the Clerks and the Sexton's Office, to tune Psalms or dig graves, thinks much of the Doctor's Allowance as wanton and superfluous, though it be short of the Returns of his own mean and small-ware Trade. And when an ingenious Person has spent his Youth, and too often his Estate to fit himself for this Sacred Employment, this is a great encouragement and a doughty reward for one of an ingenuous and learned education to be trampled upon by every illiterate and conceited Clown. And though these men are not much to be admired for their manners and ingenuity upon any account, yet their barbarity shows itself in nothing more shamelessly than this insolence towards men so infinitely their betters by the right both of their parts and their breeding. This is a rudeness peculiar to themselves from all other Savages in the world beside. And though we rake the East and the West Indies, there are no People so prodigiously fallen from all sense of humanity and civil manners, as to think their Priesthood the most plausible Object, upon which they can wreck their Spite and Malice, much less to think it an Argument of their Saint-ship and acceptance with their Gods to affront and vilify the Officers of their sacred Rites.  
But as for your suggesting to the King his right of assuming Church-revenues, I must confess it is very kindly and obligingly offered, and first like so great a Patron of the Church of England, that it even joys your heart to hear any thing well said of her, and secondly like so great a Patriot of the Subject's Liberties, that out of pure love to mankind admonishes Kings not only to preserve their Rights but to yield to their Infirmities. Now whatever Liberties the Subject may claim, they are all founded upon such Grants of Princes or such Laws of Propriety as are at least confirmed and ratified by Royal Assent. And then if you look into the most ancient and (as the Lawyers inform us) fundamental Constitutions of this Realm, I believe you will scarce find any other Liberties of the Subject so firmly established, as the Rights and Immunities of the Church; so that by the same right and with the same honesty that you fancy the King may seize its revenues, he may as well challenge any man's Inheritance; nay, and reassume all the Demesnes of the Kingdom to the use of the Crown. So that whatsoever Liberties the Subjects of England may or do claim, this suggestion subverts them all, cancels all Propriety, and throws up every man's Estate into the hands of his supreme Landlord. Had it not been for the unfortunate adventure at Picquet, I am apt to believe you would have as little approved this Doctrine as your Neighbours. And it cannot but be so edifying with the Nobility and Gentry, that the Parliament will no doubt at the next Session think themselves obliged to see you sufficiently trinkled for your good advice.  
But 'tis time to have done with your censure of the Clergy of all former Ages and all foreign Churches, and I will say no more in their behalf, because my age has not given me leave to be acquainted with the Patriarches that lived either before or immediately after the Flood, nor my Travels with the Bishops of Munster, Cullen, and Strasburgh. But your Malice rises against the Clergy of our own Age and Nation, and for their sakes is it that you have bestowed this obliging Character upon the Clergy of all former Ages. And here that you may not be mistaken, you begin with much circumspection, your Oratio expurgatoria to the Body of the English Clergy, who have been ever 
Pag. 237.  since the Reformation of the most eminent for Divinity and Piety in all Christendom. Though by the way I presume you mean not Hugh Peter for his Piety because he was hanged, nor J. O. for his Divinity because he deserves it, nor the Bishops for either, because you esteem them, as you would have us, no part of the body of the English Clergy. But whoever is meant, be sure there is mischief at hand, and it is near breaking out, for a Jacal does not more naturally attend a Lion, nor Murder follow a Long-Parliament Fast, than malice does your most solemn and sweet-liped Apologies. And thus out it comes. Those you intent are only a 
Pag. 238, 9, 40.  particular Bran of persons, who will in spite of Fate be accounted the Church of England, men that to increase their own Splendour, care not though they set all on flame about them; men that have devested themselves of all Humanity and all good manners; men that would never endure any Overture towards the Peace of the Church and Nation wherein they lived; lastly, men that have always been for the most precipitate, brutish, and sanguinary Counsels. Now though the Character agree well enough, and you have ever been a deep Youth, yet I cannot think you intent either Hugh Peter's his Bran, or J. O's Bran, or the Tryers Bran, or Usinulca's Bran, or any other Fanatique or Modern Orthodox Bran; but plainly and sincerely Archbishop Land's Bran, the Bran that deformed the whole Reign of the best Prince that ever wielded English Sceptre, the Bran of Ceremonies, and the Bran of Arminianism, in short the Bran that will not depart from the Church as 'tis by Law established only to save the credit of some sturdy Swiss that will not conform; for that is your only charge against them that they will not be brought to temper and moderation, nor make the least abatement to bring the honest Presbyterians off with some little reputation. But your meaning is better to be understood by the Apologies you make to the Church of England itself. She has not a more dutiful and devout child than you, you cannot name her but you are immediately upon your knees, and begging her Blessing. And it even joys your heart to hear any 
Pag. 270.  thing well said of her, and as it is by Law established has such a stock of solid and deserved Reputation, that you could even weep for joy. And yet are you all this while most lovingly inveighing against her legal Establishments; Her three Ceremonies you will not endure for all the World, because they are (you know) as it were Sacraments, and that because they want nothing of a Sacramental Nature but a Sacramental Nature, and so are (as you know too) a kind of Antisacraments. And so obtruded upon the Church 
Pag. 219.  that without condescending to these additional inventions, no man is to be admitted to partake of the true Sacraments which were of Christ's appointing. A dutiful expression of your obedience to the Church as established by Law, that she Tyrannically obtrudes Antisacraments to the prejudice of Christ's own true Sacraments, than which worse need not be said of the most Antichristian Church in the World. And thus the Commissioners of the Worcester-house Conference obstructed his Majesty's felicity and the Nations settlement, because they thought it reasonable and convenient to stick to the present establishments of the Church till some proof of their unlawfulness was produced; and because, when none could be produced, they would not condescend to that temper and moderation, as to change all her Constitutions without any other reasonable Motive than to salve the reputation of the Presbyterians, they must be branded for cunning and revengeful men. And good reason too, because the Non-conformists demand nothing, but what is 
Pag. 275.  so far from doing us any harm, that it would only make us better. And yet all their demands are against our legal Establishments; of which your worship is so enamoured. And as for the Act of Uniformity, and that superfoetation of Acts that followed after it, though they were all established by Law, yet were they procured by trinkling, nay by Bishop's trinkling, and for that reason serve only to expose the Wisdom of King and Parliament to after Ages. Another special commendation of the Church of England as by Law established, that its Legal Establishments are so foolish as to be a perpetual Testimony of the Lawmakers Folly. Find me out a Fanatique in Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia, Scotland, Geneva, Pin-makers Hall, J. O's Congregation, that may not boast his deep respect and reverence to the Church of England upon as good Terms as yourself. So that it is plain here you did but Personam endure of an honest Zealot, for say what you will you must and shall know, that all Zealots are not Rogues and Cutthroats. And after all your counterfeit reverence you mean no body else by this particular Bran than the Bishops and the Clergy of the Church of England as 'tis by Law established. Upon them it is that you dispense forth this sweet Character with so much bounty, and in the very spirit of meekness.  
And in the first place Archbishop Laud, cannot lie quiet in his Grave, but after a great many fair and foul words as consistent with themselves as the rest of your Book, you are pleased at length to score all the miscarriages of the late King's Reign, and all the miseries of the late War upon his head and Conscience. I suppose because he was a man so learned, so pious, so wise, so studious to do both God, and his Majesty good service, you thought he was better able to bear it than some others whose reputation was not altogether so clear and unquestionable. But poor Bishop Laud! this is hard measure, that when never any man's Innocence cleared itself so gallantly from all the assaults of Malice and Calumny, his venerable ashes should be thus insolently arraigned by every bold and Fanatique Blockhead. For notwithstanding the vigour and activity of his mind, his zeal for the settlement and prosperity of the Church, his care to reduce Religion to sober and justifiable Principles, his Interest in the King's favour and Counsels, yet was he so wise and so pious in the conduct of all his affairs; that when he was devested of all Power and Protection, when he was exposed to the violence and outrage of the people, when Calumny was let loose upon him, when he was treated not only without mercy but justice and common civility, when Libels and Petitions against him were rewarded, when tumults and clamours were invited, when he was even overwhelmed with the number of Slanders, Jealousies, and Accusations, when he was prosecuted by some with the utmost Fraud and Artifice, by others with an unheard of malice and violence; when his Murder was decreed with an absolute Doom before his Trial; when his impeachment was drawn up in the most heinous and aggravating terms, when the Evidence was managed with an unusual vehemence and animosity; yet after all this his Innocence appeared so clear, and his Integrity so unblemished, that not only his Judges but his very enemies were convinced and ashamed of their own Accusations. For when the particular Articles of his Charge came to be examined; they proved after the expense of a great deal of time, and wit, and eloquence so trifling and silly, that they durst not venture to proceed any farther against him in way of legal Trial, and so were forced to condemn him (and he was the first and last that was ever so condemned) by Ordinance of Parliament without any other Formality than bringing him once to the Commons Bar, for fashion sake; that he might not be condemned unseen as he was unheard; but condemned he was for no other Crime than that of cumulative Treason, that is what you please, and by this Impudence they might take away the life of any innocent man, if either they hated him, or he liked not them. But the Remark that his Historian has made upon the review of all their proceedings against him is so just and observable, that all Circumstances considered, it will appear the highest Act of Malice and Impudence that ever was before committed (for since it has been outdone) by any Age and under any Government in the World. Viz. That as the predominant Party in the united 
The Life of A. B. Laud. Pag. 495.  Provinces, to bring about their ends in the death of Barnevelt, subverted all those fundamental Laws of the Belgic Liberty for maintenance whereof they took up Arms against Philip the second: So the Contrivers of this mischief had violated all the fundamental Laws of the English Government, for maintenance whereof they had pretended to take up Arms against the King. It was (said they) a fundamental Law of the English Government, and the first Article in the Magna Charta, that the Church of England shall be free, and shall have all her whole Rights and Privileges inviolable. Yet to make way unto the condemnation of this innocent man, the Bishops must be voted out of their place in Parliament, which most of them have held far longer in their Predecessors, than any of our noble Families in their Progenitors; and if the Lords refuse to give way unto it (as at first they did) the people must come down to the house in multitudes, and cry No Bishops, no Bishops, at the Parliament doors; till by the Terror of the Tumults they extort it from them. It is a fundamental Law of the English Liberty, That no Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned without cause shown; or be detained without being brought unto his answer in due form of Law. Yet here we see a Freeman imprisoned ten whole weeks together before any charge was brought against him; and kept in Prison three whole Years more, before his general accusation was by them reduced unto particulars; and for a Year almost detained close Prisoner, without being brought unto his answer as the Law requires. It is a fundamental Law of the English Government, That no man be disseized of his freehold or Liberties but by the known Laws of the Land. Yet here we see a man disseized of his Rents and Lands, spoiled of his Goods, deprived of his Jurisdiction, devested of his Right of Patronage; and all this done when he was so far from being convicted by the Laws of the Land, that no particular charge was so much as thought of. It is a fundamental Law of the English Liberty, that no man shall be condemned or put to death but by the Lawful Judgement of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land; that is, in the ordinary way of Legal Trial: and sure an Ordinance of both Houses without the Royal Assent is no part of the Law of England, nor held an ordinary way of Trial for the English Subject, or ever reckoned to be such in former times. And finally, it is a Fundamental Law in the English Government, That if any other Cause (than those recited in the Statute of King Edward III) which is supposed to be Treason, do happen before any of his Majesty's Justices, the Justices shall tarry without giving Judgement, till the Cause be shown and declared before the King and his Parliament, whether it ought to be judged Treason or not. Yet here we have a newfound Treason, never known before, nor declared such by any of his Majesty's Justices, nor ever brought to be considered of by the King and his Parliament, but only Voted to be such (without Precedent or Example) by some of those Members which sat at West-minster, who were resolved to have it so for their private ends, etc.  
Is not this right Presbyterian Ingenuity, to rebel against the King only for the defence and maintenance of the fundamental Laws, and yet in all their proceedings violate not only all the fundamental Laws they pretended to fight for, but all the more fundamental Laws of nature and humanity? The Archbishop was to be murdered to please the Kirk, and with his blood was the Covenant to be sealed; but then to prosecute him with so much violence, to load him with so much accusation, to tyre him out with all the affronts and indignities of spite and zeal, to rake into his whole Life up to his very Childhood to gather materials for an Impeachment, and yet after all this, when they were convinced of the innocence of his actions, and the inhumanity of their own proceedings, to condemn him as a Traitor and an Execrable Person, without, nay against a Legal Trial, and then put him to death against all the Laws of the Realm, and all the Rules of Natural Justice, is such a prodigious piece of impudence as sufficiently discovers what kind of Creatures they were that were the contrivers and authors of his Murder. It is true Presbyterian impudence. But now are not you a right good natured Wretch to charge a man so learned, so wise, so pious, and so studious of doing God and His Majesty good service, of deforming the whole Reign of the best Prince that ever wielded the English Sceptre; when the very men that murdered him have left such an irrefragable testimony of his Innocence and Integrity, in that though they had the confidence to overwhelm him with Accusations, yet they had not the confidence to withstand his Defence. And what more ample testimony could they have left to Posterity than when they had taken so much pains to murder him with some show of Law and Justice, they should at last be forced to betake themselves to such illegal and violent proceedings, as were never put in practice before or after? Is this your additional Civility wherewith you consecreate the ashes of the deceased? Are these your Eulogies of a man so learned, so pious, so wise, so studious both of the Service of God and the King, that he deformed both? What accusatory spirit could desire better play against him than you have given in his Vindication? But however you recreate yourself with believing that your simple judgement cannot beyond your intention (it seems when you print Books you intent no body should read or regard them beside yourself) abate any thing of his just value with others. And thus you never oil your hoan neither but to whet your razor, and cut the man's throat whom you would seem to flatter and fawn upon. These leering and mannerly abuses that are suggested under pretence of friendship are much more impudent and malicious than downright railing. Neither is there any hypocrisy so ridiculous, as to shrink back and protest all the tenderness in the world to a man's reputation, and yet at the same time of your own accord, and without any ask go about to blast it for ever with the most spiteful and venomous suggestions, and then think to wipe your mouth, and by a counterfeit smile or two make amends for all this treachery. And when you have stabbed a man to the heart, excuse all your officious virulence by crying, whilst you are giving the mortal stroke, Sir, I beg your pardon, I intent no harm; and however I may in public make bold to traduce your memory, yet still I recreate myself with believing that my simple judgement cannot beyond my intention abate any thing of your just value with others. So that it seems when you publish any thing to a man's disparagement you do not intend to be believed. It is a Dovelike Serpent that never stings but when it kisses too; but yet it is time for shame to give over this outworn cheat, it is now too impudent and palpable to impose upon any man's credulity, it did you service thirty years since, when you dethroned his late Majesty under pretence of making him the most Glorious King that ever wielded the English Sceptre; but you must not after so long an experience of your hypocrisy and leasings presume so rudely upon the silliness of mankind, as to think at this time of day of cheating and abusing them with such ridiculous contradictions.  
And now when you remark it as the great weakness of the late King that he 
Pag. 302.  trusted his exquisite understanding to the Clergies keeping, it is plain you mean Archbishop Laud; and I pray with whom could he better trust it than a man so learned, so pious, so wise, and that studied to do both God and his Majesty good service? Here are all the Qualifications of an able and an honest Statesman; so that though the Clergy were not ordinarily so well fitted by education as others for Political Affairs, yet it is evident Archbishop Laud was, being both wise, and learned, and pious; and this is as great a character as can be given of any Favourite in any age. So that whereas you object it as the great oversight and infirmity of his late Majesty that he committed his exquisite understanding to the Archbishops keeping, you could not have given a greater proof of his wisdom than to make choice of a man so admirably qualified to do him service; neither can you blame him for being ignorant that God would not bless a Churchman 
Pag. 301.  in Affairs of State, because he never intended him for that employment; when all Princes were as little aware of it as his Majesty, till you were pleased to inform them. So that it must be confessed that he followed the best Light (that as J. O. speaks) God held forth as the horns in his hand to the believers of that Generation; for than he had no reason to suppose that he could do better than to trust his Affairs with a man learned, and wise, and pious, not being blessed with your Revelations from the high places of Armageddon. And yet for all this had the Archbishops precipitate, violent, rigorous, sanguinary, and extreme Counsels been followed, I am apt to think it had by the blessing of God been the most likely way to prevent all the mischiefs of the late Rebellion. He saw plainly enough what the Antimonarchical Faction aimed at, how they had prepared the People for Confusion, how they had encumbered the King's Affairs, and that there was no probable way of escape for his Majesty but by some violent breaking through those difficulties in which they had entangled his Government. And if the Faction had been convinced by any thing but Declarations, that the King would not bear such insufferable Affronts against his Crown and Prerogative, it is at least to be supposed that they would never have attempted it with such open and impudent endeavours. But though he committed his exquisite understanding to the Archbishops keeping, he kept his own sweet-nature and Gentleman's Memory to himself; for being a person of an incomparable goodness, he was strangely easy to forget and forgive the boldest injuries; and that was all the use they made of his gentleness to encourage one another in their disloyal Practices, till at length they proceeded to demand his Crown; and when for mere peace and goodness-sake he had granted them one half of it, by virtue of that they fought for the other. And as little as the Archbishop gained upon them by his Priestly implacableness, the King gained much less by his Princely Condescensions. They were already resolved upon Rebellion; and then every thing was an occasion of Tumult, when they were resolved to tumultuare upon every occasion. And though the War be no more to be imputed to the King's goodness than the wickedness of impenitent sinners is to God's mercy, yet had they not shamelessly presumed upon that, they (though Presbyterians) could never have had the confidence to treat him as they did. Nay, so little did he work upon them by the good-nature of all his condescensions, that they perpetually set themselves to pick quarrels and take exceptions at the most obliging words; as for example, in the Bill of pressing and levying Soldiers by Authority of Parliament, when he had made a passionate Speech to them to move their pity towards the lamentable estate of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland, and to dispatch their supplies for suppressing the Rebellion, and to avoid dispute and delay, he offers them to pass their own Bill (that they were then framing) though expressly against his undoubted Prerogative, so it might be done with a salvo jure, leaving the Debate to a better and more quiet season. How think you did these meek-natured men (that had they not been forced to it by Laud and Sibthorpianism could never have lift up an ill thought against the King) requite all this tenderness and condescension, but immediately Vote a Petition (i. e. a Remonstrance) to represent to his Majesty how he had violated the ancient, lawful, and undoubted Privileges and Liberties of Parliament, by taking notice of any Matter (though it were Town-talk) in agitation in either House, before it was presented to his Majesty in due course of Parliament, and humbly beseech (i. e. threaten) him to make known the Persons, that by their Evil Counsels had induced him to it, that they might be brought to condign punishment, i. e. be affronted, and severely handled only for being acquainted with the King. Were not these men resolved upon it, to renounce all sense of Duty and respect to their Prince, that could seize such an advantage of discontent in such a sad juncture of Affairs from such a slight and unjust occasion? And what way was there to deal with them but by such violent and precipitate Counsels as you impute to the Archbishop? They were (you see plainly from all their proceedings) proof against all the obligations of goodness and ingenuity, and then there is no way left but to suppress them by force and rigour; and if that failed, it was only because the Faction was grown too strong for the Government. And 'tis possible, nay likely, that if the King had through his whole Reign taken contrary Counsels and Courses, yet the event might have been the same, because however he carried Himself and his Affairs, they were resolved to pursue their Democratical designs, and had as the world went Power and Interest enough so to confound his Government, till they brought him into a necessity of a Civil War.  
But the three Rocks upon which this Man so learned, so wise, so pious, ruin'd the King and Kingdom, were Sibthorp, Arminianism, and the Scotch Liturgy, so as not to leave it in the power of the Rebels to prevent the war. For they alas! Righteous Men! acted in the sincerity of their Hearts, and faithful discharge of their Consciences, and were only forced into Arms in Defence of the King, Kingdom and Themselves by Sibthorp, Arminianism, and the Liturgy.  
But as for the Story of Sibthorp and the Loan-money, in short, thus it happened: In all the Parliaments under the late Kings Reign there was always a strong Cabal of illaffected persons, that resolved to lay hold on all Advantages, which way soever Affairs were managed, to embroil the Government, and bring the King into such straits as should make him obnoxious to their Power; and to this purpose they put him upon expensive wars, and when they had so done, obstructed all Supplies by falling to complaints of Grievances, and disputes of Liberties and Privileges, and Remonstrances against his Government, and Petitions of Redress, that is to say, by assaulting him with Demands and threatenings, and however things were Reform, yet these Malevolent Persons (as his Majesty 
Declar. March 10. 1623.  expresses it) like Empyricks and lewd Artists did strive to make new work, and to have some disease on foot, to keep themselves in request, and to be employed and entertained in the Cure, chiefly by raising jealousies and designs upon their Religion, a wicked Practice (says the King) that 
Ibid.  they took up not for any care that they had of the Church, but only as a plausible Theme to deprave our Government, as if We, our Clergy, and Counsel, were either senseless or careless of Religion; with many other wicked Arts and Practices that the Declaration recapitulates, p. 8, 9, 10.  
But the King being engaged in a foreign War in defence of his Uncle the King of Denmark by the Counsels and Persuasions of both Houses of Parliament, with great promises of Assistance and Supply, and these being still diverted by endless Disputes about Liberties and Privileges, and bold demands to abate the Powers of the Crown, he saw plainly (as himself declares) That they 
Ibid.  only made use of the necessities grown upon him by that War, to enforce him to yield to Conditions incompatible with Monarchy. So that despairing of any good from the Seditious Spirits of that Parliament, he dissolves them. And in the interval, his necessities growing upon him by a new and sad disaster that had befallen his Uncle the King of Denmark; He commands 
Rusworth's Collect. p. 418.  his Council to Advise by what means and ways he might fitly and speedily be furnished with moneys suitable to the importance of the undertaking. Hereupon after a Consultation of divers days together, they came to this Resolution, that the urgency of Affairs not admitting the way of Parliament, the most speedy, equal and convenient means were by a general Loan from the Subject, according as every man was Assessed in the Rolls of the last Subsidy. Upon this Result the King issues out his Declaration accordingly, but assuring the People, that this way (to which he was forced by the urgency of his Occasions) should not be made a Precedent for the time to come, to charge Them or their Posterity to the prejudice of their Just and Ancient Liberties enjoyed under his most Noble Progenitors: And promising them in the word of a Prince, first to repay all such sums of Money as should be lent without fee or charge, so soon as he shall be any ways enabled thereunto. And secondly, that not one Penny so borrowed, should be bestowed or expended but upon those public and general Services, wherein every of Them, and the body of the Kingdom, their Wives, Children and Posterity, have their personal and common Interest.  
When the King and his Council had Voted the Loan, they commanded Laud then Bishop of Bath and Wells to draw up certain Instructions to be communicated to the Archbishops, Bishops, and the rest of the Clergy of the Realm, to stir up and exhort the People to express their Zeal to the true Religion, their Duty to the King, and their Love to their Country, by a cheerful compliance with his Majesty's Commissions. And in this was represented the Afflicted Condition of the Princes and States of the Reformed Religion in all parts of Christendom (some being overrun, some diverted, and some disabled to give assistance:) The distress of his Uncle the King of Denmark, the great danger of losing the Sound, and thereby the Eastland and the Hamborough Trade; the Confederacy of the Pope, the House of Austria, and the French King to root out the Protestant Religion; the great Fleets both of France and Spain at that Instant endeavouring to block up Rochel; together with their Land-forces on the Coast of Britain ready to invade us. And what more important Motives could have been pressed to persuade thePeople to a ready and cheerful Contribution? What more powerful and plausible Arguments could have been put into the mouths of the Clergy to win their Auditories to a dutiful Compliance both with his Majesty's Desires and Necessities? And this among other things brought forth Sibthorp's Sermon; and the man did well, and as became his Function, to persuade the People that they ought in point of Conscience and Religion cheerfully to submit to all such Taxes as were imposed upon them by Royal Authority without murmurs and disputes. But if he intermeddled (as it is said he did) with the King's Absolute Power of imposing Taxes without Consent of Parliament, according to the Laws and Constitutions of this Kingdom, he went both beyond his own Commission, and against the King's Declaration. For what had he to do in the Pulpit with the Rights of Sovereignty, and the Privileges of Parliament? It was none of his business to adjust the disputes of his Superiors, and he had no Authority either from God or the King to interpose in Affairs of State; his Office was to recommend the Piety, and the Necessity of their Contributions; and though possibly they were not under any enforcements of Compliance by the Constitutions of this Realm; yet to urge it upon their Consciences from the Common Principles and Obligations both of Nature and Christianity, that could not but effectually enforce their compliance with so good a King in so pious and necessary a work. But if he exceeded his Commission by taking upon him to teach the Laws of the Land, and determine the Rights of the Prerogative, though he cannot be justified, yet he ought, as circumstances than stood, to be in a great measure excused; because he did it at a time, when the King could not in the usual Parliamentary method obtain sufficient supplies to preserve his Honour and Safety, but by Concessions shamefully contrary to both; and that might provoke a warm man to lavish out beyond the bounds of prudence and discretion. And as for Manwarings Case I need say little to it, in that it was the very same with Sibthorps', only it is observable, that his Prosecution was carried on with all eagerness by such Members as Pym and Rous, men that took advantage of such imprudences, only to give countenance to their own clamours; and confirm the jealousies they had blown into the People against the King, by the indiscretion of a Country Vicar: though if there were at that time any designs of absolute Government, it was to be imputed to their Impudence, for when they assaulted the Royal Power with their bold and unreasonable demands, they forced it to stand upon its own guard, and then it was none of the King's fault if he were necessitated to act sometimes by virtue of his mere Prerogative, because there was no other way left to preserve himself or his Government; in that they had brought things to that pass, that nothing must be done unless he would either grant away all his Power to them, or keep it all to himself; for they would not share the Sovereignty with a single Person, and under pretence of privileges of Parliament assumed the Royal Supremacy; and as soon as they had Power and opportunity, it is well known how confidently they put in practice the very same courses, which they resisted as Acts of Arbitrary Government in the King; so that if He were at any time to have recourse to extraparliamently proceedings, it was not from his own choice or inclinations, but purely from the rudeness and insolence of their demands, which were so insufferable, that the case was plain, that he must sometimes govern without them or not govern at all. And what is to be done in that case the Law of self-preservation determines. I know this may be pretended, where there is no such necessity, but that I cannot help if men will abuse a just pretence to authorise unjust actions. It is enough to my purpose that it is plain in the case of the last King, that he never made use of his Prerogative till the Parliament began to challenge it; and then he could make use of nothing else; and the dispute than was not whether the Prerogative should govern, but whether it were vested in him or them, and that brought forth the War; they fought for the Crown, and when the Parliament had won it, they were resolved to wear it, and exercised all the Jurisdictions of Sovereign Power by virtue of their Parliamentary Supremacy.  
But to return to Manwaring, it is a great instance of the Presbyterian Humanity, that though the poor man had begged their pardon with all the expressions of sorrow and humility, yet no less punishment would appease their fury, but to be imprisoned during their pleasure, (i. e. for ever) to be fined a thousand Pounds, to be suspended three Years, and to be made uncapable of any farther Ecclesiastical preferment, with many other heavy tokens of their displeasure, and all this only for his too eager Zeal and forwardness in the Cause of Loyalty, and so his Majesty understood it, and therefore punished him with preferment accordingly, to defy their pragmaticalness, and to encourage such as promoted his and the Kingdom's service, though they might fail in a point of Prudence. But as for those persons that openly refused the Loan, and affronted the King's Commissions, and would rather suffer Imprisonment than comply in so easy and reasonable a Demand, they plainly showed they had forgot that respect they owe to their Prince, and that duty they owe to God; who so severely requires them to obey, not for their wrath only, but for Conscience sake, so that it was a manifest and unpalliable Breach both of Loyalty and Religion. Especially when it was so very manifest that the King was forced upon all extraordinary courses purely by the stubborness of Presbyterian Parliaments; and when they had such unquestionable assurance both from his own Temper, that he could do nothing but what was just and honourable, and from his Royal word that he would be always as tender of his People's ancient and just Liberties, as of the Rights of his Crown and Sovereignty. In these plain Circumstances as things stood between him and his Parliaments, punctilios of Law were superseded. For when it was so manifest that their demands were disloyal and unreasonable; and withal that on one hand their designs were worse than their Declarations, and on the other that his Majesty never intended any thing but the Peace and prosperity of his Kingdoms, that was sufficient motive to overrule all good Subjects and ingenuous men not to endanger all by standing too curiously upon precedents and and niceties of old Custom. But when these men first put the King upon his necessities, and then defeated him of his supplies, and so forced him upon extraordinary courses, and then resisted his Authority, and affronted his proceedings, and animated the people to stand it out against his Commissioners, and raised a disturbance and discontent through the whole Nation; and all this when they knew his Majesty's occasions so urgent, and his designs so just and pious; I dare determine that whatever they were by the Laws of the Land, they were most notorious Rebels by all the Laws of the Gospel, though what they proved afterward we all know, it being these very men, I mean as many of them as persisted in their stubborness (for some of them were converted to a more orderly temper by the mere power of shame and modesty) that were the great Authors and Ringleaders in the Long-parliament Rebellion.  
The next fatal Rock upon which this man so learned, so wise, so pious ruined both King and Kingdom is the Rock of Arminianism; for it seemed he and the Bishops had in order to setting up a new 
Pag. 297.  kind of Papacy of their own here in England, provided themselves of a new Religion in Holland, Arminianism, which though it were the Republican Opinion there, yet now they undertook to accommodate it to Monarchy, etc. But I beseech you (Sir) that are so deep a Statesman to inform a poor sucking Divine which way Arminianism is concerned for or against Monarchy. As for its Orthodoxy I have not a word to say, especially when it has been so sufficiently determined by the Synod of Dort and the Assembly of West-minster, i. e. all the Modern Orthodox Divines of Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia, and so downward to Pin-makers Hall; though how it should at all conduce to Popery, I must confess it is beyond my comprehension, when the controversy has been always more or less disputed in all Nations, under all Governments, by all Sects and all Religions; and is bandied as much by the Divines of the Church of Rome, as by those of the Reformation. And therefore when you upbraid us that in the late beating up the Pulpit Drums against Popery, some were so ignorant as to fight the Papists with Arminian Arguments, you would have done well to tell us the Ear-mark of an Arminian Argument. I always thought they had been equally concerned with other Protestants against the Pope, and that the Arminians (howsoever otherwise heterodox) agree no more with some Papists in some things, than the Calvinists agree with other Papists in other things; so that their differences have no relation to their common Cause against Popery. But to what purpose is it to talk to a Gamester of matters of Divinity? For you understand none of these things but write purely by rote; you find grievous outcries of Arminianism in the Long-Parliament Speeches and Declarations, and you thought you might serve your turn of it as they did theirs. It was an hard word that the people understood not at all, i. e. as little as themselves did the thing, only they taught them to hate and abhor it as Children do Bugbears and Hobgoblins. So that in those days Arminianism and Popery went always hand in hand, and if they had a mind to blast any man's Reputation, it was but sticking this name upon him and his business was done; and among other Artifices to give better Countenance to the Cheat, a counterfeit Letter was framed to the Rector of the Jesuits in Brussels, in which they inform him with what Art and success they had planted here the Sovereign Drug of Arminianism to purge the Protestants from their Heresies, and to make a Party against the Puritans, that were their only dangerous enemies, with abundance more of the like impudent stuff, though by whom it was written, it was never yet discovered, yet by several passages in favour of the Puritan Faction it is evident enough to all sober men, that it was a mere Gullery of their own devising. And agreeably to this they were always very liberally bestowing their strokes upon the Monster of Arminianism. I desire (Mr. Speaker) that 
Mr. Rous his speech in the Parliam. 1628. ● Rush. Collect. Pag. 646.  we may consider the increase of Arminianism, an error that makes the Grace of God lackey it after the will of man; yea I desire that we may look into the very belly and bowels of this Trojan Horse, to see if there be not men in it ready to open the Gates to Romish Tyranny and Spanish Monarchy: for an Arminian is the spawn of a Papist, and if there come the warmth of favour upon him, you shall see him turn into one of those Frogs, that rise out of the bottomless Pit; and if you mark it well, you shall see an Arminian reaching out his hand to a Papist, a Papist to a Jesuit, a Jesuit gives one hand to the Pope, and another to the King of Spain, etc. These were wonderful tricks for the deep Worthies of those times, but now nothing but an incorrigible blockhead could either believe that they were very serious, or if they were, that they were not very silly. And yet however Arminianism (whatever it is) may stand in relation to Popery, it was a new Religion that the Prelates brought from Holland, and though it were the Republican 
Pag. 297.  Opinion there (because that Faction was there accused of designs to reduce that Commonwealth under the Spanish Government) they undertook to accommodate it to Monarchy. And they were no doubt deep Youths that could reconcile a Republican Religion to a Monarchical Interest; nay not only so, but make that the very Engine to screw up the Prerogative to an absolute Power. They must be very cunning men, and certainly could never have miscarried as they did, were it not that God is resolved never to bless Churchmen in their Statetrinkling. Otherwise I would request you to tell me in the name of Machiavelli which way the King's Prerogative is concerned, whether God Almighty decreed from all Eternity to create ten Myriads of men, nine whereof he peremptorily resolved to doom to everlasting misery for the Glory or rather Ostentation of his uncontrollable Power and Dominion, and that they might not frustrate the purpose of his Good-pleasure (as they call it) resolved again by one device or other to draw them, or rather than fail by his own irresistible Instigation to drive them into such practices as might deserve, and by consequence justify the severity of his proceedings. Though this seems to make very much for the lawfulness and the divine Right of arbitrary Government, yet I never heard of any Calvinist that urged his opinion in this matter in behalf of the absolute and unhoopable Supremacy of Kings. Neither do I understand what it imports to any form of Government, whether a man be a Supralapsarian or a Sublapsarian, and suppose he proceed as far as Gomarus in asserting absolute and irrespective Reprobation, I would fain know wherein lies the Republicanness of his opinion, and by what trinkling distinctions and subtleties the Bishops were able to accommodate it to Monarchy. At least all these Speculations of absolute and arbitrary Dominion are easily defeated and overruled by Calvin's practical Doctrines of Government, viz. that it is the duty of the Common people and their trusties to assert the liberty of Subjects against the Tyranny and wantonness of Kings, and that if they grow licentious and exorbitant in the use of their power, it is then incumbent upon the popular and inferior Officers to restrain and moderate their Excesses. One such blunt assertion as this is enough to baffle all the dry and speculative Consequences of notional Decrees; for these only swim in men's fancies, whilst there are perpetual or at least too many occasions of reducing that to practice. And though the Consequence is very obvious that if God disposes of his Creatures by an arbitrary Decree and without regard to the merits of the Cause (for so he acts according to the Predestinarian Doctrine, by which he preordains the greatest part of his Creatures to everlasting Destruction, and that he may not be defeated, preordains them too to as much sin as may deserve it) that than his Vicegerents may govern the World by his own measures, and destroy any of their Subjects as they see cause for the Interest and Glory of his or their own Empire. Yet how it comes to pass I do not know, or perhaps I do know, the followers of Calvin have always been as eager in decrying Civil as Ecclesiastical Idolatry, and to avoid the very peril and suspicion of it, have every where treated Kings as roughly as if they had taken them for a Race of Capons. It were easy to add a great deal more gloss upon this hard word, but this may suffice to convince a wiser man than you (if he needed it) that it had not the least real concernment in the disputes of Monarchy or Popery; but being some Foreign Monster that no body understood, it might conveniently serve at all turns for a standing pretence of jealousy and suspicion.  
The third Rock, upon which this man so learned, so wise, so pious ruined both King and Kingdom, was, the imposing 
Pag. 303.  the English Liturgy upon the Kirk of Scotland. Now as to this (to be short) you must know that this very thing was covenanted and subscribed to by the first Reformers, when they Petitioned Queen 
Buch. Hist. Scot l. 19  Elizabeth's aid to expel the French; and was in some measure put in practice, till in the Minority of King James the Scotch Reformation was (as all the rest were) overrun by the Bramble, and so the Liturgy was by degrees neglected, to make way for the new invention of extempore Prayers, in which (if we may rely upon the King's word) the Mass john's prayed 
Large Declare. concern. the tumults in Scotland, printed, 1629.  sometimes so ignorantly, as it was a shame to all Religion, to have the Majesty of God so barbarously spoken unto; sometimes so seditiously, that their Prayers were plain Libels, girding at Sovereignty and Authority; or Lies, being stuffed with all the false Reports in the Kingdom. But King James as soon as he came to the use of his Royal Understanding, reflecting upon the rudeness and sedition of their Prayers, immediately as became a religious 
Ibid.  Prince, bethought himself seriously how his first Reformation in that Kingdom might begin at the public worship of God, which he most truly conceived could never be happily effected, until such time as there should be an unity and uniformity in the public Liturgy and Service of the Church established throughout the whole Kingdom. And to this end a public Liturgy was compiled by the Bishops and others of the most Eminent Clergy, and presented to the King by Archbishop Spotswood, and being approved and ratified by Royal Assent was sent back for the use of the Kirk; though (as it happened) it took no great effect, by reason of his Quarrel with Spain that followed immediately upon it, and of his Death that followed not long after it. But upon some Addresses from the Clergy of that Kingdom his late Majesty resolved to pursue the Pious and Princely design of his Royal Father, to which purpose he caused the same Service-Book to be sent back to himself, that after his perusal and alterations (if any should be foundnecessary and convenient) it might likewise receive his Royal Authority and Approbation. And after many and serious Consultations with the Bishops and Clergy of that Kingdom, it was at length approved and published, special care being taken (I still rely upon the King's 
Ibid,  word) that the small alterations of it, in which it differs from the English Liturgy should be such, as might best comply with the minds and dispositions of the Scots, and prevent all grounds of fear or jealousy, and chiefly to avoid all misconstruction, that some Factious Spirits would have put upon it as a badge of that Church's dependence upon the Church of England, if it had been the same with the English Service-Book totidem verbis. And this was the Liturgy that no doubt might be an occasion of exasperating the Bramble-Faction that were already ripe for Rebellion, and resolved to improve all disgusts whether just or unjust, real or pretended to authorise their disloyal resolutions.  
But to let you into the main Mystery; the circumstance that gave life and vigour to their designs was the Act of Revocation that it seems happened to be set on foot not long before, by which the King intended the Revocation of those Lands of the Church, that in the minority of King James the Great Men had to the prejudice of the Crown seized on and shared among themselves, to which the Occupants' having no other Title beside impudent Sacrilege and Usurpation, the King thought he might justly challenge them for his own Use at least from the present Possessors. A course warranted (as himself still tells me) both by the Laws of that Kingdom, and the frequent examples of his Royal Progenitors. And this (you may believe) was provocation enough to put them into an uproar, and the People were persuaded (as I am informed by a good Author from the mouth of a Noble Lord) that the intendment of the Act was to revoke all former Laws for suppressing of Popery and settling the Reformed Religion in the Kirk of Scotland; and this raised such Tumults that the King was forced to desist from the prosecution of the Act under that Title, and to carry it on, though with much opposition, under another Name of a Commission of Surrendries; a thing so offensive to the stomaches of the Lords of the Erection (as the Lay Impropriators were there called) that they could never digest it; but first (according to the usual method) vented their choler in Libels, and then in Rebellion. For though they were satisfied for their Tithes to the utmost farthing, according to the Rates of purchasing in that Kingdom; yet this fretted them, that they saw themselves robbed of the dependence of the Clergy and Laity upon their Power, and of that Sovereign Command and Superiority which they had by the tye of Tithes exercised over them several ways (as the King will inform you.) And this was the reason of State, beside the ease of his Subjects, that moved his Majesty to issue out this Commission: For before the greatest part of the Laity were Vassals by Tenure, and all the Clergy slaves by custom to the Nobility. And therefore they immediately set themselves to work the People to a disaffection to his Majesty's Government, and to persuade them that these were the contrivances of the Bishops, and that under them there were dangerous innovations designed upon their Religion. So that 'tis plain (as the King observes) that before either the Service-Book or Book of Canons, so tragically now exclaimed against, were thought on, the seeds of Sedition and discontent were sown by the Contrivers of the Covenant, first upon the occasion of the Revocation, next upon occasion of the Commission of Surrenders, and lastly, upon occasion of his denying honours to some of them at his last being in that Kingdom, of which he has there given a large and particular account; and this brought forth first private traducing his Government, and then public Libels. And now by this time Sedition was grown so ripe and ready to seed, that it wanted nothing to thrust it out, and make it shoot forth into an open Rebellion, but some fair and specious pretence: They could not yet compass the Cloak of Religion, whereby to siel the eyes, and muffle the face of the Multitude, for by none of the three former Occasions could they so much as pretend, that Religion was endangered or impeached: But so soon as they got but the least hint of any thing, which they thought might admit a misconstruction that way, they lost no time, but took Occasion by the forelock, knowing that either that or nothing would first facilitate, and then perfect their designs. Now the occasion they took of fetching Religion within the reach of their Pretences was the new Liturgy. And this produced (I still rely upon the King's Authority) the late wicked Covenant, or pretended Holy League. Though following the pattern of all other Seditions they did pretend Religion, yet nothing was less intended by them. For when they had (says the Royal Understanding) received from us full satisfaction to all their desires expressed in any of their Petitions, Remonstrances or Declarations, their persisting for all that in their tumultuous and rebellious Courses, doth demonstrate to the world their weariness of being governed by us and our Laws, by our Council, and other Officers put in Authority by and under us, and an itching humour of having that our Kingdom governed by a Table of their own devising, consisting of Persons of their own choosing: A Plot of which they are very fond, being an abortion of their own brain, but which indeed is such a monstrous birth, as the like has not yet been born or bred in any Kingdom, Jewish, Christian or Pagan. Of which he afterwards describes a particular Platform, as 
Pag. 54.  it was put in practice at Edinburgh. And thus observe it; you shall still find a Commonwealth and Sacrilege at the bottom of all Rebellion, that appears under the mask and pretence of Religion. And it was these men that raised the Tumults, and trinkled the Rabble into all those disorderly courses that by degrees brought forth the Covenant and the War. And it is pretty observable, that the first Remonstrance at Edinburgh was made in the name of the Men, Women, Children and Servants, who being urged with the Book of Service, and having considered the same (the Children as well as the rest) humbly show, etc. These were followed by the Burghours, and the Burghours by the Gentry and Nobility. And so at length did the Scotch-war break out, in which the Liturgy was no more concerned than the Children of Edinburgh, whose tender Consciences (it seems) were offended at it, though in truth they deserved to be sound whipped for beginning a War for the Cause, when the Cause was too good to be fought for.  
And now consider whether you had not been better advised to let this business of the War alone, when you can no other way bring your Clients off with reputation, unless the King will be content to suffer Himself, his Royal Father, and his Loyal Subjects to be impeached of their Rebellion? For the blame of it must light somewhere; and therefore if the Covenauters 'Cause were too good to be fought for; as little Logic as I understand, I understand so much, that then the Kings was too bad to be fought for; and that is enough for one Conclusion. But whatever was the occasion of the War, whether the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Vicar of Brackley, as you will have it; or Ignoramus and Mr. Selden as a second concludes; or the Schoolmen and the Universities as a third observes; whether (I say) any or all of these accidents might contribute to it, I am not concerned, because occasions of mischief are unaccountable for their being so, in that men that have a mind to it may make any thing an Occasion, and yet still the occasion shall be as innocent as (I believe) the Children of Edinburgh were: But if instead of the Occasion you desire to be satisfied in the cause of the War, seeing you have been at so much pains in transcribing an huge Gazet to 
Pag. 280.  give me satisfaction, I think myself at lest a little obliged to give you my opinion, and if that be not sufficient to satisfy you, I shall only advise you to take heed of being too inquisitive, for assure yourself your Party will have but little reason to con you any thanks for demanding any farther satisfaction. Inprimis then it happened in this War (as it does in all others) that there were some general Causes that were set on work by some particular Circumstances. As,  
1. The unusual ignorance of the Common People concerning their Duty and Obligation to the Government, every man supposing himself as much Master of his own Estate, as if he had lived out of all Society; and expecting that the King should be able to maintain the Common Safety without his particular Contribution, and this (you may easily imagine) makes them apt to murmur and tumultuate in all such straits and necessities of the State as require Money and Taxes.  
2. The seditiousness of Persons of broken and shattered fortunes, and as there are great numbers of such at all times, so are they always with the foremost to promote Disturbances in all States, because it is very possible they may make their Condition better, but impossible they should ever make it worse.  
3. The great numbers of well-meaning men, that are usually carried down with the stream, so that though possibly they were never disobliged at Court, nor infected with Seditious Principles against the State, nor addicted to Fanatique Factions against the Church; yet are easily overborn with the noise of a whole Kingdom to join with that Party that pretends with most confidence to zeal for the public good. These with many others are the Materials and common Principles of all Rebellion, but they never or very rarely come into action, unless they are put upon it by some other particular and emergent Causes. And these were plainly  
The Insolence and Seditiousness of the Presbyteran Preachers; for it seems the Clergy of all Parties as well as all Ages can be mischievous enough, because those that can do most good may for the same reason do most harm, and therefore it is as ordinary for some to obstruct the Clemency of Subjects as it is for others to obstruct the Clemency of Kings. Now it is certain these men had gained a mighty esteem and reverence with the People, partly by the confidence of their pretences, styling themselves Gods Ambassadors, and challenging as much submission to their Doctrines, as if they had wrought Miracles, or produced written Credentials from Heaven; partly by the vehemence of their tone and gesture, and the particular manner of acting their Sermons; but chiefly by the subject matter of their popular discourses, in which they were always very sparing of their reproofs against the gainful vices of tradesmen, such as fraud, cozening, and covetousness; and on the contrary very prodigal of their declamations and suggestions against such miscarriages as were proper to the Government: And by inveighing perpetually against oppression, they seemed to take part with the People against their Superiors. But that which gave them more Authority than all this over their minds, was a certain way they had got of raising unreasonable and unavoidable troubles of Conscience, by which means they continually kept great multitudes of well-meaning persons in perfect slavery and subjection to their own good-pleasure. Now by the advantage of all these Artifices it was easy for them to infuse any poison into the minds of their Proselytes. And what Principles they taught them in reference to the established Government, they are so vulgarly known, and so sufficiently recorded, that I suppose it is now very superfluous to inform the world: It is enough that there is not one Aphorism of mischief and rebellion, that they did not impose upon the People under the obligation of a Christian duty; as it is largely and distinctly proved out of their own words in the Book of dangerous Positions and Proceedings, that is an exact Collection of all the Treason in the world. Do but read it over, and then tell me what peaceable and orderly Subjects they are like to prove, whose Consciences are acted by such lewd and desperate Principles. But though the Puritan Preachers from their very beginning never spared themselves nor their lungs against their Governors; yet under the late King's Reign by reason of the remiss Government of Archbishop Abbot, they became more bold and boisterous than ever, and especially when they perceived his Majesty so sincerely addicted to the Church of England, and so resolutely bend to reduce all Factious Dissenters to order and obedience, they began to think the cause brought to its last gasp, if he proceeded without check to his designs; and therefore they bestir themselves, and thrash the Pulpits to exasperate the People against the Government of the Church, and inveigh in the coarsest and most bitter expressions against that of the State. And thus by the zeal and madness of these men, were the People at length preached out of all sense of their Duty and Allegiance, and by the perpetual roar and bellow of these Geneva Bulls were perfectly amazed into Rebellion. And that indeed was their powerful preaching to raise Armies, and beat up the Alarm to a Civil War. If any man shall be at leisure to peruse those Humiliation-Sermons, that were contrived to sanctify the Cause, he shall meet with such wretched and horrible abuses of Religion, as the wickedness of all former Ages is not able to parallel. What horrid work did they make with the Word of God? How shamelessly did they urge the Prophecies of the Old Testament, in defiance to the Precepts of the New? And with what intolerable presumption did they load his Majesty with every burden they could pick up against Moab or Babylon? Their impertinence was almost as bold as their impiety. And the People were rarely taught any thing beside Treason and Blasphemy. And thus were they preached into Arms, and converted into Rebellion; they pressed Horse and Foot out of every Text, and then armed them with Spite and Zeal, and that (you know) is an over-match for wisdom and courage. And if the Pulpit were their Post (as you say it is) they in the strength of modern Orthodoxy, immoral Grace, and Capon grease made it good against all Enemies whatsoever.  
These were the Trumpeters to the War, the next are the Leaders, and they were first ignorant and half-witted men that were blown up with a great conceit of their own sufficiency in Politics, that had made remarks upon Aristotle and Tacitus, that could tell stories of the Grecian and Roman Commonwealths, and begin a Speech with Sparta and Lycurgus, and talk an hour together of the power of the Tribunes, and the privileges of the People of Rome, and demonstrate out of History, that when Augustus taxed the whole World, he did it not by virtue of his own Imperial Prerogative, but that it was granted to him by Vote and Authority of the Senate; that he being a wise Prince avoided all appearances of Absolute Sovereignty, that he submitted the management of his Power to the censure of so discreet a Consistory; and sometimes laboured to resign all his Authority, and lay Himself and his Diadem at their feet, and at last was not by all their importunity to be entreated to accept of the Empire, but with a proviso of resigning his Charge, as soon as ever he had settled the Commonwealth in Peace and Safety, and therefore only renewed the Lease of his Government every tenth year at the petition of the People. Beside, that he avoided the Titles of Dictator, and Rex and Dominus, as much as a Mariner does a Rock for fear of splitting, setting the fate of his Father Julius before him (for he too was murdered) as a seamark not to affect too great and glorious Attributes, lest he might have shipwrecked both the State and Himself upon the Rock of a proud or an offensive Title. This (Mr. Speaker) was the moderation of wise Princes in former Ages; they had a deference to the wisdom of this house, and a fatherly care for the Liberty of the Subject; They were not wont to call Parliaments, only when they were forced to it by their own necessities, to be the sponges of the Commonwealth, and by their means to squeeze the Subjects money into their own Coffers, and when they had served their own turns disband them; but to advise and consult with their great Council about the great Affairs of State. We have (Mr. Speaker) a Gracious Prince, but he is abused and misled by Evil Counsellors; we owe all the Mis-governments of the State, and the Affronts of this House to their Tyranny and Insolence. And if they will not know their Duty, however let not us forget our Trust. We have now an Opportunity put into our hands, his Majesty is engaged in an expensive War, and cannot hold out without Supplies, and therefore before we Vote that, let us present him our Remonstrances, and grant him Subsidies upon no other condition, than that he will first redress all our Grievances. This (Mr. Speaker) was the wisdom of Sparta and Athens, and by this method of proceeding they kept the Liberties of the Commonwealth inviolable against all the attempts and encroachments of Tyranny. This was the language of Parliaments in the late King's Reign, and by these pedantic stories did the illaffected Members of the Puritan and Republican Faction obstruct and embroil all Affairs, till they plainly run the Kingdom into a necessity of a Civil War. Not that I believe they had all of them any formed design to subvert the Government, no doubt many of them were wonderfully satisfied if the Company would but take notice of, and admire their learning; and to this purpose the same Speeches would serve indifferently at all times, and upon all occasions, whether they had or had not cause of complaint. And to deal plainly with you, I have read most of the Long-Parliament Speeches over, and though I know you will chide me for calling a whole Parliament Coxcombs, yet it is better to call them so than worse; yet this censure I dare pass upon them without any suspicion of arrogance within myself; That they were for the most part no better than Schoolboy's Declamations, that seemed to be made for no other end than the exercise of Wit and Rhetoric, and the Topics from which they raised their Harangues were equally serviceable in any Cause pro or con, such as Aphorisms; Similitudes, and Sentences out of ancient Authors, but as for true reasoning they rarely seemed to pretend to it, or endeavour after it; in short, all their Discourses were much like yours, and accommodated to People that took Confidence for Reason, Nonsense for Mysteries, and Rudeness for Wit; and a judicious man that compares them would almost suspect your Book to be only a Rehearsal, or rather an Epitome of their Speeches, though I am not apt to conclude that you read them over on purpose to write after their Copy, because I know I it is as natural for bad wits to jump as good. There is a way of popular and impertinent talking, that is common to the pedantic Haranguers of all Ages. But they declaimed so long upon idle stories of Rome and Athens, and little sayings of Cato and Seneca, till they in sober earnest challenged so much of the Sovereign Power, under pretext of Liberty of the Subject, and Privilege of Parliament, as left nothing of Prerogative to the Prince, beside a little Pageantry of State and an empty Title. So that unless his Majesty would tamely have resigned his Crown, and disclaimed all Regal Authority, he had no other way left to defend it from violence but by force of Arms. They had already begun to seize, and there was no way to make them unfasten but by knocking off their fingers.  
But that which contributed as much as any thing to these disorders was the great resort of our young Gentry about that time to Geneva for Capons and Education; where being throughly instructed in the principles of Modern Orthodoxy (and there every Tradesman and Lay-Elder was able to inform them) they generally returned home disaffected to the established Government both of Church and State, and furnished with Doctrines of Divinity suitable to their Principles of Policy; and by this means Calvin obtained as great an Interest and Power in the House of Commons as Lycurgus, and scarce a Speech could be made without his Institutions, and the distich of Praeter Apostolicas, etc. And so (Mr. Speaker) though Mr. Calvin the ablest Divine in the world since the death of the Apostles, exact an entire obedience to all Princes whether good or bad without exception or dispensation. So that suppose 
Instit. l. 4. c. 20. §. 24.  a negligent and slothful Prince, who has no care at all of the public safety; who is so intent of his own private, as to make markets of all Laws and Privileges, and to expose his Justice and Favour both to open sale (so that according to Mr. Calvin, a Prince cannot take money for any place in Court without Tyranny) who drains his People's purses to no other end, than to maintain a vain and wasteful Prodigality; and who spends his time in nothing more, than either the rifling of the Subject's houses, the deflowering of their Wives and Daughters, the slaughter of the innocent, etc. And though it be always implanted in the Souls of men not more to love and reverence a just and virtuous Prince, than to abominate and detest an ungodly Tyrant. Yet even in this case he requires Duty and Obedience from the Subject to such a Magistrate as the Minister of God. And to this purpose (Mr. Speaker) he has admirably explained all Texts both of the Old and New Testament in favour of the Prerogative and Supremacy of Kings. But then (Mr. Speaker) we must understand both him and ourselves aright, that when he restrains us from executing vengeance upon Licentious Princes, this must still be understood of private persons. 
Sect. 31.  For if there be now any popular Officers (and such he knows there are every where without an if) ordained to moderate the licentiousness of Kings (such as the Ephori of old set up against the Kings of Sparta, the Tribunes of the People against the Roman Consuls, and the Demarchi against the Athenian Senate, and with which Power perhaps, as the world now goes (and yet he knows the Christian world now to go so every where without a perhaps) the three Estates are furnished in each several Kingdom, when they are solemnly assembled:) So far am I from hindering them from putting a restraint on the exorbitant Power of Kings, as their Office binds them, that I conceive them guilty rather of a perfidious dissimulation if they connive at Kings, when they play the Tyrants, or wantonly insult over the Common People; in that they basely betray the Subject's Liberty, of which they know they were made Guardians by Gods own Ordinance and appointment. This (Mr. Speaker) is our Case, we are entrusted by God and our Country with the People's Liberties, and we must give an account to both for the faithful discharge of our Trust. And wherever the fault lies I dare not pretend to know; but this I do know, that we have (God be praised) as Gracious a Prince as ever wielded Sceptre, and yet I know not by what means, though perhaps I do know, his whole Reign is deformed with Tyranny and Absolute Government. Mr. Speaker, it concerns us to look about us, our Lives and Liberties and (what is dearer) our Religion lies at stake, let us then take Courage, and whatever it cost, see this licentiousness curbed, and the force of Law restored. No doubt but the King will be advised by his great Council; or if he will not, it is our duty to snatch him from a Precipice; however we must not be so slothful and perfidious as to betray the Subjects Liberty, of which (we know) we were made Guardians by Gods own Ordinance and appointment. And thus had they got out of Mr. Calvin a Jus Divinum for the Long-Parliament Rebellion; and under this pretence of being trusties for the People's Liberties, they plainly usurped the King's Supremacy. Nothing must be done in the Government of the State without their Advice and Approbation, and any proceedings that they disliked (and yet they disliked all that were done without them) became immediately illegal, and till they are redressed all Government must be laid aside, and if the King happened at any time to do any thing contrary to some idle precedent of Sparta and Lycurgus, it was a manifest subversion of the Fundamental Laws. And thus by this fooling, and the help of Calvin came they at length to challenge the Sovereignty to themselves, and to set the Crown upon their own heads, that is (as we all know) to suffer the King to do nothing without them, and to assume a Power to themselves (as oft as they judged it expedient) of doing every thing without the King, and this made these Pedants as troublesome in their demands as were the Rebels by design, till they had challenged every branch of the Regal Power.  
Both these and the Zealots were excellent Tools of Sedition, but they were no more than Tools, the Master-workmen were the cunning and reserved Members of the Republican Faction. For it is plain enough, that all things were governed in both Houses by a Cabal of such as had from the beginning (as appeared afterwards) a design upon the alteration of the Government. And these men were able upon all occasions to form themselves into all shapes and all parties to drive on their designs; and it was not so much their business to make Speeches, and complain of Grievances, as to perplex and obstruct the King's Affairs, and by any artifices make him obnoxious to their Power, and when that was grown great enough they understood their own work. Their usual trick was to appear always with the first to comply with the King's designs and desires; and when by that means they had brought him into straits, they still left him; v. g. they were perpetually putting the King upon expensive wars by great promises of assistance, and accordingly seemed always the most cheerful and liberal voters of Taxes; but yet they were sure to raise so many disputes and difficulties about other matters, that the supply was either altogether diverted or came always too late. This was the particular unkindness that the King complained of in all his Parliaments. But by leaving him thus perpetually in the lurch, they forced him at length to make use of some extraordinary courses; and then they presently made their advantage of that, to raise their clamours and complaints of Arbitrary Government, and nothing could stop their mouths till his Majesty had not only done severe penance, but made ample Restitution by some special Act of Grace, whereby he granted away some considerable Branch of his Power. And so they would for a while receive him into favour again, and then anon play the same game over again; and by this means they at length grew so much upon him, and gained so many advantages of him, till perceiving their own strength they command him to resign his Regal Power into their hands, or if he refuse, to stand upon his own guard, and defend himself as he can by force of Arms. And that was the contest of the war, who should wear the Crown, He or They.  
It was these men chiefly that invited back the Kirk-Army after they had agreed to Articles of Pacification, and returned home satisfied with the King's Concessions, and the abolition of Episcopacy, that was indeed the pretence of the Covenanters Rebellion, but very far from being the end of those men that set them on. Their business was only to bring the King under a necessity of calling a Parliament for Money, and for that he was to pawn his Crown into their hands, and buy supplies at the price of his Sovereignty. And it succeeded accordingly, for the King having been at a vast expense in his first Expedition, was forced to summon a Parliament for fresh Supplies; but they no sooner met than they justified their Dear Brethren (as they called) the Kirk-Rebels, and so fall to their old complaints of Grievances and Arbitrary Government, and the illegal Proceedings of the King's Ministers of State; and these things they must and will have redressed, before they will take any business of money into consideration, and so long baffled the King's expectations, that he having no hope of any Supply from them, dissolves them, and resolves to cast himself upon the assistance of his better affected Subjects, and accordingly finds the greatest part of his Gentry and Nobility so sensible of their own Duty and Loyalty, and of those affronts that were put upon his Regal Power by these men in the late and former Parliaments, that by their own voluntary Contributions they raised an Army more than sufficient to have reduced the Rebels to obedience. But being overruled by the advice of some that were always too near to all his Councils, and that were no friends to his Prerogative (though perhaps they were no enemies to Monarchy) he condescends to a Treaty, and that concludes (as these men would wish) in referring the whole Controversy to the decision of a Parliament. And this produced the fatal Long-Parliament, that chiefly consisted of the most Seditious Members of all his former Parliaments. For though the greatest part of the Gentry were loyal and dutiful enough, yet it so happened, that the Commonalty had been preached into malecontentedness by the Puritan Preachers, they thought no man a Patriot of his Country, or fit to be trusted in Parliament, that was not a professed enemy to the Prerogative, and that did not oppose Taxes and Tyranny: And if any one had been so stubborn as to deserve punishment for Sedition, and had been imprisoned or gone to Law with the King for the nonpayment of a Sess of twenty or forty shillings, that gained him the hearts of the whole Country; and so upon the merit of their sufferings it came to pass that the most eminent Persons of the Presbyterian Faction came to be so generally elected Knights and Burgesses in this as well as all other Parliaments of his Reign; but now their discontent was heightened partly by their former (just) imprisonments, partly by that affront, that (as they supposed) was put upon them in the dissolution of the late Parliament; And therefore having once again got possession of the House, and perceiving the King's necessities to be greater than ever, and withal their own Party to be stronger and more numerous than ever, they resolved to appear more boldly than ever, and to make something of so great an advantage. And so they immediately fall upon accusing the King and his Ministers of all the crimes that could render them odious to the people; they charge him with designs of reestablishing the Roman Religion, of subverting the fundamental Laws, of setting up Arbitrary Government, of laying aside all Parliaments, with a Thousand other Clamours and Calumnies, making use of every Accident to raise matter of Accusation. And if you will look into the grand Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom (that was the first Declaration of the War) you will find that they imputed all misfortunes whatsoever to the King and his evil Council. The loss of the Rochel Fleet, the diversion of the War from the West-Indies to the successess attempt upon Cales, the Peace with Spain, the breach with France, the dissolving of former Parliaments for their stubbornness; the destruction of the King's Timber in the Forest of Dean, the Monopolies of Soap and Salt, the Sale of Nuzances, the design of Coining Brass money, the depriving seditious men of the comfort and conversation of their Wives by close Imprisonments, Misdemeanours in all Courts of Justice, Bribery, Extorsion, and buying of Offices, Suspensions of painful, learned, and pious Ministers, the decay of Trade, the loss of Merchant's Ships by the Pirates of Dunkirk, with all other good or bad Accidents that befell the Government, were imputed 1. To the Jesuited Papists who hate the Laws, as the Obstacles of that change and subversion of Religion, which they so much long for. 2. To the Bishops, and the corrupt part of the Clergy, who cherish Formality and Superstition, as the natural Effects and more probable Supports of their own Ecclesiastical Tyranny and Usurpation. 3. To such Counselors and Courtiers, who for private ends engaged themselves to further the Interest of some foreign Princes or States, to the prejudice of his Majesty and the State at home. Though the Root of all this mischief was a Malignant and pernicious design of subverting the fundamental Laws and Principles of Government, upon which the Religion and Justice of this Kingdom are firmly established. And then the common Principles, by which they moulded and governed all their particular Counsels and Actions were 1. To keep up a misunderstanding between the King and his people by their Leasings. 2. To keep down the Purity and power of Religion. 3. To bring in Arminianism. 4. To trinkle the King against his Parliaments. Where, by the way, you may see that you are not the first Author of your own notions; your whole Book is but a short Rehearsal of the Remonstrances, Speeches, and Declarations of the Rebels. But now must all things stand stock still till these and a Thousand grievances more are redressed; his Ministers must be impeached of high Treason; and if he expected any comfort from them, he must buy it with the blood of his best Subjects and his fastest Friends. But you cannot here reasonably expect a complete account of all their Injustice, their Folly, their Impudence and their Hypocrisy, when the whole World can scarce contain the History of their Wickedness, I am sure it can never equal it. However it is plain that they were now resolved upon the Rebellion, and so made demands accordingly. For the sum of all their Messages, Remonstrances, and Declarations was only to challenge the Sovereign Power itself, and all the parts and branches of the Prerogative. They petitioned no more than that the King would be pleased to betray and give up his Friends to their Malice, as in the Pique of the five Members; that he would deliver up all Castles and Forts, and the whole Power of the Militia into their hands; That they might have the choosing of all the Lords of his Council, and of all great Officers of State, the Government and Education of his Children, the Power to hang Delinquents as they shall think fit, and the liberty of excepting whom they pleased out of the King's general Pardon; and that no Peer be permitted to sit in the house of Peers but by consent of both houses. Upon these and the like Terms, to which they stuck with an impregnable Obstinacy from first to last, they would apply themselves to settle his Revenue, and supply his necessities, and make him the most glorious King that ever wielded the English Sceptre. But otherwise if he should offer to relieve himself by any extra-Parliamentary courses it was a breach of his sworn Trust, and a dissolution of the Government; and if any of his Subjects obeyed or assisted him, it was Treason against the fundamental Laws of the Land. This was as much as if they had plainly told him (and the King understood them so) Sir, it is in vain to expect Peace or Money from us unless you will be content to forgo your Crown and Royal Dignity, and to resign all your Power into our hands. This was right Presbyterian Loyalty, and is I hope sufficient to cap your idle stories of Sibthorp, Arminianism, and the Scotch Liturgy. At least I am sure it is, after all your Hectoring and Achillizing about the late War in defiance of the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, another brave cast of your Modesty to upbraid my Insolence for summoning in all 
Pag. 75.  the World, and preaching up nothing but Repentance, and so frequently calling for Testimonies, signal Marks, public acknowledgements, satisfaction, recantation, etc. For as I take it here are sufficient materials and motives for Repentance. They are obliged to repent of casting away an hundred thousand Lives only to dethrone the King, and erect the Sceptre of the Lord Christ; a cause, that they themselves now confess by deserting it, as foolish as that was knavish. And this is at least suspicion of guilt enough to oblige men to look about them and reflect seriously whether it may not lie upon their Consciences. Nothing cries so loud either for Repentance or Vengeance as Blood, it requires the deepest Sorrow and Contrition to wash it off; so that if they were at all sensible of their Crime, or thought it a Crime at all, they would never put us to call for tokens of Repentance, they would overdo enough of their own accord in Expiation, and by the Frankness and Ingenuity of their Confessions quickly satisfy all the World of the sincerity of their change. But when they will not be brought to take any notice of their former practices, or to make any acknowledgement of their former Crimes: when some of the most serious and upright of them protest their Non conviction of any guilt, and declare themselves so well satisfied in all their actings in the War that they cannot, nay that they dare not ask God forgiveness (and yet they did not think the Cause too good to be fought for.) When none of them have been so ingenuous as to beg their Prince's pardon, or to make any promise of better behaviour for the time to come; in short, when they have given us all the symptoms of hardness of heart and impenitence, and yet notwithstanding all this boast the merits of their party and challenge their Prince's favour and indulgence from the great security that he ought to have of their peaceable and loyal demeanour, this I think is a very impudent affront both to the Clemency of their Prince, and the Ingenuity of Mankind. Especially when after they had beheld all the dire consequences of their rebellious Acts and Ordinances they were so far from acknowledging their folly, that upon the Restauration of the secluded Members by the General, one of the first things they voted was to vote themselves innocent, and to lay all the mischief and wickedness of the War upon their murdered Prince. Thus far the Presbyterians and Independents were equally concerned, but that the Presbyterians were no farther concerned, they may thank the Ambition and Treachery of Oliver Cromwell more than their own good intentions. They had stripped the King of his power, they had imprisoned his person, and what had they to do more after all the affronts and indignities they had offered him, than what the Independents did after they had wrested the Supremacy out of their hands? For it is certain there was no living for them in safety if ever he (whom they had reason to suppose their irreconcilable enemy) were restored to his Throne and Sovereign Power, and then if they had behaved themselves so that they could not safely trust him, that was an unremovable Bar to his restitution. And though it is possible that they never intended to attempt his life, yet they carried things so high through the whole Progress of their Rebellion, as at least to make it expedient, nay necessary for their own preservation; and if they had intended it they could scarce have used him more scurvily than they did. They caused his own great Seal to be broken, and a new one to be made in defiance to his Authority. His propositions of Peace and his offers of personal Treaty were often denied; an Ordinance was made, if he presumed to come within the line of Communication to secure i. e. seize his person; It was voted Treason and death without mercy for any of his Subjects to harbour and conceal him, and when Sir Thomas Fairfax was made General, the Clause for preservation of his Majesty's person was left out of his Commission. And in the Scotch Declaration of 46. all their concern and care of the King's person was only conditional, viz. as far as it was consistent with their own designs, that is (as they word it) the Preservation and defence of the true Religion, and Liberties of the Kingdoms. That is, as you may see by their propositions that they made as the only terms of Peace, if he would resign his Crown and (which is worse) take the Covenant, they would suffer him to live; otherwise they were absolved from all Obligations towards his person, and for the preservation of his life. And when he was fallen into the hands of the Independents and so in danger enough, the question was propounded to the Kirk, whether it were lawful for them to assist the King in the recovery of his Kingdom, and it was resolved in the Negative, and in answer to that Clause in the Covenant that was objected to them, for defence of the King's person, they determined it was to be understood in defence and safety of the Kingdoms. These men no doubt are fit to be trusted that can think to satisfy themselves and the World with such an impudent and ridiculous interpretation of Oaths as this. But however they intended to dispose of his person, the Rebellion as far as they avowed it put him out of his Throne, and settled all the Regal Power (which they called arbitrary Government) upon themselves. And for Subjects to take away their Prince's Authority by force of Arms is little less impudent and wicked, that after that to take away his life.  
Thus far the Presbyterians and Independents were equally guilty, and went hand in hand like dear Brethren; they both combined to depose the King, though, when that was done, the perfidious Independents did not only shake off their dear brethren, but turned all their ownweapons upon themselves. And thus as they entered into Covenant in defence of King and Parliament, so did these enter into an Engagement in defence of the Parliament and Army; meaning (as they did) that as the King was virtually in the Parliament, so was the Parliament virtually in the Army. And thus was their silly and senseless Distinction of the King's personal and politic Capacity turned upon themselves. And the same Articles and Demands that the Parliament sent to the King, they sent to the Parliament, and baffled all their Excuses by Precedents from their own Principles and Proceedings; v. g. Their Charge against the eleven Presbyterian-members by the Example of the Archbishop and the Earl of Strafford, when they pleaded that they could not legally proceed against them till the particulars of their Crime were specified; and so they acted over all the same Knavery again, till they at length proceeded to crown all their wickedness with the King's murder. But the fraud and malice, the injustice and folly, the impudence and hypocrisy of these men is so notorious that it need not be reported, and yet so, unconceivably horrid that it would scarce be credited. They committed all the boldest impieties in the world not only under the greatest shows of Religion, but by Authority of divine Impulse: they still sought the Lord for all their wickedness, and they were directed to all their Murders and Perjuries by his deep and hidden discoveries of himself to his secret Ones: They made no more of an Oath than other men do of a Compliment; they would swear an hundred times backward and forward to follow the Revolutions of Providence; and the Rump, when they had murdered the King, absolved themselves by their own Vote from Perjury; it was but voting the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance to be null and void, and they were as innocent as if they had never taken them. But to say all in one word; their Rebellion was not only against the King, but against Monarchy itself, that is to say, against all Kings. And I remember I have seen an humble Testimony for God in this perilous time, by a few, who have been bewailing their own and others Abominations, and would not be comforted, until their Redeemer, who is holy, be exalted in Righteousness, and his Name, which has been so much blasphemed, be sanctified in the sight of the Nations, subscribed by J. O. and some other secret ones. In which, having witnessed against all the Backslidings and Abominations of many from the Public Good Old Cause, and bemoaned the Rebuke that was poured forth upon the Rump and Barebones Parliament, they proceed to witness in all humility and fear against the setting up or introducing any Person whatsoever, as King or chief Magistrate, or an House of Lords, or any other thing of like Import, under what name or title soever, or any other Power arising from the Nation, as a Nation upon the old corrupt and almost ruinated Constitution; apprehending that the great Work of taking the Kingdom from man, and giving it to Christ, hath had its beginning in the Revolutions we have been under. And then positively they do witness for andhumbly assert, that the Right of making and giving Laws unto Men is originally in God, who hath given this Power as well as the Execution thereof, unto Christ as he is the Son of Man, and therein made universal Lord and Sovereign over the whole World; and under Christ as his Ministers a certain number of men qualified and limited according to his Word, aught to be set apart to the Office of chief Rule & Government over these Nations as part of Christ's universal Kingdom. So that you see J. O. is a professed enemy to the present Government of the State upon the same Principles that he is a Nonconformist to the present Establishment of the Church. He is bound in Conscience to abhor and oppose Monarchy in pure Obedience to the Institutions of Christ, as King of Saints and Nations, having appointed in his Word a certain number of Men to be set apart for the Office of chief Rule and Government over these and all other Nations in the World. Now I think it is convenient that men who have openly witnessed such Principles as these, should at least be bound to unwitness them, before they are too confidently trusted by the present Government. J. O. was absolutely for the divine Right of a Commonwealth but a very little before his Majesty's Restitution; for this Declaration was published after the Cheshire Insurrection, upon occasion whereof he threatens to witness with full evidence to the Conviction of all Upright ones against the abominable Malignity, Treachery and Enmity of many in eminent Power and in the public Ministry; and then I dare appeal to yourself whether it would not become him to recant such a positive Principle of Rebellion as this, before he can with any modesty boast his own and his Parties Allegiance to the present Government. At least if he refuse this when he is upbraided to it, that is an undoubted evidence of his Constancy to his old Principles, and then judge you whether it is fit for such a man to claim a Liberty of public talking in any Commonwealth, when he is under a tye of Conscience to subvert it. And yet it was upon this occasion that I fell to preaching Repentance and calling for signal Marks and Acknowledgements, etc. when with all the scorn and indignation in the World he spit at my bare suspicions of their Loyalty, in that (as he has the confidence to affirm) they give all the security for it that 
Survey, p. 296.  mankind can desire, from their professed duty, principle, faith and doctrine. And this Impudence I must confess provoked me to deal somewhat more roundly with him, and to let him see how great and how many obligations himself and his party lay under to a public Repentance. Of all which you have taken no notice but only to wonder at my Insolence, and that signifies nothing but only to show your own. The grounds and motives that I have laid before you to exhort you to this duty are plain and undeniable; they are too many to be here repeated, you may (if you please) find them in my Reply to J. O. from p. 629. to p. 641. If you can quit yourselves of them (as I am sure you never can) I will give you as many more; but till the old Scores are discounted, there is no need of a new Reckoning; and as you love yourselves be advised never to call for any. And now you see upon what reason I demanded signal Marks, it was none of my own Motion but his Challenge; though without that, it had been pertinent and ingenuous enough, unless they would learn more sober Principles. However I had never taken any notice of his former Blasphemies, had I not been driven to it by his own Impudence. I was not so disingenuous as to object his or any man's personal Miscarriages to the disparagement of a public Cause, though you have raked up the faults (as you suppose them) of several particular Members of the Church of England against the Church itself; such Topics as these are too dirty to be used in any but a bad and a baffled Cause. And as for J. O. himself, though I have heard many strange stories of him, I scorned to publish any one Report to his disadvantage, and have charged nothing upon him but what himself thought good to publish to the World: Neither in truth should I have done that, but that (you see) I was forced upon it by his own provocation, as I would clear my own Candour and Sincerity. And I protest that if he can convict me of any one Forgery, it shall not suffice to ask him forgiveness upon my Knees, but I will make him as public a Recantation, as I think he owes to his King and Country. And as for the truth of all those Principles of Blasphemy and Rebellion that I have produced against him out of his own Writings, I will appeal to his own Conscience and Ingenuity. And if my Citations are true, I shall trouble myself no more about them, but leave it to the company to judge of the consequences of such Tenets, and to himself to consider under what duty he lies to the public upon their account. And how far you yourself were engaged, or whether at all I scorn to inquire; and though by the Principles of your Book you seem to be full as bad as he, yet really I think him as much worse than you as a well-meaning Zealot is more cruel than a Soldier of fortune, you only fight for pay, but he for spite and zeal. And now what if I do 
Pag. 251.  inculcate the late War and its horrid Catastrophe, and will needs have it to be upon a religious account? And so I will, and you know too well how demonstratively I have proved it out of their own Declarations. In answer to all which you are only so civil as to suspect that I have been better acquainted with Parliament Declarations 
Pag. 280.  upon another account. But it is no matter upon what account I came acquainted with them; whatever it was, this I learned into the bargain that Religion was the main pretence of their Rebellion, or as J. O. expresses it, their only design was to set on foot the great work of taking the Kingdom from men and giving it to Christ. But sure you think the Children of England as forward as the Boys and Girls of Scotland were, when you suppose me formerly so well acquainted with Parliament Declarations. I was no doubt an Arch-rebel when I was a Schoolboy, and when I should have been cunning my Lesson was drawing up Remonstrances, and was at least one of Iretons Adjutatours, and assistant at the penning the Army's Remonstrance from St. Alban. Unless I were so pregnant a Youth, it can scarce be suspected how I should be so well acquainted in former times with Parliament Declarations. For unless this formerly relate to the time before his Majesty's Restauration, it loses its malice (& that is all it was intended for) in that there can be no very great ground of suspicion of any great design of mischief in perusing them since; however be that as it will, this no doubt is sufficient to bring J. O. off when he is plainly baffled, and you have not one word to say in his defence, then to drop any rude suggestion, and that will or may serve turn to divert people from attending to the Argument. Be it therefore known unto all men, that J. O. had so much confidence and so little wit as to affirm, that the Cause of Religion was not pretended or concerned in the late War, and that I have demonstrated this to be no less than impudent Leasing. And so Sir you may proceed. This horrid Catastrophe 
Pag. 251.  was twenty four long years ago, and after an Act of Oblivion, and for ought you can see, it had been as seasonable to have shown Caesar's bloody Coat, or Thomas a Beckets bloody Rochet. Twenty four long years ago! that is almost beyond my memory, but if it had been so many hundred years ago, and if J. O. had denied that the King was murdered so long since by Fanatique Rebels, I would have convicted him of impudence, though there had been ten thousand Acts of Oblivion; and if he had denied that Caesar too was murdered, I would have shown his bloody Coat; and when I have to do with the Papists, I will hang out Thomas a Beckets bloody Rochet too; it is a very good instance, to show the inconvenience of having the Clergy of any Kingdom subject to a foreign Power; and if ever the Pope recover his Authority in England, it will always be so again, and sometimes worse, because they must be bound to obey his Decrees, not only above, but against the King's Commands. But yet whilst I have to do with fanatics, such as J. O. and yourself, that instead of having any compunction for the late horrid Catastrophe, discharge its guilt wholly from yourselves upon the King and his Loyal Subjects, to such (I say) I must and will show the Scaffold at Whitehall. Especially when notwithstanding it was twenty long years ago, many of the same men that were notorious instruments in that bloody Rebellion, are still in spite of gratitude and Mercy mustering up the People under their ancient Heads and old Principles. Yes! but the Chief of the Offenders have long since made satisfaction to justice. Now 
Pag. 251.  you say something, when you can assure us that they are hanged indeed, that (whatever Harrison threatened at his execution) is some competent security, and I think for that reason, the King for the time to come need never fear the same High Court of Justice that murdered his Father. We are satisfied then as to the good behaviour of all that are dead, but can you undertake for the Survivers? Oh yes no doubt. For they are all so weary that he would be knocked on the head 
Pag. 252.  that should raise the first disturbance of the same nature. This is only the security Mr. Calvin has given us for the peaceable deportment of single persons, and it is very likely that if any one man should begin a Civil War, he would be knocked on the head. And I believe if Colonel Venner, or the Cowkeeper, though they had forty men to assist them, should cry hey for Woodstreet! hay for King Jesus! it is not improbable but that they may have their brains beaten out. But the thing we fear is lest whilst they take liberty to propagate their Principles, and enlarge their Party, they should in time grow once more into a body strong enough to fight the battles of the Lord, and set up the Kingdom of Christ, that is (as J. O. has explained it) a Commonwealth. And what though at present you are so weary, yet you may have time to gather breath, and if you have, than it seems we have no security, when it is only your being tired and out of strength that keeps you from being unruly. But what is it that you are so weary of? nothing but Laws and Government, as is too manifest from your restlessness and impatience under all restraints. Are you weary of your Principles? Do but assure us of that and we shall never desire any more security; but if you are not, as soon as you can get wind, we are still just as we were. But the King has so obliged the Non-conformists 
Pag. 252.  by his late mercy, that if there were any such Knave, there can be no such fool among them, that would ever lift up an ill thought against him. Now indeed you have nicked it to purpose, next to their being hanged nothing can secure their Loyalty like gratitude and good-nature. They lift up an ill thought against the King after he has so much obliged them! It is impossible! It is against the nature of the Beast! Away with the Guards! Save so much money! the Presbyterian has passed his word, and can you desire a better hostage? Oblige him but once, and he is your own for ever. It is not in his power to do an ungrateful action, and now he is so much beholden to the King, he is no more able to lift up a disloyal thought against him than to remove mountains. This I must confess goes a great way, and as far as any thing next to the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, but yet after all it will not do so effectually as hanging, for what if the King should ever happen to disoblige them again? why then, unless they are very weary there is an end of all the Presbyterian Loyalty. I know (though I have not the honour to have that intimate acquaintance that you have with him) he is a very civil and well-bred Gentleman, and knows how to condescend to their infirmities, and to humour them like Children, and when they have caught cold, desire them to be covered, but yet I know withal that they are so peevish, and so apt to take exception, that let him carry himself never so swimmingly, he can never avoid it, but that sometime or other he must before he is aware fall under their displeasure, and then (if ever they get him within their power) they will be disposing of him as they were all along of his Father according to the Covenant. But what strange News is this? The fanatics obliged! I could scarce have believed it, though I had read it in the Gazette, I am confident it is more than the King himself knows. Will you give me leave to carry the information to any of his Secretaries of State, and when I have done, will you promise to justify it? I must confess his Majesty's Indulgence (all things considered) was a very obliging kindness, yet I am sure his Royal Father laid upon them ten times greater Obligations than that amounts to; he granted them every thing they asked even to one half of his Kingdom, and yet how he obliged them we all know. And (as I understand it) the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion was none of the smallest Obligations, at least it was much greater than the Declaration of Indulgence, as much as it is really more comfortable for men to enjoy their lives and estates than to have their wills. Yet I cannot find any remarkable effect it ever had upon their ingenuity; but that they still continue as peevish and unpeaceable as ever. Not but that they have suffered as well as ever men did, and are ready to'do so still, only that it is so hard a Chapter for men in their condition 
Pag. 252.  to suffer extremities patiently, that some think it impossible, and therefore though they are never so angry at the Government, and impatient of the Laws, yet for all that they may be, and (if we may take your word) are of as meek and passive tempers as any men in the world beside, seeing it is impossible to flesh and blood to bear the extremities, that they suffer, patiently, so that in the result of all, it seems they suffer as patiently as any men living, only because it is impossible for any men living to suffer patiently. Yes, but if there were any such Knave, there can be no such fool among them. But of their wisdom we are secure enough already, and only desire a bond of their honesty. And since fools (as you think) are less dangerous than Knaves, the kindness had been greater, if you would have been surety to his Majesty against their more possible Knavery. And yet though you had given us these and ten thousand ensurances more of their Loyalty, they would not do without testimonies, signal marks, public acknowledgements, satisfaction and recantation, because men that have been so deeply engaged in so heinous a crime, if they are sensible of it, can never be supposed to satisfy themselves with a slight repentance; and therefore whatever other assurance they can give from their being hanged, wearied, and obliged, it is of no force nor use to the public, in that if they are in good earnest, these would be the beginnings and first pangs of repentance, so that when they plainly refuse to acknowledge their fault, there needs no other proof of their being hardened in it, and whenever they have opportunity, returning to it. But it seems they have done more than all this. For no sooner has the 
Pag. 275.  King shown them his late favour, but I and my Partners reproach them for being too much friends to the Prerogative. They friends to the Prerogative! just as the Devil was to the Scriptures; they make the same use of it to the King, as he did of them to our Saviour, only to persuade him to break his own neck. Do we not know their Principles too well to believe that their seeming acceptance of his Majesty's Indulgence proceeds not from any acknowledgement of his Supremacy to make or suspend Ecclesiastical Laws? Do they not challenge these Immunities as due to them by Divine Right, and which were before wrongfully detained from them? Their end in magnifying the King's Indulgence is not to confirm his just claim of Supremacy in Church-concerns, when they deny nothing more vehemently, but because they hope by this seeming compliance so to increase and strengthen their own Party, as that they may be able to distress the Episcopal Government, and then the Royal Supremacy. So that we are so far from reproaching them with being too friendly to the Prerogative, that their seeming compliance with it upon their Principles is the greatest evidence of their treachery against it. When they claim by Divine Right an absolute exemption from this part of it, and if the King or Parliament exercise any of this Jurisdiction over them, they call it Tyranny and a violating of the Divine Majesty. So that they 
Pag. 250.  fight for the Prerogative, just as they did for the King, against itself. And they cannot but be zealous Assertors of it above the Laws, when as they will not obey the Laws, so they will not acknowledge that. And therefore it is not out of any friendship that they have to the Prerogative, that they thus magnify the King's pardons and dispensations, but only out of hatred and opposition to the Government, because by this means they suppose some part of the supreme power to be lopped off, and then they are hearty friends to any thing that abates of that. They are right Gibellines, for any thing or any interest to make disturbance; for King or Parliament, or either or neither for their own ends and to oppose the Guelphs. In the late War when the King declared against them and the Parliament for them, they then fought for the Parliament against the Prerogative. But after all the fatal Consequences of that Rebellion the King and Parliament both observing their Sea-marks join together to root up their principles of Schism and Sedition, and then they declare against both for the Prerogative of God and every man's Conscience. And now the King lately for reasons of State, and perhaps to make an experiment of their good nature, being inclined to suspend for a while the Penalties of the Laws in force against them, then hay for the Prerogative above all Laws and Parliaments; and they preach up nothing but Sibthorpianism and Absolute Government, because it was the Rock on which the last King ruined. They care not what becomes of King and Parliament and Kingdom too, so they may gratify their own Pride and peevishness. Not that I believe they have all form designs against the State, (they are most of them too simple to entertain thoughts so great) but yet they are easily acted by those that have; they are conceited and froward, and apt to pick quarrels and take offence at the present management of affairs, be it what it will. And if they are not courted as well as humoured by their Governors their proud hearts are liable to a certain Infirmity, that is very troublesome, and they are presently reflecting upon the Histories of former times, the Roman Emperor, the King of Poland, Alexander the Great, the King of Spain, the Queen of Sweden, the Flea Tyrant, and the sturdy Swiss, and a thousand more not such idle stories, but that they can tell how to make use of them as well as Kings. And if Kings will not be instructed by these Examples to behave themselves dutifully towards their Subjects, they know how to take an Antipathy to Regal Government, and then he is bound to be so civil as to refrain the use of it, however not to press it upon them, but if he have so little sense of common humanity as not to yield to their Weaknesses, he makes himself an hard hearted and inflexible Tyrant; and if he have so little discretion as to trust his Understanding to the Clergies keeping, and to know nothing beyond Ceremonies and Sibthorpianism (i. e. to take any care for the Execution of Ecclesiastical Laws) if he ruin his Government upon that Rock by forcing them to rebel (shrewdly against their Wills poor Innocents'!) he may thank himself and his implacable Divines. This is all your friendship to the Prerogative in matters of Religion, to make all exercise of Ecclesiastical Power Acts of Tyranny. And you are so far his Majesty's friend as to advise him to be so satisfied with the abundance 
Pag. 246.  of his Power, as to abate of its exercise by his discretion. But though you are always excusing yourself from meddling with State affairs by reason of your private breeding, your modesty, and your not having been bound Apprentice to the Trade of Kings; and on the contrary accusing me for presuming to instruct and advise Princes, yet are you always too prescribing to them Rules of Wisdom and Discretion, teaching them when it is requisite to screw up, and when to let down their Prerogative, how to humour their Subjects, to condescend to their Infirmities, and bid them to be covered in their presence, and sometimes (as here) to be content with having their Power without exercising it. Whereas I have no where read them any Lectures how to govern their Islands, but have only (as became a dutiful Subject) asserted their power against your principles of Anarchy and Rebellion. And if they will forgo any part of it to condescend to your Infirmities, they are more competent Judges of their own actions than I am, and therefore I shall never censure them for it, though I must confess they would be better natured than I think I should be in their Cases. Though alas! it is pity but you should be humoured, after all this experience they have had of your meekness and simplicity, and after all that assurance you have given them of your peaceable resolutions and principles, viz. that whereas you have heretofore embroiled the Nation in a civil War for nothing, and though you are now convinced of it yourselves, yet you will not so much as acknowledge it, because (forsooth) it would be a blemish upon your Reputation, and therefore you will admit of no terms of Peace unless we will condescend to your unreasonable humours only to save your paltry credit. And if we will not, we may look to ourselves, you will make good your own party. And then if upon this the Government shall think it a little necessary to restrain you in these bold and factious courses, it is Tyranny and a violation of the Divine Majesty. You and your Consciences are exempt from all their Laws and are in the hand of God alone; and that is all your real owning of the Prerogative. Though if at any time it lets you alone in all your extravagances and suffers you to break the Laws, you are then such friends to it as no men more. You are for or against any thing so you may but have the comfort of affronting Authority. All that I have hitherto discoursed concerns only those Non-conformists that at least pretend to Sobriety; but as for all the inferior Sects though they never agreed in any thing but in their implacable Zeal against their Prince, yet I never troubled myself so much as to exhort them to Repentance, because they have the privilege of all other mad men to do mischief without being responsible for it, and therefore are not to be discoursed or advised into their wits, because being insensible of the mischief they do, they can only be bound and restrained from doing it; and to give them their Liberty is not only to suffer them to act any extravagance they have a mind to, but to spread and propagate the Infection of their Madness: For there is no Frenzy in Religion that the lower sort of the People are not too apt to be tainted with; so that instead of allowing them Conventicles it were more proper to build them Bedlams, nothing can govern them but Chains and Keepers.  
But as for your own part we are willing to excuse you from signal Marks, etc. because you have given such mighty proofs and demonstrations of your Loyalty and goodwill to the King by that wonderful Zeal that you have upon all occasions shown for the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity, which as you have ordered the matter was enacted purely in favour of himself and his own Party. You have brought things to that pass, that were it not for that, you might erect a new Court of Justice, and hang them all for any thing they have to plead in their own defence. For as you tell the story, they are the only guilty persons in reference to the late Rebellion. Your Charge against his Royal Father is the very same with the Indictment that was peferred against him both by and before the high Court of Justice, only the manner of your Expressions is suited to the alteration of time and circumstances. But he fought against a Cause that was only too good to be fought for, he began a War against the Religion and the Liberty of his Subjects, and forced them to take upArms in their own defence against Tyranny and Arbitrary Government; for so you would have called it had you written in those happy days, though now the word is Sibthorpianism, i. e. (as you describe it) an endeavour to invade his Subjects Proprieties and subvert the Fundamental Laws, and for that Cause only involve his Kingdoms in a long and bloody War. And though he were sworn to maintain all the Ancient Constitutions of the Realm, yet he deformed his whole Reign with indefatigable pains to destroy them, and when he perceived that he could obtain his wicked and tyrannical Ends no other way, he pursued them through all parts of his Dominions with Blood and Violence, and at last upon this Rock ruined himself and his Kingdoms. So that all the mischiefs of the late War are to be scored purely upon his head; but as for all those that took up Arms against him, their Cause was so overjust and warrantable, that it was only too good to have been fought for. And now what could you have said worse of the worst Prince that ever wielded Sceptre, than what you have here said of the very best? However, this methinks is but an odd way of ensuring the good Behaviour of the Non-conformists for the time to come, when you stand upon the Justification of their Innocence for the time past. And it shows you to be a man of Judgement, whilst you have so little Wit as to appeal to their former Practices as a sufficient Security of their future Peaceableness, and by their harmlesness (poor Lambs!) in reference to the late War encourage us to trust to their good Nature and Modesty for ever. For if they were so innocent as to that Rebellion, saving that they fought for a Cause only too good to have been fought for, they are safe enough from ever fight for any Cause too bad to be fought for. And yet I shrewdly suspect we owe this very declaration of the Causes being too good to be fought for, rather to your Cowardice than your Loyalty; for it seems you think all Causes cost too dear when they are bought with danger or blood, and though both their Religion and their Liberty were invaded you would have advised them rather than fight to let them both go. And as little as you would have fought for the Good old Cause, you would have fought much less for his Majesty's Restauration in that it was forsooth to do itself without our Officiousness, you had 
Pag. 303.  not leased if you had said against it too. However his Majesty, for any thing you would have had done for him, might have been beyond Sea still, unless God would have been pleased to have restored him by miracle, and have marched before him as he did before the Camp of Israel, and reigned down fire from Heaven upon the Rump and all their Adherents. For 
Pag. 304.  men ought to have trusted God, and not have taken the Work out of his hands by their own Officiousness, he knows how to bring all things about in their best and proper time. And these are pretty good evidences of your goodwill to his Majesty's Government. First, in that you scarce commend any thing of it since his Return beside the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion; and then secondly, in that you are so much concerned to disclaim the Merits of those Persons that were Actors and Instruments in it, by denying the Efficacy of any humane means towards bringing it to pass, and casting it entirely upon the immediate Care of divine Providence. So that if it were to do again you would advise his Subjects to forbear all endeavours of his Restauration, and leave it to be brought to pass by the Providence of God, or suffer it to do itself without their Officiousness. We understand you. But now have you not made an admirable Apology for the Loyalty of the Non-conformists by denying that they can possibly be ever guilty of any such thing as Rebellion? for if the late War were none, it is certain there never was nor will be any, and I think upon this supposition, and upon this alone, we may pronounce them both innocent and secure as to this Crime. But thus we see that whenever the Cause of Nonconformity appears at top, the Good old Cause ever did and ever will lie at bottom; or (as yourself express it) if it were a War of Religion, i. e. Fanaticism at top, it was a War of Liberty, i. e. a Commonwealth at bottom. That is, your old and your new Cause, and you sink into it with the dexterity of fat Sir. John Falstaff. In a word, it is your close and comfortable Importance. And now after all your kind and courtly Expressions almost in every page towards the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity, and on the contrary rating me for showing no more respect to it than to remember some old stories in despite of its Authority, and lastly commanding me to let all 
Pag. 253.  those things of former times alone and mind my own business: You yourself have not made bold with it at all, by reviving the Adventures of Sibthorp and Manwaring, and raking into all the Deformities of the late King's whole Reign, and transcribing a long History out of a certain long Gazette of the true Cause and Original (as you dream) of the Rebellion. So that we now perceive your meaning in all this idle noise about the Act of Oblivion is to limit the Remembrance of the late War to such occurrences as you think may be of advantage to such as acted in and for the Rebellion; but as for the suffering and loyal Party, they▪ must be obliged and conjured to seal up their Lips and smother their Resentments; however if I had been profane or disingenuous in offending against the sacred Act of Oblivion, I am sure you have outgone me, have done that and more. For that looks back no farther than the year 37. but yet there are some old Sibthorpian Gentlemen still alive that might possibly have had an hand in carrying on Impositions of money in the late King's 
Pag. 282.  time, and thereby contributing not a little to our late Wars; now these men are still obnoxious to Justice for all their Misdemeanours notwithstanding the Act of Indemnity; and therefore if Ceremonies and Sibthorpianism were the Cause of the War, the guilt of all that blood that was spilt in it must lie upon their heads, and the King may bring them to Trial for all the Miseries they brought upon his Kingdoms, for the Murder of his Father and the loss of an hundred thousand Subjects, and all for Sibthorpianism and Laud. Is this your Gentleman's memory to remind his Majesty of things too old for an Act of Oblivion, so old that if you would let them alone, they would be forgotten of themselves without it? And though you would oblige him (as he is a Gentleman) to forget that ever the Presbyterians rebelled against his Father and took away his Crown and Sovereignty; to forget that ever the Independents beside that took away his Life; to forget that they and all the other Sectaries joined forces to expel himself out of his own Kingdoms, and keep him in banishment for ever, and that he was restored in spite of all their zeal and malice; and lastly to forget that since the time of his Restauration none of them ever had the Grace to ask Forgiveness for their former Leasings or to give him any Assurance of their future Allegiance. A man had need learn the Art of Gentleman's Memory to forget all these things that are so fresh in the minds of men; but yet notwithstanding all this you yourself do and would have him remember some old Gentlemen of those times that are still alive, that were the cause of all our miseries, that deserve to be brought to condign punishment, and that his Majesty may at any time do it, any thing in the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity notwithstanding. And now upon review of all these stories that I have told you of former times, you would as I take it have done much more wisely if you had altogether let them alone and minded your own business.  
And thus far have I vindicated the wisdom and the honesty of the Clergy of all Ages from Noah's flood through all the four Empires quite down to the late Rebellion, the fatal consequences whereof a wise man would have thought might have served as sea-marks to direct them to avoid the Rocks, but the former Civil 
Pag. 240.  War it seems cannot make them wise, nor his Majesty's happy Return goodnatured, but they are still for running things up unto the same extremes: So that by their behaviour ever since his Restauration they have given him no encouragement to 
Pag. 305.  steer by their Compass; with a great many more sad stories that represent them as such fierce and cruel Beasts of prey, such inhuman 
Pag. 240.  and hungry Cannibals, that one would expect to hear how they every where eat up their Parishioners Children; as fast as the Presbyterians do the Race of Capons. But these are no more than general words that any man may throw out against any man, I against you, or you against me, or a third against us both, and a fourth against him, and so on eternally, eternally in infinitum; and therefore they signify no more than all the rest, and as little need as they deserve any Answer. But beside these you have given us in some of their particular misdemeanours, and them I shall a little consider, and because it is time to have done, run them off with all possible speed and brevity. First than it has been observed, that whensoever 
Pag. 310;  his Majesty hath had the most urgent occasions for Supply, they have made it their business to trinkle with the Members of Parliament, for obstructing it, unless the King would buy it with a new Law against the fanatics. And hence it is, that the wisdom of his Majesty and the Parliament must be exposed to after Ages for such a superfetation of Acts, etc. But this concerns not me, let the King and Parliament answer it, as they will clear themselves from the imputation of folly, and if they have no more wit than to be overreached by being trinkled, yet certainly they have more than to suffer you to call them fools for it, for they tell me that none but fools expose their wisdom. But pray, how do they trinkle the King and the Members? Do the Bishop's play with him at Picquet in the Parliament House, and give the sign to each other? If they do, they do it among themselves, and then neither you nor I are privy to their underhand dealings, and their false play, and so can give no competent account of the course of the Game. At least I think it better becomes us both to leave these things to the Gamesters themselves; and I am sure it is not done like a Gentleman, that has had his breeding in the Ordinaries, when he is no more than a By-stander, and has not so much as a Bet at stake, to raise quarrels among the Gamesters by throwing in his own impertinent jealousies and suspicions of foul play. Had you gone but half a Crown with King and Parliament, and then have given the sign when you spied the Bishops trinkling, you might have done very honestly, but yet very ungentily. But when you were quite blown up long since by the Dignitary, and have now nothing left to be cheated of, and cannot have the least concern how the Game goes, unless it be now and then to pick up a Barato or so, for such an one as you (I say) to meddle is an insufferable piece of impudence and ill-breeding; and had you done the same ill office between Gentlemen at an Ordinary, as you have between the King, Parliament, and Bishops, you would have been kicked out of doors. But as for my part I dare not touch any thing that is done within those walls; though as for, their behaviour out of the house, I could never perceive but that they are very honest and well-bred Gentlemen, and you have nothing to object to the contrary, but that they are a little uncivil to the Non-conformists, in that they will not allow them the liberty of having their own Wills, though they know how much their nature and constitution requires it. Especially when they demand 
Pag. 275.  nothing (that you know of) but what is so far from doing us any harm, that it would only make us better. You know what they demand! If you do, you know more than themselves, or at least more than they would ever yet declare. This is but an idle thing, still to give us your peremptory opinion of things in general, without abetting it with some particular proof or instance; If you had undertaken to tell us what alterations they do demand, and then shown that they would be so far from doing us any harm, that they would only make us better, you had done something to some purpose, but otherwise you have only declared your own opinion, as any confident man might have done as well as you, and if he had, he might as well have held his tongue too. But now by the leave of your Insolence, though I know not all their demands, yet this I know, that some things that they do demand, would be so far from making us better, that they would over-turn not only the Church of England, but all the Churches in the world. Their main grievance (you know) is at the three Ceremonies, and that upon this Principle, because they are unscriptural Symbols, so that their quarrel against them would not be superseded by their bare removal, in that there would remain behind other significant Ceremonies as unscriptural as they, and by consequence as liable to the same exception. And therefore it is to no purpose to condescend to any of their particular scruples, unless we could withal remove the Principle upon which they are bottomed. But that is made plainly impossible from the very nature of things, seeing there are (as I have often told you, but am forced too often to rub up your dulness, because you have no list to understand) no Ceremonies determined in the Scriptures saving only the two Sacraments, and seeing it is impossible to perform any Divine Service at all without some other exterior Solemnities. Let them choose what they please, they cannot avoid falling under the same exception, and the very simplicity that they seem so much to affect can plead as little precedent from the word of God as any custom or fashion whatsoever. And it is too notorious, and has been too often told them how they themselves continually practise against their own principle in all the circumstances peculiar to their own way of worship, and if they do not apply it as well against themselves as the Church of England, it is only because they are humoursom as well as unreasonable. At least this exception is so infinitely nice and peevish, that though it can, yet it never will be satisfied. What trains and labyrinths of distinctions are they forced to plant only to defend their Argument, when they should be proving it. Some Ceremonies are natural, some customary, some catholic, some topical, some lawful, and some unlawful, that are all but idle stories of their own devising, rather to excuse than justify their pretence. And what Master of them has skill or authority enough to range all Ceremonies under their proper heads? and when he has done it, what ground has he to determine the lawfulness of these and the immorality of those? With innumerable more such curious nothings, as had never been so much as thought of, had not these men been so proud and stubborn, as to think, that when they had once started an absurdity, they were obliged to stand to it. But their discourses upon this Argument are in your judgement so frivolous, that though that is none of the deepest, nor yourself the most modest man in the world, yet you are ashamed to own them. For when you come to that part of the Controversy, you positively disclaim and defy their master-objection as too ridiculous in itself, and below the wit and wisdom of the men that make it, and have not ventured to justify any thing in that whole matter beside the nipping Quotation out of the 5th. Epistle to Marcellinus. So great a Cast is it of your arrogance to tell us, that you know of no enmity the Non-conformists 
Pag. 275.  have to the Church itself, but what it was in her power always to have remedied, and so it is still. When it is so little in our Power to remedy their Grievances, that it is not in the power of nature; and though we change and reform as much as they would have us, and as often as they have done themselves, it will do nothing towards removing their enmity, if they have any other grounds for it beside humour and peevishness, and if they have not, I am sure it is least of all in our Power to remedy that. We may convince them, but we can never make them goodnatured, unless they will give their minds to it. And whereas you upbraid us so perpetually with the Conference of Worcester house, as if His Majesty's Commissioners had cunningly and revengefully obstructed the Accommodation, when the Abatements demanded by the Non-conformists were so reasonable, and might so easily have been complied with; Do you at all know what were the abatements they demanded to bring them off with Conscience? To let you see your confidence, I tell you they demanded none at all, but the question being solemnly put to them (and that as I am told) in his Majesty's presence, whether they knew of any thing in the Liturgy, with which they could not comply without sin, they all declared their own satisfaction, but only desired some abatements for the ease of weak Brethrens, or rather as you tell us bluntly, to bring themselves off with some 
Pag. 306.  little reputation. For they as well as all the rest of mankind are men for their own 
Pag. 275.  ends too. What an Apology is here, that these men who had trinkled the whole Nation into a Covenant against Prelacy and Antichrist, who had drawn vast numbers of well-meaning People into Rebellion against the best Prince that ever wielded English Sceptre; who had contributed to involve their Native Country in a bloody war, and brought upon it such an heap of calamities, as we all know succeeded one upon the neck of another, and all this under pretence of the necessity of Reformation. And yet now when they were convinced in their own Consciences that they had so horribly abused both themselves and the people, and had thrown away the lives of an hundred thousand men for nothing, instead of condescending to any acknowledgement of their error, and doing something towards preventing the like mischiefs for the time to come, they on the contrary resolve to persist in their Schism and opposition to the Church, unless she will condescend to them in some unreasonable demands, and that too only for fashion sake to salve their Reputation, i. e. to make the people believe that there was some reason for all the disorders of the Rebellion, and to leave it upon Record to Posterity, that the Church at last saw it reasonable if not necessary to condescend to their demands, and to redress their Grievances. Do you think they had not come off with much more Reputation, if they had honestly confessed their mistake, and endeavoured to disabuse the people, and shown the uprightness of their intentions by the frankness of their Repentance, than thus openly and impudently to prevaricate with the World by declaring that though they knew no sufficient ground for Separation, yet because separated they were and that into Rebellion as well as Schism, they must keep their party together, and secure them for ever returning to the peaceable Communion of the Church, unless something by all means be first done to bring them off with Reputation, that the people might not have any cause to abate the great opinion they had either of their wit or their honesty. Surely a right modest and tenderhearted petition, that no terms of Peace and accommodation may be thought of, unless they may first be publicly declared innocent, and then you know as well as I, who are thereby declared guilty. Here the conference begun and here it ended. The Presbyterians themselves have printed an account of all proceedings of the Commissioners of both persuasions. And there you may see that one of the first things proposed to them was that if they had any thing to object against the Liturgy as any way sinful and unlawful for us to 
Sect. 5.  join with, it is but reason that this be first proved evidently, before any thing be altered; it isno argument to say that multitudes of sober pious persons scruple the use of it, unless it be made to appear by evident reasons that the Liturgy gave the just grounds to make such scruples. For if the bare pretence of scruples be sufficient to exempt us from obedience, all law and order is gone. To this what do they reply but that possibly it might be unlawful for them to impose it, though not for others to join with them in its use when it was imposed. Though for the proof of this they thought good to refer it (as they still do all their disputes when they are baffled) to the day of Judgement, till which time they resolve to continue peevish and quarrelsome. But if they had undertaken to prove it, yet still it was but possible, and that not upon the exceptions of wise men but the scruples of weak brethren; to which it was replied, on the contrary we judge that 
Sect. 6.  if the Liturgy should be altered as is required, not only a multitude, but the generality of the soberest and most loyal Children of the Church of England would justly be offended, since such an alteration would be a virtual confession that this Liturgy were an intolerable burden to tender Consciences, a direct cause of Schism, a superstitious usage, which would at once both justify all those which have so obstinately separated from it, as the only pious tender Conscienced men, and condemn all those that have adhered to that in Conscience of their Duty and Loyalty, with their loss or hazard of Estates, Lives, and Fortunes, as men superstitious, schismatical, and void of Religion and Conscience. But for all this they boldly give in their exceptions against every part of the Liturgy, not upon any pretence of Conscience, but because it was not conformable enough to their own Directory, and for that reason must the book of Common-Prayer be wholly laid aside, and instead of it a new form of their own compiling imposed. These were their least demands and they were very modest ones. And no doubt but upon a little moderation and temper of things, i. e. upon the least abatement to bring them off with Conscience 
Pag. 306.  (though there was no such thing as Conscience pretended in the case) and which insinuates into all men, some little Reputation, they would never have stuck out. That is to say, do but give them their wills to all intents and purposes, and upon those terms it is possible they may condescend to an accommodation. But what did these implacable Divines of the Church of England do to defeat this design of establishing a new Heaven and a new Earth? Why! to show that they were men 
Pag. 306.  like others, even cunning men, revengful men (beside their drilling on and trinkling out the foolish Act of Uniformity) they made several unnecessary Additions only because they knew they would be more ingrateful and stigmatical to the Non-conformists, v. g. in the Litany to false Doctrine and Heresy they added Schism, though it were to spoil the Music and Cadence of the Period. This Bran is never to be refined, and this obstinacy of the Clergy ever will be (as it ever has been) the greatest Obstacle of the Clemency, Prudence, and good Intentions of Princes, and the establishment of their affairs. When all things and all persons were so towardly prepared toward an accommodation, if they would but once have consented only to abolish the established Liturgy, and set up a Geneva Directory, and what had all that been, had not they always been for the most brutish and precipitate Counsels, but instead of yielding to so reasonable a demand, they like cunning and revengeful men, foist in a new Prayer against Schism, because they knew it would be stigmatical to the Non-conformists. Though you knew the reflection lights purely upon the Church of England, because as you have admirably demonstrated out of Mr. Hales, Schism rhimes to Ism. But let them look to that, your grievance is that they have spoiled the Music and Cadence of the Period. If they have, far be it from me to patronise such Crimes, I must confess I have no very good Ear, but yet as far as I am able to discern, the Period runs off as roundly as ever. But if Schism do offend your ears, yet however that is no offence to your Conscience, though it seems Rebellion (another word you might as well have excepted against) is offensive to neither. And now in this whole Affair compare the Precipitate Counsels of the Church of England with the yielding Temper of the Presbyterians, and then judge you what Party it was that obstructed the King's design of Accommodation. He issues out his Commission to reform the Liturgy, if there were any need; now (say the Presbyterians) nothing will ever do it but our our old thorough way of Reformation utterly to abolish and lay it aside for ever; that was their easy Method, and the result of all their moderate Counsels. No, say the Bishops, unless you will find something sinful and unlawful in the Liturgy we are well enough already, and need nothing more than to join heartily in our Prayers to Almighty God against Schism and Rebellion. And what could be more cruelly and revengefully done than to enjoin Presbyterians but to pray against Schism and Rebellion, and rather than ba●e them that (though it were to save their Reputation) spoil the Music of a Period? They will never leave these precipitate, brutish and sanguinary Counsels; Neither the civil War, nor the King's Return, nor the softness of the Universities, nor the gentleness of Christianity can make them wise or goodnatured. And though they have had so much experience, how excessively the Non-conformists are to be obliged by Condescensions, and how easily the last King won their hearts by yielding to their demands, in so much that from the year 40. to 48. they would sooner have been knocked on the head than have lift up an ill thought against him, and had he not fatally ruined himself, whether they would or no, they had made him the most glorious King that ever wielded the English Sceptre. What ungrateful Creatures than are these Church-canibals, when the Non-conformists have all along done his Majesty such signal services, yet now after such an happy Restauration (happy, I say, because it did itself without their Officiousness) they should not suffer him to comply with their Infirmities. Nay they are grown so unreasonable, that they will not destroy the Church as it is by Law established only that the Leaders of the Factions may have their wills and save their credits. Were there ever such inhuman Cannibals as these? Were ever any Beasts of prey so fierce and cruel to those of their own Kind as these men are to their dear Brethren? Deny a Presbyterian his Will! it is a cruelty not to be equalled by all the Engines of Torture, the Podostrabae, the Dactylethrae and the rest; it exceeds the Tyranny of Julian's Persecution, and the inhumanity of a Jewish Zealot. I see they are incorrigible, and it is not in your or my Power to help it, and should we go about it, they would be too hard for us, for they are cunning men and understand how to trinkle; and therefore let us let them alone and leave them to the implacable hardness of their own hearts, and the irreversible doom of the day of Judgement, when J. O. hopes to rejoice in seeing all the Vengeance and Indignation that is in the right hand of God poured out unto Eternity upon the souls of such wretches as these. And thus have I (I think) sufficiently displayed the rudeness of your spite and malice against the Clergy of all Ages, but of your own in particular; I shall make no farther reflections upon it, seeing that has always been their Fate ever since Balaam's days, that is the first Precedent we meet with of the preaching of such Creatures as you, and as I cannot hear that ever you spoke before, so I believe you had never opened your Mouth at all now but only to censure and reprove the Blindness of the Prophets. I have detected spite and malice enough against the Clergy, and now I think it worth the while to discover the▪ Bottom of all this wrath and Indignation, and certainly it can not be any matter of less importance than the fortunes of Caesar and the Roman Empire, and if you will listen, in short this it was. It 
Pag. 282,  is not many years ago that you used to play at Picquet; and there was a Gentleman of the Robe, a Dignitary of Lincoln, very well known and remembered in the Ordinaries. Now you used to play Pieces, and this Gentleman would always go half a Crown with you, and so all the while he sat on your hand, he very honestly gave the sign, so that you were always sure to lose. You afterwards discovered it, but of all the money that ever you were cheated of in your life, none ever vexed you so, as what you lost by this occasion. And ever since you have born a great grudge, etc. You imagine he gave the sign, but how do you prove it? I have been informed by impartial Bystanders that he did not give the sign: But that (as all Gamesters are wont to do) when you lost your Money, you were angry and railed at him; whereas (as they tell me) his Eyes were so bad that without Spectacles he was not able to discern a Spade from a Club; unless this sinister Accident happened a great many years ago, and then to remember it now is a disparagement to a Gentleman's memory, if not an Affront to the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity. But does this become the Modesty of a Gentleman of private Condition and Breeding to think that Kings have nothing else to do than to concern themselves and their Crowns in your gaming Picques? Is this your manners because you have upon good reason (i. e. because you were once cheated) taken up a Particular Aversion against the Clergies disposing your money, that therefore all wise Princes must take this for a warning to shut the Bishops out of the Lords house, and to keep them from fingering their Subject's money? I am confident you have some Clergy-blood running in your Veins, your malice is so implacable. Some one of your Ancestors has as well as the Emperor Julian been in Orders sometime since the Flood, if not since the Reformation; and then no wonder if his indelible Character have for ever soured and tainted the Gentility of his Family. Otherwise certainly it is impossible a Gentleman should ever wreck his Malice against a single Dignitary upon the Clergy of all Ages. However this runs you up into one of your own petty Dilemmas; for if you descended of Clergy-ancestors, than (as you know) you are no better than a Cannibal to be so fierce and cruel against your own kind; if you did not, than what a sad blemish is it to a Gentleman's Memory and Breeding (though never so private) to wreck your revenge upon the whole Order from the beginning to the end of the World for the fault of one man? But Picquet, that villainous Game that has done more mischief to the Discipline of our Church than Printing or Gunpowder. 'Twas an happy time when the Clergy understood no other than the old Elsibeth Game of Post and Pair, and never played higher than two pence a dozen, so that if any of them were so ingrateful or so dishonest as to cheat his Patron or his Patroness, it made no great Commotions in the Commonwealth. But since the Invention of the villainous Game of Picquet, at which Gentlemen, though of private Condition and Breeding are wont to play Pieces, such is the mischief, that a Clergyman cannot rook one of them, but an Address must immediately be made to King and Parliament to keep their hands off from fingering the Subjects money, and a Book must be written to prove that all that wear Canonical Coats in all Ages are worse Robbers than Thiefs and High-way-men. What ill fortune preferred this unhappy Dignitary of Lincoln, that by one Wink in a Corner has done more harm to the Church of England than an hundred schismatical Divines with all their sweaty preaching. Happy had it been for the King, happy for the Church, and happy for himself, that is to say, thrice happy had it been, had he never climbed that Pinnacle. But thus we see from what small Beginnings the greatest Actions and Alterations take their rise; the late bloody War was begun by the Pickthankness of a Vicar of Brackley, and for any thing we know the Kingdom may be embroiled afresh by the Pickpocketingness of a Dignitary of Lincoln; for if ever J. O. and yourself be able to trinkle the secret ones into Rebellion, we may thank this cheating Dignitary for all that follows. O Picquet! Picquet! how hast thou disturbed the peace of mankind! That Gamesters should be more implacable than Divines! Modern Orthodoxy, Manwaring, and Sibthorpianism have not caused so great disturbance in the Commonwealth, as the Picques of Losers against those that rook them. Bless me from this accursed Game, if I cannot win a few pieces but I must endanger the Church and all, and its Revenues must be seized to revenge your injury, and repair your fortune. Sir, this is too implacable for a Gentleman's Memory. But poor wretch wert thou cheated! It was the very grievance of Bartholomew Coke, he too poor Gentleman could not endure this Naughty Town, because he could not go to a Gaming Ordinary, but he was sure to be rooked of all his money. But Bat yet was a goodnatured Gentleman, and easily reconciled, and it is the common fate of all Gentlemen of private condition and breeding. Come, come then be friends and say no more, and we will buy thee a new Muff and Peruke, nay rather than fail, we will present thee with Coach and Horses and Liveries, and thou thyself instead of coarse Drugget shalt wear Sympathetick Silk, thy Pockets shall be full of Guinies, and thou shalt again frequent the Gaming Ordinaries with as much credit, and as big looks as ever, we will buy off such an implacable Gamester at any rate. And if ever hereafter any Clergyman shall presume to cheat you, then write on and spare not, we deserve no mercy if we will take no warning. And if we will not, paint us out in our own colours, dress us up in Sambenita's with all the flames and devils in hell. Tell all the world, that the highest pinnacle of Ecclesiastical 
Pag. 11.  felicity is to assuage their Concupiscence and wreck their malice. That the 
Pag. 239.  same day they take up Divinity, they divest themselves of humanity, etc. That the 
Pag. 241.  reach of their Divinity is but to Persecution, and an Inquisition the height of their Policy. That they are the only men, who in an affair of Conscience, and where perhaps 
Pag. 249.  'tis they are in the wrong, are the only hardhearted and inflexible Tyrants, and not only so, but instigate and provoke Princes to be the Ministers of their Cruelty. That they are so exceeding pragmatical, so 
Pag. 299.  intolerably ambitious, and so desperately proud, that scaroe any Gentleman may come near the tail of their Mules. That they are enough to deform the whole Reign of the best Prince that ever wielded Sceptre; that they make it their business by their leasings to keep up a misunderstanding between Kings and their Subjects. That they trinkle 
Pag. 310,  with the Members so shamefully, as to expose the wisdom of his Majesty and the Parliament to After-ages. That is to say, the Clergy (as such) are a company of proud, and lecherous, and cruel, and inhuman, and bloody, and tyrannical, and leasing, and trinkling Knaves. This I think is revenge enough for a more implacable Provocation, than being only a little trinkled at Picquet, especially for one, that were it not for this sinister accident (I wish this Dignitaries eyes had been out when he overlooked your hand) is so great a lover of the Church of England, that it joys his heart to hear any thing well said of it, and so great an 
Pag. 277.  admirer of the English Clergy, that he believes that ever since the Reformation 
Pag. 237.  they have been of the eminentest for divinity and piety in all Christendom. And so true a friend to the Bishops of England, that he has for their Function, their Learning, and their Persons too deep a veneration to speak any thing of them irreverently. To what strange passions will this gaming transport men! Who could ever have thought that one that loved and honoured the Clergy at this rate could ever have been betrayed into such rude and abusive expressions by a little bad fortune at Picquet? Who could suppose it, that one that was educated in the Church of England should for the loss of a few Pieces become such a fierce and overdoing Renegade, as to spit in the face of every Clergyman that comes in his way, to curse solemnly his Parents for his birth as well as his education, and to animate all his acquaintance to the massacring of the whole Order? This I believe is such an height of revenge and cruelty, that with all your reading you will never be able to find out an example to equal it among the Clergy of all Ages, unless the Priests of AEthiopia, who were wont to send peremptory Commands to their Kings to die at their pleasure. From whom I am apt to think the Cannibals of the Race of Capons descended, because of their antipathy to the Race of Kings: For if they do not so openly claim, yet they do as confidently exercise the same tyranny over them.  
But beside this unhappy adventure at Picquet, there is another weighty reason of your displeasure against the Clergy of all Ages, which though it be not so broadly expressed, yet 'tis sufficiently intimated, viz. That in some age or other they have been a little uncivil to Gentlemen, for it 
Pag. 294.  was come they tell you to Jack Gentleman. They tell you; what they tell you? They of Charing-cross, or they of the Secret ones? The former they (wise men say) never say true. The latter they (all men know) are sadly addicted to leasing; but though it were both they, nay though it were all they of the Modern Orthodoxy, Hungary, Transylvania, etc. what they soever it were, we have no very great encouragement to trust your Report, and that for two very good Reasons, first, because it is possible that they might misinform you; and secondly, it is not impossible but that you might misreport them to us. Did not they tell you, that the very minute of the conception of my Preface 
Pag. 13.  was immediately upon His Majesty's issuing his Declaration of Indulgence to tender Consciences? Did not they tell you that about the days of Bishop Bramhal, there 
Pag. 43.  were a sort of Divines of the Church of England, who could never speak of the first Reformers with any patience? Did not they tell you that some of my Books are already 
Pag. 46.  sent beyond Sea for curiosity to the scandal and heartburning of the Reformed Churches? Did not they tell you that Cats are wont to whet their Claws against 
Pag. 81.  the Chairs and Hangings? But the Virtuosos tell me it is false, and that they only stretch themselves by hanging their claws in them when they grow sleepy. Did not they tell you that the main designs of my Ecclesiastical Policy were to assert the unlimited Power of the Civil Magistrate, and the absolute subjection of Conscience to all his Commands, to destroy the Grace of the Gospel, and turn it all into a Fable, to recommend the Persecution of tender Consciences, and the Toleration of Debauchery? Did not they 
Pag. 123.  tell you that Julian was the most bloody persecutor of all the Roman Emperors? Did not they tell you that there were no 
Pag. 148.  Non-conformists and Presbyterians in Sardanapalus his days? when there have always been ill-natured People from the beginning of days. Did not they tell you that I who slew all men with my own single strength had two Assistants? Did not they tell you that without the sign of the Cross our Church will not receive 
Pag. 219.  any one to Baptism. Did not they tell you that there was a great Prelate of the 
Pag. 218.  Church of England that writ a Book of the Seven Sacraments? Did not they tell 
Pag. 230.  you that Augustus Caesar, though he was so great an Emperor and so valiant a man, was yet withal so shameful a Coward, as to be as much afraid of a new word, though it were single, as a Mariner of a rock for fear of splitting? Did not they tell you that the King has so obliged the Non-conformists, 
Pag. 252.  that they can never hereafter lift up an ill thought against him? Did not they tell you that the Bishops did upon the 
Pag. 268.  publishing the Declaration, give the word, and deliver Orders through their Ecclesiastical Camp, to beat up the Pulpit-drums against Popery? Did not they tell you that I have all along impropriated all the 
Pag. 279.  Loyalty from the Nobility, the Gentry, and the Commonalty, and dedicated it to the Church? Did not they that have seen both tell you, that in Archbishop laud's time our Church did exceed the Romish in Ceremonies 
Pag. 297.  and Decorations? Did not they tell you that I have cast this mischievous 
Pag. 307.  aspersion upon▪ His Majesty of thinking to convert the Revenues of the Church to his own use? Did not they tell you that you writ your Book against the King and the Clergy, and the Church of England without 
Pag. ult.  profaning and violating those things which are and aught to be most Sacred? With an hundred idle stories more that I could tell you, if any body would believe them. But these are their leasings, and by these you may see that you have as little reason to trust your Friends as we have to trust you. It is plain, you have not declined the acquaintance, nor 
Pag. 280.  avoided the Company of the Non-conformists, you are abundantly furnished with Leasings. And we may a little judge of the Truth and Ingenuity of the rest by a Rapper that is still behind, and that I had almost forgot, viz. That it was an Aphorism 
Pag. 139.  of a great Prelate in the last King's time, that the King had no more to do in Ecclesiastical Matters, than Jack that rubbed his Horse's heels. I have heard, that one, who was since a great Prelate, was brought into the Long-Parliament Inquisition for such a saying as this, and that the Indictment was managed against him by Pym and Rous, and the rest of the Modern Orthodox Members that would not be trinkled, and though he was proceeded against with an unheard of Malice and Violence, and all the pains and arts in the world were made use of to make good the Accusation, yet the tale was so destitute of all manner of proof or evidence, that they themselves were convinced of its falsehood, and forced for shame (though sore against their wills) to let fall the Charge and acquit the Gentleman. So modest a wretch are you still to keep up a calumny that has been so notoriously convicted of falsehood and impudence by nothing less than a Long-Parliament scrutiny. But this it is when men will pick up their Stories in the streets, at Charing-Cross and in Lincolns-Inn-fields, and report things upon the mere credit of vulgar hear-say, without ever examining their truth, nay with resolving to put on a bold face for emproving the lie to their own purpose. Somewhere in all your Travels, or some time in all your life; you have heard some body tell some such story of some Clergyman, though whether a Prelate or no Prelate you do not remember, and whether the Person that told it you, thought it credible or not, you as little care. The story would serve your turn, and gratify your spite, and so you resolved the first Book you writ to set it off with all aggravating circumstances that the world may thereby take notice of the insolence of these Prelates. And in the strength of your confidence it might have passed hereafter without controwl for no unlikely story, were it not a Lie upon Record by having been luckily brought into Parliament. But after all, what if it were come to Jack Gentleman? when it was only spoken of such illbred Clowns as you, that thought it the mark of their Gentility to despise a Clergyman, and abuse Mr. Parson, and that would affront their own father, if they had met him upon the Road in his Canonical habit. And such (especially if they are broken Gamesters) I still say are no better than Jack Gentlemen, I am sure there is no true Gentleman but would scorn and abhor such Porterly rudeness, so that none can be concerned in or offended at the Expression, but such Jacks as had their Breeding at Charing-Cross or in Lincolns-Inn-fields.  
And thus your Gibellineship having unloaded your whole Leystal upon the Clergy, and dressed them all up in Sambenita's, painted with all the flames and Devils in Hell, as if they purely by virtue of their Office and Character were more addicted to all kinds of wickedness, especially revenge, falsehood, and cruelty, than all other Orders and Professions whatsoever. Which if it were true, you have said enough to prevail with Kings, never hereafter to suffer such vile men to trinkle and tamper with their affairs, and though it were possible that they should light upon a man of Learning, Piety, and Wisdom, yet he will be sure to deform their whole Reigns by his Ignorance, Knavery, and Folly. Thus (I say) having rescued their Royal and exquisite Understandings from the Clergies keeping, you, notwithstanding that you were never bred up to the Trade, that you are not a competent Judge of their actions, that you are conscious to yourself of talking impertinently when you meddle with such matters, that you correct my presumption for taking upon me to instruct Princes in the Rules and Measures of Government; Notwithstanding all this you yourself take them all to task, tutor them like Schoolboys, read them long politic Lectures from Precept and Example, and as if you were the Skipper of the State, talk to them of nothing but Sea-marks, and Buoys, and Rocks, and Sands, and Charts, and Compasses, etc. And if they will not steer by your Compass, and abate of the exercise of their Power by their discretion, they are sure to ruin all upon the Rock of absolute Government. And to gain the greater Credit and Authority to your wise Instructions, you vaunt your own great and long Experience; I myself have oftentimes seen 
Pag. 242.  Kings do strange things and unreasonable in my Opinion, and yet a little while, or sometimes many Years after, I have found that all the men in the World could not have contrived any thing better. Now it seems you think yourself for all your counterfeit and impudent modesty, a competent Judge of their Actions. But here is Andrew de temporibus again, what a general acquaintance have you with King's time out of mind as well as with the Clergy of all Ages? And now by virtue of your long Experience and shrewd Observation you think yourself qualified, and no man more, to be Sir Pol. to all the Princes in Christendom, and you have advised them as gravely as Sancho himself could have done how to govern their Islands. Such is your miserable stupidity that there is not the least imaginary Error that you have falsely objected to me, into which you have not precipitated yourself with all the Circumstances and Aggravations of an affected Coxcomb. And whoever compares your Lectures must conclude Sancho to be much the deeper Politician. For the result of all your Instructions to Princes how to govern well is to advise them not to govern at all; because the Body is in the power of 
Pag. 250.  the mind, and the mind in the hand of God, so that to punish the body for the mind is to make the Innocent suffer for the Guilty, and to punish the mind, when it is in the hand of God is to violate the Divine Majesty. And now if both the minds and the bodies of his Majesty's Subjects are entirely exempt by Divine Right from his Authority, what a mighty Emperor was Sancho in comparison to the Kings of England, for you know how he served Mr. Doctor Pedro Rezio of Agnero when he would not suffer him to eat his meat at quiet, and though his body were in the power of his mind, and his mind in the hands of God, yet for all that his Highness made bold to lay his Doctorship neck and heels for his Impertinency, whereas according to your Measures, when the King suffered the Law to pass upon Hugh Peter and Colonel Venner, he did not only violate his own but the Divine Majesty. And though the Cowkeeper declared War point-blank for God himself, yet he had his outward Tabernacle fairly suspended; by a mere carnal, humane Institution, for which the judge must expect to give an account at the day of Judgement for violating the Divine Majesty. But in truth this solemn and frowning Nonsense is so horribly ridiculous, that I am perfectly ashamed to expose it. And yet it is the result not only of your own Book, but of all the Books of your own Party, whilst they make the Conscience subject to God alone, and impute all the Actions of the outward man to that inward Principle, and then what has the Magistrate to do with any of his Subjects, when their bodies are purely in the power of their minds, & their minds in the power of God. There is avast deal more of such wretched stuff that I shall pass by, because I perceive every body has wit enough to discern it at first sight by their own natural Sagacity. Only one deep Aphorism I cannot omit, no more than you can your idle stories, because Kings may make use of it for their own advantage, viz. that as reasonable men are to be governed by reason, so are Conscientious 
Pag. 250.  men by Conscience. What you mean I neither know nor care, but this advantage I can make of it for the use of Kings, that then his Majesty's Conscience (if you will allow him any) has a Sovereignty over the Consciences of his Subjects, and since blashemous Consciences have been conscientiously burnt, and rebellious Consciences conscientiously hanged, 'tis a powerful Evidence of the Necessity of a Conscientious Government in the Kingdom of Conscience, and that his Majesty as he knows best may conscientiously reduce all sturdy Consciences to acquiesce conscientiously in his and the Churches most conscientious Discipline. For as he has a royal Understanding and a Gentleman's Memory, so has he an imperial and superlative Conscience, by virtue whereof he is able to exercise a Conscientious Dominion over ten thousands of his Conscientious little Kings, and by virtue of this it was that Hugh Peter's being a reasonable man was reasonably hanged, and a conscientious man was conscientiously hanged; and if ever hereafter the Consciences of any Subjects shall drill them into the like conscientious Freaks against the sovereign Conscience, that may inflict the same conscientious Punishment upon them by virtue of its conscientious Authority; and this I take to be the only Conscientious meaning of these words that Conscientious men are to be dealt with only by Conscience. And thus though by your former Maxims you had deposed him from exercising any Authority over his Subjects, yet now by this you have reenthroned him in his full Power by making his Conscience King of their Consciences; so that it concerns him to look to his Conscience lest he lose his Kingdom, in that they will not have their Consciences governed by any thing but Conscience. But seeing there is little hopes of persuading his Majesty out of his Government, you proceed in the next place to prescribe him worshipful Rules and Measures how to manage it discreetly by a preposterous duty and slavish regard to the Will and Insolence of his Subjects. Not a word, in all your Book, of exhortation to them to be obedient, all your Advice is thrown away upon Kings to be discreet and to connive, and not like the hard-hearted-inflexible-tyrant Clergy exasperate the People to Rebellion by the extravagancy of their just Power, but to be so satisfied with having abundance of it, as to be content to abate of its exercise by their discretion. To condescend for peace sake and the quiet of Mankind to such things as would break a proud heart before it would bend (you are all for humbling of Kings;) not to exact obedience too much to the established Laws, lest they require things impossible, unnecessary and wanton of their People: upon all Occasions to give them good words and humour them like Children, to consider the Temper of the Climate, the Constitutions of their Bodies and the Antipathies of their Stomaches. And if all this will not prevail, but his Majesty still prove a stubborn and untractable Pupil, he must be taught to reflect upon the histories of former times, and consider the Catastrophes of such pragmatical Kings and Governors, as would not humour their Subjects like Children nor consider their Infirmities, and when they had got a Cold force them to be covered. Sir, what do you mean by all this? Do you not think the King a well-bred Gentleman that you read him these Lectures of Civility, as if he were not respectful and mannerly enough to his Subjects? If you 
Pag. 278.  do not mean mischief, why do you speak of it in his time? Why stir such an odious, seditious, impertinent, unseasonable discourse? 
Pag. 318.  Why take this very minute of time but that you have mischief, to say no worse, in your heart? This is plainly written with 
Pag. 264.  an evil eye and aim at his Majesty, and the measures he has taken of Government. For if he be so uncivil as not to condescend to his Inferiors, so indiscreet as not to connive at their Infirmities, so inhuman as not to yield to their Weaknesses, so illbred as not to desire them to be covered when they have got a Cold. Nay if he be so hardhearted as when any of them have an Antipathy to any thing (for instance a Flemish Antipathy to Monarohy, a Conscientious Antipathy to Obedience and a Fanatic Antipathy to Morality) as to cram these things down their throats in spite of their stomaches, he is an hardhearted and inflexible Tyrant, and then every body knows the stories of the Roman Emperor that was stabbed, of Alexander the Great that had almost lost all, of the Queen of Sweden that was forced to resign, of the sturdy Swiss that would not conform, and all the other idle stories, that they know how to make use of, if Kings will not. But I beseech you what grounds have you for these fears and jealousies of Incivility? Did his Majesty ever turn his Kingdom into a Prison? Did he ever weary out his Subjects so at home, as to constrain them to seek a more hospitable habitation among Savages and Cannibals abroad? This was the incivility that deformed his Father's Reign, and the Rock upon which we all ruined; but the King observes his Sea-marks, and has learned more manners, and is not so uncivil as Alexander the Great and his Royal Father were, as to force them to rebel by forcing them to conform. And though I have not the honour to be so intimately acquainted with his Majesty as to give him a Testimonial of the unblameableness of his Life and Conversation, as you have very obligingly done, yet thus much I dare say for him, that he is as civil and goodnatured a Prince as ever wielded the English Sceptre, so that you need not doubt but that he will upon all occasions give his Subjects goodwords, though they give him bad ones, and humour them like Children, though they are never so froward and deserve to be scourged. And therefore, during his Reign, you have no more ground to fear any danger of Incivility than I have of Popery; so unnecessary and unseasonable are your Lectures of good manners at this time, when his Majesty (God be praised) is as well provided of a Royal Nature as a Gentleman's Memory. Thus far have you instructed him how to govern his Island by way of Precept, but now we proceed to the more instructive Topick of Example; and here you have strung up (as Sancho did his Proverbs) an hundred idle stories of the fatal Catastrophe of illbred and uncivil Kings, to fright him into meekness and good manners; to which you might (in my opinion) have added one more, how the Subjects of Great Britain (because their King would not humour them like Children, when they had a mind to play with his Crown) nipped his Prerogative, sucked his Blood, subverted his Government, and set up a glorious Regiment of their own. I verily believe to have trumpeted this in his Majesty's ears (as much as I am out of your Books for it) would have been a more pertinent story for the use of Princes than Alexander the Great that had almost lost all, the Roman Emperor that was stabbed, the sturdy Swiss that would not conform, and the frolicsome Queen that gave the blank Town seal, of which there came no harm. But yet from these you threaten Kings with as much Effrontery, as if you had them standing before you upon the Stool of Repentance, whilst you lecture to them with the state of King Gill Scotch modern Orthodoxy, with politick-Notes and Observations upon Emperors Roman and Grecian, Kings and Queens, Schoolboys and Schoolmasters. I shall as briefly as I can examine them, to prove you as very a Rat-historian as I have proved you a Rat-divine.  
Your first Tale is of a Roman Emperor, who when his Captain of the Lifeguard 
Pag. 244.  came for the word, by giving it unhandsomely, received a dagger. I suppose you mean Caligula, who (as Suetonius relates) was stabbed by Sabinus, whilst he gave the word (not as you will have it) for giving it unhandsomely, the murder having been plotted aforehand, and though Josephus (you know) had a peculiar grudge against that Emperor, as a most implacable enemy to the Jewish Nation, and therefore to disgrace him as much as he can, affirms that he was stabbed immediately upon giving for the Word the name of a lewd woman (though in Suetonius the Word is Jupiter, the most sacred Word in their Religion) yet will you there find that it was the execution of a premeditated Conspiracy, and that the main cause of it was his frequent railing upon this Captain's cowardice. This is a Caveat to Kings, not to presume too much upon their own Wit, and their Subjects good nature, and if they will be drolling upon them, they may thank themselves if they receive a Dagger for a Repartee. I have heard of another Roman Emperor, who gave the Sword to the Captain of his Guard, requiring him to use it for his defence, if he governed well; but if not, to turn the point of it against himself. As also of a Prince of Brabant, who granted to his Subjects, if himself or any of his Successors should ever attempt to violate their Ancient Privileges, a full Power of proceeding to the Election of a New Governor, what disturbances ensued hereupon, and how Kings approve the example I know not, but this I do know, that it was very weakly done to submit their Actions so entirely to the judgement of their Subjects, and put it within the power of any Malcontent either to murder or depose them. But being got into the Roman Empire, I am (you know) in my own kingdom, and therefore when you ask me, whether had I lived in the days of 
Pag. 241.  Augustus, I should not have made an excellent Privy Counsellor to him? for his Father too was murdered. I would have been Privy Counsellor to Augustus with all my soul, were it not that he reigned so long ago; so that had I ever been of His Privy Council, I must either have been dead fifteen hundred years since, or at least have been so very old, that by this time I should have been altogether unfit for any public employment, though I had descended of your family of the de Temporibus, otherwise I know not any Emperor of them all of whose acquaintance I should have been more ambitious. He was a Prince admirable for the wisdom and magnanimity of his mind, for the sweetness and facility of his manners, he was one that delighted in nothing more than the entertainments of wit and ingenuity. Virgil, and Horace, and Varius were admitted into his retired and cabinet Conversation, as well as Agrippa and Maecenas, they were not only his Domestics, but his Familiars and his Confidents, they conversed and laughed together as friends and companions. And now who would not take it kindly to be honoured with the favour and familiarity of so great a Prince, a Prince of so good and so sweet a disposition, a Prince so free from froth and groans, a Prince so much to be admired, for that Majesty which sat upon the forehead of his Masculine Truth and generous Honesty. But had I been of his Privy Council, I am confident I should never have given him my Advice to sacrifice three hundred of the Nobles and Citizens of the best Quality to the Ghost of his murdered Father, because his Natural Father old Octavius was not murdered, but being a Civil Gentleman of private condition and breeding, and never having suffered any of his Tenants to be uncovered when they had got a cold, died quietly as he lived. But as for his Uncle J. Caesar his adopted Father, the case is plain, he was a bold and venturesom Gamester, that out-trinkled the Senate, and cheated them of the Empire of the whole world (for it was an usual thing for the Gamesters of those days to throw at all.) Now this was too great a stake to be rooked of, and they such implacable Gamesters, that out of pure revenge, when they had lost all, and he would refund nothing, they made no more ado but stabbed him, though as for your part you are the most irreconcilable Loser I ever heard of, you are not content to wreck your malice upon the man that cheated you, but for his sake you run a muck at the whole Profession, and vow the destruction of all Clergymen dead or alive, that ever were or ever shall be. However had I been Maecenas, I would have struggled a little more than two days before I would have suffered him to abandon Cicero to Mark Anthony's revenge, whom it seems (for he was a great Gamester too) nothing would satisfy but his enemy's life, only because he had so horribly paid him off in the Parliament House with sharp speeches, which it seems the Great Man when he was run down called railing. But Augustus was bound in honour to protect him, not only out of respect to his wit and eloquence, but because he was the Creator and first Patron of his own fortune. In that by his means he first gained the good affection of the Lords of the Senate, and by their means (you know) he at length obtained an unhoopable Empire. Though indeed some of your State-Politicians are willing enough to excuse him, in that, first, if Cicero did him any service, it was not out of any love to him, but out of hatred to Anthony (for Senators too are implacable in their Picques as well as Divines and Gamesters) but chiefly out of affection to the Senate, because it seems there himself Reigned, just as the Presbyterians, when it was too late, would have joined with the Royalists, not out of any Kindness to the King and his Party, but hatred to Cromwell and his Sectaries, and zeal for their holy Discipline, by which they hoped at last to rule all, and set their feet upon the necks of Kings. And secondly, because it was necessary to remove the fiercest of all Factions out of the way, for the quiet and establishment of his new designed Monarchy. In that the most obstinate both of the Nobles and Commons being singled out in this bloody Proscription, and the odium of the cruelty (by the cunning behaviour of Augustus) lying upon Anthony and Lepidus, when he had once rid his hands of them, he was pretty secure ever after from being troubled with any attempts of the old democratical Gentlemen to recover the old democratical Liberty: So that by this means he had no need of one of your High-Courts of Justice, that ungrateful work was done to his hand by these wicked men. Or if he had been put to it, he would never have been so bloody as the late Tyrant was, who would not be satisfied with the King's murder, but went on to assassinate such other of the Nobility, that had been most eminent for Courage and Loyalty, only to terrify the King's Loyal Subjects from all attempts of their duty, and indeed to affright them out of the Kingdom, when they saw their lives every day at the mercy of a rude and a spiteful Tyrant. And you know when it was put to the question at a Council of War, whether all the Royalists should be massacred, and carried in the negative by no more than two Votes. But now how all this story of Augustus comes in, I cannot imagine, for I do not remember that I have any where persuaded the King to a Proscription, at least it might have been pertinent before the King's Judges had made satisfaction to Justice, but to what purpose it serves now, I profess again is past my understanding. The next shred of History belongs to the King of Poland's Taylour-Parliament, who because the King would not near their Mode, have suffered 
Pag. 244:  the Turk to-enter, as coming nearer their fashion. If the King of Poland have a Tailor than he is no unhoopable Prince. But in this (as I take it) you are flatly contradicted by the more authentic testimony of your own Gazettes, and I do not believe this is yet recorded in any other History, However Parliaments may learn from hence, if the King will not be ruled to ●all in Turks and Scots, and that is another Principle of Modern Orthodoxy. And it has so vile an Innuendo (as Lawyers speak in actions for scandalous words,) that if it have any reference to our King, of whom you are speaking all along, and bringing your reasons and reinforcements for gratifying the Non-conformists, it is an impudent entrenchment upon his Majesty's Crown and Prerogative. For the Polish Kingdom being Elective and not Hereditary, the Parliament deal with their Kings, as the Subjects of King Gill, and King Osbolston are wont at certain seasons of the year to deal with their Sovereign Masters, bar him out, and keep him out, till he subscribe first to what Articles and Conditions they are pleased to prescribe him, or else there is no coming in there for him to play Rex among them. Friend, you dance upon the high-ropes, and by your Politic Lectures endanger your head as well as your neck. 'Tis unsafe to play tricks so high, as you do when you meddle with his Majesty's Crown, and compare it with that of Poland (for else you bring it in impertinently) when our English Constitutions know no Interregnum, nor is it in the Power of our Parliaments to choose or refuse what King they please. Take heed, remember what the Turk did when he mounted the high Rope, if you will be showing your ambitious Activity, it is lightly you will some time or other break your Neck.  
From the King of Poland according to the method of your Chronology you march over all the Roman and Turkish Empire, and there find 1900. years ago an Instance to prove of what dangerous Consequence it is to impose new fashions upon the People, for even Alexander the great had almost lost all he had conquered 
Pag. 244:  by forcing his Subjects to conform to the Persian habit. Take it for a warning, O ye Kings, (how great soever) how you impose fashions whether of Tunicks or Pantaloons upon your Subjects, for even Alexander the Great lost all the East- Indieses, Medes, Persians, Asia, Africa, as far as the Mountains of the Moon, and the Head of Nilus, died a beggar, was outed of all his Conquests, and all for forcing his Subjects to conform. If you would have a Law enacted that no man shall hereafter dare to bring over any new Fashions from France, but that Vests, Perukes, Tunicks, Cimarrs, etc. shall continue the English fashion inviolable and unaltered to all Ages, let the Tire-men and Tire-women look to it, and see you answered, I am not concerned. But he that runs may all along read your design of Modern Orthodoxy, and instructing wise Princes to look to it, have a care what they do, and force not their Subjects to conform to any habit civil or sacred, in that Alexander the Great had almost lost all he had conquered by forcing his Subjects to conform. But this is one of your leasings, for Alexander the Great never lost a foot of what he had conquered, and therefore not almost all, but died unconquered, and to his dying day lost not one foot either by seeming Friend or Foe, Grecian or Persian, by forcing his Subjects to conform or not conform. Will you never be ashamed of your Lease? But as for the great danger that Alexander was in, as I remember, it followed a fair time after and arose from another Cause, viz. that he disowned Philip for his Father, and would by all means be complemented as the Son of Jupiter, it was this which gave occasion to the sedition for which Philotas died. But if this goodly story were true and you would prove any thing out of it, it signifies nothing but against King and Parliament for making a Law to force all Subjects to conform to their habit and fashion, and is only a sly insinuation against the foolish Act of Uniformity, by which they have not only exposed their Wisdom to after Ages, but endangered all at Present; for Alexander the Great, etc.  
The next Story is of the King of Spain, 
Pag. 244.  who, when upon a Progress he enters Biscay, is pleased to ride with one Leg naked, and above all to take care that there be not any Bishop in his Retinue. From hence be advised O Kings, whenever you take a Pilgrimage for Scotland, to travel barefooted, and to take no Bishop in your Retinue, as you would avoid a solemn League and a Kirk-rebellion. Though if you will yield to stand upon the Stool of Repentance, and there suffer Mass John to rate both yourself and your royal Ancestors for a Succession of Lowns and Tyrants, and acknowledge the sins of your house and your own former ways, and give satisfaction to the People of God in both Kingdoms, and take all this with Kingly wisdom and meekness, they may perhaps present him as the biscain's do the King of Spain with a leather-bag full of Maravedis (60. whereof make a Crown) but yet withal forbid him to touch it with the end of his Lance. Or if his English Subjects should grow so capricious, that nothing will please them but the King must appear ridiculously before them to make them sport and humour them like Children, he must be wise and gratify their Childishness, as the King of Spain does the Biscainers, lest they grow touchy, angry and rebel. And as for what you suggest of their Scotch Antipathy to Bishops, from thence it is come to pass that they are become the most Barbarous People of all Europe, always excepting the afore-excepted the Cannibals of the Race of Capons; so as that they will not have any Traffic with any other Countries, nor mix with any other People for fear of corrupting their Language and Gentility, though that is little better than wild Irish, and they little better than Jack-gentlemen. And though they have some dark and general Notions of Christianity still remaining among them, yet are they since their Picque against Bishops fallen into such rudeness and ignorance, that they have scarce any knowledge at all of the particular Articles of their Faith and Precepts of their Religion; and so it must be, wherever there is no superior Clergy, the poor Parish-priests will in process of time become as ignorant and barbarous as the Common People.  
The next Story is of a Certain Tyrant 
Pag. 244.  that demanded subsidies of so many Bushels of Fleas. But because you will not or cannot tell us when or where this same Tyrant does or did live, nor what his Name is or was, I have good reason to suspect either that it is but an idle Story or he some Jack Gentleman. Though what you would make of it I cannot devise, unless it be that if the King should impose some trivial things and ceremonies as are in your Judgement not worth a Flea, and fine or punish the People for Nonpayment of such Niceties, he had as good be quiet, and would get but little by distraining, and should be called Tyrant for his pains. So that if the King exact Obedience and Uniformity to the established Laws, he is worse than the Flea-tyrant, seeing the Non-conformists cannot pay it in Conscience, and seeing withal they desire no Alteration, but what is so far from doing us any harm, that it would only make us better.  
The next is a Story of a certain Queen that being desired to give a Town-scal, sat down naked on the Snow and left them 
Pag. 245.  that Impression, and other Town-seal could they get none for their hearts, if they would be content with that, well and good, she would part with no other, and though it caused no disturbance, yet Kings do not approve the Example. But if it caused no disturbance the Story might have been spared. But how come you to know that Kings do not approve of the Example, that you dare thus confidently publish their Opinion, when I dare say you cannot name two Kings that ever heard the story. Will you never learn Modesty? But why do you not tell us the Name of this Queen, and City, and Country? It could not be the Queen of the Amazons, because her whole Territory, as Travellers, that have been there, tell me, lies within the Tropics and just under the Equinoctial, and there they tell me too it never snows. So that I doubt it must be the Queen that reigns in Terra incognita, Dowager to the Tyrant that has his subsidies paid him in Fleas by the Bushel, measured to him in good Tale by Jack Gentleman. But whoever she was or wherever she lived the Politic Improvement of her story runs thus. There was a certain Germane Princess (bold Beatrice by name) that being either mad or maudlin played a sluttish Trick somewhere before the worshipful Mr. Mayor and his Brethren, and though their Worships were not so implacably offended at her Majesty's rudeness, as presently to pass a Vote of common Council for taking up Arms to revenge the Affront, so that there followed no disturbance in the State from the extravagance of the frolic, yet Kings that never heard of it do not (as they have told you their minds) approve of the Example. But rather take it for a warning to behave themselves mannerly and modestly before their Subjects. Though I cannot see why they should be so much deterred from it by this Example, when no harm that we read of ensued upon this freakish use of her Prerogative. But had the Consequences proved never so fatal, I am apt to think that Kings, though you had not represented them, would not have been very forward to approve or follow the Example, because Royal Sense can never be much delighted with sitting upon the cold Snow.  
The next is a Queen too, and she almost as bold a Virago as the former whoever she was, and it is the Queen of Sweden 
Pag. 245.  who said Io non voglio governar le bestie, but afterwards resigned. But I don't believe she understood one word of Italian before she went to Rome, or if she did it is certain the People of Sweden did not, so that though she did speak to her People that displeasing word Bestie, I do not see how that could cause her Resignation. But the true and manifest Reasons of it were on her Subject's part, their natural fierceness and inclination to wars, that made them loath to be bestrid by a Petticoat, and therefore they leaned to her Kinsman the General, and her declared Successor; and on her own part a capricious desire of foreign Travel and Conversation with more refined wits. But however from hence let Princes be instructed to flatter the meanest of the People, lest if they speak contemptibly of them, they depose them for their moroseness and want of breeding.  
The next Novel is of the Revolt of Switzerland from the Emperor and its turning Commonwealth, only upon occasion of imposing a civil Ceremony by a capricious Governor, who set up a Pole in the highway with a Cap upon the top of it, to which he would have all passengers to be uncovered, and do obeisance. But one sturdy Swiss that would not conform, thereupon overturned the Government, as it is at large in history. One sturdy Swiss that would not conform— this is your Modern Orthodox Language— that would not conform— so Alexander the Great had almost lost all, because he would force his Subjects to conform— But to what would he not conform? not to a Civil Ceremony; a Civil Ceremony! how much less to a Religious Ceremony, that is no less than an as-it-were-a-Sacrament. But however to give you the short of the story it runs thus. The Swissers were declared a Free People some hundreds of years before for their good service against the Saracens, and at the time you speak of they had no desire to renounce their dependence upon the Empire, but upon the House of Austria as an Hereditary Fee. And their casting off their Obedience to the Perfect sent by the Emperor Albert of that Family, was contrived long enough before the Hat was set upon the Pole, and this not by a Rout and Tumult, but by the direction of the Chief Magistrate the Baron of Altinghuse. But the Perfect knowing of the design (to make short work of it) set up the Cap and Pole as a trial and discovery of the Malcontents. So that this was no more the cause of their revolt, than the Kings setting up the Royal Standard at Nottingham was of the long-Parliaments Rebellion, who had before in several cases challenged, and as far as they were able, seized on, his Power, and by consequence deposed him from his Sovereignty. From hence let wise Princes beware of forcing their Subjects to be uncovered unseasonably, i. e. whenever they have got a cold, or are out of humour; and it is good advice to the Parliament to have a special care that they enjoin not the Quakers nor others to put off their Hats, whether in Courts of Judicature, the Parliament House, or Chambers of Presence, nor enjoin them a Leg, or a Cringe, or a Bow as they love the Kingdom, for one sturdy Swiss that would not conform, etc. And that which is more material good Sir Pol. you may hence infer, that they had need make a Law, and Enact, that no Wagg by any trick, wile, or stratagem in earnest or jest use any endeavours to make men put off their Hats, as they pass by the three Poles at Tyburn, for fear of turning the Kingdom into a Commonwealth again, if they will be wise, see the consequences, and observe the Sea-marks, for one sturdy Swiss that would not conform. This is right Modern Orthodoxy, and you had done well to have added the judgement of a Professor of it in the Corporation of Losarne, situate on the Lake of Lemane, on what point of the Compass (you Travellers are so critical) I dare not determine, though this I dare, that it is not far from the Town of Geneva. Viz. That it was well done of the Swissers to free themselves 
Bucan. loc. Commun.  of their subjection to the House of Austria, when the Princes of that House had exercised more than ordinary cruelty in most parts of the Country; as David might lawfully have killed Saul, though he did forbear to do it, lest he should give an example to the people of Israel of killing their Kings, which other men prompted by Ambition might be like enough to imitate against himself and his Royal Posterity.  
The King of Spain's losing Flanders is the last piece of News that makes up this Gazet, and this happened (according to the information of your Correspondent) by setting up the Inquisition. But this story is so like that of Alexander the Great, that I need only deny it, and say, that as Alexander died seized of all his Acquists and Conquests; so neither has the King of Spain lost Flanders by the Inquisition, because it is in force there to this day, as you may see and feel too, if you will but take a voyage to Ostend with an English Bible in your hand, and talk there as freely of the Clergy of the Church of Rome as you have here of the Clergy of the Church of England. And as for the United Provinces it is evident that he was stripped of them by the Fate of War, and whatever was the cause of the War was the occasion of his loss. And that (as it usually happens in the like cases) was set on foot by divers concurrent accidents, as bringing in Spanish and Italian Forces by Charles the fifth in his Wars against France, a grievance unknown to the Flemings in the Reign of former Princes, and it was against these foreign Troops that the States made the first Remonstrance. The natural Insolence of the Spaniards that could not but exasperate the people's hatred against their pride and oppression. The peculiar haughtiness of Philip the second, that made him neglect and disoblige the Natives, and confer all Offices of Trust and Honour upon Strangers. His absence from the Provinces, and leaving them to the Government of a subordinate Minister, whereas they had always shared in the residence of all former Princes. And if you will consult the Prince of Orange's Declaration in the head of his Army, you will find the main grievance to be this, that the States of the Provinces were forcibly restrained from holding, according to custom, their general Assemblies. But besides all this the Netherlands were the very Sanctuary and Rendezvouz of all the Calvinists from England, France, and Germany, and the Anabaptists from Westphalia and other parts, and these quickly poisoned the people with their own principles of Sedition and Anarchy, so that being, before the Government was aware, grown strong and numerous, that made work for the Inquisition, which though it soon checked their growth, yet it did little towards a total suppression of the Party, partly by reason of the tenderness of the Duchess of Parma the then Regent, and partly by the Envy and Ambition of the Belgic Lords, who underhand opposed all proceedings against Sectaries and Heretics, and encouraged their seditious practices, so that between them both the wise and resolute Ministry of Granvel was rendered not only successess but withal odious to the people. For as he was a man of extraordinary Wisdom, Courage, and Fidelity, that sincerely pursued his Master's interest, faithfully executed his Commands, and kept up the height of his Authority; so being an Implacable Divine, he saw to the bottom of the Projects that were carried on by the discontented Lords, and foresaw the tendency of Factions in Religion to disorders and seditions in the State. And therefore was severe and rigorous in the execution of Laws, as knowing that nothing else could ever reduce the people to any peaceable temper after they were once possessed with such ill Principles and ill humours. But for this by the advice of the Duchess and importunity of the Lords he was removed, and the rigour of Edicts remitted, and that for the present seemed to appease all tumults and discontents. But by that means the dissenting and discontented Party in a little time grew so considerable as to put the King upon his former resolutions of force and rigour, but it was now too late, they were grown too strong for the Government. When the Venom was too far spread, they applied the Antidote, that did then rather irritate than expel the Poison. And now too late the Duchess of Parma saw and bemoaned her loss of Granvil. But so the War broke out with that brutish rage and fury of the people, that their Leaders repented their own rashness, and joined when it was to no purpose with the Governess to suppress Tumults and Insurrections. And what were the Events and Traverses of that long and bloody War you know better than I, it is enough that at length in the midst of these Confusions the Estates of the Provinces take an opportunity to seize the Government into their own hands, and set up a new Commonwealth and a new Religion. And this (as an ingenious Gentleman tells me) was not a little advantaged by a particular Accident, viz: Whereas in most, if not all other parts in Christendom, the Clergy composed one of the three Estates of the Country, and thereby shared with the Nobles and Commons in their influences upon the Government; That order never made any part of the Estates in Holland, nor had any vote in their Assembly, which consisted only of the Nobles and the Cities, and this Province bearing always the greatest sway in the Councils of the Union, was most inclined to the settlement of that Profession, which gave least pretence of Power or Jurisdiction to the Clergy, and though he applies the Observation only to Religion, yet it is as true of the Government, in that as we all know the Estates of Holland were the head of the Rebellion: so that after all your Politics you see that the King of Spain lost the United Provinces purely for want of Trinklers. But supposing the truth of your story, the consequence you would make of it is to deter Princes from exercising an Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over the Consciences of their Subjects, lest they exasperated such as are tender into Rebellion. Or because the Church of Rome abuse their Government into Tyranny, therefore we must have none at all.  
And now it were worth while to know what your meaning should be to beat up and down thus industriously through all Histories for such idle stories as these, and then to apply them as Caveats and Sea-marks, and directions to Princes, without ever being in the least concerned to caution Subjects against the like wantonness upon the like occasions. What else can your meaning be but to inform the world what slight pretences will serve the turn at some lucky junctures of affairs both to cause and to warrant Rebellion. And the result of all your discourse as addressed to his Majesty amounts to this, that by these examples he may learn to condescend to the childish humours of his Subjects, and give place to their follies and extravagances whenever they grow headstrong, and have a mind to take advantage of being quarrelsome for every trifle. 'Tis wise advice, and such as would quickly make him so glorious a King, as the Long-parliament made his father, who gained so little by his condescensions to their peevishness that he thereby only emboldened them in their Impudence, till in a little time no less would satisfy them, but to demand the whole Sovereignty itself, and when it was denied them, to fight for it. In short, I can make neither more or less of all this politic Lecture to his Majesty than I can of bradshaw's speech at the High Court of Justice, where he justifies their proceedings by raking up (as you have done) Examples Ancient and Modern of killing and deposing such Tyrant and Traitor Kings, as would be forcing their Subjects to conform. But beside the wise instructions you have dropped upon his Majesty and all other Sovereign Princes to humour their subjects like Children, and to use their Power with so much caution and tenderness, that they may not have any pretence of disturbance howsoever capricious and unreasonable, i. e. in short to beware of governing their people for fear of offending them. Beside this general care for the welfare of Mankind, your sage Wisdom extends itself to the Kingdoms of Gill and Osbolston, and wonderfully concerned you are to settle and preserve a good Understanding between Ushers and Schoolboys, and to this end have you enriched the Politics of the World with divers shrewd and enlightening Observations against the Illegal and Arbitrary Government of whipping Schoolmasters. I never remarked so 
Pag. 88  irreconcilable and implacable a Spirit as that of Boys against their Schoolmasters or Tutors. The quarrels of their education have an influence upon their Memories and Understandings for ever after (than they are not Gentlemen.) They cannot speak of their Teachers with any patience or civility, and their discourse is never so flippant nor their Wit so fluent as when you put them upon that Theme. Nay, I have heard old men, otherwise sober, peaceable, and good natured, who never could forgive Osbolston, as the younger are still inveighing against Dr. Busbie. It were well that both old and young would reform this Vice, and consider how easy a thing it is upon particular Grudges, and as they conceive out of a just censure to slip either into juveline Petulancy or inveterate Uncharitableness. 'Tis all remarqued like a Senator, that 
Pag. 243.  reflects upon the Histories of former Times and the present transactions to regulate himself by in every Circumstance. Though yet here, methinks, you show more kindness to the Prerogative of Schoolmasters than to that of Kings, in that you address your advice of Peace and Condescension as well to the Subject as the Sovereign, whereas in your former Admonitions you applied yourself and your sage discourses of Moderation to the Government alone, without the least intimation of advice to Subjects to beware of peevishness and incivility to their Superiors. However it is to be hoped that Schoolmasters will hereafter lay aside their Rods and their Ferula's to avoid these implacable Grudges of juvenile Petulancy, and learn by the Example of their brother Kings to condescend to their Boys for peace sake and the quiet of Boykind, and upon all occasions to give them good words and humour them like Children, and from all these fatal consequences of whipping, which can only serve as sea marks unto wise Schoolmasters, to avoid the causes. And never hereafter to brandish their Rods against Truants, Loiterers and Rob-orehards, remembering the implacable, Ballads of Tom Triplet, the stabbing of the Roman Emperor, the Tai-Ior-Parliament of Poland, the danger of Alexander, the King of Spain's progress into Biscai, the Resignation of the Queen of Sweden, the Revolts of Switzerland and the Low-countrieses, and an hundred more that I could tell you but idle stories, 
Pag. 246.  and yet Kings and Schoolmasters can tell how to make use of them; for where there is so great a resemblance in the Effects, there 
Pag. 87.  must be some parallel in the Causes. (You have put Tacitus his nose out of joint for sententious Politics.) But above all it concerns them to consider that God has instated them in the Government of their 
Pag. 249.  Subjects with that encumbrance of Reason, and that encumbrance upon reason of Conscience (as if Conscience were an encumbrance upon Reason and Reason upon Government.) Men therefore are to be dealt with reasonably and conscientious men by conscience. And then that the Body is in the power of the Mind, so that corporal Punishments do never reach the Offender, but the innocent suffers for the guilty. And the mind is in the hand of God, and cannot correct those persuasions which upon the best of its natural Capacity it has collected, and therefore to punish that is to violate the divine Majesty. To what purpose is it to scourge the outward Boy, your corporal punishments never reach the Offender but the innocent suffers for the guilty: it is the mind that is the truant and the dunce, and if that will not con its Lesson, is it justice that the poor innocent Backside should do penance for another's sloth and idleness? It is only for implacable Divines to be thus cruel and sanguinary. And then as for the Mind that is in the hand of God, and cannot correct those false Concord's and unlucky Tricks which upon the best of its natural Capacity it has collected, so that to punish that is to violate the divine Majesty. And now lay by your Rods, my Masters, break your Ferula's, burn your Grammars, tear in pieces your Dictionaries and your construing Books, mure up your School-doors, leave your declining of Nouns and Verbs, construe no more Greek and Latin, break up School, and keep an universal Playday throughout the whole Nation, for Truants must not be whipped, and if you attempt to take down their Breeches, you offer plain violence to the Laws of Nature and of God. For he has put their Bodies into the Power of their Minds, and their minds he keeps in his own hands; and therefore if you scourge them you do not only punish the Innocent for the Guilty (which no sort of men are so brutish to do beside the Clergy) but the disgrace and the blame of all lights at last upon the divine Majesty, in that the Mind is wholly in his hands, and all its Actions whatsoever must be entitled to his Providence. A blessed Account of Government this! but yet such as is absolutely necessary to the exemption of Conscience from the Commands of Authority, by ascribing all the Extravagancies of Mankind to the Will of God, that has put upon them a fatal Necessity to do whatever they do. And then 'tis in vain for the Civil Magistrate to think of forcing his Subjects to Obedience by Penalties, when they are overruled to the contrary by an almighty and irresistible Power. This is a fit Cover for so foul a Cause.  
But now if you had come to me, I could have told you an hundred more idle stories, that you and Kings and Schoolmasters would know how to make use of that would better have filled up your Politic Lectures, and done more advantage both to your cause and yourself than all that you have raked together. I will recommend but one to you, in which I am sure the King and Parliament, the three Kingdoms with the Isles adjacent, together with all the Plantations that lie out of hearing are more nearly concerned than in any of your Politic Tales, not excepting the Queens own Broad-seal, and to make you expect no longer it is the famous story of Massanello. And if ever you come to be a Parliament-man, because you may be modest at first and fearful of speaking, I care not if I lend you a Speech before I conclude. And thus you must manage it and yourself.  
First you must rise up and take out you Gold-watch (if it be not at pawn for the Picquet disaster) and though it do not go, or be down, yet look on't in the first place however, not transiently, but stay your Eye upon it, till you cannot longer do it handsomely without too apparent Prostitution of your design, than combing your Wigg shake it with a Grace, make up your Mouth betwixt a smile and a simper, look upon the Presence with some Pity but more scorn. And then begin, Mr. Speaker, and there pause again, for it becomes you to seem modest at first; and so after a frown or two more with your mouth, and as many smiles with your Forehead, proceed in good earnest without any more faces and prefaces to be wail the evil, the fatal, the sad Consequences, the mischiefs many and great, that threaten the Kingdom's ruin and turning it to a Commonwealth again, by the Apple-mongers and old Women in the Strand, Charing-cross, and all along by Whitehall as far as Westminster in the Face of the Street and all Bystanders, selling and exposing to sale from day to day whole baskets full of Pippins, Paremains, Russetting, and old Apple john's. Whereas one sturdy Swiss (for I am sure he will run in your head) and here you must beg Mr. Speakers pardon, and correct yourself, and say you meant one sturdy Fisher-boy (and that you must observe for a certain Rule, though you are out never so much, yet for all that still to go on) I say Mr. Speaker one sturdy Fisher-boy by that fatal occasion of overturning an Apple-womans' basket, overturned all Naples, his name was Massanello, and the story is true. And though Mr. Speaker you may at first think it but an idle story, yet all circumstances duly weighed, it may some time or other prove of fatal and dangerous consequence to the Commonwealth. There is Mr. Speaker beside Punchanello's Audience a great concourse of Boys whipping Giggs, and of Lackeys playing at the wheel of Fortune, as I myself have often remarqued, or if you will not rely upon my single observation, my Lord Chief Justice, and Sir Edmond Godfrey are able to inform you. Now Mr. Speaker, beside what may ordinarily happen at any time in scuffles between the Boys, or the Lackeys, or the Porters, it may so fall out that some pleasant and humorous Gentleman, one of the Cock-wits of the town, as he is passing on by Charing-Cross to Whitehall, either for the intrinsic wit of the frolic itself, or to make a noise by boasting the adventure in the privy Gallery, should either by himself, or the officious Ministry of his Footboy over-turn a whole Settle of Apple-baskets; that must of necessity make a scramble, a scramble a scuffle, a scuffle a tumult, and then that may lightly come to pelting of Apples, and that to tumbling in the kennel, and that to bloody noses, and then be sure (Mr. Speaker) hell is broke loose, as I have observed in my Book of Aphoisms and Similitudes, when the Scots entered England upon as slight a Cause, viz. to fight for the Jure Divino of throwing Cricket-stools at Divine Service. And what followed thereupon is yet 
Pag. 148.  within the compass of most men's memories. Mr. Speaker, I would not willingly be such a sool as to make a dangerous similitude that has no foundation, for every similitude must have if not all, yet some likeness. That is to say, (for it will be sometimes requisite for so deep a Statesman as you to explain yourself) there is no likeness without some likeness. But this (Mr. Speaker) I am sure of, that War was begun by the Women and Children and Servants of Edinburgh, as you may see in the first Remonstrance presented in their names to the Lord Chancellor of Scotland. And so if it should happen upon this occasion at Charing-Cross, that any Massanello (and believe me Mr. Speaker all Kingdoms are full of Massanello's) should head the Tumult, what else can lightly be expected, but that they should either betake themselves to Whitehall, and there revile the King to his face, for requiring things impossible, unnecessary, or wanton of his people, for not considering the Laws and Customs under which they have been formerly bred (as when under the Long-Parliament, the Rump and Committee of Safety they had the Privilege of raising Tumults against their Governors) for not giving them good words upon all occasions, and humouring them like Children; for not being so civil as to condescend to their infirmities, and if at any time they have got a cold, forcing them to be covered; in brief, for not observing the constitution of their bodies, and the antipathy of their stomaches. But if they shall pass by Whitehall (as Mr. Speaker no body knows the motions of Tumults) than what can be expected, but that they should immediately to Westminster one and all, and so beset this House, and offer violence to the Members for being so foolishly trinkled, and burdened the Subject with such a superfetation of Acts. And therefore (Mr. Speaker) to be short, my humble motion is, etc. But here you know how to go on by yourself, it is only to move and desire the House for a quarter of an hour together by repeating the same Premises all over again, that neither Apples, nor Pears, nor Nuts, nor any other incentives of scrambling may be sold between Charing-Cross and Westminster-hall for fear of Massanello's and sturdy Swisses. Do but speak it confidently, and with a good Grace, and then I am sure the Speech itself deserves more regard, and is of closer importance to the King, Parliament, and Government, than all your idle stories from Alexander the Great down to the Great King Gill. I am content (if you will keep your own counsel) you should have the honour of the Motion, and I doubt not but it will be thought so serviceable to the Commonwealth, that if your Effigies be not set up in the next Nich to King James in the Royal Exchange, yet you can never fail of having your Statue erected among the foremost of the Dirt-basket-Justices.  
And now I have done, and hope by this time you perceive, that though one night may make some men grey, yet threescore years cannot make others wise. And therefore I would advise you to meddle no more with Ecclesiastical Polities, for I plainly perceive that Divinity is a Trade (that God be thanked) you are not of. And that truly the reason why God does not bless you in tampering with matters of Religion, is, both because he never intended you for that employment; or if he did, you have neglected to fit yourself for it by Education. So that if you must be scribbling, betake yourself to your own proper trade of Lampoons and Ballads, and be not so unadvised as to talk in public of such matters as are above the reach of your understanding, you cannot touch Sacred things without profaning them. To conclude, though it was the Opinion of most wise men, that there was nothing more needful to answer your Libel, than only to desire the world to compare it with my Discourses; yet others, who overpowr'd me to this Reply against the bent of my own inclinations, thought it expedient that I should lay you thus open, though it were only to let those weak People, that once seemed to admire and applaud you, know that they had so little judgement as to approve the most despicable Trifler that was ever guilty of ink-shed. And as for what concerns yourself I shall say no more, than to assure you, that if you will learn modesty by this Correction, and so give over Transprosing and the Good Old Cause, you shall ever hereafter find me as much your friend as ever heretofore. But as for my Reply I fear it not, for if you will keep to the Reason of the Argument, I know You and all your Party cannot answer; and if you will play the fool again, that will not serve your turn a second time; the very people that once magnified your Wit, now laugh at the silliness of your Pamphlet. At least, I think I have so sufficiently chastised your folly, that if you should be so rash as to continue troublesome, there will be no need of a second Correction, you will be laughed at, and scorned enough without being exposed by any beside yourself. However I have something else to do than to write a Book against every ignorant and conceited man that has nothing else to do than to throw out his impertinent scribble against me. And therefore I shall only desire you to recommend me to all your Friends at Charing-Cross and in Lincolns-inn-fields, and so bid you heartily farewell.  
FINIS.   

The Printer to the Reader.  
Reader, Thou art desired to pardon those few faults that have escaped the Press, by reason the Author had not the Revising of the sheets.