ROGER THE CANTERBURIAN, That cannot say Grace for his Meat, with a low-crowned HAT before his FACE.  
OR THE CHARACTER OF A prelatical MAN affecting great heights.  
Newly written, by G. T.  
LONDON, Printed for WILLIAM LARMAR▪ 1642.   

ROGER the Canterburian.  
OR THE CHARACTER OF praelatical ROGER.  
ROGER the Canterburian is a Man made up of a soul and a Body like Ananias the Puritan, only he worships God with both. He has learned out of the Bible to make a Leg to the Authority of Church and State, and does the same to Heaven the ordainer and dispenser of that Authority. He has read the whole Story of Christian Religion from christ-cross to & per se and: and yet cannot find Ananias the Puritan neither in A. nor B. nor C. nor any Age of the Christ-cross-row, but quite beside it: The pox and the Plague has frighted him out of Oxford; and Mr. PYM out of his Leg-Religion, and almost his Witt. Notwithstanding his distractions, he has so much wit yet left, that Ananias could not see his Grac● through it.  
The Apprentices give him a broad side as he walks the Streets by crying no Bishops, No Bishops; and never leave till he cries▪ No Bishops too: for which when he is safe in housed, he repents crosses and blesses himself, and curses them as things never Christened, or never bishoped.  
To make him cry▪ No Bishops, he says is to boil a Kid in the mother's milk against the Law of GOD and Nature. When he is abroad, he dares not speak sense aloud, for fear he should be knocked o'th' head for't; but hums and haa's in God morrow, and God even, and what a Clock is't. His fear leads his judgement by the nose, as Religion leads Ananias. All the Sciences he has skill in but the arithmetic of Sects; which ignorance the Bishops he hopes will curse▪ when they become Arithmetick-Lecturers. His greatest fear next the loss of one of his Parsonages, is that the City gentlewomen will put Gussets and Goures into the canonical Prayer, to make it as much too wide for his Faith, as his Memory. He is so extremely given to short Prayers, as if he were sure the kingdom of Heaven might be surprised and taken with a Squib: and his Wife thinks him short in all, as he is in his Orisons; and so (though she seem Religious in his way) Cuckolds her Beads and Him. He dares take it upon his death that there has not been a Sermon preached since Eighty eight that has had any theology or Religion in it, but by Doctor Andrew's and the learned Pupils, after the Order of Saint William of Canterbury all catechisms, but that of the Church he counts Libels against Heaven, and esteems them as the People do Articles of PYM. When a zealous Woman goes to St. Antholines with her Bible under her arm, he says she looks like a Goose with the Gysard trnst under her Wing. It grieves him to hear every Coxcomb crow new divinity able to startle the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. A Priest after the Order of my Lord Major he never liked till now that the Brownists have created him Papist. It astonishes him to think that his censurer Ananias should esteem the bread after his Consecration no better than that which baits a mousetrap. When he enters a Church, especially where there is an Altar and Organs, he mutters to himself that of Jacob; How dreadful is this Place! this is the House of God, and the very gate of heaven; and wonders why he should be contemned for a Formalist▪ because he shows but so much reverential fear as a Turk entering a Moschit. If the expression of such a religious fear in God's House be not commanded and established, he thinks that Religion and himself shall not be beholding to the Synod for a courtesy sixpenny broad. Except he and many more of his Order be elected Synoders, he resolves to esteem their Determination no more than the Apprentices do Proclamations. He smells like a piece of Russian Leather of Arminius; and for that is suspected of Popery, although he lie Perdu upon his own Wife to catch the Roman Priest in an error of superstitious Chastiry▪ He wishes that we may at length stutt into some Religion that he may eat tithe-pig in peace. But one thing he desires above all; That the Christian Sacrifice, as the Jewish always was, may be seasoned with Salt, the symbol of judgement and wit; and not with Puritan long-Pepper talk. Rosemary and bays he abhors more than Bel and the Dragon, and will have none of it in his House this Christmas because it was profaned in the triumph of those holy Martyrs Burton, Prinne and Bastwick, which he accounts the schismatical Sectaries of Martin Mar-Prelate. He thinks it impossible that a man should give a better Character of this Age, and the Religion of us Zealots, than that churchwarden has already done, who took down the Picture of Jesus, and let the ass upon which he rode stand still in the Church. Besides all this he has another scurvy fault; he deliberates what and how he should speak to God Almighty in his Prayers, because he knows not why deliberation which is the counsel of Reason should be shuffled out of God's Service only, and be received and praised in all things else. The Scotch business lies still upon his stomach like a Sow-baby upon the stomach of a Scot; and Doctor Bastwick can see no reason why that should make him so sick. Might he have had his will the Scots should have had 3000000. Pounds bestowed upon them to have sent them home sooner: but now he thinks it were better bestowed upon the building of Paul's; such is the superstition of the Man. He is not a man of many Graces; those he uses before and after Meat are stolen out of the primer. The eyes of all things is his Grace before meat: and after it, from the same Book an old devout rhyme. 
As thou hast fed our body's Lord so feed our souls likewise;  
And make us mindful of the poor as Riches doth arise.  
Increase thy flock preserve our King, thy Grace and Peace down send;  
That we may lead a faithful life, and make a godly end.   
This Grace is set to a whistle which his Wife has for that purpose in the heaft of her Knife, that it may be like the Man Liturgick and cathedral. He is so very much addicted to set Forms of Prayer, that in a sudden and dangerous Fire, he has nothing to say to God Almighty, but that Collect of our Church that calls for rain in the time of fiery drought. He is a Creature of doubtful interpretation; no man knows well what he is: Thus much more I think I may say of him. If there be an insurrection of Papists, you shall meet him with two leaves of Thomas Aquinas, set cross in his Hat, because he resolves never to have his throat cut for a Puritan. His pride has swollen him too big for the Church of England, and now he must die like an Hydroptick Man. Nothing but a Cardinal's Cap could keep his Wit and Learning warm: but God has punished the pride of that wit with a plain Northern blue-cap. he is so clearly resolved that the clergy ought to be preferred to the bravest heights, that his Spirit will not give him leave to say Grace for his Meat with a low-crowned Hat before his Face; because it is not Gloria in exelsis, glory to God in the highest. Most of his Discourse is about that old Devotion which richly endowed the Church, and enabled the clergy to tip their Staves with unvallued unicorns horn. You shall hear him tell you with a great deal of affection out of the Historian Boisardus; That the French clergy possesses 8000. Lordships, in which they have the chief Power of exercising political Justice; and besides those 240000. Country Villages; That they possess 7000. Acres of vineyard, besides the tithes which they receive from other Vineyards; That to them are belonging 125000 Fishponds; of meadow ground 90000. Acres. Out of the same Author he can show you an Account of annual Provision of ●●●t for ecclesiastic Men.  
Of pure Wheat 4. Millions 500000. Measures; every such Measures containing 600. Pounds.  
Of Oates, 900000. Of Barley, 800000. Of Pease, 860000. Of fat Capons, 180000. Of Hens, 560000. Of Partridges, 600000. Of fat Oxen, 12500. Of fat wethers 12000. Of Eggs, 7. Millions.  
And to be short, such like proportions in other necessaries for a temperate Priestly life. Moreover, out of Boterus, he can tell you; That in Saxony there are certain Bishops▪ of which every one has his jurisdiction, his towns and Subjects as Princes have.  
Certainly he would be a brave fellow if he could but retrieve the Old Religion with its Circumstances. Yet for all this he hopes to see the Gentlewomen of London come to Auricular Confession; which if they do, he will lie with some of them for pure spite; except four or five Acts of Parliament button up his Codpiece. He has a kind of humorous Charity towards the Scot still left in him, which he thus bestows.  

LET US PRAY;  
THat the SCOTCH kirk,  
Which has eaten Perk,  
And with that is run sterk-  
Mad 'gainst Priest and Clerk,  
'cause he is dumb and does not berk;  
But will both believe, and work;  
May leave her schism which has cost her  
Her Credo in Deum, and Pater Noster.  
FINIS.