THE CHARACTER OF A PRESBYTER, OR Sr. JOHN ANATOMISED.  
LONDON, Printed for John Calvin at the Presbyters Head in Pauls-Church-Yard, 1660.   

THE CHARACTER.  
I Will first present him in Gross, and then give you him in his Anatomy: but I am afraid he will stink before I have read through every part of him. Let us then unkennel the Fox, and we shall find him no better than a Crablouse crept out of Luther's Codpiece when he unbuttoned to Katharin● Bora; the immediate issue of Perjury, as being begotten by that Monke-professed on that professed Nun; which may be the reason perhaps he hath kept his Covenants so well ever since. From Saxony the Vermin crept to Geneva, where that Bear's Whelp was licked by Sodomitical john into Deformity, and if you will not believe my Geography that Sodom stood where now Geneva doth when Calvin lived there, I have his Back, though not his Hand, to show for it, where the Oxford Doctor may read the meaning of that hard word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. You may know the Beast by his Brand, if he be found in our Enclosure, I would have him put into the Pound. He is one of Pharaohs Lean Kine, that signifies no less than Famine and Death: He was sent amongst us as a plague; and we swarm no less with them, than Egypt did with Frogs and Flies. If you please, that other Judgement of God, the General Darkness, more resembles this Child of new light, who thinks forsooth that the Day breaks first in at his window; but let me tell you, he that follows his Dark Lantern, had need to call aloud hang our your Lights. But because the man is apt to take pet, I will grant him some resemblance to that Courtly Creature, and call him an Ignis Fatuus, that leads the passenger into Bogs and Waters; a piece of Rotten Wood, or a Glittering Gloworm, a mere Quasi, and no more. Fewer Tailors go to the making of a Man, than of these Inches of Theologues to the constitution of a Divine, and yet they will say you a Grace of an Ell long, London measure. He is just as much a Parson, as I in my black Coat, or you in your Grace, for he wears both Disguises. Let the Stature of his Body be what it will, you must take the dimension of his Knowledge, not as we do those Giants of old in Learning, by the Cubit, but as we measure the poor Pigmies of these times, by the Span. Neither indeed can we expect that he should be strong timber for the edifying of God's Temple, who was plucked up as soon as he was planted in the Nursery of the Academy. A Senior he is the first day of his Matriculation, and thinks himself a Sophy before he arrives to a Sophister. This fond conceit of his improvement, makes him like a careless Child, forsake the Lap of his Mother, before he is so much a substantive as to stand by himself; He thinks not that that largeness of his Head, is nothing but the Rickets, a Disease, and not Discipline, he would not else sure set up the Trade of Preaching, before he had served out his apprenticeship in the University. We must suppose him then fluttering in his flying Coat, and Perching in the Puipit, where we shall find him a pretty Parrot that hath just learned to speak; His excellency lies in praying ex tempore, that is, out of all time, for you shall be sure to have him as long as a Cart-rope, as if he thought God measured his devotion by the length and strength of his Lungs, or as if he thought that God who is all Ear, did not hear him who is all Mouth, in tautologising so often, Ah Lord! O God His Sermon (that we may give it its due) is a Noted one, or a Sermon of Notes taken up in Gross at the University, or some Foreign Congregation, and disbursed in the retail to his own Parishioners. I grant he hath taken some pains in wire-drawing it into words at length, which he before penned in Stenography or short hand, whence we may collect, That our Learned Sir John can Write and Read, and able if need requires to make use of the Benefit of the Clergy. Trace him in his Doctrines, and you shall find him to tread very much awry. He is an absolute man for absolute Reprobation, and damneth you and me before we were born, or were so much as capable of doing God or man the least injury: I say, by Gods revealed will I may be saved, if I do as God commands me; and he says by God's secret will I am damned, thus he makes God one of his own Antipodes to tread contrary to himself, and though his Motto is semper idem, he would have him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to speak one thing and to mean another, as if he was one of God's privy Council, or as if he and not St. Peter kept the Keys of Heaven. And if they make so bold with God himself, no wonder then if they invade the Liberties of his Vicegerents, and maintain that a Subject may prescribe Laws to his Prince, and depose him, if he does not observe them: this was the Dagger which stabbed so many of the Scotish Kings, and this the Axe which struck off the Head of Ours, and for our late civil dissensions, thank Buchanan and Knox, they led up the Van in the Villainy, and our Presbyter brought up the Rear. He hates with a perfect hatred the English Prelates, with all their Hierarchy, and counts his Ordination as good as theirs. He is a mere Sloven in his Devotion, and would have no heads bare in the Church, but what are so in reverence to his own little Grace, no knee to be bowed except it be to ask him forgiveness. The sight of a Picture he can by no means endure, when his self is no more but the Picture of a Preacher. He can't away with the superstition of the Holy Font, because it can't walk and wait upon his idleness to the Pew door, but will celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism in the common Basin he last washed his dirty hands and face in.  
If you saw his Congregation receiving the venerable Body and Blood of our blessed Saviour, you would think the good People were set down to make a sober meal of it, to refresh their hungry Bodies, rather than their Souls, nor dares he Holyman administer those heavenly Viands, without a severe scrutiny into the lives of the Communicants; and though God of his mercy hath invited all, yet none must be admitted, but those to whom the controller of God's House doth please to give a Ticket, as if he forsooth, who so much hates the Catholic Doctrine, had a month's mind to become their Confessor, when indeed 'tis only to pick a hole in his Neighbour's Coat, to discover his nakedness, that so lying but at open-ward he may wound him at his pleasure. For my part, if he should tell me I had not my wedding Garment on, and so not fit to come to the marriage Supper, I would be so bold as to ask him, Friend how cam'st thou hither? He tells the silly people, he is God's Angel, and Ambassador, and shows them Scripture for it, he comes to acquaint them with the mind of God, and that they ought to reverence the Messenger for the dignity of his Message, and the greatness of from that sent it, and would fain imitate the unmannerly Hugonots in France, and (if for the Civil power he durst) preach with his Haton. What the Bishop was, he would be, & what Caesar and Pompey were in the State, he is in the Church, impatient of either Superior or Equal. The Church of Rome, which some have called the Spouse of Christ, he can give her no better appellation than the Whore of Babylon, Scarlet Whore, and one of them was witty and said in the Pulpit, she was a Whore that deserved to be Carted, but the reason of this Obloquy I can't imagine, except it be this, that he is ashamed to acknowledge that he hath his Christianity from Her, and that he had rather borrow his Religion from Luther, and Calvin, Dod, and Cleaver, than Augustine the Monk and Augustine the Bishop; thus Ingratitude will make one ingredient in the composition of our Hodgepodge Presbyter, in that he will not pay those thanks and obedience that is due to the Mother-Church, but Nickname her too, wherein he hath unworthy Epicurus in imitation, who nicknamed reverend Chrysippus by the name of Chesippus, not withstanding he was his Master, and taught him his first Lesson. But lest I should like him in his Sermon prove somewhat longwinded, I will leave the Divine (for he gins to smell somewhat strong, though he be but a weak one,) and take a short survey of the man and his manners: You shall find nothing about him to prove that he is descended of humane Race, but his hands, and head, his face, and fear, all which the very Ape and Drill can plead for their humanity: for take him as a neighbour, and he is a pestilent peevish Fellow that shall sue you for a Tyth-Pig, you may imagine his Suits at Law make his wife go so fine and gallant; He is more conversant in Moses than St. Matthew, better read in the Law, than the Gospel, and studies more Cook upon Littleton, than Cottons Concordance, which renders him an excellent School-man, and most accomplished controversal Divine. Set him out the largest Cock, or Sheaf, or else you must expect to be thundered at the next Sunday out of the Pulpit, from that little Almighty, and shall be told per nomen & cognomen, you are damned for robbing God of his due, and if with Caligula you will not run under your Bed, be terrified at his thunder, and descend to his large demands, up you go into the Exchequer, where you shall have an Adversary of him as bitter as you would wish your bitterest enemy. His own Solicitor he is, & keeps the Terms as constant as an Attorney. He knows the Returns, and Essoin days, as well as he knows the Sunday, and is sorry that that is not dies Juridicus too; If he chance to prove Victor, down he posts upon his pitiful Palfrey with his Io Triumph in his mouth, proclaims to every one he meets the justness of his Cause, and continues his Conquest by insultation. Now the Peacemaker gins to speak against his Conscience the commendation of the Law, and commends its rules most concerning the Modus Decimandi and Non Decimandi, and is only sorry that the Lawyer expects the Dictates of his good Angels as well as he, before he will speak. Let us follow him to his House, and there we shall find some Lazar at the Door, the Dogs licking his Sores, for that is all the Plaster the poor man must expect, which shows that the Savage Dog is more courteous than his Master: being entreated but for a Morsel of Bread, he gives him perhaps some Crumbs of Comfort, diverts his discourse to the bread of life, talks of the providence of God, how the Raven fed Elias, the miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes, tells him he is to feed the Soul and not the Body, and at last persuades the Mendicant to make a meal of Air. But here I must in Charity (though he hath none) lend him an Apology; For how can he relieve the poor without, who hath so many crying mouths to be stopped within. That which to others is reckoned amongst God's Blessings, I am afraid to him may be counted as a curse, to have usually a numerous issue, and no inheritance to support them, for relinquishing an Angelical Caelibacy, and with it the greatest of the Theological Virtue's Charity, merely for the purchase of a Lazy Lechery. Thus did Codpiece Henry renounce the Pope's Supremacy, because he would not illegitimate a legal matriage; thus you see the Great Plantation of Sir John sprang first from the seed of the fl●sh.  
He is an admirable Orator for a Funeral Panegyrik, and what his fear durst not, or his power could not perform, during the life of his Adversary, he now endeavours, to him being dead▪ knowing that Mortuus non Mordet, but never thinking that inraking unworthily in the dead man's Urn he may chance to burn or smutch his fingers. Thus he which by his sweet breath ought to preserve the precious Ointments of a man's good name, proves a filthy fly to corrupt and taint it. Sometimes he acts the Hypocrite, and carries two Faces under one Vizard, he is of a double Tongue, and double Heart, words which usually are the Light whereby we discover the Dark Secrets of the mind, with him are as a cloud to shroud and conceal them. He is commonly squint-eyed, and when you think he fastens his fight upon you, he intends it a quite contrary way, and with the dissembling waterman, looks one way, and Rows another, or with the crafty Lapwing, makes the greatest complaint when you are furthest from his Nest. Hath a man occasion to use him? he had best to try before he trust him, for he is a dangerous Pit fall smoothly covered with Rushes, a soft Rose with abundance of prickles, a Wolf in Sheep's clothing; He wears Christ's Livery, but is Satan's Servingman; He blows hot without and cold within, with a warm hand, and a frozen heart. He makes you believe he brings you his heart in his mouth, when his speech no more truly discovers his Soul, than the lying Almanac doth the weather. With the Satyr's guest he can warm his fingers with the same breath wherewith he cools his pottage. He will kiss and betray, and with the unhappy Boy in the Fable, pretends to whisper his Mother in the Ear, and bites it off. I dare not descend to any more particulars, but must conclude my Anatomy, for now he gins to meet my fears at first, and makes me hold at once my Pen and Nose. I will dispatch him therefore in one line or two more. He is an I dolater that worships the Golden Calf, and makes Silver his God, one of Samsons Foxes with a firebrand at his Tail, a cursed Cow with short Horns, the only Promoter of Faction and Sedition; He is a stubborn servant; and a Tyrannical Master, a strange Composure of Contradictions; He will Fast at Christmas, Feast in Lent, and Lie with his wife on Good Friday. He is an Angel in the Pulpit, and a Devil out of it. He forgets the Lord's Prayer, because others remembers it, and when others only read the Scripture, He will sing it: You may know him by the Goggle of the Eye, the zealous twang of the Nose, by his long Lugs, and short Locks, with his Quirpo Cloak, or flying Coat, but no Cassack nor Canonical Girdle, for fear when the Beast hath run to the end of his Tether, he should make use of it for a Halter and Hang himself.  
FINIS.