A CUP OF SACK Pressed forth of the best Grapes gathered the last Vintage, in the Loyal Converts new distempered Vineyard.  
Which by frequent using, will make an old lame Capon-eater, able to shake his legs, and dance as roundly and as nimbly; as a Boy of 18. years of age.  
Published for the good of those that are so distempered through Malignant humours;   a goblet or chalice 
Who may be cured at a cheap rate.  
LONDON, Printed by JANE Coe. 1644.   

A Cup of SACK.  
IN the vintage of the new distemper there are wines various, for different palates, but all Spanish; I shall not taste of every sort, nor present you with all the gathering; but of each vessel that I have drawn, take a taste.  
The first is number 12. and that at the first sight seems good to the eye. So that the loyal convert himself confesseth. That the piety of honest hearted people was the first motive to weekly Lectures. The more wretches they who went about to suppress and hinder them.  
But then he drinks to deep of this cup, and that makes him fall to railing against those weekly Lectures, for abusing that piety, When as it is well known, that it was the silken Prelates and there greasy Doctors, and full fed Parsons; and Vickers, that abused both those honest hearted people and the Lectures too, and laboured to suppress, and silence them. One of their fat doctors told his parishioners (because they came not in so full a congregation to hear him, as the Lecturer? that they left the shoemaker to follow, a cobbler. And in his answer in the next Sermon, the Lecturer confessed that time was when they might have their work well done at first, but now the Shoemakers take there stitches so scurvily that the people are feign to come to the poor cobbler to have them mended.  
Oh says he: but these Lectures must please the people, and that thereafter as their Lunatic Doctrines wrought upon them; so their maintainence ebbed and flowed. But their actions declared the contrary, for they did most of them suffer, because they would not be men pleasers; Bishop-Wren would suppress Lecturers at Norwitch: because they taught God's word too plain, yet he liked the simple reader there, that giving thanks for the recovery of one in the town that had been gored with an Ox: read the Rubric for the Churching for women (knowing no other ways how to do it) only in stead of child-bearing read Ox goring. And poor Mallet Lewis Hewes, and divers more were put to silence for curing those that were Lunatic and possessed with devils, by prayer and Easting 〈◊〉 The Prelatical Priests so there one estate flowed, they cared not how their consciences ebbed; nor how their poor people's souls were starved.  
The next glass of this wine is pleasant to the palate, which made the convert say; What more pleasing to the people than the preaching of liberty: Betunder savour there were few such Lecturers put in by the people, Indeed the lofty persons would sometimes force such upon the people; as particularly, Doctor Fuller at Cripplegate forced Huet upon the parish, and they must have him or none, who would usually be at the playhouse when the congregation stayed for him at Church; and sometimes five or six messengers sent to him to an Ale house (and sometimes to a suspected bawdy house) before he would come to them, and such follower indeed would labour to sow pillows under men's elbows, and preach liberty in sin, this is sweet wine but much distempered. And therefore in this he saith right, that liberty is enlarged by being pierced with prerogative, and had they been let alone a little longer, they would have laid claim to the greatest piece too, they began to overtop the crown.  
But this distemper hath such an operation that his sight gins to fail nay indeed he drinks himself stark blind, and cries out, oh by setting up Lecturers, down goes Authority, and up goes privileges, down goes the Book of Common Prayer, and up goes the spirit, down goes learning, and up goes Revelation? And nothing will follow this but ignorance and Rebellion. Thus poor purblind simple people think to find heaven and salvation, in the Book of Common Prayer, and have been always ready to pin their faith on the Bishop's sleeves, & were led on in ignorance, not knowing whither they were led; shall we not go to the word revealed, shall we not seek to be guided by the Spirit of God, shall we not have respect to the privileges of a believer, They would have brought us to come to buy and beg pardons of them, as the Papists are persuaded to do, and cared not how many souls they damned; as one Rivers a notable Priest said, we by our learning must find out ways to keep the people in ignorance, and prescribe rules to keep them in awe, else they will by too much preaching, gain too much knowledge; But their distemper beginning to be more calm, he saith that the Bishops never lost themselves so much as in putting down those godly Lecturers and in not taking care to set up better and more Orthodox, than they suffered to be, which had they been careful for aught I know they might have stood to this day: and England have continued in peace. From numb. 12. I will give you a taste of the next, numb. 13. of which the distemper of the operation is very prelatical indeed, and put the Bishop into a high esteem of his calling: the wine pleaseth him well, he drinks all off to the bottom; cocks his catercap, sets up his arms on his sides like a Cavalier and saith? Am not I a Bishop, do you not know me? will you go to take away our government, before another be pitched upon; who had we neither prescription nor continuance without intercession, nor the Authority of Parliament; yet it seems not consonant to reason, nor policy to extirpate us, or take away our government. The Spanish wine vapours in his brain: and he thinks himself to be somebody; And indeed it is no wonder they were grown so high, for Canterbury threatened to make the Church of England low, by a blow, which should be given. But God be thanked the Presbiteriall government is pitched upon, which brings prescription with it, for the Authority of Parliament.  
But he tells us, that liberty lies open to all schisms, sects, & heresies, and that sectaries grow bold, & vent their giddy headed opinions without controlment. And indeed the drunken priests had never more liberty, It is no more but turning Cavalier, as there is good store of them in all the Enemy's quarters, and then he may drink, roar, swear, whore, at pleasure, teach heresy, schism, Blasphemy, any thing; which if he can do personally he shall be made a Captain, or Lieutenant at the least, of which Hastings hath at the least eight or ten in his garrisons and good store were driven out of Oxford to follow the Army: And for those Malignant Clergy that were lest in Oxford: Doctor Usher told these not long since; in a Sermon, that they might be ashamed so to dishonour that Reformation, they intent to seek: by being so deboist.  
The next fort of this distempered wine, which is, Num. 14. makes the loyal convert maudlin drunk, and he falls a crying, and says; Oh woe is me what shall I do; why what is the matter man, why we have made many complaints against the independents; and cannot be relieved: and we are afraid to complain any more. Why what is the matter, what do they do to you. Why they challenge us to dispute with us in the open Churches, the most learned of us all. And indeed now I remember the man speaks truth: they have been often challenged, Major Lilborne challenged the Archbishop himself to dispute with him. And it should not be a shame for a Prelate to be puzzled in dispute with a lawman. But is this all that troubles him, and puts him in such a distemper, no he saith that when they are come home from hearing of a Sermon, they use to pray to God for a blessing, at their own houses or lodging on what they have heard. Indeed this may make our Enemies weak: for our prayers doth us good but them 〈◊〉 prayers of the Church (do not mean of the separation only: I though not exclude them neither,) is a strong Bulwark against the Popish 〈◊〉 Prelatical Enemy. But to cool his stomach, he mixes the water of Dow river, with his distempered wine, and tell us of prophinations there, which (through the great distemper he was in, if he be guilty of) God forgive him, no doubt they are wicked people in all parts of the Kingdom: but your Priests Jesuits and friars sprinkile their holy water at Mass among you every day, and there will a speedy course taken with those that are ●ound so superstituous here. Then he tells us that many have been convicted of blasphemy: which is very true, and Mr White hath put out one sentry: and there are almost ten times as many upon record, and yet these are those he calls learned and Religious ministers which are plundered, sequistred, & imprisoned and is there not just reason for it: for they have not had the least share in the raising of these Wars, & in bringing the guilt of all the blood thereby shed in this Kingdom since the Wars began. But still weeping he cries out against heresy: (for the Papists call Protestants heretics) Oh they turn Popery out of doors and we shall go for company, or at least be forced to shroud ourselves in corners, as the sectaries did before, Oh the fear of this goes to the very heart of them, that whereas they thought to have thrust out the Protestant Religion: and all power put into their hands and to have settled Popery, that now they are not only disappointed, but we have hope to, (not only settle but Reform) the true Protestant Religion in great purity this breaks the heart of them: for now their hopes are lost.  
The next taste is num. 15. in which the Loyal convert undertakes to tell us some (though weak) grounds of upholding Popery: and Prelacy.  
1. That Episcopasie is a government coetaneous with this your almost out-dated Religion. But those Bishops were nothing coetaneous with our Prelates till Popery made them so. In Phaochases time they began.  
2. That the rubric of Common Prayer is a book established by many Acts of Parliament. So is the Mass book.  
3. To be positived, obedient to the King is a duty commanded by Gods own mouth, must we obey him, if he command against God's commands.  
4. That the Clergy are the Ministers of peace, therefore not to preach for blood; yet they began this war; by contribution to the King against the Scots.  
5. That those who have sworn canonical obedience to their ordinary, ought not to take the Covenant against Popetry and Prelacy, as if the Prelate's league was more viled than our Covenants with God which bind us to it.  
6. Those that have taken the oath of Allegiance, and the Protestations ought not to resist the power of their Prince, which power is in Parliament, and therefore the Prelates abused themselves and there own actions, are hereby to be censured. These be his grounds whereupon he would traduce us to believe that we are bound to submit to the Papists now in Arms against us. But God hath taught us better things, and to him will we trust.  
Then coming to numb. 16. the destempered man having well drunk, and it may be slept upon it too, raiseth us his senses with a fresh cup of sack, which makes him prattle like a nimble Lawyer: pleading the Popish cause of the Enemy, even they who one, and acknowledge the doctrine of the Church of Rome, which gives up to understand that some have a dispensation, whereby there public acknowledgement (for the present) is not exacteed at Rome, well the loyal favourite pleads hard in their behalf.  
1. That they may not be banished, because they have the King's power, and he that resisteth the power shall receive damnation, Rom. 13. and to get the King's power, is to make him guilty of pergerie. A strange cup of wine, and yea this was brewed at Oxford, by the Loyal convert, surely since he turned Papist.  
2. That the Papists may not be disinherited; because there is no law for it, yet there is a law, because they rise, and join in Arms against the Parliament.  
3. That to take away the lives of those that are Romish Catholics is murder, what may the Papists rob? spoil, steal, kill; raise, and continue Wars against us, and to kill them in opposing them herein: is this murder? and is this that which they do for the defence of the Protestant Religion, yet this is the doctrine preached at Oxford, and printed there, by Leonard Lichfield Printer to the University but a week or two since, Titled, the new istempered Frst written by the Author of the Loyal convert.  
And therefore to conclude making some use of his own words, where, O where are you, most Royal Sovereign? where O where are you, the great Counsels and grave senators of this fading Kingdom? where O where are you, the learned College of the assembly of divines? where O where are you renowned citizens of London? where, O where are you, the great Armies of the Kingdom: where, O where are you all the Protestants of this languishing Island? Are ye all fallen asleep? we perish, and is there none to awake you? open your eyes, unlock your ears, and mollify your hearts. Behold, Behold the miseries of your land, and if compassion be not banished from the earth, pity, O pity the approaching ruins, of this your groaning, this your native Kingdom. Hearen, O hark to the sad complaints against these proul and insolent Papists, and prelates. And if your hearts be not of Adamant, relent; and take speedy care for the settling of this disquieted state.  
Let the breath of this distempered Kingdom contracted into one extreme sigh, move you to the speedy endeavours of a timely cure, examine her distempers, Inquire into her constitution, and purge out that unhappy popery which doth so disquiet us. Let not popery crush us to pieces, nor the children of your mother starve in the land of bread, and let not the foundation of your natural Kingdom be longer dabbled in unnatural blood to uphold them. Turn, O turn your eyes upon her breaches, and let not strangers Lord it in her gates; how many English, Irish, French, and Flemish papists, and of other nations among us seek our ruin. For the mercies of that God, which hath been merciful to you, let not millions of Protestants be murdered, and massacred by them, with millions of poor children that know not their right hand, from their left, suffer not your wives, and daughters to be ravished and deflowered, but join as one man, against the Common Enemy.  

For the Lord and for his cause,  
Up Protestants the Papists be upon you.   
FINIS.