Antisacrilegus: OR, A DEFENSATIVE Against the plausible Pest, or guilded Poison, OF THAT NAMELESS PAPER, (Supposed to be the Plot of Dr. C. Burges, and his Partners;)  
Which tempts The KING'S Majesty BY THE Offer of Five hundred thousand pounds, to make good by an Act of Parliament to the Purchasers of Bishops, Deans, and Chapters Lands, their illegal bargain, for ninety nine years.  
By JOHN GAUDEN, D.D. Chaplain in ordinary to the Kings most excellent Majesty.  
London, Printed by J.B. for Andrew Crook, at the sign of the Green-Dragon in St. Paul's Churchyard. 1660.   

ANTISACRILEGUS. OR, A Defensative against the plausable Pest, or guilded Poison of that nameless Paper (supposed to be the plot of D. C. Burges and his unlucky partners which temps the King's Majesty, by the offer of Five hundred thousand pounds, to make good by an Act of Parliament to the Purchasers of Bishops, Deans, and Chapters Lands, their illegal bargain for ninety nine years.  
ALthough the Justice and Honour of the King be such, as becomes the Son and Successor of such a Father (who loved the Church and its just Interests, more than his own life:) so that His Sacred Majesty will easily command such Satan's to get behind him, as unworthy of his presence; whose sacrilegious projects and devices deserve to perish with their money. Yet that His Excellent Majesty and His two Loyal Houses of Parliament, with all His good Subjects, may see the craft of that design, and the hook under that bait; it is not amiss to discover the poison of sin and shame, of dishonour and danger, of impiety and imprudence wherewith it is fraught, and wherewith it seeks to infect the King, the two Houses of Parliament, and the whole Nation, only to ensure a few unhappy Merchants in their sacrilegious adventures.  
First, For His Majesty to do, as is there unworthily (because against all law and justice) desired, is to be Godfather to those spurious and illegitimate practices, which were begotten from, and nourished most what by tumultuary, disorderly and violent ways; tending to, and ending so much in the ruin of King, Church and State; yea, the very Proposers do by their bold proposal clearly confess, that they have (yet) no Law or Justice for their pretended purchases, and consequently no very good consciences to keep them, but would gladly by a new price of iniquity, purchase to themselvas a right by Law for ninety nine years, whereas they vapored heretofore as if they had the fee-simple; that was (indeed) Robinhoods pennyworths, at five or six years' purchase, considering the timber, houses and Improvements.  
Secondly, By their instancing so boldly in the late Kings forced Concessions, or rather necessitated deliberations, about granting a Lease of improved Church Lands for ninety nine years, in order to redeem His Life, Crown, and posterity (to which redemption all the Loyal Clergy were more willing to consent then himself) these Proposers do dangerously insinuate, as if the present King His Son, were in the same distress of life and fortunes, to which fraud and force had then reduced His Royal Father: Which (blessed be God) is not the present case of King or Church; For the King is now clothed with excellent Majesty, and the Church hath put off its filthy garments, and rags, wherewith the Enemies of God, the King, and the Church had deformed her. As for His Father's Murderers, and the Enemies of King and Church, they are now covered with shame and confusion of face, as with a cloak. And certainly it is as impudent, as unseasonable a desire, since some Purchasers have already drunk the blood, and eat the flesh of the King's Father: since they have against all Law and Conscience destroyed many Houses of God, and greedily gaped to devour all God's portion, and the Church's Patrimony; that the Son now happily reigning in peace, should reward such for their good works, by enabling them with an Act of Parliament, to strengthen their now wambling stomaches; the better to digest the Church's Lands and Houses they have devoured: All which His Royal and Martyrlie Father sought to preserve as much as His Life, Crown, and Kingdoms; esteeming all injuries done to the Church, to be as great reproaches and insolences against His God and Saviour, so point blank against His Conscience, as a Christian, and against his Coronation-Oath as a King, no less then against Magna Charta, or the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom, by which the Church's rights are settled, and aught to be preserved.  
Thirdly, It would monstrously abate and eclipse, not only the Renown and Honour of His Majesty, who is the Son of such a Father, but in time it would shrink His constant Revenues; part of which arise from those First-fruits, and yearly Tenths, which are duly and cheerfully paid by the Bishops, Deans and Chapters, out of their Lands and Estates, while in their power, and possession, and improvement.  
Fourthly, This wretched project would be a continued injury and indignity put upon this Famous Church of England, and its learned Clergy; who have been formerly esteemed as eminent, deserving, and flourishing, as any in the world: And all this, merely upon this account and occasion, because it hath been for some years past, insolently stripped and abused, in which its eminent Bishops, and other Divines, have (like Jewels) been trampled under the foots of Swine; men of sordid and sacrilegious spirits, only fit to devour and destroy Kings and Bishops, things Sacred and Civil.  
Fifthly, It would be exceedingly to the dishonour, not only of the King's Majesty, to degenerate from the examples as of His many Royal Progenitors, Christian Kings and Queens of England, who were in all ages nursing Fathers and Mothers to this Church, (which God hath put immediately and wholly into their protection, under Christ;) and specially, from the incomparable pattern of His Father of blessed memory, who expressed such holy love, zeal and constancy to the Rites of this Church. But further, it would be a most uncomely stain and reproach to the present most Honourable, Loyal, and Religious Houses of Parliament, both Lords and Commons; whom God hath blessed, and eternally honoured, in making them the happy Repairers of our Civil and Desperate breaches: How can they then with any honour or conscience sacrifice the Church any longer to these Apollyons and abaddon's; its sacrilegious Wasters and Opppressors.  
Sixthly, This design of the Purchasees, if obtained, would so cruelly weaken, peel, barkround, and exhaust the plenty, honour, power and authority of this Church, and its Clergy, both as Christian, and reform, in all its ancient Rights, Immunities and Enjoyments (which are as well settled by Laws ancient and modern, as any civil estates are, or can be) that it would never recover its beauty and flourishing lustre, of late so much deflored; but both Christianity, and all sober Reformation, would daily decay and whither, by successive attempts of sacrilege and schism, till all were run to Profaneness, Atheism, Anarchy, and Barbarity; which ever follow as the idleness and luxury, so the despicable poverty and tenuity of Churchmen; of which Greece of old, Germany of late, and England last of all are evident, but sad experiments.  
7. If such an Act of Parliament should pass, without, and against the consent of the Clergy (who are by Law the Proprieters and enjoyers of those estates, under God and the King) which consent is never like to be gained, as it cannot reasonably be asked:) It would make, not only the King and Parliament, but in, and with them, the whole Nation, shrewdly suspected, if not actually guilty of that enormous sin and curse of Sacrilege; which even Dr. Burges owns to be such, though not in the case of Bishops and Cathedral Lands, because it is his own case and great concern. Let him but have his bargain, with Judas, he cares not whom he betrays, or what truth and conscience he sells; though it come up to a most apparent robbing of God, his Ministers, the whole Church, its reverend Fathers, and most eminent Sons, yea, the whole body and fraternity of the Faithful in the Land, of that double honour, both for maintenance and reverence, which agreeably to the word of God allowing, accepting, or commanding such grateful and honorary retributions of their temporals, to those that impart things spiritual, hath been freely given, piously devoted, and by the Laws of the Land oft confirmed as sacred and inviolable to the Church and Clergy, in order to promote the Worship and glory of God, with the good of souls, by the order, peace, plenty, honour, government and authority of the Church, and its Ministers, both governing, and governed. The poor man Dr. Burges cries out like Steutor, of the gnats of his own private injuries, suffered from the Corporation of Wells in his Bishop's Lands; yet he can swallow the camel of his own great purchase of them, though without any Law to enable him; or any consent of the Bishop or others by Law invested in them; nay having a canine appetite, he is not yet sick of the sin, but only afraid to vomit up those sacred morsels, and would fain have a retentive cordial from the King, and two Houses; who have hitherto, and in them the whole Nation) been by a special providence kept from that sin and shame; For what ever in this kind of chaffering hath hitherto been done in England, during our troubles, was but the counsel and practice of some few men, without and against all Laws of God and the Land, which teach all honest men to abhor Sacrilege, as Idolatry; as a sin of the first magnitude against every precept of the first Table; condemned in all ages by all men morally just, as being against the light of Reason, and natural Religion, to rob God: Therefore detested always by Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Barbarians, by Christians and Mahometans, by all Protestants and Papists, as not to be dispensed withal, but in a case of higher charity and necessity, for God's glory and the Churches good; and this with unfeigned purpose of making, when able, full restitution, in kind, or in something equivalent. Which Justice is asserted by the Old and New Testament, by the Laws of this Kingdom, and of all Empire's ancient and modern; by the Canons of all Churches, by all Councils, Fathers, Church-Historians, and learned Divines on all sides (as Dr. Burges is forced to confess) being a most impudent and detestable sin, never to be palliated or excused, seldom or never pardoned or repent of; because it abhors any restitution; as we see in Dr. Burges his terrors and clamours; but is usually punished with hardness of heart; and searedness of conscience in private persons, ever fatal and unprosperous to Prince and people, justly revenged by God and man to many generations, by lasting and unexpiable curses; to which the King, Parliament and Nation ought not to be exposed upon any terms.  
Eighthly, Thus to peel and pillage the Church and Clergy of England, after so many and long exhausting will give joy and satisfaction to none but the enemies of the King, the Church and Nation: Either the envious Papists, or the covetous and cruel fanatics; who are as the locusts, caterpillars & palmerworms of this Church; the one hoping to devour what the other leaves: Nor is there any reason that the best and most of the Nation rich and poor should be all injured, scandalized and rob by the Church and Clergies diminution and undoing, only to gratify a few unreasonable and undeserving Purchasers of Church lands; who are neither good to the Tenants; nor to the poor, nor to their Prince, nor to their Saviour.  
Ninethly, This alienation and long diversion of the Church's revenues, will much discourage all learned industry and proficiency in this Nation; it will damp the the spirits and studies of both our famous Universities, which now begin to flourish again. It will debase and cripple the dignity and authority of this Church and the Clergy, both Bishops and Presbyters, who of old did many great and good works: It will much defeat his Majesty's charitable design and declared pleasure for augmenting Vicaridges out of Church Impropriations; It will obstruct and dry up the stream of charity and hospitality, which should be most exemplary in the Clergy; and it will only make way for avarice, ignorance, anarchy and confusion in the Church, which cannot but endanger the peace and safety of King and Kingdom, as of late we have seen to our woe.  
Tenthly, To answer the temptation of present gain, which as the devil to Christ in the wilderness, that serpentine paper offers to his Excellent Majesty, as if the liberal and loyal purchasers would advance 50000 l. for his Majesty's service.  
1. It is a goodly sum indeed, if it came out of their own estates and purses, which it doth not; but it is too sinal a sum to engage any honest man upon so great a sin as Sacrilege; to which all the world's gain will not tempt a King, or any true Christian, who knows how to value his soul or the Church of Christ, or God's glory, or his Kingdoms and consciences peace, or his own and the Nations honour, or his Clergies merit and usefulness.  
2. His Majesty deserves and enjoys so much of the hearts and loves of his people, that he needs not fear any want: nor will he be ever driven to make use of such crafty Merchants, or to partake of their filthy lucre, who would fain draw the King to be their partner, and to crown their Sacrilegious projects with his Princely Diadem; and while to save the common people of the Nation a few pounds, His Majesty should contract upon his Throne and Kingdom, his Conscience and People the sin and shame of Sacrilege.  
3. Experience tells us (which Sir Henry Spelman observes) that as no private Families, so nor any Kings, ever grew more comfortably rich, or lastingly prosperous by any Sacrilegious practices; from the appearance of which all severe consciences should abstain, being to the reproach and injury, not only of the Clergy, who are amongst the best of Subjects; but even of God the giver of all, and Christ Jesus the the meriter of all we have, or can give to God and his Church; yea it tends to the indignity of the whole English Nation, heretofore so generous, magnificient and respectful to its reverend Bishops and other worthy Ministers, as to entertain and treat them worthy of their holy labours and high profession, to encourage their Piety, Hospitality and Charity, with plenty, yea with an honourable superfluity.  
4. As His Majesty by this fallacious bargain shall diminish his constant Revenue, which is retributed to the Crown from the Clergy, in First-fruits and Tenths; so he will lose those grateful and liberal Subsidies, Aids and Fifteen which the Clergy were wont frequently to present with thanks and cheerfulness to the Kings of England; as their most munificent Benefactors and Protectors; which will in less than a quarter of Ninety nine years, amount to far more than that sum which those Sophisters and Hucksters do offer, if the Church and Clergy be preserved in that opulency and freedom with which they are endowed by God, and good Prince's bounty.  
5. The stately Fabrics of Cathredral Churches besides the Bishops, Deans and Chapters houses, which were once the glory of our Nation, of our Cities and our Church, being now sorely demolished, and barbarously wasted, will never be repaired, but run to irrecoverable ruins, if the Clergy be now deprived of improving the Church lands or if they be curtailed by such an alienation or leasing of them for Ninety nine years: All which reparations by the present advance of the Church's Revenues in clergymen's hands, may by His Majesty's gracious care and command be timely effected.  
6. All this (Ampullae) or specious offer of Five hundred thousand pounds, as it is in truth not one penny out of the Purchasers own Patrimony or proper estate, so it is not at all in favour of His Majesty, but of themselves; who having tasted how sweet and improveable the Church's Lands are, do desire to have their great pennyworths made good to them, which in a moral sense is impossible, unless God and all parties concerned do consent. As for their care of his Majesty's supplies, it is certain the greatest Enemies to the Church, are no Friends to His Majesty: Nor is it without great regret that the Crown Lands are now redeemed out of some of their jaws, who have good stomaches to both, if they had but the retentive Faculty, and had some Peptick powder: But if these Projectors have such a zeal to His Majesty, let them present him with some thing that was and is their own; or at least with the profits they have made of the purchases of Church Lands and Houses.  
7. As it will be infinitely more to his Majesty's comfort, honour and happiness, to render to God the things that are Gods, who hath by miraculous mercies rendered to him the things that are his, as our Caesar and rightful Soveragine: so the Godly Bishops and other dignified Clergy men, who are or shall be entrusted by his Majesty's Grant and Seal in their respective estates and rights, by Law due to the Church, these (not doubt) will hold themselves forever so obliged to his gracious Majesty, as the great Patron and Restorer of the Church and Clergy, that they will study in all ways of piety to God, and Loyalty to his Majesty, to express their gratitude in such sort as shall be most becoming their duty, and most acceptable to his Majesty. And certainly one pound thus retributed to his Majesty by the Clergy, as is the rightful owners and possessors of those Estates, will thrive better and do his Majesty more good with their prayers, than ten thousands taken from them, or pretended to be given to his Majesty by others, who have been, and desire still to be the Purchasers and improvers of the Church Lands and revenues to their own, not to the Kings or Church's benefit, whose Sacrilegious depredations, acquisitions and oblations can expect no blessing from God, or men, on giver or receiver.  
8. To conclude, That the Reverend Bishops, and others of the Clergy who are concerned in these Lands, may not seem less equanimous and condescending, by all meet ways, to the quiet of Church and State, It is not to be doubted but they will upon such reasonable terms (as his Majesty and all persons of reason and honour shall approve) make such agreements with these pretended Purchasers, or rather Morgagees of Church Lands as are under any Capacity or Loyal merit of a fair composition, that whatsoever they are out of purse upon a due account, they may have reimbursed either in moneys or in such equivalency of Lease and Tennancy, as the Clergy are by Law enabled to make.  
And however in so notorious a case as this was (where the known laws of God and man were most evident) there was, Caveat Emptor written in great Letters, that is sufficient caution or warning given to every wise and honest man, to take heed of such Sacrilegious sales, purchases (which can no more be justified in reason, law or conscience) because the office of Bishops and use of Deans and Chapters, were without and against law taken away, (as the learned Dr. Burges accutely pleads in his case) than Ahab and Jezebel could justify the taking possession of Naboths Vineyard because he was now killed) yet because the delusion was strong as well as the temptation, and many now Loyal Subjects, might possibly in the simplicity of their souls be engaged in such unjust bargains, care may be had that they shall sustain no loss, though they get no great gain, which equability will satisfy all sober-minded men.  
As for others, whose gain is their God, whose apostasy hath made them desperate Enemies to the Church and Clergy of England, whose covetous and contentious ambition is a bottomless & unsatiable gulf of perdition, aiming in their despair and hypocrisy, to swallow up or embroil a new both Church and State, King and Clergy all things sacred and civil, if they had power equal to their rage, despite and malice. These men's proposals and clamours are not to be regarded by pious honest and resolute men, farther than to be constantly denied and severely suppressed; Notwithstanding that they be as importune as Dr. Burges himself who with his Diurnal Libels and Pamphlets runs to the City of London and Wells, grining and grudging, that he is not satisfied with his beloved purchases of Church Lands, as he well deserves, being a person of that repute and worth, that besides other old and new reports of his virtues, he is by a decree in Chancery May, 1. 1657. adorned with this Elegy upon record; As an Author and prosecutor of so great injustice and oppression, as are utterly unbecoming a man of common honesty, much more a Minister of the Gospel, whose conversation should be an example (as the decree speaks) of piety and Justice to others.  
If this Belwether be such a Cretian and Borborites, who was the gracious Author of that infamous Libel, called the Anatomy, being the Epitome of Dr. Burges his falsity, folly, and scurrility, not worth a sober man's answering or reading; what shall we think of the rest of that heard, which of latter years have been fatted with the Church Lands and the estates of other men, much theirs, and his betters, who never needed any compurgators for their innocency and credit? In whose behalf that Boanerges or great zealot for the reforming of the Church of England, (in order to keep his Bishop's Lands by keeping out the Bishop of  and Wells and all others, of that Cathedral, from repossessing their own estates) hath for so oft filled and killed the world with the poisonous cram of his Paradoxes; That Sacrilege, (in all men's sense but his own is no sin; And that the selling and buying of Bishops and Cathedrals Lands, is no sacrilege, But this Mountebankry is now grown stolen and scorned even by the vulgar; nor will it serve to keep him from the Justice of Gods and man's Laws, which require restitution of his own fine new Houses and Gardens in lieu of of these good old houses of the Bishops, Deans, and others which that dilapidetor of the Church hath pulled down.  
Nor will it serve his turn, to cry out that his conscience is so sore grieved with the colic of the Covenant, that he cannot endure the return of Bishops, Deans, and Chapters: Indeed his fits and gripes arise from the just fear he hath, that these his rivals may now drive him out of the Babel which he hath built, and dispossess him of his unlucky Purchases, which to attend by any means this Proteus will rather disguise himself into Presbytery and Independency, contrary to his former hue and profession, then return to a well-constituted Episcopacy which is (certainly) more consonant by far with the law of the Land, and the genius of the people of England, then either of the other pitiful novelties and much more agreeable to his so Sacred Covenant, since in that he expressly engaged himself not only against his so feared Prelacy and Popery, but also against Schism and Superstition; of both which those seditious innovations in Church and State, are as vehemently suspected and charged by learned and godly men, as Gehazy was with Naaman's Leprosy, when having stolen his undeserved fees for his Master's miracle, he went out of Elishas' presence, as white as snow: which blessing may in a few years, more befall this Black-defender, that Sacrilege (that is selling of Church Lands against law) is no sin; Whom all sober minded men will leave to be punished with his own manners; yet so as to follow his deplorable soul, with such prayers as Christian Charity will permit, for those that have not sinned the sin unto death, by wilful and known apostasy; and by opposing of most evident truths, such as these are, that God and his Church are not to be rob.  
FINIS.   

Books written by Dr. Gauden, and sold by Andrew Crook, at the green Dragon in St. Paul's Churchyard.  
1. HIeraspistes, A Defence for the Ministry and Ministers of the Church of England.  
2. Three Sermons preached on public occasions.  
3. Funerals made Cordials, in a Sermon preached at the Interment of the Corpse of Robert Richardo, Heir apparent to the Earldom of Warwick.  
4. A sermon preached at the Funeral of Dr. Ralph Brounrig Bishop of Excester (Decemb. 17. 1659.) with an account of his Life and Death.  
5. A Petitionary Remonstrance in the behalf of many thousand Ministers and Scholars.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sive Medicastri, 'Slight healers of public hurts, set forth in a Sermon Preached in St. Paul's Church, London, before the right honourable Lord Mayor, Lord General, aldermans, Common-Council, & Companies of the honourable City of London, Febr. 28. 1659. being a day of Solemn thanksgiving unto God, for restoring the Secluded Members of Parliament to the house of Commons, (And for preserving the City) as a Door of Hope thereby opened to the fullness and freedom of future Parliaments: The most probable means under God for healing the Hurts, and recovering the health of these three British Kingdoms.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God's great Demonstrations and Demands of Justice, Mercy and Humility, set forth in a Sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, at their Solema Fast, before their first sitting, April 30. 1660.  
ΑΝΑΛΥΣΙΣ, The losing of St. Peter's Bands; setting forth the true sense and solution of the Covenant in point of Conscience, so far as it relates to the Government of the Church by Episcopacy.