GOODMAN COUNTRY: To his Worship The City of LONDON. SIR, The Reason why the Country applauds the City's Choice. WE have of late been in a woundy pother and tattle about your Election of Sheriffs. The King, we thank him, chooses ours to our great content and quiet; but it zeems it's your right and property to choose yours; and we commend you for being so stout and stickling to maintain your Privileges: Nor was it a little joy to us to hear how successful you were in carrying the Cause, and that your Battle and Victory was attended with such Houting and Shouting, and flourishing of Handkerchiefs, that the Giants in Yield-Hall never saw the like in all their born. It is no matter who the City chooses for Sheriffs, so they are Protestants and wealthy. We know not well what men you have chosen, nor do we much care what they are, or what they have been, or what they will be; or what Party they are of, as long as they have money enough to qualify them for the Office: But this we hope, they are men for the purpose, and will stand stiffly up to preserve our King's Life, Property, and Protestant Religion. And then bless me, and my Dun Cow, we care not a Fig for all the Papists in the World. It is very irrational to change Protestantism for Popery. For as silly a Clown as I am, I love my Liberty and my Protestant Religion; and would the Pope and his Agents had been Poxed and bepissed when they seduced any of our Volk to Popery: And were I Heir to a Crown, the old Canting Rogue the Pope should be hanged before he should wheedle me out of it, with the promise of giving me a Heavenly one for it, because I know he hath nothing to do there. And if I were the Son of a King that was murdered by his Counsel and Contrivance, I would see him at the Devil, before he should bubble me into his Religion, for than I must believe that his killing my Father was no murder, and that they died wrongfully who were Executed for having a hand in his Death. For our Parson hath often told us, that the Pope and his Jesuits hold it lawful to poison or stab, or make away Kings, that are Heretics or Excommunicate. The Deuce take such a Religion, and a Bots on all Rebels and Traitors. Especially if a man have been bred up in the Protestant Religion, and is heir to a good Estate. Now hang me like a Dog if I am not as great a lover of my Protestant Religion as any of you all. For my Grandfather, and my Father which begot me, and bred me up in it, were very good Scholars, and could write and read, and they always told me, that I could not have learned a better Religion in the World, for it taught me to be a true Christian, a good Man, and a Loyal Subject to the King, God bless him. Besides, I am possessed of vour or vive Closes, which formerly belonged to an Abbey, and before I will lose my Londs, I will cut the Pope's throat. Zooks, I will never change my Religion for that, which will kill my King, and rob me of my Estate. The imprudence of the City in calling the Church of England men Protestant's in Masquerade. Or saying that they are Popishly Affected. But now Mr. City I must tell your Worship, that some Gentry-Volk of your Town tell us strange Stories of you, how that you make a woundy noise and buzzle in glorying of your late gained Victory, and that you Proudly and Insolently call all the Protestants that go to Church, by the names of Church-Papists, and Popishly affected. Zump! what do you mean to do? Are you for running down the Popish Plot, and will you now disoblige and lose the best friends that ever you had, or will have, for carrying on such a Cause. Did ever men Writ and speak, Preach and Dispute against the Whore of Babylon at that Rate, and with such Successas' the Parsons of our Country do? And will you call these men Church-Papists? I would a Blister had been on that worshipful Godfathers tongue, that gave the name of Protestants in Masquerade to our honest Church of England men. I am sure whatever the word signifies, he meant no good by it: And you cannot imagine how much we stomach the Word, since we now understand it; for say the Learned, the first Syllable of Masquerade is Mass, and Mass is a Popish word, Ergo, Masquerade Protestant is a Popish Protestant: a most ridiculous nonsensical Invention, to render odious all those that worship God in their Parish Churches. What if we in retort should say, that a Jesuit is a Popish Presbyterian, and a Presbyterian is a Protestant Jesuit? I think this would not be so absurd, as your calling the Church of England-men Popish Protestants. Country Church wardens and Sidemen can prove out of the Book of Martyrs, and the Statute Law of England, that the men of the Church of England are the best and truest sort of Protestants. No sooner did our Churchwardens and Zidesmen hear that you, Mr. City, called all them that went to Church, by the names of Popishly Affected, and Protestants in Masquerade, but presently they went and searched the Book of Martyrs that was chained to a Desk in the corner of the Church, and there they found, that the people that were burnt, and hanged, and executed in the bloody Reign of Queen Mary, were those that first modelled and compiled our Protestant Religion in the days of Edward the Sixth, or which professed and practised the outward Form of it in their Public Churches or private Families. Nay one of our Zidesmen, a perilous fellow at the Statute Book, hath often told our Parishioners, that Queen Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles were Protestants, and that in their Reigns the strongest and best Laws against Popery, and for the Establishment and Preservation of the true Protestant Religion were made by such men, that went constantly to our Parish Churches, to worship God in the same manner that we do in our Town. And were these men then, both good, and true, and honest Protestants, and now must we be called Popishly. Affected, and Protestants in Masquerade, because we worship God after their Example, and according to the Laws which they made? A Peascod on these villainous Nicknames; for you could not have done a greater injury to yourselves, nor a greater kindness to the Popish Plot, than by vilifying that Church which the Papist hates, and would rejoice to see ruined. Advice to leave off Nicknames. Come, come, leave your madness and fooling, and learn to be sober and wife: for a Gentry man in our Town hath often said, that they are the true English Protestants, who profess and practise that Protestant Religion which was established by Law in the time of Queen Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles. Or else your Sheriff's Elect are Protestant's in Masquerade and Popishly Affected. And if it be true which we hear, that your Sheriffs Elect have lately been at one of your Parish Churches, to hear Common-Prayer, and receive the Sacrament according to the Church of England: then by your leave, Mr. City, and according to your own Argument, you have chosen two Sheriffs that are Popishly Affected, and Protestants in Masquerade. Well, Sir, If you have a mind to weaken the Interest of Protestantism in cutting off from you the best and greatest part of the Nation by such scandalous Characters, I am afraid you will afterwards treat them again with blows and bloody Persecution. Where is the most proper place to manage a rebellious War. But if you have a longing after a Holy War, to fight the Lords Battle, Pray keep your Armies within your Lines of Excommunication, as well call them. You have a Magazine of Arms, and a Bank of Money within yourself. And therefore if you have a mind to fight, Draw your Parties out every morning to Mile-End-Green, moorfield's, or Islington; there let them combat all day, and at night receive them that come off alive into your own quarters: But be sure you march not one foot out of the Lines of Excommunication. The Country unfit to entertain a rebellious Army. For should you come once more into our Parts with your Essex-Garters, Orange coloured Scarves, with great Gold Fringe at the end of them, you are like to have cold Entertainment, and no Lodging: for now we have no Citadels, no Castles, no Forts, nor any Remains of a Town or City Wall to shelter yourselves so much as from a shower of Rain. And as for Money, alack, we have not enough by a great deal to pay our Landlords. And as for quartering you in our Villages, Inns, or Alehouses, our last prudent Parliament hath by a Law secured us against you. The Country unwilling. Nay our very women are grown stark mad to fear another Rebellion, because that they know upon experience that they shall all then be rifled of their Plate, Pewter and Brass, their Pigsties and Henroosts robbed, and they and their Daughters ravished. And as for our younger sort, they are resolved never to part with their Bodkins, Thimbles and silver Spoons, because their Sweethearts made them swear at the giving of them, that they would never more lend such things upon Public Faith. The Country unable to maintain another Civil War. And as for our Landlords, though they hate Popery as much as your Worship, Mr. City, yet they cannot endure to think of rooting it out of England by an Army; because they know that their own houses then, will at one time or another be exposed to Plunder, their Horses stole out of Field or Stables, their Coffers broke open, Rents run all away into Taxes, and they and their Children be sent to beg, or serve as Slaves to those that will pity them so much, as to give them Bread and Water. Have a care of making an Army our Sovereign Lord and Tyrant. And I have heard three or vour of our Gentry Volk that wear Velvet Coats on Christmas and Easter-Day, zay, that if ever an Army of threescore thousand men get into the heart of our Kingdom, they may easily conquer it, and when it is once conquered, they may make all the People their Tenants: For where Power is, there is Right and Possession; saith that Varlet Hobbes, And then the Style of our Petitions will be, May it please your Majesty, our Sovereign Lord the Army? The City utterly undone if they set up an Army. Nor will your Worship, Mr. City, far any better, for you shall be continually bridled and saddled as well as chained. Then no Counters, Newgate, Ludgate, or Kings-Bench will be allowed, for as fast as men become malefactors or run in debt, or break, they will presently take refuge under the wings of the Army, and live upon Pay and Plunder. Nay, the very Apprentices, if they do not like their Masters, will presently run to the Army, and be dubbed Freemen. None discontented at the present Government, but old Committee men, Sequestrators, Purchasers of Crown and Church Lands, and Bankrupts. Whatever may be the cause of your Heats and Divisions, we are sure, that none amongst us clamour and rail against the present Government, but the disgusted, discontented, and indigent persons: For we observed in our Towns, that the most active and violent men for Petitioning, were quondam Committee-Men, and Sequestrators, and those that were concerned in Crown and Church-Lands, and those that were decaying in their Trades; for men that have good Estates, and thrive in their Callings, will never be so mad and foolish to put Government into Confusion and War, since they only of all men must run the hazard of losing all they have. No war without Money, and no Money without insufferable Taxes. For as the contesting between parties for Superiority in a Nation will at last come to blows and fight, so such a sort of Controversy cannot be maintained without Money. And as our late unnatural War begat such Taxes and Impositions, as England never heard of before, so another like War will revive the same, or put some men upon inventing others far more grievous and intolerable. Folly to change a good condition for a bad one. And then how like fools shall we all look one upon another, when we have changed our King and civil Government, which secures our Rights, Liberties, Properties and Privileges, for a Sovereign Lord the Army, and the tyranny of the Sword, which always plunders a People of these Riches, and oppresses them with slavery and bondage. The City perhaps doth not intent Tumult and Rebellion. Perhaps Mr. City, you are not now designing such a thing as this, and without a pair of Spectacles you cannot see those that are: But if it should come to pass (which God forbidden) than you will say I am a Conjurer, and cry, A vow to God, who would a thought it. But the Papists will drive them to it, unless speedily and prudently prevented. No doubt, but very good and honest men were concerned in those unhappy affairs of Forty, and Forty one; and had no other inteniton at first, but to remove or redress some grievances which they then zaid were in Church and State: Yet when these good men went to Reformation, how soon were they carried off from the Jack they aimed at, by an undiscernible bias that was in the Bowl, and unexpected rub in the way. And then by the wiles and stratagems of Jesuited Politicians, how strangely were they carried to all manner of extravagancies; insomuch that they found they could not be safe, without being the monsters of Wickedness and Villainy? And the same restless Spirits, and Machiavillian Brains are now at work, and unless there be a very speedy, prudent and vigilant care taken to cool and moderate the furious temper and fiery zeal of some that are called Protestants, I dare foretell, you will have another civil War, and far more bloody than the former. Lay aside Parties and Factions. It's no matter who are Presbyterians, or Independents. or Anabaptists, so they be for the Protestant Religion and Interest: And as long as they are for that, the Church of England-men hearty join with them. But if these several persuasions (to gratify the Papists, and further their designs) shall persist to vilify the Church of England-men, by saying they are Popishly affected, or Protestants in Masquerade; Then the Church of England-men have nothing else to do, The Church of England-men are resolved neither to be Papists nor Rebels. but to commit their Cause to God, and to acquiesce in his Providence, with this Declaration to the World: That Fire and Faggot will never make them Papists; and Sequestration, Imprisonment and Death will never force them to be fanatics and Rebels. Thus wishing you all Peace and Prosperity, and to keep out of the need of another Act of Indemnity, I rest your Worship's true and hearty lover and humble servant Honest Country. LONDON: Printed by M. Clark for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in S. Paul's Churchyard. 1680.