Proh Tempora! Proh Mores! Or an unfeigned CAVEAT TO ALL True Protestants, Not in any case to touch any of these three Serpents;  
Viz. 

Mr Erbery's Babe of Glory.  
The Madman's Plea, AND  
Mr. Christopher Feakes Exhortations.    
Whose Language is infectious, and whose stings are mortiferous, therefore of all God's people to be shunned, as those which intent nothing more than Christian persecution.  
Written by J. N. a Mechanic.  2 Thess. 3.6. 
We warn you brethren in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walks inordinately, and not after the instruction that he receives of us.  
London, Printed by T. N. 1654.   

Proh Tempora! Proh Mores! Or An unfeigned Caveat to all true Protestants, not in any case to touch any of these three Serpents: Mr Erbery's Babe of Glory, The Mad man's Plea And Mr Christopher Feaks Exhortations.  
IN this short Discourse, I shall not lay open to public view the summum totale of Mr. Erbery's painted Jezabel, nor so to mention it word by word in way of an Answer, if so, I might find enough of his combustible matter to fill a large Volume, and that for these two Reasons.  
First, Because the chiefest matter therein contained, is only what he hath often expressed at Somerset house in the Strand by word of mouth, in the hearing of many of my friends, and now he cries, Cur non liceret scribere, si licet effari, so that where his breath cannot reach, his sting shall.  
But secondly, Because he hath in his book neither head nor foot, but only a rabble of news from North Wales, brought to London by a seduced Disciple, I know not wherein I can piece one whole sentence worth an Answer; and for this cause I shall only speak generally concerning Mr. Erberies book styled, The Babe of Glory.  
And first for the Title of his book, I do conceive according to their grand Ordinance, Except ye be rebaptised, you cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven, upon this account of theirs, I hold it my duty to new name this Babe, and as I suppose it is the Babe of Antichrist, or the dawning of the false Prophets springing forth out of North Wales, and extending to the utmost cape of its continent, generally termed the four corners of the earth; (but blessed be God) that he doth not draw all men after him, I am bold that it is but yet a little while and those that see as it were in a glass, shall see clearly the duration of these men to be but for a moment, the devil may prevail long with men whilst he is in an Angel's clothing, but this is sure, he shall not continue long, but Christians may see his mutability and his subtle wiles wherewith many are led captive.  
Mr Erbery tells us of our becoming so like unto God, as that we shall not know how to commit sin, and of our super-glorious condition, even in this life, for my part, I sear the continuance of it, and therefore to show you their sainting in their unheard of Principles, I shall speak the truth and shame that spirit which is shameless in the hearts of many of them; therefore I do affirm, and nor unwillingly, but as I must appear before God, that a man may pray eloquently, expound Scripture after the manner of Apostles, and soothe his hearers with his sugared and Antinomical tongue, (for in general, men and women do delight to live under such a Ministry as is all for Faith and no Works) men do rather affect to hear of King Jesus, then of Jesus Christ in all his Offices, I say a man may do all this as we say, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet want true Grace; I do desire that those which read this expression may admire and wonder at it, even unto astonishment; now experience is the best teacher, which experience although at certain times grievous to consider, yet in time hath produced such good effects as Patience and Hope, which Hope makes me not ashamed of the truth, but to grow as it were in an Ecstasy, and be amazed that I should be received to mercy. Indeed the Lord for reasons best known to himself, doth suffer you to increase & to go on in your way of seducing, perhaps for the trial of our Faith, and on the other side as the saying is, the higher you are gained, the likelier to fall, ut lapsu graviore ruatis, but take it from me, there is no surer discerner of an hypocrite, then by his non-perseverance in that good and true way which he so much pretended for, but it is he, and he only that endures to the end that shall be saved. Let Mr. Erbery but consider well of that Scripture in Jam. 1.8. and that also in. Rev. 22.18, 19 and I am confident for the first, he is the very Idea of a weathercock, and the proper subject to whom that verse does relate; & so for the other it would amaze any man that reads his book, to see what addition here, and what diminution there, what mangling and barbarous dissecting he makes of the holy and divine Oracles, but I will let him cease because I do not now intent Polugraphy, & therefore you that read this may have a great care of a Pamphlet styled, The Mad man's Plea, whom I suppose to be more Knave than Fool; My friends, he that toucheth pitch will be defiled, it may be if you once go to hear these men (for I know that people were never more curious than now) I say perhaps because of the sweetness of their Syrenlike voice, you may be enticed to go again, and chief because you are not as they say, come to Mount- Sinai▪ where you shall hear the Law with its terrible voice, like John's preaching in a rough garment, but unto their Mount- Zion, where you are past Law and the true Ordinances of Jesus Christ administered in its right form & method, let me tell you that separate yourselves in this age from the true way & manner of hearing the Word, that there is many of you have fallen very foully and scandalously, for all your smooth and glossy tongue, I could name some of you that did gain as many followers in that time of your excelling hypocrisy, as that Sorcerer Theudas did Jews by his specious pretences; but I could be more comforted to hear you lay it open yourselves, even in your public Assemblies and Meeting-houses, you do in a great measure derogate from that heavenly Apostle of whom you make often mention, concerning his , and his undervaluing of learning, if you do remember Scripture so well, as you commonly have it at your finger's end, and something more by this then ordinary, in making of this sin, when we call the days of the week after Heathen names, much forgetting if that had been sin, St. Paul would rather have omitted the ships name that carried him that dangerous voyage, then to have used this new found sinful expression, whose sign was Castor and Pollux, but to omit this, I say, if you take notice, this said Apostle in all his Epistles, does never conceal his former arrogancy, his massacring the Saints and servants of the most high, but where ever he did come he was very apt to say, I am that Saul the persecutor, and did once study earnestly to commit this kind of murder, and that with fervent zeal, which words were not otherwise spoken, but only that he might add more splendour to the exceeding love of God in Christ, which makes him to cry out with great admiration, that I Paul should be received to Mercy; that shown no Mercy; this did therefore cause him to give greater diligence, this makes him to be more zealous and fervent for Jesus Christ his master and Lord, than ever any before him or after him; this makes Paul not only love the brethren, but to lust speedily after the conversion of others wherever he sojourned: but my friends that style yourselves mad men, only in an upbraiding way; to you I say thus much, that you are so far from Paul's mind and do so much slight that Scripture in Jam. 5.16. as that you do act clean contrary, and speak contrary, only as you say in despite of the Papism, and that because the Papists from that Scripture do use so much confession before men, and one man to another, therefore you do use the less before God, and for the most part in your Prayers, you talk proudly with God, in a fashion more mandatorilike then supplicatory, as if so be God was but your equal makes you in your Orisons say, Lord thou must do this thing for us, and thou must make our State to cause their ships and men, and that very suddenly, to go and bring away home with them the new Roman King, and when that is done, they bid the Lord not to suffer the ships to lie by the walls, but in the next place to sail up the Straits with the next wind, and so to Rome, which is mystical Babylon, etc. Indeed the three things which do chief stick in these men's throats are these: Learned Ministers, Infant-Baptism, and singing of Psalms amongst the mixed multitude; And first for our Ministers, the mad knave calls them Baal's Priests, idle shepherds, Dumb dog's, lazy Sir john's, etc. all which Titles Mr. Feake that Arch Prophet of our times doth greatly affect and approve of, as I shall declare, as if so be, because learned, they were not capable of the Spirit; now let me tell such carping momusses, that Grace is adorned and beautified by Learning, and more than this, God doth usually send that blessing of blessings, even the spirit of Prayer, and teaching, to accompany that sincere and pious care which many Parents take in the virtuous education of their children, which because many of you want, do therefore possess strong delusions; I ask any of you whether the Spirit of God did teach you to read English? I deny not but that some men may have much humane Learning, and yet want that Spirit that you so much boast of, and does it therefore follow that they are all so? 2ly, Remember your own congregational baseness, and great relapses of your own members, who when God hath brought some of them out of your extraordinary, and your supernatural liberty, it hath rejoiced me to hear them with such vehement detesting of your profaneness and instability, even in all your ways, near upon resting, and yet never at rest in your buy judgements, I believe that there is a spirit of madness reigning in many men, you say you need no Priest, because you are all taught of God, and you are above common Ordinances, as hearing public Prayers, and public Preaching, which last one of your Sect told me that they could all do as well as the Priests; nay better, for saith he, they are fain to study for it, and that was a sign they knew not, neither were acquainted with the spirit of God, for we saith he, having God within us, are able to preach (or rather seduce) ex tempore at any time, though I fear that there is few of you that have true fellowship with the Father or his Son Jesus Christ, this being another reason as I conceive, because you are so seated in your most unholy and unstable Faith, as that you will not be convinced by Argument, these are ill signs that you worship no God but your own fearless and hopeless Creed. Ah my friends, when any of us come to this pass, to have a low esteem of Ministers and the standing Ordinances of Jesus Christ, and to make sin of that which is no sin, of this sort is that of breaking bread amongst the known and unknown people, when as none more vile in the sight of a pure God than themselves, these are your time-servers, Stand by (with the Pharisee) for I am holier than thou, but the Apostles never used any such needless curiousity; and for my part, if I may lay down mine opinion in this matter, it is thus: that when the devil that crafty observer of the overtures in States and Kingdoms, did find that all his labour and pains were in vain, whereby he thought to have erected Popery here amongst us in England, and seeing that all his Machiavelli plots were discovered by some of those that love the Truth and Peace, he then according to his ancient Foxlike policy causeth breaches and rents to be made in the Church, whereby some false brethren do impede as much as in them lies, the standing and permanent Ordinances of our Lord, now remaining in all Protestant Churches, for if Athanasius want a persecuting Emperor, yet without doubt he shall not want a false brother, which Arrius by his external writings, and plausible Arguments to the then present Government, did get into the great men's affections, even then when true and faithful Athanasius together with his Nicene Creed, were banished exiles into a remote Country, now I say, when the heat of the Tyrant's cruelty was in some kind abated, yet the devil was not idle nor weary of his torturing the christians, but did work so craftily by that Arrian heresy, that Athanasius and the rest of the sincere Christians were never so molested and tossed by the Tyrants, than they were by such kind of schismatics, yet this is the associate of a true christian, that for all this he was that persevering Athanasius, when his enemies were ashamed at the ignominious downfall of their chieftain Arrius: like unto Daniel without worldly comfort, and yet Daniel still; so I am confident the faithful Ministers of this Land although reproached, and emulated, and persecuted yet they will be Ministers still, in despite of all opponents.  
But the second thing they carp at is Infant-Baptism, which an Anabaptist as he calls himself, or as I call him an Antibaptist, being more proper to their profession, did suppose at a meeting in Warwick shire to have quite overthrown that Ordinance, and thereupon some of their Synagogue did presently set forth a book called Baby-Baptism routed, let any one judge of the rout, being not half so big as that rout which the Miller of Bynley made amongst some of their fellow creatures when he found them Denudated, laving and defiling his crystalline torrent with an unheard of custom, and let me tell you, this does add to your Religion more contempt, because that although you have gotten head amongst us in England, and a meeting place allowed you to exercise yourselves in, yet you are not herewith content, but do devise to through down all Religion, save that which bears your mark in the front of it, and to bring all Learning in subjection to your proud and scoffing Wills, chief inveighing against the Blackcoats; in my weak opinion a vesture more beseeming the Leaders of people, than a cloak trimmed with Gold Buttons, but I do with confidence aver, that although these people have as much power and prevalency in England, as Arrius had in the East; you will fall with the self same descent as your predecessors have done before you, and if you do intent seeing you cannot dissolve the ordinances which we must retain. I will only write this sentence concerning this matter, for your own proper admonition, that except you do devise some safer and more facetious stratagem in that external ordinance of wading, then was used to an old Marron in Warwick shire some years since (as I suppose not unknown to prophet Erbery) being to the utter loss of that daily use that before she had with her limbs (the waters so benumbing her) I say if this be not altered, you will have but few Disciples, and did I grant to you that our manner of Baptism was only an Ordinance instituted by men (believing with the Apostle, that neither circumsion nor uncircumcision avail any thing, except a new creature) I conceive you aught to submit to it for conscience sake.  
Now for singing of Psalms, I mean that which Mr. Feake derides; I am confident, that for all their scoffs; as when I have come to Christ Church, only in contempt of the Ordinance. I have beheld a great part of the people to sit with their hats on in a deriding posture: This it seems is one of Mr. Christopher Feake's Exhortations, and indeed is it not a comely one, when I compare it with that of the Apostle, 2 Cor. 8.24. Paul was of that heavenly condiscending temper, that if by eating meat his brother was offended, he would never eat meat more. And does Mr. Feake think that this hat-waring and laughing (at our howling as they call it) doth not offend us that sing. Let them look to it, for the words are plain, Yea in so doing sin against Christ.  
But, 2. Mr. Feake doth exhort them, and stir them up to sing that new song of the Lamb, they now being upon mount Zion; and to that intent the Spirit of God having taught it him, he sung it, together with the Congregation; but such was his Semi-Reformation, or deformation, that when he had compiled his Hymn of praise, He was fain to make use of one of our Prelatical Tunes (as they call them) a thing that as I thought did much derogate from that spirit which was present with him at the peaning of them. You say old things and relics are past and out of date, and you will make all things new if you can; you will reform and you will not, you cannot tell what you would have yourselves, only Mahomet-like, who though he hate Judaisme, yet commands that all Musselmen be circumcised, being no other than a crafty wile that the devil did infuse into the mind of Sergius that wicked Alcoran-founder, knowing that it would make their Faith and their Religion more accepted amongst men. So though our leaders make new songs, they either will not or cannot make new tunes, but will have our Choristers tune, though they say it doth relish of the beast, being only for this cause, that the people may relish their novelties with the greater affectation. Augustine says, Quomodò debitè potest Deo psallere, qui ignarat quid psallat? So how can we praise God as we ought to do, when we cannot understand your strange notions, but our old w●y of singing the Psalms of David are not strange nor irksome to us; and therefore we are able to bless and praise God, and that knowingly and sensibly of his great mercies toward us; but if I remember my own former reproof to you, it may be a matter of offence in the eyes of Mr. Feake, who accounts of the Fathers and their knowledge, as to base and sordid an element, for to be the subject of his Metaphysical and most capacious fancy. He saith indeed when he was a child he minded such childish things as the perusing of Antiquaries, but now he saith, Ego non sum egg, or else he is transplanted sure into another Region: he saith nought save the Bible. I fear he did forget the Kentish Prophet's book of Navigation, which the laid Prophet affirmeth will be of like duration. But indeed if Mr. Feake do remember that when he went to School, they had an expression which remains firm and inviolable even to this day, amongst those that he calls Sir Jehus, and that is this, Satis est quod suffocat: and truly I do believe, that in that eternal and divine Scripture, He with the rest of his followers which are so resolutely bend to trample down humane Learning, may meet with matter enough, not only to satisfy and silence all such curious novations as those, which cast a scandal upon all such Ministers as will prefer Learning before unstable Doctrines, but also to choke and mortify all confident, and overwise turncoats. Such is the stupidity of this deplorable age, that if people were not blind, they might see Antichrist in colours, even in our own country; for do not we see these men that do pretend great and supernatural gifts, to preach nothing more than that which may set us all together by the ears: is any thing more rife in their expressions then the convenience of our dissensions, and upon this account they do much wrong that Scripture where it is said, That offences shall come. Is not their vain glory seen in this which they only adhibite to themselves, as a token of their specialty, and singularity from the mixed multitude in their private conventicles? Is not the major part of Mr. Feakes praying and preaching taken up in the encouragement of the hearers, to go first to the skirts and borders of Italy, which they say are the friends of the great whore; so that there may be none left to waylay; or like the Banditi, to resist Mr. Feake in his way to Rome; and above all this, is not this admirable and terrifying their Job-like patience, that men do not Apostles-like, leave all and do what they bid them do; But shall I tell my brethren according to the flesh, that as our proverb is, Rome was not built in one day; so to this day amongst those forlorn Greeks that yet remain, they have a Proverb, that Greece lost but one eye in one day; fair and softly is the wiseman's steps. For my part let these men be so quick as they will or can, I do seriously believe that this present Pope Innocent the tenth, being a man of very old age, will be gathered to his Fathers, before Mr. Feake or any of his stout intenders shall arrive at the sweet river Po; and therefore I do conceive that his rigid expressions are nothing, except unsound resolutions without Christian deliberation, Saint Paul says, Covet to prophesy, but forbidden not to speak with tongues; it is thus in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; and this hold forth by it conjunction copulative, that the tongues are a great help unto prophecy, much less a disgrace, as they say, and do most commonly accompany each other, than the word Forbidden I find to signify, not to impede, nor to cast dirt in the faces of a Minister, because he is a good Scholar, so that he which is past or above our ancient writers, I fear he is past grace. I may truly think this, for when I see men strive to rend us in pieces by upbraiding our teachers, and casting vile aspersions upon them, it is an ill sign of true brethren, else why can they not like the Apostles become all unto all men, that they might gain the more; it makes me to cry with the Father, of an accursed toleration, but I hope that God will show these men their folly, and what heavy judgements this their separation may produce. Oh, when shall we be one sheepfold, under that only great Shepherd Jesus Christ, even before the Lords bow is bend against us; and in my weak judgement, I do rather fear the Atheism of the heathens, than the Papism of Rome to overwhelm us, lest God remove our Candlestick, because of our ingratitude, that although we possess the great means of salvation, yet we are murmurers, deceivers, & yet being deceived. And I will say thus much to those that are zealous in a good cause and in a sound Religion, I say let this keep up your spirits, and make you stick close unto the public Ordinances; Because, first, This is no new thing to meet with false brethren. And secondly, because it is but for a moment that your trial shall last: now although the primitive Christians endured above ten year's persecution under the Emperors, yet it was but a little while in their esteem, which made the Father to cry out, Isthoc nobile vincendi genus patientia est; it must be with much patience that you shall possess your souls; and therefore have a care to your steps, always bearing in your minds this remembrance of Asia's former glory, and her present doleful estate, wherein she now remains, as also what dreadful wars and famine were effected in the Low-countrys, only by the sedition of such like men as now rail against all Religion save thein own, which I am sure is much defiled.  
FINIS.