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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43613	The ceremony-monger his character in five chapters ... with some remarks (in the introduction) upon the new-star-chamber, or late course of the Court of King's Bench, of the nature of a libel, and scandalum magnatum, and in conclusion, hinting at some mathematical untruths and escapes in the common-prayer book, both as to doctrine and discipline, and what bishops, were, are, and should be, and concerning ordination, humbly proposed to the consideration of the Parliament / by E. Hickeringill ...	Hickeringill, Edmund, 1631-1708.	1689 (1689)	Wing H1799; ESTC R20364	90,871	81

Rule blows will never cure his Blindness Besides Uniformity is an unnatural impossible and therefore an irrational wicked and vain attempt Go teach God to make a new Heaven with Uniformity of Stars and Skies spangled uniformly they are now all of different Forms and Features Go reach him to make Men uniform they are all now of different Forms and Features Go teach him to make a new Earth and set a new Face on it The Landskip now looks so much the more lovely by the Variety which God and Nature seems to delight in And wilt thou thou silly Ceremony monger and Projector be wiser than God If thou hadst seen our blessed Saviour sometimes stand and pray sometimes kneel and pray sometimes ly on a Bed or Couch and eat the Holy Supper sometimes fall on his Face and pray if thou hadst seen this variety thou wouldst have Excommunicated him then caplass'd and jalled him if thy fierceness had not kick't him and spurn'd him up hadst thou but had an Act of Uniformity to back thee We are bound to honour God with our Substance In Works of Charity the greatest Duty but how much when and how in particular is left to the discretion and liberty of every Man no rule of Imposition is or can be made about it We are obliged to honour God with our Bodies the least thing in true Worship for bodily Exercise profiteth little but how much when and how in particular is lest to the discretion and liberty of every Man no Rule of Imposition is or can be made about it Then you 'l say the Church of England was mistaken in one of her XXXIX Articles that says The Church has power to appoint Ceremonies And also the King and Parliament were mistaken in the Act of Uniformity that enjoint all Bishops and Clergy-men on pain of Deprivation to subscribe assent and consent to all and every thing as true which is contained in the Common-Prayer Book Here is a heavy Charge Convocation-House and Parliament-House both upon my back but come one at once and I 'le deal with them both one after another as well and as fast as I can First then I say in general that any Decree under Heaven that is either unlawful or Impossible to be obeyed is not at all Obligatory This is so plain that it needs no further Proof it is like the Light of the Sun self-evident if the Sun shine no man doubts it but he that is blind or winks on purpose lest he should be convinc'd And as to that Article viz. The Church has power to enjoin Ceremonies it confounds all the Ceremony-mongers amongst us And in all my Travels Reading and Discourses I never met with any Man Bishop Priest or Lay-man that ever did could or durst explain what is there meant by Church If it be taken for the Clergy either in or out of Convocation or Synod viz. That they have of themselves a Jus Divinum a Divine Right to enjoin Ceremonies to the People of England they all incur a Praemunire that claim such a Power and justly for they there by set up a Legislative power independent of and distinct from the King and Parliament the only Legislators and is of most pernicious Consequence and found to be so in all Ages And by the Statutes of Provisors made both by Popish and Protestant Kings and Parliaments condemn'd as most pernicious and insufferable by invading the only Legislative power Kings Lords and Commons the great Fundamental of our Government and setting up a Thing called A Church independent of and equal with or above the State and bearding the State if it be so bold as not to please them or should dare to displease them Better it is not to be a State than to be such a pitiful State at this precarious rate that dare not but be Priest-ridden Our Noble Ancestors in Popish Times scorn'd the motion and were true English Men This distinction of Church and State is a Popish and pernicious distinction two higher powers is one too much But if by the Church in that Article be meant the King and Parliament the Representatives of the whole Body of the people the Convocation and Canon-makers will by no means acknowledge that for that makes them Cyphers and as many people account them useless Tools And never did King and Parliament neither make Laws coercive in matters of Religion or Uniformity in Religion but Confusion Divisions Schisms Tumults Sedicion Blood Ruine and civil Wars were the dismal consequences in England whereas there would be none of these no dissentions no penalties no complaining in our Streets if the Legislative power unsuborned by Priest-craft make no Laws but what are proper for their cognizance and for the peace welfare good manners and good abearing in the State And then where there is no Law there can be no Transgression and those odious Names of Dissention and Sedition Conformist and Nonconformist will find an eternal Grave I 'le give but one Instance in that same Act of Uniformity which requires all Clergy-men to give their assent and consent to all and every thing for Truth which is contained in the Common-prayer Book But who made the Kings and Parliaments of England infallible Popes since the Church of England confesses she may Err And how irrational and unaccountable is it for men that confess their ignorance and yet with the same mouth will vote a Law or Imposition of their Sense in Religion upon all Mankind under their Jurisdiction For ought they know they may command and enact that all Clergy-men shal assent in their Judgments and consent in their Wills to a palpable error lie or untruth or else take their choice to starve lie down and die for Farm they may not Thrash they cannot and if they Beg they are sent to Bridewel And this is our very case this day We may not chuse what Chapters for Lessons what Collects Epistles and Gospels we list to read but must read those that are appointed for the day And the last year they were all falsly appointed or else those words in the Common-prayer Book are false that fixes and ascertains Easter Sunday the Aera or beginning of the Account whence all the Lessons Collects Episties and Gospels are computed nominated and appointed But that is not only silly and uncertain but false and contradictory in the Common-prayer book and therefore both the said Aera's cannot be true As for example by one Common-prayer Book Rule the last Easter Sunday should have been kept upon April 8 because Easter Sunday whence all other Feasts Lessons Collects are computed all the year after is always the first Sunday next after the first Full Moon which happens after March 25 which was April 8 last past But by another Rule in the Common prayer Book it was and so we kept it upon April 15 last past They cannot both be true but one of them is a Mathematical untruth and which no body can deny yet Bishops and

THE Ceremony-Monger HIS CHARACTER In Five Chapters CHAP. 1. Concerning Bowing to the Altar To the east CHAP. 2. Of Implicite Faith. CHAP. 3. Concerning the Reading-Dons of the Pulpit CHAP. 4. Concerning Bowing at the Name Jesu and the Power of the Keys The Church-Keys CHAP. 5. Concerning Vnlighted Candles on the Altar Organs Church-musick and other Popish-like and Foppish Ceremonies With some Remarks in the Introduction upon the New-Star-Chamber or late Course of the Court of King's Bench. Of the nature of a Libel and Scandalum Magnatum And In the Conclusion Hinting at some Mathematical Untruths and Escapes in the Common-prayer Book both as to Doctrine and Discipline And what Bishops were are and should be And Concerning Ordination Humbly proposed to the Consideration of the PARLIAMENT Ye men of Athens I perceive that in all things ye are too Superstitious Acts. 17.23 Behold the Devil shal cast some of you our into Prison Rev. 2.10 But those that walk in Pride God is able to Abase Dan. 4.37 By E. HICKERINGILL Rector of the Rectory of All-Saints in Colchester EDINBURGH Re-printed in the year 1689. To the Right Honourable CHARLES Earl of Shrewsbury in England of Waterford and Weshford in Ireland Lord Furnival c. His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State. My LORD I Come not now to praise you 't is needless for who can be ignorant what a mighty Hand both Military and Civil you have as successfully as vigorously extended under the happy Influence of their Sacred Majesties as a Tutelar and Angelical Guardian of these Kingdoms amongst other Worthies in this auspicious and late Revolution And in the Hand of the Almighty a signal Instrument of our Deliverance from impending Ruine venturing all that was near and dear unto you as well as your Life to help to save ours by a Kindness as superlative as your Courage and Conduct Much less do I come with this little Manual to avert your more Important Studies It will rather I hope divert your Cares in your softer Minutes But however if the Picture I draw do not please yet being in minoture so short a view cannot long detain you That Church-Ruffler in this following Character expos'd has so discompos'd and d●fa●'d to his uttermost the Church that to pourtr●y his Deformity in its proper Features requires more of the skill and dexterity of a Titian than to limn a perfect Beauty and the Divertisement is as pleasant to a judicious Eye that Examines even the Shades of every Line and Lineament but my Ink is not black enough to draw him in his proper Colours and sutable to that Havock he has made in the Church in our Age. For like the Moor of Venice he has been as bloody as black and to decipher his Face to the Life my blunter Pen should have been sharpned and imitating the keen Fury against the less Haggard Face of Witches scratch't it 'till the trickling Blood had supply'd my Pen with Colours proper for his Character Some perhaps will wonder where this Ecclesiastical Scarramuchio has ●●rk't all this while that he should not be visible enough 'till his Picture ●e drawn But I bring no News nor tell any false Tales for he has long ●een descry'd but now is the Time to let him see the Spots in his dirty ●ace if he will but impartially view himself in this Mirrour But if he happen to be enraged at his own Physyognomy like that ●d Lady that broke all the Looking-glasses she could come at because ●ot one of them would show her a handsome Face and he offer to break his Glass where can it better seek for shelter than under your Lordships ●tronage that is as generously willing as able to protect oppressed inocence For as such I must and may recommend it to your Honourable Protecti●● which would be affronted if it appear not to be so very Innocent ●at it hurts no Man describing and characterizing the Vice not the ●lty Person vitium non virum offending none but that dull Fool if ●ere be any so dull as to hold up his hand and cry Culprit Some Ceremonies are as necessary as useful in our Address to Heaven as also whenwe pay our due Respects to the Thrones below but the Ceremonies here expos'd are the Bastard-brood that Popery and Foppery begot in our Protestant Church and which neither the Laws of God nor the King does legitimate For when the Popish Ceremony monger was at the Reformation excluded and shut out of our Protestant Church he had 'till now Interest enough notwithstanding to make my Ceremony monger his Surrogate or dull Tool And the duller Tool the fairer Candidate for the place so he had but wit enough to remember his Creator and know his Cue And since Popery plain bare fac't Popery was inconsistent with the Laws of our holier Church and being Adulterate and consequently Illegitimate Therefore a Popish Ceremony in Masquerade an Ecclesiastical Symn●● must be laid in its room But none of their Spiritual Changlings shal inherit here nor is any other here condemned but what has made great waste and disturbed the Peace of the Church and must necessarily bring True Religion to an irrecoverable weakness and Consumption if much longer tolerated That Redemption which St. George the Champion of England gave to the Virgin ready to be ravaged by the Dragon may be fabulous but it is certain that your Lordship cannot better deserve the most Honourable George and Garter nor more immortalize your great Name than by improving your happy Talent and Interest in their Sacred Majesties that they may by redeeming the Church from Popish-like Slavery in non-sensical and illegal Ceremonies grace with fresh Lustre that old but sometimes sullied Flower of the Crown Defender of the Faith That so as our Renowned King William the Conqueror of Hearts and therefore the Conqueror of Kingdoms may perfect a Redemption for us in the Church without Blood as well as our late miraculous because not sanguinary Redemption in the State Whereby Pri●e has the fairest Ground in the World whereon to build her self a so idly so illegal despair of the vain Attempt their Sacred Majesties being as humble as high like the State-house at Amsterdam whose Foundation is as deep in the Ground as their Pinacles high and ma●ing the Skies And what Rebel to Heaven as well as Traitors to their Sacred Majesties can refuse due Homage and Fealty to such Landlords to whom God himself has deign'd to give Livery and Seizin and given by his visible Hand Possession of the Throne And as the Countenance only of former Kings gave Life to these Popish like Brats meerly for their likeness to Popery so their sacred Majesties can kill the Changling only with a Frown so futile so idly so illegal and Spiritless a thing is this same Ecclesiastical Bugg here character●z'd And yet as little and as weak as he is he has been a most mischievous Scandal and Stumbling blo●k to keep his Betters out of the

a great Crack't Bell that is good for nothing but to fill up the Vocancy But must Apocryphal books too Justle the Holy Scriptures also out of the Church You 'l say the Mass-book did it before we did it Yea that 's true so a Popish interest also possibly brought this great Crack't Bell into a Protestant Steeple What does it do there there it hangs but had never been hang'd so high but that it was crack't and good for nothing but to give an unintelligible and Jarring sound to keep out a better and in room of a better it will serve well enough to make up the number of the Yea's and the No's Well may this Crack't Ceremony monger dread a wise and a pious and honest English Parliament more than he sears either God or the Devil more than Heaven or Hell lest they spy this Church-Cobweb though it hang alost and sweep it down or new Cast this useless Crack't Bell. You may know him by this certain mark for conscious of Guilt and of his own uselessness and Futility through well-grounded sear like the murmuring Israelites he longs for the Flesh pots of Egypt again Egyptian or Popish d●rkness which has cover'd as darkness does all his faults this Pope Joan in the dark has been as good as my Lady and a Popish King he joyes in to chuse rather than Angels food Manna What is it he knows not he relishes it not For he loves Popery in his heart as the Carpenter loves his Ladder because it helps him up so high to overlook his betters Well! let him even march then after his Brother Cartwright he is fit for nothing so well as to read Common-Prayer in the French Protestant Chappel in the Castle of Merli Thus have I run him to an Inavoidable Dilemma one of the Horns whereof must Gore my Ceremony-monger for it he obstinatly persist in his irrational and illegal Ceremonies the Law and the next Jury deprives him by his own Celebrated Act The Act of Uniformity which condemns all Ceremony mongers and all Ceremonies not contained in the Common-Prayer Book and then the King may in the Vacancy without Invading any mans propriety like Queen Elizabeth put this unprofitable and impossibly to be performed Nusance to its proper use and to a good use But if he Recant Abhor Repent and Forsake his Illegal and Popish-like Ceremonies we have got the day he is converted to be a good man and will then voluntarily relinquish that burden which no mortal can bear for fear of the Torments Eternal which none can bear the saying of St. Chrysostome in Heb. 13 7. H●mil ult 24 will penetrare his hard Heart and ●cared Conscience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I wonder in my heart 〈…〉 〈◊〉 it is posh 〈◊〉 for a chief Bishop in the Church to be saved c. High Priest Aaron said Nolo Episcopari Moses also was as loath to come into the Collar Send by the hand of whom thou wilt send said he in a Pet to God Almighty foreseeing the dreadful burthen St. Chrysostome in that Homily says in effect concerning a great Bishop as one said of an Executor viz. If I had a mind to send a man to the Devil I would make him my Executor and if I had a mind to send a man to the Devil I would make him a great Lord Bless me That vain ambitious man should hope to comb Heaven by that very sin of Haughtiness and Pride which made Lucifer a Devil I well know that in this Juncture every Projector is full of his Notion which may do well to in Utopia but is not practicable here And I 'le Answer such well-meaning Noddles is a grave Senator of Old Rome did his pious Friend that brought him an excellent Model of Government my Friend This would do well in Plato's Common-wealth but it is not feazable for us who live in the Dregs of Romulus But nothing is here propos'd but what is easie good for all sound pure primitive and practicable as well as profitable and hurts no body no not the great Diocesan and sleepy fat Prebend in their present Incumbencies and Possessions if they can with a safe Conscience continue them For St. Chrysostome is bolder with such Bishops as are so addicted to filthy Lucre that he quite incapacitates their for the place 〈…〉 in Ep. ad Tat. c. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ● 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hic ut indigenus Sacerdotio est removendus Let him be Depos'd nay Degraded as unworthy of that holy Function Some Repairs of necessity must be done as the Wisdom of a Pious King and Parliament shall think meet upon those that have by their filly illegal and foppish and Popish-like Constitutions and Ceremonies reduc't all true Devotion to a meer Pharisaical and Out-side Superstition which is also very silly and non-sensical to boor Does not St. Cyprian tell us Ep. 68. That in the Ordination of Sabinus the Bishoprick was conferred upon him by the Suffrage that is the Vote of the whole Fraternity or Brethren and by the Judgment of the Bishops that mee together in our presence c. That Exhortation in the Common-Prayer-Book before the Communion concerning the quieting of a troubled Conscience when the guilty person thinks himself not qualified sufficiently for the receiving that blessed Sacrament gives the Minister power of Absolution that is power of the Keys the Church Keys good reason of his own Church whereby I judge that every Minister has power to loose what any R●gister or Bishop or Surrogate has ●ound if he think fit tho' they also have bound the Spirit down to Hill or his body afterwards lies bound for want of Absolution in a ayl I think a Minister has power like Orphtus to setch him back from Satan but not from the Jaylor is not this to give the power of the Keys to a Minister by the Stature or Common Prayer Book which the common practice or Canons do not allow or admit This is to give and take again this is to give we do not know what this is to give the great Bishop more eyes than those same large eyes called Archdeacons this is to give Ministers the power that Christ gave them to Ru●e and Feed for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 1 Pet. 5 2. Signifies both Feed and Rule and one as much as the other God has joy ' d them together and wo be to him that sepatates those whom God hath joyned together only to gratifie his own ambitious and avaricious Claw that grasps more than it can possibly hold and by endeavouring to be Mr. Do all becomes Mr. Do ill this is to mock the Presbyrery give and take again this is just like the silly Charm In-Dock Out Nettle Ye shall saith the Stature Ye shall not says the Present Discipline here is wise work and most cousounded clashing and irreconeileable Ministrations Ecclesiastical well it is well in Apology that we can say it was made in