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A26791
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A letter from J.B. alias Oldcutt to his friend Mr. Jenks.
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J. B.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing B111; ESTC R18210
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3,239
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4
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A LETTER FROM J. B. alias OLDCUTT To his Friend Mr. JENKS SIR THo it be long since I wrote to you yet I doubt not but my Name is fresh in your Memory I was extremely troubled when I heard of your Disappointment in the Election of Sheriff because I know it would have made for our Interest At first it did somewhat amuse me that you should busle so much about an Office which usually others have endeavoured to shun but at length I conjectured the Cause and believ'd you were put upon 't by some of our Old Friends who would have assisted you in the Charge I am told you have some thoughts of Standing for a Member in Parliament this next Election in the City it would manifestly contribute to the Interest now driving but I fear you will receive a Defeat Take not your Measures by my success that having but 60 l. per ann except my Wives Estate have carried the Election against them of 3000 l. per ann thanks to my good Friends of the Old Cutt But all the Counties in England are not like Sussex Our Friend Mr. Trenchard I hear hath lost it at Taunton some Men cannot cajole their Party so well as others I know very well the heat of your Temper and inaptitude of your Mind for the Management of any thing beyond your common Commerce How do you think the City can judge that Man moderate and wise who hurries himself into a Prison for no other cause but the overboyling of his Spirit The strength of the Passion always betrays the Weakness of the Passionate that thing that you would most wish for you should seem most to decline it was O. C. his Maxim I find the People generally too apprehensive of the Miseries that accrued to them by the late Civil Wars to run into the like Desolation nor can I wonder at it when I consider that there is not one scarce to be found that rais'd himself a Monument of Honour or Wealth by those unnatural Broils but on the contrary they who were most active therein are long since swallowed up in Obloquy and their Posterities stigmatiz'd with Poverty and Infamy which I look upon as a just Judgment upon them for making the Holy Letter of Life and Peace the most forceable Instruments of Mortal Quarrel and Contention who dealt with Scripture as Chymists deal with Natural Bodies strive to Extract that out of them which God nor Nature never put into them Wonder not that I vary from my former Stile of writing to you for really mature thoughts of things hath opened my Eyes and I am become a Convert Christian that is to say an honest Man and an honest Moral Man is a Christian by the surer side I must confess to you I am against desiring to mend what is already well As for the Government I see no cause of Complaint unless there be a Latitude of too much Liberty which I am sorry to see men make no better use of than Children do abuse it and Worm-like eat out the heart of the Plant that breeds it Men of craz'd Minds that they have scarce an equality of sence with Beasts are grown so skittish with this thing call'd Liberty that they are almost ready to fly in the Face of Majesty and would sawcely require Reasons for all outward Occurrents of State which their uncautelous Capacities can no more keep pace with than a Child can with Hercules I pray God our Posterities may not be plagu'd with the want of that Plenty and Liberty the abundance of which their Fathers have so wantonly abus'd How many are there that calumniate the Person when they cannot reach the Cause and no kind of reason so much abuses as when the Discredit of the Person is Retorted on the Cause A Railer is rank'd by St. Paul with a Fornicator and a Thief and with such saith he partake not no not so much as to eat and certainly Railers against Government are the worst sort of all and for ought I know those that he ' specially means I fear those you call good Common-Wealths-Men are a different kind of thing to honest Men. Fabritius in the Roman Story is much commended for nominating to the Consulship Ruffinus a Factious Man and his utter Enemy because he knew him to be serviceable to the Common-Wealth perhaps those that opposed your Election were not well read in History It is not a seeming Sanctity that makes the Honest Man the cheat of pretending to Gospel Light hath been detected long since you may remember that the precepts of submitting to Rules rather than call the Magistrate to Revenge of suffering wrong rather than doing of yielding the Coat to him that would take the Cloak of readiness to receive more wrongs rather than to Revenge one These and all the Evangelical Commands of the like nature have we heretofore found out favourable Interpretations Glosses and Evasions to wind our selves out of and yet pass for most zealous Christians When we Receded from the Church of Rome one Motive was because she added unto Scripture her Glosses as Canonical to supply what the plain Text of Scripture could not yield and that I have often though was a Fault among us the quondam pretenders to Reformation we pull'd down Baal and set up an Ephod to meet the Church of Rome in the same point we left her Excuse me if I am plain with you I intend you not the least disquiet only an honest reprehension I know you are a pious Man Religion usually takes up his Winter Quarters in Age and therefore I doubt not but you will be the readier to forgive me The last Week was transmitted hither in Print the substance of a Speech made by that Worthy Knight as the Printer stiles him Sir T. P. I perceive by it that his main drift is to Irritate the People against his R. H. in point of Religion and truly I thought when so bold a Lutheran had set up a Top all the whole City would have whipt it but I since understand it was a Game the Wiser heads dislik'd and that he hath promised to make no more Speeches again in hast I remember I have heretofore read a Book written by a Jesuit in King James's time who asserted it meritorious to oppose that Kings Right to the Crown because he was a Protestant And we in this age assert it Meritorious to oppose the Succession of his R. H. because as is presum'd only a R. C. Currat Lex is the Property of every Subject God forbid it should be denyed our Prince Sir I must tell you that it is to be fear'd they that Propogate this Cavil before it comes to be a Question and possibly never may be one have something under their Thumbs that I can guess at as well as they the Serpent cannot Lurk so close but it will be seen I wish from my Soul that there is not more thoughts of blood among some that would seem to defend us against it than in the Enemies of our Church I am jealous of it for this cause I find the great Sticklers against his R. H. are most of them of our Family or Relation the Old-Cutts of 41. Once set aside the immediate Heir and then it will naturally come in question who shall succeed and excellent work for Commotion Come Sir let me advise you look into your heart betimes have a care of being Popular at a deer price feed not to Danger tho it be on a Dish you love The Heathens were so exceeding cautious in this point that it is said the Manichees were of opinion it was not lawful to violate any thing in which there was Life and therefore would not so much as pull a Branch from a Tree because there was Life in it And Xenophon tells us that the Souldiers in Cyrus his Army were so well Disciplin'd that one of them in time of Battle having lift up his Arm to strike his Enemy hearing the Trumpet at that Moment sound a Retreat let fall his Arm and willingly lost his blow So far were these men from thinking it lawful to shed blood in time of Peace that they would not shed the blood of an Enemy in time of War except in a just and lawful Battle For shame let us not learn Morals from Heathens But what have I done I am run out of a Letter into a History The desire I have that all the Nation should be as honest as my self true Lovers of the Established Church and Government promoters of Peace and Concord abhorrers of causeless Jealousies and Fears and of all such as are given to Change moderate Rectifiers of Enormities where any such are justly met with and Retrievers of Time rather than openers of Breaches which Wisdom and Righteousness should close hath made me more prolix than I intended But I shall conclude with this Wish That God in his due time would hasten you and all yours to the Possession of that Glory Sir T. P. seems so well assur'd of in which I am sure I am Your Friend and Well-wisher J. B. alias Old-cutt Chichester Sept. 20. 1679. FINIS