that whereof before hee was so scrupulous And yet at the same time Naevius and Plautus the first Latine comedians had fill'd the City with all the borrow'd Scenes of Menander and Philemon Then began to be consider'd there also what was to be don to libellous books and Authors for Naevius was quickly cast into prison for his unbridl'd pen and releas'd by the Tribunes upon his recantation We read also that lipels were burnt and the makers punisht by Augustus The like severity no doubt was us'd if ought were impiously writt'n against their esteemed gods Except in these two points how the world went in Books the Magistrat kept no reckning And therefore Lucretius without impeachment versifies his Epicurism to Memmius and had the honour to be set forth the second time by Cicero so great a father of the Common-wealth although himselfe disputes against that opinion in his own writings Nor was the Satyricall sharpnesse or naked plainnes of Lucilius or Catullus or Flaccus by any order prohibited And for matters of State the story of Titus Livius though it extoll'd that part which Pompey held was not therefore supprest by Octavius Caesar of the other Faction But that Neso was by him banisht in his old age for the wanton Poems of his youth was but a meer covert of State over some secret cause and besides the Books were neither banisht nor call'd in From hence we shall meet with little else but tyranny in the Roman Empire that we may not marvell if not so often bad as good Books were silenc't I shall therefore deem to have bin large anough in producing what among the ancients was punishable to write save only which all other arguments were free to treat on By this time the Emperors were become Christians whose discipline in this point I doe not finde to have bin more severe then what was formerly in practice The Books of those whom they took to be grand Hereticks were examin'd refuted and condemn'd in the generall Councels and not till then were prohibited or burnt by autority of the Emperor As for the writings of Heathen authors unlesse they were plaine invectives against Christianity as those of Porphyrius and Proclus they met with no interdict that can be cited till about the year 400. in a Carthaginian Councel wherein Bishops themselves were forbid to read the Books of Gentiles but Heresies they might read while others long before them on the contrary scrupl'd more the Books of Hereticks then of Gentiles And that the primitive Councels and Bishops were wont only to declare what Books were not commendable passing no furder but leaving it to each ones conscience to read or to lay by till after the yeare 800. is observ'd already by Padre Paolo the great unmasker of the Trentine Councel After which time the Popes of Rome engrossing what they pleas'd of Politicall rule into their owne hands extended their dominion over mens eyes as they had before over their judgements burning and prohibiting to be read what they fansied not yet sparing in their censures and the Books not many which they so dealt with till Martin the 5. by his Bull not only prohibited but was the first that excommunicated the reading of hereticall Books for about that time Wicklef and Husse growing terrible were they who first drove the Papall Court to a stricter policy of prohibiting Which cours Leo the 10 and his successors follow'd untill the Councell of Trent and the Spanish Inquisition engendring together brought forth or perfeted those Catalogues and expurging Indexes that rake through the entralls of many an old good Author with a violation wors then any could be offer'd to his tomb Nor did they stay in matters Hereticall but any subject that was not to their palat they either condemn'd in a prohibition or had it strait into the new Purgatory of an Index To fill up the measure of encroachment their last invention was to ordain that no Book pamphlet or paper should be Printed as if S. Peter had bequeath'd them the keys of the Presse also out of Paradise unlesse it were approv'd and licenc't under the hands of 2 or 3 glutton Friers For example Let the Chancellor Cini be pleas'd to see if in this present work be contain'd ought that may withstand the Printing Vincent Rabatta Vicar of Florence I have seen this present work and finde nothing athwart the Catholick faith and good manners In witnesse whereof I have given c. Nicolò Cini Chancellor of Florence Attending the precedent relation it is allow'd that this present work of Davanzati may be Printed Vincent Rabatta c. It may be Printed July 15. Friar Simon Mompei d' Amelia Chancellor of the holy office in Florence Sure they have a conceit if he of the bottomlesse pit had not long since broke prison that this quadruple exorcism would barre him down I feare their next designe will be to get into their custody the licencing of that which they say * Claudius intended but went not through with Voutsafe to see another of their forms the Roman stamp Imprimatur If it seem good to the reverend Master of the holy Palace Belcastro Vicegerent Imprimatur Friar Nicolò Rodolphi Master of the holy Palace Sometimes 5 Imprimaturs are seen together dialogue-wise in the Piatza of one Title page complementing and ducking each to other with their shav'n reverences whether the Author who stands by in perplexity at the foot of his Epistle shall to the Presse or to the spunge These are the prety responsories these are the deare Antiphonies that so bewitcht of late our Prelats and their Chaplaines with the goodly Eccho they made and besotted us to the gay imitation of a lordly Imprimatur one from Lambeth house another from the West end of Pauls so apishly Romanizing that the word of command still was set downe in Latine as if the learned Grammaticall pen that wrote it would cast no ink without Latine or perhaps as they thought because no vulgar tongue was worthy to expresse the pure conceit of an Imprimatur but rather as I hope for that our English the language of men ever famous and formost in the atchievements of liberty will not easily finde servile letters anow to spell such a dictatorie presumption English And thus ye have the Inventors and the originall of Book-licencing ript up and drawn as lineally as any pedigree We have it not that can be heard of from any ancient State or politie or Church nor by any Statute left us by our Ancestors elder or later nor from the moderne custom of any reformed Citty or Church abroad but from the most Antichristian Councel and the most tyrannous Inquisition that ever inquir'd Till then Books were ever as freely admitted into the World as any other birth the issue of the brain was no more stifl'd then the issue of the womb no envious Juno sate cros-leg'd over the nativity of any mans intellectuall off spring but if it prov'd a Monster who denies
but that it was justly burnt or sunk into the Sea But that a Book in wors condition then a peccant soul should be to stand before a Jury ere it be borne to the World and undergo yet in darknesse the judgement of Radamanth and his Collegues ere it can passe the ferry backward into light was never heard before till that mysterious iniquity provokt and troubl'd at the first entrance of Reformation sought out new limbo's and new hells wherein they might include our Books also within the number of their damned And this was the rare morsell so officiously snatcht up and so ilfavourdly imitated by our inquisiturient Bishops and the attendant minorites their Chaplains That ye like not now these most certain Authors of this licencing order and that all sinister intention was farre distant from your thoughts when ye were importun'd the passing it all men who know the integrity of your actions and how ye honour Truth will clear yee readily But some will say What though the Inventors were bad the thing for all that may be good It may so yet if that thing be no such deep invention but obvious and easie for any man to light on and yet best and wisest Commonwealths through all ages and occasions have forborne to use it and falsest seducers and oppressors of men were the first who tooke it up and to no other purpose but to obstruct and hinder the first approach of Reformation I am of those who beleeve it will be a harder alchymy then Lullius ever knew to sublimat any good use out of such an invention Yet this only is what I request to gain from this reason that it may be held a dangerous and suspicious fruit as certainly it deserves for the tree that bore it untill I can dissect one by one the properties it has But I have first to finish as was propounded what is to be thought in generall of reading Books what ever sort they be and whether be more the benefit or the harm that thence proceeds Not to insist upon the examples of Moses Daniel Paul who were skilfull in all the learning of the AEgyptians Caldeans and Greeks which could not probably be without reading their Books of all sorts in Paul especially who thought it no defilement to insert into holy Scripture the sentences of three Greek Poets and one of them a Tragedian the question was notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the Primitive Doctors but with great odds on that side which affirm'd it both lawfull and profitable as was then evidently perceiv'd when Julian the Apostat and suttlest enemy to our faith made a decree forbidding Christians the study of heathen learning for said he they wound us with our own weapons and with our owne arts and sciences they overcome us And indeed the Christians were put so to their shifts by this crafty means and so much in danger to decline into all ignorance that the two Apollinarii were fain as a man may say to coin all the seven liberall Sciences out of the Bible reducing it into divers forms of Orations Poems Dialogues ev'n to the calculating of a new Christian Grammar But saith the Historian Socrates The providence of God provided better then the industry of Apollinarius and his son by taking a way that illiterat law with the life of him who devis'd it So great an injury they then held it to be depriv'd of Hellenick learning and thought it a persecution more undermining and secretely decaying the Church then the open cruelty of Decius or Dioclesian And perhaps it was the same politick drift that the Divell whipt St. Jerom in a lenten dream for reading Cicero or else it was a fantasm bred by the feaver which had then seis'd him For had an Angel bin his discipliner unlesse it were for dwelling too much upon Ciceronianisms had chastiz'd the reading not the vanity it had bin plainly partiall first to correct him for grave Cicero and not for scurrill Plautus whom he confesses to have bin reading not long before next to correct him only and let so many more ancient Fathers wax old in those pleasant and florid studies without the lash of such a tutoring apparition insomuch that Basil teaches how some good use may be made of Margites a sportfull Poem not now extant writ by Homer and why not then of Morgante an Italian Romanze much to the same purpose But if it be agreed we shall be try'd by visions there is vision recorded by Eusebius far ancienter then this tale of Jerom to the Nun Eustochium and besides has nothing of a feavor in it Dionysius Alexandrinus was about the year 240 a person of great name in the Church for piety and learning who had wont to avail himself much against hereticks by being conversant in their Books untill a certain Presbyter laid it scrupulously to his conscience how he durst venture himselfe among those defiling volumes The worthy man loath to give offence fell into a new debate with himselfe what was to be thought when suddenly a vision sent from God it is his own Epistle that so averrs it confirm'd him in these words Read any books what ever come to thy hands for thou art sufficient both to judge aright and to examine each matter To this revelation he assented the sooner as he confesses because it was answerable to that of the Apostle to the Thessalonians Prove all things hold fast that which is good And he might have added another remarkable saying of the same Author To the pure all things are pure not only meats and drinks but all kinde of knowledge whether of good or evill the knowledge cannot defile nor consequently the books if the will and conscience be not defil'd For books are as meats and viands are some of good some of evill substance and yet God in that unapocryphall vision said without exception Rise Peter kill and eat leaving the choice to each mans discretion Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomack differ little or nothing from unwholesome and best books to a naughty mind are not unappliable to occasions of evill Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction but herein the difference is of bad books that they to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many respects to discover to confute to forewarn and to illustrate Wherof what better witnes can ye expect I should produce then one of your own now sitting in Parlament the chief of learned men reputed in this Land Mr. Selden whose volume of naturall national laws proves not only by great autorities brought together but by exquisite reasons and theorems almost mathematically demostrative that all opinions yea errors known read and collated are of main service assistance toward the speedy attainment of what is truest I conceive therefore that when God did enlarge the universall diet of mans body saving ever the rules of temperance he then also as before left arbitrary the dyeting and repasting of our
minds as wherein every mature man might have to exercise his owne leading capacity How great a vertue is temperance how much of moment through the whole life of man yet God committs the managing so great a trust without particular Law or prescription wholly to the demeanour of every grown man And therefore when he himself tabl'd the Jews from heaven that Omer which was every mans daily portion of 〈…〉 mputed to have bin more then might have well suffic'd 〈…〉 eder thrice as many meals For those actions which 〈…〉 ther then issue out of him and therefore defile not 〈…〉 captivat under a perpetuall childhood of prescriptiâ—◠〈…〉 with the gift of reason to be his own chooser there 〈…〉 e work left for preaching if law and compulsion should 〈…〉 things which hertofore were govern'd only 〈…〉 Salomon informs us that much reading is a wearines to t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut neither he nor other inspir'd author tells us that such or â—â—â—â—â—â—eading is unlawfull yet certainly had God thought good to limit us herein it had bin much more expedient to have told us what was unlawfull then what was wearisome As for the burning of those Ephesian books by St. Pauls converts t is reply'd the books were magick the Syriack so renders them It was a privat act a voluntary act and leaves us to a voluntary imitation the men in remorse burnt those books which were their own the Magistrat by this example is not appointed these men practiz'd the books another might perhaps have read them in some sort usefully Good and evill we know in the field of this World grow up together almost inseparably and the knowledge of good is so involv'd and interwoven with the knowledge of evill and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discern'd that those confused seeds which were impos'd on Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out and sort asunder were not more intermixt It was from out the rinde of one apple tasted that the knowledge of good and evill as two twins cleaving together leapt forth into the World And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evill that is to say of knowing good by evill As therefore the state of man now is what wisdome can there be to choose what continence to forbeare without the knowledge of evill He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures and yet abstain and yet distinguish and yet prefer that which is truly better he is the true wayfaring Christian I cannot praise a fugitive and cloister'd vertue unexercis'd unbreath'd that never sollies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race where that immortall garland is to be run for notwithout dust and heat Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world we bring impurity much rather that which purifies us is triall and triall is by what is contrary That vertue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evill and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers and rejects 〈…〉 tue not a pure her whitenesse is but an 〈…〉 Which was the reason why our sage and serious Poet Spencer whom I dare be known to think a better teacher then Scotus or Aquinas describing true temperance under the person of Guion brings him in with his palmer through the cave of Mammon and the bowr of earthly blisse that he might see and know and yet abstain Since therefore the knowledge and survay of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human vertue and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth how can we more safely and with lesse danger scout into the regions of sin and falsity then by reading all manner of tractats and hearing all manner of reason And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read But of the harm that may result hence three kinds are usually reckn'd First is fear'd the infection that may spread but then all human learning and controversie in religious points must remove out of the world yea the Bible it selfe for that oftimes relates blasphemy not nicely it describes the carnall sense of wicked men not unelegantly it brings in holiest men passionately murmuring against providence through all the arguments of Epicurus in other great disputes it answers dubiously and darkly to the common reader And ask a Talmudist what ails the modesty of his marginall Keri that Moses and all the Prophets cannot perswade him to pronounce the textuall Chetiv For these causes we all know the Bible it selfe put by the Papist into the first rank of prohibited books The ancientest Father must be next remov'd as Clement of Alexandria and that Eusebian book of Evangelick preparation transmitting our ears through a hoard of heathenish obscenities to receive the Gospel Who finds not that Irenaeus Epiphanius Jerom and others discover more heresies then they well confute and that oft for heresie which is the truer opinion Nor boots it to say for these and all the heathen Writers of greatest infection if it must be thought so with whom is bound up the life of human learning that they writ in an unknown tongue so long as we are sure those languages are known as well to the worst of men who are both most able and most diligent to instill the poison they suck first into the Courts of Princes acquainting them with the choisest delights and criticisms of sin As perhaps did that Petronius whom Nero call'd his Arbiter the Master of his revels and that notorious ribald of Arezzo dreaded and yet dear to the Italian Courtiers I name not him for posterities sake whom Harry the 8 nam'd in merriment his Vicar of hell By which compendious way all the contagion that foreine books can infuse will finde a passage to the people farre easier and shorter then an Indian voyage though it could be sail'd either by the North of Cataio Eastward or of Canada Westward while our Spanish licencing gags the English Presse never so severely But on the other side that infection which is from books of controversie in Religion is more doubtfull and dangerous to the learned then to the ignorant and yet those books must be permitted untoucht by the licencer It will be hard to instance where any ignorant man hath bin ever seduc't by Papisticall book in English unlesse it were commended and expounded to him by some of the Clergy and indeed all such tractats whether false or true are as the Prophesie of Isaiah was to the Ennuch not to be understood without a guide But of our Priests and Doctors how many have bin corrupted by studying the comments of Jesuits and Sorbonists and how fast they could transfuse that corruption into the people our experience is both late and sad It is not forgot since the acute and distinct Arminius was perverted meerly by the perusing of a namelesse discours writt'n at Delf which at first he took in hand to
consider by the quality which ought to be in every licencer It cannot be deny'd but that he who is made judge to sit upon the birth or death of books whether they may be wafted into this world or not had need to be a man above the common measure both studious learned and judicious there may be else no mean mistakes in the censure of what is passable or not which is also no mean injury If he be of such worth as behoovs him here cannot be a more tedious and unpleasing Journey-work a greater losse of time levied upon his head then to be made the perpetuall reader of unchosen books and pamphlets oftimes huge volumes There is no book that is acceptable unlesse at certain seasons but to be enjoyn'd the reading of that at all times and in a hand scars legible whereof three pages would not down at any time in the fairest Print is an imposition which I cannot beleeve how he that values time and his own studies or is but of a sensible nostrill should be able to endure In this one thing I crave leave of the present licencers to be pardon'd for so thinking who doublesse took this office up looking on it through their obedience to the Parlament whose command perhaps made all things seem easie and unlaborious to them but that this short triall hath wearied them out already their own expressions and excuses to them who make so many journeys to sollicit their licence are testimony anough Seeing therefore those who now possesse the imployment by all evident signs wish themselves well ridd of it and that no man of worth none that is not a plain unthrift of his own hours is ever likely to succeed them except he mean to put him'elf to the salary of a Presse-corrector we may easily foresee what kind of licencers we are to expect hereafter either ignorant imperious and remisse or basely pecuniary This is what I had to shew wherein this order cannot conduce to that end whereof it bears the intention I lastly proceed from the no good it can do to the manifest hurt it causes in being first the greatest discouragement and affront that can be offer'd to learning and to learned men It was the complaint and lamentation of Prelats upon every least breath of a motion to remove pluralities and distribute more equally Church revennu's that then all learning would be for ever dasht and discourag'd But as for that opinion I never found cause to think that the tenth part of learning stood or fell with the Clergy nor could I ever but hold it for a sordid and unworthy speech of any Churchman who had a competency left him If therefore ye be loath to dishearten utterly and discontent not the mercenary crew of false pretenders to learning but the free and ingenuous sort of such as evidently were born to study and love lerning for it self not for lucre or any other end but the service of God and of truth and perhaps that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise which God and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose publisht labours advance the good of mankind then know that so far to distrust the judgement the honesty of one who hath but a common repute in learning and never yet offended as not to count him fit to print his mind without a tutor and examiner lest he should drop a scism or something of corruption is the greatest displeasure and indignity to a free and knowing spirit that can be put upon him What advantage is it to be a man over it is to be a boy at school if we have only scapt the ferular to come under the fescu of an Imprimatur if serious and elaborat writings as if they were no more then the theam of a Grammar lad under his Pedagogue must not be utter'd without the cursory eyes of a temporizing and extemporizing licencer He who is not trusted with his own actions his drift not being known to be evill and standing to the hazard of law and penalty has no great argument to think himself reputed in the Commonwealth wherin he was born for other then a fool or a foreiner When a man writes to the world he summons up all his reason and deliberation to assist him he searches meditats is industrious and likely consults and conferrs with his judicious friends after all which done he takes himself to be inform'd in what he writes as well as any that writ before him if in this the most consummat act of his fidelity and ripenesse no years no industry no former proof of his abilities can bring him to that state of maturity as not to be still mistrusted and suspected unlesse he carry all his considerat diligence all his midnight watchings and expence of Palladian oyl to the hasty view of an unleasur'd licencer perhaps much his younger perhaps far his inferiour in judgement perhaps one who never knew the labour of book-writing and if he be not repulst or slighted must appear in Print like a punic with his guardian and his censors hand on the back of his title to be his bayl and surety that he is no idiot or seducer it cannot be but a dishonor and derogation to the author to the book to the priviledge and dignity of Learning And what if the author shall be one so copious of fancie as to have many things well worth the adding come into his mind after licencing while the book is yet under the Presse which not seldom happ'ns to the best and diligentest writers and that perhaps a dozen times in one book The Printer dares not go beyond his licenc't copy so often then must the author trudge to his leav-giver that those his new insertions may be viewd and many a jaunt will be made ere that licencer for it must be the same man can either be found or found at leisure mean while either the Presse must stand still which is no small damage or the author loose his accuratest thoughts send the book forth wors then he had made it which to a diligent writer is the greatest melancholy and vexation that can befall And how can a man teach with autority which is the life of teaching how can he be a Doctor in his book as he ought to be or else had better be silent whenas all he teaches all he delivers is but under the tuition under the correction of his patriarchal licencer to blot or alter what precisely accords not with the hidebound humor which he calls his judgement When every acute reader upon the first sight of a pedantick licence will be ready with these like words to ding the book a coits distance from him I hate a pupil teacher I endure not an instructer that comes to me under the wardship of an overseeing sist I know nothing of the licencer but that I have his own hand here for his arrogance who shall warrant me his judgement The State Sir replies
the Stationer but has a quick return The State shall be my governours but not my criticks they may be mistak'n in the choice of a licencer as easily as this licencer may be mistak'n in an author This is some common stuffe and he might adde from Sir Francis Bacon That such authoriz'd books are but the language of the times For though a licencer should happ'n to be judicious more then ordnary which will be a great jeopardy of the next succession yet his very office and his commission enjoyns him to let passe nothing but what is vulgarly receiv'd already Nay which is more lamentable if the work of any deceased author though never so famous in his life time and even to this day come to their hands for licence to be Printed or Reprinted if there be found in his book one sentence of a ventrous edge utter'd in the height of zeal and who knows whether it might not be the dictat of a divine Spirit yet not suiting with every low decrepit humor of their own though it were Knox himself the Reformer of a Kingdom that spake it they will not pardon him their dash the sense of that great man shall to all posterity be lost for the fearfulnesse or the presumptuous rashnesse of a perfunctory licencer And to what an author this violence hath bin lately done and in what book of greatest consequence to be faithfully publisht I could now instance but shall forbear till a more convenient season Yet if these things be not resented seriously and timely by them who have the remedy in their power but that such iron moulds as these shall have autority to knaw out the choisest periods of exquisitest books and to commit such a treacherous fraud against the orphan remainders of worthiest men after death the more sorrow will belong to that haples race of men whose misfortune it is to have understanding Henceforth let no man care to learn or care to be more then worldly wise for certainly in higher matters to be ignorant and slothfull to be a common stedfast dunce will be the only pleasant life and only in request And as it is a particular disesteem of every knowing person alive and most injurious to the writt'n labours and monuments of the dead so to me it seems an undervaluing and vilifying of the whole Nation I cannot set so light by all the invention the art the wit the grave and solid judgement which is in England as that it can be comprehended in any twenty capacities how good soever much lesse that it should not passe except their superintendence be over it except it be sifted and strain'd with their strainers that it should be uncurrant without their manuall stamp Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be monopoliz'd and traded in by tickets and statutes and standards We must not think to make a staple commodity of all the knowledge in the Land to mark and licence it like our broad cloath and our wooll packs What is it but a servitude like that impos'd by the Philistims not to be allow'd the sharpning of our own axes and coulters but we must repair from all quarters to twenty licencing forges Had any one writt'n and divulg'd erroneous things scandalous to honest life misusing and forfeiting the esteem had of his reason among men if after conviction this only censure were adjudg'd him that he should never henceforth write but what were first examin'd by an appointed officer whose hand should be annext to passe his credit for him that now he might be safely read it could not be apprehended lesse then a disgracefull punishment Whence to include the whole Nation and those that never yet thus offended under such a diffident and suspectfull prohibition may plainly be understood what a disparagement it is So much the more when as dettors and delinquents may walk abroad without a keeper but unoffensive books must not stirre forth without a visible jaylor in thir title Nor is it to the common people lesse then a reproach for if we be so jealous over them as that we dare not trust them with an English pamphlet what doe we but censure them for a giddy vitious and ungrounded people in such a sick and weak estate of faith and discretion as to be able to take nothing down but through the pipe of a licencer That this is care or love of them we cannot pretend whenas in those Popish places where the Laity are most hated and dispis'd the same strictnes is us'd over them Wisdom we cannot call it because it stops but one breach of licence nor that neither whenas those corruptions which it seeks to prevent break in faster at other dores which cannot be shut And in conclusion it reslects to the disrepute of our Ministers also of whose labours we should hope better and of the proficiencie which thir flock reaps by them then that after all this light of the Gospel which is and is to be and all this continuall preaching they should be still frequented with such an unprincipl'd unedify'd and laick rabble as that the whiffe of every new pamphlet should stagger them out of thir catechism and Christian walking This may have much reason to discourage the Ministers when such a low conceit is had of all their exhortations and the benefiting of their hearers as that they are not thought fit to be turn'd loose to three sheets of paper without a licencer that all the Sermons all the Lectures preacht printed vented in such numbers and such volumes as have now well-nigh made all other books unsalable should not be armor anough against one single enchiridion without the castle St. Angelo of an Imprimatur And lest som should perswade ye Lords and Commons that these arguments of lerned mens discouragement at this your order are meer flourishes and not reall I could recount what I have seen and heard in other Countries where this kind of inquisition tyrannizes when I have sat among their lerned men for that honor I had and bin counted happy to be born in such a place of as they suppos'd England was while themselvs did nothing but bemoan the servil condition into which lerning amongst them was brought that this was it which had dampt the glory of Italian wits that nothing had bin there writt'n now these many years but flattery and lustian There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo grown old a prisner to the Inquisition for thinking in Astronomy otherwise then the Franciscan and Dominican licencers thought And though I knew that England then was groaning loudest under the Prelaticall yoak neverthelesse I took it as a pledge of future happines that other Nations were so perswaded of her liberty Yet was it beyond my hope that those Worthies were then breathing in her air who should be her leaders to such a deliverance as shall never be forgott'n by any revolution of time that this world hath to finish When that was once
begun it was as little in my fear that what words of complaint I heard among lerned men of other parts utter'd against the Inquisition the same I shou'd hear by as lerned men at home utterd in time of Parlament against an order of licencing and that so generally that when I had disclos'd my self a companion of their discontent I might say if without envy that he whom an honest questorship had indear'd to the Sicilians was not more by them importun'd against Verres then the favourable opinion which I had among many who honour ye and are known and respected by ye loaded me with entreaties and perswasions that I would not despair to lay together that which just reason should bring into my mind toward the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon lerning That this is not therefore the disburdning of a particular fancie but the common grievance of all those who had prepar'd their minds and studies above the vulgar pitch to advance truth in others and from others to entertain it thus much may satisfie And in their name I shall for neither friend nor foe conceal what the generall murmur is that if it come to inquisitioning again and licencing and that we are so timorous of our selvs and so suspicious of all men as to fear each book and the shaking of every leaf before we know what the contents are if some who but of late were little better then silenc't from preaching shall come now to silence us from reading except what they please it cannot be guest what is intended by som but a second tyranny over learning and will soon put it out of controversie that Bishops and Presbyters are the same to us both name and thing That those evills of Prelaty which before from five or six and twenty Sees were distributivly charg'd upon the whole people will now light wholly upon learning is not obscure to us whenas now the Pastor of a small unlearned Parish on the sudden shall be exalted Archbishop over a large dioces of books and yet not remove but keep his other cure too a mysticall pluralist He who but of late cry'd down the sole ordination of every novice Batchelor of Art and deny'd sole jurisdiction over the simplest Parishioner shall now at home in his privat chair assume both these over worthiest and excellentest books and ablest authors that write them This is not Yee Covnants and Protestations that we have made this is not to put down Prelaty this is but to chop an Episcopacy this is but to translate the Palace Metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another this is but an old canonicall flight of commuting our penance To startle thus betimes at a meer unlicenc't pamphlet will after a while be afraid of every conventicle and a while after will make a conventicle of every Christian meeting But I am certain that a State govern'd by the rules of justice and fortitude or a Church built and founded upon the rock of faith and true knowledge cannot be so pusillanimous While things are yet not constituted in Religion that freedom of writing should be restrain'd by a discipline imitated from the Prelats and learnt by them from the Inquisition to shut us up all again into the brest of a licencer must needs give cause of doubt and discouragement to all learned and religious men Who cannot but discern the finenes of this politic drift and who are the contrivers that while Bishops were to be baited down then all Presses might be open it was the peoples birthright and priviledge in time of Parlament it was the breaking forth of light But now the Bishops abrogated and voided out of the Church as if our Reformation sought no more but to make room for others into their seats under another name the Episcopall arts begin to bud again the cruse of truth must run no more oyle liberty of Printing must be enthrall'd again under a Prelaticall commission of twenty the privilege of the people nullify'd and which is wors the freedom of learning must groan again and to her old fetters all this the Parlament yet sitting Although their own late arguments and defences against the Prelats might remember them that this obstructing violence meets for the most part with an event utterly opposite to the end which it drives at instead of suppressing sects and schisms it raises them and invests them with a reputation The punishing of wits enhaunces their autority saith the Vicount St. Albans and a forbidd'n writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth that flies up in the faces of them who seeke to tread it out This order therefore may prove a nursing mother to sects but I shall easily shew how it will be a step-dame to Truth and first by disinabling us to the maintenance of what is known already Well knows he who uses to consider that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise as well as our limbs and complexion Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a streaming fountain if her waters flow not in a perpetuall progression they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition A man may be a heretick in the truth and if he beleeve things only because his Pastor sayes so or the Assembly so determins without knowing other reason though his belief be true yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresie There is not any burden that som would gladlier post off to another then the charge and care of their Religion There be who knows not that there be of Protestants and professors who live and dye in as arrant an implicit faith as any lay Papist of Loretto A wealthy man addicted to his pleasure and to his profits finds Religion to be a traffick so entangl'd and of so many piddling accounts that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade What should he doe fain he would have the name to be religious fain he would bear up with his neighbours in that What does he therefore but resolvs to give over toyling and to find himself out som factor to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs som Divine of note and estimation that must be To him he adheres resigns the whole ware-house of his religion with all the locks and keyes into his custody and indeed makes the very person of that man his religion esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety So that a man may say his religion is now no more within himself but is becom a dividuall movable and goes and comes neer him according as that good man frequents the house He entertains him gives him gifts feasts him lodges him his religion comes home at night praies is liberally supt and sumptuously laid to sleep rises is saluted and after the malmsey or some well spic't bruage and better breakfasted then he whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and
his chosen shall be first heard to speak for he sees not as man sees chooses not as man chooses lest we should devote our selves again to set places and assemblies and outward callings of men planting our faith one while in the old Convocation house and another while in the Chappell at Westminster when all the faith and religion that shall be there canoniz'd is not sustient without plain convincement and the charity of patient instruction to supple the least bruise of conscience to edifie the meanest Christian who desires to walk in the Spirit and not in the letter of human trust for all the number of voices that can be there made no though Harry the 7. himself there with all his leige tombs about him should lend them voices from the dead to swell their number And if the men be erroneous who appear to be the leading schismaticks what witholds us but our sloth our self-will and distrust in the right cause that we doe not give them gentle meetings and gentle dismissions that we debate not and examin the matter throughly with liberall and frequent audience if not for their sakes yet for our own seeing no man who hath tasted learning but will confesse the many waies of profiting by those who not contented with stale receits are able to manage and set forth new positions to the world And were they but as the dust and cinders of our feet so long as in that notion they may yet serve to polish and brighten the armoury of Truth ev'n for that respect they were not utterly to be cast a way But if they be of those whom God hath fitted for the speciall use of these times with eminent and ample gifts and those perhaps neither among the Priests nor among the Pharisees and we in the hast of a precipitant zeal shall make no distinction but resolve to stop their mouths because we fear they come with new and dangerous opinions as we commonly forejudge them ere we understand them no lesse then woe to us while thinking thus to defend the Gospel we are found the persecutors There have bin not a few since the beginning of this Parlament both of the Presbytery and others who by their unlicen't books to the contempt of an Imprimatur first broke that triple ice clung about our hearts and taught the people to see day I hope that none of those were the perswaders to renew upon us this bondage which they themselves have wrought so much good by contemning But if neither the check that Moses gave to young Joshua nor the countermand which our Saviour gave to young John who was so ready to prohibit those whom he thought unlicenc't be not anough to admonish our Elders how unacceptable to God their testy mood of prohibiting is if neither their own remembrance what evill hath abounded in the Church by this lett of licencing and what good they themselves have begun by transgressing it be not anough but that they will perswade and execute the most Deminican part of the Inquisition over us and are already with one foot in the stirrup so active at suppressing it would be no unequall distribution in the first place to suppresse the suppressors themselves whom the change of their condition hath puft up more then their late experience of harder times hath made wise And as for regulating the Presse let no man think to have the honour of advising ye better then your selves have done in that Order publisht next before this that no book be Printed unlesse the Printers and the Authors name or at least the Printers be register'd Those which otherwise come forth if they be found mischievous and libellous the fire and the executioner will be the timeliest and the most effectuall remedy that mans prevention can use For this authentic Spanish policy of licencing books if I have said ought will prove the most unlicenc't book it self within a short while and was the immediat image of a Star-chamber decree to that purpose made in those very times when that Court did the rest of those her pious works for which she is now fall'n from the Starres with Lucifer Where by ye may guesse what kinde of State prudence what love of the people what care of Religion or good manners there was at the contriving although with singular hypocrisie it pretended to bind books to their good behavior And how it got the upper hand of your precedent Order so well constituted before if we may beleeve those men whose profession gives them cause to enquire most it may be doubted there was in it the fraud of some old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of book-selling who under pretence of the poor in their Company not to be defrauded and the just retaining of each man his severall copy which God forbid should be gainsaid brought divers glosing colours to the House which were indeed but colours and serving to no end except it be to exercise a superiority over their neighbours men who doe not therefore labour in an honest profession to which learning is indetted that they should be made other mens vassalls Another end is thought was aym'd at by some of them in procuring by petition this Order that having power in their hand malignant books might the easier scape abroad as the event shews But of these Sophisms and Elenchs of marchandize I skill not This I know that errors in a good government and in a bad are equally almost incident for what Magistrate may not be mis-inform'd and much the sooner if liberty of Printing be reduc't into the power of a few but to redresse willingly and speedily what hath bin err'd and in highest autority to esteem a plain advertisement more then others have done a sumptuous bribe is a vertue honour'd Lords and Commons answerable to Your highest actions and whereof none can participat but greatest and wisest men The End * Quo veniam daret flatum crepitumque ventris in convivio emittendi Sueton in Claudio
considerat builders more wise in spirituall architecture when great reformation is expected For now the time seems come wherein Moses the great Prophet may sit in heav'n rejoycing to see that memorable and glorious wish of his fulfill'd when not only our sev'nty Elders but all the Lords people are become Prophets No marvell then though some men and some good men too perhaps but young in goodnesse as Joshua then was envy them They fret and out of their own weaknes are in agony lest these divisions and subdivisions will undoe us The adversarie again applauds and waits the hour when they have brancht themselves out saith he small anough into parties and partitions then will be our time Fool he sees not the firm root out of which we all grow though into branches nor will beware untill he see our small divided maniples cutting through at every angle of his ill united and unweildy brigade And that we are to hope better of all those supposed sects and schisms and that we shall not need that solicitude honest perhaps though over timorous of them that vex in this behalf but shall laugh in the end at those malicious applauders of our differences I have these reasons to perswade me First when a City shall be as it were besieg'd and blockt about her navigable river infested inrodes and incursions round defiance and battell oft rumor'd to be marching up ev'n to her walls and suburb trenches that then the people or the greater part more then at other times wholly tak'n up with the study of highest and most important matters to be reform'd should be disputing reasoning reading inventing discoursing ev'n to a rarity and admiration things not before discourst or writt'n of argues first a singular good will contentednesse and confidence in your prudent foresight and safe government Lords and Commons and from thence derives it self to a gallant bravery and well grounded contempt of their enemies as if there were no small number of as great spirits among us as his was who when Rome was nigh besieg'd by Hanibal being in the City bought that peece of ground at no cheap rate whereon Hanibal himself encampt his own regiment Next it is a lively and cherfull presage of our happy successe and victory For as in a body when the blood is fresh the spirits pure and vigorous not only to vital but to rationall faculties and those in the acutest and the pertest operations of wit and suttlety it argues in what good plight and constitution the body is so when the cherfulnesse of the people is so sprightly up as that it has not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety but to spare and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of controversie and new invention it betok'ns us not degenerated nor drooping to a fatall decay but casting off the old and wrincl'd skin of corruption to outlive these pangs and wax young again entring the glorious waies of Truth and prosperous vertue destin'd to become come great and honourable in these latter ages Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant Nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep and shaking her invincible locks Methinks I see her as an Eagle muing her mighty youth and kindling her undazl'd eyes at the full midday beam purging and unscaling her long abused sight at the fountain it self of heav'nly radiance while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds with those also that love the twilight flutter about amaz'd at what she means and in their envious gabble would prognosticat a year of sects and schisms What should ye doe then should ye suppresse all this flowry crop of knowledge and new light sprung up and yet springing daily in this City should ye set an Oligarchy of twenty ingrossers over it to bring a famin upon our minds again when we shall know nothing but what is measur'd to us by their bushel Beleeve it Lord and Commons they who counsell ye to such a suppressing doe as good as bid ye suppresse your selves and I will soon shew how If it be desir'd to know the immediat cause of all this free writing and free speaking there cannot be assing'd a truer then your own mild and free and human government it is the liberty Lords and Commons which your own valorous and happy counsels have purchast us liberty which is the nurse of all great wits this is that which hath ratify'd and enlightn'd our spirits like the influence of heav'n this is that which hath enfranchis'd enlarg'd and lifted up our apprehensions degrees above themselves Ye cannot make us now lesse capable lesse knowing lesse eagarly pursuing of the truth unlesse ye first make your selves that made us so lesse the lovers lesse the founders of our true liberty We can grow ignorant again brutish formall and slavish as ye found us but you then must first become that which ye cannot be oppressive arbitrary and tyrannous as they were from whom ye have free'd us That our hearts are now more capacious our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest and exactest things is the issue of your owne vertu propagated in us ye cannot suppresse that unlesse ye reinforce an abrogated and mercilesse law that fathers may dispatch at will their own children And who shall then stick closest to ye and excite others not he who takes up armes for cote and conduct and his four nobles of Danegelt Although I dispraise not the defence of just immunities yet love my peace better if that were all Give me the liberty to know to utter and to argue freely according to conscience above all liberties What would be best advis'd then if it be found so hurtfull and so unequall to suppresse opinions for the newness or the unsutablenes to a customary acceptance will not be my task to say I only shall repeat what I have learnt from one of your own honourable number a right noble and pious Lord who had he not sacrific'd his life and fortunes to the Church and Commonwealth we had not now mist and bewayl'd a worthy and undoubted patron of this argument Ye know him I am sure yet I for honours sake and may it be eternall to him shall name him the Lord Brook He writing of Episcopacy and by the way treating of sects and schisms left Ye his vote or rather now the last words of his dying charge which I know will ever be of dear and honour'd regard with Ye so full of meeknes and breathing charity that next to his last testament who bequeath'd love and peace to his Disciples I cannot call to mind where I have read or heard words more mild and peacefull He there exhorts us to hear with patience and humility those however they be miscall'd that desire to live purely in such a use of Gods Ordinances as the best guidance of their conscience gives them and to tolerat them though in some disconformity to ourselves The book
it self will tell us more at large being publish to the world and dedicated to the Parlament by him who both for his life and for his death deserve that what advice he left be not laid by without perusall And now the time in speciall is by priviledge to write and speak what may help to the furder discussing of matters in agitation The Temple of Janus with his two controversal faces might now not unsignificantly be set open And though all the windes of doctrin were let loose to play upon the earth so Truth be in the field we do injuriously by licencing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength Let her and Falshood grapple who ever knew Truth put to the wors in a free and open encounter Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing He who hears what praying there is for light and clear knowledge to be sent down among us would think of other matters to be constituted beyond the discipline of Geneva fram'd and fabric't already to our hands Yet when the new light which we beg for shines in upon us there be who envy and oppose if it come not first in at their casements What a collusion is this whenas we are exhorted by the wise man to use diligence to seek for wisdom as for hidd'n treasures early and late that another order shall enjoyn us to know nothing but by statute When a man hath bin labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge hath furnisht out his findings in all their equipage drawn forth his reasons as it were a battell raung'd scatter'd and defeated all objections in his way calls out his adversary into the plain offers him the advantage of wind and sun if he please only that he may try the matter by dint of argument for his opponets then to sculk to lay ambushments to keep a narrow bridge of licencing where the challenger should passe though it be valour anough in shouldiership is but weaknes and cowardise in the wars of Truth For who knows not that Truth is strong next to the Almighty she needs no policies nor stratagems nor licencings to make her victorious those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power give her but room do not bind her when she sleeps for then she speaks not true as the old Proteus did who spake oracles only when he was caught bound but then rather she turns herself into all shapes except her own and perhaps tunes her voice according to the time as Micaiah did before Ahab untill she be adjur'd into her own likenes Yet is it not impossible that she may have more shapes then one What else is all that rank of things indifferent wherein Truth may be on this side or on the other without being unlike her self What but a vain shadow else is the abolition of those ordinances that hand writing nayl'd to the crosse what great purchase is this Christian liberty which Paul so often boasts of His doctrine is that he who eats or eats not regards a day or regards it not may doe either to the Lord How many other things might be tolerated in peace and left to conscience had we but charity and were it not the chiefstrong hold of our hypocrisie to be ever judging one another I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks the ghost of a linnen decency yet haunts us We stumble and are impatient at the least dividing of one visible congregation from another though it be not in fundamentalls and through our forwardnes to suppresse and our backwardnes to recover any enthrall'd peece of truth out of the gripe of custom we care not to keep truth separated from truth which is the fiercest rent and disunion of all We doe not see that while we still affect by all means a rigid externall formality we may as soon fall again into a grosse conforming stupidity a stark and dead congealment of wood and hay and stubble forc't and frozen together which is more to the sudden degenerating of a Church then many subdichotomies of petty schisms Not that I can think well of every light separation or that all in a Church is to be expected gold and silver and presious stones it is not possible for man to sever the wheat from the tares the good fish from the other frie that must be the Angels Ministery at the end of mortall things Yet if all cannot be of one mind as who looks they should be this doubtles is more wholsome more prudent and more Christian that many be tolerated rather then all compell'd I mean not tolerated Popery and open superstition which as it extirpats all religions and civill supremacies so it self should be extirpat provided first that all charitable and compassionat means be us'd to win and regain the weak and the misled that also which is impious or evil absolutely either against faith or maners no law can possibly permit that intends not to unlaw it self but those neighboring differences or rather indifference are what I speak of whether in some point of doctrine or of discipline which though they may be many yet need not interrupt the unity of Spirit if we could but find among us the bond of peace In the mean while if any one would write and bring his helpfull hand to the slow-moving Reformation which we labour under if Truth have spok'n to him before others or but seem'd at least to speak who hath so bejesuited us that we should trouble that man with asking licence to doe so worthy a deed and not consider this that if it come to prohibiting there is not ought more likely to be prohibited then truth it self whose first appearance to our eyes bleat'd and dimm'd with prejudice and custom is more unsightly and unplausible then many errors ev'n as the person is of many a great man slight and contemptible to see to And what doe they tell us vainly of new opinions when this very opinion of theirs that none must be heard but whom they like is the worst and newest opinion of all others and is the chief cause why sects and schisms doe so much abound and true knowledge is kept at distance from us besides yet a greater danger which is in it For when God shakes a Kingdome with strong and healthfull commotions to a generall reforming 't is not untrue that many sectaries and false teachers are then busiest in seducing but yet more true it is that God then raises to his own work men of rare abilities and more then common industry not only to look back and revise what hath bin taught heretofore but to gain furder and goe on some new enlightn'd steps in the discovery of truth For such is the order of Gods enlightning his Church to dispense and deal out by degrees his beam so as our earthly eyes may best sustain it Neither is God appointed and confin'd where and out of what place these