NEBULO ANGLICANUS Or The First Part of the BLACK LIFE OF Iohn Gadbury It is the Same JOHN GADBVRY That was in the Popish Plot to murther Charles II. in the Year 1678. It is the Same JOHN GADBURY That was accused of being in another Plot to dethrone and destroy King William in the Year 1690. It is the Same JOHN GADBURY That at this Time is so strait-lac'd in Conscience that he cannot take the Oaths to their Present Majesties Together with an Answer to a Late Pamphlet of His. By J. PARTRIDGE I have fought with Beasts after the manner of Men c. London Printed and are to be sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster 1693. Merlinus Verax a specicâ— protestant Good People pity me for I 'm half mad Both Fool and Knave and every thing that 's bad Beget by Chance my Stars with Loves soft arm No Priest concern'd gave Figure to the Sperm My Furious Form thus laid her sullen Womb Preserv'd the wonder of the Age to come I 've liv'd in Vice and Tricking all my days And I 'll be any thing to live in Ease I 'll be a Heathen Protestant or Jew A Turk a Papist any thing that 's new Let but the Priests of my Religion say it Go Swear or Kill I 'll certainly obey it My Crimes Pox take my Fate I can't disown There 's nothing vexeth me but that they 're known Nay many Vices more infect my Will But my Discretion keeps them seeret still Well pray for me Romes Saints 't is that I crave A poor fall'n Brother but all over Slave And in my good old Shape too I 'll appear Your Thimble Prophet and your Bodkin Seer TO THE Most Exquisitly Accomplish'd IN Plotting Tricking AND INGRATITUDE My Honoured Friend Mr. John Thimble of Brick-Court May it please Your Insolency OVT of a horrible respect to Your Ignorance and want of Merit as well as Vertue and Honesty I have made bold to borrow a Grain from your vast Treasury of Impudence to qualifie and render me more acceptable to your superbious Tutorship and that by the help of your Frowns I may more carelesly approach your Imperious Carkass to kiss your Fist of Violence with this small bundle of Gratitude and with a great deal of Submission for I know you expect Surreverence I humbly desire you to remember how grateful you were to Mr. Lilly your Kind and Generous Master that rescued you from the Thimble-Dispensation and taught you how to get meat to your Bread that being you know the First and Second Course when you lived within less than a Mile of Strand-Bridge and after this and abundance more of Kindness which you have acknowledged in Print the worst Word in your Budget was too good for him and you have abused him who was your Master as much as you have done Me that You say was your Pupil Hah Jack Gratitude Gratitude Master and Pupil both suffer alike no Mercy in Brick Court And so I take my Leave of my Confoundedly Learned Pythagor-Ass and both with Goad and Awl I shall attend your Thimble and Bodkin and am ready to serve You while I am J. P. To the Impartial READER Friend or no Friend I Have lately met with a Scandalous Invidious Pamphlet sent into the World without a Name called Merlini Liberati Errata as if the Author of it either for Scandalous Crimes or other Villanies were asham'd to let the World know from whence it came and also would very fain have the World believe it was done by some Friend to J. G. one that is willing to defend him that is either unable or asham'd to defend himself But whosoever hath had any Conversation with Mr. John Thimble will easily guess who spawn'd this spurious Brat for it is as like its Dad as if it had been digg'd out of his A with a Pick-Axe In a word it came from our Popish-Protestant Conjurer in Brick Court And therefore good Reader pardon the Entertainment I must here give you of such a Fulsome and Nauseous Subject and pray pity me that must endure the Stench of raking into the Vicious Actions and worse Conversation of a Dung-hill Fellow that stinks in the Norstrils of all good and sober people A Fellow that is a Scandal to Humanity a Satyr upon Vertue a Hater of Truth a Promoter of Slavery a Protestant in Masquerade a Renegado in Religion unkind to those that have served him unjust to his Wife unchast in his Conversation unfaithful to his Friend treacherous to his Prince and a Sworn Enemy to the Religion and Liberties of England I know very well that Contention of this nature is never welcome in Print to Mankind in general nor had I took the pains of writing or given you the trouble of reading these Sheets of Controversie had it not been to justifie my self from the Aspersions of my Adversary who hath bespattered me with Falshood and to tell you the Truth he is a Common Lyar. If you meet with any Rough Words or Personal and Mechanical Reflections in the Pages following I desire you to read the mover with a charitable and friendly Censure for I do assure you there is not any thing of that nature but what falls from my Pen unwillingly and was forcibly drawn from me by his soul and scurrilous Language and in reference to Mechanical Reflections as my Pen never quarrelled till his threw down the Gantlet so I never touch'd upon those till he broke the Ice So that you see he is still the Aggressor in all things of this Nature As to his Vnskilfulness in his Profession his Self-contradiction False and Ignorant Assertions in Astrology and Confused Rules and Aphorisms stolen asserted and applied I do not think fit to publish them in such a Treatise as this is but in one where they shall remain not for a Year but for an Age and to be read by such persons as will be competent Judges in the Matter whether I speak Truth or not But I will here take the Liberty to remind him and the World of one thing since he hath endeavoured to make me appear so ignorant and silly a Fellow as he doth and that is in his Epistle to my Vade Mecum where he says This Learned Epitomy of Astrology here presented unto thee Worthy Reader is a most Exact and genuine Piece of Art free from Impurity and Falshood Thou hast here the Oar of Science without the Dross the True Wine without the Dregs and all the Parts of this Most Excellent and Useful Learning so well and judiciously methodised and so neatly and curiously handled by our Author in a Vein so modest and taking without perplexing his Matter with any thing impertinent and useless that this Book alone is sufficient to make thee a Competent Artist in every part of Astrology In a word there is nothing wanting but our Thanks to the Author for his Great Care and Pains taken therein Now I suppose no man will doubt
a Reason why he always omitted it in his Almanack every Year Now what think you of my Dark Lanthorn Conjurer is he not a Seraphick Youth at this time I can assure you he was an Impudent Insolent openly-profess'd Papist and talk'd both like Knave and Fool. Now it was that he rail'd and rav'd against the Church of England in defence of Popery as he used to do against the Nonconformists and Fanaticks in defence of the Church of England after Charles the Second came in Now it was that all were Villains and Traytors in John's Opinion that would not submit against the Laws to a Popish King and give up their Liberties Estates c. to Old Granne Church again to maintain Abby Lubbers and Whorish Nuns John's peculiar Saints and now it was he wanted to be a Justice of Peace In 1688. when the Party began to apprehend a Storm Jack's Business was to support them with Promises and apply warm Clouts to their Capacities while his own trembled like an Apsenleaf see his fulsome Almanack for that Year Now it was he gave a written Paper out among the Papists wherein were Words to this purport the Prince being then coming He hoped to see him and his Great men with him brought to make Speeches at Tower-hill and Tyburn you see Honest John was then for making thorough Work whoever affronted him or Granne Church at that time he scorn'd to give himself the trouble to contend or talk out his Thoughts to them or convert them but throw a Halter a Hatchet or a Gallows at them and then their Work was done and they were certainly dead in Law What! Affront Jack or his Church In 1689. John was come to his Ne plus Ultra in Popery and for a long time never said his Prayers because he did not know what sort of them he should take up with next for he resolves to go to Heaven by no other Religion than that which is in fashion no matter if it be Mahumetism that will do according to John's Notion in his Epistle to his Almanack 1682. where he says That God always sends Kings of that Religion which he expects those Nations to be of where they govern This is a very honest Fellow he came raw into the World and will never go roasted out for Religion I will pass my word for him In 1690. about June John was catch'd at the Post-Office in sending a Bundle of Treason to some of his Popish Friends in which was one of King James's Declarations a Treasonable Copy of Verses against the King and Queen which he promised his Friend should be printed in a short time but above all a most Villanous Letter against the Government in which he assured his Friend that King J's Declarations were set up on all the Church Doors in Devonshire and Cornwall and that they had agreed with the French King to take off all their Tin at a certain rate and they had all declared for King James and to use his own Words for it he said King J's Interest was like a Cart overthrowed and therefore they must get a considerable help to set it upright on its Wheels again and then drive on as before Now I would ask him if this Rebellious Principle is agreeable to his old N isey Doctrine of Non-resistance when he asks what is Passive Obedience turned into bearding upbraiding and dethroning of Kings Rep. pag. 21. But at that time John was a Popish Casuist to defend a base and Villanous Cause the shaven Crowns and their Dow-baked Gods the very Treason that he was taken in that Year in the Late bloody Reigns would have hang'd any man The D. of Monmouths Declaration took away Will. Disney's Life and Collonel Sidney died for publishing a Book in his Study Mr. Colledge for carrying a Regiment of men in a Portmanteau to seise the King at Oxford but John met with a more merciful Government and a better Fate but how he deserved it I will leave you to judge In 1691. his time was employed in supporting the Party and giving them assurances of their old Master's Return and this by the power of the Stars In the end of 1688. he did assure them he would be here again by Christmas or to use his own words for it For a New-years-Gift that failing he engaged he would be here at farthest by Easter in 1689. but that also failing and then he was certain he would not fail of being here by Michaelmas and then he put them off till Easter 1690. and because he would be sure of it then he was in a Plot himself to restore him just like Young Nostradamus they tell of who predicted the burning of a City and rather than have his Prophecy want success he fired it himself for which he was hang'd In 1692. he had a fresh Ferment in his Conscience about Religion and having not confidence to go to the Abby where he used to go when he was a supposed Protestant before I hear he comes now to St. Margaret's Church as a Protestant and with abundance of Devotion you may be sure where he certainly lies purdue to watch for another Opportunity to change his Religion or rather to shape his Conscience according to the next New Cut of Faith that he finds suitable to his Advantage and Interest they being the two main Arguments of his Religion and Piety and notwithstanding he is again turned a Mungrel Protestant of the Church of England I have heard very lately that he hath trumpt up a New Argument to encourage the Papists and their Accomplices to expect their Old Master next Year 1694. and that is from the MC ad ☌ ♃ but the Lord help his Ignorance and his Folly and pity those that are deluded by him for that Direction will not come up before he is almost 69 years of Age in the year 1702. and for the MC ad △ ☉ that comes up not till 1709. so great is his Ignorance and Confidence to comfort the Party with Lies and Juggles Thus I have brought this worthy Gentleman to the 65th Year of his Age and very fairly given you the Account of his Life as to those things I treat of and do really think I have not done him any Injury in relating Matter of Fact if I am any ways out or amiss it is only in being short and not relating his Crimes to the height they were acted by their Author and therefore I had rather modestly screen his Villanies with a deficiency in Relation of them than to abound in their History at this time and this the rather because the very Glimpse of them in this short Account will give him so foul and so black a Character that all men of Honesty and Honour will detest his Principles and conclude him to be the greatest in the world What will you say to him that enticeth away and steals his Neighbour's Dog Why you cannot call him less than Thief but then what will you judge him
to be that by Amorous Letters Copies of Verses and Vocal Perswasions enticeth away his Neighbour's Wife takes her to his House gets her with Child and then kicks her out of Doors again to the mercy of the wide world and the fury of her Husband not to speak a word of the Murther of Mr. G. and these are so well known that there are many in Town acquainted with each Particular and indeed I know something of the matter my self having had the Honour to see her at his House at that time What will you think of him that hunts for a New Faith sometimes once a Year but for the most part once every Seven Years What will you think of him that was in a Plot to murther the King he always pretented to support what think you of him that was in another Plot to murther and dethrone that King that had before pardoned him and forgave all his Villanies and Treasons against him What will you think of him that railed and raved at the Royal Party in 1657. that railed at the Fanaticks from 1660. forwards that railed at the Church of England in defence of Popery in the Year 1687. and now curseth his own Stars that he wants power to be a greater than he is What think you of him that would have suborned a man to hâ—ve sworn Crimes against a Gentleman even to Life Liberty and Estate This is such a Villany that none but such who are perjured themselves would ever attempt Suborners of Perjury why they are worse than Highway-men and Hâ—use-breakers for we may be safe from one sort by strong Doors and Walls and from the other by staying at home But who can be safe against false Oaths who can be safe when two or three conspire together and are willing to take a False Oath at the price of their own Damnation and Eternal Ruin What shall we say when a Man hath his Life snatched from him by the False Oaths of two perjured Villains and dies an Ignominious Death for a Base and Scandalous Crime that he was never guilty of The Lord remember the sufferings of the people in the Late Bloody Reigns Perjury is such a Crime that next to Murther our Lawgivers have thought fit to make a severe Act for the punishment of such Offenders and yet you see when Malice rides abroad Rampant and Conscience stays at home it is no hard thing to find a certain Saint that used to go with abundance of Devotion to the Abby who is willing to undergo not only the Drudgery of Swearing but Swearing falsly or at leastwise to perswade others to do it which if there is any difference is the worst Crime of the two and I doubt not but every one who is willing to perswade others to such Offences are ready to do it themselves or else have been guilty of the same Crimes formerly Who can have the impudence to look God or Man in the Face without blushing or a dejected Countenance when he knows his Soul is loaded with such a horrid Villany and his Conscience tells him every moment that he deserves the punishment due to so heinous a thing or else on his Knees he ought to confess it and beg the Gentleman's Pardon if he is not past Grace and Repentance And so I come to consider a Pamphlet lately sent forth into the World without a Name as if the Author of it was either afraid or asham'd to own what he had done or else by reason of other Crimes he thought his Name instead of making his Book sell might have damn'd it to a perpetual oblivion and have saved us the labour of reading it Ex pede Hercules by the Man you may know the Matter and you may be certain that J. G. can as soon eat that Paper as write a Treatise without his Two Martyrs in it just like Roger wedded to Forty One And tho it comes without the Author's Name in the Title Page yet I can without the help of the Stars tell it came out of Brick-Court and that John Gadbury is the Author of it which he calls Merlini Liberati Errata which I will consider and give an Answer to his material Objections therein alledged against me and do assure him that as I have already made him appear a Knave so I will shew the World he is also a Fool especially in that Profession he pretends to which is the Art of Astrology and likewise how silly as well as false the most part of his Objections are passing by his wittycâ—sms as well as his Reflections being sensible that the best of Authors nay the Word of God too hath been defamed and abused by the Witty Jests c. of Debauched Men and by some in particular of J. G.'s Acquaintance that I could name AN ANSWER TO HIS Idle PAMPHLET IN his Title Page I perceive he is an earnest Honourer of his King c. I am glad to hear of such a Reformation for it is not three years since he was accus'd of being in a Plot to dethrone and murther the King and to this day he cannot in conscience take the Oaths to Their Majesties and yet an earnest Honourer of the King c. It would be convenient I think to ask him What King for I am sure our King is not his if he cannot take an Oath to be true to Him In his Epistle to the Reader he complains of my Bruitish Bawling and Beastly Language which is needless if true seeing he pretends to be my Master having taught me one by his Bouncing Empty Writings and the other by his Debauched and Beast-like Life and Conversation In the very next Words he takes care of the Church and State meaning I judge that of France for a Papist can never intend the Church of England if he doth and designs what he says he is damn'd by his own Principles but you may see he hath undertaken to patch up the Cause and therefore let it be so and for his two Martyrs I refer my Reader to M. G. Ludlow's Letter for the one and to the Cruelties of the Star-Chamber especially Dr. Layton's Case for the other for I have something else to do than to spend my precious Time about such things as are not to my present Purpose And at last of all he calls out to the Church of England for help one would think he might call to his own Church if he knew which it was which I doubt he doth not after all this choping and changing of his Religions for he always serves his God in the newest Fashion and so I come to the Matter it self Pag. 6. The first thing he falls foul on shews the Fellow to be top-full of Malice and what little things must serve him to make a noise with in my Epistle I said This little Book will run the Nation thorough but that way did not please him it seems to express it and therefore after a great deal of noisey stuff he puts me as
's Body would be darkned Pray then where is the Error that this foolish Fellow makes a noise about In the two other Eclipses he shews his Malice and his Ignorance in carping at my Quotation of Junctine for the Texts there alledged he knows very well they are printed by Junctine in his Speculum and if so Where is the cause for this silly rattle-headed Fellow's Noise and Clamour I am afraid really the Fellow must to Bedlam and his Family too if the Mad-Moon doth not prove the more kind to him and so I come to the NB. Pag. 17. Here he wriggles about and I cannot tell well what he would be at but at last he quarrels with my false Grammar pray see his Ability to correct me in pag. 81 and 82. opus Reformat but at last he concludes my measure of Time is mortal because I use the word Expire Pray Jack tell me if your Measure of Time doth not expire how do you know when your Direction begins to operate for according as I understand it when the measure of an Ark of Direction is out or the Years Months and Days are expired allowed by that Measure then the Direction begins to shew its Effects if so I am right in the Word Expire and again if your Measure is as you say Immortal and hath no End how is it a Measure for Time it self that is to be measured is not immortal then how can your Measure be so and every Measure is extremely less in length than the thing measured but this Objection is one of the exquisite Points of your Nonsence and besides thou art one of the impudentest Fellows in nature for I say at the â–¡ of ☉ ♄ the same is on the Moon 's radical place she at his Birth being near 6 degs in ♌ and when the Sun came to six in ♌ he was applying to the Square of Saturn within about five Degrees What! doth such silly Cavils as these become the Great man in Brick-court Fie for shame learn more wit or else more modesty Pag. 18. I do confess the French King's Nativity is as certainly mine as the Merlini Liberati Errata was Jack Gadbury's nor do I disown any of it tho I confess it was done by the approbation as well as the instigation of J. G. nor do I deny his Nativity to be a great one but this doth not hinder him from being a Tyrant and an Opprâ—ssor and I was deluded by Jack at that time to print that Tyrant's Nativity and it was he that provided me a Book seller with whom I suppose he agreed to bubble both the Printer and the Author for I never had a penny for my Copy tho perhaps he had Remember Stow's Chronicle Jack At the same time that he encouraged and put me upon doing this thing he then also gave me a Copy written by himself called Vtrum horum Rome or Geneva Never a Barrel better Herring designed against all Religions but most chiefly against the Reformed Protestant Profession this he bid me carry to one Mr Reynolds a Bookseller which I did and desire him to print it with my Name to it but he refused to do it asking me If I knew what it was I told him I knew nothing but the Title believing my Friend J. G. would not have put an ill thing upon me he said It was an ill thing and against Religion and therefore he would not print it and the Copy I bel eve I have by me still and had this Villanous Book been also done in print I doubt not but he would abuse me for it as well as he doth for the other and to say the truth it is his Doctrine and Method but both false yet it was my Labour and Pains taken in the compiling of it all which I do at present disown in this my Practice having a Method more agreeable to Nature and the real Motion that we all contend for and let this Fellow if he can shew what I have said in any Predictions about him that is opposite to the very matter he relates But at the bottom of that page he says He owns it his duty to serve the King and Country in Purse and Person and this he resolves to do cordially You serve the King both with Purse and Person yes so you did in 1690. with your Popish Declaration and your Treasonable Letter You boast of your Loyalty I suppose you mean to your Popish King Do you think Non-resistance is not a Duty now as well as it was six or seven Years ago leave off your canting and your lying and learn your Duty to God and our King without Popish and Knavish Equivocations Pag. 19. If there were nothing else to prove that Pamphlet writ by J. Gadbury this Page of it self is sufficient for I think no man but him hath a Face so qualified to put such a Falshood upon the World and to entertain his Reader with the relation of a Story that gives the lie to his own knowledge at the same moment and therefore I do refer it to every or any Reader for judgment provided he hath not been of too many Religions He chargeth me with saying That I knew no ground of a difference in the Year 1690. and now in 1693. I pretend to find one I stand amazed to think any man should have such a Stock of Impudence to tell such a notorious Lie with so much Confidence and therefore pray hear the Story fairly In the Epistle to my Almanack 1690. I have these Words The Ground of our Difference I know not and would desire him to tell that but when I was beyond Sea and he thought he should never see me more he wrote a Book against me called a Reply so full of Malice Ill Language Lies and malicious Expressions almost impossible to be believed or that a Villain should be so ungenteel to a man in Tribulation that never gave him the least occasion imaginable if I did let him speak c. Now it appears that he takes the first six or seven words of the Paragraph and from thence says I tell the world I know no cause of difference 'T is true I say so still I know no cause he had to begin that Quarrel with me and he knows he began for he printed first and abused me basely and that was the Cause on my side but the Cause on his and the reason why he writ that villanous Reply in 1687. I know not and therefore would desire him to tell it for it is not his Impudence and Popish way of lying shall silence me so long as I have Justice on my side The first occasion of our difference did indeed appear to me in the end of September 1680. he and I then being in company I called his Cousin Cellier so he then own'd her a hard Name for which I thought he would have beaten me but that I was not willing to it There was also another Reason about that time for one day
but he meant what he said at that time if so it is a wonder I should be so much altered as he seems to infer and prove in his late Libel and grown less skilful If I did deserve that Commendation then he is an ill man to endeavour to proâ—e the contrary now if I dâ—d not deserve it then he was a Fool or a Knâ—ve to give it But in a short time you will have a full and a fair Account of our Brick-Court Astrologer where he shall appear the most Ignorant man that ever pretended to the Art in Print By Your Friend J.P. A Short ACCOUNT Of a Few REMARKABLE PASSAGES IN THE EDUCATION and LIFE Of Honest J. G. WE see plainly that Nature hath not bound her self to a particular Method in the Order and Way of Generation in all Creatures but sports her self in the Variety and Order both as to Time and Method just as she doth in the Colours of Herbs and Flowers A Fly-blow on a Cabbage turns to a Maggot and afterwards to a Butterfly with curious Colours Serpents lay their Eggs and they are hatch'd by the heat of the Dung or some other hot Soyl They tell us of a sort of Creature in India that when they conceive the Female bites off the Male's Head and when the young ones are ripe for Production they are not brought forth like other Creatures but gnaw their way through the Damm's Belly Cats are very modest in Coition and always do it privately but Dogs and their Kind generate openly in the Streets with a sort of Impudence as some other Creatures do Hence the Poet Vipers bring Vipers forth by this I find Bitches get Puppies to supply their Kind It is no Scandal for any of the Divine Vrania's Servants either to be a By-blow or got or born at a venture without the consent either of Priest or Parish nor is every one bound to wait for the Conveniency of Chamber-Furniture or the Invitation of the Kindred Sometimes a Tayler waiting to try the Lady's Stays le ts fly at the Game and receives the Fertile Product of his Labour at Nine Months end They say an ill Bird lays an ill Egg If so the Brood must be of the same Nature that is thence produced You see Children born of dull heavy Parents how stupid and blockish they naturally are and that Bastards are generally brisk and airy and also promoters of the same way that gave them their Being I know a Hero born of an Illustrious Dam who had a peculiar way to consecrate Nosegays to borrow money with you 'll wonder how I 'll warrant you and indeed so you may very well and so let 's enter Don Phylo Mathematicus Secretary and Buffoon to the Divine Vrania who was born December 31st between the Old Year and the New as if Nature had form'd him for a Squint-ey'd Proselite always looking two ways or like a Waterman that looks one way and rows another one that was doom'd by his Stars to draw his Religion once a year as people do Valentines by lot and also defends the Faith he hath drawn till the Season comes again for him to draw a new one This Little Furioso while in Swadling Cloaths gave early Demonstrations of his respect to Religion for where-ever he saw a Cross especially a gilded one he would always make a Reverend Bow to it which gave his Mother who was a Papist mighty hopes of his future Perfection in the Old Faith nor did there want early Arguments of his Fertile Fancy and Quick Parts for they say he would often B two or three Clouts before his Nurse could wash one Likewise when he did arrive at the growth of a Standing-Stool he was immediately hammering at the crabbed Expressions of Silly-gisms Dilemma's Arks and Semediameters so that his indulgent Parents began to think of sending this little Elf to the University of Oxford before he was corrupted with the Education of his Hornbook And indeed this was soon put in practice afterwards and away they sent him to St. Nicholi's Colledge where by the help of a good Tutor and a whetting Diet this little Thief grew as sharp as a Needle to the admiration of all the Fellows of that House and the circumadjacent Colledges who spent their time in that kind of Study so that it was generally agreed on as a Gratitude to his Merit and for the Reputation of his Parts to confer on him that Honourable Title of Lousy Jack and under this Reputation he was for some time made Runner General for the whole Society where he spent a few years to make him fit to take his Degrees at London to which place he came at a good suitable Age as you shall suddenly hear more at large To compleat his Crimes in the future part of his Life to London comes our Academian and put himself a Club he knows the Term which is common among Philosophers of that Sect to a Merchant Adventurer whose Name was Thorn living near Strand-Bridge These Merchants do generally use a Sparing Diet about July and August walk with their Hands in their Pockets and suddenly after go a Nutting With this Master he continued some time and in conclusion being moved by a pious Inclination entered into the Holy State of Matrimony But under what Circumstances he was afterwards I shall forbear to mention as being unwilling to reflect on those Accidents that naturally attend the Order of Nature and the Fate of Mankind Poverty and Necessity being liable to every man at one time or other of his Life and he that never feels the smart of it may be reckoned among the happiest sort of men in this World And indeed here must I put an end to the more innocent part of his Life and also make a bar between the former and the latter for now he puts on the Armour of a bad Conscience to justifie and defend his worse Crimes and also a Vail of Piety alias Hypocrisie to be thought a Man of great Religion and Vertue in his new Undertakings For now he resolves as his Actions prove to be aut Caesar aut Nullus and to want no Preferment that Crimes can procure And to qualifie him for the Excellence of such Undertakings he falls in with the then Presbyterian Congregations in London and afterwards with the Independants as himself says in his Doctrine of Nativities pag. 262. About the 22d year of his Age he says he was almost mad about the Doctrine of Predestination because he could not find in himself those signs of God's Love and Favour which they told him of and therefore sometimes concluded that he was in a state of Damnation But this Religious Strain did not hold long for indeed it was too hot to hold and if you do but observe you will for the most part find such Young Zealots as he was are generally more Whoremongers than Divines he suddenly thinks of hunting for a new Religion and it must be such a one too that