these passages these breathings of M. Burton in his Apologie and Appeal In which he calls on the Nobility To rouse up their spirits and magnanimous courage for the truth and to stick close to God and the King in helping the Lord and his anointed against the mighty upon the Judges to draw forth the sword of Justice to defend the Laws against such Innovators who as much as in them lieth divide between the King and People upon the Courtiers to put too their helping hands and prayers to rescue our religion and faithful Ministers then suspended from the jaws of those devouring Wolves and tyrannizing lordly Prelates c. Upon the people generally to take notice of the desperate practises innovations and Popish designs of these Antichristian Prelates and to oppose and redress them with all their force and power And yet as if this had not been enough to declare his meaning he breaths more plainly in his Libel called The News from Ipswich in which he lets us know That till his Majesty shall hang up some of these Romish Prelates Inquisitors before the Lord as the Gibbeonites once did the seven sons of Saul we can never hope to abate any of Gods plagues c. What think you of these breathings of Buchannan in his book De Jure Regni apud Scotos where he adviseth Regum interfectoribus proemia discerni c. that Rewards should publickly be decreed for those who kill a Tyrant and the meekest King that ever was shall be called a Tyrant if he oppose the setting up of the holy Discipline as usually are proposed to those who kill Wolves or Bears And finally what think you of these breathings in one of the brethren who preaching before the House of Commons in the beginning of the long Parliament required them in the name of the Lord to shew no mercie to the Prelatical party their wives and children but that they should proceed against them as against Babylon it self even to the taking of their children and dashing their brains against the stones Call you these holy breathings the holy breathings after Christ which you so applaud Or are they not such breathings rather aâ— the Scripture attributes to Saul before his conversion who in the ninth chapter of the Acts is said to be Spirator minarum caedis adversus discipules Domini that is to say that he breathed out threatnings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. 27. As are their breathings such also is their meekness their humility their hatred of known sin their heavenly mindedness and that self-denial which you so commend for of their love to God I can take no notice As well as they are known unto you may you not be deceived in your opinion of them and take that first for a real and Christian meekness which is but counterfeit and pretended for their worldly ends Doth not our Saviour tell us of a sort of men false-preachers seducers and the like which should come in sheeps clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves What means our Savior by sheeps clothing but that innocence meekness and humility which they should manifest and express in their outward actions it being the observation of Thomas Aquinas that grand dictator in the Schools In nomine â—vis innocentiam simplicitatem per totam Scripturam designarâ— And yet for all this fair appearance they were inwardly but ravening Wolves greedily thiâ—sting for the prey and hungry after spoil and rapine Astutam rapido gestanâ—es pectore vulpem in the Poets language This you may find exemplified in the Sect of the Anabaptists who at their first appearance disguised themselves in such an habit of meekness and humility and Christian patience as gained them great affection amongst the people but when they were grown unto a head and had got some power into their hands what lusts what slaughter what unmerciful cruelties did they not commit when Tyrannie and K. John of Leyden did so rage in Munster But because possible you may say that these are not the men whom your character aims at tell me what spirit of meeknesse you find in Calvin when he called Mary Q. of England by the name of Proserpine and tells us of her that she did superare omnes diabolos that all the Devils in hell were not half so mischievous or what in Beza when he could find no better title for Mary Q. of Scots then those of Athaliah and Medea the one as infamous in Scripture for her barbarous cruelty as the other is in heathen Writers or what of Peury Vdal and the rest of the Rabble of Mar Prelates in Queen Elizabeths time to whom there never was the like generation of railing Rabshakehs since the beginning of the world Or what of Dido Clariâ—s who calls King James for neither Kings nor Queens can escape them intentissimum Evangelii hostem the most bitter enemy of the Gospel and I say nothing of the scandalous reports and base reproaches which were laid upon his son and successor by the tongues and pens of too many others of that party 28. Look upon their humility and you shall find them exalting themselvs above Kings Princes and all that is called God the Pope and they contending for the supreme power in the Church of Christ For doth not Traverse say expresly in his Book of Discipline Huic Disciplinae omnes principes fasces suas submittere necesse est that Kings and Princes must submit their Scepters to the Rod of that Discipline which Calvin had devised and his followers here pursued so fiercely Have not some others of them declared elsewhere that Kings and Princes must lay down their Scepters at the Churches feet yea and lick up the dust thereof understanding always by the Church their one holy Discipline did they not carry themselves so proudly in the time of that Queen whom they compared to a sluttish housewife who swept the middle of the room but left the dust behinde the door and in every corner that being asked by a grave Counsellor of State whether the removal of some Ceremonies would not serve the turn they answered with insolence enough ne ungulam esse relinquendam that they would not leave so much as an hoof behind And that you may perceive they have been as good at it in Scotland as ever they have been in England Take here the testimony of King James who had very good experience of them in the Preface to his Basilicon Doron where telling us what he means by Puritans he describes them thus I give this stile saith he to such brain-sick and Headie Preachers as refusing to be called Anabaptists participate too much with their humours not only agreeing with the general rule of all Anabaptists in the contempt of the Civil Magistrate and in leaning to their own Dreams and Revelations but particularly in accounting all men prophane that swear not to all their phantasies in making for every particular question of the Policie of the
no other issue could be expected then the curse of God in making a perpetual rent and destruction in the whole body of the state pag. 39. was not because they were so in and of themselves but for other Reasons which our great Masters in the Schools of policy called Reason of State That King had said as much as this comes too of the Puritans of Scotland whom in the second Book of his Basilicon Doron he calls the very pests of a Common-wealth whom no deserts can oblige neither Oaths nor Promises bind breathing nothing but sedition and calumny c. Advising his Son Prince Henry then Heir of the Kingdom not to suffer the Principles of them to brook his Land if he list to sit at rest except he would keep them for trying his patience as Socrates did an evil wise And yet I trow your adversary will not grant upon these expressions though he might more warrantably do it in this case then he doth in the other that Puritans are not to be suffered in a State or Nation especially in such a State which hath any mixture in it of Monarchical Government Now the Reason of State which moved King James to so much harshness against the Remonstrants or Arminians call them which you will was because they had put themselves under the Patronage of John Olden Barnevelt a man of principal authority in the Common-wealth whom the King looked upon as the profess'd Adversary of the Prince of Orange his dear Confederate and Ally who on the other side had made himself the Patron and Protector of the Rigid Calvinists In favour of which Prince that King did not only press the States to take heed of such infected persons as he stiles them which of necessiry would by little and little bring them to utter ruine if wisely and in time they did not provide against it but sent such of his Divines to the Synod of Dort as he was sure would be sufficiently active in their condemnation By which means having served his own turn secured that Prince and quieted his neighbouring provinces from the present distemper he became every day more willing then other to open his eyes unto the truths which were offered to him and to look more carefully into the dangers and ill consequence of the opposite Doctrines destructive in their own nature of Monarchial Government a matter not unknown to any who had acquaintance with the Court in the last times of the King Noâ— makes it any thing against you that his Majesties repeating the Articles of the Creed two or three days before his death should say with a kind of sprightfulness and vivacity that he believed them all in that sense which was given by the Church of England and that whatsoever he had written of this faith in his life he was now ready to seal with his death For first the Creed may be believed in every part and article of it according as it is expounded in the Church of England without reflecting on the Doctrine of Predestination and the points depending thereupon And secondly I hope your Adversary doth not think that all the bitter speeches and sharp invectives which that King made against Remonstrants were to be reckoned amongst those Articles of his faith which he had writ of in his life and was resolved to seal with his death no more then those reproachful speeches which he gives to those of the Puritan Faction in the conference at Hampton Court the Basilicon Doron for which consult my answer to Mr. Baxter neer 29. and elsewhere passim in his Writings 44. The greatest part of his Historical Arguments being thus passed over we will next see what he hath to say of his Late Majesties Declaration printed before the Articles An. 1628. and then proceed unto the rest He tells us of that Declaration how he had learned long since that it was never intended to be a two edged Sword nor procured out of any charitable design to setle the Peace of the Church but out of a Politique design to stop the mouths of the Orthodox who were sure to be censured if at any time they declared their minds whilst the new upstart Arminians were suffered to preach and print their Heterodox Notions without controul And for the proof hereof he voucheth the Authority of the Late Lord Faulkland as he finds it in a Speech of his delivered in the House of Commons Anno 1640. In which he tells us of these Doctrines that though they were not contrary to Law yet they were contrary to custome that for a long time were no ofter preached then recanted Next he observes that in the Recantation made by Mr. Thorne Mr. Hodges and Mr. Ford it is not charged upon them that they had preached any thing contrary to the Doctrine of the Church according to the ancient Form of the like Recantations enjoyned by the ancient Protestants as he calls them but onely for their going against the Kings Declaration which but only determined not having commanded silence in those points Thirdly that the Prelatical oppressions were so great in pressing this Declaration and the other about lawful Sports as were sufficient in themselves to make wise men mad 45. For answer to these Arguments if they may be called so I must first tell you that the man and his Oratour both have been much mistaken in saying that his Majesties Declaration was no two edged sword or that it tyed up the one side and let loose the other for if it wounded Mr. Thorn and his companions on the one side it smote as sharply on the other against Dr. Rainford whose Recantation he may find in the Book called Canterbury's Doome out of which he hath filched a great part of his store He is mistaken secondly in saying that this Declaration determined nothing for it determineth that no man shall put his own sence or Comment to be the meaning of the Article but should take it in the Literal and Grammatical sense which Rule if the Calvinians would be pleased to observe we should soon come to an agreement Thirdly if the supposition be true as I think it be that the Doctrines which they call Arminianism be not against the Law but contrary to custome only then is the Law on our side and nothing but custome on theirs and I think no man will affirm that Custome should be heard or kept when it is against Law But fourthly if the noble Oratour were mistaken in the supposition I am sure he is much more mistaken in the proposition these Doctrines being preach'd by Bishop Latimer and Bishop Hooper in King Edwards time by Dr. Harsnet and Peter Baroe in Queen Elizabeths time by Dr. Howson and Dr. Laud in King James his time none of which ever were subjected to the infamy of a Recantation Fiftly if the Recantation made by Mr. Thorn and his companions imported not a retracting of their opinions as he saith they did not it is a strong argument of the
suppose like a Divine 20. But you have another use to make of the Prophet Hosea whose words you cite unto a purpose that he never meant namely to prove that Kings are not of Divine Right For having said that such Divines who will alwaies have Kings to be of divine right are not to be hearkned too seeing they affirm that which is clean contrary to Scripture you add that in this case said Hosea they have set up Kings and not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not But first these words are not spoken by the Prophet touching the institution of Kings in General but onely of a particular fact in the ten Tribes of Israel by with drawing themselves from the house of David and setting up a King of their own without consulting with the Lord or craving his approbation and consent in the business Secondly If it may be said that Kings are not of Divine Right and institution because God saith here by the Prophet that some Kings have been set up but not by him you have more reason to affirm that Kings are of Divine Right and institution because he saith in another place less capable of any such misconstruction as you make of this by me Kings reign All Kings are said to reign by God because all reign by his appointment by his permission at the least And yet some Kings may be truly said not to reign by him either because they are set up by the people in a tumultuous and seditious way against the natural Kings and Princes or else because they come unto their Crowns by usurpation blood and violence contrary to his will revealed and the establisht Laws of their severall Countrys Which Argument if it should be good we could not have a stronger against such Papists as hold alwayes for it seems no mater if they did hold so but somtimes that the Pope by Divine right is head of the universall Church then by showing them out of their own Histories how many Popes have raised themselves into that See either by open faction or by secret bribery and by violent and unjust intrusion Of whom it may be said and that not improperly that though they pretend to be Christs Vicars and the successors of St. Peter yet were they never plac't by Christ in St. Peters Chair Now to dispute from the persons to the power and from the unjust wayes of acquiring that power to the original right and institution of it is such a sorry piece of Logick as you blaming those who dispute from the folly of a people against an Ordinance of God For upon what ground else do you lay the foundation of the legall Government especially amongst the Hebrews but on the folly of the people p. 11. the imprudence and importunity of the people p. 14. upon which ground also you build the supream authority of the Judges who onely by the meet folly of the people came to be set up in Israel p. 13. But certainly if their desires to have a King were folly and imprudence in them it must be felix fatuitas a very fortunate imprudence and a succesful folly I am sure of that that people never live in a settled condition till they come to the Government of Kings For was it not by the fortunate conduct of their Kings that they exterminated the rest of the Canaanites broke the Amalekites in pieces and crusht the power of the Phylistins growing by that means formidable unto all their Neigbours Was it not by the power and reputation of their Kings that they gained some strong Towns from the Children of Ammon and enlarged their Territories by the conquest of some parts of Syria that they grew strong in shipping and mannaged a wealthy trade from Esion-Geber in the streights of Babel-Mandel to the Land of Ophir in the remotest parts of India Prosperities sufficient to justifie and endear such burdens as by the alteration of the Government might be said upon them 21. From such Divines in Generall as will always I must keep that word have Kings to be by divine Right you come to me at last in my own particular charging me that at a venture I will have Kings to be of Divine Right and to be absolute whereas in truth say you if Divine Right be derived unto Kings from these of the Hebrews onely it is most apparent that no absolute King can be of Divine Right And first to answer for my self for having sometime been a Parson I shall take leave to Christen my own Child first I think that I was never so rash nor so ill advised as to speak any thing at aventure in so great a point as the originall institution and divine right of Kings Secondly I am sure I have not so little studied the Forms of Government as to affirm any where in that Book against Calvin as you call it that all Kings be absolute The second Sect. of the sixt Chapter of that Book being spent for the most part in shewing the differences between conditional Kings and an absolute Monarch And Thirdly They must be as sorry Divines and as bad Historians as my self who ascribe the absolute Power or the Divine right of Kings to the first institution of a King amongst the Hebrews For who knows not if he know any thing in that kind that there were Kings in Aegypt and Assyria as also of Scycionia in Peleponesus not long after the Flood Kings of the Aborigines and the Trojan race in Italy in that of Athens Argos and Micenae amongst the Greeks of the Parthians Syrians c. in the Greater and of Lydia in the lesser Asia long time before the Raign of Saul the first King of the Hebrews all which were absolute Monarchs in their several Countrys And as once Tully said Nulla gens tam barbara that never Nation was so barbarous but did acknowledge this principle that there was a God so will you hardly find any barbarous Nation who acknowledge not the supream Government of Kings And how then all Nations should agree in giving themselves over to the power and Government of Kings I believe none cannot show me a better reason then that they either did it by the light of natural reason by which they found that Government to be fittest for them or that the first Kings of every Nation were the heads families that retained that paternal right over all such as descended of them as might entitle their authority to divine institution For proof whereof since you have such a prejudice against Divines you need look no farther then your self who tells us p. 12. That Kings no question where the ballance is Monarchical are of Divine right and if they be good the greatest blessing that the Government so standing can be capable of or if you will not stand to this then look on the first Chapter of Aristotles Politicks where he makes the Regall Government to stand upon no other bottom then paternal Authority Initio
occasion and finally acknowledging that the principal part of what he intended was in a Book of M. Dow's But scarce had he absolved me from it when he indeavoured presently to make good the charge out of some scattered passages in a Book of mine against M. Burton published in the year 1637. so that it seems to be my fortune to be called unto as late a reckoning by M. Baxter for some passages in my Answer to Burtons most seditious Pamphlets and by D. Barnard and him both for some things taken up here and there out of my History of the Sabbath first published in the year 1635. And as if this had not been enough to quicken me to a new encounter he passeth from one point unto another charging me with profaneness in reproaching extemporary Prayer and being an enemy to the holy improvements of the Lord's day c. accusing me for many unjust as well as uncharitable speeches against my brethren for having some bloody desires and making such rigorous Laws to hang up all that are against me for speaking more favourably of the Papists then the Protestant partie with many other things intermixed here and there in some of which he disputes against me and in others he desires to be satisfied by me So that taking one thing with another he hath afforded me work enough in returning an answer which being to long to be contained in a Letter I have digested it Letter-wise into a set discourse upon all particulars which are offered to me Now M. Baxter's Letter was as followeth The Copy of M. Baxter's Answer to the first Letter of D. Heylyn's Reverend SIR I Received yours of September 13. containing your favourable judgment of my extorted discourse of Grotius his Religion with your exception of that only which concerns your â—elf And first you here wish I had spared your name unless I could have proved you to have been one of that Religion which yâ—u think I cannot or found some more particular charge against you c. To which I answer First I now wish I had spared your name my self for the reason that I shall render you anon But secondly I never gave the least intimation that I took you to be of Grotius Religion and therefore you need not call for proof of it it is another subject the sensing of the word Puri an that I am speaking of where I mention your name I hope you think not that I charge every man with the same opinion that is but named by me in the same Book Thirdly Yea I did not so much as charge you at all that is accuse you but tell the world who you took for a Puritan Concerning which words in Answer to the rest of your Letter I shall give you the just account I had read on one day above 20. years ago when it first came out your Book against M Burton and M. Dow's Book against him and I think one of M. Pocklinton's on another occasion I certainly remembred the foresaid character of a Puritan in one of them and I was perswaded that it was in yours and that something of it more or less was in both I now confess to you it was my temerity the concomitant of hast to mention you upon the trust of my memory after above 20. years time for I never had your Book since and now upon search I find the principal part of what I intended is in M. Dow's who charactereth them from their Doctrines of predestination perseverance or non-ability to fulfill the Law c. 4. But so much of it I find in yours as justifieth what I said of you if I can understand you you deal with M. Burton as the Puritans Oracle page 152. their superintendent Champion c. Preface And your description of him containeth first that he follows Illyricus in his Doctrines providentia predestinatione gratia libero Arbitrio c. pag. 182. And to satisfie us fully what you meant you refer us to the Arminians necessaria responsio pag. 83 where with pag. 82. 84 85. it is expresly manifest that it is the Doctrine of Pareus and the rest of the Contra-remonstrants that the Arminians there do charge upon Illiricus and consequently that you do charge on M. Burton the Oracle as you call him of the Puritans and so upon the Puritans with him If you say you charge not these on him quatenus a Puritan I Answer You carry it openly in all your Book as if you dealt with him only as a Puritan and seditious and so describe Puritans by him If you mix such Doctrinal charges and afterwards tell us that you meant them on some other account you satisfie your Reader that understandeth you as describing Puritans only when you so often give the person described that name and profess to oppose him as such and tel us of no other ground And what else you mean by their accustomed wresting of the Article in the point of predestination is past my understanding there being no accustomed Doctrine but the Anti-Arminian among the Puritans in the point of Predestination that you can call a wresting of the Article you add also to help us further to understand you that it is false that D. Jackson ' s Books are to maintain Arminianism pag. 122. 123. 5. Sir You are the expounder of your own words and may give us the Law in what sense we shall understand them because they are the signs of your own mind which is known only to your self And if you shall but tell me that you meant somewhat else then your words in the common sense import I shall take my self bound to understand you accordingly hereafter and if you require it I shall willingly publish an account of my mis-understanding of you with my following satisfaction to the world to do you right But till you shall give us another sense of your own you must needs allow us to take your words in the common sense 6. I shall not trouble you with any more on that subject But were it not that in your writings I â—avour a spirit so very distant from my disposition that I have small hopes that my words will escape your displeasure I should on this occasion have dealt freely with you about many things in many of your Books that have long been matter of scandal and grief to men that have much Christian meekness and moderation Many reproaches against extemporary Prayer the holy improvement of the Lords day c. with many unjust as well as uncharitable speeches of your Brethren whom you took for adversaries are matters that I am exceeding confident you have exceeding cause in tears and sorrow to bewaile before the Lord and for which you are very much obliged to publish your penitential lamentations to the World and were it my case I would not for ten thousand Worlds dye before I had done it and if I erre in this I think it not through partiality but through weakness Oh the
common sense import though I desire that my words should be understood alwaies in the litteral sense or in any other sense that you shall give them as afore was said which being premised I would fain see how you prove the point which you have so blindly undertaken Marry say you I deal with M. Burton as the Puritans Oracle pag. 152. their superintendent Champion c. as in my Preface to that Book and my desâ—râ—ptiâ—n of him is that he followeth Illyricus in his Doctrines de providentia predestinatione gratia libero arbitrio c. pag. 182. Stay here a little M Baxter do you not tell us in the former part of your Letter that you had not seen that Book against M. Burton above 20. years and therefore condemned your temerity in mentioning me on the trust of your memory after so long time and can you now direct us not only unto single words Oracle Superintendent Champion c. and to the several pages where they are Can you direct us to a marginal Note pag. 182. relating to a Book called Necessaria Responsio and to the folios of that Book viz. pag. 82. with pag. 82 84. 85. or tell your Readâ—â— in what part or page of that Book he may find D Jackson acquitted from maintaining Arminianism and the Puritans condemned for wresting the Articles of the Church pag. 122 123. Can you do this and yet with confidence declare that it is 20. years since you saw that Book Assuredly your memory must be very good in remembring so many single words and particular passages with the very places where they are after the space of twenty years or very bad in not remembring that the description of a Puritan which you had charged on Peter Heylyn was to be found in M. Dow and perhaps not there Quid verba audiam cum facta videam You tell us that you have not seen that book this twenty years and here is evidence enough that you have it by you for I cannot think that you clogged your Note Book with such petit remembrances unless the term of twenty years may pass in your account for no more then yesterday 13. But be your memory good or bad I am sure your Logick is far worse none of old Baxter's this then your memory can be The Charge you are to prove is this That with the late Prelates a Puritan was either a Non-Conformist or a Conformist that in Doctrine was no Arminian of which sort Peter Heylyn gave us a description by their opinions By which we are to understand if you mean nothing else but what your words in the common sense import that the Puritans of whom the said sorry fellow called Peter Heylyn hath given us a description by their opinions is such a Conformist who in Doctrine is no Arminian This is the point you are to prove and for the proof of this you instance in M. Burton of Fryday-Street who though he was no Arminian in point of Doctrine yet was he so far from being a Conformist that since the hanging up of Penry at Saint Thomas of Waterings where he Preached before a very thin audience on the top of the Ladder as Johannes Stow informeth us Anno 1593. There never was a more profest outragious violent and seditious Non-Conformist in the Church of England Now if the Puritans be there described by M. Burton as you say they are or if the Reader understand me as describing Puritans only because I have so often given the person described that name as I am willing that he should and you say he must It must needs follow thereupon that the Puritans against whom I write cannot be such Conformists as are no Arminians but such notorious Non-Conformists as their Oracle and Champion M. Burton was There was an old distinction made by I know not whom betwixt the Knaves Puritan and the Knave Puritans the Knaves Puritan being one that made a conscience of his waies and followed not profane and licentious persons in their ungodly way of living But the Knave Puritans were those who under pretence of long Prayer devoured widdows houses and wilfully opposed the Rights and Ceremonies of the Church and clamorously cried down the Lordly Prelacy and jurisdiction of the Bishops that they might themselves Lord it over Gods people in their several Parishes and sit as so many petit Popes in their Classical Sessions These and no others are the Puritans against whom I write not against those who walk unblamably before God and man nor against those who following Calvin's judgment in the matter of predestination and the points concomitant conform themselves unto the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England here by Law established of which last sort were many Bishops Deanes Dignitaries in Cathedral Churches whose parts piety I admire as much as any whom it had been a madness to condemn for Puritans such Puritanism and their several dignities being inconsistent 14. So then the Puritan whom I aim at in the person of M Burton is a notorious Non-Conformist and whither I had described him or them we are next to see And my description of him as you tell us containâ—th first that hee follows Illyricus in his Doctrines dâ— providentia predestinatione gratia libero arbitrio c. If it conteins that first as you say it doth it must needs contain something in the second third and fourth places which you are willing not to speak of For if â—ou look into the place by you cited pag. 882. you will there find that M. Burton is not only said to be a follower of Illyricus in his Doctrines de providentia c. but to have also followed him in his fiery nature and seditious principles one of which was Principes potius metu seditionum terrendos quam vel minimum pacis causa indulgendum That Princes should be rather terrified with the feares of tumults then any thing should be yielded to for quietness sake All which being laid together as it stands in your Author falls so much short of being a description of such Puritans as being conformable to the Church in Rites and Ceremonies are notwithstanding no Arminians in point of Doctrine which you have charged on Peter Heylyn that it conteineth not such a principal part of that description as you have laid on D. Dow For besides that the Puritans hold the same opinions with those who follow Calvin's judgment in some controverted points before remembred they hold also some opinions of their own that is to say it is not lawful to use the Cross in Baptism or to bow at the blessed name of Jesus which M. Burton calls Cross-worship and Jesu-worship nor to be uncovered in the time of Divine Service to wear the Surplice kneel at the Communion to marry with the Ring and finally to stand up at the Gospels and the Gloria Patri In all which he and they were as much opposed by those of the Conformable Clergy who follow Calvin's
John Popham Lord Chief Justice at the Assizes held at Bury and thereunto I subjoyned these words viz. Good remedies indeed had they been soon enough applied yet not so good as those which formerly were applied to Thacker and his fellow Copping in the aforesaid Town of Bury for publishing the Books of Brown against the Service of the Church But here is no mention not a syllable of burning the said Books of Sabbath-Doctrines but only of suppressing and calling in Which makes me apt enough to think that you intended that for a private nip relating to a Book of mine called Respondit Petrus which was publiquely voyced abroad to have been publiquely burnt in London as indeed the burning of it was severely prosecuted though itscaped the fire a full account whereof being too long to be inserted in this place I may perhaps present you with in a place by it self And secondly what find you in that latter passage which argueth me to be guilty of such bloody desires as I stand accused for in your Letter Cannot a man report the passages of former times and by comparing two remedies for the same disease prefer the one before the other as the case then stood when the spirit of sedition moved in all parts of the Realm but he must be accused of such bloody desires for makeing that comparison in a time of quietness in a time of such a general calm that there was no fear of any such tempest in the State as did after follow If this can prove me guilty of such bloody desires the best is that I stand not single but have a second to stand by me of your own perswasion for in the same page where you find that passage viz. page 254. you cannot chuse but find the story of a Sermon Preached in my hearing at Sergeants Inn in Fleetstreet in which the Preacher broach'd this Doctrine That temporal death was at this day to be inflicted by the Law of God on the Sabbath breaker on him who on the Lord's day did the works of his daily calling with a grave application to my Masters of the Law that if they did their ordinary works on the Sabbath day in taking fees and giving counsel they should consider what they did deserve by the Law of God The man that Preached this was Father Foxly Lecturer of S. Martins in the Fields Superintendent general of the Lecturers in S. Antholin's Church and Legate à Latere from the Grandees residing at London to their friends and agents in the Countrey who having brought these learned Lawyers to the top of the Ladder thought it a high piece of mercy not to turn them off but there to leave them either to look after a Reprieve or sue out their Pardon This Doctrine you approve in him for you have passed it quietly over qui tacet consentire videtur as the saying is without taking any notice of it or exceptions against it and consequently may be thought to allow all those bloody uses also which either a blind superstition or a fiery zeal shall think fit to raise But on the other side you find such bloody desires in the passages before remembred which cannot possibly be found in them but by such a gloss as must pervert my meaning and corrupt my text and it is Male dicta glossa quâ corrumpit textum as the old Civilians have informed us 20. But to come nearer to your self May we be sure that no such bloody desires may be found in you as to the taking away of life in whom we find such merciless resolutions as to the taking away of the livelyhood of your Christian Brethren The life of man consists not only in the union of the soul and body but in the enjoyment of those comforts which make life valued for a blessing for Vita non est vivere sed valere as they use to say there is as well a civil as a natural death as when a man is said to be dead in law dead to the world dead to all hopes of bettering his condition for the time to come and though it be a most divine truth that the life is more then food and the body then rayment yet when a man is plundered both of food and cloathing and declared void of all capacities of acquiring more will not the sence of hunger and the shame of nakedness be far more irksome to him then a thousand deaths How far the chiefs of your party have been guilty of these civil slaughters appears by the sequestring of some thousands of the Conformable and Established Clergy from their means and maintainance without form of Law who if they had done any thing against the Canons of the Church or the Laws of the Land were to be judged according to those Laws and Canons against which they had so much transgressed but suffering as they did without Law or against the Law or by a Law made after the fact aâ—ainst which last his Highness the late LORD PROTECTOR complaineth in his Speech made in the year 1654. they may be truly said to have suffered as Innocents and to be made Confessors and Martyrs against their wills Either they must be guilty or not guilty of the crimes objected If they were guilty and found so by the Grand Inquest why were they not convicted and deprived in due form of Law If not why were they suspended sine die the profits of their Churches sequestered from them and a Vote passed for rendring them uncapable of being restored again to their former Benefices Of this if you do not know the reason give me leave to tell you The Presbyterians out of Holland the Independents from New England the beggerly Scots and many Trâ—n châ—r-Chaplains amongst our selves were drawn together like so many Vultures to seek after a prey for gratifying of whom the regular and established Clergy must be turned out of their Benefices that every Bird of r pine might have its nest some of them two or three for failing which holding by no other Tenure then as Tenants at will they were necessitated to performe such services as their great Patrons from time to time required of them 21. Now for your part how far you are and have been guilty of these civil slaughters appears abundantly in the Preface which is now before us in which you do not only justifie the sequestring of so many of the regular and established Clergy to the undoing of themselves and their several families but openly profess That you take it to be one of the charitablest works you can do to help to cast out a bad Minister and to get a better in the place so that you prefer it as a work of mercy before much sacrifice Which that it may be done with the better colour you must first murther them in their fame then destroy them in their fortunes reproaching them with the Atributes of utterly insufficient ungodly unfaithful scandalous or that do more harm then good
tam stultus sum ut diversitate explanationum tuarum me ladi putem quia nec tu laesiris si nos contraria senserimus A POST-SCRIPT To the former Answer Containing The Exchange of Letters between Dr. Heylyn and Dr. Barnard tonching the intended burning of the book called Respondit Petrus With that which followed thereupon 51. MY Answer long enough before must be made longer by this Post script because I would not leave you M. Baxter without full satisfaction to every point you have objected in your Letter or keep you longer in suspense then needs I must You gave some glances in your Letter of the burning of Books for which you had no ground in either of the places you refer me to where you find nothing at all touching the burning of the books of the Sabbatarians but only of the suppressing and calling of them in which made me apt enough to think as I told you then that you intended that for a private nip relating to a book of mine called Respondit Petrus which was publickly noised abroad to have been publickly burnt in London as indeed the burning of it was severely prosecuted though it scaped the fire A full account whereof being too long to be incorporated into the body of that Answer I promised then to give you in a place by it self And therefore I have writ this Post-script to make good that promise I wish you too well to suffer you to remain long in any errour which I am able to remove or to be wrought upon by any false rumours and reports which I am able to disperse and as I have endeavoured the first in all my applications to you so I shall now endeavour the last that I may disperse the others also And this I shall the rather do that I may Duos parletes una fidelia dealbare as in the Latine or Kill two birds with one Stone in the English Proverb My satisfying you in this publique manner will much contribute to the undeceiving of such others also who either out of too much credulity in themselves or dis-affection toward me have been as apt to report as they were easie to believe it Many such I have had the chance to meet with as well at London as elsewhere in whom this Fame had taken so deep a root that I could hardly pluck it up Some of them whom I endeavoured to perswade to a dis-belief of that false report conceiving rather that I rather spake favourably for my selfe then advantagiously and impartially for the truth of the fact And if those persons whom I met with were so hardly satisfied when they heard the story from my self how much more hardly could such others receive satisfaction who live farther off and could have it only from my friends But beside this there was another motive to induce me to it and that is the preventing of all such as possibly may make use of that report to my disadvantage For whereas Mr. Sanderson in the end of his Post Haste scurrilous Pamphlet called the Reply c. hath used some threats That whensoever I shall appear armed again he will be ready to meet me at my own weapon be it sharp or smooth he will be apt to catch at any thing which may serve his turn without examining the truth or enquiring into the certainty of it The like measure I may chance to have from some others also who speak as big and threaten me as much as he but threatened men live long they use to say so perhaps may I and sure I am that none of these threatnings will prevail so far upon me as to shorten the number of those dayes I have to come for your sake therefore and for theirs I have drawn up a full and perfect Narrative of the whole business in this manner following The Intercourse of LETTERS Between D. Heylyn and D. Barnard Touching the intended burning of the Book called Respondit Petrus 52. PHylosophers tell us of a Meteor called Ignis fatuus whose property it is to lead men out of their way and draw them many times into dangerous precipices and such an Ignis fatuus hath of late deceived and abused many in all parts of the Land whom therefore I shall endeavour to unundeceive and bring them back into the way of truth and knowledge The fame is and it is made a common fame by the spreading of it That the Book called Respondit Petrus hath been publiquely burnt and burnt by the order of the Council A fame which hath little truth in it though it hath more colour for it and appearances of it then many other charges which have lately been laid upon me Concerning which the Reader may be pleased to know That on Saturday the 26. of June last past intelligence was given to a friend of mine that an Order was sent by the Council to the Lord Mayor of London requiring him to see the Book called Respondit Petrus to be called in and publiquely burnt Notice whereof being given to me who was then in London I was advised by some of my friends to neglect the matter it being a thing that would redound unto my honour as they pleased to say considering it might be rationally concluded by all knowing me that the Book could not other wise be confuted then by fire and faggot I knew full well what sentence had been passed by Facitus upon the order of the Senate or great Consul of Rome for burning the Books of Cremutius Cordus the Historian Neque aliud externi Reges aut qui eadem sevitia usi sunt nisi dedecus sibi a que illis gloriam peperere that is to say that such who formerly had exercised that kind of severity gained nothing but ignominie to themselves and glory to all those whose Books they burnt But for my part I was rather of Sir John Falstaffs minde in that particular and did not like such grinning honour and therefore chose rather to prevent the obloquie then to glory in it In order whereunto I thought fit to apply my self to D. Barnard of Grays Inn who as he first began the quarrel in publishing the Book Entituled The Judgment of the late Lord Primate c. so was he supposed to have moved the first wheel in the Engine although he stood behind the Curtain and appeared not in it conceiving that if he might be taken off the whole business would soon come to nothing without any more ado upon which ground I wrote the following Letter to him on the Munday morning and received his answer to the same in the afternoon the Coppies of which Letter and the answer to it I shall here subjoyn Dr. Heylyn's Letter to Dr. Barnard SIR 53. WIth what unwillingness I entred upon my answer to that Book of Yours Entituled The Judgment of the Late Lord Primate c. I doubt not but you have found before this time both in the Preface to it and the two first Paragraphs of it In handling
Certamen Epistolare Or The Letter Combate PART II. Containing the Intercourse of Letters between Peter Heylyn D. D. And Mr. Hickman of Magd. Coll. Oxon. Relating To the Historicall part of a Book Intituled The Justification of the Fathers and Schoolmen c. Vell. Puterc Histi Lib. 2. Ubi semel a recto deerratum est in preceps pervenitur nec quisquam sibi turpe putat quod aliis est Fructósum Ide ibid. Familiare est hominibus omnia sibi remittere nihil aliis Et invidiam non ad causam sed advoluntatem personasque dirigere LONDON Printed in the Year 1659. To His much Respected Friend Thomas Peirce Master of Arts and Rector of Bringhton in the Diocess of Peter-burrough SIR 1. BEfore you had writ your Letter of the 8th of March I had received another from an unknown hand by which I was made acquainted that your Antagonist of Magdalen Coll. had published his Pamphlet a second time and made bolder with me in the second then the first Edition And having given me some account of the Book which I could find no time of sufficient leisure to Enquire much after he makes this request that I would undertake an answer to the Historical part thereof in which he labours to Evince that the Calvinistical opinions were the avowed doctrines of this Church I had then some other work in hand from which I was not willing to be taken off by this diversion and therefore desired him to excuse me from that ingagement which he so zealously but very modestly withal recommended to me It was not long before I had received the like Advertisement from a friend nere London which I past over with as little Apprehension of the indignities and affronts which were done unto me as I did the other But yours of the Date above mentioned following close upon them I began to consider with my selfe that there was somewhat more then ordinary in this invitation in which so many men concurred of such different dwellings without communicating their designs and thoughts unto one another I found many Reasons in my selfe to decline the business my growing into years my decay of Sight my want of necessary helps the disparity between the persons and that having Adversaries enough already it would be a great imprudence in me to encrease their number and make them swell into an Army But on the other side I considered also the multiplicity of your Employments the Charity which might be shown in easing you of some part of your burthen the bitterness of the man against persons of Eminence on whom he ought not to have looked without veneration but most especially that as I had appeared in defence of the Church in my younger dayes so it might ill become me to desert her now being as yet in some Capacity of doing that service which you and others have so earnestly desired of me Defendi Rem publ Adolescens non deseram senex was Cicero's Resolution once and shall now be mine And because it was your Letter which prevailed upon me more then any other I have made bold to render my account to you from whose hand most especially I received the charge First laying down the narrative of such preparatory Entercourse as passed betwixt me and your Antagonist before I setled positively on the undertaking and then descending to the satisfaction of so many good friends as far as I am able to serve them and the Church in performance of it Give me your patience for a time whilest I address my lines unto you in my own behalf and I shall little doubt of it when I write of him who hath made one Enemy of both Alterum a te pâ—to ut me pro me benigne Alterum ipse Efficiam ut contra illum cum dicam attente audias in the Orators words But it is time to end my preamble and begin my story which is thus 2. It was by accident that Mr. Baxters Book of the Grotian Religion was unexpectedly offered to me with intimation that I should find somewhat in the preface which concerned my selfe By the like accident and with the same intimation also I came to know of Mr. Hickmans late Book in Justification of the Fathers and Schoolmen c. It is not to be wondred if my Curiosity or desire of self satisfaction first carried me to the consideration of my own concernments as before it did or that I should be much amazed to find my self so coursely handled by a person I never heard of nor perhaps never might have done but on that account The Positivity of Sinne might be a Paradox or a truth and so declared on either side without drawing me into the Quarrel who have not hitherto engaged on the one side or the other But Mr. Hickman that thinks so well of his own abilities as to conceive no one man was to be looked upon as a competent Adversary on whom to exercise his Pen and therefore must raise up another who had not the least thoughts of contending with him And that he might be sure to sharpen me to the Encounter he doth not onely touch upon me and so pass it over as Mr. Baxter did before but spends the best part of a leafe in loading me with Reproach and infamy He had before given this unhandsome Character of you whom he looks on as his principal Adversary that you are one that drinks up scorning like water and knows not how to mention the worthiest man alive if of a different judgment without contempt which he concludes with this smart Expression that rather then you will not fight you would contend with your own shaddow Which said he calls me a Bird of the same feather makes me to take my flight from the Angel in Ivy-lane intitles it to no small wonder that a Doctor in Divinity should so unworthily handle a Reverend Person it is the Lord Primate whom he means and finally declares that a Book of mine had received the desert of its bitterness in being burnt for so he saith he was informed by the hand of the Hangman But let not these vinegar expressions be a trouble to you which I assure you stirre not me who have long learnt with him in the old Historian civili animo laceratam existimationem ferre to bear with an undisturbed mind the greatest Calumnies which either the tongues or pens of malitious men can lay upon me 3. For though this provocation might have been sufficient to have awakened one of a duller spirit yet I resolved to sleep on still and lookt no otherwise on this passage then as the inconsiderable Phantasme of an Idle Dream I had before resolved not to put my hand to any controversie in which the Lord Primate was concerned and so far satisfied Mr. Baxter in the not burning of the Book that I conceived all further answer to that scandalous charge to be altogether as unnecessary as the Charge was false In satisfying him I should have satiâ—fied all others
Bishop it is distinctly called an Order all which he could not chuse but see in that very Chapter of the Book called Respondit Petrus in which he finds me questioning the Lord Primates Iudgement touching the universality of Redemption by the death of Christ The Books confirmed by Act of Parliament in the 5th and 6th of Edw. 6. Repealed in the first yeare of Queen Mary continuing notwithstanding in use and practise for the first seven years of Queen Elizabeth and reconfirmed by Parliament the next year after upon occasion of a difference between Bonâ—er the late bloody Bishop of London and Horn then Bishop of Winchester His Grace had therefore very good Reason not to change his judgement and to press very hard on Bishop Hall not to wave that point for which he stands censured by our Adversary p. 24. and to insist upon it more then at other times when the Scotish Presbyterians had began to revive the question for which he stands condemned also p 25. 23. But see the Candor of the man and how like he seems to Aesops Dog when he lay in the Manger not giving the Arch-Bishop a good word himselfe nor suffering any other to do it without snarling at him I had signified in my first Letter that the Arch-Bishops memory was too precious amongst all that loved the Church of England to suffer him to be so defamed and by such a person Your Adversary doth not deny because he cannot that in many things he had deserved well of the Vniversity but will not yield himself convinced that his memory should be so precious as my Letter intimates to all that love the Church of England And a squint eye he casts on some body for a Temporizer whose design it was to ingratiate himself with great ones and could complement a Prince so highly as to style himself his Creature and the workmanship of his hands But who it is whom he so decyphereth or whether he means any one man or not but onely casts abroad his censures as Boyes throw their stones without any proper aim or object but the love of the sport I am not able to find out in my best remembrance Passing by therefore such Aenigma's as I cannot unriddle I must needs take notice how he applyes the Character to him of which Isidore Pelusi gives unto one Eusebus a wretched fellow of those times and one who took upon himself the name and office of a Bishop The Character to be found in the 24. Epistle of his second Book and the Epistle recommended to my diligent Reading 23. He tells me that the Character contained therein doth two well suit with the Arch-Bishop but I find it otherwise Eusebius as the Author tells us would not know the difference between the Temple and the Church between the place of the Assembly and the Congregation sparing no cost to build repair and beautifie the one but vexing disquieting and expelling the righteous soul to many of which he had given great matter of offence or scandal dum multis offendiculis causam prebet probos viros expellere c. The same he florisheth over again in the following words concluding with this Observation That in the Primitive times when there were no Temples the Church was plentifully adorned with all heavenly Graces but that in his time the Temples were adorned beyond Moderation Ecclesia vero Canviciis Cavillis in cessitur but the poor Church reproached and reviled upon all occasions such is the Character which Isidore gives to this Eusebus But that this Character should suit too well with the late Arch-Bishop is a greater scandal then ever Eusebus gave to the weak brethren of the Church of Pelusium For will your Adversary confine the Church as some wild Affricans did of old intra partem Donati within the Conventicles and Clancular meetings of the Puritan Faction Or hath he confidence to averre that any Righteous and Religious person was expelled this Church understand me of the Church of England whom either Faction or Sedition in conformity or disobedience spiritual pride or fear of punishment did not hurry out of it Just so it was Railed out by Brother Burton in his Libel falsly called a Sermon where he affirms that the edge of Dscipiline was turned mainly against Gods people and ministers even for their virtue piety and worth and because they would not conform to their the Bishops impious Orders Just so it was once preached in a Latine Sermon at St. Maryes in Oxon by Bayley one of the old brood of Puritans in Magdalen Colledge that good and Godly men were purposely excluded from preferments there ob hoc ipsum quod pii quod boni onely because they were enclined to virtue and piety With spight and callumnie enough but not to be compared with his who so reproachfully hath handled this Renowned Prelate and the poor sequestred and ejected Clergy of the Church of England But Judas did the like before to his Lord and Master And thereupon St. Cyprian very well inferres nec nobis turpe esse pati quae passus est Christus nec illis gloriam facere quae fâ—cerat Judas 24. And here I would have ended with your puissant Adversary but that his Letter carries me to a new ingagement He tells me there that in the Historical part of his discourse he hath proved that till D. Laud sat in the Saddle our Divines of prime Note and Authority did in the five points deliver themselves consonantly to the determination of the Synod of Dort and that they were enjoyned Recantation who were known either to preach or print that which is now called Arminianism and thinks that no body can deny it for a truth infallible But first if we allow this for a good and sufficient Argument it will serve as strongly for the Papists against all those who laboured in the Reformation For what one point do we maintain against those of Rome in which the Divines of prime Note and Authority in the Church of Rome did not deliver themselves as consonantly to the preceding Doctrines of the Schoolmen there and to the subsequent determinations of the Council of Trent and for opposing which manner of Persons were constrained to a Recantation who either preacht or printed in defence of that which is now called Protestantism And 2dly if we behold the constitution of our University when D. Humphrys a moderate non-conformist but a non-conformist howsoever as M. Fuller is pleased to call him possest the Divinity Chaire for almost forty years and D. Reynolds a Rigid non-Conformist publiquely read a Divinity Lecture founded by Sir Francis Walsingham the principal Patron of the Sect as you will find in the beginning of his Lectures on the Books Apocriphal it is no marvail if we find that the Doctrine and Discipline of Calvin should be so generally received by the Students there or being so generally received that they should put all manner of disgraces upon all or any of those
as a secret to himself for some new discovery 35. For M. Nowel who sate Prolocutor in the Convocation Anno 1562. he takes a leap to the year 1587. in which he findes a Book published by D. John Bridges Dean of Salisbury and afterwards Lord Bishop of Oxon Entituled A Defence of the Government established in the Church of ENGLAND And that he might come to it the sooner he skips over the admission of Peter Barro a French man to the Lady Margarites Professor-ship in the University of Cambridge Anno 1574 who constantly held these points in a contrary way to that of the Calvinian plat-form and relinquished not that University till after the year 1595. of which more hereafter And he skips over also Doctor Harsâ—ets Sermon at Pauls Cross Octob. 27. 1584. in which he so declared himself against the Calvinistical Doctrines of Predestination that neither Mountague nor any that have writ since him did ever render them more odious unto vulgar cars But being come to him at the lâ—st what finds he there Marry That D. Bridges was of opinion That the Elect fall not finally and totally from Grace and so did D. Overal also of whom more anon who notwithstanding disallowed the Doctrine of Predestination as maintained by Calvin and puts not any such Comment on the 17. Article as your Antagonist contends for The like he findes in M. Hookers Discourse of Justification from whence he concluded no more but that M. Hooker was of a different opinion from you in the point of falling away from Grace Which point he might maintain as D. Overal D. Bridges and some others did and yet not be of the same judgment with the Calvinistical party either sub or supra touching that absolute and iresistable decree of Predestination the restriction of the benefit of Christs death and passion to particular persons and the invincible or rather irresistable operations of the grace of God in the conversion of a sinner which were so rigidly maintained in the Schools of Calvin I see then what is said by D. Bridges and what is said by M. Hooker but I see also what is said by the Church of England in the 16. Article in which we find That after we have received the holy Ghost we may depart from Grace given and fall into sin and by the grace of God we may arise again and amend our lives No such determination as either totally or finally to be found in the Article nor suffered to be added to it when it was motioned and desired by D. Reynolds in the conference at Hampton Court that old saying Non est distinguendum ubi lex non distinguit being as authentical as true and as true as old Howsoever I am glad to hear from your adversarie that M. Hooker could not tell how to speak Judicially as he saith he could not and then I hope he may be brought in time to approve of all things which he hath written so judiciously in behalf of the Liturgie and all the Offices Ceremonies and Performances of it which whensoever he doth I make no question but but that he may come to like the Episcopal Government and by degrees desert the Presbiterians both in Doctrine and Discipline as much as he Certain I am that M. Hooker maintained no such determination of humane action by any absolute decree or prelimitation as the Calvinists do and declared his dislike thereof in Cartwright the great Goliah of that Sect who had restrained all and every action which men do in this life to the preceding will and determination of Almighty God Even to the takeing up of a straw a fine piece of Dotage 36 But he demands How the Church came to dispose of the places of greatest influence and trust to such as hated Arminianism as the shadow of death If she her self consented to those opinions which he calls Arminian amongst which reckoning the Arch Bishops till the time of Laud he first leaves out Arch Bishop Cranmer the principal instrument under God of this Reformation which plainly shews that Cranmer was no favourer of those Opinions which your Antagonist contends for and consequently that the Articles were not fitted in these points unto Calvin's fancie And secondly he brings in Parker and Grindal whom M. Prinne whose diligince few things have escaped which serve his turne hath left out of his Catalogue in which he hath digested all our English Writers whom he conceived to be Antiarminianly enclined in a kind of Cronologie Thirdly he brings in Bishop Bancroft as great an enemy to the Predestinarian and Puritan Faction as ever sate in the See of Canterbury he had not else impeacht the Doctrine of Predestination as it was then taught by the Calvinians for a desperate Doctrine You have the whole passage in the Conference at Hampton Court impartially related by D. Burlow though your Adversary hath some invisible vileness or other to affirm the contrary Whereon a motion made by D. Reynolds about falling from Grace The Bishop of London this very Bancroft whom we speak of took occasion to signifie to his Majesty how very many in these days neglecting holiness of life presumed too much of persisting Grace If I shall be saved I shall be saved which he tearmed a desparate Doctrine shewing it to be contrary to good Divinity and the true Doctrine of Predestination Wherein saith he we should reason rather ascendendo then descendendo thus I live in obedience to God in love with my neighbour I follow my vocation c. therefore I trust that God hath elected me and predestinated me to salvation Not thus which is the usual course of argument God hath predestinated and chosen me to life therefore though I sin never so grievously yet I shall not be damned for whom he once loveth he loveth to the end so little a friend was this great Pralate to the Calvinian Doctrine of Predestination and persisting Grace 37. But your Adversary not content with this hath found some proofs as he conceives That Bancroft hated that which he calls Arminianisme like the shadow of death he telleth us that in his time came out the Book called The Faith Religion Doctrine professed in the Realm of England and Dominions thereof In this as much mistaken as in that before that Book being published in the time of Arch-Bishop Whitgift Anno 1584 as he might have found in Mr. Fullers Church History lib. 9 fol. 172. being twenty years almost before Bancroft came to the See of Canterbury and 12. at least before he was made Bishop of London And being then published was as he saith disliked by some Protestants of a middle temper whom by this his Restrictive Comment were shut out from a concurrence with the Church of England whom the discreet â—uxity of the Text admitted thereunto And if disliked by Protestants of a middle temper as he saith it was there is no question to be made but that it was disliked much more by all true Protestants such as
your Adversary calls Arminians who constantly adhered to the determinations of the Church of England according to the Literal and Grammatical sense and the concurrent Expositions of the first Reformers I grant indeed that the Book being afterwards re-printed was dedicated with a long Epistle to Arch-Bishop Bancroft But that intituleth him no more to any of the propositions or opinions which are there maintained then the like Dedication of a Book to an Eminent Prelate of our Nation in denyal of Original Sin intituled him to the maintenance of the same opinion which he as little could digest they are your Adversaries own words in the Epistle to the Lecturers of Brackley as the most rigidly Scotized Presbyterian Nor stays he here for rather then lose so great a Patron he will anticipate the time and make Dr. Bancroft Bishop of London almost 18 moneths before he was and in that Capacity agreeing to the Lambeth Articles An errour which he borrowed from the Church Historian who finding that Richard Lord Elect of London contributed his Assent unto them puts him down positively for Dr. Richard Bancroft without further search whereas he might have found upon further search that the meeting at Lambeth had been held on the 26th of November 1595. that D. Richard Flesher Bishop of Worcester was then the Lord Elect of London and that D. Bancroft was not made Bishop of that See till the 8th of May Anno 1697. 38. The next Considerable preferments for learning the Clergy he makes to be the two Chairs in the Universities both to be occupied by those who were profest Enemies to such Doctrines as he calls Arminianism Which if it were granted for a truth is rather to be looked on as an infelicity which befell the Church in the first choice of those Professors then to be used as an argument that she concurred with them in all points of Judgement That which was most aimed at in those times in the preferring men to the highest dignities of the Church and the chief places in the Vniversities was their zeal against Popery and such a sufficiency of learning as might enable them to defend those points on which our separation from Rome was to be maintained and the Queens interess most preserved The Popes supremacy the Mass with all the points and niceties which depended on it justification by faith the marriage of Priests Purgatory and the power of the civil Magistrate were the points most agitated And whosoever appeared right in those and did withal declare himself against the corruptions of that Church in point of manners was seldome or never looke into for his other opinions until the Church began to find the sad consequents of it in such a general tendency to innovation both in doctrine and discipline as could not easily be redressed From hence it was that we find a non-conformist though â— moderate one in the chaire at Oxon a Mother but a violent Patron of in-conformity in a Professorship in Cambridge so many hankering after Calvin in almost all the Headships of both Vniversities And it was hardly possible that it should be otherwise Such of the learned Protestants as had been trained up under the Reformation made by King Edw. 6. and had the confidence and courage to stand out to the last in the Reign of Queen Mary were either martyred in the flames or consumed in prisons or worn out with extremity of Grief and disconsolation And most of those which had retired themselves beyond the Seas returned with such a mixture of outlandish Doctrines that it was hard to find amongst them a sufficient number of men so qualified as to fill up the number of Bishops and to be dignified with the Deanrys of Cathedral Churches By means whereof there followed such an universal spreading of Calvinism over all parts of the Church that it can be no matter of wonder if the Professors of the Vniversity should be that way byassed And yet as much as the times were inclined that way I believe it will be hard if not impossible for your Antagonist to prove that those Professors did agree upon such a platform of Gods decrees as he and others of the same perswasions would fain obtrude upon us now In Cambridge D. Whitaker maintained the supra-Lapsarian way of Predestination which D. Robert Abbot of Oxon condemned in the person of Perkins And I have heard from persons of very good Esteem that Dr. Abbot himself was as much condemned at his first coming to the Chair for deviating from the moderation of his Predecessor D. Holland who seldome touched upon those points when he might avoid them For proof whereof it may be noted that five onely are remembred by Mr. Prynne in his Anti Arminianism to have maintained the Calvinian tenents in all the time of that Professor from the year 1596. to the year 1610. whereas there were no fewer then 20. who maintained them publickly in the Act as the others did in the first six years of D. Prideaux And as for D. Overal one D. Overal as your Adversary calls him in contempt afterwards Dean of S. Pauls Bishop of Lichfield and at last of Norwich that his opinion were not that for which you are said to stickle I am sure it was not that for which he contends that he did not Armintanize in all things I am sure he Calvinized in none 39. Proceed we next to the Consideration of that Argument which is derived from the censures inflicted in either Vniversity upon such as trod the Arminian path so soon as they began to discover themselves Exemplified in Cambridge by the proceedings there against Barret Barrow and Simpson in Oxon by the like against Laud Houson and Bridges Of Barret Simpson and Bridges I shall now say nothing referring you to the 23. Section of this discourse where you will find a general answer to all these particulars In the case of Dr. Laud and Dr. Houson there was somewhat else then that which was objected against the other Your Adversary tells us of D. Housons Suspention for â—â—urting onely against Calvin If so the greater the injustice and the more unjustifiable the suspension for what was Calvin unto us but that he might be flurtad at as well as another when he came cross unto the discipline or Doctrine of the Church of England But Mr. Fuller tells you more particularly that at a Sermon preached in St. Maries in Oxon he accused the Geneva Notes as guilty of mis-interpretation touching the divinity of Christ and his Mesiah-ship as if symbolizing with Arrians and Jewes against them both and that for this he was suspended by D. Robert Abbot propter Conciones publicas minus Orthodoxas offensione plenas Which though it proves this Reverend person to be rufly handled yet it makes nothing to the purpose of your mighty Adversary which was to show that some such Censures of Arminianism might be found in Oxon as had been met withal in Cambridge nor doth he speed
mildness of his Majesties Government and the great Moderation shown by Bishop Laud in the use of his power in not compelling men to say or do any thing against their Conscience a moderation which we find not amongst those of the Sect of Calvin when any of the opposite party fell into their hands Sixthly whereas it might be thought that the Ancient Protestants as he merrily calls them had past many such severe censures upon those whom he stiles Arminians he instanceth in none but in Barret and Bridges which make too small a number for so great a bragg Quid dignum tanto and the rest And finally for answer to the Prelatical oppressions I shall referre you to my former Discourse with Mr. Baxter num 20 21 23 repeating only at the present that the Proceeding of the Bishops were mild and gentle compared with the unmerciful dealings of the Presbiterians by whom more Orthodox Learned and Religious Ministers were turned out of their Benefices within the space of three years then by all the Bishops in England since the Reformation 46. But the King must not think to carry it so the Puritan Faction being generally Calvinistical in Doctrine as well as in Discipline prevailed so in the House of Commons Jan. 28. 1628. that they agreed upon this Counterpoise or Anti-declaration following viz. We the Commons now assembled in Parliament do claim profess and avow for truth the sense of the Articles of Religion which were established in Parliament 13. Eliz. Which by the publick Acts of the Church of England and the general current Exposition of the Writers of our Church have been delivered to us and we reject the sense of the Jesuites and Arminians and all other wherein they differ from us Which counterpoise made in direct opposition to the Kings Declaration your adversary makes a product of the Civil Authority whereas the House of Commons was so far at that time from being looked on as the Civil Authority of the English Nation that it was of no Authority at all nor could make any Order to bind the Subject or declare any thing to be Law and much less Religion till it was first countenanced by the Lords and finally confirmed by the Royal assent But this he doth in correspondence to the said Protestation in which the Articles of Lambeth are called the publique Acts of the Church of England though made by none but the Arch Bishop of Canterbury two Bishops of which onely one had actually received Consecration one Dean and half a dozen Doctors and other Ministers or thereabouts neither impowered to any such thing by the rest of the Clergy nor authorized to it by the Queen And therefore their determinations can no more properly be called the Acts of the Church then if one Earl with the eldest Sons of two or three others meeting with half a dozen Gentlemen in Westminster Hall can be affirmed to be in a capacity of making Orders which must be looked on by the Subject as Acts of Parliament 47. Your Adversary begins now to draw toward the Lees and in the Dreggs of his discourse offers some Arguments to prove that those doctrines and opinions which he calls Arminianism were countenanced to no other end but to bring in Popery And for the proof hereof he brings in Mr. Prinn's Report to the House of Commons in the Case of Montague An. 1626. In which it is affirmed that the whole frame and scope of his book was to discourage the well affected in Religion and as much as in him lay to reconcile them unto Popery He gives us secondly a fragment of a scattered Paper pretended to be written to the Rector of the Jesuites Colledge in Bruxels In which the Writer lets him know that they had strongly fortified their Faction here in England by planting the Soveraign Drug Arminianism which he hoped would purge the Protestants from their Heresie Thirdly he backs this paper with a clause in the Remonstrance of the House of Commons Anno 1628 where it is said that the hearts of his Majesties Subjects were perplex'd in beholding the dayly growth and spreading of the faction of Arminianism that being as his Majesty well knew so they say at least but a cunning way to bring in Popery All which he flourishes over by a passage in the Lord Faucklands Speech before remembered in which it is affirmed of some of the Bishops that their work was to try how much of a Papist might be brought in without Popery and to destroy as much as they could of the Gospel without bringing themselves in danger of being destroyed by the Law c. To all which being but the same words out of divers mouths I shall return one answer only which is briefly this Your adversary cannot be so ignorant as not to know that the same points which are now debated between the Calvinians and the Old Protestants in England between the Remonstrants and Contra-remonstrants in the Belgick Churches and finally between the Rigid and Moderate Lutherans in the upper Germany have been as fiercely agitated between the Franciscans and Dominicans in the Church of Rome the old English Protestants the Remonstrants and the moderate Lutherans agreeing in these points with the Franciscans as the English Calvinists the Contra-Remonstrants and the Rigid Lutherans do with the Dominicans So that there is a complyance on all sides with one of the said two parties in the Church of Rome And therefore why a general compliance in these points with the Friers of St. Dominick the principal Sticklers and Promoters of the Inquisition should not be thought as ready a way to bring in Popery as any such compliance with the Friers of St. Francis I would fain have your Adversary tell me when he puts out next 49. The greatest of the storm being over there remains only a few drops which will make no man shrink in the wetting that is to say the permission of some books to be frequenly printed containing the Calvinian Doctrine and the allowance of many questions to be maintained publiquely in the Act at Oxon contrary to the sence of those which he calls Arminians Amongst the Books so frequently printed he instanceth in the Practise of Piety Perkins his Principles Balls Catechism c. which being incogitantly licensed to the Press at their first coming out could not be afterwards Restrained from being Reprinted notwithstanding the many inconveniences which ensued upon it till the passing of the Decree in Star-Chamber July 1637. concerning Printing by which it was ordered to the great grief and trouble of that Puritan faction that no Book whatsoever should be reprinted except Books of the Law till they were brought under a review and had a new License for reprinting of them And though D. Crakanthorps Book against the Archbishop of Spalato was but once printed yet being called Defensâ—o Ecclesiae Anglicanae it serves your Adversaries turn as well as if it had been Printed an hundred times over How so because
though moving in an higher sphere should neither give the light nor impart such influences to the world as the two Great Luminaries such as you fancy the Estates in a Gothick Moddel in case he prove not rather a falling Star as perhaps he may But hoping you will pardon this irruption in me I proceed unto the second part of your Letter in which I am said to speak rather like a Divine then a Polititian And yet not like a Divine neither but like a Divine as I suppose and no more then so 17. But letting all things be as they may you tell me that I aske of Calvin in what part of the word of God we may finde any such Authority given to popular Magistrates as he tells us of And for an answer hereunto you prepare the way by laying down the constitution of the Government of the people of Israel which you affirm to have been founded on a popular ballance And were it so there is no question to be made but that a popular ballance even by the Ordinance of God himself in Scripture both did and may amount to Empire for who â—rt thou O man which disputest with God or callest in question any of the Divine Acts of that heavenly providence The Question will be onely this Whether the Government of the Israelites was founded in a popular ballance which you say it was and I think rather that it was not The reason why I think so I shall show anon and in the mean time I will look upon the Argument which you suppose it to be proved We find say you the people of Israel iudging the tribe of Benjamine and by the Oracle of God leavying War against them Which being an act of soveraign power declares that Government to be founded on a popular ballance But first it appears not by the text that all the people of Israel did sit as Judges on the tribe of Benjamine the judgement might be passed for what you can say to the contrary by the Elders onely that is to say the heads or chiefs of the several families of the tribes of Israel and nothing but the execution of the sentences by them committed to the people Secondly It appears not by the Text that the War was leavied against the Benjamites by any Oracle of God but the contrary rather For it is said that the children of Israel were gathered tother as one man at a place called Mizpeh that they resolved upon the War and concluded how to have it carried before they asked Councel of the Lord Judg. 20. 18. And when they asked councel of the Lord it was not whether they should proceed in the War or not that being a thing resolved before hand but which of the tribes should go up first to the battail again the children of Benjamin as in the Book of Judges Cap 20. 18. which probably might be the cause of their ill success in the first encounter as having engaged themselves in a bloody War against their brethren before they sought for councel at the Oracle of God as they should have done And therefore Thirdly this rather showes the people of Israel to be under no Government at all then to be governed by a Democratical or popular form and serves as a most excellent commentary on the last words of the book of Judges viz In those dayes there was no King in Israel every Man did that which was right in his own eyes Had it been under any one form of Government Popular or Democratical call it what you will every man durst not to have done that which is right in his own eyes though there had been at that time no King in Israel And as they were not under any popular Government by which they might have been restrained from doing what was right in their own eyes so you confess that they were not at that time under the Government of the Sanhedrim for speaking of that passage in the first of Judges where Judah said unto Simeon 〈◊〉 Brother come up with me into my lot that we may fight against the Canaanites and I likewise will go with thee into thy lot so Simeon went with him c. you thereupon infer that by this leaguing at their pleasure one with another it was plain the Sanhedrim their common Ligament was broken so that the Sanhedrim being broken the Kings not instituted nor any form of popular Government set up among them by common consent nothing remains but that they must be governed by the Heads or Chiefs of the several Families into which the Tribes were Generally divided in those times Had there been any such Councel or establisht body as that of the Generall Estates of the united Provinces or that of the Cantons and their Confederates amongst the Switzers they might have been said to have been under such a popular Government as those people are though every Tribe had a distinct Government of its own as those Provinces and Cantons have 18. And here I should proceed to the Examination of that part of your Letter which concerns the Sanhedrim as being the point of greatest difference between us in the present business But considering that you have spent so much of your Paper about the Original institution and authority of the Kings of Israel and consequently of all those who have enjoyed that power and dignity in their severall Countrys I shall first lay all together which you have deliver'd on that subject with my opinion in the same as it comes before me In order whereunto I am first to say that the Government of that people when they were in Aegypt was under the Heads or Chiefes of their several families who by a paternal right derived on them from their first Father Adam challenged and enjoy'd a Fatherly authority over all those who descended of them And unto these did Moses address himselfe when he was to communicate from the Lord that most joyful news of their deliverance out of Aegypt called by the name of Elders in the Book of Exodus 3. 16. 4. 29 not called so onely because they were in honour onely amongst the rest of the people as you seem to say but because they were above them also in this point of power The people else had had no remedy in any differences and debates which might rise amongst them but suing in the Courts of Aegypt which it was as unfit for them to do as it was amongst the Primitive Christians to go to Law with one another in Emergent differences and that before the unbelievers But this dispersed authority being united in the person of Moses as many lines united in one Center from a large circumference the whole Government of the people did remain in him till by the advice of Jethro they were divided and sub divided into several Companies Each of them having over him their appointed Rulers By Gods appointment afterwards a standing Court of 70. Elders which they called the Sanhedrim were chosen to
c. which no man can conceive to relate onely to the Judges of the lower Courts Nor find I any variation in the rest that follows no nor in that which comes after neiher v. 14. where those directions do begin which concern the people and not the Priests or Judges onely in the Election of their King And therefore give me leave to think and laugh not at me I beseech you for my singularity that there is no other meaning in that Text but this i e. That if a doubt or scruple should arise amongst them in their severall dwellings in matters which concerned Religion and the right understanding of the law of God they should have recourse to the Priests and Levites for satisfaction in the same according unto that of the Prophet Malachy that the people were to seek the Law from the mouth of the Priest as before we had it But if it were a civil controversie matters of difference which they could not end amongst themselves and by the interposition of their friends and Neighbours they should refer it to the Judge or Judges in whose times they lived to be finally decided by him And for this Exposition I have not onely some authority but some reason also My Authority shall be taken from the words of Estius who makes gloss upon the Text viz. Haec sententia modo sacerdotem modo judicem nominat propter duplicem magistratum qui erat in populo dei sacram civilem quamvis contingeret aliquando duplicem magistratum in eandem personam concurrere My reasons shall be taken first from that passage in the 12. verse in which it is said that the man that will do presumptuously and will not hearken unto the Priest that standeth to Minister there before the Lord thy God c. Where the Priest seems to be considered in personal capacity as he stands ministring before the Lord at his holy Altar not as he sits upon the bench and acts â—with other of the Judges in an open Court But whether that be so or not certain I am that many inconveniences must needs happen amongst the people if the Text be no otherwise to be understood as you would have it It is confest on all hands that there was some intervall of time from the death of every one of the supream Judges and the advancing of the next though in Chronologies the years of the succeeding Judges are counted from the death of his Predecessor And you your selfe confess p. 14. that the Sanhedrim did not continue long after Josuah And I can find no restitution of it till the time of Iehoshaphat For though you tell us p. 16. that never any King except David had Session or Vote in this Councel by which you intimate that the Sanhedrim was on foot again in the time of David Yet you have shewed us neither reason nor authority for it And therefore you may do me a greater favour as your own words are then you suddenly imagine to tell me really in what Book of Scripture or in what other Author I may find it written that either the Sanhedrim was on foot again in the time of David or that David did at any time sit and vote amongst them Hereupon I conclude at last that if the Text be to be understood as you would have it and as you say it is understood in the sence of all Authors both Iewish and Christians then must the people be without remedy at the least without remedy of Appeal in their suits and controversies during the interval of time betwixt the Judges and without remedies also in their doubts scruples touching the meaning of the Law for the whole space of time which past betwixt the death of Iosuah and the raign of Iehoshaphat which comes to 511. years or there abouts which I desire you seriously to consider of 32. And yet the matter were the less if having given the Sanhedrim the Dernier Resort or the supream power in all appeals you did not ascribe to them an authority also to controul their Kings For proof whereof you tell us that both Skickardus and Grotius with the full consent of the Talmudists have assured you that if the King came to violate the Laws and the Statutes it was in the power of the Sanhedrim to bring him unto corporall punishment How far Skickardus hath assured you I am not able to say not being directed by you to any Book or Books of his where it may be found But if you find no more in Skickardus then you do in Grotius you will have little cause to brag of this discovery For Grotius in his first Book de jure belli c. cap. 3. and not cap. 1. as is mistaken in the print first telleth us thus viz. Samuel jus regum describens satis ostendit adversus Regis injurias nullam in populo relictam potestatem c. Samuel saith he describing the power of the King of Israel showes plainly that the people had no power to relieve themselves from the oppressions of their Kings according unto that of some antient Writers on those words of David Against thee onely have I sinned Psal 51. And to show how absolutely Kings were exempted from such punishments he presently subjoyns the testimony of Barnach monus an Hebrew In dictis Rabinorum titulo de judicibus which is this nulla creatura judicat regem sed benedictus that is to say that no creature judgeth or can judge the King but onely God for ever blessed According unto which I find a memorable Rule in Bracton an old English Lawyer relating to the Kings of England viz. Omnem esse sub rege ipsum sub nullo sed tantum sub deo That every man is under the King but the King is under none but God Betwixt which passages so plainly destructive of the power ascribed to the Sanhedrim Grotius interlopes this following passage from some Iewish Writers viz. Video consentire Hebraeos regi in eas leges quae de officio regis scriptae extabant peccanti inflicta verbera sedâ—a apud illos infamiâ carebant a rege in signum penitentiae sponte suscipiebantur ideoque non a lictore sed ab eo quem legisset ipse probatur suo arbitrio verberibus statuebat modum I have put down the words at large that the learned and judicious Reader may see what he is to trust to in this point The sence whereof is this in English viz. that stripes were inflicted on the King if he transgressed those Lawes which had been written touching the Regal office But that those stripes carried not with them any mark of infamy but were voluntary undergone by him in testimony of his repentance upon which ground the said stripes were not laid upon him by a common Officer but by some one or other of his own appointment it being also in his power to limit both the the number and severity of those stripes which they were to give him
hereof he calls the Book it self to witness Offered to and Refused by some Stationers because that by reason of his Hiâ—h terms they could not make a saving Bargain to themselves fol. 57. For Answer whereunto I must let him know that the Animadversions when they stood single by themselves in the first draught of them were offered to M. Roycroâ—t the Printer for a peece of Plate of five or six pounds and a quartern of Coppies which would have cost him nothing but so much paper conditioned that he should be bound to make them ready bâ— Candlemas Term 1657. but he not performing that condition I sent for them again enlarged them to a full third Part and seconded them with the Advertisements on Sandersons Histories and having so done offered them to M. Royston and M Marriot who had undertook the Printing of the Book called Respondit Petrus after my old friend had refused it whose Propositions for I reserved the offer to be made by them being very free and ingenuous were by me cheerfully excepted But M. Marriot afterwards declining the business it was afterwards performed by M. Royston and M. Seyle his said old friend on no better conditions then had been offerred at the first And now I am forced upon this point I shall add this also that for the Obseruations on the Hist of H. L. Esq and the defence thereof against the Observator Observed the Help to History which now I shall boldly take upon me being thus put to it my Commentary on the Creed and the Book called Ecclesia Vindicata I never maâ—e any conditions at all and for the four last never received any consideration but in Copies onely and those too in so small a number that I had not above seven or eight of the three first and but twelve of the last And for the Printing of these Papers so far am I from making any Capitulation that it remains wholly in the ingenuity of the Stationer to deal with me in it as he pleaseâ— so that I scrible for the most part as some Cats kill Mâ—se rather to find my self some Recreation then to satisfie hunger And though I have presented as many of the said Books and my large Cosmographies within seven years past as did amount at the least unto twenty pound I never received the value of a single â—â—â—thing either directly or indirectly either in money or any other kind of Retribution of what sort soever When my Adversary can say the like let him upbraid me with the Love of Regina Pecunia but till then be silent 14. But he goes on and charges me with addressing my History of St. George by several Letters to the Earls of Danby Lindsey c. And it is fit that he should have an answer to that Charge also And therefore be he pleased to know that when I first came came to the Kings service I was very young a stranger and unpractised in the wayes of the Court and therefore thought it necessary to make my self known to the Great Lords about his Majesty by writing that History having presented it to three or four of the Lords which were of the Order of the Garter the Earl of Rutland would needs force upon me the taking of two twenty shilling peeces in Gold The sence and shame whereof did so discompose me that afterwards I never gave any one of them with my own hands but onely to the Earl of Sommerset whom I had a great desire to see and from whose condition I could promise my self to come off with freedom But afterwards addressed them with several Leters by some one or other of my servants with whom I hope my Adversary will not think that I parted stakes as many Country Madams are affirmed to do in the Butlers Box. And though I dedicated two of my Books since his Majesties death to two great Peers of this Realm yet for avoiding all such sinister interpretations which otherwise might have bâ—â—n made I sent the one of them with a Letter into Wiltshire and another unto High-Gate by one of my Sons not above 15 years of age receiving from the one a civil acknowledgment in curteous language but from the other not so much as a verbal thanks And give me leave to add this also that I have found more civility in this Kind from a Noble Lady of Hertfordshire whom I never saw and unto whom I never made the least application of this nature then from all persons of both Sexes that ever I addrest my self unto since this scribling humour seised upon me I thank God I never was reduced to such a necessity as to make the writing of Books any part of the trade which I was to live by for if I had I should have found from it such an hungry subsistence as would not have given a chick its breakfast when first out of the shell If the great Queen Regina Pecunia had not been better courted by some of our late Scripturients then she hath hitherto been by me they might have put up all their gettings into a Sempsters Thimble and not filled it neither 15. These Charges being thus blown aside I must be told of many Errors in my Cosmography and the brief view of the Raign of King Charles not long since published the not discovering whereof my Adversary imputes unto himself for a work of merit In reference to the fiâ—st I must needs confess that in the last Edition of my Cosmography there are many Errors but they are rather Errors of the Press then of the Pen. And the Appeallant cannot chuse but know since he pretends to have read that Book that I complain more then once or twice for want of true intelligence in the discribing of some remote Countrys and India amongst the rest which were but little known to Ancient Writers and have been so imperfectly discribed by our modern Travellors that no certainty in History or Chorography can be gathered from them If any person shall be pleased to improve my knowledge and certifie me of the Errors which I have committed I shall not spurn against him as the Appeallant doth at me but thankfully acknowledge their humanity in it and cheerfully reform what is found amiss In the composing of this Book he is pleased to tell me that the extravagancies by me committed are as great as his that 16. parts thereof in 20. are meerly Historical alien from the subject in the strictneâ—s thereof The Pedâ—grees of so many Princes not being reducible to the subject which I have in hand fol. 37. But if he hâ—d been pleaseâ— to consult the Title he might have found that the History of the whole world and all the principal Kingdoms Seas and Iles thereof is as much promised in that Book as the Chorography or Topical Discription of the severall places and therefore neiâ—her Alien Extrinsecal or Extravagant to my first design And whereas he is pleased to tell us a merry tale of a Gentleman who bespoke a
better natured then the Lady Moore of whom my Author knows a tale that coming once from Shrift she pleasantly saith unto her Husband be merry Sir Thomas for I have been well shriven to day and mean to lay aside all my old shrewishness yea Madam saith he and to begin again afresh 10. But so it shall not be with me that which my adversary takes for a shrewishness in me shall be laid aside never to be resumed again upon any occasion when I am not personally concerned In which case if either my spirit prove so eager or my style so tart and smart as he * says it is I hope the naturall necessity of self preservation will excuse me in it Where by the way I must needs think my self unequally dealt with by the present Appeallant who is not pleased with my humour be it Grave or Pleasant If I am Grave and serious in my Animadversions he ascribes it ever and anon to my too much Morosiâ—y as if I were the Morose himselfe in Ben Johnsons Epicaene Iâ— smart and jocular I shall be presently accused oâ— Railing as if I had been bred in Billings-Gate Colledge I can not make my selfe merry with a mess of Fullers but I must have a Rail laid in my Dish and a quail to boot especially if I touch on our Author himself who will behold me for so doing with no other eyes then the servants of Hezekiah looked on Rabsecah p. 2. fol. 95. And if I do but speak unhappily of a Waltam Calf the application of the Harmless Proverb without more aâ—o must be Railing also and such a railing as is like a Toâ—d swelled with venome as much beneath a Doctor as against Divinity p. 3. fol. 33. But let not my Author be too Angry upon this account my Title to the Calf being like to prove as good as his especially if our Contentions be so needless as his Letter intimates For iâ— our Quarels onely be de lana caprina the equall Rider may bestow the Calf upon both alike Et vitulo tu dignus â—ic est as said the Umpire in the Poet. And in all this I hope there is is nothing of the snarling dog to which he iâ— pleased to compare me within few lines after though he knows well that I can Bite as well as Bark if I set my self to it 11. But now I am to change my weapons or rather to throw down the Sword and take up the Buckler that I may save my self the better from those furious blows which the Appealant leâ—s fly at me He charges mâ— in Generall first with not being over dutiful to the Fathers of the Church fol. 2. Dutiful then I am to the Fathers of the Church though not over dutiful which I believe is more then all men who have read his History canaffâ—â—m of him and next particularly for writing against the two Arch-bishops of York and Armah Dr. Prideaux Dr. Hackwell and Calvin who against all the Rules of Heraldry must be marrialled first my engaging with M Lestrange with D. Barnard and his Squire not being forgotten Of which the first four might have slept in Peace in the Bed of Rest without any disturbance on my part if three of them had not been conjured up by Dr. Barnard and his Squire to begin the Quarrel and the fourth raised by M. Lestrange when I least lookt for him And as for Calvin who must needs lead the Van in this General Muster I know no reason which can hinder me or any other who have subscribed unto the Government of the Church of England or have taken the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance to the Kings thereof from taking him to task if he comâ—â—n our way as well as any other forrain oâ— Domestick Writer of what name soever 12. But my â—ndutifulness hath transported me beyond the Fathers of the Church And I am next accused for waving my Loyalty and Discretion together in having so â—auâ—ily and unsubject-like counted how often King Charles waved his Crown p. 1. fol. 56. Somewhat is also intimated within few lines after concerning some of those whom he calls â—igh Royalistâ— who maintaining that all the Goods of the subjects are at the Kings absolute dispose have written of him in a base and disparaging language since the time of his death If any were faulty in this last kind let them speak for themselves neither my Tongue nor Pen shall ever be imployed in their behalf Certain I am that I am free enough from the accusation my nearest kindred being persons of two fair a Fortune to be betrayed by one of their own blood to a loss of that Property which they have by Law in their Estates And no less certain am I that no flattery or time-serving no preaching up the Kings Prerogative nor derogating from the property of the English subjects could be found in any of my Sermons before his Majesty had they been sifted to the very Bran. In confidence whereof as in the way of Anticipation hath been said elsewhere I offered the Committee of the Courts of Justice before whom I was called in December 1640. on the complaint of M. Prinne to put into their hands all the Sermons which I had either preacht at Court or in Westminster Abby to the end that they might see how free and innocent I was from broching any such new Doctrines as might not be good Parliament proof whensoever they should come to be examin'd The 2d crimination for waving my Loyalty and discretion together in speaking something freely let it be called saucily to please my Author of the Kings waving of hs Crown is already answered und the Appeallant might have found it in my Answer to the Observator Observed where the like Objection had been made My Answer is That Errors in conduct of affairs and effects in Councels are not unprofitably noted by the best Historians and that too in the greatest Princes Their successors might be else to seek in the knowledge of some things of weight and consequence and such as most nearly do concern their own preservation He that soweth Pillows under the Elbows of Great Princes when they are alive shall be termed a flatterer and he that flatters them being dead to the prejudice and wrong of their Posterity deserves not to pass for an Historian That wit is alwaies better cheap which is purchased with the price of another mans Errors then with the feeling of our own So that my Adversary in these Criminations doth but Actum agere and therefore is to be content with such former Answers as have been made unto his hands 13 Now as I stand accused for two little Loyalty to the King so I am charged with two much doting on the Queen even the Great Queen and Empress of this world called Regina Pecunia whose Letter must be made more prevalent with me for publishing the Animadversions then all the other considerations pretended by me And for proof