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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43633	Scandalum magnatum, or, The great trial at Chelmnesford assizes held March 6, for the county of Essex, betwixt Henry, Bishop of London, plaintiff, and Edm. Hickeringill rector of the rectory of All-Saints in Colchester, defendant, faithfully related : together with the nature of the writ call'd supplicavit ... granted against Mr. Hickeringill ... as also the articles sworn against him, by six practors of doctors-common ... Published to prevent false reports.	Hickeringill, Edmund, 1631-1708.	1682 (1682)	Wing H1825; ESTC R32967	125,748	116

Skill or Learning or Vndeastanding in Laws and State-matters with meer Cassock men meer Synod-men that never yet were lick't into other Form or Fashion than their own Tantivee Will and Inclination undisciplin'd unrefin'd in Judgment by the study of the Law of the Land the study of men and the Laws and Tempers and Constitutions of Forreign Kingdoms more whereof I have seen than some Tantivee Circingles ever read off in Heylin's Geography if they have it And do you compare my Knowledg-Salt-water-Souldiers Knowledg in State-matters Do you compare us that have been Souldiers at least on this side the Water in times of Peace with meer Cassockmen I Hope there is no Compare at least the Comparison is as odious as groundless But I had almost forgot the Provost of Eaton where I left him Mr. Rous to the Speaker saying For a Conclusion to give you the true Character of this man Dr. Edward Manwaring whom I never saw I will shew it you by one whom I know to be contrary to him Samuel we know all to be a true Prophet now we read of Samuel that he writ the Law of the Kingdom in a Book and laid it up before the Lord. And this he did as Mr. Manwarings own Authors affirms That the King may know what to command and the People what to obey But Mr. Manwaring finding the Law of this Kingdom written in Books tears it in pieces and that in the presence of the Lord right Tantivee in a Pulpit that the King may not know what to command nor the People what to obey Thus Mr. Manwaring being contrary to a true Prophet must needs be a false One and the Judgment of a false Prophet mark that belongs to him I have shewed you an evil Tree that bringeth forth evil fruit and now it rests for you to determine whether the following sentence shall follow cut it down and cast it into the fire Thus have you seen my Lord what a Pother and a do these Clergymen have made in the Kingdom how Parliaments have been plagu'd with these Tantivee-Jehu's nay Kings most of all and themselves also the Rash Phaeton's setting the world in a flame by ambitiously mounting and driving switch and spur Gallop and Tantivee in a Chariot they have Pride to mount but no skill to drive sindging and burning themselves to boot in flames of their own kindling In your next Visitation I hope we shall hear no more of these Canons and Constitutions of 40 I wish it for my own sake that would avoid all occasions of Contests Differences Suits and Disputes with all men more especially with you but I wish it also more for your own sake you will most repent it in Conclusion if it take Air and be nois'd abroad so loud till it come to the Ears of the King and Parliament when we got one His Majesty has promis't his Subjects frequent Parliaments the Fundamental Laws which whosoever attempts to undermine and liker another Faux to blow up it will be his ruin and fall heavy on his head Better leave no Lands no Fields to our Heirs than Akeldama's only or Fields of Blood or else in base Tenure at the Will of the Lord much worse at the mercy of every Court Sycophant that may well beg us and our Estates for Fools if we be willing to part with our Fundamental Laws for Manwaring's Sycophantry or your so magnified Can. 1. of the Constitutions of 40. And in your next Visitation not my Sufferings will so far daunt the English-Clergy but that they will remember they are Englishmen not Scots nor Irish Tories nor Lambeth Canon-men especially when their Eyes are a little more opened with more Naked-Truth for Magna est veritas praevalebit Men will not long be blinded under pretence of Loyalty to abuse the King the Constitutions of the Kingdom and themselves and their Posterities nor be willing to bold their Liberties their Estates their Lives their Wives and their Livings ad nutum Episcopi no nor ad libitum Regis but ad libitum Legis Oh vile Slaves willing by cowardly Pedantry or ambitious Sycophantry to be Hoodwink't and led by the Nose to a certain Precipice and ruine or to have a Ring put through their Nose and led about like Bears for Sport or Collars about their Necks because enamell'd perhaps or made of Silver and snapping and biteing and snarling at him above all others that would take the Collars off wnuld unringle them would unhoodwink the blind-men Buffs in spight of their Teeth I 'le do 't I am resolv'd let them snarle and bite poor hearts it is their nature they cannot help it nor can I in reason expect other requital of my Charity I know them the men and their Communication the men and their innate envy and peevish revenge In time they will grow better when prejudice and passion makes them not forget that they are Englishmen not Irish-men Christians not Bigots and willing to be governed by our ancient English Constitutions and Laws not the Manwaring and Laud's Canons and Constitutions of 40. Have we with so much adoe been puzzling all this while these 40 Years and are we not yet got over the Lambeth-Canons and Constitutions of 40 must the Church and Kingdom twice be split on the same Rock some men endeavour it might and main or else the Loyal Long-Parliament were not the Happy House of Commons as the King styles them at least not happy in their Intelligence if they struck so violently without sufficient Reason against Duke Lauderdail and the Earl of Danby for this very cause of the Kingdom The Good Old Cause without a Sarcasm Good for the King and Kingdom the best and surest if not the only way to make the King and Kingdom happy safe and pleasantly united against which the old and true foundation and principle none ever yet attempted but it prov'd his ruine bringing the Old House over his Head And when you hav impartially weighed the mischiefs that have attended these new Sybthorpian Doctrines Manwaring and Dr. Lauds false Canon of 40. you and I shall never more quarrel nay let us now shake hands enter the Ring again and try the other touch in a New Tryal or let us shake hands and be friends and on Condition you be so Good Natur'd as to remit this Vnconscionable and Outragious Verdict I to shew my Good Nature in requital will Remit the Injuries aforesaid the Original Sin that has tainted the Consequent Differences and Contests I hope I have in this Long Letter given your Lordship such sufficient satisfaction about the Canons of 40 the vanity the Mischief and Falshood especially of the 1. Canon thereof that like eager Disputants we shall end just where we began and yet both be wiser and better and the Kingdom too for this Contest and then this Outragious and Vnconscionable and Vnreasonable Verdict will have a Happy Issue in either Curing the St. Anthonies Fire Heat and Tantivee-Flame that has not

no man dare make any such suggestions for the future and may such Earwigs also be banish't to any part of Earth or into the Earth rather than thus to plague a King and Kingdom at this rate in all Ages and vex and grieve his Sacred Majesty and his Parliaments what a pother and a doe have Parliaments had with these Tantivies in all Ages And how ruinous and ruful were the Consequents I know not whither you my Lord can remember But I can by woful experiment you said you begun to know me now you know me better and I know you in part I hope I shall know you better the onely design of this Letter I wish Synods and Lambeth Convocations and Bishops would keep to their Bibles and mind their own business work enough in conscience for 1000 Bishops in England if they would stoop to be Conformists to the Act of Uniformity and more than a thousand Bishops can legally perform if there were so many in England for there was a greater number in a far less spot of ground in Africa Contemporaries with S. Austin the Bishop of little Hippo that was never so big as Islington which is not impossible nay if we had a thousand Bishops in England they could not at all do the confirming work alone let alone the Work in the House of Lords and at the Councel-Board and their promotions at Doctors Commons and ther Actions Suites and Declarations and Libels as Action-drivers and Promoters and Visitations and vexations of ruinous consequence to the Projectors as well as to the Kingdom such as the Tantivie Doctrine of Manwaring and little Laud that had better minded his Book his excellent Book against Fisher then to turn Politick-Engineer and Master-Gunner in planting of Canons against the Fundamental Laws that such Tantivies are not skill'd in but if they read but of a King in Scripture though it be Rehoboam that Fool or Caesar that Heathen then Heysday for the Pulpit or the Synod Hey for Lambeth and the Canons of 40. But you will say what have I to do a Priest also with these State-matters ' To which I answer 1. These State-matters improperly or foolishly handled by your Tantivee-Archbishop Laud and your Tantivees Bishops that would have been Sybthorp and Manwaring and by your Tantivee Canon 1 of the Constitutions of 40 was by you justified in your publick Visitation and before the Mayor hnd Aldermen of Colchester and the greatest part of the Gentlemen of the Town and Clergy of that Precinct and for you boldly to recommend or justifie this Tantivie-Canon 1 of the Constitutions of 40 I know not whether all the Clergy you have or any Friend in England would have thus adventur'd suo periculo to awake you out of this Tantivee-dream in which as in the old disease the Plague of English-men and of English-men only called Suder Anglicus or the English-sweating-sickness if you sleep in it 't is mortal if you had a hundred thousand lives and I think you are beholden to me above all mankind him that you have thus vext above all mankind for nothing but the cause the cause of the Kingdom the cause and Fundamaentl-Laws scoff't at and derided by none but drunken Tories and Sack-posset-Tantiviees that cry brother let me pledge thee Brother Sybthorp Brother Two Livings Brother Manwaring Brother Arch-Laud they will be loath to follow him though at the long run and latter end But it is that we must all come to If we be Tantivees therefore as you love your self my Lord and me Let me hear no more in my part of Essex any more Commendations Justifications Aggravations or Recommendations of this ignorant Synod and Tantivee-Convocation of Lambeth in their Constitutions of 40 nor of any such Synod-men that were never lick't into Form-Political let them tell Sacred Stories of God and Christ I but no more Politick Canons of 40. against the Fundamental Laws if you love me or my betters innuendo your Lordship for one 2. This Politick-Lecture of State-matters begun by you and your Lambeth-Synod has been a Plaguyvexation to our Kings and Parliaments in all Ages read the History of the Barons Wars in King John's Reign Hen. 2. Hen. 3. The Edwards The Richard's the Henry's I had almost said The Charle's By what I have said you read the said Bickerings in the Reigns of King Charles I. and our present Soveraign King Charles the II and His Loyal House of Commons then which never any King was more Happy than He in that yet though chosen in a time of Languishing Expectation after the Prosits and Benefits of a King which we had too long wanted they were English-men still And he 's an Ass that expects a fitter juncture or more auspicious Election for the choice of Parliament to carry on any Designs but what are Catholick and according to the Good Old Cause I mean the Fundamental Laws which not a few swearing and beggarly Pamphleting Tories and unthinking and very impudent Tantivees and withal very ignorant are able to defeat though they draw down their Canons of 40 which I thought had been nail'd and damn'd and ram'd 40. years ago by the Tories Themselves and Tantivees to whom they prov'd so fatal will men never take warning must Parliaments always be plagu'd with these Earwiggs and Tantivees Flaterers and Court Sycophants and Blesphemous Insinuators of Divinity into Humanity by a most Atheistical Invention of a New Hypostatical Vnion But the Holy Trinity admits no Partners though the Priests teach us or inculcate never so villanously traiterously falsely illegally unscripturely irrationally or blasphemously It is a high shame that 's the truth on'c that such Tantivee-Doctrines should thrive and such as stand up for the Ancient Laws and Liberties must suffer above all others 't is a shame power should be thus abused like a silk worm to ruin and consume its self to bedeck worse Vermin 't is a shame I will not venture to say any more but draw a Curtain over some mens shame because I will not show all their Nakedness I forbear my Lord I have done And leave you to think sadly to think and with sorrow I hope and repentance too for justifying this first Canon of the Constitutions of 40. those Chequer-works of different Hue black and white good and bad especially the First of them nigro carbene notamur let you and I remember that First fatal Canon of the 1. of the Constitutions of 40. that has been so mortal already and will still prove without very timely and immediate Repentance baneful to one of us or rueful to both of us or to this Kingdom State and Common-wealth But still you will object what have I to do to discuss these State-matters sit chiefly for a Parliament I answer That you have given the occasion the sad occasion It now becomes me and becomes necessary what before had been as impertinent as for a Bishop or Synod-man to meddle in the State-affairs But 2. Do you compare my

to the Grave they are dangerous steps for you believe Me. The CONCLVSION THIS Letter is the Quintessence and Epitome of the whole Book and may for a shift serve those that will not or cannot find leisure to read the whole Book and though writ raptim and in haste yet though I say it that should not say it worthy for the matter to be writ in Letters of Gold and transmitted to all Posterity the Subject is so Good so seasonable and so needful to be handled For however it happen to work doubtfully upon Teagues and Irish-Tories and slavish prostituted and Hackney-Pamphleteers whose only Religion is their Gain yet I doubt not but it has sufficient Vertue in it to Convert all English Tories and Tantivees that are not sworn-slaves and make them perfect WHIGGS whose Numbers increase daily they are never the fewer for me and this Contest with the Bishop and multiply wonderfully and so will still when things are well-consider'd and impartially-weighed according to our ancient Honourable safe and most excellent English Frame and Constitution of Government Our Kings are Kings of France but God forbid they should be like the French King then indeed as the Tantivee-Preacher ratled it our very Souls would not be our own nor scarcely would God be suffered quietly to enjoy them as his share but All would be Caesars our Estates our Libertiet our Children our Lands our Lives and our Wives And then what shall we have nay what shall God have If All be Caesars such Tantivee-Fops and senceless Preaching-Sots deserve to be hang'd and till some of them be so served or made Exampels of we shall never be freed of these ENGLISH Incendiaries Tory-Pulpiteers and Tory Pamphleteers but be ruin'd twice in an Age with one and the same Plagues and Pests And work as Negroes do in Barbadoes by day for their Masters and at night lie with their Wives to get slaves for their Masters too And is it not better to have no Charters no Priviledges then to serve a weary Apprentyship and give Money to boot for our Freedom and yet hold them by no surer Tenure then till a Courtier be displeas'd or wants Money And as for Ecclesiastical Courts if 16 Car. 1. 11. be in force and was never repealed and that the 13 Car. 2. 12. repealing 17 Car. 1. can never be construed to Repeal 16 Car. 1. Then what force have they or Power toward impose or inflict any pain penalty c. nor did they or durst they inflict any pain or penalty as loath to venture 100 l. for every offence nor did they censure any till 13 Car. 2. 12. repealed 17 Car. 1. 11. but if it did not repeal 16 Car. 1. 11. as it is evident upon the Parliament Roll it is 16 Car. 1. 11. that repeals the branch of 1 Eliz. I think they have brought their Hogs to a Fine Market and stand liable for all the mischief they have done to Souls to Bodies and to Bones I believe some in the Parliament at least did intend to repeal 16 Car. 1. 11. but if it be as it is a great mistake it is fatal and not to be remedied but by a PARLIAMENT and if ever they should be so bold and daring as to inflict any penalty upon me have at them for the 100.l Besides I doubt not but 1 Edw. 6. 2. is in force for though it is repeal'd by 1 Mar. 2. yet that 1 Mar. 2. is repeal'd by 1 Jacob. 25. and Samson is unbound again Remoto Impedimento Revivescit and herewith agreeth the Book-Case in 15. Ed. 3. tit Petition Placit 2. Coke mag chart 686. 'T is true that 4 Jacob two questions were moved first whether any Bishops made especially since the first day of that first Sessions of Parliament 1 Jacob. were lawful or no. 2. Whether the Proceedings in the Ecclesiastical-Courts being made under the name Stile and Seal of the Bishop were warranted by Law The Chief Justices agreed that 1 Edw. 6. 2. was in force for though the Act 1. Eliz. 1. Revive the 25. Hen. 8. 20. Which Empowers Bishops to Act as formerly and consequently or obliquely the 1 Ed. 6. 2. is struck at yet can any man in his right wits imagine that it is either true or safe that a Statute should be repealed obliquely and by consequence without the least thought thereof in the Legislators this would be of most dangerous consequence But the Legislators could not think of repealing that which was actually and expresly at that time repealed already by 1. Mar. 2. nor of repealing the Ed. 6. 2. by 1. and 2. Phil. and Mar. 8. which was repealed already by 1 Mar. and 1. 2. Phil. Mar. that does not repeal 1 Ed. 6. 2. by name and consequents will not do nor inferences this is tricks and wiredrawing to defeat a Statute-Law by finess or nicety of Wit or Lawyers-Criticisms And therefore there is no need of flying to 1 Eliz. 1. for the repeal af 1. 2. Phil. Mar. 8. yet the Judges generally extrajudicially were of another opinion The case deserves the Resolution of the Judges in open-Court or in a Parliament or both an extrajudicial Judgment then has been in Jan 4 and 1 July 1637 and the Judges gave their opinions as the Bishops best liked Dr. Laud especially but the same Judges also to please him were for the Legallity of Ship-money and customes unsetled by Parliament see Appendix of Dr. Godolphins Abridgment of Laws and Coke Instit C. 2. p. 685. 686. the Lord Coke was overawed by the High-Commission Court now the Law is not in awe though the Gentleman that gives this Narrative of the said Tryall did not take it in short-hand he that has so vast a memory shall not need nor yet is willing to be known to be the Author of these observations not that there is a a word or line in this book that he is not prompt and at hand and to chuse willing to justifie if any dare be so bold daring and impudent or so very ignorant as to oppose these profitable and well known truths backt with the Gospel and the Law Ha Let me have no grumbling you may Whisper Point make Dumb-shows and Signs but I will have no grumbling aloud But he is not willing to put his Name to this Book as Author yet nevertheless according to the Common-Custome of Learned Authors that Preface their works with their own Pictures or Effigies they shall not need neither some of them are not so handsom● no more then the course face of this Blunt Author Nevertheless the Author to humour the Common vanity gave me leave to give you part of his Effigies or a halfe-face of him pourtray'd as followeth not in his first but last Page of his book if you be Oediposses you may soon unriddle the aenigma the Author has a soul so great I 'le say no more on 't but as for his fancy and invention the whole Creation is so immediately at

your Naked-Truth c. I find your Books in these parts to be like Universal Pills they have various Operations and work upon all Bodies Politick one way or other by Sweating Vomiting Purging Urin c. but generally the People take them as Cordials and digest them with a great deal of comfort for we are true Britains in the West and are glad to hear there is one wise Man in the East we hope there are more We are so yoaked with Consistory Collars that our Necks are worn bare and our Withers gauled and if we offer to winch or draw back we are presently pinch'd and such Goads run into our Sides that we are forced to go as they please for they must needs go that the Devil drives And tho' we have but short Pasture on our barren Mountains and lean Livings in Wales that we can but just keep Life and Soul together yet our fat Task-master does so exact that we can scarce keep Skin and Bones together we are so poor we cannot creep we are so drained in our Purses that we are no way able to wage War with the Beast Our trembling Vicars Levite-like conform to all and Issachar-like bear any Burdens that are laid upon their Backs and know not how to help themselves And our poor Church-Wardens stand Cap in Hand to the Worshipful Mr. Arch-Deacon the Reverend Doctor and Commissary and the Sir Reverence the Register and are glad they can get off and be dispatched by paying of their Mony which is a Parish Charge that grudg to give them allowance for their Time And if the Church-Warden offer to speak the Arch-Deacon nods and the Commissary frowns and the Register mouths and rails and calls them Saucy threatning them to march from Court to Court and wait attendance upon his Ar that they are so tired in Body and Spirit that they have no heart to their Drudgery they had rather be of any Office Scavengers to empty Dung than to be Church-Wardens for they are forced to swear and forswear themselves whether they will or no for it is impossible for them to keep their Oaths if they offer to speak their Mouths are stop'd with a Canon Bullet a Book of Articles is given them to present their peaceable Neighbours by The Margin doth quote several Canons which they cannot read neither do they know when or where they were made Nay they tell them of unwritten Traditions of Customs and Ancient Usages and frighten them with high Words and snap them up saying Take the Book here is the Guide you must go by and Present or else you are forsworn And when they make Returns which is writ by one or other of their Proctors for which they give a Shilling and subscribe Omnia bene they will not believe them but tell them The Court is informed otherwise and put pusling Questions to entangle them and will not take in their Presentments till they have put in the Names of some of their best Parishioners but they must not be Quakers and thus the whole Parish is set in a flame by these Incendiaries and poor ignorant Creatures they cannot help it If there be any dronish or debauched Clergy-man that they complain of they cannot be heard and they understand that some have been proved Prophane in Life and common speaking and Heretical and Popish in their publick Preaching that the High Arches do only check them and continue them in their Livings to the encouragement of Debauchery and the hazard of the precious Souls of their Hearers But if there be but one pious and painful Preacher the whole inquiry is after him What doth that Man do is he conformable in every Point to the King 's Ecclesiastical Laws and if there be the lest iota or Ceremony omitted at any time he is presently suspended ab Officio Beneficio and thus the Shepherd is smitten and the Flock scattered Sir I have held you too long I have been in the Company of the Clergy where your Books have been mentioned and some modest Men have spoken that there were many things too true But the High Hectors have run them down and railed against your Book and you saying They know not but you may be a Jesuit which they never said while you drudged for them They say That a Pillory is more fit for you than a Pulpit and a Rope than a Cope They say E're long your Mouth will be stopped they will cut your Gill and then Hicker where you will They have Silver and Gold Spurs yours are but Natural and they will slash you they will pick out your Eyes and crow over you they will not leave a Feather on your Back or a Quill to make you a Pen to scribble with they will cut your Comb and your Stones too and make a Gelding of you that you may only serve as a Door-keeper for their Nuns c. But I shall detain you no longer but subscribe my self Sir Yours to honour and serve SOL. SHAWE Sir Your Friends long to hear when the Term will be over and how it fares with you So much for the Prose next follows the British Muse bred on Pernassus the Penmenmaur THy Naked-Truth brave Hickeringil out-shines The glittering Silver and the golden Shrines Of great Diana all her Vanities Are clearly seen by Naked Verities This makes Demetrius and his crafty Crew With Pursevants so hotly to pursue For now their Trade is likely to go down They cry Diana round about the Town The Church the Church is come into disgrace An uproar now is rais'd in every place Confusion is so great they 'r in a smother Some cry out one thing some cry out another The greatest part know not the reason why They 'r met together to make Hue and Cry O for a Town Clerk th' Rabble to allay And send th' Assembly peaceably away For Naked-Truth robs not the Church but she Discovers only her Deformity Restoring her to Primitiye Beauty And when a lawful Convention of State Shall meet together to take thy Relate Into their serious Consult 't will be found There 's nothing writ but on a Scripture-ground They 'l see that Canon is not Statute Law But only like a blazing Wisp of Straw To scare the Simple to Conformity Against their Conscience Law and Liberty It 's only hissing Wild-fire that doth singe To make Fools unto Ceremonies cringe And by this means they will sind a just cause To regulate such Arbitrary Laws For King and Parliament have not confirmed Their Canon Laws therefore they may be mended Except unto the Romish Church they fly T' uphold confused Babel-Hierarchy And this thy Naked-Truth doth shew as much Except they are resolved to be such What tho' thy Naked-Truth by some be blamed Yet Naked-Truth will never be ashamed And what tho' thou like Paul wert formerly In Commission by Scribe and Pharisee To drudg for them oppressing some with Fines That would not bow and stoop to their Designs Yet if thou now

I have made to your Lordship that all Differences as well as the Action of Scandalum Magnatum brought against me by your Lordship may be amicably composed before the utmost Extremity be tried If I had spoke the Words modo formâ as they are laid in your Declaration I know not whether upon any Submission your Lordship would find Mercy enough to remit them But my Lord if you will vouchsafe me a Hearing with or without your own Witness or Witnesses I doubt not but he or they will evidence my Innocence that I never spoke the Words as they are laid but without any Interruption or Intermission in a continued Discourse I did explain and explain and express what horrid Plot it was which I said your Lordship had a hand in viz. against my righteous Name and Reputation in the Barretry And that those ungrateful Words of Impudent and Ignorant which are odious if considered abstractly had reference only to a Discourse we had of a printed Paper your Lordship recommended to the Clergy of Essex in your last Visitation and amongst other things the Observation of the Canons of 40 by Name disallowed by 13. Car. 2. 12. Which Statute if your Lordship knew not I said you were ignorant thereof or if you knew it it was impudent to confront the said Act of King and Parliament opposing your Sence against theirs All which my Lord are not scandalous taken together nor against the Statute if true but the last Words were very rashly and irreverently spoken and I am so far from justifying the Irreverence and Indecency of the Expressions what Provocation soever I might have that I will give your Lordship what Satisfaction your Lordship shall reasonably require with all Humility and Contrition And I am the rather hopeful of the good Success of this my humble Submission because I hope your Lordship intended nothing else in bringing the Action but only to bring me to Acknowledgment of the Irreverence of the Expressions and not with a design to enrich your self by any Money of mine or undoing me and my Family Yet my Lord I doubt not but to make it appear if you will admit me to your Lordship that the Action against me is ill laid and that you wlil certainly be non-suited tho it be no Policy to tell your Lordship how and wherein at this time of Day However it will approve me ingenuous towards your Lordship and that I do as industriously avoid a Conquest as well as all Contest with your Lordship and that this Submission proceeds from nobler Principles than Fear can suggest But I have had so ill Success in all my former Applications to your Lordship that I have but little Faith or Hope in the Success of this however nothing on my part shall be wanting to an Accommodation And since Almighty God in Mercy does not send a Thunderbolt for every rash Oath or every irreverent Word against his holy Name your Lordship I faintly hope will after his Example find Mercy and Grace enough to remit My Lord Your Lordship 's humble Servant EDM. HICKERINGIL Now let the Reader judg whether any soft Concession or Submissions can mollify this sort of Men Flints will break upon a Feather-Bed but the Bishop and his Clerks near the Isle of Scilly are harder than Flint harder than the Adamant or the nether Milstone What Advantage did Sir Francis Pemberton the Lord Chief Justice take at the Defendant's ingenuous Concessions which were more than needed in the Case For there are not any Words laid in the Declaration if never so true and well-prov'd that are actionable or within that Statute but are justifiable as they were spoken And upon a Writ of Error it will appear for the Oath of the Judges is to have no respect of Persons in Judgment That the Words in all the three several Counts are not actionable nor scandalous and if so then all this Noise is like the Shearing of Hogs a great Cry and a little Wooll To say His Lordship is very ignorant 't is too true and if he be wise he will confess it as aforesaid St. Paul did and so Socrates and all the wise Men before or since Agur or Solomon one of them says I am more brutish than any Man I have not the Vnderstanding of a Man That Danger is over the other is easy For to say in sensu conjuncto nay in sensu diviso That his Lordship is a bold Man A Souldier should be so much more when he is a Souldier of Christ much more when he mounts so high as to be a Prelate he had need be bold or daring because of the many Oppositions he must expect to encounter The Apostle bids us stand to our Arms and put on the whole Armor of God and stand and when we have done all to stand Aristotle and all the Philosophers make Fortitude to be one of the four Cardinal Vertues I never heard it was scandalous before to say a Man is bold and daring if it had on the contrary been said his Lordship is fearful a Coward and then Then then indeed the Scandal magnat would be greatly scandalous and within the Statute and the Action would well lie but not to say His Lordship is a bold daring Man though you add a bold daring impudent Man for sending some Heads of Divinity in a printed Paper contrary to Law Is it not Impudence to live in the Practice and Office Episcopal acting contrary to those Methods Rules and Rubricks commanded in the Statutes by King and Parliament and contrary to the Common-Prayer Book and Act of Uniformity Yes you must say for a Bishop cannot plead Ignorance nor Frailty for then his Lordship would indeed be very ignorant The Defendant is the Man that will prove if any Body have the Face to deny it and when Time shall serve that there is a Bishop within a Mile of an Oak that has liv'd in the Practice and Office Episcopal acting contrary to those Methods Rules and Rubricks commanded in the Statute by King and Parliament and Common-Prayer Book and Act of Uniformity As for Instance He that confirms all Comers Hand over Head without Exception without Examination without Certificate without knowing that they are Baptiz'd or Catechis'd is not this abominable bold daring and impudent No great Man if he be a Subject is too great for the Law not too great to be corrected reform'd and better taught not too great for King and Parliament and their Statutes It is Treason to deny this Truth What shall Confirmation of which the Papists make a Sacrament and Protestants make an Ordinance and Statute-Law be slubber'd over against the very Design of it be slubber'd over by confirming such as have neither Sureties there nor any Witness nor any God-Father or God-Mother nor any Minister to testify that ever they were baptized O abominable What is bold daring and impudent if this be not The Canon Law says Episcopus non potest statuere contra