that whereof before hee was so scrupulous And yet at the same time Naevius and Plautus the first Latine comedians had fill'd the City with all the borrow'd Scenes of Menander and Philemon Then began to be consider'd there also what was to be don to libellous books and Authors for Naevius was quickly cast into prison for his unbridl'd pen and releas'd by the Tribunes upon his recantation We read also that lipels were burnt and the makers punisht by Augustus The like severity no doubt was us'd if ought were impiously writt'n against their esteemed gods Except in these two points how the world went in Books the Magistrat kept no reckning And therefore Lucretius without impeachment versifies his Epicurism to Memmius and had the honour to be set forth the second time by Cicero so great a father of the Common-wealth although himselfe disputes against that opinion in his own writings Nor was the Satyricall sharpnesse or naked plainnes of Lucilius or Catullus or Flaccus by any order prohibited And for matters of State the story of Titus Livius though it extoll'd that part which Pompey held was not therefore supprest by Octavius Caesar of the other Faction But that Neso was by him banisht in his old age for the wanton Poems of his youth was but a meer covert of State over some secret cause and besides the Books were neither banisht nor call'd in From hence we shall meet with little else but tyranny in the Roman Empire that we may not marvell if not so often bad as good Books were silenc't I shall therefore deem to have bin large anough in producing what among the ancients was punishable to write save only which all other arguments were free to treat on By this time the Emperors were become Christians whose discipline in this point I doe not finde to have bin more severe then what was formerly in practice The Books of those whom they took to be grand Hereticks were examin'd refuted and condemn'd in the generall Councels and not till then were prohibited or burnt by autority of the Emperor As for the writings of Heathen authors unlesse they were plaine invectives against Christianity as those of Porphyrius and Proclus they met with no interdict that can be cited till about the year 400. in a Carthaginian Councel wherein Bishops themselves were forbid to read the Books of Gentiles but Heresies they might read while others long before them on the contrary scrupl'd more the Books of Hereticks then of Gentiles And that the primitive Councels and Bishops were wont only to declare what Books were not commendable passing no furder but leaving it to each ones conscience to read or to lay by till after the yeare 800. is observ'd already by Padre Paolo the great unmasker of the Trentine Councel After which time the Popes of Rome engrossing what they pleas'd of Politicall rule into their owne hands extended their dominion over mens eyes as they had before over their judgements burning and prohibiting to be read what they fansied not yet sparing in their censures and the Books not many which they so dealt with till Martin the 5. by his Bull not only prohibited but was the first that excommunicated the reading of hereticall Books for about that time Wicklef and Husse growing terrible were they who first drove the Papall Court to a stricter policy of prohibiting Which cours Leo the 10 and his successors follow'd untill the Councell of Trent and the Spanish Inquisition engendring together brought forth or perfeted those Catalogues and expurging Indexes that rake through the entralls of many an old good Author with a violation wors then any could be offer'd to his tomb Nor did they stay in matters Hereticall but any subject that was not to their palat they either condemn'd in a prohibition or had it strait into the new Purgatory of an Index To fill up the measure of encroachment their last invention was to ordain that no Book pamphlet or paper should be Printed as if S. Peter had bequeath'd them the keys of the Presse also out of Paradise unlesse it were approv'd and licenc't under the hands of 2 or 3 glutton Friers For example Let the Chancellor Cini be pleas'd to see if in this present work be contain'd ought that may withstand the Printing Vincent Rabatta Vicar of Florence I have seen this present work and finde nothing athwart the Catholick faith and good manners In witnesse whereof I have given c. Nicolò Cini Chancellor of Florence Attending the precedent relation it is allow'd that this present work of Davanzati may be Printed Vincent Rabatta c. It may be Printed July 15. Friar Simon Mompei d' Amelia Chancellor of the holy office in Florence Sure they have a conceit if he of the bottomlesse pit had not long since broke prison that this quadruple exorcism would barre him down I feare their next designe will be to get into their custody the licencing of that which they say * Claudius intended but went not through with Voutsafe to see another of their forms the Roman stamp Imprimatur If it seem good to the reverend Master of the holy Palace Belcastro Vicegerent Imprimatur Friar Nicolò Rodolphi Master of the holy Palace Sometimes 5 Imprimaturs are seen together dialogue-wise in the Piatza of one Title page complementing and ducking each to other with their shav'n reverences whether the Author who stands by in perplexity at the foot of his Epistle shall to the Presse or to the spunge These are the prety responsories these are the deare Antiphonies that so bewitcht of late our Prelats and their Chaplaines with the goodly Eccho they made and besotted us to the gay imitation of a lordly Imprimatur one from Lambeth house another from the West end of Pauls so apishly Romanizing that the word of command still was set downe in Latine as if the learned Grammaticall pen that wrote it would cast no ink without Latine or perhaps as they thought because no vulgar tongue was worthy to expresse the pure conceit of an Imprimatur but rather as I hope for that our English the language of men ever famous and formost in the atchievements of liberty will not easily finde servile letters anow to spell such a dictatorie presumption English And thus ye have the Inventors and the originall of Book-licencing ript up and drawn as lineally as any pedigree We have it not that can be heard of from any ancient State or politie or Church nor by any Statute left us by our Ancestors elder or later nor from the moderne custom of any reformed Citty or Church abroad but from the most Antichristian Councel and the most tyrannous Inquisition that ever inquir'd Till then Books were ever as freely admitted into the World as any other birth the issue of the brain was no more stifl'd then the issue of the womb no envious Juno sate cros-leg'd over the nativity of any mans intellectuall off spring but if it prov'd a Monster who denies
considerat builders more wise in spirituall architecture when great reformation is expected For now the time seems come wherein Moses the great Prophet may sit in heav'n rejoycing to see that memorable and glorious wish of his fulfill'd when not only our sev'nty Elders but all the Lords people are become Prophets No marvell then though some men and some good men too perhaps but young in goodnesse as Joshua then was envy them They fret and out of their own weaknes are in agony lest these divisions and subdivisions will undoe us The adversarie again applauds and waits the hour when they have brancht themselves out saith he small anough into parties and partitions then will be our time Fool he sees not the firm root out of which we all grow though into branches nor will beware untill he see our small divided maniples cutting through at every angle of his ill united and unweildy brigade And that we are to hope better of all those supposed sects and schisms and that we shall not need that solicitude honest perhaps though over timorous of them that vex in this behalf but shall laugh in the end at those malicious applauders of our differences I have these reasons to perswade me First when a City shall be as it were besieg'd and blockt about her navigable river infested inrodes and incursions round defiance and battell oft rumor'd to be marching up ev'n to her walls and suburb trenches that then the people or the greater part more then at other times wholly tak'n up with the study of highest and most important matters to be reform'd should be disputing reasoning reading inventing discoursing ev'n to a rarity and admiration things not before discourst or writt'n of argues first a singular good will contentednesse and confidence in your prudent foresight and safe government Lords and Commons and from thence derives it self to a gallant bravery and well grounded contempt of their enemies as if there were no small number of as great spirits among us as his was who when Rome was nigh besieg'd by Hanibal being in the City bought that peece of ground at no cheap rate whereon Hanibal himself encampt his own regiment Next it is a lively and cherfull presage of our happy successe and victory For as in a body when the blood is fresh the spirits pure and vigorous not only to vital but to rationall faculties and those in the acutest and the pertest operations of wit and suttlety it argues in what good plight and constitution the body is so when the cherfulnesse of the people is so sprightly up as that it has not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety but to spare and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of controversie and new invention it betok'ns us not degenerated nor drooping to a fatall decay but casting off the old and wrincl'd skin of corruption to outlive these pangs and wax young again entring the glorious waies of Truth and prosperous vertue destin'd to become come great and honourable in these latter ages Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant Nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep and shaking her invincible locks Methinks I see her as an Eagle muing her mighty youth and kindling her undazl'd eyes at the full midday beam purging and unscaling her long abused sight at the fountain it self of heav'nly radiance while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds with those also that love the twilight flutter about amaz'd at what she means and in their envious gabble would prognosticat a year of sects and schisms What should ye doe then should ye suppresse all this flowry crop of knowledge and new light sprung up and yet springing daily in this City should ye set an Oligarchy of twenty ingrossers over it to bring a famin upon our minds again when we shall know nothing but what is measur'd to us by their bushel Beleeve it Lord and Commons they who counsell ye to such a suppressing doe as good as bid ye suppresse your selves and I will soon shew how If it be desir'd to know the immediat cause of all this free writing and free speaking there cannot be assing'd a truer then your own mild and free and human government it is the liberty Lords and Commons which your own valorous and happy counsels have purchast us liberty which is the nurse of all great wits this is that which hath ratify'd and enlightn'd our spirits like the influence of heav'n this is that which hath enfranchis'd enlarg'd and lifted up our apprehensions degrees above themselves Ye cannot make us now lesse capable lesse knowing lesse eagarly pursuing of the truth unlesse ye first make your selves that made us so lesse the lovers lesse the founders of our true liberty We can grow ignorant again brutish formall and slavish as ye found us but you then must first become that which ye cannot be oppressive arbitrary and tyrannous as they were from whom ye have free'd us That our hearts are now more capacious our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest and exactest things is the issue of your owne vertu propagated in us ye cannot suppresse that unlesse ye reinforce an abrogated and mercilesse law that fathers may dispatch at will their own children And who shall then stick closest to ye and excite others not he who takes up armes for cote and conduct and his four nobles of Danegelt Although I dispraise not the defence of just immunities yet love my peace better if that were all Give me the liberty to know to utter and to argue freely according to conscience above all liberties What would be best advis'd then if it be found so hurtfull and so unequall to suppresse opinions for the newness or the unsutablenes to a customary acceptance will not be my task to say I only shall repeat what I have learnt from one of your own honourable number a right noble and pious Lord who had he not sacrific'd his life and fortunes to the Church and Commonwealth we had not now mist and bewayl'd a worthy and undoubted patron of this argument Ye know him I am sure yet I for honours sake and may it be eternall to him shall name him the Lord Brook He writing of Episcopacy and by the way treating of sects and schisms left Ye his vote or rather now the last words of his dying charge which I know will ever be of dear and honour'd regard with Ye so full of meeknes and breathing charity that next to his last testament who bequeath'd love and peace to his Disciples I cannot call to mind where I have read or heard words more mild and peacefull He there exhorts us to hear with patience and humility those however they be miscall'd that desire to live purely in such a use of Gods Ordinances as the best guidance of their conscience gives them and to tolerat them though in some disconformity to ourselves The book it self
but that it was justly burnt or sunk into the Sea But that a Book in wors condition then a peccant soul should be to stand before a Jury ere it be borne to the World and undergo yet in darknesse the judgement of Radamanth and his Collegues ere it can passe the ferry backward into light was never heard before till that mysterious iniquity provokt and troubl'd at the first entrance of Reformation sought out new limbo's and new hells wherein they might include our Books also within the number of their damned And this was the rare morsell so officiously snatcht up and so ilfavourdly imitated by our inquisiturient Bishops and the attendant minorites their Chaplains That ye like not now these most certain Authors of this licencing order and that all sinister intention was farre distant from your thoughts when ye were importun'd the passing it all men who know the integrity of your actions and how ye honour Truth will clear yee readily But some will say What though the Inventors were bad the thing for all that may be good It may so yet if that thing be no such deep invention but obvious and easie for any man to light on and yet best and wisest Commonwealths through all ages and occasions have forborne to use it and falsest seducers and oppressors of men were the first who tooke it up and to no other purpose but to obstruct and hinder the first approach of Reformation I am of those who beleeve it will be a harder alchymy then Lullius ever knew to sublimat any good use out of such an invention Yet this only is what I request to gain from this reason that it may be held a dangerous and suspicious fruit as certainly it deserves for the tree that bore it untill I can dissect one by one the properties it has But I have first to finish as was propounded what is to be thought in generall of reading Books what ever sort they be and whether be more the benefit or the harm that thence proceeds Not to insist upon the examples of Moses Daniel Paul who were skilfull in all the learning of the AEgyptians Caldeans and Greeks which could not probably be without reading their Books of all sorts in Paul especially who thought it no defilement to insert into holy Scripture the sentences of three Greek Poets and one of them a Tragedian the question was notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the Primitive Doctors but with great odds on that side which affirm'd it both lawfull and profitable as was then evidently perceiv'd when Julian the Apostat and suttlest enemy to our faith made a decree forbidding Christians the study of heathen learning for said he they wound us with our own weapons and with our owne arts and sciences they overcome us And indeed the Christians were put so to their shifts by this crafty means and so much in danger to decline into all ignorance that the two Apollinarii were fain as a man may say to coin all the seven liberall Sciences out of the Bible reducing it into divers forms of Orations Poems Dialogues ev'n to the calculating of a new Christian Grammar But saith the Historian Socrates The providence of God provided better then the industry of Apollinarius and his son by taking a way that illiterat law with the life of him who devis'd it So great an injury they then held it to be depriv'd of Hellenick learning and thought it a persecution more undermining and secretely decaying the Church then the open cruelty of Decius or Dioclesian And perhaps it was the same politick drift that the Divell whipt St. Jerom in a lenten dream for reading Cicero or else it was a fantasm bred by the feaver which had then seis'd him For had an Angel bin his discipliner unlesse it were for dwelling too much upon Ciceronianisms had chastiz'd the reading not the vanity it had bin plainly partiall first to correct him for grave Cicero and not for scurrill Plautus whom he confesses to have bin reading not long before next to correct him only and let so many more ancient Fathers wax old in those pleasant and florid studies without the lash of such a tutoring apparition insomuch that Basil teaches how some good use may be made of Margites a sportfull Poem not now extant writ by Homer and why not then of Morgante an Italian Romanze much to the same purpose But if it be agreed we shall be try'd by visions there is vision recorded by Eusebius far ancienter then this tale of Jerom to the Nun Eustochium and besides has nothing of a feavor in it Dionysius Alexandrinus was about the year 240 a person of great name in the Church for piety and learning who had wont to avail himself much against hereticks by being conversant in their Books untill a certain Presbyter laid it scrupulously to his conscience how he durst venture himselfe among those defiling volumes The worthy man loath to give offence fell into a new debate with himselfe what was to be thought when suddenly a vision sent from God it is his own Epistle that so averrs it confirm'd him in these words Read any books what ever come to thy hands for thou art sufficient both to judge aright and to examine each matter To this revelation he assented the sooner as he confesses because it was answerable to that of the Apostle to the Thessalonians Prove all things hold fast that which is good And he might have added another remarkable saying of the same Author To the pure all things are pure not only meats and drinks but all kinde of knowledge whether of good or evill the knowledge cannot defile nor consequently the books if the will and conscience be not defil'd For books are as meats and viands are some of good some of evill substance and yet God in that unapocryphall vision said without exception Rise Peter kill and eat leaving the choice to each mans discretion Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomack differ little or nothing from unwholesome and best books to a naughty mind are not unappliable to occasions of evill Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction but herein the difference is of bad books that they to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many respects to discover to confute to forewarn and to illustrate Wherof what better witnes can ye expect I should produce then one of your own now sitting in Parlament the chief of learned men reputed in this Land Mr. Selden whose volume of naturall national laws proves not only by great autorities brought together but by exquisite reasons and theorems almost mathematically demostrative that all opinions yea errors known read and collated are of main service assistance toward the speedy attainment of what is truest I conceive therefore that when God did enlarge the universall diet of mans body saving ever the rules of temperance he then also as before left arbitrary the dyeting and repasting of our
minds as wherein every mature man might have to exercise his owne leading capacity How great a vertue is temperance how much of moment through the whole life of man yet God committs the managing so great a trust without particular Law or prescription wholly to the demeanour of every grown man And therefore when he himself tabl'd the Jews from heaven that Omer which was every mans daily portion of 〈…〉 mputed to have bin more then might have well suffic'd 〈…〉 eder thrice as many meals For those actions which 〈…〉 ther then issue out of him and therefore defile not 〈…〉 captivat under a perpetuall childhood of prescriptiâ—◠〈…〉 with the gift of reason to be his own chooser there 〈…〉 e work left for preaching if law and compulsion should 〈…〉 things which hertofore were govern'd only 〈…〉 Salomon informs us that much reading is a wearines to t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut neither he nor other inspir'd author tells us that such or â—â—â—â—â—â—eading is unlawfull yet certainly had God thought good to limit us herein it had bin much more expedient to have told us what was unlawfull then what was wearisome As for the burning of those Ephesian books by St. Pauls converts t is reply'd the books were magick the Syriack so renders them It was a privat act a voluntary act and leaves us to a voluntary imitation the men in remorse burnt those books which were their own the Magistrat by this example is not appointed these men practiz'd the books another might perhaps have read them in some sort usefully Good and evill we know in the field of this World grow up together almost inseparably and the knowledge of good is so involv'd and interwoven with the knowledge of evill and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discern'd that those confused seeds which were impos'd on Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out and sort asunder were not more intermixt It was from out the rinde of one apple tasted that the knowledge of good and evill as two twins cleaving together leapt forth into the World And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evill that is to say of knowing good by evill As therefore the state of man now is what wisdome can there be to choose what continence to forbeare without the knowledge of evill He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures and yet abstain and yet distinguish and yet prefer that which is truly better he is the true wayfaring Christian I cannot praise a fugitive and cloister'd vertue unexercis'd unbreath'd that never sollies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race where that immortall garland is to be run for notwithout dust and heat Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world we bring impurity much rather that which purifies us is triall and triall is by what is contrary That vertue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evill and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers and rejects 〈…〉 tue not a pure her whitenesse is but an 〈…〉 Which was the reason why our sage and serious Poet Spencer whom I dare be known to think a better teacher then Scotus or Aquinas describing true temperance under the person of Guion brings him in with his palmer through the cave of Mammon and the bowr of earthly blisse that he might see and know and yet abstain Since therefore the knowledge and survay of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human vertue and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth how can we more safely and with lesse danger scout into the regions of sin and falsity then by reading all manner of tractats and hearing all manner of reason And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read But of the harm that may result hence three kinds are usually reckn'd First is fear'd the infection that may spread but then all human learning and controversie in religious points must remove out of the world yea the Bible it selfe for that oftimes relates blasphemy not nicely it describes the carnall sense of wicked men not unelegantly it brings in holiest men passionately murmuring against providence through all the arguments of Epicurus in other great disputes it answers dubiously and darkly to the common reader And ask a Talmudist what ails the modesty of his marginall Keri that Moses and all the Prophets cannot perswade him to pronounce the textuall Chetiv For these causes we all know the Bible it selfe put by the Papist into the first rank of prohibited books The ancientest Father must be next remov'd as Clement of Alexandria and that Eusebian book of Evangelick preparation transmitting our ears through a hoard of heathenish obscenities to receive the Gospel Who finds not that Irenaeus Epiphanius Jerom and others discover more heresies then they well confute and that oft for heresie which is the truer opinion Nor boots it to say for these and all the heathen Writers of greatest infection if it must be thought so with whom is bound up the life of human learning that they writ in an unknown tongue so long as we are sure those languages are known as well to the worst of men who are both most able and most diligent to instill the poison they suck first into the Courts of Princes acquainting them with the choisest delights and criticisms of sin As perhaps did that Petronius whom Nero call'd his Arbiter the Master of his revels and that notorious ribald of Arezzo dreaded and yet dear to the Italian Courtiers I name not him for posterities sake whom Harry the 8 nam'd in merriment his Vicar of hell By which compendious way all the contagion that foreine books can infuse will finde a passage to the people farre easier and shorter then an Indian voyage though it could be sail'd either by the North of Cataio Eastward or of Canada Westward while our Spanish licencing gags the English Presse never so severely But on the other side that infection which is from books of controversie in Religion is more doubtfull and dangerous to the learned then to the ignorant and yet those books must be permitted untoucht by the licencer It will be hard to instance where any ignorant man hath bin ever seduc't by Papisticall book in English unlesse it were commended and expounded to him by some of the Clergy and indeed all such tractats whether false or true are as the Prophesie of Isaiah was to the Ennuch not to be understood without a guide But of our Priests and Doctors how many have bin corrupted by studying the comments of Jesuits and Sorbonists and how fast they could transfuse that corruption into the people our experience is both late and sad It is not forgot since the acute and distinct Arminius was perverted meerly by the perusing of a namelesse discours writt'n at Delf which at first he took in hand to
harbour'd Our garments also should be referr'd to the licencing of some more sober work-masters to see them cut into a lesse wanton garb Who shall regulat all the mixt conversation of our youth male and female together as is the fashion of this Country who shall still appoint what shall be discours'd what presum'd and no furder Lastly who shall forbid and separat all idle resort all evill company These things will be and must be but how they shall be lest hurtfull how lest enticing herein consists the grave and governing wisdom of a State To sequester out of the world into Atlantick and Eutopian politics which never can be drawn into use will not mend our condition but to ordain wisely as in this world of evill in the midd'st whereof God hath plac't us unavoidably Nor is it Plato's licencing of books will doe this which necessarily pulls along with it so many other kinds of licencing as will make us all both ridiculous and weary and yet frustrat but those unwritt'n or at least unconstraining laws of vertuous education religious and civil nurture which Plato there mentions as the bonds and ligaments of the Commonwealth the pillars and the sustainers of every writt'n Statute these they be which will bear chief sway in such matters as these when all licencing will be easily eluded Impunity and remissenes for certain are the bane of a Commonwealth but here the great art lyes to discern in what the law is to bid restraint and punishment and in what things perswasion only is to work If every action which is good or evill in man at ripe years were to be under pittance and prescription and compulsion what were vertue but a name what praise could be then due to well-doing what grammercy to be sober just or continent many there be that complain of divin Providence for suffering Adam to transgresse foolish tongues when God gave him reason he gave him freedom to choose for reason is but choosing he had bin else a meer artificiall Adam such an Adam as he is in the motions We our selves esteem not of that obedience or love or gift which is of force God therefore left him free set before him a provoking object ever almost in his eyes herein consisted his merit herein in the right of his reward the praise of his abstinence Wherefore did he creat passions within us pleasures round about us but that these rightly temper'd are the very ingredients of vertu They are not skilfull considerers of human things who imagin to remove sin by removing the matter of sin for besides that it is a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing though some part of it may for a time be withdrawn from some persons it cannot from all in such a universall thing as books are and when this is done yet the sin remains entire Though ye take from a covetous man all his treasure he has yet one jewell left ye cannot bereave him of his covetousnesse Banish all objects of lust shut up all youth into the severest discipline that can be exercis'd in any hermitage ye cannot make them chaste that came not thither so such great care and wisdom is requir'd to the right managing of this point Suppose we could expell sin by this means look how much we thus expell of sin so much we expell of vertue for the matter of them both is the same remove that and ye remove them both alike This justifies the high providence of God who though he command us temperance justice continence yet powrs out before us ev'n to a prosusenes all desirable things and gives us minds that can wander beyond all limit and satiety Why should we then affect a rigor contrary to the manner of God and of nature by abridging or scanting those means which books freely permitted are both to the triall of vertue and the exercise of truth It would be better done to learn that the law must needs be frivolous which goes to restrain things uncertainly and yet equally working to good and to evill And were I the chooser a dram of well-doing should be preferr'd before many times as much the forcible hindrance of evill-doing For God sure esteems the growth and compleating of one vertuous person more then the restraint often vitious And albeit what ever thing we hear or see sitting walking travelling or conversing may be fitly call'd our book and is of the same effect that writings are yet grant the thing to be prohibited were only books it appears that this order hitherto is far insufficient to the end which it intends Do we not see not once or oftner but weekly that continu'd Court-libell against the Parlament and City Printed as the wet sheets can witnes and dispers't among us for all that licencing can doe yet this is the prime service a man would think wherein this order should give proof of it self If it were executed you 'l say But certain if execution be remisse or blindfold now and in this particular what will it be hereafter and in other books If then the order shall not be vain and frustrat behold a new labour Lords and Commons ye must repeal and proscribe all scandalous and unlicenc't books already printed and divulg'd after ye have drawn them up into a list that all may know which are condemn'd and which not and ordain that no forrein books be deliver'd out of custody till they have bin read over This office will require the whole time of not a few overseers and those no vulgar men There be also books which are partly usefull and excellent partly culpable and pernicious this work will ask as many more officials to make expurgations and expunctions that the Commonwealth of learning be not damnify'd In fine when the multitude of books encrease upon their hands ye must be fain to catalogue all those Printers who are found frequently offending and forbidd the importation of their whole suspected typography In a word that this your order may be exact and not desicient ye must reform it perfectly according to the model of Trent and Sevil which I know ye abhorre to doe Yet though ye should condiscend to this which God forbid the order still would be but fruitlesse and defective to that end whereto ye meant it If to prevent sects and schisms who is so unread or so uncatechis'd in story that hath not heard of many sects refusing books as a hindrance and preserving their doctrine unmixt for many ages only by unwritt'n traditions The Christian faith for that was once a schism is not unknown to have spread all over Asia ere any Gospel or Epistle was seen in writing If the amendment of manners be aym'd at look into Italy and Spain whether those places be one scruple the better the honester the wiser the chaster since all the inquisitionall rigor that hath bin executed upon books Another reason whereby to make it plain that this order will misse the end it seeks
begun it was as little in my fear that what words of complaint I heard among lerned men of other parts utter'd against the Inquisition the same I shou'd hear by as lerned men at home utterd in time of Parlament against an order of licencing and that so generally that when I had disclos'd my self a companion of their discontent I might say if without envy that he whom an honest questorship had indear'd to the Sicilians was not more by them importun'd against Verres then the favourable opinion which I had among many who honour ye and are known and respected by ye loaded me with entreaties and perswasions that I would not despair to lay together that which just reason should bring into my mind toward the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon lerning That this is not therefore the disburdning of a particular fancie but the common grievance of all those who had prepar'd their minds and studies above the vulgar pitch to advance truth in others and from others to entertain it thus much may satisfie And in their name I shall for neither friend nor foe conceal what the generall murmur is that if it come to inquisitioning again and licencing and that we are so timorous of our selvs and so suspicious of all men as to fear each book and the shaking of every leaf before we know what the contents are if some who but of late were little better then silenc't from preaching shall come now to silence us from reading except what they please it cannot be guest what is intended by som but a second tyranny over learning and will soon put it out of controversie that Bishops and Presbyters are the same to us both name and thing That those evills of Prelaty which before from five or six and twenty Sees were distributivly charg'd upon the whole people will now light wholly upon learning is not obscure to us whenas now the Pastor of a small unlearned Parish on the sudden shall be exalted Archbishop over a large dioces of books and yet not remove but keep his other cure too a mysticall pluralist He who but of late cry'd down the sole ordination of every novice Batchelor of Art and deny'd sole jurisdiction over the simplest Parishioner shall now at home in his privat chair assume both these over worthiest and excellentest books and ablest authors that write them This is not Yee Covnants and Protestations that we have made this is not to put down Prelaty this is but to chop an Episcopacy this is but to translate the Palace Metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another this is but an old canonicall flight of commuting our penance To startle thus betimes at a meer unlicenc't pamphlet will after a while be afraid of every conventicle and a while after will make a conventicle of every Christian meeting But I am certain that a State govern'd by the rules of justice and fortitude or a Church built and founded upon the rock of faith and true knowledge cannot be so pusillanimous While things are yet not constituted in Religion that freedom of writing should be restrain'd by a discipline imitated from the Prelats and learnt by them from the Inquisition to shut us up all again into the brest of a licencer must needs give cause of doubt and discouragement to all learned and religious men Who cannot but discern the finenes of this politic drift and who are the contrivers that while Bishops were to be baited down then all Presses might be open it was the peoples birthright and priviledge in time of Parlament it was the breaking forth of light But now the Bishops abrogated and voided out of the Church as if our Reformation sought no more but to make room for others into their seats under another name the Episcopall arts begin to bud again the cruse of truth must run no more oyle liberty of Printing must be enthrall'd again under a Prelaticall commission of twenty the privilege of the people nullify'd and which is wors the freedom of learning must groan again and to her old fetters all this the Parlament yet sitting Although their own late arguments and defences against the Prelats might remember them that this obstructing violence meets for the most part with an event utterly opposite to the end which it drives at instead of suppressing sects and schisms it raises them and invests them with a reputation The punishing of wits enhaunces their autority saith the Vicount St. Albans and a forbidd'n writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth that flies up in the faces of them who seeke to tread it out This order therefore may prove a nursing mother to sects but I shall easily shew how it will be a step-dame to Truth and first by disinabling us to the maintenance of what is known already Well knows he who uses to consider that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise as well as our limbs and complexion Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a streaming fountain if her waters flow not in a perpetuall progression they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition A man may be a heretick in the truth and if he beleeve things only because his Pastor sayes so or the Assembly so determins without knowing other reason though his belief be true yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresie There is not any burden that som would gladlier post off to another then the charge and care of their Religion There be who knows not that there be of Protestants and professors who live and dye in as arrant an implicit faith as any lay Papist of Loretto A wealthy man addicted to his pleasure and to his profits finds Religion to be a traffick so entangl'd and of so many piddling accounts that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade What should he doe fain he would have the name to be religious fain he would bear up with his neighbours in that What does he therefore but resolvs to give over toyling and to find himself out som factor to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs som Divine of note and estimation that must be To him he adheres resigns the whole ware-house of his religion with all the locks and keyes into his custody and indeed makes the very person of that man his religion esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety So that a man may say his religion is now no more within himself but is becom a dividuall movable and goes and comes neer him according as that good man frequents the house He entertains him gives him gifts feasts him lodges him his religion comes home at night praies is liberally supt and sumptuously laid to sleep rises is saluted and after the malmsey or some well spic't bruage and better breakfasted then he whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and
will tell us more at large being publish to the world and dedicated to the Parlament by him who both for his life and for his death deserve that what advice he left be not laid by without perusall And now the time in speciall is by priviledge to write and speak what may help to the furder discussing of matters in agitation The Temple of Janus with his two controversal faces might now not unsignificantly be set open And though all the windes of doctrin were let loose to play upon the earth so Truth be in the field we do injuriously by licencing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength Let her and Falshood grapple who ever knew Truth put to the wors in a free and open encounter Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing He who hears what praying there is for light and clear knowledge to be sent down among us would think of other matters to be constituted beyond the discipline of Geneva fram'd and fabric't already to our hands Yet when the new light which we beg for shines in upon us there be who envy and oppose if it come not first in at their casements What a collusion is this whenas we are exhorted by the wise man to use diligence to seek for wisdom as for hidd'n treasures early and late that another order shall enjoyn us to know nothing but by statute When a man hath bin labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge hath furnisht out his findings in all their equipage drawn forth his reasons as it were a battell raung'd scatter'd and defeated all objections in his way calls out his adversary into the plain offers him the advantage of wind and sun if he please only that he may try the matter by dint of argument for his opponets then to sculk to lay ambushments to keep a narrow bridge of licencing where the challenger should passe though it be valour anough in shouldiership is but weaknes and cowardise in the wars of Truth For who knows not that Truth is strong next to the Almighty she needs no policies nor stratagems nor licencings to make her victorious those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power give her but room do not bind her when she sleeps for then she speaks not true as the old Proteus did who spake oracles only when he was caught bound but then rather she turns herself into all shapes except her own and perhaps tunes her voice according to the time as Micaiah did before Ahab untill she be adjur'd into her own likenes Yet is it not impossible that she may have more shapes then one What else is all that rank of things indifferent wherein Truth may be on this side or on the other without being unlike her self What but a vain shadow else is the abolition of those ordinances that hand writing nayl'd to the crosse what great purchase is this Christian liberty which Paul so often boasts of His doctrine is that he who eats or eats not regards a day or regards it not may doe either to the Lord How many other things might be tolerated in peace and left to conscience had we but charity and were it not the chiefstrong hold of our hypocrisie to be ever judging one another I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks the ghost of a linnen decency yet haunts us We stumble and are impatient at the least dividing of one visible congregation from another though it be not in fundamentalls and through our forwardnes to suppresse and our backwardnes to recover any enthrall'd peece of truth out of the gripe of custom we care not to keep truth separated from truth which is the fiercest rent and disunion of all We doe not see that while we still affect by all means a rigid externall formality we may as soon fall again into a grosse conforming stupidity a stark and dead congealment of wood and hay and stubble forc't and frozen together which is more to the sudden degenerating of a Church then many subdichotomies of petty schisms Not that I can think well of every light separation or that all in a Church is to be expected gold and silver and presious stones it is not possible for man to sever the wheat from the tares the good fish from the other frie that must be the Angels Ministery at the end of mortall things Yet if all cannot be of one mind as who looks they should be this doubtles is more wholsome more prudent and more Christian that many be tolerated rather then all compell'd I mean not tolerated Popery and open superstition which as it extirpats all religions and civill supremacies so it self should be extirpat provided first that all charitable and compassionat means be us'd to win and regain the weak and the misled that also which is impious or evil absolutely either against faith or maners no law can possibly permit that intends not to unlaw it self but those neighboring differences or rather indifference are what I speak of whether in some point of doctrine or of discipline which though they may be many yet need not interrupt the unity of Spirit if we could but find among us the bond of peace In the mean while if any one would write and bring his helpfull hand to the slow-moving Reformation which we labour under if Truth have spok'n to him before others or but seem'd at least to speak who hath so bejesuited us that we should trouble that man with asking licence to doe so worthy a deed and not consider this that if it come to prohibiting there is not ought more likely to be prohibited then truth it self whose first appearance to our eyes bleat'd and dimm'd with prejudice and custom is more unsightly and unplausible then many errors ev'n as the person is of many a great man slight and contemptible to see to And what doe they tell us vainly of new opinions when this very opinion of theirs that none must be heard but whom they like is the worst and newest opinion of all others and is the chief cause why sects and schisms doe so much abound and true knowledge is kept at distance from us besides yet a greater danger which is in it For when God shakes a Kingdome with strong and healthfull commotions to a generall reforming 't is not untrue that many sectaries and false teachers are then busiest in seducing but yet more true it is that God then raises to his own work men of rare abilities and more then common industry not only to look back and revise what hath bin taught heretofore but to gain furder and goe on some new enlightn'd steps in the discovery of truth For such is the order of Gods enlightning his Church to dispense and deal out by degrees his beam so as our earthly eyes may best sustain it Neither is God appointed and confin'd where and out of what place these