there though you practise it at Barking yet when you are your self at Sandon you your self do not do so there it seems you have Two sorts of Service for God Almighty a City Service and a Country Service as if our God were a God of the Hills but not of the Valleys for this way of after-Sermon-Service neither you nor your Curate do practise at Sandon for at Saydon not only the Curate constantly but you your self also when you Preach there do dismiss the people with Prayer and Benediction from the Pulpit without going up to the Altar after Sermon perhaps it is because you have no Organs to Dance you up to the Altar nor Carved Image nor no such rich Carpet at Sandon and therefore in your Conscience you ought not to say all such rich Service there as you do at London But you must give the World a better Reason than your Conscience which in twenty five Miles varies as much as the Compass does in some Latitudes or as the Sun in some parts of the World is hotter than in other parts But that Learned worthy Man you Curate hath a very good Character for Life as well as Doctrine and knows his duty as well as you and I hear he never bows at the Altar at Sandon it may be he is Conscientious in not bowing nor doing the Altar Services to avoid offence because it seems there hath been great bustle and opposition to these Altar-services there the rather because they were inforc't by you at Sandon also but about 78. or about the time of the Popish Plot though you had been in that Living some Years before One would think you might easily read a few more Sermons to your own Parish since it is so easily done to read a Book in the Pulpit it is no such doughty accomplishment for seven or eight Years Study at the University to come and read a Sermon and it is strange that such Readers should get Living upon Living only because they can read a Business Though it is true many a Man saves his Life by Reading when the Ordinary reports Legit ut Clerious or if you will He Reads like a Clegy-man is it not a shame while other Arts are every Day so much improved to see Doctors Parsons and Lecturers stand still or rather dwindle back to Readers which is very unlike the practice of our Blessed Lord and his Apostles who never Read either their own or other Mens Works but their Heads and Hearts were full of the Matter Doctrine and Instruction that they had to say Indeed our Blessed Redeemer himself in one place and at one time called for a Book but as soon as he had read the Text closed the Book again and gave it to the Mininster or a kind of Deacon among the Jews and then went on Preaching But where a Preacher shall study and premeditate how to vent his Spleen handsomly against his Parishioners and then read it out of a Book wherein it was written with a Pen dipt in Gaul instead of common Ink will any Body think he that does so speaks by the Spirit of God or is this becoming the Gravity of so Sacred a Profession for Doctors Parsons and Lecturers to become Readers Readers Ecclesastical History tells us that the Emperor Julian the Apostate was once a Reader in the Church no great honour for him or the Church to have such a Reader and I read in later History that in great praise of one of the Henrys was styled Bean-Clerk because he could Write and Read It seems that in Julians dayes a Scholar was Rara avis but in these dayes when Learning is so common and so much advanced is it not a said sight to fee Doctors Parsons and Lecturers to be but Readers in the Pulpit and to have their Heads and Hearts so little affected with what they have to say that if they chance to turn over two or three Leaves too much they are at a great loss and with a world of Hums and Haes before they can get in again which looks like A B C nay take away their Books and Notes and they can say nothing at all or no better than some such plain Men as Coblers of some other Trade Which brings to mind the Answer of a Reading Preacher if it be not Contradictio in adjectio an honest and unfurnisht Head one that haunted Taverns more than Study who having read a Sermon of excellent Composure and being askt how he got so good a Sermon with so little Study replyed it was all his own for he bought it for Six Pence in Pauls Churchyard and it was Six Pence the best laid out of any thing he ever did in his life and he was a Lecturer too for he had Twenty Shillings for every Lecture Sermon and at a several Church it was as good as at first fresh and new and he read it every time better than other these are your brave Pulpit reading DONS of the BOOK Is it not somewhat strange that in the Pulpit the same Man would be called a Preacher because he reads out of a Book and in the Desk the same Man is said to be a Reader because he reads out of a Book I would not have toucht so much in the Press upon Reading Ministers if they did not some of them aim at me meerly upon an occasion of my Burning an Image in touching so much in the Pulpit and Press upon Sacriledge a word you must not use this Six Months in our Pulpit lest People think the Burning of this Image broyl's in the Parsons Stomach still and the more Reflections Men make either from Press or Pulpit on a defacer of Images will but render such Men suspectedly Superstitious Lovers of Images therefore leave off your Scribling in defence of an Image and come to the grand Matter and write Learndedly in Answer to my seventeen Heads and four Queries I don't see Jonathan how thou canst Answer my Queries and assert the Direction of the Rubrick so as clearly to make it out that there is any Law that absolutely and positively enjoyns every part of thy practice at Altar-Services Nay thou canst not tamper and endeavour to do it to any purpose but thou must seem to Act the part of him that is called an Accuser of the Brethren thou must reflect if not directly accuse about Eight Thousand of thy Brethren yea and thy R. R. F. also which will stick in their Stomachs and they will all Print against you and it will be such a scandal for ever upon thee as a thing that even Father Whitebread Cum mult is aliis of that Crucian black Crew chose rather to Truss than to accuse their unholy Father or any of their Brethen and if you rightly consider their couragious Example thou wert better do just so too Truss rather than beray thy own Nest consider the unseasonableness of urging Doctrines of Ceremonies upon so Laudable occasion as an Image and at such a juncture
your Ornament to the Ten Commandments O rare Ornament a great Carved Gilded Image described fully in all its Demensions by my last Book a silly Tool of Superstition it had one end of a Lath tack't to its Bumfidle and the other end to the Window for its better preservation from falling least the Cats scampering over it in the heat of their Woeing Should have made it a Tumble-down Dick Instead of a Gilded and Carved St. Mick O Rara-show a most beautiful Bit for the Parson to rail in Print and Pulpit against him that saved the Parish a Score of Billets by burning it in Vestry instead of Billet and Charcole as to your last Aspersion in your Sham-Indictment brought in there as an Advertisement I do positively deny that the Printed Book called Birth and Burning of this image c. was ever read in Vestry when I was present or that ever there hath been any Vestry since the Book was Printed and Published which was but about the Twenty-sixth of May last it is true that when my Narrative was in Manuscript about Four Weeks before it was printed it was read in Vestry and some would needs cavil at it and asked if I would own it I told them I would and said it was true and asked What one Material thing was false I would justifie it to be true no Body gave Instances of any Particulars that were false pray name any Material one if you can and will the Pamphlet say I câ—â—ld make little or no Reply Is Truth a little thing I do tell thee Johnathan that the substance of that Book Birth and Burning c. is as true as any thing thou ever saidst or wrote of thy own making There might he false Spellings false Latin and some Words misplaced in the written Narrative But what does that concern the World The World knows nothing but what is published in Print and the Title is not called A Copy of a Narrative But the substance of a Narrative lately given in to the Vestry c. So that all that the World is to take notice of is First Whether this Book since in was printed was read in Vestry Secondly Whether this Book be answerable to its Title viz. The substance of the aforesaid Narrative Thirdly and Lastly whether the substance of that Book be true or false And now not to enumerate all over again I will only Repeat the most Material Heads or Substance Which take thus 1. In 1675. we set up Organs And we set this Image upon our Altar which was made in 1659. by Mr. Edwards who set it on the Steeple till about 1675. or 1676. and then it was removed to the Altar by Mr. Clements 2. That this Image was made and removed without any Order of Vestry particularly directing the making or removing his Image 3. That 1677. we beautified our Organs As it stands written thereon Made 1675. Beautified 1677. 4. That Mr. Tho. Whitebread gave us in 1677. a rich Carpet c. with such an Imbroyder'd Glory c. with a Cross and this Inscription as in the Margent 5. That this Gist stands Registred in a Table in our Vestry in the same Words as I mention in my said Book Page 8. 6. That our Linnen Cloath used to hang down to the Ground or very near it in our front till we had this Carpet 7. That since we had this Carpet we expose that to view and Fold upon the fore-part of the Table our Linnen 8. That by the Act of Uniformity it may be allowable enough for our Communion Table to stand further off yea in the middle of the Church and so it would not look so like an Altar as now it does standing close to the Commandments with Ends North and South Thus much for the Furniture of the Church and Altar Now for your Ceremonies 9. That until about 1678. we had all our Services said in the Desk and no where else 10. That until about 1678. our Sermon did conclude in the Pulpit with some Prayer or other and the Benediction was until then ever given in the Pulpit 11. That since 1677. you have begun and continued to read Second Service at the Altar and at your approach to the Altar you make a reverend low Bow towards the Altar or Image or Carpet 12. That since 1677. you conclude the Sermon without Prayer and Blessing and the Organ strikes up a Tune to divert the People till you go into Vestry to put on the Surplice and then you come out so habited mount the steps enter the Rails make a low bow towards the middle of the Altar then you turn to the North end kneel and say some Prayers there then pronounce the Blessing at the Altar which ever till about 1678. was pronounced in the Pulpit 13. That you nor no Minister before you did ever in our Church bow at the Altar before St. Michael was set there except when the Bread and Wine was there on Sacrament Dayes for I will allow that That you and Doctor Lafield did Bow on Sacrament Dayes at the Altar but that was because or when there was Bread and Wine there and this you did and Doctor Lafield too before any St. Michael was set there But it was only on Sacrament Dayes 14. That you are charged to be the first Man that bowed there after St. Michael was up when there was no Communion and the first Man that went and Offered up Prayers and Benedictions under St. Michael's Nose at the Altar where in some parts of the Church People can't hear nor see the Parson and so Prayers in Latin or an unknown Tongue may do as much good as Prayers which we can't hear 15. That you were the promoter of the beginning of these Ceremonies though Doctor Lafield did perswade against iâ—â— whereas a Lecturer ought to have followed rather than led in any New performances 16. That the suspicion of Superstition and the ground of all this Noise did arise from your beginning these Ceremonies but just about the time the Papists Lords were sending to the Tower 17. That you account Mr. Whitebread's glorious Carpet a better Ornament than the Linnen which the Act of Uniformity enjoyns for if it be not better you are fools for using it for if we do not use the very best of every thing other Parishes may be more serious and regularly Devout than this of All-Saints-Barking if we have nothing else to boast of but that we have a better Carpet and more Ceremonies and a more Ceremonious Lecturer than other Parishes And now Mr. Saunders not to give you too great a Task at once though there are many more observable Matters in my Book called Birth and Burning c. which are true also yet I have singled you out these seventeen Heads as part of the Matter charged to be the occasion of this Indictment it lyes on your part to name those twenty Men that dare say to my Face that these Heads are rude scurrilous and
when we fear the prevailing of a Religion that is composed of Ceremonies and Superstitions And Consider the rather with your self who first put you upon running into these Ceremonies I have good ground to believe the Report of some of the People in and about Sandon that it was a Lay Gentleman who in some former Years had been himself or some of his Relations of the Romish Religion and therefore consider and think it no wonder if that Gentleman press hard upon you for a strict Observation and a due Performance of a Multitude of Ceremonies because he may perhaps think that God's worship in the Church of England consists as much in Ceremonies as it did so in the Romish Church but I hope you have not so learned Christ And then you will be able to reply to that Gentleman this other Text viz. God is a Spirit and they that worship him Must worship him in Spirit and in Truth Joh. 4.24 And pray Study Preach and Practise this your own self and begin nor continue no new Ceremonies at least let your betters go before you I mean see it done at Aldersgate before you Print up the Legality of it at Barking or Sandon Thus it seems you have made Divisions at Sandon also and a Noise about the Country as well as die City meerly by your singularity and Ceremonious practices to the wonder of some Neighbouring Learned Clergy-men about Sandon What will you disturb City and Country and with the heat of your pretended Conscientious zeal boyl all the goodness out of the Meat Religion into the Broth of Ceremonies Nay if the marrow and goodness of Religion and quintessence of it be gone into the broth and the All of it lyes there then it is no wonder you contend so much for the Broth that Religion is boyl'd in I mean the Broth of uninjoyn'd Ceremonies for I would not be thought to Ridicule any Ceremonies that are injoyned by the Law it is you Mr. Lecturer that imbroyl London and Sandon and by your bowing c. occasioned an Indictment at London and then that occasioned three Pamphlets at London and this my Second Vindication also it was those Lecturers Lecturers that in Pulpit and Press did turn the World up-side down in 41. in 41. and for a Lecturer now in these times to Print up more Ceremonies and Bowings than the Law hath enjoyned tends to turn us quite topsie turvy because it may tend to bringing in a Religion that is Composed of and upheld by Ceremonies from such Religion good Lord deliver us When I read what the Samaritan Woman said Our Fathers worshipped in this Mountain and ye say that at Jerusalem is the place where Men ought to worship John 4.20 So may I say we had all our Morning Services both First and Second Services all said in the Desk at Barking ever since the Creation of the Kings Act of Conformity till about 78. and now you Johnathan say that the Altar is the place where the Men of Barking ought to worship the same God by saying second Service there So I also may say that ever since the Creation of the said Act our Sermons did end with some Prayer and Benedictions in the Pulpit until about 78. But now you Johnathan say that the Men of Barking ought to receive the benefit of your after Sermon-prayers and Benedictions at the Altar after you have bowed to it and not from the Pulpit It will be now expected that you that have thus exposed your self not only in Loyal Mr. Thomson but in your own Three single Sheets and have exposed me also to the World when you had no just occasion except in defence of an Image I say it will now be expected that you should give the World a Learned and Good Account in Print of the whole Matter particularly why your Conscience is streighter Laced at London than it is at Sandon or else Life Doctrine Print Pulpit Reading Ceremonious Bowing Critical time lucky Minit and all Circumstances considered you will come on and go off the Printed State under a Charactor and in the wildest Notion of the largest sized Latitudinarian of any Clergy-man in England In your Book of Fiery Apparition c. Page 4. you have these words I could have wished with all my Heart that the thing had made no Noise abroad I believe by this time you do wish so with all your Heart and Head and Soul also thou wishest it had made no Noise and yet you begin the Noise your self with Two Pamphlets before ever I Printed one word I find in the second Book Page 4. more of your own Words being thus And I very well understand that Liberty of Conscience and Liberty of the Press are things that have an unhappy Influence upon the whole Nation and therefore as I am no Friend in the present wild Notion to the one so I should hardly have been guilty of using the other had there not been this Too just occasion for it Just so I invert this Sentance of your own If Clergy-men will take Liberty of Conscience in the Pulpit and Press to inveigh against me why then I can't forbear being Guilty of using the Press to tell the World how you Ring of Sacrelidge about one vile Image And I should never have Printed had there not been this too just occasion for it which are also your own words Pray God the Protestant Religion and Church as it is now establisht by Law never receive a greater Bow in England than my Burning an Image God Almighty who equally hates Superstition and Sedition blast the designs of all those on either hand that tend to seek the Destruction of this true Protestant Church of England as it is now establisht by Law especially those of her own Houshould for I am an enemy to all that go beyond as well as to those that come short of the Church of England For every step beyond if it be a Superstitious step it may soonest of all be a Popish step the rather because at this day Romes Agents are so ready to take Men by the Hand and Dance them into Romes Fopperies with the pleasant Song of welcome John Sanderson welcome welcome And then I will say farwel John Sanderson farwel farewel I kept these Two Astonishments till at last in hopes I should have seen you rectifying your mistakes in Print one is your Text Where no Law is there is no Transgression Must you be taught by a Church-warden that there is a Law except you are agreed with some Papist who leave that Commandment out of their Deacalogue you will one day find it in Exod. 20.3 4. in these words Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image nor the likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above or in the Earth beneath or the Waters under the Earth thou shalt not Bow down to them nor worship them c. Though you evade this Image by calling it a Figure or Symbol yet you may
one Day be told this was the likeness of something in Heaven c. Thus you bring down upon your own Head the Thunder of the Holy Pen-Man in these Words Her Prophets are light and treacherous Persons her Priests have polluted the Sanctuary THEY HAVE DONE VIOLENCE TO THE LAW Zeph. 3.4 This might strike you Dead and Dumb but that you have quoted a Text for your shelter in the end of the next Verse THE UNJUST KNOWETH NO SHAME But I wonder the less at you seeing you are grown so dairingly Impudent as to add one Chapter more to God's Book than ever God made which is my second Astonishment viz. in your Sham Indictment quasht you end with a Text which you say is in Zeph. 4.5 whereas there is but Three Chapters in Zeph. that ever any Protestant Minister could find however the words you may treasure up to your own self which are these The unjust knoweth no shame being suitably proper to you that of meer Malice and without any Provocation by me given you or without ever before or since speaking one word friendly to me about it or inquiring whether things were so or no yet you have premeditatedly and falsly represented the Matter of first Sessions as I have laid open in my first Book which the Reader must peruse as well as this Second Part else the whole Matter will not be understood thus when Lecturers venture to Print things they hear in a Tavern or Alchouse or Coffe-house how do they sham themselves and how great a Fire does a little spark kindle when a Lecturer hath the kindling O these Seditious Lecturers made the Fire blaze devilishly when they had the blowing of it in 41. Now I have waded through a Two Years troublesom Office it must stir up heat in a Stone to see an unserious Lecturer concern himself to reflect upon me in Print but what I have said might make this READINGDON OF THE BOOK blush if he had any shame But what new fangled Company doest thou keep that hath taught thee to stretch and hale and pull Gods Book out a whole Chapter longer than it was made a â—an may perceive thou art one won't shrink but rather run out in the wetting for no Body will think thou kept's such a drie Gizzard long as to believe thou wert drie at Heart when you wrote it But it may prove at last of good use and serve for the best Answer you can think of for though you can't plead Non est factum at least a privity to all Three Pamphlets yet you may plead Non compos Mantis or some such other Plea as may bring you within benefit of the Clergy and for you 〈…〉 so much as remember what Room or what Company no nor so much as what Tavern you were in when any of those Three Pamphlets were wrote and so drop the Cudgels and let the Liquor run through the Stage one way and the Lecturer off another way and so for this time end all our grumbling with this merry Jig while You and I sing the Tune thus UNTIL YOU ANSWER IN PRINT This Dance it will no farther go Pray good Sir why say you so Because the Parson won't come too He must come too and he shall come too whether he will or no. Else all all the World will point at you and sing Farewel John Sanderson farewel farwel And you will be hiss'd at by every Porter of London and pist at by every Boy of Sandon they wil say there goes the silence Minister not silenced by his Bishop but by his Quoudam Church-warden You must excuse me from running so much upon Ridicule for if I did not do so upon occasion of an Image all that know me would not think it my own But let the Reader Observe I did not begin with the Lecturer but he with me I do but defend my self from being Pope Gregorv's Ass and which is worse from being Priest-ridden nor I don't condemn Pope Gregory's Opinion that by Oxen were meant the Clergy so let it be with his Popish Clergy I only Comment upon his Unholiness's Opinion and say that Oxen are Creatures not of Gods making for God made only Male and Female Cowes and Bulls but Oxen are only the Manufacture of some cunning Sow-Gelder But Lecturers sure must have been some busie Factious Canundrum invention ab Origine because they were thought so Seditious in 41.41 And may not we say of them Parsons we know and Vicars we know but who are ye Perhaps you will answer as in Matth. 23.23 We are those that tythe Mint Annise and Cummin which give me leave to call uninjoin'd Ceremonies and have omitted the weightier matters of the Law I pray the Reader further to observe that I intend not to Ridicule any thing that the Law directs for I really press Comformity to the Law but when I find Pulpits as well as Prints vent Vanity and Froth I can't forbear giving you a Trantrum or two Preach no more against them that scoff at thy Ministers for I scoff at none but those that Print false Pamphlets and rail in the Pulpit only upon occasion of a silly Image And it cannot be thought a suitable Answer to you if I do not blow off your Froth with a little blustring and seeming vanity of my own and so I add this one pania Brochia more Why talk now no more of Ludere cum Sanctis Nor Bow to no Saint but the goodly St. Francis Then Disciples you 'l have to dance to your Lure But I Bulkin at Barking who can indure Now according to our Lectorian new up-start way of writing Pamphlets to begin with one Text and end with another which I am afraid is an Old trick Reviv'd from 41.41 but to shew I am an apt Scholar I 'le give you two for one YE WORSHIP YE KNOW NOT WHAT John 4. 22. AND IF THE BLIND LEAD THE BLIND BOTH SHALL FALL INTO THE DITCH Matth. 15.14 And so once more you are bid farewel farewel by him whom you have Thrice Pamphleted EDMVND SHERMAN POSTSCRIPT I Have Penned my Matter as it occurr'd to my Memory I hope the honest Reader will excuse some Tautologies and not having made every Paragraph hang so suitably together as I might have done Confider I am but a Lay-Man I declare again that none of the Drolling part is intended against any thing injoyned by Law but only to Droll at the Singularity of a Lecturers new Practices of Ceremonies not used by himself for about Sixteen Years after the Act of Uniformly was made and now enlightned by a pretended Conscience at London and yet contradicted by his own practice at Sandon therefore let my Drolling part shift for it self and it will be Commendably done if the Lecturer can without Drolling or Rayling answer more Learnedly and fully Satisfactory to the World which he can never do except he 1. First gathers up the Stress of every thing I have urged and charged upon him as well in my first Book as in this Second Part also relating to the Altar Services both before and after Sermon and his Bowing just at the Altar and no place else in the Church And he must prove our Communion-Table stands as it ought by Law to do and whether we can hear or not yet he is bound to say those Services just there where it is 2. He must give a Reason why he never said these Second Services and after Sermon-Services at the Altar before St. Michael was set there and prove this Image an Ornament to the Commandments and my Burning it Sacriledge else why is all this Noise 3. He can't answer any thing to the purpose until he hath reconciled the Practice of the Lecturer of Barking to the practice of the Parson of Sandon that the World may know which of them is the Schismatick or Non-conformist At him Johnathan of London too him Saunders of Barking and when you two have agreed then too him all ye Eight Thousand at them stoutly single Mr. Saunders 4. Though Prayers may be better heard from the Desk or Body of the Church yet you must affirm that they cannot be legally performed except at the Altar but have a care your Assertions don't contradict the Act of Uniformity and your Practice thwart both The Reader may Observe that I do positively limit the Begining of these Altar Services to about An. 78. though not so exactly to the very Day the Lords went to the Tower I would have no Reflections cast on the Parish of Barking nor on Clergy-men in general but particularly such as come to our Pulpit and Reflect about this Image Mr. Saunders hath singled me out and now I single out Mr. Saunders I will justifie my Burning this Image let him justifie his Printing against me for Burning it and his Altar-Services and Bowings which occasioned the Indictment and Noise I desire the World to leave us a free Stage and that no Body would intermeddle but let us Two Print out the Matter with our own Names Subscribed Now seeing Mr. Saunders does Bow and so differs from Eight Thousand Clergy-men in England by his Bowings c. it will be well for him if he gets himself to be one of the Number of the Seven Thousand that had not Bowed to the Image of Baal which I read of in Rom. 11.4 But then he must tell the World in Print who he Bows unto and why he Bows at all and in that Place only â—else Men will turn upon him the Texts before quoted Ye worship ye know not what I perceive that in all things you are too Superstitions FINIS London Printed the 10. of June 1681. for Mr. Sherman the Author And Published by Richard Janeway in Queens-Head-Alley in Pater-noster row