withal so shameful a Coward as to be as much afraid of a new word though it were single as a Mariner of a rock for fear of splitting Did not they tell you that the King has so obliged the Non-conformists that they can never hereafter lift up an ill thought against him Did not they tell you that the Bishops did upon the publishing the Declaration give the word and deliver Orders through their Ecclesiastical Camp to beat up the Pulpit-drums against Popery Did not they tell you that I have all along impropriated all the Loyalty from the Nobility the Gentry and the Commonalty and dedicated it to the Church Did not they that have seen both tell you that in Arch-bishop Lauds time our Church did exceed the Romish in Ceremonies and Decorations Did not they tell you that I have cast this mischievous aspersion upon His Majesty of thinking to convert the Revenues of the Church to his own use Did not they tell you that you writ your Book against the King and the Clergy and the Church of England without prophaning and violating those things which are and ought to be most Sacred With an hundred idle stories more that I could tell you if any body would believe them But these are their leasings and by these you may see that you have as little reason to trust your Friends as we have to trust you It is plain you have not declined the acquaintance nor avoided the Company of the Non-conformists you are abundantly furnish'd with Leasings And we may a little judge of the Truth and Ingenuity of the rest by a Rapper that is still behind and that I had almost forgot viz. That it was an Aphorism of a great Prelate in the last Kings time that the King had no more to do in Ecclesiastical Matters than Jack that rub'd his Horses heels I have heard that one who was since a great Prelate was brought into the Long-Parliament Inquisition for such a saying as this and that the Indictment was managed against him by Pym and Rous and the rest of the Modern Orthodox Members that would not be trinkled and though he was proceeded against with an unheard of Malice and Violence and all the pains and arts in the world were made use of to make good the Accusation yet the tale was so destitute of all manner of proof or evidence that they themselves were convinced of its falsehood and forced for shame though sore against their wills to let fall the Charge and acquit the Gentleman So modest a wretch are you still to keep up a calumny that has been so notoriously convicted of falsehood and impudence by nothing less than a Long-Parliament scrutiny But this it is when men will pick up their Stories in the streets at Charing-Cross and in Lincolns-Inn-fields and report things upon the meer credit of vulgar hear-say without ever examining their truth nay with resolving to put on a bold face for emproving the lye to their own purpose Somewhere in all your Travels or some time in all your life you have heard some body tell some such story of some Clergy-man though whether a Prelate or no Prelate you do not remember and whether the Person that told it you thought it credible or not you as little care The story would serve your turn and gratifie your spite and so you resolved the first Book you writ to set it off with all aggravating circumstances that the world may thereby take notice of the insolence of these Prelates And in the strength of your confidence it might have passed hereafter without controwl for no unlikely story were it not a Lye upon Record by having been luckily brought into Parliament But after all what if it were come to Jack Gentleman when it was only spoken of such ill-bred Clowns as you that thought it the mark of their Gentility to despise a Clergy-man and abuse Mr. Parson and that would affront their own father if they had met him upon the Road in his Canonical habit And such especially if they are broken Gamesters I still say are no better than Jack Gentlemen I am sure there is no true Gentleman but would scorn and abhorr such Porterly rudeness so that none can be concern'd in or oftended at the Expression but such Jacks as had their Breeding at Charing-Cross or in Lincolns-Inn-fields And thus your Gibellineship having unloaded your whole Leystal upon the Clergy and dress'd them all up in Sambenita's painted with all the flames and Devils in Hell as if they purely by vertue of their Office and Character were more addicted to all kinds of wickedness especially revenge falshood and cruelty than all other Orders and Professions whatsoever Which if it were true you have said enough to prevail with Kings never hereafter to suffer such vile men to trinkle and tamper with their affairs and though it were possible that they should light upon a man of Learning Piety and Wisdome yet he will be sure to deform their whole Reigns by his Ignorance Knavery and Folly Thus I say having rescued their Royal and exquisite Understandings from the Clergies keeping you notwithstanding that you were never bred up to the Trade that you are not a competent Judge of their actions that you are conscious to your self of talking impertinently when you meddle with such matters that you correct my presumption for taking upon me to instruct Princes in the Rules and Measures of Government Notwithstanding all this you your self take them all to task tutor them like School-boys read them long politick Lectures from Precept and Example and as if you were the Skipper of the State talk to them of nothing but Sea-marks and Buoys and Rocks and Sands and Charts and Compasses c. And if they will not steer by your Compass and abate of the exercise of their Power by their discretion they are sure to ruine all upon the Rock of absolute Government And to gain the greater Credit and Authority to your wise Instructions you vaunt your own great and long Experience I my self have oftentimes seen Kings do strange things and unreasonable in my Opinion and yet a little while or sometimes many Years after I have found that all the men in the World could not have contrived any thing better Now it seems you think your self for all your counterfeit and impudent modesty a competent Judge of their Actions But here is Andrew de temporibus again what a general acquaintance have you with Kings time out of mind as well as with the Clergy of all Ages And now by vertue of your long Experience and shrewd Observation you think your self qualified and no man more to be Sir Pol. to all the Princes in Christendome and you have advised them as gravely as Sancho himself could have done how to govern their Islands Such is your miserable stupidity that there is not the least imaginary Errour that you have falsely objected to me
But I know this Inference was not made for any great opinion you had of its Logick it was only intended for a boast of your Antiquary-Learning to let the World know how deeply you skill in old Coins and Inscriptions and so take this occasion to acquaint us with this ancient Motto that you have pick'd out among the Marmora Arundeliana Dieu Mon-Droit But seeing you are given to these Curiosities here is a Trial worthy of your skill I have seen and pardon my Vanity was once Master of an Antique Medal On the Reverse whereof was graved Th' alliance betwixt Christ and David Expound me the meaning of the Device and tell me in what Emperours Reign it was Coin'd and I will upon the word of a Clergy-man of Honour requite your Information with ten of the largest Decus Tutamens and that is a very scarce Medal you know though not altogether so antique But however say you this Power I have ascribed to the Civil Magistrate is not derived from Christ or any grant of his but is antecedent to his coming or any Power granted by him as Head of the Church being given under the Broad-Seal of Nature so that his Majesty is next under that and immediately before Christ over all Persons and in all Causes c. This is very shrewd but then it is none of your own J. O. had it before you and in truth you are so given to purloining that I expect ere long to hear of you among the Advertisements at the bottom of the Gazet with a description of your Stature Complexion and Cloaths But the result of all that we discoursed upon this point was that he said I and I said no because though Magistrates were vested with an Ancient and Antecedent Right yet its Continuance ever since our Saviour commenced his Empire depends merely upon his confirmation in that whatever Prince does not reverse a former grant confirms it And therefore though they were impowr'd to govern the Church of God antecedent to his Supremacy yet that they are still instrusted with the same Authority they owe it entirely to his Sovereign Will and Pleasure because it is now in his Power to devest them of this or any other of their ancient Prerogatives so that seeing he has thought good to continue the Government of the World in the same state and Posture he found it in Princes are not now less indebted to him for the grant of their Imperial Power than if they had been at first instated in it by his immediate and express Commission This is a pretty reasonable answer to any plain man that has any stomach to be satisfied but it is too homely a Truth for your Palate nothing forsooth will down with you under the Geneva race of Capons and Mathematical Similitudes The streight Line continued into a Circle that is a Treat for a Gentleman that has Travel'd and understands the Orthodoxy of modern eating and drinking The last Essay of your shame-facedness for it is a great symptom of Modesty that you will not venture to be confident in any Objection for which you have not some Authority so that you dare not say one word that J. O. has not said before you is to stand in it that when J. O. affirmed that I confine the whole work and duty of Conscience to the inward acts and perswasions of the mind it was no downright Lye By this I perceive your whole family of the secret ones are incurably addicted to leasing and therefore as then I gave him the Lye so now without any farther Complement I give it you Sir It is but a blunt and Yeomanly Jest and I must confess smells somewhat of Garlick and Onions but it may serve for once though it were only for variety downright English is in some Cases as good a Flower as the fairest Trope in Aristotle's Rhetorick And I still declare that though it is no extraordinary conceit yet it is the best and most proper Repartee that my barren fancy is yet able to suggest to me upon so rude an occasion And tell me Sir for I have already made my appeal that suppose it were your own case that should any Person be so bold and disingenuous as not only to pervert the meaning and disturb the method of your Book I mean if you could write one with either but fasten upon you assertions equally false and wicked without any Reference to Page or Section and without any imaginable foundation of his mistake what other return would you vouchsafe to such an unmannerly attempt than what I have made If you would not return the same thanks to your Cowardize more than your Civility And therefore as for what you seem to threaten that such a provocation must needs come to a quarrel fear not there 's no danger of Blood-shed We that are no Brothers of the Blade know how to put up harder and more girding Repartees than this with Patience and Philosophy This is all the answer I will vouchsafe you for your own sake and revenge your self as you can But because both your self and J. O. have this Rapper perpetually in your mouths when you have nothing else to say I will for the Readers sake bestow upon you another Reply somewhat more soft and gentle especially when I hope it was not altogether lost upon J. O. because as you have observed most gravely and Senator-like that serious words have produced serious effects Thus when upon another occasion the tells no body but all the Nation that the thing by me asserted is that a man may think judge or conceive such or such a thing to be his Duty and yet have thereby no Obligation put upon him to perform it for Conscience we are inform'd has nothing to do beyond the inward thoughts of mens minds In answer to this it was inquired who gave in the Information because the Informer whoever he is would in some Courts of Justice have jeoparded something that he would be loth to lose for so lewd and bold a Forgery Phy phy for shame give over this pitiful Legerdemain Such open and visible falsifications serve only to expose the lewdness of your Cause and your Conscience and if you delight in such wretched Practices they will in process of time betray you to more pernicious Courses for what should hinder a man that can pervert and falsifie at this rate from forging Wills and setting counterfeit Hands to Deeds Neither fear nor modesty can ever restrain him that dares venture upon abuses so palpable when it is so absolutely impossible you should ever hope to escape the shame and rebuke of discovery The Assertion it self is one of the chiefest and most fundamental Maximes of Knavery and yet it is boldly charged upon me without the least shadow or syllable of pretence either to justifie the Accusation or excuse the Mistake You know as well as I that all I attempted was only to exempt the inward Acts
perseverance with the liberty of falling away because it is only a necessitas consequentiae though to you and me that are not so deep read in Modern Orthodoxy every necessity of what kind soever is a necessity and then call it what you please it plainly destroys all Power over our own actions This may serve for a compendious Syntagm of push-pin Divinity I might be very large and particular upon this Subject but for the present I shall desire those that would be farther satisfied in the Mystery to repair to Pin-makers-hall every Tuesday about ten of the clock in the forenoon and there in six weeks time 't is ten to one but they shall find two or three of them at it And thus having represented as briefly as the Subject would bear the plot and contrivance of your six Plays I shall make no other Epilogue than to desire the Company to give me their impartial judgement first of your own Modesty Wit Learning and Honesty and secondly of the understanding and ingenuity of the whole Faction that are so strangely elevated with such a crude and indigested heap of non-sense and nothing These Arguments I have pursued somewhat farther than was necessary to blow up your idle Cavils because I was willing to do something to the edification of those Readers that have some understanding of their own as well as to the Conviction of those that have none And that the company may be sensible how much they are beholden to me for their entertainment I will give them a short Bill of Fare of your Provisions First the Grand Thesis is served in and at this you spread your arms and cock your train and chatter as one would think in token of courage and victory but alas under all this Pageantry there is nothing to be found beside tail and feather and after all this cackling nothing to be discover'd beside noise and amazement not a word discharged at the Grand Thesis it self only you are scared out of your wits to see one so presumptuous as to assert what all the world have alwayes believed and practised and so you immediately fall to transcribing a lump of quotation being sentences accidentally cull'd backwards and forwards out of several discourses and these you will have to be sometimes such Corollaries and sometimes such Superstructures as are necessary to justifie the Grand Thesis Though Corollaries justifie Theses just as superstructures support foundations But however from hence it is evident with what presumption I treat His Majesty in my Books though in the conclusion you tell us very judiciously that they are not to be answer'd for certain invincible Reasons 1. Because they are so full of contradictions and therefore you cannot answer them 2. Because no man can do it without bringing himself within the Statute of treasonable words and at least a Premunire and therefore you dare not 3. Because whoever goes about it must of necessity either be or be thought to be a Fanatique and therefore you will not And for divers other Reasons some whereof you dare not discover and some you discreetly reserve to your self and so leave them to be sound out by Gods Providence or our own Sagacity and if both wayes fail to wait with patience till the day of judgement Only you inform His Majesty 1. That I have given him too much Power 2. Too much advice and 3. Taken them both away again And now while two or three other dull people can in the tumult of other business consume eight or ten months in one single Book of seven or eight hundred pages for one man even without any Partners after forty months travel to be able to Transprose three leaves and find out the Grand Thesis and the Corollaries that justifie it and from thence to irradiate his Brethren with this beam of discovery that such Divinity with such Policy cannot be good no really by no means This I say if duly weighed is such an enterprize as cannot but strike your self and all the world with admiration And thus having dispatcht the Grand Thesis you advance with huffing train against all its subordinate Hypotheses And here first you cannot proceed well without a Preface and so as if you had treated me hitherto with as much reverence as the Emperour of Russia you humbly crave leave to treat me according to Decorum i. e. like a Buffoon the very same Request word for word that Martyn-Mar-Prelate has often put up to his Readers to be allowed the same freedom with his Nuncka John the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury though Sir you might have used this familiarity with me without all this ado for I perceive we are so intimately acquainted that we have no doubt sometime heretofore either rob'd Orchards or lampoon'd the Court together And then from this Apology in the strength of another Apology to Kings and Princes lest by reason of your private condition and breeding you should trip in a word and fail in the mannerliness of an expression you proceed from Apology to Apology for one half of your Book is written to no other end than to beg pardon for the other till you compare his Majesty sawcily and unmannerly and that without Apology to a mad horse kicking and flinging most terribly And all this being premised out of tender regard to the rules of Decorum you enter upon the unlimited Magistrate where if you intended any thing against me you ought first to have made it evident that I had really invested him with an unhoopable Jurisdiction and after that you would have had scope and advantage enough to have made me an Example to all Ecclesiastical Politicians to the worlds end But you are a Civil Gentleman and will say nothing more severe than only to admonish me 1. That Bishop Bramhall would have censured this of Erastianism though Erastus never dreamt of any Opinion half so dangerous as unhoopable Jurisdiction 2. That the Bishops and their Chaplains would never have licensed it without clauses or provisos 3. That the King does not love to hear of conceal'd Lands Only if he may exercise the Priest-hood himself he may with all the Reason in the world assume their Revenue too which is as much as to say if he may discharge the Function of the Secular Magistrate he may and it is all the reason in the world assume all Secular Revenues too which would be a better Subsidy than twenty Church Revenues But truly otherwise i. e. were it not that he is not guilty of Sacriledge you do not see but that the King does lead a more unblameable conversation c. And so you forsake the fantome of unhoopable Jurisdiction to proceed to Publique Conscience But here too you are out of your element and begin first with a wretched blunder about Christian Liberty and then pick up here and there some passages out of my discourse of doubtful and unsatisfied Consciences and impose them upon the Reader as if they were intended of Conscience
of the Government and blown up the fundamental Liberties and Priviledges of the Subject Princes have Power over the signification of words Heavens forbid Such a penetration or transubstantiation of language would throw all into Rebellion and Anarchy would shake the Crowns of all Princes and reduce the world into a second Babel This would destroy all the Records in the Tower and Magna Charta and the Act of Oblivion and Indempnity and divide the whole Kingdom into Guelphs and Gibellines Sure the young man is seised with a fit of Lycanthropy and will certainly run a Muck before next Full Moon this is a madder attempt than that of digging through the separating Istmos of Peloponesus or making a Communication between the Red-Sea and the Mediterranean verily it is like continuing a streight line till it becomes a circle So ignorant are these implacable Divines of the true Idea of Wisdom and State Policy And if there be any Council more precipitate more violent more rigorous more extreme than other that is theirs They never consider to what woful straits the great Sancho reduced his Government by usurping to himself the Empire of Proverbs and Apothegms Nor how even Augustus Caesar though he was so great an Emperour and so valiant a man in his own Person was used to fly from a new word though it were single as studiously as a Mariner would avoid a Rock for fear of splitting Is not this one of Bayes's simile's that was made before you had thought how to apply it The Emperour avoid a new word as a Mariner does a Rock for fear of splitting If it had been an hard word it might have born a quibble but sure that a new word should be able to split so great an Emperour is very strange unless it were very ridiculous and any thing would have served the turn as well as the Mariner As a Coward shifts a challenge for fear of being beaten as a Child avoids a Wasps nest for fear of being stung as a Mouse does a Cat or a Thief does the Gallows or as any thing does any thing for there is nothing but is afraid of something Ay but young man this is too serious a thing to be jested with what must you be flouting at the Emperour Augustus as well as Dooms-day and Queen Elizabeth When you name Augustus let me tell you as I have elsewhere upon the bare mention of Sardanapalus that though I would not willingly be such a fool as to make a dangerous similitude that has no foundation yet it is manifest that some body else is intended for he was a Prince and his Father was murder'd too and every similitude must have though not all yet some likeness So that whenever you speak any ill thing of Augustus or Julian or Sardanapalus or any other of your uncontroulable Creatures we know your meaning and who it is you aim at And thus by this ridiculous way of forcing a mystical sense out of my words do you take leave to dart such impudent and ignominious reflections upon your Superiours as are not to be expiated by whipping posts and Pillories But now it is no wonder to see you every where as angry at Roman Empire as at Ecclesiastical Policy for that too is perpetually selling you bargains Would you but tell me in the simplicity of your heart where you your own self read this story of Augustus I am confident it was either in the second Decad of T. Livius or the fifth Epistle to Marcellinus For Sir whoever imposed here too upon your ignorance assure your self there is no such saying of Augustus upon record in Roman story But to deal plainly with you and undeceive you this passage is father'd upon one Julius Caesar That was a lover of elegancy of stile and could endure no mans Tautologies but his own And yet nothing could distast him more than an affected and phantastick word he would have turn'd a man out of his Secretaries Office for such language as this Lycanthropy Trincling Disvalising Pick-thankness ornaments of Deformity unhoopable Jurisdiction c. and would sooner have split than have been so pedantick himself The passage I speak of is a certain fragment of a lost Book that he writ de Analogiâ cited by Agellius l. 1. c. 10. and Macrob. l. 1. Saturn c. 5. Habe semper in memoriâ atque in pectore ut tanquam scopulum sic fugias inauditum atque insolens verbum A round and well couch'd period as it is here expressed though as you have translated it nothing can be more flat and insipid fugias tanquam scopulum i. e. fly from it as studiously as a Mariner would avoid a Rock for fear of splitting Your way of translating is not like fat Sir John Falstaffs singular dexterity in sinking Even thus Personam induere signifies to put on the person of and to put on the person of signifies to act a part in a Play so that if our Saviour did Personam induere or put on the person of a Jewish Zealot it follows that he was a Player as well as a Cut-throat You have truanted so long about Charing-Cross and Lincolns-inn-fields that you have forgot all your Latin Go you old dunce to your Phrase Book and there learn the signification of Personam induere But what if J. Caesar avoided the affectation of a new word as he would a splitting rock it was not out of any reason of State or for fear of raising Tumults and Rebellions but purely out of that aversation that so great a Wit as he could not but have to pedantry so that this story is calculated for the use of School-masters and not of Kings and by consequence might have been spared here But you proceed Come come young man forbear your mirth and mockery assure your self this Dominion of words is a dangerous thing How many millions of men did it cost your Roman Empire to attain it did you never read the sad stories how many childless Mothers were made at Languedoc by the difference between Faves and Haves at one time and at another between Crabe and Crabre with many other bloody tales that might be enlarged upon if one would be learnedly impertinent And do you think you have not all this while been unlearnedly so to hunt up all these impertinent stories to no imaginable purpose unless it be to warn Kings not to provoke their good Subjects to Rebellion for every trifle but to condescend to them for peace-sake and the quiet of mankind For you are admirably skill'd no man better in the History of Revolts and Seditions and Princes are obliged to con you thanks for the pains you have taken to mind them of all the slight causes and pretences that have been seised on by wanton and stomachful Rebels that they may beware of the like provocations lest they meet with the like events And these idle stories you are continually preaching in the ears of Princes but
shall be adjudged Heresie by the high Court of Parliament of this Realm with the assent of Clergy in their Convocation And within our own memory there have happened Cases in which the Parliament have ventured to define not only the signification of words but the nature of things as you know they determin'd not long since without advising with the Royal Society that Brandee belongs properly and formally to the specifick Essence of Spirits So that it seems this Power has sometimes been reduced to practice without throwing all into Rebellion and Anarchy and shaking the Crowns of Princes and reducing the World into a second Babel Though such an exorbitant and arbitrary exercise of it as was chalenged by your Presbyterian Long Parliament was enough to dissolve all Governments and break up all societies in the World For they had the impudence to impose such bold meanings upon words as flatly contradicted their common and customary signification Thus could they make such sentences to be just and legal as were not fit to pass into Precedent in the like cases that is to say such as themselves confess'd by their own provision to be unjust and illegal in that there can be no hurt or danger in lawful Prescriptions Thus could they make a new and unheard-of sort of Treason call'd cumulative Treason that is a great many no Treasons to make up a Treason Thus a Delinquent signified any man that they had a mind to cut off for his Loyalty and thus to make open preparations for Rebellion was to put the Kingdom into a posture of defence against all the Kings enemies whether foreign or domestick i. e. against the King himself and all his friends and Allies But the dismal Calamities and Earthquakes that followed thereupon were the Consequences of the abuse of this Power not of the Power it self and so all Power of what kind soever if stretch'd to the same degrees of Tyranny is as naturally productive of the same effects of Confusion And now after all these nice and stubborn speculations about the abstracted and metaphysical Idea of symbolicalness and after the Champions of your cause have for so long a time kept up this Ball or rather Bubble of Contention even from Cartwright down successively to the present Age you would like a cunning Rook turn the Tables upon us and charge us as the Aggressours in this ridiculous dispute i. e. after you have played the Children so long with this hard word that signifies nothing and now too late perceive your folly in raising such an inveterate and implacable War upon such a slender pretence you would just as you dealt with his late Majesty when you rebell'd against him lay the War at our doors and upbraid us as if we had made all this stir about this wretched trifle as if it were our Sir Solomons sword our dead-doing Tool wherewith we flatter our selves to have done so much execution upon the Puritan Cause and as if I my self had set up this hard word on purpose to be my Opponent And thus would you cunningly slide your own wooden Dagger into our hands when it is manifest that we are altogether on the defensive part and are so far from using any weapons of offence that we never so much as employed a Shield to ward off your Thrusts but have always put them by with neglect or a mere denial and have scorn'd and pityed your simplicity in laying at us so fiercely with such a wooden tool The Church of England was never so idlely employed as to concern it self to determine the nature of Symbolical Ceremonies whether it be Sacramental or not It has indeed defined the number of such Sacraments as are necessary to Salvation that is to say such as are instituted by Divine Authority as the perpetual Pledges and Symbols of the Christian Faith And if men have a mind to any more Sacraments they may for her have as many as they please provided they pretend not to Divine Institution And whereas you often insult upon some great Prelate that you say wrote a book of seven Sacraments though there was never any such book written he might if he had nothing else to do have written one of seven hundred for there is nothing in nature that may not in the Puritan notion be applied to a Sacramental use i. e. be appointed as a pledge and signification of something or other Keep then your impertinencies to your selves you shall not pin them upon our sleeves and when you have worn this fools Coat so long till you have worn it threadbare think not that we will then suffer you to put it upon our backs Neither tell me of setting up an hard word for my Opponent when it is your own scarcrow and withall such a despicable and woful pretence that at last I scorn'd to dispute against it I only despised its intolerable silliness and exposed it to the contempt of your own Herd It is below the seriousness of an argument And if it be an hard word that signifies nothing blame not me for mumbling and mousling it till I have made it contemptible for it is your own and you know I was so little fond of it that I offer'd to exchange it for Syncategorematical because it is more frightful by three or four syllables and rattles through the throat with a bigger and more terrible accent and any other hard word that sounds bravely and signifies nothing and that no body understands would serve the turn as well and I am content if you are hereafter to call them by common consent either flying Dragons or Usinulca's Keep your Goblin-nonsense to your selves we have nothing to do with it but to despise your folly And if it be Taplash as you call it it is of your own brewing and is both the first and the last running of your brains but hereafter let us hear no more of it for shame such thin and spiritless stuff as this as it is not worth keeping so it can never hold tilting And now upon review of this whole matter it is well worth our observation how the state of the question is changed with the state of affairs The controversie is not now as it has been heretofore between the holy Discipline and the establisht Government of the Church of England that contest has put an end to it self but whether men of rebellious spirits and Democratical Principles shall under counterfeit shews of tenderness of Conscience be suffer'd to work the Common People into a disaffection to the Government For it is notorious that the most zealous Agents and Patrons of the Cause are so far from being seriously scared with their own pretended scruples that they have given the world too many undeniable proofs of their being above the most avowed Principles of Justice and common honesty and withall that they have been and still are for any evidence they have given to the contrary the most vehement and implacable enemies to the present
Story and the Parenthesis your wit is strangely fluent upon such passages as are altogether collateral to the drift and substance of my discourses Though when you come to any thing of Argument your mind runs upon nothing but the day of Judgement and you grow reserved for fear of being call'd to an account for every idle word and from hence it comes to pass that you are forced to answer whole Books in a line or two like fat Sir John Falstaffs singular dexterity in sinking What fearful work have you made with my Introduction to the Preface you have mawl'd every word so unmercifully as if you had undertaken to pound every Period into the twenty four Letters And had you held on as you begun with the first forty lines the Book of Martyrs had been but an Almanack in comparison to the Rehearsal First I am caught in my own Dilemma for writing at all after I had declared that if I must answer every impertinent exception and Cavil I would write no more Now this expression say you lies open to my own Dilemma against the Nonconformists confessing in their Prayers to God such heinous Enormities This is the only passage that I find repeated but once more in all your book I suppose because you thought it so shrewd and pressing that it need not be inculcated so often as some other Remarques that were not so easie and obvious to common understandings But Sir my promise was conditional if I must endure the Penance of answering every peevish Caviller and I had never broke it had I not been absolutely overpowred both against my own Judgment and inclinations to write this Reply to your self For which I heartily ask forgiveness and will enter into bond be the condition of the Obligation what you please never to commit the same fault or need the same excuse a second time But what if I had dispensed with a point of Civility to the publick to get an honest Book-seller especially if he be importunate too eight or ten pound in the long vacation It was only to give some encouragement to Trade however you would calumniate me as an utter enemy to it and though it is possible I may not have so great an opinion of the honesty of all of this sort of Tradesmen as it is possible I may of some others and if I fail herein I ask their pardon I do them right and recreate my self with believing that my simple judgment cannot beyond my intention abate any thing of their just value Yet however I am sure it is a much more honourable way of Livelyhood and more serviceable to the Common-wealth than Gaming or any other lubberly way of subsistence So that say what you will it was kindly done of me and if I made bold with my Reader I have made him an Apology submissive enough to excuse my own good nature and engage his And what could he desire more If he be candid and courteous this is enough of all Conscience to attone his displeasure if he be not he is not concern'd for Prefaces are address'd to none but the courteous Readers But after all this solemnity when all things are truly consider'd this is no such serious matter as you would make shew of For though Authors are wont partly because it is the fashion and partly because it is an engagement of the Readers favour for all people love to be courted to make them humble addresses and Apologies in their Prefaces yet to speak plainly 't is more than they owe them for if they do not like they may let it alone and is at best no more than a formal complement So that I do not see but a man may break his word with his Reader without being concluded indifferent as to the business either of Truth or Eternity as you have ridiculously aggravated my Crime if I had been guilty such swoln Hyperboles are the Cavils of such people as want wiser and more material Objections But now is it not shrewdly thought on to parallel such a trifle as this against the Non-conformists making such constant and familiar Confessions to the Divine Majesty of the most heinous and enormous Crimes even of all that can be reckoned up Disloyalty and Rebellion only excepted and that no doubt out of pure respect to his Majesties Act of Oblivion and Indemnity Now if they stand really guilty of their own Charge they may vye lewdness both with the Spanish the French and the English Rogue with whose stories so great an Historian and so accomplish'd a Statesman as you seem to be cannot be unacquainted and all their Debaucheries will appear but puny School-boys villanies in comparison of their daily practice if they are not then this is plainly such a trifling piece of Courtship as is not to be endured in a matter so serious as is our Devotion to the Almighty But I see they are incorrigible in their follies And though they are convinced past all denial that their common confessions are plainly inconsistent with their most solemn Pretences that the Scripture Language wherewith they usually indite themselves expresses the lewdest and most desperate Impieties that those expressions they borrow out of the Old Testament are descriptions of no worse people than only such as had apostatized from the worship of the true God to Idolatry and all kinds of Moral Wickedness and those out of the new are Characters not only of Hypocrites and wicked Christians but even of such as had revolted from the Christian Faith into open Outrage and Blasphemy against it with many other such horrid Crimes that should their own Prayers be turn'd into Inditements their Clerkship would stand them in little stead and it would never be put into the power of the Ordinary no nor scarce of the Judge or Jury to do them a courtesie And yet notwithstanding all this they will continue still as lavish of their Tongues against themselves at Church as they are against their Neighbours and especially their Governours at home So that it is no small advantage to a Fanatique Congregation when their Holder-forth wants fancy and invention in that they always come resolved especially upon more solemn occasions to load themselves and the Company with all the sad Texts and Burthens in the Bible and the man that is more fluent and eloquent than his Brethren is but so much the better enabled to slander himself and all his Auditors And to tell you plainly were I a brother and should any man that pewed within my reach tell me before witness that I am guilty of but one half of the confession wherewith the dullest and most costive of them all familiarly charges himself and all present I would teach him better manners in Westminster-Hall Every man has liberty to abuse himself as he pleases but if he will make bold with my reputation I must and am bound to right my self as I can But whether it were lawful for me to write at all
the Propagation of such Principles as prepare People for the like Practices upon the like opportunities But in the next place as the Clergy of all Ages have ever been the greatest Obstacle of the Clemency and Prudence of Princes so are they not so well fitted by Education as others for Political Affairs Good now Sir Pol what is the defect of their education Is it that they have not that liberty that others have to frequent the Gaming Ordinaries or make Observations at Charing-Cross and in Lincolns-Inn-fields Excepting these wonderful advantages in which you indeed though very few Gentlemen beside outstrip them I cannot see what breeding other persons can boast of that Clergy-men may not have as well as they They are born as other men are with variety of natural Parts and Abilities and they may emprove them as Kings and other mortal men do by reflecting upon the Histories of former times and the present transactions to regulate themselves by in every Circumstance And though it cannot reasonably be expected they should have Royal Understandings because they were never born with them yet what hinders but they may have Gentlemens Memories and so be as fit for Government as any of their fellow Subjects and if they are not as fit as Kings themselves that is no disparagement of their abilities especially when as they have not the education so they were not intended for the Trade of Kings So that you have shewn nothing but the Impotency of your spite and Malice to pass one and the same censure upon all men of a Profession when you might with as much truth and ingenuity have pass'd it upon all Mankind However the Clergy are born capable of Wisdome as well as others and then why may they not acquire it too in the same methods with others by Study and Travel and Experience and Observation and I do not see what greater advantage you have made of these than any poor Reader might have done beside being hardned in Malice and Impudence and Shreds of Latin But still you improve when next to this Remarque upon the unfitness of the Clergy by reason of their Education for political affairs you immediately adde That they have the advantage above others and even if they would but keep to their Bibles would make the best Ministers of State in the World So that it seems by their Education that is peculiar to them as Clergy-men viz. the study of the Bible they have the advantage of all others to make the best Ministers of State in the World so ridiculous was it for you to intimate that they are not so well fitted by Education as others for Political Affairs when your very next words acknowledge that they are the best fitted of any men in the World Was ever Malice so inconsistent with it self You have an implacable mind to vent your Spleen and Rancour against the Clergy but you are so conscious to your self of Impudence and Disingenuity that you are ashamed of the folly and the foulness of your own reproaches and that perpetually runs you up into these ridiculous Contradictions Could any man in the World beside your self have been so precipitate as to suggest that the Clergy are less fitted than others by Education for Political Affairs and yet in the same breath confess that they have from that Education that is proper to themselves as the Clergy the advantage of all men in the World beside Yes If they would keep to their Bibles but God therefore frustrates them because though knowing better they seek and manage their Greatness by the lesser and meaner Maxims Good Mr. Insolence Why not they keep to their Books as well as such Truants as you This is but a ridiculous and incredible Paradox that those that are best acquainted with the Rules of Justice and Government should for that reason be under a fatal necessity not to observe them But if they are not then seeing they have the advantage of knowing better than others and seeing there is no peculiar reason to hinder them more than others from making a right use of their knowledge then it is unavoidable by the Confession of your own Malice but that they must be most likely to make the best Ministers of State in the World Nothing can possibly hinder unless God Almighty after he has bless'd men with the greatest advantages for Wisdome and Integrity should by some miraculous and immediate stroak from Heaven blast and infatuate all their Counsels Why rather than fail of your spite to the Clergy he shall come down as he did at the building of Babel to confound all the contrivances of Church-men For truly I think the reason that God does not bless them in Affairs of State is because he never intended them for that Employment Good Mr. Secretary is there nothing can escape your knowledge Are you not content to be admitted into the Privacy of Kings but you must be God Almighties Colbert understand all the intrigues of his Providence and be of the Cabinet Council to the Most high Is it not enough that you are acquainted with the King all over you have observed his parts and given an account of his memory and understanding you have kept him company and given him your Testimony of the unblameableness of his Life and Conversation you have been admitted with him into his Privy Closet and can tell what he studies and what books he reads what he censures and what he approves Great favours these for a Gentleman of private condition and breeding and yet they are not sufficient to satisfie the ambition of such a Gonzales as you but you must be flying to Heaven forsooth by the help of your Ganzas even as I would fly thither without the help of Grace And there you must be prying into all the secret Councils of Divine Providence and you can confidently tell all the thoughts and designs of the Almighty and write Gazets of what News in Heaven Of all the secret ones that ever I met with give me you for a bold one No doubt you are no ordinary Mortal and have your habitation at least in the High Places of Armageddon where J. O. dwelt when he discovered all the Methods and Maxims whereby God orders the Dispensations and Revolutions of his Providence He is the Will. Lilly as you are the Poor Robin of the Churches in so much that he is able to give them an exact Ephemeris of all turns and alterations of Weather and to advise them in all changes of Affairs still to keep on the same side with God himself let him shift parties never so often when it is seasonable to sail by a side Wind against the seeming opposition of his Providence and when to sing Songs upon Sigionoth and by some secret intimations knock quite off with him from any Good old Cause or Good old Principles That such bold Impostours should dare to challenge any interest how much more familiarity
Text and then arm'd them with Spite and Zeal and that you know is an over-match for wisdome and courage And if the Pulpit were their Poast as you say it is they in the strength of modern Orthodoxy immoral Grace and Capon grease made it good against all Enemies whatsoever These were the Trumpeters to the War the next are the Leaders and they were first ignorant and half-witted men that were blown up with a great conceit of their own sufficiency in Politiques that had made Remarques upon Aristotle and Tacitus that could tell stories of the Grecian and Roman Common-wealths and begin a Speech with Sparta and Lycurgus and talk an hour together of the power of the Tribunes and the priviledges of the People of Rome and demonstrate out of History that when Augustus taxed the whole World he did it not by vertue of his own Imperial Prerogative but that it was granted to him by Vote and Authority of the Senate that he being a wise Prince avoided all appearances of Absolute Sovereignty that he submitted the management of his Power to the censure of so discreet a Consistory and sometimes labour'd to resign all his Authority and lay Himself and his Diadem at their feet and at last was not by all their importunity to be entreated to accept of the Empire but with a proviso of resigning his Charge as soon as ever he had setled the Common-wealth in Peace and Safety and therefore only renewed the Lease of his Government every tenth year at the petition of the People Beside that he avoided the Titles of Dictator and Rex and Dominus as much as a Mariner does a Rock for fear of splitting setting the fate of his Father Julius before him for he too was murther'd as a Sea-mark not to affect too great and glorious Attributes lest he might have ship-wrack'd both the State and Himself upon the Rock of a proud or an offensive Title This Mr. Speaker was the moderation of wise Princes in former Ages they had a deference to the wisdom of this house and a fatherly care for the Liberty of the Subject They were not wont to call Parliaments only when they were forced to it by their own necessities to be the spunges of the Common-wealth and by their means to squeeze the Subjects money into their own Coffers and when they had served their own turns disband them but to advise and consult with their great Council about the great Affairs of State We have Mr. Speaker a Gracious Prince but he is abused and mis-led by Evil Counsellers we owe all the Mis-governments of the State and the Affronts of this House to their Tyranny and Insolence And if they will not know their Duty however let not us forget our Trust. We have now an Opportunity put into our hands his Majesty is engaged in an expensive War and cannot hold out without Supplyes and therefore before we Vote that let us present him our Remonstrances and grant him Subsidies upon no other condition than that he will first redress all our Grievances This Mr. Speaker was the wisdom of Sparta and Athens and by this method of proceeding they kept the Liberties of the Common-wealth inviolable against all the attempts and encroachments of Tyranny This was the language of Parliaments in the late Kings Reign and by these pedantick stories did the ill-affected Members of the Puritan and Republican Faction obstruct and embroil all Affairs till they plainly run the Kingdom into a necessity of a Civil War Not that I believe they had all of them any form'd design to subvert the Government no doubt many of them were wonderfully satisfied if the Company would but take notice of and admire their learning and to this purpose the same Speeches would serve indifferently at all times and upon all occasions whether they had or had not cause of complaint And to deal plainly with you I have read most of the Long-Parliament Speeches over and though I know you will chide me for calling a whole Parliament Coxcombs yet it is better to call them so than worse yet this censure I dare pass upon them without any suspicion of arrogance within my self That they were for the most part no better than School-boys Declamations that seem'd to be made for no other end than the exercise of Wit and Rhetorique and the Topicks from which they raised their Harangues were equally serviceable in any Cause pro or con such as Aphorisms Similitudes and Sentences out of ancient Authours but as for true reasoning they rarely seem'd to pretend to it or endeavour after it in short all their Discourses were much like yours and accommodated to People that took Confidence for Reason Non-sense for Mysteries and Rudeness for Wit and a judicious man that compares them would almost suspect your Book to be only a Rehearsal or rather an Epitome of their Speeches though I am not apt to conclude that you read them over on purpose to write after their Copy because I know I it is as natural for bad wits to jump as good There is a way of popular and impertinent talking that is common to the pedantique Haranguers of all Ages But they declaimed so long upon idle stories of Rome and Athens and little sayings of Cato and Seneca till they in sober earnest challeng'd so much of the Sovereign Power under pretext of Liberty of the Subject and Priviledge of Parliament as left nothing of Prerogative to the Prince beside a little Pageantry of State and an empty Title So that unless his Majesty would tamely have resign'd his Crown and disclaim'd all Regal Authority he had no other way left to defend it from violence but by force of Arms. They had already begun to seize and there was no way to make them unfasten but by knocking off their fingers But that which contributed as much as any thing to these disorders was the great resort of our young Gentry about that time to Geneva for Capons and Education where being throughly instructed in the principles of Modern Orthodoxy and there every Tradesman and Lay-Elder was able to inform them they generally return'd home disaffected to the establish'd Government both of Church and State and furnish'd with Doctrines of Divinity suitable to their Principles of Policy and by this means Calvin obtain'd as great an Interest and Power in the House of Commons as Lycurgus and scarce a Speech could be made without his Institutions and the distich of Praeter Apostolicas c. And so Mr. Speaker though Mr. Calvin the ablest Divine in the world since the death of the Apostles exact an entire obedience to all Princes whether good or bad without exception or dispensation So that suppose a negligent and slothful Prince who has no care at all of the publique safety who is so intent of his own private as to make markets of all Laws and Priviledges and to expose his Justice and Favour both to open sale so that according to Mr. Calvin
thought of unless they may first be publickly declared innocent and then you know as well as I who are thereby declared guilty Here the conference begun and here it ended The Presbyterians themselves have printed an account of all proceedings of the Commissioners of both perswasions And there you may see that one of the first things proposed to them was that if they had any thing to object against the Liturgy as any way sinful and unlawful for us to joyn with it is but reason that this be first proved evidently before any thing be alter'd it isno argument to say that multitudes of sober pious persons scruple the use of it unless it be made to appear by evident reasons that the Liturgy gave the just grounds to make such scruples For if the bare pretence of scruples be sufficient to exempt us from obedience all law and order is gone To this what do they reply but that possibly it might be unlawful for them to impose it though not for others to joyn with them in its use when it was imposed Though for the proof of this they thought good to refer it as they still do all their disputes when they are baffled to the day of Judgment till which time they resolve to continue peevish and quarrelsome But if they had undertaken to prove it yet still it was but possible and that not upon the exceptions of wise men but the scruples of weak brethren to which it was replyed on the contrary we judge that if the Liturgy should be alter'd as is required not only a multitude but the generality of the soberest and most loyal Children of the Church of England would justly be offended since such an alteration would be a virtual confession that this Liturgy were an intolerable burden to tender Consciences a direct cause of Schism a superstitious usage which would at once both justifie all those which have so obstinately separated from it as the only pious tender Conscienced men and condemn all those that have adhered to that in Conscience of their Duty and Loyalty with their loss or hazard of Estates Lives and Fortunes as men superstitious schismatical and void of Religion and Conscience But for all this they boldly give in their exceptions against every part of the Liturgy not upon any pretence of Conscience but because it was not conformable enough to their own Directory and for that reason must the book of Common-Prayer be wholly laid aside and instead of it a new form of their own compiling imposed These were their least demands and they were very modest ones And no doubt but upon a little moderation and temper of things i. e. upon the least abatement to bring them off with Conscience though there was no such thing as Conscience pretended in the case and which insinuates into all men some little Reputation they would never have stuck out That is to say do but give them their wills to all intents and purposes and upon those terms it is possible they may condescend to an accommodation But what did these implacable Divines of the Church of England do to defeat this design of establishing a new Heaven and a new Earth Why to shew that they were men like others even cunning men revengful men beside their drilling on and trinkling out the foolish Act of Uniformity they made several unnecessary Additions only because they knew they would be more ingrateful and stigmatical to the Non-conformists v. g. in the Litany to false Doctrine and Heresie they added Schism though it were to spoil the Musick and Cadence of the Period This Bran is never to be refined and this obstinacy of the Clergy ever will be as it ever has been the greatest Obstacle of the Clemency Prudence and good Intentions of Princes and the establishment of their affairs When all things and all persons were so towardly prepared toward an accommodation if they would but once have consented only to abolish the establish'd Liturgy and set up a Geneva Directory and what had all that been had not they always been for the most bruitish and precipitate Counsels but instead of yielding to so reasonable a demand they like cunning and revengeful men foist in a new Prayer against Schism because they knew it would be stigmatical to the Non-conformists Though you knew the reflection lights purely upon the Church of England because as you have admirably demonstrated out of Mr. Hales Schism rhimes to Ism. But let them look to that your grievance is that they have spoiled the Musick and Cadence of the Period If they have far be it from me to patronize such Crimes I must confess I have no very good Ear but yet as far as I am able to discern the Period runs off as roundly as ever But if Schism do offend your ears yet however that is no offence to your Conscience though it seems Rebellion another word you might as well have excepted against is offensive to neither And now in this whole Affair compare the Precipitate Counsels of the Church of England with the yielding Temper of the Presbyterians and then judge you what Party it was that obstructed the Kings design of Accommodation He issues out his Commission to reform the Liturgy if there were any need now say the Presbyterians nothing will ever do it but our our old thorough way of Reformation utterly to abolish and lay it aside for ever that was their easie Method and the result of all their moderate Counsels No say the Bishops unless you will find something sinful and unlawful in the Liturgy we are well enough already and need nothing more than to join heartily in our Prayers to Almighty God against Schism and Rebellion And what could be more cruelly and revengefully done than to injoyn Presbyterians but to pray against Schism and Rebellion and rather than baâ—e them that though it were to save their Reputation spoil the Musick of a Period They will never leave these precipitate bruitish and sanguinary Counsels Neither the civil War nor the King's Return nor the softness of the Universities nor the gentleness of Christianity can make them wise or good-natured And though they have had so much experience how excessively the Non-conformists are to be obliged by Condescensions and how easily the last King won their hearts by yielding to their demands in so much that from the year 40. to 48. they would sooner have been knock'd on the head than have lift up an ill thought against him and had he not fatally ruined himself whether they would or no they had made him the most glorious King that ever wielded the English Sceptre What ungrateful Creatures then are these Church-canibals when the Non-conformists have all along done his Majesty such signal services yet now after such an happy Restauration happy I say because it did it self without their Officiousness they should not suffer him to comply with their Infirmities Nay they are grown so unreasonable that they
will not destroy the Church as it is by Law established only that the Leaders of the Factions may have their wills and save their credits Were there ever such inhumane Canibals as these Were ever any Beasts of prey so fierce and cruel to those of their own Kind as these men are to their dear Brethren Deny a Presbyterian his Will it is a cruelty not to be equall'd by all the Engines of Torture the Podostrabae the Dactylethrae and the rest it exceeds the Tyranny of Julian's Persecution and the inhumanity of a Jewish Zealot I see they are incorrigible and it is not in your or my Power to help it and should we go about it they would be too hard for us for they are cunning men and understand how to trinkle and therefore let us let them alone and leave them to the implacable hardness of their own hearts and the irreversible doom of the day of Judgment when J. O. hopes to rejoice in seeing all the Vengeance and Indignation that is in the right hand of God poured out unto Eternity upon the souls of such wretches as these And thus have I I think sufficiently displayed the rudeness of your spite and malice against the Clergy of all Ages but of your own in particular I shall make no farther reflections upon it seeing that has always been their Fate ever since Balaam's days that is the first Precedent we meet with of the preaching of such Creatures as you and as I cannot hear that ever you spoke before so I believe you had never open'd your Mouth at all now but only to censure and reprove the Blindness of the Prophets I have detected spite and malice enough against the Clergy and now I think it worth the while to discover the Bottom of all this wrath and Indignation and certainly it can not be any matter of less importance than the fortunes of Caesar and the Roman Empire and if you will listen in short this it was It is not many years ago that you used to play at Picquet and there was a Gentleman of the Robe a Dignitary of Lincoln very well known and remembred in the Ordinaries Now you used to play Pieces and this Gentleman would always go half a Crown with you and so all the while he sat on your hand he very honestly gave the sign so that you were always sure to lose You afterwards discovered it but of all the money that ever you were cheated of in your life none ever vexed you so as what you lost by this occasion And ever since you have born a great grudge c. You imagine he gave the sign but how do you prove it I have been informed by impartial By-standers that he did not give the sign But that as all Gamesters are wont to do when you lost your Money you were angry and rail'd at him whereas as they tell me his Eyes were so bad that without Spectacles he was not able to discern a Spade from a Club unless this sinister Accident hapned a great many years ago and then to remember it now is a disparagement to a Gentlemans memory if not an Affront to the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity But does this become the Modesty of a Gentleman of private Condition and Breeding to think that Kings have nothing else to do than to concern themselves and their Crowns in your gaming Picques Is this your manners because you have upon good reason i. e. because you were once cheated taken up a Particular Aversion against the Clergies disposing your money that therefore all wise Princes must take this for a warning to shut the Bishops out of the Lords house and to keep them from fingring their Subjects money I am confident you have some Clergy-blood running in your Veins your malice is so implacable Some one of your Ancestors has as well as the Emperour Julian been in Orders sometime since the Flood if not since the Reformation and then no wonder if his indelible Character have for ever sowr'd and tainted the Gentility of his Family Otherwise certainly it is impossible a Gentleman should ever wreck his Malice against a single Dignitary upon the Clergy of all Ages However this runs you up into one of your own petty Dilemma's for if you descended of Clergy-ancestors then as you know you are no better than a Canibal to be so fierce and cruel against your own kind if you did not then what a sad blemish is it to a Gentleman's Memory and Breeding though never so private to wreck your revenge upon the whole Order from the beginning to the end of the World for the fault of one man But Picquet that vilainous Game that has done more mischief to the Discipline of our Church than Printing or Gun-powder 'T was an happy time when the Clergy understood no other than the old Elsibeth Game of Post and Pair and never plaied higher than two pence a dozen so that if any of them were so ingrateful or so dishonest as to cheat his Patron or his Patroness it made no great Commotions in the Common-wealth But since the Invention of the vilainous Game of Picquet at which Gentlemen though of private Condition and Breeding are wont to play Pieces such is the mischief that a Clergy-man cannot rook one of them but an Address must immediately be made to King and Parliament to keep their hands off from fingring the Subjects money and a Book must be written to prove that all that wear Canonical Coats in all Ages are worse Robbers than Thieves and High-way-men What ill fortune preferred this unhappy Dignitary of Lincoln that by one Wink in a Corner has done more harm to the Church of England than an hundred schismatical Divines with all their sweaty preaching Happy had it been for the King happy for the Church and happy for himself that is to say thrice happy had it been had he never climed that Pinacle But thus we see from what small Beginnings the greatest Actions and Alterations take their rise the late bloody War was begun by the Pickthankness of a Vicar of Brackley and for any thing we know the Kingdom may be embroiled afresh by the Pickpocketingness of a Dignitary of Lincoln for if ever J. O. and your self be able to trinkle the secret ones into Rebellion we may thank this cheating Dignitary for all that follows O Picquet Picquet how hast thou disturbed the peace of mankind That Gamesters should be more implacable than Divines Modern Orthodoxy Manwaring and Sibthorpianism have not caused so great disturbance in the Common-wealth as the Picques of Losers against those that rook them Bless me from this accursed Game if I cannot win a few pieces but I must endanger the Church and all and its Revenues must be seized to revenge your injury and repair your fortune Sir this is too implacable for a Gentlemans Memory But poor wretch wert thou cheated It was the very grievance of Bartlemew Cokes he too poor Gentleman