I have said and namely the unlawfullnesse of Lord Bishops Minist Sir that point hath been handled by your betters and manifestly confuted by my Lords grace in his writings against Cartwright Puritan Indeed he that will be blind cannot see it but he that looks in both their Works with a single eye cannot but confesse Mr. Cartwright to have confuted him by unanswerable evidence or els why would he not have answered Mr. Cartwrights works now a dozen yeares extant and more Minist As you of the Fantasticall crew think but he hath done it and that so sufficiently already that there needs no more Answers and againe his Grace is now otherwise troubled with matters of State that he cannot intend it or if he could yet it is not for him so to abase himselfe in regard of his high Calling which he is now placed in Puritan As though the cause of God were to be neglected in respect of his high place if he were lawfully called thereunto as he doth very unlawfully usurpe the same contrary to the Law of God for is it possible he can be the true Minister of God and a Temporall Magistrate that is to serve God and Mammon to as the Apostle saith Let him that hath an office attend upon his office and not Offices Minist Why how dare you presume to say so Were not Lord Bishops established by Her Majesty and consent of the whole Parliament Puritan I grant they were but the Lord hath said contrary in the Commandement he gave to his Ministers Luke 22. saying The Kings of the Gentiles raigne over them and they that beare rule over them are called gracious Lords but ye shall not be so but let the greatest among you be as the least and the chiefest as him that serveth And 1 Pet. 5. Feed the Flocke of God which dependeth upon you caring for it not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind Not as though ye were Lords over Gods heritage but that ye may be ensamples to the Flocke And in the first session of Parliament ☜ holden in the First yeare of her Majesties raigne there was never a Lord Bishop in the Land Minist If you will have no Lord Bishop how should the Church be governed then Puritan According as our Saviour Christ hath commanded and as the Holy Ghost hath set it down viz. by Pastors Teachers Elders and Deacons Rom 12. Ephes 4.1 Cor. 12. Minist You are very full of Scripture as though we have not the same Offices in effect though not in the same Titles as for example have not we Parsons for Teachers Vickers for Pastors Churchwardens for Elders and Sidemen for Deacons to distribute to the poore Puritan And what for Archbishops and Lord Bishops Iacke I will tell you for him Archbishops for Popes and Lord Bishops for Cardinals Ha ha Mr Vicker I see you are a good Churchman doe not you use the Pulpit sometimes Minist No indeed Sir but I read the Homilies somtimes and the Queens Injunctions and doe my duty as other Ministers doe Puritan I thought so by that fit comparison that you have made Iacke And have you no more but one Benefice neither and yet doe all that Minist Yes indeed I say Service at two more but I have little profit by them marie the best is they are somwhat neer for they are all three within foure miles together Puritan And how can you serve them all upon the Sabbath day Minist Some of them are but small and I can make quicke dispatch with them betimes and take my Mare and ride to the other and can make an end of all by ten of the clocke and spend an houre with good Fellows at home before Dinner to Puritan And Master Vicker do you think herein that you discharge your duty to God and those Congregations over whom you have taken this charge Minist Why Sir I discharge my duty better then those that take upon them foure or five Puritan Why is there any that takes upon them the charge of so many Minist Yea a hundred in England Puritan Well I will tell you the fearefull judgements of God hangs over our heads and cannot be long deferred but fall upon the whole Land where to such dumb Idolls as you are is committed the charge of soules and to your selves eternall destruction of body and soule wherfore Mr. Vicker as you tender your owne salvation leave this your unlawfull Calling of the Ministry and betake you to some occupation or Husbandry Minist I care not what any of you spightfull Puritans say so long as I can have the favour of my Lord Bishop Iacke I pray you Mr. Vicker let me spurre a question unto you if I may be so bold where do you serve Minist I serve in Middlesex Sir Iacke Who made you Minister Minist My good Lord of London Puritan Like enough he hath made a great many of blind guides in his time besides you for he made the Porter of his Gate Minister of Paddington being blind Iacke O monstrous is this true did he so indeed Puritan It is most true for the Bishop of Winchester hath recorded it in a Booke of his set forth in Print Iacke Why what will our Bishops grow to in time if they be suffered for me thinks this is a fearefull thing to make such Ministers as can neither see nor speake for it is like if he were the Porter no doubt of it he had not the gift of Teaching Puritan Very true but because he could do him no longer service he was so good to him to provide for the poore blind man that he might live Iacke Sure I think when they come once to be Lords they cleane forget God and all Godlinesse for I have heard that there was some good things in him before he was Bishop of London for he wrote a Book called the Harborow of faithfull Subjects against Bishops wherein he saith Come down ye Bishops with your thousands and betake you to your hundreds let your fare be Priestlike and not Princelike c. Puritan Indeed he wrote such a Book and the same words that you repeat I have read in the same but alas when he was at the best he was but a corrupt man and the best things in it savour but of earth for there is many things handled in it very immodestly and unchristianly but one thing especially he sets down there which himselfe practiseth clean contrary where he speaks of the ability that should be in every Minister of the Word that he should know his quarter strocks to be able to convince the adversary c. Minist Why will you have none Ministers but such as can preach I can tell you that the twentieth Minister in the Land cannot preach Puritan The more the worse for you and the rest how many soever there be stand without repentance in a most damnable state for you are most notorious murtherers of soules in taking upon you so high
dealt not so hardly with the Ministers as now he doth and that often in his Sermons at Northampton he would confesse that the Discipline was used and practised in the Primitive Church a long time after the Apostles Puritan It is very true and yet he saith in his Book against Martin that the holy Discipline is a platforme devised he knows not by whom And in another place of the same Booke he confestes that it was practised by the Apostles and long time after in the Primitive Church And upon the words where he saith it is not denyed there is pasted at the commandement of the Bishop of Canterbury It is not yet proved so that there is some jarre between themselves although these two are most conversant together and joyn in one to persecute sincere and faithfull Preachers of the Word and others of the Lords Children Iacke I had thought they would not have dissented one from another of them Puritan Why Sir in the 49. page of the same Booke the Bishop of Winchester saith the Bishop of Canterbury is a giddy head and to be bridled because he authorised Doctor Whitaker his readings against Bellarmine wherein the Apocripha is defaced And Mr. Doctor Some one of their affinite no we and a nonresident he calls the Archbishop of Canterbury An absurd Hereticke because he holds Baptisme administred by Women to be the Seale of Gods Covenant pag. 3. of his Booke against Master Penri and many like things I could cite to you of their dissenting one from another Iacke How like you of these things Master Vicker be not these good Fathers of the Church think you Minist I like never a whit the worse of them for your words for I know they are but slaunders Puritan Master Vicker you I know like well of them although the proofes that their adversaries doe bring be never so manifest and plain against them because you are in the same state or worse and may be in that you doe unlawfully usurpe your place and having no fit Gifts to discharge your duty in any measure Remember what the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 6.19 Woe to me if I preach not the Gospel this is rightly pronounced upon you and all such Idols as you are Minist If I read Sermons and Homilies is it not as much as if I preached for Mr. Doctor Bridges saith that reading is preaching Puritan The Lord hath promised no such blessing unto reading as preaching for the Word preached is the onely ordinary meanes to salvation But I pray you for your comfort heare what the Prophet Ieremy saith to you in the 48 Chap. Cursed be that man that doth the worke of the Lord negligently And Mallac 2.7 saith The Priestes lips should preserve knowledge and they should seeke the law at his mouth but how can you shunne this curse Master Vicker I pray God humble your heart that you may acknowledge your sinne and crave pardon at his hands and leave the Ministry lest the Lord with a strong hand throw you out to your everlasting woe Iacke Master Vicker he gives you good councell it were good for you to follow it if you doe not it will be the worse for you Minist Well Sir it is no matter there be as wise as he will give me other councell Iacke Why I see Master Vicker is obstinate he will not be perswaded by you Puritan Even as he will I speak my Conscience to him he may chuse if he will follow it or no. Iacke I marvell what good hospitality the Bishop of London keeps I have heard that he is very covetous Minist Indeed he doth keep a good house Iacke What doth not the dogs runne away out of his house with whole shoulders I think a man may as soone break his neck as break his fast at his house Puritan Surely I can say thus much by report of one that was his Chaplaine whose name is Haiward Vicker of Saint Martins by Charing crosse that often times when he dined at his Pallace in London he hath made his Servants to take the Fragments and carry them to Fulham but if there be any dainty morsell lest he will wrap it up in his Handkerchiefe and carry it in his bosome for feare lest his men should beguile him Iacke O Master Vicker you have a most bountifull Lord he is so liberall that he will not suffer the scraps to be bestowed upon the poore but to be kept for his Servants Supper Minist It is false for I have often seen alines given at his Gates when he hath lien at London Puritan I le tell you what I have heard him say at Panls Grosse my selfe upon a time following his text very well your must think he burst me out with a great exclamation of himselfe in that he was poore and had no money protesting what charges he had bin at and that Pauls Church can beare me witnesse saith he that I have no money And shortly after some of his own Servants being there present and heard him belike thought to make their good Lord a lyarâ— very shortly after rob'd him of certain hundred of pounds for which offence he was so good unto his men as to hang them up three or foure in number I although he had the most part of his money againe and some of the parties executed protested to their knowledge he had much more money at usury and that his servants lived only upon bribes Iacke A Bishop a Lyar and a Usurer nay surely Mr. Vicker if your Lord have those two faults it cannot be but he hath more so that for my own part I think him verily to be the Bishop of the Devill Puritan Nay Sir I can give you proofe for the same more that he is surely the Bishop of the Devill for Martin Mar-prelate hath set down a pretty thing in his Epistle to the terrible Priests that the Bishop of London when he throws his Bowle as he useth it commonly upon the Sabbath day he runnes after it and if it be too hard he cries rub rub rub and saith the Divel goe with thee when he goeth himselfe with it So that by those words he nameth himselfe the Bishop of the Divell but by his practise of tyrannicall dealing against the Lords faithfull Ministers not onely calleth but proveth himselfe to be the Bishop of the Devil Iacke Ha ha Master Vicker you see your Lord Bishop is a Devil by his own confession so indeed you are not the Lords Minister but the Minister of the Devil as your Lord Bishop is the Bishop of the Devil Minist You use your speeches at pleasure of my Lord it may be you will not so easily answer them when you are called thereunto Iacke Yes Master Vicker I warrant you Send a Pursuivant when you will for us and we will answer it if we cannot make our parts good enough we will send the Woman of Hampsteed to him Minist What meane you by that Iacke If you will needs have me I will
be Lord Bishops once Minist Yes Sir I know there is such a Book named Martin Mar-prelate a most vile and slanderous Libell but I doe not thinke my Lord of Winchester doth approve any thing that is set down there in any of those Books for they have put forth three or foure Books under that Title Iacke Why Master Vicker how do they to get their Books Printed Minist Tush they doe well enough for that there is a Seditious Fellow one Walde-grave who commonly Prints all such Books I know him well enough he did keep a Shop at the Sgne of the Crane in Pauls Church-yard at which time he had his Presse and Letters taken away from him and destroyed for the same cause by my Lords Grace of Canterbury and now he works in corners up and down the Countrey like a Vagabond Puritan With a seared Conscience did the Bishops that violence to him in regard both of the Cause and also for the great charge he hath of Wife and six small Children and now to bereave his Poore Family of him whose labours was their only comfort and maintenance Iacke Master Vicker how long was it since Walde-graves goods were destroyed I have heard of him before now but I know him not Minist Tush you know him well enough I am sure it is since his goods were destroyed about Easter was a twelve moneth Iacke And hath he been all this time absent from his Family Minist I Sir and if he had bin there he would easily have been had for he hath been watcht well enough for that Puritan I will tell you Sir how they deale with him when they have any suspition that he is at home although he durst never come nome they stick not in the dead time of the night to break down the main walls of his house and enter in with Constables and Pursuivants and this a common thing with them Iacke I am perswaded the Bishops had been better to have given him freely 2. hundred pounds towards the setting up of a new Printing house for himselfe then to have destroyed his as they have done Minist I thinke so for it may be he would have followed his Calling some other way then to be imployed in those things Iacke Yonder comes a man plodding a pace after us whatsoever he be Minist It may be our company will increase and so we shall goe the more cheerfull for it begins to be late and it is dangerous going here abouts late I can tell you Puritan It may be he is one of your coate Master Vicker Minist I cannot tell but if he be he shall be welcome to me Iacke Surely he comes apace whatsoever he be Minist It may be he would be glad of company Iacke Well let us goe on and continue our talke Puritan Master Vicker I thinke you be weary of our communication if you be let us know Minist No by my Faith sir not I say what you will a Gods name Puritan Fie Master Vicker will you sweare I think you learned that of your Lord Bishop of London for he useth it often when he is at Boules Iacke What will Bishops sweare Puritan Sweare Sir I that they will and defend it to when they have done For in the first Booke of Martin there is mention made of the Bishop of Londons Swearing when he is at Bowles And the Bishop of Winchester in answering the same saith thus in pag. 62. of his Booke That our Saviour Christ usually sware by his Faith in his Sermon for he said Amen Amen which is as much to say saith he as by my Faith by my Faith Iacke Why is that Bishop of God that will Sweare thus Minist Fo I have heard my Lords Grace of Canterbury Sweare by his Faith an hundred times yea and by God too somtimes and what he doth I take it as a good president for such as I am to follow Puritan I le tell you Master Vicker I am of Doctor Bridges his mind of our Bishops for saith he page 339 340. That all our Lord Bishops in England are the Bishops of the Divel And I am sure of it by these two marks viz. By their tyrannicall dealing against Gods Children And by their wicked and unconscionable lives that they are not of God Iacke I pray you hath Doctor Bridges written any Booke that is published to this effect Puritan Yes indeed and the Bishop of Canterbury hath confirmed it by his authorising of the same and also by his continuall practise against Gods Children Iacke But I pray you Sir how wickedly hath he wrested the Scripture in saying our Saviour Christ continually sware in his Sermons when he said Amen Amen Puritan Why the Bishop of Winchester is most impudent in all his actions for he very blasphemously in his Sermon preached at Mary Overies at London said that a man might aswell find fault with the holy Scripture as with our corrupt Common Booke of Prayer Iacke Out upon him blasphemous wretch he is certainly the Bishop of the Divel as Doctor Bridges saith Puritan Will you heare some more of his Divinity Iacke O yes I pray you Sir And yet my heart trembleth to heare of such odious blasphemies as these Puritan He saith in the 49. page of his Book against Martin Mar-prelate That the Creed of the Apostles Athanasius and the Nicene c. containe in them many palpable lyes Now tell me your opinion of this is it sound and subsantiall Doctrine I pray you tell me Iacke Doctrine yea indeed this may truely be said to be the Doctrine of Devils Why whither will our Bishops runne in time trow you if the Magistrate suffer them Puritan I will tell you even to their Father the Devil For they have at no time taken in hand to write in defence of their Hierarchie but it hath made their eyes so to dazle that they run into most dangerous and damnable errours as in this Booke of the Bishops will be proved neare 500. errours yea in correcting and controuling the mighty word of God and also have interlaced their writings with such contrariety of matter as one part of their own Books may serve to confute the other with infinite absurdities yea and by your leave to even flat Treason Iacke Many good men did never judge the Bishop of Winchester to be but an Hypocrite Puritan He is a most bittrer man to all those that feare God and have to deale with him for he may well be compared to a Horse with a gald backe that hath bin so rub'd that he winces frets and chafes so that he is ready to throw himselfe to utter destruction with purpose to hurt him that rub'd him Even so this Bishop takes to himselfe so much liberty in abusing and profaning the holy word of God against those that write in the Lords Cause against their unlawfull Callings and that I feare me to the indangering both of body and soule Iacke I have heard that when he was at Lincolne he
tell you you shall understand Master Vicker that your good Lord at his first coming to be the Divels Lord at London began to play Rex as he hath lately done at Fulham in cutting down the Trees there to the great impoverishing of the Town to cut down the Woods at Hampsteed and needs he would doe it and began prettily well with it The Townes-men became suiters to him that he would not they could not perswade him for he was Lord of it he said Well seeing the men could doe no good with him the women took the matter in hand and as the Divels men came that is your Lords to cut downe their Woods the women fell a swadling of them so that they durst come no more to cut down any Trees there Thus you see the Women overcame the Devill and so feared him that therby they preserved their Woods For by very nature these Devills Bishops are given to destroy both Church and Common-wealth But if we be not good enough for them we will intreat the Women of Hampsteed to take the matter in hand Minist Well I doubt not but you will for all this lustines kisse the Clinke or Gate-house for this geare for my Lords Grace shall know of it if my Lord doe not Iacke Why Vicker of the Divell let the whole Convocation House of Divels know of it and you will for they dare not no not Beelzebub of Canterbury the chiefe of the Devills come to disputation therby to approve their Callings to be lawfull and other points in controversie against the Discipline of God as they have been often challenged and offered by the Puritans even to adventure their lives against their Bishopricks and yet they durst not And I pray you tell me if they were not the Bishops of the Devill indeed would they refuse this offer Minist Why the Puritans have bin often disputed with Puritan Where In the Bishops Closet For they are ashamed to have it tryed before any Magistrate Let them if they dare procure a free disputation whereby every man may freely speak and be indifferently heard and if the Bishops and all their partakers be not overthrowne I will loose my life for it Minist Have they not been already by publicke writing and otherwise but especially by my Lords Grace his works against Cartwright sufficiently confuted I pray you Puritan No indeed but I will tell you what a Noble man professing the Gospell said he demanded of the old Lord Henry Howard the Earle of Arundels Uncle now living being a professed Papist what he thought of Whitgifts answere to Cartwright who answered There was no comparison to be made between them for Whitgift saith he is not worthy to carry Cartwrights Books after him for learning Marke here the opinion of a Papist you know a deadly adversary to Master Cartwright and yet the ambitious wretch wil not stick now he is an Archbishop to call those that are able to teach him and which were in the Gospell before him Boyes and revile them farre beyond all Christian modesty And againe if a man apply any new writer his opinion of the reformed Churches in defence of the Lords Truth as Master Calvin Beza or others he will not also sticke to bragge and tell him that he is able to teach Calvin and Beza or any of them all But the wretch nor his associates dares not dispute with Master Cartwright Calvin or Bezaes inseriours Iacke Tush foe he sits now upon his cogging stoole which may truly be called the Chaire of Pestilence little may he doe if he cannot Bragge Crack and Face it out For the truth is he wrote against the Discipline for no other end but to get a Bishopricke for he never wrote since he hath caught one I warrant you And the pide Faced Foole Doctor Bridges imitating him hoping to leape like as he hath done but it will not be Puritan O you are greatly deceived Dr. Bridges hath utterly renounced the Bishops as I have heard for that the Archbishop hath broken his faith with him Iacke How comes tell you at the beginning of the last Parliament there were Bishops to be stalled and his Grace had promised him very confidently that he would not onely speak for him also assure him of a Bishoprick Upon which the aspiring wretch did only rely otherwise it may be he would have bribed some Courtier to have dealt for him as he did for his Denary But her Majesty lying at Richmond and Mr. Doctor repairing thither upon the green afore Richmond House met with Master Thornbie the Master of the Savoy who told him that he was suiter for the Bishopricke of such a place Master Doctor Bridges answered and said it was true he had the grant of it at his Grace his hands saith Master Thornby I had a promise of it to but it is certaine that his Grace hath got it for another man and he hath finished it and all is past I can assure you of it With that the Doctor was in his mad mood and said Hath he served me so why then I will say and may speake it truly there is no Faith in a Bishop Have I wrote in their defence and have gotten the ignomie shame and reproach of it by publicke writing and now to be thus vildly dealt with I will tell you Master I hornby I doe protest and alwates will affirme it That it is better to have one inch of pollicie then all the Divinity in the world If Master Thornby will deny this to be true there be both godly and worshipfull will justifie it to his face Iacke Nay it is like enough that the Bishop of Canterbury hath served him so it is not the first like pranke he hath played for it is his manner he will promise much and performe nothing but persecute Gods Ministers and glory in himselfe For if any godly Minister or any other that feare God come before him he will offer them the Oath either to accuse themselves or their Christian Brethren or both yea though no body be able to charge them with any offence And if they will not sweare then to the Clinke Gatehouse or White Lyon they goe roundly and when suit is made unto him for their Liberty then except they will enter into bonds to performe this or doe that why he will say they shall lye till they rot with other bitter words And he was wont to use these words often and had a great pride in speaking them I cannot tell whether he hath left them now or no As long as the Queen and I live it shall be this or that Judge you of this man whether he hath a humble spirit or an aspiring mind to joyne himselfe with his dread Soveraigne the Queens Majesty He were best to remember his predecessor Cardinall Wolsey betimes least he have the same end Cardinall Wolsey had Minist I hope for these your taunting speeches to see you trounst if I meet you handsomly in place where Iacke