Selected quad for the lemma: book_n
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A56398
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A reproof to the Rehearsal transprosed, in a discourse to its authour by the authour of the Ecclesiastical politie.
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Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing P473; ESTC R1398
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225,319
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538
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part of the old Elsibeth Puritanism But as Martyn was just such another Wit as you so are you just such another fool as Martyn that as despicable as you make your self when you would play the Monkey are ten times a more ridiculous sight when you would look serious For here forsooth you would fain make up your Mouth and turn up the white and put on as rebuking a Countenance as you fancy J. O. did when he spoke of the day of Judgment and take me up with ruful face for that peculiar delight and felicity I have which no man envies me in Scripture Drollery My friend this is too severe reckoning what can we not make mention of any Name recorded in Holy Writ but we must abuse the sacred book it self shall we not dare so much as to take the names of the Hivites Perizzites and Hittites into our Lips because we find the story of their wickedness recorded in the Holy Scriptures shall we not call a Traitour Judas or a Rebel Achitophel for fear of prophaning the Old and New Testament This is a shrewd and a sad symptom of wretched Poverty of Cavil when you are every where forced to make so very much of so very little I only wonder how the Bramble escaped this severity especially when one would think that of all the Books of the Bible you should have been acquainted with the Book of Judges because though it be no Gazet yet it conteins the Transactions of a certain time when there was no King in Israel and yet even here you betray the Grossness of your Ignorance and declare in the Simplicity of your Heart that you cannot imagine what the Mystery of Shiboleth is no more than of Categoricalness and Entanglement And yet the story of Shiboleth is recorded in the same Book of Judges with that of the Bramble so that it is not improbable but you might be equally ignorant of both and that you might look for this story in Gerhard's Herbal or AEsop's Fables But as for the other two words you know as well as I that it is only for my dear J. O's sake that I am so fond of them as well as divers others that you might as well have insulted over viz. Self-wrought-out-mortification Eristicalness Songs upon Sigionoth the high places of Armageddon Providential revolutions and some other affected Phrases that are the peculiar Language or Shiboleth of your secret ones But perhaps you had a mind to reserve this Parable for all its being found in the Bible for your own Drollery and you are wonderfully pleasant both upon that and me because after I had in allusion to that transformed Calvin into a Bramble not a Bishop Bramble as you notably clinch it for the nearness of the sound to Bishop Bramhall I should ascribe indefatigableness to him a Liberty that has ever been allowed of by all Criticks and must be practised by all the Writers of Apologues and without it what pleasant work would such a Sarcastical Wit as you make with AEsops Fables and Reignold the Fox But if I am guilty of a solecism and I do not much care if I grant it I am not alone you your self stick as fast in the same absurdity for when you have turn'd the Clergy of England into an Ivy-bush you in the same breath ascribe cunning and contrivance to it now if you will but undertake to teach a shrub how to plot and contrive for its own self-interest I will undertake to teach it how to take pains to compass its ends so that your Politick Ivy will be a fit match for my Indefatigable Bramble and I hope in time will overcome it too i. e. that the discretion of the Church of England may at last be too hard for the Zeal of the Geneva Faction But though it be prophane enough to droll upon the word of God yet wilfully to pervert or in your own unaffected language trinkle it is somewhat worse and that is the next Article of my charge that when I quote St. Paul to prove that the fruits of the spirit as he enumerates them Gal. 5. 22. are only Moral Vertues I translate say you joy to chearfulness peace to peaceableness and faith to faithfulness as if either the Apostles Original were written in English or I had translated it out of English into English no that is your own way of translation to expound the Greek Text by the English Version as you do the Chapter by the Contents It was not then joy and peace and faith that I translated into chearfulness peaceableness and faithfulness but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But what ignorance or rather what forgery is this of Scripture and Religion Who is there of the Systematical German Genevah Orthodox Divines but could have taught you better Who is there of the sober intelligent Episcopal Divines of the Church of England but would abhorr this interpretation So say you but then say I what honest and upright dealing is this with Scripture and Religion Who is there of the Systematical German Genevah Orthodox Divines that could have taught me better Who is there of the sober intelligent Episcopal Divines that would not approve of this interpretation And so M r Impertinence you and I are even you see how little Answer will serve to stop your mouth though you open never so wide But this confidence is worth all our Moral Vertues and is able to make such stuff as this pass among the Party for Wit and Demonstration And with what Triumph here do you bear me down and rescue this Text from my violent interpretation and carry it off as bravely recover'd out of the Enemies possession and yet it is but dropping one simple No-forsooth in your way and your carreere is stopt and there may you stand gaping till the day of Judgement For as for this Text when all your Orthodox Divines have sifted and bolted it to the Bran they will with all their search and canvasing never get any thing out of it or discover any thing in it beside Moral Vertues And if you have credit enough to borrow a Bible in the Neighbour-hood you will quickly find if you can find the Epistle that St. Paul is there describing the opposite Effects between the Flesh and the Spirit and therefore as all the fruits of the flesh there reckoned up are immoral Vices so must all the fruits of the Spirit there opposed to them be moral Vertues but particularly chearfulness must answer to envy or discontentedness peaceableness to strife or contention and faithfulness to the Gnostick treachery or perfidiousness But in the Name of Mercury tell me to what end you quarrel my preferring the word chearfulness before that of Joy when as I have told you they are but synonymous expressions of the same thing and may be and often are used promiscuously and differ no more than Reason and Reasoning And what if instead of this I had made
your self that he will never take any notice of such a despicable yelper as you unless with a Dog-whip Thou Prevaricatour of all the Laws of Buffoonry thou dastard Craven thou Swad thou Mushroom thou Coward in heart word and deed thou Judas thou Crocodile thus though it were in thy greatest necessity after having profess'd wit and rithm these fifty years to snivle out such a whining submission in publick is past all precedent of Cowardize from the Trojan war to this very day but that thou shouldest do it of thy own accord and without any provocation is more sneaking than the flattery of a Setting-dog Thou shalt wear a Collar and thy name shall be Trey And so we arrive at the Character of a Noble-man's Chaplain for having heretofore among other your juvenile Essays of Ballads Poesies Anagrams and Acrosticks laid out your self upon this Subject also and your Papers lying useless by you at this time when your Muse began to tirè and set it might be very convenient to fill up twelve pages with this Character whilst she baited and recover'd Breath But the greatest part of it is so very trite and vulgar that none but a superannuated Wit would ever have accepted of such out worn and old fashion'd Jests And the rest of it so Garagantuan and Legend-like v. g. the raising of a mans Hypocondria into the Region of his Brain his being lifted up into the Air so high as to crack his Scull against the Chappel Ceiling with a deal more of such wild and incredible Stuff that I shall wave it all because I am sure it is impossible that Kings should ever make use of such idle and extravagant stories And if I would study revenge I could easily have requited you with the Novels of a certain Jack Gentleman that was born of pure Parents and bred among Cabin-boys and sent from School to the University and from the University to the gaming Ordinaries but the young man being easily rook'd by the old Gamesters he was sent abroad to gain Cunning and Experience and beyond Sea saw the Bears of Bern and the large Race of Capons at Geneva and a great many fine sights beside and so return'd home as accomplish'd as he went out tries his fortune once more at the Ordinaries plays too high for a Gentleman of his private condition and so is at length cheated of all at Picquet And so having neither Money nor employment he is forced to loiter up and down about Charing-Cross and in Lincolns-Inn-fields where he had leisure and opportunity to make Remarques among other Subjects upon the wheel of Fortune from whence with the help of a little skill in Mathematicks he at length makes out this new and important discovery in Politicks as a straight line continued grows a Circle even so Power infinitely extended becomes Impotency Which with many more of his choicest Observations he at length discharges into a certain Book call'd the Rehearsal which as soon as you have finisht this I would willingly recommend to your perusal that you may see how much pains a witty man may take to make others merry and himself ridiculous Where you will meet with many more that perhaps you will think but idle stories but Kings know how to make use of them For how modestly soever the Author may speak of his own private condition and breeding his Memoires will be very serviceable to the instruction of Princes It is he that first observed how the Clergy have in all Ages obstructed the Clemency of Kings how they can deform the whole Reign of the best Princes that ever wielded Scepters how by their leasings they keep up a strangeness and misunderstanding between the Soveraign and his Subjects how they trinckle with Parliaments and by their pickthankness make them expose both their own and his Majesties Wisdome to posterity It is he only that can with Authority from above for he could have it nowhere else ensure Princes that the reason why God does not bless the Clergy in affairs of State is because he never intended them for that employment It is he that first discover'd the Sea-marks of Government and by the Histories and Originals of all former rebellions instructed Princes how to avoid the like causes It is he that has inform'd them that the body is in the power of the mind and the mind in the hand of God so that to punish either of them is to correct the Divine Majesty It is he that has advised them how to humour their Subjects and not force them to conform to a fashion or ceremony for the sake of Alexander the Great and the Emperour the sturdy Swiss and the Town-seal In brief it is he that has taught them Gentlemens Memories to forget all injuries and Royal Understandings to prevent none These stories would have been more instructive to Princes than a pitiful Legend of a crack't Chaplain and for that reason I shall not pass them by so lightly but reserve them to their proper place of State-Policy From the Chaplain you are immediately led by a certain train of thoughts to J. O. upon whom you spend an horrible deal of Abecedarian wit that was taken out of his own Primer as the rest of your Book was out of his Survey I suppose the intention of it is to nick all Capacities for having made the rest to please fools this was design'd for the entertainment of children and to them I leave it only I cannot but observe from your pursuing it to such an irksome and tedious length that you have not the judgement of a Jack-pudding to discern when you have plaid the fool enough And here follows the delightful story of Gill and Triplet but this too I shall keep cold for your Politiques because it is a story that Kings may make use of And thus are we arrived once more at the Grand Thesis that stands just as it did at the beginning For whether it were lawful for me to write any more or not whether the Press be a villainous Engine or not whether Importance be a Female or not whether Calvin were a bramble or not whether Geneva stand on the South-side of the Lake Lemane or not whether there be a Race of Capons propagated there or not whether it be possible for a mans Hypocondria to rise up into his head or not whether J. O. be an Hee-cow or not and whether Triplet were legally whipt by Gill after he could plead adultus or not I will maintain it against Hungary Transylvania Bohemia Poland Savoy France the Netherlands Denmark Sweden Scotland Geneva Germany Charing-Cross Lincolns-Inn-fields Grubstreet Pin-makers hall J. O. and your Self and any one man more I care not though it be the sturdy Swiss That it is absolutely necessary to the Peace and Government of the World that the Supreme Magistrate of every Common-wealth should be vested with a Power to Govern and Conduct the Consciences of Subjects in affairs of Religion And now to conclude