told them they must go to the Round House but they begged very earnestly they might not go thither for then they were quite undone whereupon the Constable told them that if each man would give a Noble to the Poor they should be excused but both of them could make but half a Crown At last they both having two pair of Stockings on each of them pull'd off a pair and so they were dismiss'd A Justice of Peace afterwards hearing of it question'd the Constable but how he came off I know not Thomas Cleaton now drawing Beer at the Bell in Aldersgate-street formerly lived at the Three Cups where a Parson told him that he had a wife and five children at home but his present condition was such that he wanted a wench and that he would give him ten shillings to help him to one putting five shillings into his hand but he scorned his base motion and onely made him spend three shillings of the money giving him the other two again Mr. Hart a Parson in Northamptonshire having got a young woman with Child sends her away to London and writes a Letter to one there to entertain her for she was his wife But this Letter must not come from Mr. Hart but from one Gardner who was gone to Sea Well the Creature is entertained by the man to whom she was sent and having money in her purse lay there until she was brought-a-bed But now Gardner is come from Sea Hart makes to Gardner telling him that if he will own such a Letter there was an hundred pounds for him Gardner accepts on 't puts himself into the Life-Guard and keeps her company But one night coming home late he saw a Cloak and Cirsingle hanging not far from the bed and finds the Priest in bed with her again Gardner falls a swearing at the Parson and will cut off his privy Members and an hundred pounds shall not serve his turn now The Priest gave him good words and pretending that he must go to the house of office he got away Mr. Jackson of Kimham two miles from Burford in Oxfordshire coming to Burford drank so hard that standing to talk with a Gentleman he spued upon him and afterwards went into the Inn and spued upon the Table as he leaned upon it and going into the Court to call for his horse fell down but the Hostler with much ado got him into the Hostlery where he lay until he had beshit himself Mr. Rowles one that lives within four or five miles of Gloucester who carries the Arms of Cambridge in his face Lucem Pocula Fire and Cups being in Gloucester at a Mercers shop enquired how he might know Ralph Wallis I have heard much of him said he and I would fain see him As soon as he had spoke the word I came into the shop Said the Mercer This is Ralph Wallis Mr. Rowles thereupon desired me not to put him in my next Book among the Deans Doctors and Prebends No said I not I Sir they will be ashamed of your company But said I you eat too much Ale Ale said he give me a cup of Sack that which will bring a man into the same estate that Adam was in in Paradise He is a frequenter of Alehouses and as some of of his Neighbours inform me he was once foully mistaken for being drunk and only letting down his Breeches he shit in his Drawers But this was not so bad as his common frequenting of Bawdy-Houses both at Burford and Shipton before he came to live in Gloucestershire At a place called Lurgashal in Wiltshire as I have been informed from very good hands the People having sung a Psalm expected the Priest would begin his Sermon but staying somewhat long a Gentleman one Mr. Possain sent to him to begin his Sermon but the Messenger found him in the Pew where he had beshit himself and was wiping his breech as was conceived with his Sermon-Notes and in that condition would have got up into the Pulpit to have preached but the people would not let him At Heydon a Chappel of Ease in the Parish of Staverton four miles from Glocester the Priest being in the Pulpit did so beshit himself that it ran down out of his breeches into the Pulpit and after he came out of the Pulpit he might have been tracked by it which way he went The Priest of Homelacy in Herefordshire having a Communion as they call it on the Lords day went in the afternoon to a Chappel of Ease called Boulson to preach but when he came there he only went up into the Pulpit and so came down again saying The Pulpit stinks and no more But his Parishioners do vindicate the credit of the Pulpit and also affirm that the Priest having made himself drunk with the Wine that was left at the Sacrament beshit himself and slander'd the Pulpit We will conclude with Parson Laurence of Didmarton who will be a Cartload himself first for Swearing I my self having heard him swear many Oaths in a very short time upon a very small occasion And once sitting at the Table after Dinner in the presence of his fellow-Ministers who were his only Companions at that time he swore so fast that one of them reproved him sharply And for a Drunkard match him and hang him he was so drunk at Glocester that he was not able to speak a word but swear yet was so wise in that condition that he could point with his hand and make signs to the Hostler to carry him to bed Vp the Hostler takes him on pick-pack you may remember Wife you cried out Throw him on the Dunghil or lay him in the Gutter But being laid on a Bed I heard him swear Dam'im at the Hostler when he pluck't off his Boots And there he continued drinking on the morrow and was all day drunk again A Farmor told me that he was once his bed-fellow at Tetbury where the Parson being drunk had so beshit himself that his bed-fellow was fain to take his knife and cut off the tail of his shirt and throw it in the fire and there said he it did fry like Grease A leafe in quarto would be too little to describe his sordid carriage and usurious grinding of such as borrow Money of him Wise I am afraid this last load has almost turn'd your stomack and therefore I 'll drive it away to Tom Turd's Pond and there leave it Wife I have many more such fellows and I could name the Chancellor of Worcester and Hereford Timothy Baldwin who when one told him he could not receive the Sacrament at his Ministers hand he was so deboist a fellow the Chancellor told him he might receive it from a Yurk or an Infidel nay he might receive it from the hands of the Devil if he would administer it for said he the Ordinance is the Ordinance still I could with Mr. Tombes were his Chaplain till the Lord Chancellor returns again But now I am speaking of Chancellors
Wife If all our Chancellors were Babers and all our Prebends Viners it would be more for their credit Wife I cannot yet tell that Bishops name But I hope I shall give you an account of it shortly who entered one that was a Barber into Holy Orders and being told that he had formerly been Arrainged for Sheep-stealing he replied I had rather see a Sheep-stealer in the Pulpit than a Presbyterian And now Wife Let 's compare these Porrige-Priests with our Ejected Ministers and see what a vast difference there is between them The former guilty of all the afore-mentioned Abominations the latter free from all just suspicion of such things even in the Iudgment of their very Enemies And if that Kiss which the Great Constantine gave to the hollow of Paphnutius's Eye lost for the sake of Christ be justly reckoned amongst the Trophies of his honour how illustrious would it render his Majesty both to the present and succeeding Ages to give Liberty to those who are as Instruments in the hand of Christ to open eyes of the Blind Wife But Husband I hope all these Cartloads have no relation to the best of our honest Conformists Husb. Yes Wife they 're all Brethren Members of the Mystical Body these Swearing Cheating Ignorant Drunken Whoring Priests are all their Brethren as much as those that both beshit and piss'd their Breeches Pews and Pulpits Why Wife do you think the honest Conformists you speak of will disown their Arch Spiritual Father Canterbury their Swearing Father Lichfield and Coventry or their Papistical Father Worcester and the rest of that Mungrel Crew They can never be true Sons of the Church if they disown these Fathers Wife But Husband after all your Cartloads what do you think of the Body of this Clergy Husb. Why Wife many of them of the old Topers are like the old Boots and Shooes which we Coblers do Vamp they have many of them new Soles new Preferments three or four Livings and Prebendaries but the old Leather is still the same onely now they drink Sack whereas Ale before would liquor the Boots very well A Lady asked one of them some years since Where they had all been during the time they were turned out of their Livings He answered We have lain among the Pots abusing the Scripture To which the Lady answered I thought so by your Red Noses But indeed Wife there are but two small Objections against them two little Faults in our Clergy-men Wife What are those two Exceptions Husband Husb. Why they can neither Preach nor Pray otherwise they are as well qualified both for Drinking and Swearing and some other Vertues that you and I must not talk aloud of as any that ever came out of the Popes Belly Wife Pray Husband what do you think is the true reason why the People are so generally set against the Bishops Husb. Truly Wife I 'll tell thee As they all see they do no good and have no care of their Souls so their business is to vex and torment the people under them by their Appariters summoning them to their Courts that they cannot be quiet in their Callings nor at their Ploughs I am informed by such as have heard it from those that know it That three thousand at one time stood summoned at the Bishop of Lincoln's Court Wife this is one great reason of the miserable poverty that is in every Country I tell thee Wife if our Gracious King would but take theirs and the old Droans of Deans and Prebends Lands into his hands to defray the Publick Charge of the Kingdom the whole Body of the People would keep a Jubilee for it Wife Husband let me ask you one question more What do you find is the reason why the Non-Conformists will not comply with the Bishops Husb. The reason is plain because they cannot say the old Mumpsimus the service-Service-Book which I have told you before is word by word the old Mass-Book in another Tongue one Pope making one part of it and his Successors the rest Now they can pray better than the Popes can teach them but as for our Clergy-Sâ—â—s if their Books should be burnt there must be no praying And secondly the Non-Conformists cann't swallow the Old Whores painted silly Ceremonies because by the Bishops own Confession they are not Written So that their great sin is that they can Pray and Preach without an old mouldy Mass-Book and would worship as God commands them which makes the people to be generally for them Wife I hope then Husband the King will give them their liberty to Preach to satisfie his People Husb. I will tell thee a true story Wife for you know I read Histories In the Kingdom of Persia about the year 500. the Magitian-Priests such as ours came to the King and told him that there was a voice heard in one of the Temples from under ground That if he gave liberty to the Christians in his Kingdom he would certainly be destroyed Which the King believing a wise Man went to him and desired him to go and hear the voice and then to search under ground if there were not a person there which the King did and found a Priest in a hollow place which spake and so the cheat was discovered Iust such an Oracle is the Priests counsel now But Wife Pray Husband stay there I think you have said enough for a Cobler Husb. No Wife I have something else to say yet which is That the Bishops perswade my King Charles the Government of the Church is laid upon his Shoulders and that they will study the Truth and he shall maintain it But seriously Wife if God the Father had seen that any Migistrate on Earth or all the Angels in Heaven had been capable of so great a care and trust he had never laid it upon the shoulders of his own Son For the Prophet Isaiah tells us The Government shall be upon His Shoulders and the Apostle tells us We have one Law-giver and but one Christ Jesus So that if Christ Iesus be that one Law-giver then my King has no Power to make Laws for the Conscience to bind men to what form of Wonhip the Bishops please But what they are not able to make good by Scripture they would have my King make good by his Laws and so make him their Sword-Bearer which is none of his work and so I would tell him if I might have admission to his presence But Kings and Coblers are no meet Companions Wife But Husband I have heard you say That the Ministers of the Church of England are not called according to Magna Charta Pray how then are they called Husb. Why Wife as the Pear-monger when his Pears are green puts them into hot Horse-dung to ripen them apace so first the Bishop of the Diocess enters men into holy Orders which holy horse-dung Orders makes them ripen as fast for the Ministry as the Pears do for the Market And this entring them into holy
Orders makes them first Deacons and then Priests and so puts them into a capacity to become Cu Rats Vicars or Parsons as soon as they can get Livings Which Livings were formerly some at the Popes dispose which in Harry the VIII's time fell to the King and are generally now at the Lord Chancellors disposal some were at the Abbots disposal which were given to the Senior Fellows at Oxford and Cambridge some were at the disposal of the Bishop of the Diocess and so continue still Now if my Lord Chancellor hath a Kinsman or a Friend for whom he hath a favour then 't is his Jure Divino And usually if the present Incumbent lie sick there are two or three like Carrion Crows are ready to seiz upon the Careass of the Living attending the death of the sick man and many times before the breath is out of his Body put foot in Stirrup spur cut and away they ride post as fast as they can and he that the Lord Chancellor finds the best Schollar able to decline the Latin word Bribo Bribe-Ass Bribe-bravely is well qualified and ipso facto inducted If the Bishop of the Diocess hath a Kinsman or a Contemporary or a Daughter then pin the Daughter upon the Parsons sleeve and let them go together If you are ignorant in this Trade go to old Tomkins of Worcester he can inform you how to get Livings a Prebendship and several good Parsonages provided always you have money although as very a Dunce as himself whose stock of Sermons though but small are 〈◊〉 put off without a form of Prayer Indeed he tells the People they shall pray for such and such but never prays himself for any If a man be the Senior Fellow of a house although as very a Dunce as the Vice-Chancellor who is Dunce enough witness his speaking Latine to young Scholars who say he often breaks Pritian's pate and witness that Cringing Bowing Hodg-podge Pie-bald Worship wherein I saw him so busie an Actor when I was last at Oxford in the House of RIMMON and witness also the Discourse he had with a Tanner whose Parts he not being able to deal with confest he admir'd that such Parts should be found in a man of his quality And as the Tanner tann'd him so I could as willingly cobble him for his Worship that I saw in Oxford But his Worship is as good as the Bishop of Oxford Dr. Blanford's Divinity who told William Gregory when he demanded of him why he kept him Prisoner so long That he punished his Body to do his Soul good I would knock my Aules in a post and burn my Last if I left him not as mute as the Quaker-Woman at Witney But to return from this Digression if a very Dunce be Senior Fellow of a house the first Living that falls is his Jure Divino as they account it As is evident in Cox late of Slimbridge a Living worth 250 l. per annum who being Senior Fellow of Mandlin in Oxford and so having that Living fallen into his hands was fain to hire a Rat because he did not love the Trade of Preaching 't was so tedious to him And Dr. Diggle his Successor is as able for the work as Cox was who tells the people before Sermon Ye ought to pray for this and that but cannot pray himself If the Lord of Manner have two Sons he may make one of them a Priest and a Parsonage will be a good Portion for a younger Brother Or if he hath a Chamber-Maid who hath been his Servant divers years the Priest must take her and he shall have the Living for her Portion A Parson may buy the next Presentation of the Patron and if he have no Son that is capable of the place yet he may have a Daughter and though she be a Tapstress or a Sempstress yet she has right to make what Priest she pleases Parson of that Parish If a Papist be a Patron he may present what Priest he pleases So did the old Earl of Worcester who procured Holy Orders for the Clerk of his Iron-works and sent him to Woollaston in Glocestershire where the Earl slit the Parsonage in two pieces making his Clerk contented with fourty and keeping fourscore for himself But 't is conceived the Priest was of his Patrons Religion and only read our English Mass-Book but never attempted to say Sermon in all his Life The present Bishop of Glocester's last Predecessor Dr. Goodman a confest Papist bestowed a Stock of Holy Orders upon his old Servant Charles Harcott who married the Clark of the Iron-work's Daughter and drives a Service-Book Trade to this day The old Lord Windsor being Patrimus to the late Dr. Warmstrey at his Kirsning gave him the Parsonage of Hampton in Glocestershire So that the Doctor had a Call e Cunabulis from his Cradle And such are the Calls to the Ministry of the Church of England which are Romano more after the manner of the Church of Rome Wife But Husband how are Ministers called according to Magna Charta Husb. Wife The least Officer in the Church was not to be made choice of without Prayer though it were but a Deacon which was to look after the Poor When Judas fell by Transgression the Church went to Prayer and cast Lots and the Lot fell on Matthias And so when they had fasted and prayed they laid hands on St. Paul and Barnabas and sent them forth And though Paul had an extraordinary Call he went not forth till the Church sent him away with Fasting and Prayer But Wife I can give you a Book whose business it is to treat of the Discipline of the Churches of the New Testament which will save me a great Labour Wife But Husband that Government wont consist with these times Husb. Wife Must the will of Christ submit to the times or the times submit to the will of Christ I think I have stitch'd you there Wife And is not this the ground of all our present Differences For the Eyes of the Nation being so much opened by the preaching of the Gospel these late years the Worship and Clergy of the Church of England are rendred contemptible in the Eyes of the Common People As may appear by One who coming into the Cathedral of Glocester with two of his Companions and hearing the Organs play fell a Dancing saying Come let 's Dance here 's Good Musick And when the Organs stood still Play on Good Fellows said he I like your Musick well 't is good Musick And they have oftentimes been prodigiously disturbed in their Worship by Hens Magpies Owles Cocks Foxes Piggs Rats and Birds concerning each of which take a relation as followeth I was told in the County of Somerset that a Hen coming into the publick Place flew upon the Common-Prayer Book in the time of their Devis'd Worship At Wilby in Northamptonshire a Hen flew into the Publick Place and sat down checkling upon the Common-Prayer Book And shit upon it and
flew away again And the next Lords Day doing the like again she there lost her life At Norwich the Dean being preaching and among many other things uttering these words That some men made Prayers of an Ell-long which were of no Divine Institution An Owl flew over his head and hem'd him up with a note of Admitation crying Hoo hoo hoo The Dean of Hereford being in his Sermon and having hang'd up his Canonical Cap upon a Pin in the Pulpit a Magpie flew into the Pulpit and never gave over Frisking and Whisking till he had thrown it down and afterwards came and sat down by him and he civily put him away with his hand Another Magpie came into the Publick place with red Stockins on and a red Collar about his Neck and sat down by the Priest who was also in his red Hood reading Devis'd Service Richard Stevens of Nurent having been at a Cock-fighting at Gloucester and going into the Cathedral with the Cocks in a Bag upon his arm the Singing-men being at their Worship invited him into the Chore and when the Choristers began to sing his Cocks began to Crow But which Service was most acceptable the Cocks or the Coxcombs I leave to better Iudgments to determine I was told by an honest Quaker That one Parson Bomfield near Yarmouth going to Dine with a Friend of his in the next Village stole a Cock by the way and put it in his Breeches and that the Cock fell a crowing in the Parsons Breeches as he sat at Dinner with his Friend At Norwich a Fox came into the Publick Place in the time of their Worship probably to find some Prey there but seeing they were only Wolves in Sheeps cloathing he departed and the like he did at Gloucester Wife You know what Goodwife Edwards told you about her Sow That having been admonished to keep her Sow at home she could not for her life when the Bell toll'd but away would the Sow run to their Worship Mr. Marley Preaching at Norwich upon this Text Behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guilt and saying the Conformists were the true Israelites at that word a Sow came into Publick Place and standing before the Pulpit grunted out Woogh woogh woogh whereupon the Parson repeated his Sentence again and the Sow replied in the like manner for which he is by the Inhabitants thereabouts Surnamed Hog-Marley Two Pigs coming into the Cathedral of Norwich near the Eagle in the time of Worship they endeavoured to drive them away but the Pigs would not go and so they were forced to carry them out And their Owner being warned to keep them at home shut theminto a Yard but the Pigs leaping over the Pales which were as high as a Dog could ordinarily leap over ran to the Cathedral the second time in the time of Worship and were again fain to be carried out And the Owner of the Pigs being again warned and threatned was fain to kill them not knowing how to keep them at 〈◊〉 These were the first that ever suffered Martyrdom for coming to hear Common-Prayer I think Wife 't is needless to mention the Rats that eat the Leather off of the Organs at Gloucester and made the Common-Prayer go down without Musick for almost a quarter of a year together because the Church was so indulgent towards them that they were never Excommunicated Wife I am sure you know Dr. Horwood our Neighbour Mr. Jones formerly of Easton-gray in Willtshire told me the following story of him That about the beginning of the late Troubles Dr. Horwood being preaching at Maries in Oxford and in his Sermon blaming the Rusticity of those that were against the Bishops and magnifying the then Government of the Church a Bird sat upon the Canopy of the Pulpit and shit in his mouth or rather said Mr. Jones upon the corner of his Cheek which ran down into his Mouth I and Dodderige said he sat under the Pulpit and saw him take his Handkerchief and wipe it out of his mouth Which proved very Ominous for suddenly after the Bishops had a fall Now if as Tertullian tells us not a hair from a Saints head nor a bristle from a Sows back falls to the ground without the will and pleasure of God Surely then these things afore-mentioned ought not to pass unrainded by us But Wife I formerly made you a Promise to shew you wherein a Cobler was more honourable than a Lord Bishop and I think I had best perform it now A Cobler is ab antiquo ever since Shooes were made of Leather and he is a Gentleman of the Gentle Craft The LORD Bishop is but from William the Conqueror and their honour was damnatus antequam natus condemn'd before t was born as they profess themselves Ministers And a Magistrate professing himself to be Christs Substitute cannot confer true honour where his Master has prophibited it His honour must be a natura ex merito or ab officio From nature it cannot be for so every man is as good as he and as for their desert were it not for the Kings favour the Multitude would do by them as the Prentices did by the Whores in Moor-fields and set them up against the Walls for Dogs to p at Nor can their honour arise from their Office as Prelates which is to persecute for so they are Whelps of old Lilly that Bitch-Whore and some of the first Litter the Devil was their Sire and they are as like him as ever they can look they have Dad's own Nose from him they learn to persecute like Nimrod The Cobler lives by his honest labour and seeks not to be burdensom to his Brethren and part of his Livelihood is by paring of old Shooes The Lord Bishop is much like that Hog that when some Children were eating Milk out of a Dish that stood upon a Stool thrust his Snowt into the Dish and drank up all not regarding the Children who cryed Take a Poon Pig take a Poon So these hungry Hogs though they have hundreds nay thousands per annum must have Procurations Synodals and Pentecostals from their poor Brethren Procurations to bear their Charges when they ride a Vexation which was decreed by Pope Boniface and other Popes Synodals had their rise from the Offerings which were brought at the Dedication of Churches The Pentecostals are Pentecost-Farthings arising from the Oblations which were brought by the Parents of such Children as were baptized which was then onely at Whitsomide as that great Antiquary Mr. John Stevens in his Book de Procurat shews All which are as base as to use the Country Proverb the parings of the Divils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Cobler is always mending and making better The Lord Bishop is always marring and making worse The Cobler endeavours to set men upright The Lord Bishop turns them aside to Superstitious Vanities The Cobler hath more Love and Honour in his Country than the Lord Bishop When Ralph the Cobler comes to our Town pray send him to our house says the Countryman But when the Lord Bishop goes a Vexation they never say Pray send Him to our Town The Cobler will be in Request while Men are born with Feet The Lord Bishop with the whole Litter of Romish Whelps are already quite out of request with the generality of the NATION And for true Spiritual Wisdom and Learning I may send the best of them to my Brother How the Cobler Vpon whose Book Intituled The Sufficiency of the Spirits teaching One long since wrote the following Verses What How How now Hath How such Learning found To throw Arts Curious Image to the Ground Oxford and Cambridge may their Glory now Vail to a Cobler if they knew but How Though big with Art they cannot over-top The Spirits Teaching in a Coblers Shop Reader if thou a humane Artist be Let Humane Learning be no Judge for thee But leave thy Arts and try this Coblers End And see if it be by the Spirit penn'd Mean time adieu ye Arts and Artists all The Spirits Teaching may attend the Aull And thou brave Cobler Blow another Blast Vpon their Learning though thou Blow thy Last Husb. ANd now Wife I have made this Piece ready for the Press I must get you to go to Madam Bennet's and get a Lady or two of hers to go with you to my Lord of Canterbury's to get it Licensed Wife Pray Husband don't ask me to do such a thing I 'll hear a better Report of my Lady Bennet and my Lord of Canterbury too before I 'll go near either of them License it your self if you will Husb. Why then Wife since you are so coy of your Credit I 'll e'en do it my self and save you a labour PErlegi hunc Tractatum cui titulus Room for the Cobler of Gloucester and his Wife In quo nihil reperio veritati aut malis mâ—ribus contrarium Imprimatur Ralph Wallis