hurt by them And if I should have set down the Names and Contents of every Popish blasphemous and otherwise ungodly Books that hath come abroad within these two last years it would make this Representation too large either for me to write or any man to reade that hath not more time or business of less concernment than my self or those to whom it is chiefly intended They publish their Blasphemies and Errours in printed Pamphlets which they disperse all these Lands over in such abundance as is incredible almost every week bringing forth several Chapters of an Anti-Bible much worse than the Turkish Alcharon which probably are printed or paid for after they are printed by a General Bank for such is the contrivance that those that are sold are sold cheaper than Books ever used to be sold these many years and many hundreds if not thousands of many of them given away and left at houses by Agents which they have in every County to perform both the one way of dispersing and the other by sale and gift with indefatigable diligence suitable enough both to the Devotion and Policy of the Grand Juncto of Jesuites who we may rationally judge as they project and counsel these courses so do they like well these proceedings and say Ha ha so would we have it I do not doubt but it can be proved that this last year there came forth in Print two Books every week one with another that are either Blasphemous Heretical Seditious or Obscene having a direct tendency to un Christian and uncivilize all the Youth of the Land besides many Popish Books and supposing that but a thousand of a sort were printed as no doubt we may allow so many to each Impression for though it may be but five hundred of some of them were printed yet fifteen hundred of others of them and some of them have been printed two or three times the number then of such Books as were printed this last year amounts to 104000 which is twice the number of what Bibles have been sold in that time in all these three Nations And by this were there no other demonstration it is manifest that the increase of Quakers and other Antichristian and Anti-magistratical persons is very great and no less is the danger from them which indeed is the greater by how much the less they are feared or by how much the more they are slighted Can les be expected than open opposition by force of Arms to Magistracy and Ministry from such men when their number and advantages shall concur who generally so slight the one as not accounting it fit for so much honour as a Cap or Title of civil respect doth signifie and malign the other so much as the names of enemies of God Heathens Baals-Priests Murtherers Sorcerers Witches Conjurers Devils Aegyptians Sodomites Fire brands of Hell c. do imply The Books of the Quakers are so well known that any may easily be informed what their Opinions and Blasphemies are many of them as well as Socinians Seekers Levellers are set down in the Second Beacon Fired I shall only name the drift of one Book which came forth this Year 1656 and sold very much entituled A Cloud of Witnesses That Christ Jesus is the Word of God and not the Bible which is called the Scriptures made by Henry Clark and printed by Giles Calvert in which blasphemous Book there is a great shew of Argumentation managed with no small craft and subtilty to make out the thing undertaken also reviling and jeering the Ministers for calling it the word of God when they take their Text out of it or quote it for the proof of any thing they deliver The words of the Book are these Pag. 3. lin ult But the blinde Guides the Priests of England that preach for Tythes Hire Gifts and Rewards they do teach the people and say Hearken to the Word of the Lord as it is written in a Chapter and a verse Pag. 6. lin 28. Do not hearken any longer to the blinde Guides the Priests which crie Lo here Hearken to the word of the Lord saith one as it is written in the Chapter and the verse Lo here saith another Hearken to the Word of the Lord as it 's written in this Chapter and this verse See here saith one it is written in this Chapter and this verse See here saith another as it 's written in this Chapter and this verse But they are false Prophets riss up to seduce if it were possible the very Elect but saith Christ Go not forth believe them not the Kingdom of Heaven is within you the Law is written in the heart And with half an eye one may see the Spirit of Rome and Spain guiding this Authours paw which because it cannot deprive us of our Bibles here as it doth the people of those Dominions hath alwayes laboured by throwing lies and slanders upon it to work us to such a disesteem of it as voluntarily to disown it For Pag. 3. lin 32. he tels us That since the first giving of the Scriptures forth they have been translated by private Interpreters into many Languages and the many Languages have several Copies of their private Interpretations with some words added to and some words left out To these great evils may be added the Atheism Ignorance Prophaneness Beastiality Rebellion against Superiours of so great a part of the people in England both old and young farre exceeding the wickedness of former times which if let alone England will prove a fruitfull nursery of Traitors Murtherers Beggars Thieves and hereby we shall bring down wrath from Heaven upon the Land It is reported by our own Countreymen that have traveled in other Lands That England is by strangers noted to be as infamous for uncleanness as Venice it self The Causes of all this wrath of God poured out upon the Land for to be given up to such wickednesses or for a Land to be defiled with such abominations are judgements as well as sins is next to the policy of Hell and Rome The sins of the Land I. The sins of every individual person either in rejecting the Gospel and easie yoke of Christ despising his Embassadours or not being zealous in promoting Piety and Truth in our selves and others in opposition to lukewarmness and fond indulgence toward those over whom we have Authority or in whom we have any interest or not mourning for the sins of others which we could not prevent or in not being thankfull for mercies received both Personal and National and fruitfull in good works under the enjoyment of them Upon this occasion I shall name one famous mercy which I fear most men have not seriously laid to heart and been thankfull unto God for sure I am he hath been very little publickly praised though it was a publick mercy and as great a one to these Nations as the Deliverance from the Powder-plot After the late King was cut off and the long Parliament dissolved there
the Popish Design laid long since of procuring great Divisions among us by Jesuites and other Emissaries of Rome to the end we may destroy one another or be unable to resist a forreign Power also that men may be brought thereby to question their Religion slight the Ministry and Learning the Bulwarks thereof under God and to take us off from the Scripture under pretence that it 's a dead letter not the Word of God unable to determine matters of faith that so we may seek for a standing Judge without it which Antichrist is well content shall be every mans own fancy though in opposition to the clearest Scripture-evidence coloured over with fine names as the voice of Conscience the Light of Christ within Christ in us the Spirit in us the teachings yea the immediate teachings of the Spirit within us the teachings of God untill the number of those who have thus lost their Religion be so great the fallibility and deceitfulness of their Judges every mans own fantasie and contrariety one to another so obvious as that there will be a necessity of imbracing the decision of some visible standing Judge as an infallible Dictator by all those so deluded as afore-said who have left upon them any considerable sense of a God a Heaven and a Hell for men after this life but have lost the true Rule and Judge and so the means and way to escape the one and get to the other Which of you can be ignorant of this Design and how vigorously it hath been carried on and yet is unto great success without any considerable suitable opposition In the late Kings dayes Popery was so abhorred and Arminianism likewise and the later the more because suspected to be a bridge to the former that to put a stop to both was the greatest inducement that prevailed with the generality of the sincerest Proâ—essors of Christianity in the Land to take up Arms and venture their Estates Lives and all that was dear to them under the Banner of the two Houses of Parliament And before that warre how were the very beginnings of those evils banded against in several Parliaments to the no small detriment of many worthy Patriots from the Court and Canterburian party But alas what were those small seeds of Errour to our harvest of Blasphemy Oh the wofull success that the envious man hath had in his sowing the Tares of Blasphemy Errour and ill Manners in the field of this Commonwealth while the Husbandmen have been asleep So great hath been the falling off to the Blasphemies and Heresies of Papists Socinians and Quakers and to the contempt of the Ministry and Ordinances of our Lord Jesus Christ within these seven years last past that should the contagion of those plagues continue to infect persons of all ranks and Sexes a few years longer after the same rate of success and probably it will much more or some other Judgement befall us in stead of it if yet the Magistrate lay it not to heart It will no doubt endanger both Ministry and Magistracy the Oracles of God and the Laws of the Land Who may not but see that the growth of Errour and Division thereby threatens another bloudy Warre both from home and abroad And if the men of these abominations should prevail either by Vote or Sword then farewell Englands hoped for happiness Our long Reforming Commonwealth will prove Pagan or at the best Popish for Quakers and Socinians are scarcely deserving the name of Christians and if they be out-witted the Jesuite will wear the Laurel That the Enemies of Religion do thus encrease is plain For the men almost of every Countrey can tell how they swarm are so bold as to meet by hundreds and thousands labouring to infect all they come near compassing Sea and Land and sparing no cost that they may gain Proselytes The Socinians publish their Blasphemies and teach them openly in their Assemblies and so do the Quakers I went once to the meeting at Glasiers-Hall in Thames-street where a great company was assembled and from my coming into them for a quarter of an hour there was not one word spoken by any but such hideous inharmonious howlings groanings and skreekings the like I think not to be heard except in Hell filled mine ears that I could not but conclude that they were possessed with Devils and in some fear I began to give back but Reason and Scripture having shewed me before I came my Gods approbation of my coming thither in order to an endeavour of suppressing such service of Devils by saith I received strength from my Lord to stand to it then one advanced upon a bench and spake very wickedly teaching the people That the Scripture was not the Rule but the light within them that was in every man that came into the world and that our Ministers were Ignorant Carnal Deceivers c. And after I had endeavoured to undeceive the people I left them If any would with their own eyes who yet have not behold the whorish fore-head of these times that have without shame bid defiance to God and man blasphemed both divine and humane Majesty belied the Truth and scoulded with the Messengers of the Lord with most hellish language they may cast an eye upon the two Beacons fired by those honest moderate Stationers who took not the least notice of Presbytery Anabaptism or Independency as such and yet were waspishly barkt at by some from whom better carriage might justly have been expected These two peeces will shew them that in two or three years backward from the time of their publishing of them so many Popish Books in English had been printed and published in England and printed in London of their knowledge as amounted to by a rational computation thirty thousand and probable it is that the number was as many more since which time I have seen eight and twenty several sorts of Popish Books which were not named in the Beacons fired being some Devotional others perswading to Popery as full of Errour and Superstition as Popish Books use to be all printed within the space of these three or four years last past or thereabout in the English Tongue and of my knowledge in England and consequently in London I being one of them that dare profess themselves to know what Prints are of England and which not and reckoning to each Book an Impression of fifteen hundred which is an ordinary Impression the whole number of the Popish Books printed in the said time Q. Whether here be not too short reckoning I think it is rather seventy two thousand in all whereof these eight and twenty are a part amounts unto fourty four thousand And it being so difficult for me to get the sight of such Books its probable there have been as many more printed and published The Names and Contents of these eight and twenty Books I forbear specifying lest by my light some should be guided to buy them that may catch much
an Order to Sr Christopher Pack Lord Maior of London to cause Biddle to be apprehended which was honestly done by the Marshal of the City and thereupon a City-Officer was sent to acquaint the Honourable Councel that Biddle was apprehended and to know their further pleasure in the Case who returned such an answer as gave encouragement for the prosecuting of him at the Common Law Whereupon the Ordinance of the 2d of May 1648. entituled An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons for the punishing of Blasphemies and Heresies was pitcht upon as the only Law in force that would reach him if any for other Law against Blasphemy none could be found since the way of Convicting a Blasphemer by Bishops was at an end except that against the Ranters which would not reach him And according to that Ordinance process was made one being bound to prosecute did exhibit these two Indictments against him London ss At the Gaol Delivery of Newgate holden for the City of London at Justice-Hall in the Old Bailey London On Wednesday the fifth day of September In the Year of our Lord One thousand six hundred fifty and five London ss THe Jurors for the Lord Protector of the Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland c. upon their Oaths do present that John Biddle of London Gent not having the fear of God in his heart nor the Laws of England any whit regarding the four and twentieth day of March In the Year of our Lord One thousand six hundred fifty and five at London That is to say in the Parish of Gregories in the Ward of Faringdon within London aforesaid out of his Devillish minde and Imagination falsly willingly and feloniously did devise compose and write a certain Heretical and Blasphemous Book entituled A two fold Catechism The one a Scripture-Catechism the other A brief Scripture Catechism for Children In which said Book amongst other things the said John Biddle then that is to say the said four and twentieth day of March in the said Year of our Lord one thousand six hundred fifty and four at the Parish and Ward afore-said falsly Devillishly and Feloniously did write put assert affirm and maintain That God is not present in all places doth not know and forâ— knâ—w all things That the Father the Son and the holy Ghost are not one Eternal God That Christ is not God equal with the Father That the Godhead and Manhood of Christ are not several Natures That the death of Christ is not meritorious in behalf of Believers And the same Book afterwards that is to say the said four and twentieth day of March in the Year of our Lord One thousand six hundred fifty and four there with the said Errours Heresies and Blasphemies aforesaid therein contained falsly willingly devillishly and feloniously did imprint and publish and caused to be imprinted and published with the intent to spread abroad within this Commonwealth of England the Errours Heresies and Blasphemies aforesaid to the high Dishonour of Almighty God to the great Danger of the growth and spreading of Heresie and Blasphemy within the Commonwealth of England in Contempt of the Laws of England against the Form of an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for the publishing of Blasphemies and Heresies made published and set forth on Tuesday the second day of May In the Year of our Lord One thousand six hundred fourty and eight and against the Publick Peace c. SADLER London ss At the Gael-Delivery of Newgate holden for the City of London at Justice-Hall in the Old Bailey London On Wednesday the fifth day of September In the Year of our Lord One thousand six hundred fifty and five London ss THe Jurors for the Lord Protector of the Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland c. upon their Oaths do present that John Biddle late of London Gent. not having the fear of God in his heart nor the Laws of England any whit regarding the eight and twentieth day of June In the Year of our Lord One thousand six hundred fifty and five at London That is to say in the Parish of Faiths in the Ward of Faringdon within London aforesaid by Teaching publickly in the presence and hearing of very many people then and there present Unlawfully Willingly Obstinately Devillishly and Feloniously did maintain and publish That Jesus Christ is not God And that Jesus Christ is not equal with God the Father To the high Dishonour of Almighty God to the great Danger of the growth and spreading of Heresie and Blasphemy within this Commonwealth of England in Contempt of the Laws of England against the Form of an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for the punishing of Blasphemies and Heresies made published and set forth on Tuesday the second day of May In the Year of our Lord One thousand six hundred fourty and eight and against the Publick Peace c. SADLER The Bils being found by the Grand Inquest the Tryal began Witnesses ready Among whom an eminent and worthy Gentleman of Publick Place was one to evidence That a Book which he brought with him from the Parliament Records that contained all the Blasphemies charged upon him in the first Indictment was that very individual Book which he owned at the Barre of the last Parliament as published by him The Indictments were read Biddle with much ado was prevailed with to plead and obtained leave of the Court to put in his Exceptions to the two Bils of Indictment ingrossed in these words London ss At the gaol-delivery of newgate holden for the City of London at Justice-Hall in the Old-Bailey London on Wednesday the fifth day of September In the Year of our Lord One thousand six hundred fifty and five Exceptions taken by John Biddle Gentleman Prisoner at the Barre to two Bils of Indictment preferred against him grounded upon an Ordinance entituled An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for the punishing of Blasphemies and Heresies Dated Die Martis secundo Maii 1648. First The Prisoner saith That the said Indictments are insufficient both in Matter and Form because they are grounded upon an Ordinance of Parliament which is not binding longer than the Parliament sitteth and that Parliament is long since dissolved Secondly There is nothing of obstinacy expressed in the Indictment without which though the Ordinance were of force there is no Offence against it Thirdly The Ordinance if it were of force doth direct the offender to be indicted the next Gaol Delivery and therefore this being the second Gaol-Delivery after complaint and imprisonment the Ordinance is not pursued by elapsing the time prefixed Fourthly Though the Ordinance were admitted to binde after the Dissolution of the Parliament Yet the same Parliament did after the said Ordinance viz. the ninth of August 1650. make an Act against the same Opinions as are mentioned in the Ordinance and therefore if cause were the prisoner may be proceeded against upon the Act