considerat builders more wise in spirituall architecture when great reformation is expected For now the time seems come wherein Moses the great Prophet may sit in heav'n rejoycing to see that memorable and glorious wish of his fulfill'd when not only our sev'nty Elders but all the Lords people are become Prophets No marvell then though some men and some good men too perhaps but young in goodnesse as Joshua then was envy them They fret and out of their own weaknes are in agony lest these divisions and subdivisions will undoe us The adversarie again applauds and waits the hour when they have brancht themselves out saith he small anough into parties and partitions then will be our time Fool he sees not the firm root out of which we all grow though into branches nor will beware untill he see our small divided maniples cutting through at every angle of his ill united and unweildy brigade And that we are to hope better of all those supposed sects and schisms and that we shall not need that solicitude honest perhaps though over timorous of them that vex in this behalf but shall laugh in the end at those malicious applauders of our differences I have these reasons to perswade me First when a City shall be as it were besieg'd and blockt about her navigable river infested inrodes and incursions round defiance and battell oft rumor'd to be marching up ev'n to her walls and suburb trenches that then the people or the greater part more then at other times wholly tak'n up with the study of highest and most important matters to be reform'd should be disputing reasoning reading inventing discoursing ev'n to a rarity and admiration things not before discourst or writt'n of argues first a singular good will contentednesse and confidence in your prudent foresight and safe government Lords and Commons and from thence derives it self to a gallant bravery and well grounded contempt of their enemies as if there were no small number of as great spirits among us as his was who when Rome was nigh besieg'd by Hanibal being in the City bought that peece of ground at no cheap rate whereon Hanibal himself encampt his own regiment Next it is a lively and cherfull presage of our happy successe and victory For as in a body when the blood is fresh the spirits pure and vigorous not only to vital but to rationall faculties and those in the acutest and the pertest operations of wit and suttlety it argues in what good plight and constitution the body is so when the cherfulnesse of the people is so sprightly up as that it has not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety but to spare and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of controversie and new invention it betok'ns us not degenerated nor drooping to a fatall decay but casting off the old and wrincl'd skin of corruption to outlive these pangs and wax young again entring the glorious waies of Truth and prosperous vertue destin'd to become come great and honourable in these latter ages Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant Nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep and shaking her invincible locks Methinks I see her as an Eagle muing her mighty youth and kindling her undazl'd eyes at the full midday beam purging and unscaling her long abused sight at the fountain it self of heav'nly radiance while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds with those also that love the twilight flutter about amaz'd at what she means and in their envious gabble would prognosticat a year of sects and schisms What should ye doe then should ye suppresse all this flowry crop of knowledge and new light sprung up and yet springing daily in this City should ye set an Oligarchy of twenty ingrossers over it to bring a famin upon our minds again when we shall know nothing but what is measur'd to us by their bushel Beleeve it Lord and Commons they who counsell ye to such a suppressing doe as good as bid ye suppresse your selves and I will soon shew how If it be desir'd to know the immediat cause of all this free writing and free speaking there cannot be assing'd a truer then your own mild and free and human government it is the liberty Lords and Commons which your own valorous and happy counsels have purchast us liberty which is the nurse of all great wits this is that which hath ratify'd and enlightn'd our spirits like the influence of heav'n this is that which hath enfranchis'd enlarg'd and lifted up our apprehensions degrees above themselves Ye cannot make us now lesse capable lesse knowing lesse eagarly pursuing of the truth unlesse ye first make your selves that made us so lesse the lovers lesse the founders of our true liberty We can grow ignorant again brutish formall and slavish as ye found us but you then must first become that which ye cannot be oppressive arbitrary and tyrannous as they were from whom ye have free'd us That our hearts are now more capacious our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest and exactest things is the issue of your owne vertu propagated in us ye cannot suppresse that unlesse ye reinforce an abrogated and mercilesse law that fathers may dispatch at will their own children And who shall then stick closest to ye and excite others not he who takes up armes for cote and conduct and his four nobles of Danegelt Although I dispraise not the defence of just immunities yet love my peace better if that were all Give me the liberty to know to utter and to argue freely according to conscience above all liberties What would be best advis'd then if it be found so hurtfull and so unequall to suppresse opinions for the newness or the unsutablenes to a customary acceptance will not be my task to say I only shall repeat what I have learnt from one of your own honourable number a right noble and pious Lord who had he not sacrific'd his life and fortunes to the Church and Commonwealth we had not now mist and bewayl'd a worthy and undoubted patron of this argument Ye know him I am sure yet I for honours sake and may it be eternall to him shall name him the Lord Brook He writing of Episcopacy and by the way treating of sects and schisms left Ye his vote or rather now the last words of his dying charge which I know will ever be of dear and honour'd regard with Ye so full of meeknes and breathing charity that next to his last testament who bequeath'd love and peace to his Disciples I cannot call to mind where I have read or heard words more mild and peacefull He there exhorts us to hear with patience and humility those however they be miscall'd that desire to live purely in such a use of Gods Ordinances as the best guidance of their conscience gives them and to tolerat them though in some disconformity to ourselves The book
confute Seeing therefore that those books those in great abundance which are likeliest to taint both life and doctrine cannot be supprest without the fall of learning and of all ability in disputation and that these books of either sort are most and soonest catching to the learned from whom to the common people what ever is hereticall of dissolute may quickly be convey'd and that evill manners are as perfectly learnt without books a thousand other ways which cannot be stopt and evill doctrine not with books can propagate except a teacher guide which he might also doe without writing and so beyond prohibiting I am not able to unfold how this cautelous enterprise of licencing can be exempted from the number of vain and impossible attempts And he who were pleasantly dispos'd could not well avoid to lik'n it to the exploit of that gallant man who thought to pound up the crows by shutting his Parkgate Besides another inconvenience if learned men be the first receivers out of books dispredders both of vice and error how shall the licencers themselves be confided in unlesse we can conferr upon them or they assume to themselves above all others in the Land the grace of infallibility and uncorruptednesse And again if it be true that a wise man like a good refiner can gather gold out of the drossiest volume and that a fool will be a fool with the best book yea or without book there is no reason that we should deprive a wise man of any advantage to his wisdome while we seek to restrain from a fool that which being restrain'd will be no hindrance to his folly For it there should be so much exactnesse always us'd to keep that from him which is unfit for his reading we should in the judgement of Aristotle not only but of Salomon and of our Saviour not voutsafe him good precepts and by consequence not willingly admit him to good books as being certain that a wise man will make better use of an idle pamphlet then a fool will do of sacred Scripture 'T is next alleg'd we must not expose our selves to temptations without necessity and next to that not imploy our time in vain things To both these objections one answer will serve out of the grounds already laid that to all men such books are not temptations not vanities but usefull drugs and materialls wherewith to temper and compose effective and strong med'cins which mans life cannot want The rest as children and childish men who have not the art to qualifie and prepare these working mineralls well may be exhorted to forbear but hinder'd forcibly they cannot be by all the licencing that Sainted Inquisition could ever yet contrive which is what I promis'd to deliver next That this order of licencing conduces nothing to the end for which it was fram'd and hath almost prevented me by being clear already while thus much hath bin explaining See the ingenuity of Truth who when she gets a free and willing hand opens her self faster then the pace of method and discours can overtake her It was the task which I began with To shew that no Nation or well instituted State if they valu'd books at all did ever use this way of licencing and it might be answer'd that this is a piece of prudence lately discover'd To which I return that as it was a thing slight and obvious to think on so if it had bin difficult to finde out there wanted not among them long since who suggested such a cours which they not following leave us a pattern of their judgement that it was not the not knowing but the not approving which was the cause of their not using it Plato a man of high autority indeed but least of all for his Commonwealth in the book of his laws which no City ever yet receiv'd fed his fancie with making many edicts to his ayrie Burgomasters which they who otherwise admire him wish had bin rather buried and excus'd in the genial cups of an Academick night-satting By which laws he seems to tolerat no kind of learning but by unalterable decree consisting most of practicall traditions to the attainment whereof a Library of smaller bulk then his own dialogues would be abundant And there also enacts that no Poet should so much as read to any privat man what he had writt'n untill the Judges and Law-keepers had seen it and allow'd it But that Plato meant this Law peculiarly to that Commonwealth which he had imagin'd and to no other is evident Why was he not else a Law-giver to himself but a transgressor and to be expell'd by his own Magistrats both for the wanton epigrams and dialogues which he made and his perpetuall reading of Sophron Mimus and Aristophanes books of grossest infamy and also for commending the latter of them though he were the malicious libeller of his chief friends to be read by the Tyrant Dionysius who had little need of such trash to spend his time on But that he knew this licencing of Poems had reference and dependence to many other proviso's there set down in his fancied republic which in this world could have no place and so neither he himself nor any Magistrat or City ever imitated that cours which tak'n apart from those other collaterall injunctions must needs be vain and fruitlesse For if they fell upon one kind of strictnesse unlesse their care were equall to regulat all other things of like aptnes to corrupt the mind that single endeavour they knew would be but a fond labour to shut and fortifie one gate against corruption and be necessitated to leave others round about wide open If we think to regulat Printing thereby to rectifie manners we must regulat all recreations and pastimes all that is delightfull to man No musick must be heard no song be set or sung but what is grave and Dorick There must be licencing dancers that no gesture motion or deportment be taught our youth but what by their allowance shall be thought honest for such Plato was provided of It will ask more then the work of twenty licencers to examin all the lutes the violins and the ghittarrs in every house they must not be suffer'd to prattle as they doe but must be licenc'd what they may say And who shall silence all the airs and madrigalls that whisper softnes in chambers The Windows also and the Balcone's must be thought on there are shrewd books with dangerous Frontispices set to sale who shall prohibit them shall twenty licencers The villages also must have their visitors to enquire what lectures the bagpipe and the rebbeck reads ev'n to the ballatry and the gammuth of every municipal sidler for these are the Countrymans Arcadia's and his Monte Mayors Next what more Nationall corruption for which England hears ill abroad then houshold gluttony who shall be the rectors of our daily rioting and what shall be done to inhibit the multitudes that frequent those houses where drunk'nes is sold and
his chosen shall be first heard to speak for he sees not as man sees chooses not as man chooses lest we should devote our selves again to set places and assemblies and outward callings of men planting our faith one while in the old Convocation house and another while in the Chappell at Westminster when all the faith and religion that shall be there canoniz'd is not sustient without plain convincement and the charity of patient instruction to supple the least bruise of conscience to edifie the meanest Christian who desires to walk in the Spirit and not in the letter of human trust for all the number of voices that can be there made no though Harry the 7. himself there with all his leige tombs about him should lend them voices from the dead to swell their number And if the men be erroneous who appear to be the leading schismaticks what witholds us but our sloth our self-will and distrust in the right cause that we doe not give them gentle meetings and gentle dismissions that we debate not and examin the matter throughly with liberall and frequent audience if not for their sakes yet for our own seeing no man who hath tasted learning but will confesse the many waies of profiting by those who not contented with stale receits are able to manage and set forth new positions to the world And were they but as the dust and cinders of our feet so long as in that notion they may yet serve to polish and brighten the armoury of Truth ev'n for that respect they were not utterly to be cast a way But if they be of those whom God hath fitted for the speciall use of these times with eminent and ample gifts and those perhaps neither among the Priests nor among the Pharisees and we in the hast of a precipitant zeal shall make no distinction but resolve to stop their mouths because we fear they come with new and dangerous opinions as we commonly forejudge them ere we understand them no lesse then woe to us while thinking thus to defend the Gospel we are found the persecutors There have bin not a few since the beginning of this Parlament both of the Presbytery and others who by their unlicen't books to the contempt of an Imprimatur first broke that triple ice clung about our hearts and taught the people to see day I hope that none of those were the perswaders to renew upon us this bondage which they themselves have wrought so much good by contemning But if neither the check that Moses gave to young Joshua nor the countermand which our Saviour gave to young John who was so ready to prohibit those whom he thought unlicenc't be not anough to admonish our Elders how unacceptable to God their testy mood of prohibiting is if neither their own remembrance what evill hath abounded in the Church by this lett of licencing and what good they themselves have begun by transgressing it be not anough but that they will perswade and execute the most Deminican part of the Inquisition over us and are already with one foot in the stirrup so active at suppressing it would be no unequall distribution in the first place to suppresse the suppressors themselves whom the change of their condition hath puft up more then their late experience of harder times hath made wise And as for regulating the Presse let no man think to have the honour of advising ye better then your selves have done in that Order publisht next before this that no book be Printed unlesse the Printers and the Authors name or at least the Printers be register'd Those which otherwise come forth if they be found mischievous and libellous the fire and the executioner will be the timeliest and the most effectuall remedy that mans prevention can use For this authentic Spanish policy of licencing books if I have said ought will prove the most unlicenc't book it self within a short while and was the immediat image of a Star-chamber decree to that purpose made in those very times when that Court did the rest of those her pious works for which she is now fall'n from the Starres with Lucifer Where by ye may guesse what kinde of State prudence what love of the people what care of Religion or good manners there was at the contriving although with singular hypocrisie it pretended to bind books to their good behavior And how it got the upper hand of your precedent Order so well constituted before if we may beleeve those men whose profession gives them cause to enquire most it may be doubted there was in it the fraud of some old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of book-selling who under pretence of the poor in their Company not to be defrauded and the just retaining of each man his severall copy which God forbid should be gainsaid brought divers glosing colours to the House which were indeed but colours and serving to no end except it be to exercise a superiority over their neighbours men who doe not therefore labour in an honest profession to which learning is indetted that they should be made other mens vassalls Another end is thought was aym'd at by some of them in procuring by petition this Order that having power in their hand malignant books might the easier scape abroad as the event shews But of these Sophisms and Elenchs of marchandize I skill not This I know that errors in a good government and in a bad are equally almost incident for what Magistrate may not be mis-inform'd and much the sooner if liberty of Printing be reduc't into the power of a few but to redresse willingly and speedily what hath bin err'd and in highest autority to esteem a plain advertisement more then others have done a sumptuous bribe is a vertue honour'd Lords and Commons answerable to Your highest actions and whereof none can participat but greatest and wisest men The End * Quo veniam daret flatum crepitumque ventris in convivio emittendi Sueton in Claudio