of this nature I will undertake in his behalf he shall make them publick satisfaction But when Aristophanes is exemplified to make good the surmise that is plausible and taking with the Common People for they imagine all who write Greek and Latin to be grave and serious Men and therefore if Aristophanes could by the smartness of his Drolling and Satyrical Wit cast Contempt upon the brightest Example of Vertue that ever appear'd in the Heathen World why may not the Author of the Friendly Debate by the same Arts and Advantages expose Nonconformists and the Profession of the Gospel for they are always ventured in the same Bottom to the same popular Scorn and Abuse But any one that is acquainted with the Genius of the Grecian Comedy in general and with the Humour of Aristophanes in particular will be ashamed to compare such wild Satyrs and extravagant Farces with the Friendly Debate That Poet never defign'd any appearance of Truth he represents not Socrates his Opinions nor confutes them by sober and Philosophick Reasonings he intended nothing but onely to abuse him by Buffoonry and Apish Tricks and the most taking piece of Wit in the whole Farce was to bring the grave Philosopher upon the Stage dancing in a Sieve But as for the Friendly Debate if it has represented any of them ridiculous it has onely painted them in their own real Colours There is no Poetick Invention nor Comical Extravagance and it takes no advantage but from Truth and Reason so that if he make any of their Opinions appear ridiculous he does it not by the unluckiness of his Wit as Aristophanes did but by the strength of his Arguments Our Author adds indeed to strengthen this faint Exception That 't is a facile thing to take the wisest Man living after he is lime-twigged with Ink and Paper and gagg'd with a Quill so that he can neither move nor speak to clap a Fools Coat on his back and turn him out to be laughed at in the streets This is lofty and Comical but yet neither true nor witty For the wisest Men will never be lime-twigged with Ink and Paper nor gagg themselves with Quills or if they should be so rash and unadvised yet I see not how the strong Metaphor can restrain them either from opening their Mouths or moving their Hands For the plain English of all this lofty rumbling of Lime-twigs and Gaggs is no more then to be in Print and how can that hinder any Man from justifying his own Writings For if Men Publish Sense all the World can never make them ridiculous if Non-sense they make themselves so And no Gaggs nor Lime-twigs can disable them from defending their Books against any Adversary but either a bad Cause or an ill Management or what is their case both so that if they are lime-twigged with Ink and Paper 't is with Rods of their own laying and if they are exposed in a Fools Coat 't is with one of their own making § 13. His last Remark upon the case of Socrates is extraordinary when he insinuates as if the Crime for which he suffered was Nonconformity to and Separation from the National Church of Athens as if he were the Proto-Martyr of Independency And the People are wonderfully taken with these sly and oblique Strokes and as wofully impertinent as this is they admire it for a notable Essay of Wit And yet if this trifling were of any importance the advantage would run vastly on our side so easie is it to make it appear that Socrates suffered not so much as a Nonconformist as an Enemy to Fanaticks and that his Offence was no other then an Endeavour to perswade the Men of Athens that Grace and Vertue were the same thing The Story is briefly this All the former Ages of Greece were led rather by a giddy and ignorant Enthusiasm then the sober Dictates of a wary and well-advised Reason And though some of the more ancient Vertuosi seem'd to have made some handsome use of their intellectual Faculties in Physiological Enquiries yet as for matters of Religion they either altogether neglected their Speculations or treated of them with as much wildness and vanity as their Poets who pretended to derive their Theological Theories from Enthusiasm and Prophetick Frenzies imagining Reason and Devotion to be things incompetent and that Religion consisted barely in Enthusiastick Raptures and Prophetick Heats and therefore they depended more upon the Information of their Dreams and Fancies then their consistent and waking Faculties and the best Visionist was the ablest Divine Their most celebrated Professors of Divinity who pretended to the more inward practical and experimental Mysteries of Religion were a sort of silly fanatick and illiterate Poets who being Men of giddy and over-heated Imaginations pretended to derive all their Knowledge as others do their Ignorance from Inspirations and Divine Illapses and thereby so entirely engross't the Profession of Divinity that they gain'd an absolute Soveraignty over the Faith not onely of the rude and Vulgar sort of Mankind but also of the Sages and Professors of Wisdom the Philosophers themselves howsoever otherwise Men of eminent Parts and Ingenuity resigning up their own Reasons to the Authority of these Fellows Whimsies and Inspirations Then comes Socrates and preaches down all their pretended Mysteries for raw and lamentable Impostures and endeavours to draw them off from the Pageantry of their Superstition to the habitual Practice of Vertuous Actions And to this purpose he teaches his Fellow-Citizens that they must gain an Interest in the favour of the Gods not by their diligent Attendance upon the Eleusinian Ordinances but by a Life of Vertue and Goodness and that Love Humility Meekness Obedience Chastity and Temperance are more acceptable to the Eternal Deity then all their Mysterious Solemnities in honour of the Mother of the Gods This alarms the Zealots and hot Spirits of the City and the Good Man is immediately cited before the Consistory of the Areopagitical Elders and is by them condemn'd as an Heretick to their Orthodox Faith for setting up Carnal Reason against the Spirit of God and for presuming to fathom the sacred Depths of their Eleusinian Mysteries with the Line of his short and shallow Understanding for how exorbitant soever they might appear to his Fleshly Reasonings they were derived from the Off-spring of the Gods and own'd by the most Practical and Spiritual Preachers of their Religion And though his private and depraved Reason might judge them the brutishest and most licentious Practices in the World for so they really were yet in spight of all their seeming Beastliness they were the highest strains of Godliness and Spiritual Devotion This was represented to the zealous and giddy Multitude and then the Cry is Crucifie him crucifie him And thus fell this great Man a Sacrifice to the Zeal and Fury of a Fanatick Rabble You see with what vain and succesless Attempts they fasten upon those Discourses and the truth is in so
Semipelagians into the Communion of our Church and joyning with a Spanish Plot by opposing the Calvinists to reduce the people again to Popery all which are the Methods of Satan and the Designs of some who sit aloft in the Temple of God to hew at the very roots of Christianity As I. O. expresses himself in the Preface to his Display of Arminianism Yes no doubt it was the great design of our first Reformers to state as he has done the order and succession of eternal Decrees to reconcile a fatal and irresistible determination of our Actions with the Liberty of our Wills to account for the consistency of the Decree of irrespective Reprobation of the greatest part of mankind with the Truth and the Goodness of God when he so plainly protests he would not any should perish but that all should come to repentance and to set up a secret and reserved will in God in defiance to his revealed will and then make it consistent with the honour of his Attributes to profess one thing and at the same time resolve another It was no doubt their Zeal for these weighty and fundamental Truths that was the avowed cause of their Protestations against the Church of Rome and those great Prelates that first arose to that great Attempt chose to fall Martyrs to the cause only to justifie their own absolute Election and to prove the Impossibility of their Relapse from Grace And among Mr. Foxes wooden Cuts we find many Pictures of Martyrs for the supralapsarian way and the chain that tied them to the Stake was no doubt the noose of Election and the Label that hangs out at their mouths the decretal Sentence So that they that will not burn and broil for these Fundamental Articles of the Geneva Zeal are the Iulians and Apostates from the Protestant Faith the Popes or the Devils Instruments as our Author speaks to betray us to the old or a new and it may be a worse Apostasie Men may mince the matter and pretend only a dislike of the Doctrine of Reprobation but alas who knows not this to be the Serpents subtilty wherever she gets in her head she will wriggle in her whole body sting and all give but the least Admission to these Heterodoxies and the whole poison must be swallowed This Apostasie from the single Article of Reprobation unavoidably brings in the whole body of Popish-Arminian Errors And therefore whoever offends but in this particular is absolutely fall'n from the Catholick Faith and the Orthodox Doctrine of the Church of England and then he has pronounced his Doom and pronounced him uncapable of our Church-Communion Admirable Doctrine this for a Patron of Indulgence not to endure a Poor man that dares not dogmatize in the mysteries of Reprobation but to deliver him up without mercy or any sense of Compassion to the exterminating Censures and Anathema's of the Church and what was then more dreadful the Parliament too Thus you see what are the Articles of these mens Zeal and Orthodoxy and by what Doctrines and Principles they take their measure of Reformation making a Rigour in the Calvinian Tenets the only estimate of the Purity of Churches So that because we are willing to clear our Church from the Incumbrance and Incroachment of these innovations and are resolved not to trouble our selves with abetting the modern Controversies and Mushrome Sects of Christendom but to stick fast to the wisdom and moderation of the first design of returning to the antient and unblended Doctrines of Christianity And are therefore careful in our discourses and representations of Religion to avoid all new and unwarrantable mixtures and to represent the Truths of the Gospel with the same simplicity as we should have done before these Novelties were started in the World For this are we taxed by these Imperious Dogmatists of perfidious Designs to betray the Protestant Cause and to return back to the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome and the People must be alarm'd and confounded with hideous Outcries against Popery and Babylon Spanish Plots and Jesuitical Designs and then must they stand upon their Guard and nothing must asswage their Choler but an humble submission to their sturdy humour They must not attend to any Articles of Agreement or Overtures of Pacification and mutual Forbearance and unless we will declare our Assent and Consent to all the curious and perplex'd Opinions of their Sect they will hear of no other Conditions of Peace and there is no Remedy but we must part Communion They must as I. O. speaks proclaim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an holy War to such Enemies of Gods Providence This is hard measure but yet such as was strictly meted out without a grain of Allowance not only by the Rigid Presbyterians but the Indulgent Tryers those Patriots of our Christian Liberty those renowned subverters of Ecclesiastical Tyranny Now there can be nothing more mischievous or intolerable in any Church or Common-wealth then these peremptory Dictators of Truth and profest Masters of Polemick Skill they are so exact and curious in their own Speculations and impose them with that severity upon the Consent of Mankind and by consequence require such hard and impracticable Conditions of Agreement and Church-Communion as must unavoidably break any society of men into Factions and Parties For what so vain as to expect an Unity of Judgment in such a multitude of uncertain and undeterminable Opinions And therefore those men that stand with such an unyielding and inflexible stiffness upon the admittance of their own Conceits make all reconcilements impossible and all ruptures incurable Every little Opinion must make a great Schism and the bounds of Churches must be as nicely determined as the Points of a Dutch-Compass Their bodies of Orthodoxy are as vast and voluminous as Aquinas Sums and they have drawn infinite numbers of wanton and peevish Questions into the Articles of their Belief and now when they have swoln up their Faith to such a mighty bulk and refined it to such a delicate subtlety 't is unavoidable but that this must perpetuate Disputes and Divisions to all eternity And for this reason it is that these perverse and imperious Asserters are the most insufferable sort of men in any Christian Commonwealth in that they are such incorrigible enemies to peace and are so good for nothing else but to raise disturbances and contentions in the Church So that though we should suppose Liberty of Religion to be the common and natural Right of mankind yet these Persons apparently forfeit all their Claims and Pretences to it not only because their principles are directly repugnant to the quiet of States and Kingdoms but because they invade other mens rights and offer violence to their Neighbours just Liberties And so cast themselves into the condition of Out-laws and Banditi that once indeed had a natural Right of Protection from the Government under which they were born but if they will not submit to the
Meekness and Justice Mercy and Patience Contentedness and Pity Kindness Obedience and Humility And now if the Gospel be an Institution so pregnant with Vertue and Wisdom and Holiness how can any Man that is tender of his Saviours Reputation tamely suffer these brain-sick People to debauch the Divine Wisdom of his Religion with childish and trifling Follies And to represent the design of Christianity in so odde a guise as to suit it chiefly to the Conceptions of Children and inclinations of old Women and make it most agreeable to weak Reasons soft Spirits and little Understandings And how can any Man that is enamour'd of the Beauty of real Goodness think any Satyrs too rough for such bold Impostors as make it a Mask for Pharisaick Hypocrisie and stave off their Proselytes from the practice of real Righteousness by amusing their little Understandings with trifling and unprofitable Gayeties That employ a seeming Godliness to supplant all that is real and oppose all the great ends and designs of Religion under more gorgeous Pretences to advance them and are not onely content to exchange the Reality and Substance of true Goodness for its Varnish and Colours but have been so untoward as to contrive a seeming and hypocritical Sanctity that does not more counterfeit then oppose true Holiness in brief choaking all the most beautiful Graces of Christianity by over-running them with rank and noisom Impostures Now if these things are so who can charge the utmost severity of Expression with intemperance of Speech And that they are so if I have not sufficiently proved it already I shall have occasion to enforce its Evidence by some too clear and convictive Proofs in the sequel of this Discourse And therefore 't is but a vain thing to make loud and tragical Complaints of railing and intemperate Speeches unless they had first discover'd that there is not truth enough in my Accusations to warrant the sharpest and most vehement Expressions I have not thrown out hard words at all adventure nor confuted the Cause by giving bad Language as 't is some Mens custom to stick an Odious Name upon an Adversary and then he is baffled No I first endeavoured to convict them by Evidence of Reason and after that to reprove their Errour and if they resolved to continue obstinate to upbraid their peevishness with some sharpness of Expression And if Men will not distinguish between Railing and sharp Reproofs there is no remedy but the best and wisest Persons of all Ages must pass for the greatest Railers And so far am I from recanting my severity towards them that I am rather tempted to applaud it by the glorious Examples of the greatest Wits of our Nation King Iames Archbishop Whitgift Archbishop Bancroft Bishop Andrews Bishop Bilson Bishop Mountagne Bishop Bramhall Sir Walter Rawleigh Lord Bacon c. And what can you imagine more hateful to such wise Men as these then to see mean People borrow the Face of Religion to make them bold and impudent against Government In short I could name some Persons so vile and abominable that 't is not in the power of Slander to abuse them and there is a Faction of Saints in the World whose Villanies and Falshoods and Perjuries are so utterly destitute of excuse or palliation that no History of any Age or Nation can afford us the like impudent and execrable Examples of Baseness and Hypocrisie And therefore let not the living man complain c. § 20. 3. Another pregnant and serviceable Topick of Argumentation is to load his Adversary with Consequences of Atheism Popery and Mahumetanism though for any Reason I have given him he might as plausibly have charged me of Magick or Necromancy or what perhaps may seem more monstrous of Fanaticism But this is one of the most elegant Idiotisms of their Language and most powerful Figures of their Logick whatsoever they touch is immediately turn'd into Atheism they can wring this Conclusion out of all Premises as they can draw some Doctrines out of all Texts 'T is an odious Inference and then 't is no matter for its Truth and Coherence a wide Mouth and a bold Face shall make good the Charge and what they want of Rational Deduction is easily supplyed by Noise and Confidence Their Followers they know never examine things by the Rules of Reason and Discourse put but an ugly Consequence into their Mouths and they swallow it with a glibber satisfaction then the purest and most refined Reasonings and peremptorily conclude you guilty of all the horrid Tenets and Assertions that their Leaders will throw upon you And there lies all their strength in the Ignorance and Credulity of the Multitude Instances of this nature are innumerable their great Anak of Disputation I. O. to mention no more never commenced a Dispute against any Perswasion but he immediately brought the Controversie to this issue He cannot Arraign the Lords Prayer it self but Atheism and Blasphemy must into the Indictment The asserting that Form of Words says he confirms many in their Atheistical Blaspheming of the Holy Spirit of God and his Grace in the Prayers of his People And when some Learned Men of the Church of England publish't the Biblia Polyglotta the chief Contriver of that Noble Work writes some Prolegomena suitable to the nature and design of the Undertaking especially to defend and assert the Certainty Integrity and Divine Authority of the Original Texts but among other Discourses he happens to assert the Novelty of the Hebrew Punctation an Opinion own'd by the concurrent suffrage of almost all the best skill'd in the Hebrew and Oriental Learning and to acknowledge various Readings in the Original Text and lastly to prove that to be no way prejudicial to their Purity and Integrity Now with what outragious Declamations does I. O. set upon these harmless Assertions and with what foul-mouthed Crys and Consequences does he pursue them and what an horrid Noise do we hear of Atheism Atheism Atheism We are told of a new Plot or design amongst Protestants after they are come out of Rome a design which they dare not publickly own p. 329. The Leprosie of Papists crying down the Original Texts is broken forth among Protestants with what design to what end or purpose he knows not God knows and the day will manifest Epist. p. 14. That this design is own'd in the Prolegomena to the Bible and in the Appendix that they Print the Original and defame it gathering up Translations of all sorts and setting them up in competition with it Epist. p. 9. That they take away all certainty in and about sacred Truth Epist p. 25. That there is nothing left unto men but to chuse whether they will turn Papists or Atheists Epist. p. 9. That there are gross Corruptions befaln the Originals which by the help of Old Translations and by Conjectures may be found out and corrected p. 205. As pernicious a Principle as ever was fixed upon since the Foundation of the
Vanity of his Attempt who would demonstrate out of the Canticles that the Saints enjoy distinct Communion with the three Persons of the Trinity it exasperates some bold and confident Men that are fond of their own thin and crazy Conceits as much as if we should pervert the first Chapter of St. Iohn's Gospel And we scoff at Justification by Faith if we despise a Thousand vain and empty Speculations wherewith they have involved that Article As whether Faith justifies from any peculiar Excellency of its own nature or barely from the Divine Appointment whether it be an instrumental Cause of Justification or onely a Procatarctick Cause if instrumental whether an active or a passive Instrument if Procatarctick whether Procatarctick formal or Procatarctick objective with a multitude more of the like wise and important Enquiries that could never have enter'd into the most curious and whimsical Understanding had not some idle people loved to amuse themselves with inventing profound and curious Nothings and had not one Keckerman and some other dull Fellows been at leisure to write foolish Books of Logick and Metaphysicks whose Theorems must be blended with the Doctrines and Propositions of St. Paul and then Mens little Quarrels about this Motley-Divinity must make new Sects and Opinions in Religion and they must measure the Orthodoxy of their Faith by their subtilty in wrangling and their power in disputing by their skill and dexterity in Terms of Art and by their being able to understand the precise and Orthodox Notion of a Procatarctick Cause These are the useful and wonderful Profundities to which the disputing Men of this Age are such zealous Votaries they value their Learning by their skill in these dry and sapless Enquiries and their Agility in the Combats of Disputation and a Disputant with them signifies the same thing as a great Scholar To this purpose they furnish their Memories with abundance of notional Querks and Subtilties to keep up their pert and talkative Humour and spend all their time in learning Distinctions that may maintain and reconcile palpable Contradictions With what fetches of Wit will they distinguish themselves round about till they come at last to affirm what at first they denied And with what severity of Judgment will they spin out a long train of wary Aphorisms and subtile Propositions to prove that 't is Faith alone that justifies and yet so explain the Notion of justifying Faith as to make it imply and include in it all other parts of the Condition of the New Covenant i. e. Good Works and those that are able Divines can write whole Volumes of Problems and Disputations to make out this important Mystery That Faith alone justifies i. e. as 't is not alone And now if you compare the vanity of the Opinions with the talkative Humour of the Opiniators you will cease to wonder at their rude Carriage toward persons that profess to pursue more useful and less difficult Studies they are brim-full of talk and no Man that pretends to Learning can come in their way but they immediately engage him in Disputation and if he with some Railery expose their learned and studied Ignorance and confute the silliness of their Systematick Notions 't is a bold affront to the Orthodox Faith and he drolls upon the most Fundamental Articles of Divinity for they lay no less weight upon their own Subtilties and singular Conceits then on the plain and practical Precepts of the Gospel so that you cannot sweep away their Cobwebs but down drops the whole Fabrick of Religion Neither does this pragmatical Humour run onely among the Pretenders to Learning but the Infection spreads among the People every sage Trades-man sets up for a deep and an able Divine and talks as confidently of Predestination as if he had served his Apprenticeship to a Dutch Professour Every zealous Shop-keeper understands the management of Ecclesiastical Discipline as well as the Nicene Fathers and a Jury of Button-sellers shall determine a Controversie of Faith with more assurance then a General Council These of all others are the fiercest and most implacable Assertors because their Zeal is proportion'd to their Ignorance and therefore you cannot make your self pleasant with their pert and conceited Pedantry and 't is a piece of Railery that is hardly to be forborn but you draw upon your self whole Volleys of Anathema's and hard Names they can endure any Indignity rather then an affront to their Clerkship and you may with more safety play with a Spaniard's Beard then sport with their grave Ignorance That is an Insolence that can never pass unrevenged but your Reputation is immediately stabbed with some ugly word or poisoned with some malicious Report and it becomes the great business of their Zeal to brand you with foul imputations and in all places and upon all occasions to blazon abroad your gross Errours and your horrid Blasphemies This short Character of their Humour may serve for a satisfactory account of their dirty and disingenuous Demeanour towards such persons as pretend to so much knowledge as to despise the Ignorance of their Learning I design it not for an Apology either for my self or any of my Friends I know none so poor-spirited as to stand in awe of such petty Arts the most pertinent Reply to such a poor and beggarly Malice is Neglect and Disdain though in truth such Wretches as stick not upon every slight occasion to sacrifice not onely our Good-Names but our Livelyhoods for that is our Case to their own Childish Picks deserve to be answered by the Pillory and the Whipping-Post § 8. Many other ugly Insinuations he has as if I were prompted to this Undertaking by lewd and naughty Intentions or as if he knew some Stories that he can but out of Tenderness and Civility to my Reputation will not vent I will not so much assist his Malice as to transcribe all his white-liver'd Suggestions to this purpose but whether in this way of proceeding he has discover'd more Boldness or more Imprudence is hard to determine when he knows himself to lie under such vast disadvantages at this Weapon by lying open to so many stabbing and inevitable Hits But this is one of their Topicks and comes in by the Rules of their Method and Ingenuity and all the Defenders and Champions of the Church of England have ever been thus accosted by their civil and unpassionate Adversaries And never did any Man give them a smart and severe Blow but immediately they threatned to tell Tales And where Men have not the advantage of Truth Calumny is their best and surest Weapon For though its Wounds do not always fester yet they usually leave a scar behind them at least he gains the Advantage of his Enemy that gives him the diversion to wipe off Reproaches and all Apologies in defence of a Man 's own Innocence leave behind them through the common Ill-nature of Mankind some ill-contrived suspicion of Guilt in the Minds of Men. And therefore I
the disingenuity of his Cavils and that is all that is needful in answer to his way of proceeding which you see was not to confute but to pervert my Discourse And if I should pursue all Advantages examine all Miscarriages and lay open all Follies and Impertinencies I should presume too much upon the Publick Patience and swell my Reply to too unreasonable a Bulk so many so vain and so impertinent are his Topicks of Cavil However the remainder of his Talk is built upon the supposition of the Truth and Reality of these Falsifications and therefore by what I have already discoursed in answer to their Forgery I have made it altogether needless to take any farther notice of his wild and rambling Harangues For if they are pertinent to their Premises they are impertinent to my Discourse if they are not they are impertinent to his own Though the truth is should I grant him the priviledge he is resolved to take of falsifying yet he deduceâ— things so loosly and incoherently that I might easily make good my Cause against him if I should undertake the defence of those Untruths and Monstrous Absurdities he fastens on me I might demand of him to what purpose he here acquaints us with that solemn and systematick distinction of the Declaration of Gods Will either by the Light of Nature or by the Light of Revelation unless it be to inform the World of this new and important Mystery that a positive Command of God may as to any particular instance suspend the Obligation of the greatest Command of the Law of Nature and so it actually did in the Precept given to Abraham for sacrificing his Son For whatever any School-men may determine in this case 't is apparent here neither was nor could be any suspension of the Law of Nature whose Obligation is so eternal and unchangeable that nothing can suspend it for one moment without doing violence to the antecedent Reasons of Good and Evil but onely a positive Command to execute a Divine Decree by vertue of a Divine Commission i. e. to put his Son to death by his Authority that is absolute Lord of Life a matter against which the Law of Nature never had or could have any Prohibition For though possibly it restrained Abraham from attempting his Sons Life by vertue of his own Dominion yet when he was warranted to it by a special Command of God himself to have refused its execution had been to remonstrate to the Justice of one of the most Fundamental Laws of Nature so that there was no suspension of the Law but an alteration of the Case and a Command to do something which that neither did nor could forbid To what purpose does he twit me for asserting Magistratical Omnipotency rather than the Divine Right of Episcopacy I am at Age and Liberty as young as he would make me to chuse my own Theme and perhaps the next Book I publish that shall be the Argument of my Discourse and then I doubt not but he will as much correct me for leaving the pursuit of my former subject as he does now for pursuing it To what purpose does he preach to Soveraign Princes not to take upon themselves that absolute Power I have for my own advantage ascribed to them unless he had also proved it is not for theirs 'T is a strong Motive no doubt to encourage his Majesty to listen to his advice by informing him it was not the Acclamation of the Multitude unto Herod The Voice of God and not of Man but his own arrogant satisfaction in that Blasphemous Assignation of Divine Glory to him that exposed him to the Iudgments and Vengeance of God For certainly Princes will require more forcible Reasons to part with the absoluteness of their Soveraign Power than such Preaching Impertinencies To what purpose does he add That never any Magistrate unless Nebuchadnezzar Caligula Domitian and persons like to them ever pretended to exercise the Power here assign'd unto them I will not be so froward as to tell him that now he is as much too free in his Concessions as he is at other times too stingy for should I put him upon the proof he would want Records to make it good that all these Princes ever claimed such a bold and unlimited Jurisdiction though perhaps others have for what thinks he of Artaxerxes's Commission to Ezra Whosoever will not do the Law of thy God and the Law of the King let Iudgment be executed speedily upon him whether it be unto Death or to Banishment or to Confiscation of Goods or to Imprisonment I know not how any Prince can challenge or assume a more severe absolute and uncontroulable Power than this granted in this Commission and yet Ezra reflects upon it as a special and immediate issue of Divine Providence To what purpose does he tell us the Power I ascribe to Magistrates is none other but that which is claimed by the Pope of Rome That may be his Usurpation upon the Rights of Princes but 't is no proof that they may not challenge the Supremacy over the Consciences of their own Subjects because he usurps it To what purpose does he tell us That the Mormo here made use of is the same in substance that has been set up by the Papists ever since the Reformation When nothing can be justly pleaded in behalf of lawful Government but what may be unjustly pretended to by Tyrants and Usurpers and in the happy days of Oliver Cromwel the same Arguments and Texts of Scripture were prest for Obedience and Subjection to the Rebel as were onely design'd to secure Loyalty to rightful Soveraigns Let the Romanists make out the Justice of their Title of Supremacy over the Kingdom of England and the Equity of their Cause in the due management of their Power and then we will listen to their Pretences but in the mean while from the necessity of an Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to plead the Right of a Papal Soveraignty is an impertinency onely wild enough to serve our Authors turn and signifies no more than because there is Tyranny practised in the World under fair and plausible Pretences that therefore there must be no just Grounds and Principles for lawful Government To what purpose does he waste so many Pages to enquire wherefore the Power of the Magistrate should not be extended to the inward Thoughts and Apprehensions of Men about the Worship of God as well as to Expressions of them in pure spiritual Acts of that Worship For not to catch at the ridiculous canting and mysterious Non-sense of the Expression of our inward Thoughts in pure spiritual Acts when all Expression of them is outward and corporal 't is sufficient that God has not been pleased to vest them with any Power over our Thoughts but for what cause himself best knows and therefore though I could give no account for his so doing that would not cast the least shadow of an
should never have escaped thus long unattempted had they not wanted Courage and Ability to undertake him But to all this our Author returns me a counter-challenge to mind them of any one Argument in Mr. Hookers longsom Discourse not already frequently answered and that in Print long ago and it shall have its due Consideration But thou trifler what is this to my defiance My Challenge was to answer Mr. Hooker intirely and not his Arguments by retail for whether they are so easily answerable will I hope competently enough appear by the last Issue and Result of our present Controversie in that our Author has the advantage to use and improve what has been so frequently and so long ago publish'd And therefore it was no part of my demand that they would produce their Answers to Mr. Hookers Arguments as they lie scattered amongst other godly discourse for that would be an endless and indeterminable Controversie but that they would of purpose undertake to confute his Book in gross for though his whole Discourse were replied to by piece-meal yet that can be no satisfaction to People so zealous in the Cause unless the Glory and Reputation of the Discourse it self were particularly defeated in that as long as that shall stand unassaulted that alone will be sufficient to discredit and prevent the success of all other endeavours So that the plain meaning of my Challenge was only that if the substance of his discourse be so clearly answered as they pretend that they would but convince the World of it by a particular and methodical Confutation of the Discourse it self for till that be performed or at least attempted they cannot expect but that all Adversaries as well as I should upbraid them with its unanswerableness But alas what do we talk of that that is a Burthen too heavy for their weak shoulders They answer Mr. Hooker Fond men they will as soon undermine the Pillars of the Earth as shake one Paragraph of his Writings Remove Mountains repent of your sins and then answer Mr. Hooker 'T is not for men of your pigmy strength and skill to attaque such a Giant of Sense and Reason you do but run a tilt upon a Rock with Straws and Bull-rushes 'T is infinite Rashness and Presumption for the stoutest he of you all to venture upon a man of his invincible Abilities in a word 't is not for Whifflers and Pamphleteers to cope with Mr. Hooker Our Author might better have told us as I. O. once told the World that this great man was unhappily engaged in the defence of such Errors as he could not but see and did often confess This is another peerless Wight too for where did that good man ever confess he did violence to the Convictions of his Conscience in his publick Discourses for so he must have done had he engaged in the defence of known Errors Was there ever such a brazen head of slander as this that dares thus groundlesly and thus foully asperse such a spotless Integrity I confess I could not but resent our Authors disingenuity when he frequently intimates I have written for my private Interest against my secret Perswasions but what is that to this mans Candour and Civility who dares proclaim to the World that that upright Soul prevaricated with God and his own Conscience in the main work and design of his whole life Well! hereafter I will set my heart at ease for what Adversary can ever hope to escape these mens slanders that dare attempt to blast Hookers Reputation But however is it not a pleasant humour for this man seririously to appeal from a single Author to all the Puritan Scriblers since the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I am content to devolve the Issue of the Controversie upon Mr. Hookers Performance no says he all that longsom Discourse has been shamefully baffled over and over But how shall we satisfie and inform our selves of that Why no other way but by perusing all the Pamphlets that they have ever publish'd since the Ecclesiastical Polity But this is as safe a demur as his Appeals to the day of Judgment for who think you will ever have so much time or so little employment as to examine all their flat and empty Pamphlets And when that is done it will be worth the while to raise a new Controversie whether they amount to a just Reply to Mr. Hooker But be that as it will the plain Consequence of my Challenge is that seeing so many men have laboured with so much zeal in this Contest 't is strange that no man either for the publick Interest of his Cause or his own private Renown ever ventured to turn his Forces particularly upon that Discourse and therefore seeing 't is not done that alone is sufficient Presumption considering their zeal and behaviour to conclude that 't is too much for their courage to attempt and much more for their ability to perform and withal that all their faint endeavours since are nothing more than an obstinate persisting in the Repetition of old and baffled Clamours And the truth is I know not one Masculine Writer that has appeared in defence of the Cause since the Conversion of Cartwright and I must ingenuously confess I have not had the good fortune to meet with any thing like a new Argument in their later Authors nothing but his old trash voucht with effeminate and uncleanly Railings And therefore instead of standing to the confidence of my former Challenge I will now only request them not to annoy us with any of their little Exceptions till they have first examined whether and how they are answered in Whitgifts Reply to that troublesom man for it was his Pen that first laid the Cause a gasping and the Puritan Reformation breathed its last in that Engagement and never spoke word since but as a poor Eccho does by a faint Repetition of Cartwrights paultry Cavils who poor man was beaten by down-right Blows out of his zeal peevishness and driven by meer force of Arms and Arguments into order and conformity § 14. The next Cavil and so I have done is so miserably impertinent that I am loth to mention it and yet so dismally disingenuous that I am as loth to omit it And therefore to be brief in the close of this Chapter I undertook to answer the biggest and most plausible Exception I could think of against the Ecclesiastical Sovereignty of the Civil Magistrate viz. What if he should impose things sinful and superstitious what inconveniences would this bring upon the Government of the World The consequence of such an awkard state of things would be that men must either suffer for the sedition of their disobedience from their Prince or for the sinfulness of their Obedience from God This I had always observed to be the Gloss of all their Arguments and the Retreat of all their Discourses when all their other little Pretences are defeated 't is still the Refuge of all their
declared by what they have done and what they are desirous to do That the true state of the Cause and Quarrel is Religion in Reformation whereof they are so forward and zealous that there is nothing expressed in the Scots Declarations former or later which they have not seriously taken to heart and endeavoured to effect c. And in a Letter from the Assembly of Divines to them by order of the House of Commons they call it twice The Cause of Religion And the Assembly in answer to the Parliament desire it may be more and more cleared Religion to be the true state of the differences in England and to be uncessantly prosecuted first above all things giving no sleep to their eyes or slumber to their eye-lids until it be setled In their Declaration and Protestation to the whole World Octob. 22. 1642. They are fully convinced that the Kings Resolutions are so engaged to the Popish Party for the suppression and extirpation of the true Religion that all hopes of peace and protection are excluded that it is fully intended to give satisfaction to the Papists by alteration of Religion c. That great means are made to take up the differences betwixt some Princes of the Roman Religion that so they might unite their strength to the extirpation of the Protestant Cause wherein principally this Kingdom and the Kingdom of Scotland are concerned as making the greatest Body of the Reformed Religion in Christendom c. For all which Reasons we are resolved to enter into a Solemn Oath and Covenant with God to give up our Selves our Lives and Fortunes into his hands and that we will to the utmost of our Power and Judgment maintain his Truth and conform our selves to his Will And in the Declaration upon the Votes of no further Address to be made to the King by themselves or any one else Feb. 17. 1647. the Lords and Commons make Religion one of the great Motives upon which they proceeded for say they the torture of our Bodies by most cruel Whippings slitting of Noses c. might be the sooner forgotten had not our Souls been Lorded over led captive into Superstition and Idolatry triumphed over by Oaths ex Officio Excommunications Ceremonious Articles new Canons Canon-Oaths c. p. 19. And in the last Paper to the Scotch Commissioners Feb. 24. 1648. they declare that the Army of the Houses of Parliament were raised for maintenance of the true Religion and that they invited them to come to their assistance and declared the true state of the Quarrel to be Religion and they earnestly desire the General Assembly to further and expedite the assistance desired from the Kingdom of Scotland upon this ground and motive that thereby they shall do great service to God and great honour may redound to themselves by becoming Instruments of a Glorious Reformation c. This was the stile of all their Papers from 42 to 48 till some of the Grandees of the Independent Faction had by their hypocritical Prayers malicious Preachings counterfeit Tears unmanly Whinings false Protestations and execrable Perjuries scrued themselves up into a Supremacy of Power and Interest and then they alter'd the stile of their Pretences with the change of their Affairs and suited their Remonstrances to their Fortunes and so stopt not at their old demands of Reformation and purity of Ordinances these Pretexts were too low for the greatness of their Attempts and Resolutions and were not sufficient to warrant the Murther of their lawful Sovereign and therefore it was necessary for them to take up with new Pleas suitable to the wickedness of their new Purposes and then nothing was big enough to Arreign or Condemn their Prince but the Charge of Treason and Tyranny and the Sentence of Death was passed and executed upon him as a publick Enemy to the Commonwealth So that though Pretences of Secular and Political Interest were necessary to cut off his Head yet it was purely Zeal and Reformation that brought him to the Block To these Declarations from the Press I might add their Declarations from the Pulpit their Preachers incessantly encouraging the People to fight against the King as the most acceptable service to God and the People accordingly fought against him because they were perswaded that he was a Papist and would bring in Popery that the Common-Prayer was the Mass in English Organs were Idolatry and Episcopacy Antichristian It was nothing but the purity of the Gospel to which they so cheerfully sacrificed their Thimbles and Bodkins And though here it were easie to collect vast Volumes there being scarce a Parliament-exercise for which the Preacher had the Thanks of the House in which some sands and sweat were not wasted in crying up the piety of their Intentions for the Reformation of Gospel-Ordinances But because this would prove a Work too Voluminous I will therefore put off my Reader and satisfie my Adversary too with two or three passages out of the inspired Homilies of I. O. in his several Dispensations In his Sermon preached before the Parliament April 29. 1646. he thus bespeaks them From the beginning of these Troubles Right Honourable you have held forth Religion and the Gospel as whose Preservation and Restauration was principally in your Aims and I presume malice it self is not able to discover any insincerity in this the fruits we behold proclaim to all the Conformity of your Words and Hearts Now the God of Heaven grant that the same mind be in you still in every particular Member of this Honourable Assembly in the whole Nation especially in the Magistracy and Ministry of it that we be not like the Boat-men look one way and row another cry Gospel and mean the other thing Lord Lord and advance our own ends that the Lord may not stir up the staff of his anger and the rod of his indignation against us as an hypocritical People And Feb. 28. 1649. he tells them again Gods Work whereunto ye are ingaged is the propagating of the Kingdom of Christ and the setting up of the Standard of the Gospel And Octob. 13. 1652. From the beginning of the Contests in this Nation when God had caused your Spirits to resolve that the Liberties Priviledges and Rights of this Nation wherewith you were intrusted should not by his assistance be wrested out of your hands by Violence Oppression and Injustice this he also put upon your hearts to vindicate and assert the Gospel of Jesus Christ his Ways and his Ordinances against all Opposition though you were but inquiring the way to Sion for then they were little better than Presbyterians with your faces thitherwardâ— God secretly entwining the Interest of Christ with yours wrapt up with you the whole Generation of them that seek his face and prosper'd your Affairs on that account And lastly Feb. 4. 1658. Give me leave to remember you as one that had opportunity to make Observations of the passages of Providence in those
own Conclusion for having once dropt a rash Challenge I am now in honour bound to keep up the humor and to let them know that I am so far from abating of my Courage that I fear not to heighten the defiance so that you have my free leave to publish this Discourse if you will in Latin Greek and Hebrew and to proclaim to all Nations Kindreds and Languages that What I have written I have written and justified THE END SIR YOU have been pleased to interess your self so obligingly in my concerns that though I have been thinking of it near half a year I could never tell in what terms to give you thanks for the excess of your civility to me I was forced to be silent because I knew not what to say And I think you had not now heard of me were it not for the vexation I have conceived at the trouble you have drawn upon your self by your kindness to him that cannot yet deserve the title of your Friend Not that I think it will cost you much pains to blow away the trivial exceptions which a rash Head hath taken at what you said about the Friendly Debate but you are like to consume so many pretious hours in raking into that indigested heap of stuff which he hath hudled together against your own Book that I ought not to presume you have any spare moments to throw away in the Vindication of mine Your good nature indeed I know will be apt to prompt you not to leave it without some defence and in your hands it will be safer then in my own Yet pardon me I beseech you if I be not wholly an idle spectator in the contest and let not your zeal to serve me so exceed all bounds as not to leave room for me to appear with an offer of that help of which you have no need The most of his Declamation every body sees is spent against the manner and way of my Writing which he would have his easie Disciples believe notwithstanding all that hath been said is peculiarly accommodated to render the sentiments and expressions of our Adversaries ridiculous and expose their persons to contempt and scorn Insomuch that in points of Faith Opinion and Iudgment this way of dealing hath been hitherto esteemed fitter for the stage then a serious disquisition after Truth or confutation of Errour Thus this high and mighty Dictator is pleased to pass his censure and he seems to pronounce it standing on his tiptoes imagining he hath spoken bravely and blasted the credit of all Dialogues for ever But when his head is a little cooler so that he can distinguish between the results of a sound judgment and the flashes of a distempered fancy I perswade my self he will be ready to eat his words and wish they had never been spoken especially if he consider these things following First From whence it is that he dates the time in which to the day of his Writing this way hath been in so low esteem I doubt he will find it is but a little while ago no longer then since the Printing of the Friendly Debate Before that the most excellent persons have chosen this way as exceeding fit and accommodate if not the aptest of all other both to teach the weightiest Truths and to baffle popular Errors Minutius Felix for instance a famous Advocate thought good to plead the most sacred cause on earth in a Dialogue between two Disputants a Christian and an Heathen Which that great Lawyer and Antiquary Franciscus Baldvinus calls Antiquum cruditumque scribendi morem an ancient and learned manner of writing For in this I observe Tully himself handled a great and grave Argument Rem maâ—nam complexus sum gravem as he speaks viz. that concerning a Common-wealth and tells us withal that a great many of the Books were joculatoria disputaâ—io a pleasant and jesting disputation as his words are in one of his Letters to Atticus And so were Erasmus his Colloquies in the beginning of the Reformation which were received notwithstanding by the wisest and best men with great applause read in the Schools with much greediness and commended for this among other things That by an admirable dexterity and most sweet manner of speaking they delivered to youth the precepts of Piety and good manners Since which time several matters of no small moment have been handled in this way by the approbation of the highest persons Mr. Alexander Cook I remember wrote a Dialogue between a Protestant and a Papist to prove there was a woman Pope which was entertained even by strangers with so much respect that it was translated into the French Language by I. de la Montagne And he hath heard I suppose of one before that called Deus Rex God and the King between Philalethes and Theodidactus wherein is proved that the King justly challenges whatsoever is required by the Oath of Allegiance Is this must we think no point of Faith Opinion or Iudgment Or was his Majesty mistaken in recommending to all his Subjects the perusal of this Book which handled the matter in such sort according to this Rabbi as made it fit only for the Theatre So the Oracle hath in effect pronounced and we must all lay aside our doubts and acquiesce in its word Kings themselves must not scruple submission to so inspired a Supremacy Now they hear the voice of this more Sovereign Judge they ought to revoke their own decrees and teach their people Obedience according to his sentence The only comfort is that he may contradict himself and so give us leave to decline his Authority And truly I have some hope to convince him of his Errour though he should loftily overlook all this as unworthy his notice if he will but vouchsafe to stoop so low as to cast his eye upon what he hath writ himself For I find that he who taxes others so boldly for not clearly stating the question in hand is doubtful and staggering in this easie business After he hath told us that Dialogues are peculiarly accommodated to the ends mentioned p. 48. and that they are absolutely most accommodated of all sorts of writing to such a design p. 50. He sinks extreamly in his confidence and only tells us the advantages mentioned are somewhat peculiar unto Dialogues p. 61. His heart at last began to fail him when he had a little evapourated his ungovernable heat and I have great cause to think it check'd him often in the very midst of it and bad him not be so presumptuous For Good man he dare not stand to this neither but acknowledges unawares before he hath done that there is no peculiarity at all in this way of writing to make things or persons ridiculous For first he is forced to acknowledge that it may be used to very serious purposes as it was by Tully and Plato who imployed this method as he confesses p. 47. to make their designs
foul and thick a Cause the more they struggle the faster they stick and therefore they would be well advised not to dally too much with that Author for though I know him to be far from an angry or a Cynical Humour yet I am able to discern such an hatred and antipathy to Hypocrisie from the Genius of his Writings that if they will tempt him to unrip all their Folly and Knavery he is apt enough to discover such thick Blasphemies against Divine Providence and such unparallel'd Abuses of Religion in their most sumptuous Pretences and most plausible Practices as shall represent the Men of greatest Reputation amongst them for Wisdom and Learning in as ridiculous a Guise as T. W. and the Men of greatest Vogue for Conscience and Integrity under as seditious a Character as W. B. and no Man more obnoxious upon both accounts then I. O. And who can endure to see Men that are so horribly bemired bear up with so much State and Confidence § 14. But the great Nuissance of my Preface is some unkind and unhappy Reflections that I chanced I know not by what Mis-fortune to cast out upon their Gift of Prayer This is the dear Palladium of their Pulpits and they will as soon fling up the whole Cause as forego this Priviledge of Talking 'T is the Ephod and the Teraphim of the House of Micah and nothing shall ever wrest it from them but Fine Force and Invincible Resolution and therefore where this is endanger'd or invaded our Author you may be sure will lay about him with all the power of Words and vehemence of Zeal so that here I must struggle to purpose to carry off this Darling of the Cause In the first place then the Man is Wonder-strucken that I should design all along to charge my Adversaries with Pharisaism and yet should instance in their Confession of Sin when it is the Characteristical Note of the Pharisees that they made no Confession of Sin at all But to awaken him out of his amazement he may know that the Pharisaick Hypocrisie consists neither in long Prayers nor short Confessions no more then it does in long Robes or short Cloaks Spiritual Pride is its onely Essential Character and it is of no Concernment which way and in what Expressions it vents and discovers its self There is a creeping as well as a vaunting Arrogance and this Vice is never so confident as when it appears in the Garbs and Postures of Humility And thus when Men dissemble with the Almighty when they know that they belye themselves with false Accusations when they mourn for Sins of which they think they stand clear and innocent and pretend to be humbled for those Offences of which they are not seriously convinced Tell me a greater instance of Pride and Insolence in the World then this jugling and counterfeit Humility for what else can these Men think within but that they oblige and complement the Almighty by being content to be thought viler Wretches then they think themselves onely to advance the Interest of Gods Glory and set off the greatness of his Free Grace And what an obliging Favour is this when they will sacrifice their own Reputation to the Glory and Renown of his Attributes So that 't is apparently a coarser piece of vanity to confess those Sins of which we are not guilty then not to acknowledge those of which we are And that there is something of this Leven lurking at the bottom of all this Humiliation is notoriously evident for as much as howsoever humble and complemental they are in their Talk to God yet in their Conversation with Men the Scene immediately alters then they return to the old Pharisaick Vomit and then Publicans keep your distance and then they censure and despise their Neighbours as Carnal Gospellers and applaud themselves that they are not as the Men of the World Then we bless the Lord for humbling our proud Hearts and for emptying us of all our Self-righteousness thereby to bring us effectually to an experimental sense of the deep and more spiritual Mysteries of the Gospel to an heavenly taste and relish of the sweetness and preciousness of the Lord Jesus and of that Soul-ravishing delight wherewith his People are affected in their spiritual Closings with him and lastly to an inward feeling of the glorious Discoveries Manifestations and Comings in of his Spirit upon the Hearts of Believers in all his Ordinances This is the inward practical and experimental part of the Mystery of Godliness whereas your Formalists and meer Moral Professors make a great Noise about their dry Devotions and Self-wrought-out-Mortifications But alas poor deluded Wretches they never viewed the Ugliness of their Nature in the Glass of the Law they never lay under the Horrours of the Spirit of Bondage they never had a humbling sight and thorough sense of their Sins and were never perfectly emptied of their own Self-righteousness and though they can do good Actions yet they cannot deny them and make woful Complaints to Almighty God that all the Duties they perform though they know them to be agreeable to his Laws are wicked and abominable Ah! this Corrupt Nature is a proud Thing and hardly driven out of its Trust and Confidence in its own Righteousness nothing but an absolute and thorough Conviction of its own Self-emptiness Self-abhorrency and Self-despair can ever bring it to a full and absolute Close with the Lord Christ. This is the Block at which Millions of poor Souls stumble everlastingly and 't is the Lords distinguishing Mercy that has taken the Veil from off our Eyes and enabled us to see the danger of a Self-righteousness So that this Pageantry is the main ground of all their Spiritual Pride and Arrogance upon this they build the lofty Conceits of their own peculiar Godliness and their insolent Contempt of all others that have more Wit or less Vanity then to be as fond and phantastick as themselves and in the result of all this formal and counterfeit Humility is made the specifick difference between the People of God and the Men of the World But here his Pen takes occasion to flie out for 't is very unruly upon a Censure of mine against an Insolence of theirs for confining the Elect and the Godly to their own Party and esteeming of us as no better then the Wicked and the Reprobate of the Earth Wherein says he I am satisfied that he unduly chargeth those whom he intends to reflect upon However I am none of them I confine not Holiness to a Party not to the Church of England or to those that dissent from it This his Confidence dares affirm though 't is so notorious that never any Party of Men in the World no not the Jews did with greater assurance appropriate to themselves all the Titles and Characters of the People of God For what else mean their Accounts and Descriptions of the Power of Godliness by the Singularities of their own
mayst thou be wounded in such sort by the chosen Dart and learn the Beauty of the Bridegroom that thou mayst be able to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Out of the Nuptial Play and Song SWEET ART THOU AND ALTOGETHER DESIRABLE I could produce more to the same purpose but that I begin to be a little ashamed that I am fallen into this strain of quoting Greek and Latin All that I have to say for my self is That our Antagonist makes such a noise with them that I was willing to make a small show of Learning meerly to be even with him especially when it would serve not for flourish or vapour but offered it self for a substantial proof It is likely indeed that he will smile among his Clients and say I have proved nothing nay crow over me like a Cock of the Game when his Head bleeds as if he had got the Victory But whatsoever he may say in private he will be better advised I believe than hastily to renew the Quarrel in publick again and not be tempted by their importunities to make such another vain Babble as this Book for them to sport themselves a while withal If he be wise he will take more time and consider what he saith before he make his Second Survey And if he think he is able solidly to answer what I have now writ I hope he will take this one thing more into his thoughts That let this way be as peculiar as it is possible to the ends he mentions yet it is not peculiar to us but as hath been shewn already in the second part of the Friendly Debate hath been often imployed by themselves He ought therefore in justice either to have acquitted me or condemned us altogether For even Aristophanes his way of Dialogue by Comedy hath not been balked by these solemn Men and that in serious if not holy Arguments when it would serve their turn witness a Book called Tyrannical Government Anatomized Licensed by a Committee and subscribed by Mr. Iohn White in this manner Die Martis 30 Jan. 1642. It is ordered by a Committee of the House of Commons concerning Printing That this Book be forthwith Printed and Published In which the Collâ—cutors and Complainants as the Author speaks are Malchus Gamaliel Iohn the Baptist Chorus or Company of Iews King Herod the Queen Herodias her Daughter and Messengers What should be the reason that these men are so coy and nice now that they cannot away with a simple Dialogue who could digest a Comedy and that a sacred one heretofore Is not their stomach to it think you as good as ever I can make no question of it But the matter is not now for their tooth and that makes them spit it out of their mouth They would dissemble the distaste they have taken at just reproofs by making faces at the manner in which they are delivered And like the Cuttle-Fish which hides it self in its own Ink they shuffle up and down and endeavour to blot my Dialogues that none may read their faults which are there discovered Were it not for this Dialogues should have their good word as well as any other form of Writing They are inwardly convinced there is no harm in them nor is a pleasant way of conveying our thoughts into other mens minds condemned by unbiassed and impartial Judges Only as Erasmus speaks in his Preface to Tully's Offices Aliter scurrajocatur aliter vir probus integer A scurrilous Companion jests after one fashion an honest man after another The distinction between them is so easie that I shall not mention it but only remember that an honest man may write after such a fashion as I have done Beza thought was without all dispute What saith he if I have answered one that deserved no better Quasi per ludum c. in a spoâ—ting manner as the times would then bear Solomon sure doth not simply forbid us to answer a Fool and what hinders but that a man may laugh and speak the truth The Spirit of the Lord sometimes doth not abstain from holy Ironies and Nazianzens Orations against Julian even after he was dead are in every bodies hands which though they be biting enough thou hast not the face to blame They are his words in his defence of himself against the Accusations of Genebrard who dealt with him just as this Gentleman hath done with me He found fault with him not only for writing a wanton Paraphrase as he would have had it believed upon the Canticles but for writin it in Trochaick Verses whereas Iaâ—â—ick best pleased his bitter humour Bâ—t what was this to the business as Beza truly answered and I may reply to this Accuser for one may flatter in Iambicks and be angry in Trochaicks And who gave him this Authority to impose silence on us or else to prescribe a certain sort of Verse to which we must be confined If such reasoning be sufficient to blast a Work Sâ—â—rates and his Friends were very weak people to suffer Aristophanes his Comedy to go away with applause They might have only said Good Mr. Poet you are exceeding witty but it is only by a knack you have at one kind of Verse which ought not to be used and then his Clouds had vanished with a breath For this you know was the thing that gave him so much reputation not his meer Dialogue-way as this Author would have it believed else the story is nothing to his purpose but his smooth and pleasant Verses as Aelian whom this Writer follows expresly tells us And indeed he had a singular faculty in such composures there being one sort of Measure which bore his Name and was called the Anapaestus of Aristophanes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he used it so frequently as the Scholiast tells us upon that very Comedy called the Clouds Which Play he needed not be hired to make having conceived a displeasure at Socrates because he despised the Comedians though he would come to see Euripides his Tragedies This Aelian himself confesses was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not meerly the instigation of Anytus and Melitus and it appears from the Comedy that this stuck in his stomach for in the latter end of it he jeers at Euripides his Poetry Nor is it supposed by any ancient Writer that I can meet withal that Aristophanes was hired to abuse the Philosopher as he stands accused by our Author who justifies the old saying That it is easie to make the Tale run which way it pleaseth the Teller Aelian himself doth not suppose it but only saith Perhaps he was and that it would be no wonder if he did take money concluding at last as Men do now that have little ground for their suspicions but Aristophanes himself knows whether it were so or no. It seems none of his acquaintance did and since the Poet was not alive to tell the very truth both he and this Gentleman ought to
have left out that Nor is there any cause that he should make this Comedy strike such a stroke to the taking away of Socrates Life Alas it abated so little of his Reputation that by his brave contempt and scorn of those abuses which he expressed even in the open Theatre as Aelian confesses in the midst of the Action he did himself a world of credit which he preserved and maintained a long time after It is confessed by Learned Men that he lived sixteen years after the acting of this Play but Palmerius hath demonstrated that he lived no less than four if not five and twenty years after For it is plain from several places in the Play that it was acted before Cleon's death which hapned the tenth year of the Peloponesian War at which time Aminias was the chief Magistrate at Athens an 2. Olymp. 89. But Socrates was accused when Lachetes govern'd an 1. Olymp. 95. three and twenty years after the death of Cleon Which is sufficient to shew that the Comedy did him little hurt and that our Author was rash ignorant or ill advised to say That when his Adversaries had got this advantage of exposing him to publick contempt they began openly to manage their accusation against him This is to invent not to write a Story A pure fiction of his own or some other confident brain like that of the late Commentator upon A. Gellius who saith that Aristophanes having lacerated Socrates in his Comedy called the Frogs so he mistakes the very next day he was accused and condemned to death For it is neither so nor so He neither became hereby the publick scorn nor did they now begin to manage their accusation He flourished a long time after in no small esteem both for his Wisdom and for his Wit Which was so excellent and smart that I do not see but Socrates was as great a Wit in his way as Aristophanes in his And that was the Dialogue-way in which no man could do better Nor was any man more skill'd in Ironies or could manage that which is now wont to be called ingenious raillery with greater dexterity Cicero in the first Book of his Offices saith that he was wondrously facetious and pleasant in his discourse Atque in omni ratione dissimulator Plato himself could not otherwise represent him then as one that was perfect in the art of jesting which he used so much even in his most serious discourses that such morose men as I fancy him we have to deal withal commonly called him the Scoffer Their sullen gravities did not or would not understand that this was a very subtle and antient way of teaching morality and that the shortest way to perswade is to please those whom we treat withal He was persecuted I imagine as much by their sowre Wisdoms as by Aristophanes They were afraid he should grow too popular and therefore call'd him the Mocker that they might ingross the name of Philosophers This I am told by a good Author Diog. Laertius was the reason that Anytus one of his Accusers took such a pique at him Socrates made little account of his Worship and had given him a nip for which he resolved to be revenged And the envy of others as the same Author tells us began upon this occasion The Oracle told Chaerephon one whom Aristophanes also abuses that Socrates was the wisest man living and he was wont to represent the self-conceited wise men as very Fools and Idiots They resolved therefore to have him out of the way if it were possible But did not lay to his charge his Non-conformity in Religion as this Writer is pleased to tell the tale a◠the principal Crime he was guilty of There was not one word of that matter in the first Libel exhibited against him as any one may see in Plato's Apology where it is recorded Xenophon indeed Laertius and others tell us he was accused of bringing in new Daemons c. but this learned men agree was the crime which his latter accusers objected to him with far less probability than the other to make him the more odious No man was more conformable in his practice to the Laws about Religion than himself if we may believe some of those very Authors which this person quotes Xenophon for instance assures us that as he allowed Divinations so he sacrificed openly oft-times in his own house and often upon the common Altars of the City And moreover that he regulated himself both in Sacrifices and in the Service of their Ancestors and in all other things according to the Direction of the Oracle which said that those did godlily who performed them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the Law of the City So Socrates himself did so he exhorted others to do and those that did otherwise he held to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impertinent and vain persons All which considered I hope this worthy Author to return him that Epithete which he bestows on one of my Books will be perswaded that he had better have let this story alone though it make the most plausible show of any thing he hath writ And since Socrates was no Non-conformist methinks hereafter he should be none of his followers nor study that knack which Aristophanes so often twits him withal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make a bad cause appear as if it were good I confess he hath a pretty gift this way and hath learn'd one lesson very well which the great Orator teaches his Scholar viz. to slide over those arguments which are hard and take no notice of them Nay he goes beyond the ablest Masters in this point He contemns the difficulties that are objected to them and pretends they are so slight and frivolous that they merit not an Answer But methinks there is some Conscience to be made when a man uses this trick and I expected a little more honesty in him then that he should say There is but one thing in all my Discourse that seems to him of any consideration p. 54. He cannot be so blind I perswade my self if ever he cast his eyes on them as not to see a multitude of things there that deserve not only their serious thoughts but call for their ingenuous Confession and hearty Repentance He knows those Books are not mostly filled as he calumniates p. 60. with exceptions against expressions sayings occasional reflections on Texts of Scripture These make the least part of them and are not their main design but alledg'd to show either that they who despise our Ministers are not such powerful men as they perswade the people nor so full of the Spirit as they pretend or that they can bear with worse things in them of their own party then those they accuse us of or for some such like considerable purpose But as for Invectives there are none unless they be such as those of Nazianzen against the Apostate Emperour which as