Antisacraments to the prejudice of Christs own true Sacraments than which worse need not be said of the most Antichristian Church in the World And thus the Commissioners of the Worcester-house Conference obstructed his Majesties felicity and the Nations settlement because they thought it reasonable and convenient to stick to the present establishments of the Church till some proof of their unlawfulness was produced and because when none could be produc'd they would not condescend to that temper and moderation as to change all her Constitutions without any other reasonable Motive than to salve the reputation of the Presbyterians they must be branded for cunning and revengeful men And good reason too because the Non-conformists demand nothing but what is so far from doing us any harm that it would only make us better And yet all their demands are against our legal Establishments of which your worship is so enamour'd And as for the Act of Uniformity and that superfoetation of Acts that followed after it though they were all establish'd by Law yet were they procured by trinkling nay by Bishops trinkling and for that reason serve only to expose the Wisdome of King and Parliament to after Ages Another special commendation of the Church of England as by Law establish'd that its Legal Establishments are so foolish as to be a perpetual Testimony of the Law-makers Folly Find me out a Fanatique in Hungary Transylvania Bohemia Scotland Geneva Pin-makers Hall J. O's Congregation that may not boast his deep respect and reverence to the Church of England upon as good Terms as your self So that it is plain here you did but Personam induere of an honest Zealot for say what you will you must and shall know that all Zealots are not Rogues and Cut-throats And after all your counterfeit reverence you mean no body else by this particular Bran than the Bishops and the Clergy of the Church of England as 't is by Law establish'd Upon them it is that you dispense forth this sweet Character with so much bounty and in the very spirit of meekness And in the first place Arch-bishop Laud cannot lye quiet in his Grave but after a great many fair and foul words as consistent with themselves as the rest of your Book you are pleased at length to score all the miscarriages of the late Kings Reign and all the miseries of the late War upon his head and Conscience I suppose because he was a man so learned so pious so wise so studious to do both God and his Majesty good service you thought he was better able to bear it than some others whose reputation was not altogether so clear and unquestionable But poor Bishop Laud this is hard measure that when never any man's Innocence clear'd it self so gallantly from all the assaults of Malice and Calumny his venerable ashes should be thus insolently arraign'd by every bold and Fanatique Blockhead For notwithstanding the vigour and activity of his mind his zeal for the settlement and prosperity of the Church his care to reduce Religion to sober and justifiable Principles his Interest in the Kings favour and Counsels yet was he so wise and so pious in the conduct of all his affairs that when he was devested of all Power and Protection when he was exposed to the violence and outrage of the people when Calumny was let loose upon him when he was treated not only without mercy but justice and common civility when Libels and Petitions against him were rewarded when tumults and clamours were invited when he was even overwhelm'd with the number of Slanders Jealousies and Accusations when he was prosecuted by some with the utmost Fraud and Artifice by others with an unheard of malice and violence when his Murther was decreed with an absolute Doom before his Trial when his impeachment was drawn up in the most heinous and aggravating terms when the Evidence was managed with an unusual vehemence and animosity yet after all this his Innocence appear'd so clear and his Integrity so unblemish'd that not only his Judges but his very enemies were convinced and ashamed of their own Accusations For when the particular Articles of his Charge came to be examined they proved after the expence of a great deal of time and wit and eloquence so trifling and silly that they durst not venture to proceed any farther against him in way of legal Tryal and so were forced to condemn him and he was the first and last that was ever so condemned by Ordinance of Parliament without any other Formality than bringing him once to the Commons Bar for fashion sake that he might not be condemn'd unseen as he was unhear'd but condemn'd he was for no other Crime than that of cumulative Treason that is what you please and by this Impudence they might take away the life of any innocent man if either they hated him or he liked not them But the Remarque that his Historian has made upon the review of all their proceedings against him is so just and observable that all Circumstances consider'd it will appear the highest Act of Malice and Impudence that ever was before committed for since it has been outdone by any Age and under any Government in the World Viz. That as the predominant Party in the united Provinces to bring about their ends in the death of Barnevelt subverted all those fundamental Laws of the Belgick Liberty for maintenance whereof they took up Arms against Philip the second So the Contrivers of this mischief had violated all the fundamental Laws of the English Government for maintenance whereof they had pretended to take up Arms against the King It was said they a fundamental Law of the English Government and the first Article in the Magna Charta that the Church of England shall be free and shall have all her whole Rights and Priviledges inviolable Yet to make way unto the condemnation of this innocent man the Bishops must be voted out of their place in Parliament which most of them have held far longer in their Predecessors than any of our noble Families in their Progenitors and if the Lords refuse to give way unto it as at first they did the people must come down to the house in multitudes and cry No Bishops no Bishops at the Parliament doors till by the Terrour of the Tumults they extort it from them It is a fundamental Law of the English Liberty That no Free-man shall be taken or imprisoned without cause shewn or be detained without being brought unto his answer in due form of Law Yet here we see a Free-man imprisoned ten whole weeks together before any charge was brought against him and kept in Prison three whole Years more before his general accusation was by them reduced unto particulars and for a Year almost detain'd close Prisoner without being brought unto his answer as the Law requires It is a fundamental Law of the English Government That no man be disseized of his Free-hold or Liberties but
by the known Laws of the Land Yet here we see a man disseized of his Rents and Lands spoiled of his Goods deprived of his Jurisdiction devested of his Right of Patronage and all this done when he was so far from being convicted by the Laws of the Land that no particular charge was so much as thought of It is a fundamental Law of the English Liberty that no man shall be condemned or put to death but by the Lawful Judgment of his Peers or by the Law of the Land that is in the ordinary way of Legal Tryal and sure an Ordinance of both Houses without the Royal Assent is no part of the Law of England nor held an ordinary way of Tryal for the English Subject or ever reckoned to be such in former times And finally it is a Fundamental Law in the English Government That if any other Cause than those recited in the Statute of King Edward III. which is supposed to be Treason do happen before any of his Majesties Justices the Justices shall tarry without giving Judgment till the Cause be shewn and declared before the King and his Parliament whether it ought to be judged Treason or not Yet here we have a new-found Treason never known before nor declared such by any of his Majesties Justices nor ever brought to be consider'd of by the King and his Parliament but only Voted to be such without Precedent or Example by some of those Members which sat at West-minster who were resolved to have it so for their private ends c. Is not this right Presbyterian Ingenuity to rebel against the King only for the defence and maintenance of the fundamental Laws and yet in all their proceedings violate not only all the fundamental Laws they pretended to fight for but all the more fundamental Laws of nature and humanity The Arch-Bishop was to be murther'd to please the Kirk and with his blood was the Covenant to be seal'd but then to prosecute him with so much violence to load him with so much accusation to tire him out with all the affronts and indignities of spite and zeal to rake into his whole Life up to his very Child-hood to gather materials for an Impeachment and yet after all this when they were convinced of the innocence of his actions and the inhumanity of their own proceedings to condemn him as a Traytor and an Execrable Person without nay against a Legal Tryal and then put him to death against all the Laws of the Realm and all the Rules of Natural Justice is such a prodigious piece of impudence as sufficiently discovers what kind of Creatures they were that were the contrivers and authours of his Murther It is true Presbyterian impudence But now are not you a right good natured Wretch to charge a man so learned so wise so pious and so studious of doing God and His Majesty good service of deforming the whole Reign of the best Prince that ever wielded the English Scepter when the very men that murther'd him have left such an irrefragable testimony of his Innocence and Integrity in that though they had the confidence to overwhelm him with Accusations yet they had not the confidence to withstand his Defence And what more ample testimony could they have left to Posterity than when they had taken so much pains to murther him with some shew of Law and Justice they should at last be forced to betake themselves to such illegal and violent proceedings as were never put in practice before or after Is this your additional Civility wherewith you consecrate the ashes of the deceased Are these your Elogies of a man so learned so pious so wise so studious both of the Service of God and the King that he deformed both What accusatory spirit could desire better play against him than you have given in his Vindication But however you recreate your self with believing that your simple judgement cannot beyond your intention it seems when you print Books you intend no body should read or regard them beside your self abate any thing of his just value with others And thus you never oyl your hoan neither but to whet your razor and cut the mans throat whom you would seem to flatter and fawn upon These leering and mannerly abuses that are suggested under pretence of friendship are much more impudent and malicious than down-right railing Neither is there any hypocrisie so ridiculous as to shrink back and protest all the tenderness in the world to a mans reputation and yet at the same time of your own accord and without any asking go about to blast it for ever with the most spiteful and venemous suggestions and then think to wipe your mouth and by a counterfeit smile or two make amends for all this treachery And when you have stab'd a man to the heart excuse all your officious virulence by crying whilst you are giving the mortal stroak Sir I beg your pardon I intend no harm and however I may in publique make bold to traduce your memory yet still I recreate my self with believing that my simple judgement cannot beyond my intention abate any thing of your just value with others So that it seems when you publish any thing to a mans disparagement you do not intend to be believed It is a Dove-like Serpent that never stings but when it kisses too but yet it is time for shame to give over this out-worn cheat it is now too impudent and palpable to impose upon any mans credulity it did you service thirty years since when you dethroned his late Majesty under pretence of making him the most Glorious King that ever weilded the English Scepter but you must not after so long an experience of your hypocrisie and leasings presume so rudely upon the silliness of mankind as to think at this time of day of cheating and abusing them with such ridiculous contradictions And now when you remark it as the great weakness of the late King that he trusted his exquisite understanding to the Clergies keeping it is plain you mean Arch-bishop Laud and I pray with whom could he better trust it than a man so learned so pious so wise and that studied to do both God and his Majesty good service Here are all the Qualifications of an able and an honest Statesman so that though the Clergy were not ordinarily so well fitted by education as others for Political Affairs yet it is evident Arch-bishop Laud was being both wise and learned and pious and this is as great a character as can be given of any Favourite in any age So that whereas you object it as the great over-sight and infirmity of his late Majesty that he committed his exquisite understanding to the Arch-bishops keeping you could not have given a greater proof of his wisdom than to make choice of a man so admirably qualified to do him service neither can you blame him for being ignorant that God would not bless a Church-man in Affairs of
whole Chapters in my first Book to prove that as the opposite opinion is no less than rank Atheism or Blasphemy so it utterly subverts the Power of all Government and irrecoverably destroys the safety of all societies in the World This Confidence of yours is so provoking that I cannot but wonder your ears have not done Penance for the rudeness of your Tongue Macedo thou art able to outforge and outbrazen ten Macedos And yet so assured are the drivers of the dissenting Herd and so silly the Creatures they stear that there is scarce a Shop-Divine in the whole Nation that does not as heartily believe this unhoopable Jurisdiction to be the only design of all my Books as he does the ten Commandments to be obligatory or the Apostles Creed to be true But when my innocence as to this charge is so infinitely clear and when they have nothing to object against me or to plead in their own behalf but upon its presumption that is a demonstrative Argument of a bassled and defenceless cause that can be defended with no other weapon but impudent and bare-faced Calumny And now when you have once taken this for granted away you run clattering with abundance of noise and nothing till you fall into another story full as lowd and ratling as this That I have complemented his Majesty so far as to inform him that he may if he please reserve the Priesthood and the exercise of it to himself So said J. O. too and was very pleasant in his Remarques upon it but was I suppose sufficiently satisfied or at least silenced with this plain and simple Answer That in the Paragraph against which this Objection is level'd I undertook to give a brief Historical account of the Original of all Civil and Ecclesiastical Government where I shewed how in the first Ages of the World they were vested in the same Person and founded upon the same Right of paternal Authority and in this State of things antecedent to all superinduced Restraints and positive Institutions I asserted the supreme Magistrate might if he pleased reserve the exercise of the Priesthood to himself And so all Writers that I know of assert as well as I. Though afterwards the Priestly office was in the Jewish Common-wealth expresly derogated from the Kingly Power by being setled upon the Tribe of Levi and the Line of Aaron and so likewise in the Christian Church by being appropriated to the Apostles and their Successors that derive their Priestly Office and Power from our Blessed Saviours express and immediate Commission Now what I affirm'd of things in the bare State of Nature without the guidance of Revelation for this man to represent it as if I had applyed it indifferently to all Ages and Periods of the Church by whatsoever positive Laws and different Institutions they may be govern'd is wonderfully suitable to the Genius of his own Wit and Ingenuity But though I think I have passed so high a Complement upon his Majesty this only troubles you how his Majesty would look in all the Sacerdotal Habiliments and the Pontisical Wardrobe Alas good man Your tender heart would not serve you to behold the Ceremonies of the Coronation The Rebels Wounds bled too fresh in your Memory it would have rubb'd up all the late sad spectacles at Cheering-Cross and minded you of all those choice ones that were hang'd to make way for this great Solemnity for whose sakes the 29. of May is annually observed among the secret ones as a day of private humiliation to bemoan the loss and commemorate the Martyrdom of so many anointed and precious Brethren But as for the malicious Consequence that you out of stark staring Love to the Church of which you are so enamour'd that it even joys your Heart to hear any thing well said of her suggest upon this Occasion that then he may and it is all the reason in the World he should assume the Revenue too it only shews your Judgment at nicking a Lucky juncture of Affairs When you have put the King in mind of his Coronation-Oath in which he swears to protect and defend the Bishops and the Churches under their Government to preserve their Canonical Privileges to confirm the Laws Customes and Franchises granted to the Clergy by the glorious King St. Edward and all other Kings of England his Lawful and Religious Predecessours Immediately whilst this Oath is piping hot to advise him to disfranchise them from the common rights of all Subjects and to invade their Proprieties not only contrary to his solemn Oath but to the most ancient and most ratified Laws of the Realm But methinks it more concerns the Parliament than any private man to chastise such bold and lavish talk as plainly subverts the very foundations of all our Proprieties in that the Churches Rights and Revenues are vested in her by as firm and fundamental Laws as any by which you or I can hold or claim our Estates so that the Laws of England have made but a very silly provision for any mans Birthright if they are not a sufficient security for the Churches Patrimony And it becomes such a tender assertor of the English Liberties to insinuate the subversion of those Laws upon which alone they are founded I hope you will be consider'd for your pains at least for your good will it is no wonder to see you upon all occasions so afraid of Pillories and Whipping-Posts for if you are resolved to follow these courses and at last go uncropt to your Grave it will be a scandal to the Justice of the Nation But before I quit this Master-Calumny of the unhoopable Magistrate it will not be improper to take an account of your Hoops and Hola's that relate to it for when you have acted over your six Plays you begin them all afresh for you have at least eleven or twelve distinct Beginnings and run them together with some few coincident passages all down with Hoops and Hola's i. e. with noise and confidence The first next to these I have answer'd is that I have asserted the unhoopable Power wherewith I have invested Princes to be their Natural Right and Antecedent to Christ c. But oh the Consequence then his Majesty may lay by his Dieu and make use only of his Mon-droit Hoop and Hola hold not too lowd for it does not so necessarily follow that because he has his Patent under the Broad-Seal of Nature that therefore he derived it not from God for as much as Nature it self has no power of making grants but all its Commissions are sign'd only by the Author of Nature and all Natural Rights whatsoever are the Immediate Gifts of his Providence that has order'd and disposed the frame of Nature according to his own Sovereign Will and Pleasure and therefore you must resolve all Natural Rights as well as all Natural Laws into his Authority for though Nature may discover yet it is only he that passes and enacts them
only shelter but abett their pride and insolence Those vices that meer moral Philosophy would banish humane conversation take shelter under the protection of zeal and those heats that bare reason would quench in humane nature are kindled at the Altars of Religion and they usually nourish this glowing coal in their bosoms till it burn out all their bowels of natural pity and compassion This is enough but yet it is not all for as their zeal is implacably fierce and bitter against all that oppose them so is it salvagely rude and censorious against all that are not as extravagantly mad raving as themselves aspersing men of a silent and composed piety with the odious names of hypocrites and Luke-warm Formalists and abhorring nothing more than the vertues of Christian meekness and discretion But if this be Religion then farewel all principles of humanity and good nature farewel that glory of Christianity an universal love and tenderness to mankind let us bid adieu to all the practices of charity let us renounce all pretences to the meekness and innocence of a Christian Spirit Let our B. Saviour be branded as the greatest Incendiary in the world let his Laws be cancell'd as arts and precepts of Sedition let us banish Religion humane converse as the mother of all rudeness and incivility and let us at last go to the school of Atheism and Impiety to learn good manners And yet all this is the unavoidable event of fixing peoples care and zeal upon this imaginary godliness call'd Grace as distinguish'd from all morality or the obligations of natural Religion in that whilest their minds are busied and satisfied with this phantastick nothing it appeases their Consciences in the neglect of their useful and material duties and prevents all endeavours of possessing them with serious and effectual Resolutions of vertue and true goodness I must beg your pardon if I have discoursed too warmly and copiously upon this Theme it is you see of very weighty Consequence both to the welfare of mankind here and their eternal salvation hereafter and upon this mistake meerly are founded all Abuses and Impostures of Religion whatsoever viz. when men fancy it to be some secret they know not what and therefore I here declare that I still adhere to my opinion with the seriousness of a dying man and that I shall be content to stand or fall for ever by my integrity in this belief But what can we think of you must you not be deeply concern'd in a matter of such sad and serious importance to whiff it all away with so childish a conceit as this that this is first to turn Grace into a meer fable and then to give the moral of it At least must we not suppose you profoundly learned to be so very fond of such a poor crawling fancy that were it not ridiculous for its sence would be unpardonable for its wit and yet you are so highly opinion'd of it that you have reserved it for the disert of your book and serve it in for the last jest to give a farewel to the whole entertainment One pregnant conceit I had almost overpass'd in hast give me but leave to record it and I have done viz. that I have made the passage to Heaven so easie that one may fly thither without Grace as Gonzales to the Moon only by the help of his Ganzas Now I would fain know what likeness there is between flying without Grace and with Ganzas do but make me out the wit of the similitude and I will cast you in the sence of the argument into the bargain The Plot or Hypothesis of the fourth Play is debauchery tolerated That is to say I have in some of my Books represented his Majesty this Declaration to issue out to all his Loving Subjects for the toleration of debauchery in opposition to that of the fifteenth of March for the indulgence of tender consciences Whereas ever since our happy Restauration we have out of our special zeal and care for the interest and security of the Church of England executed with all severity all penal Laws against whatsoever sort of Non-conformists and Recusants but yet finding by the sad experience of 12 years how ineffectual all forcible courses are either to reduce or restrain dissenters We think our self obliged to make use of that unhoopable Power that is naturally inherent in us not granted by Christ but belonging to us and our Predecessors under the broad Seal of Nature next and immediately before him By vertue whereof we have and claim an absolute dominion not only over the consciences of all our subjects but over all the Laws of God and man so as to repeal or dispense with their obligation as shall from time to time seem good to our Royal Will and Pleasure And therefore that we may obviate and prevent those mischiefs that are likely to befal our Kingdom from the sobriety and demureness of the Non-conformists our Will and Pleasure is to give a free and uncontroulable Licence to all manner of vice and debauchery and of our Princely Grace and Favour we release to all our Loving Subjects the obligation of the ten Commandments and all Laws of God and Statutes of this Realm whatsoever contrary to the contents of this our Declaration And we require of all Judges Justices and other Officers whatsoever that the execution of all manner of penalties annexed to the Laws aforesaid whether by Pillories Whipping-posts Gallies rods or axes c. be immediately suspended and they are hereby suspended From whence we hope by the Blessing of God to give some check and allay to the insolence of fanatick Spirits and by debauching our good people out of all tenderness of Conscience to free our Kingdoms from those great and grievous annoyances wherewith they perpetually disturb our Government and at last bring back all the advantages of peace and good-fellowship both to our Self and all our loving Subjects c. Such a Declaration as this had been a stabbing proof against me and home to your purpose But when you have exhibited so foul a charge without so much as referring to any passage of mine to make it good you prove nothing at all but that you have a bold face and a foul mouth For we all know you are not so unskilful at improving the smallest and most inconsiderable advantages that had you been furnish'd with any shadow of proof you would have smother'd it and therefore when you have produced none your Readers easily conclude that the only reason is because you know none Yes but however I have said as much as amounts to the same reckoning But what have you to do with my reckonings mind your own accounts and take care to ballance your expences with your incoms Assure your self I shall never trust you to be any of my Auditors for I find you are as ignorant in Computation as in Logick But yet that which amounts to this summ is this that it
Friend and Foe and eating up All Men Women and Children He that came off with Honour in threescore and seventeen Duels before he was one and twenty and in forty years more by Land and Sea fought as many pitcht Battels could not have made a more war-like sound Certainly you go as I have read of one in the 5 Epist. to Marcellinus for why should not I read your Fathers as well as you read mine always hung like a Justice of Peace's Hall with Pikes Halberts Peitronels Callivers and Muskets And if you could but victual your self for half a year in your Breeches it is not to be doubted but you would be able to over-run whole Countries Hungary Transylvania Bohemia and all the other territories of modern Orthodoxy The first Argument I made use of to remove all popular suspicions of Popery from the Government was the manifest inconvenience to the State that must arise from any alteration in the Church and this I proved from those impregnable principles of Loyalty that are peculiar to our Communion from all other Dissenters so that all design of Change being so manifestly imprudent and impolitick I thought it too wild a surmise for the Wisdome of the Government unless it were not only trinkled but bewitch'd to expose it self and therefore that there could be no other probable ground of danger but from the restlesness and seditious practices of the Fanatique Party that might possibly some time or other make way for the return of Popery by making disturbances in Church and State And to this purpose I gave a large Character of the peculiar Genius and the distinguishing principles of the Church of England from the Gibelline Faction But it seems you do not like my Characters and what is that to me am I obliged to justifie them because such Jack-Gentlemen as you do not approve them If you have any thing to except you know the Law and the Press is open but your bare dislike will no where pass for a confutation And to tell us that you find on either side only the natural effect of such Hyberbole's and Oratory that is not to be believed is in a great many words only to say I lye It may be so but yet that satisfies no body And yet tell me can you deny the Loyalty of the Church of England both in its principles and practices if you cannot whatever I have said in her commendation is undeniably true and then it is you that lease Can you deny that the regular Clergy are the most zealous Assertours of the Rights of Princes and that they and only they teach subjection to be an indispensable duty of Religion without false reserves and limitations Can you deny that those Subjects that stuck to the Communion of the Church of England ever stuck to hazard Lives and Fortunes out of devotion to their Prince Can you prove that every any forsook the Royal Cause in its greatest distress that did not first forsake the Church of England Can you deny that the main Article that distinguishes ours from all other Communions is that we vest the Crown in an Ecclesiastical Supremacy which is one half of the Sovereign Power whilst they challenge it either to themselves or some foreign Jurisdiction that has no more ground of Claim beside bare confidence to exercise any Authority in the Kings Dominions than the King has in his These are the Elogies I gave to the Church of England If they are such Hyperboles as are not to be believed that is to say if they are lyes make it good or else confess your impudence to call them so not only without proof or evidence but against Experience and Demonstration And so for my contrary Character of the Fanatiques that too is all a lye or such an Hyperbole as is not to be believed and so I am answer'd but if that be all you have to say I am very well satisfied too You had done them some kindness if you had undertaken to prove either that the Preachers never taught the people Aphorisms of Disloyalty and Rebellion or that they were never engaged in actual War against their lawful Prince by their Instigation or that any of them have renounced their old Principles though they could never be prevail'd with so much as to acknowledge their Crime either to God or the King These are plain Cases of Conscience so that till they have done this if they were ever guilty they are so still And therefore when you only tell us that I have dress'd them all up in Sambenita 's painted with all the Flames and Devils in Hell All the service you do your brethren is to inform the World that whoever will draw a Fanatique to the life must get the Devil to sit for his picture and if a man cannot describe them without dressing them up in Sambenita's I cannot help that this I am sure of that I have not made one false stroke or ill feature that I cannot justifie to any Artist I am not concern'd how ugly the piece is so it be but like and yet you your self have not been able to tell me one fault that I have committed I am only sorry that they are so very deformed as you have represented them for I never suspected before you informed me either that they were so bad or the Devil so good But I know what it is that so much girds you though your guilty Conscience dares not touch it viz. that I have there proved that nothing but the Good Old Cause lyes at the bottom of all your present Schism and that the most zealous Patriots of Conventicles are such as have given the World but very little ground to suspect them from their profess'd Principles or open Practices of the least tenderness of Religion and kindness to Monarchy so that nothing better can ever be expected from them than factions and republican Designs I know this twinges to the quick it is so observable all the Kingdome over that as you cannot endure to hear it so you dare not deny it And now your appearance has amply verified the truth of the Observation When at the same time that you come forth to vindicate the Innocence and Peaceableness of the Non-conformists and pass your word to the King that they shall never lift up disloyal thought against him you cannot forbear to let us see how warmly you are concern'd to justifie the late Rebellion In that the King had turn'd his whole Kingdome into a Prison that many thousands of his Subjects were constrained to seek habitations abroad every Countrey even though it were among Savages and Canibals appear'd more hospitable to them than their own that his whole Reign was deformed with Sibthorpianism i. e. with his affecting an absolute and arbitrary Government that himself and his party were the cause of the War that the Parliament took up Arms in defence both of their Liberty and Religion and that their Cause against the King was like
at any time a mind to exercise their zeal and malice they fall a whetting their claws upon Gowns and Cassocks and to be alwayes inveighing against any comfortable subsistence of the Clergy is the most undoubted symptom and discovery of a Zealous Brother And every Mechanick that for his parts and education is qualified for nothing higher than the Clerks and the Sextons Office to tune Psalms or dig graves thinks much of the Doctors Allowance as wanton and superfluous though it be short of the Returns of his own mean and small-ware Trade And when an ingenious Person has spent his Youth and too often his Estate to fit himself for this Sacred Employment this is a great encouragement and a doughty reward for one of an ingenuous and learned education to be trampled upon by every illiterate and conceited Clown And though these men are not much to be admired for their manners and ingenuity upon any account yet their barbarity shews it self in nothing more shamelesly than this insolence towards men so infinitely their betters by the right both of their parts and their breeding This is a rudeness peculiar to themselves from all other Savages in the world beside And though we rake the East and the West Indies there are no People so prodigiously fall'n from all sense of humanity and civil manners as to think their Priesthood the most plausible Object upon which they can wreck their Spite and Malice much less to think it an Argument of their Saint-ship and acceptance with their Gods to affront and vilifie the Officers of their sacred Rites But as for your suggesting to the King his right of assuming Church-revenues I must confess it is very kindly and obligingly offer'd and first like so great a Patron of the Church of England that it even joys your heart to hear any thing well said of her and secondly like so great a Patriot of the Subjects Liberties that out of pure love to mankind admonishes Kings not only to preserve their Rights but to yield to their Infirmities Now whatever Liberties the Subject may claim they are all founded upon such Grants of Princes or such Laws of Propriety as are at least confirm'd and ratified by Royal Assent And then if you look into the most ancient and as the Lawyers inform us fundamental Constitutions of this Realm I believe you will scarce find any other Liberties of the Subject so firmly establish'd as the Rights and Immunities of the Church so that by the same right and with the same honesty that you fancy the King may seize its revenues he may as well chalenge any mans Inheritance nay and reassume all the Demesnes of the Kingdome to the use of the Crown So that whatsoever Liberties the Subjects of England may or do claim this suggestion subverts them all cancels all Propriety and throws up every mans Estate into the hands of his supreme Landlord Had it not been for the unfortunate adventure at Picquet I am apt to believe you would have as little approved this Doctrine as your Neighbours And it cannot but be so edifying with the Nobility and Gentry that the Parliament will no doubt at the next Session think themselves obliged to see you sufficiently trinkled for your good advice But 't is time to have done with your censure of the Clergy of all former Ages and all foreign Churches and I will say no more in their behalf because my age has not given me leave to be acquainted with the Patriarchs that lived either before or immediately after the Flood nor my Travels with the Bishops of Munster Cullen and Strasburgh But your Malice rises against the Clergy of our own Age and Nation and for their sakes is it that you have bestowed this obliging Character upon the Clergy of all former Ages And here that you may not be mistaken you begin with much circumspection your Oratio expurgatoria to the Body of the English Clergy who have been ever since the Reformation of the most eminent for Divinity and Piety in all Christendome Though by the way I presume you mean not Hugh Peters for his Piety because he was hanged nor J. O. for his Divinity because he deserves it nor the Bishops for either because you esteem them as you would have us no part of the body of the English Clergy But whoever is meant be sure there is mischief at hand and it is near breaking out for a Jacal does not more naturally attend a Lyon nor Murther follow a Long-Parliament Fast than malice does your most solemn and sweet-lip'd Apologies And thus out it comes Those you intend are only a particular Bran of persons who will in spite of Fate be accounted the Church of England men that to encrease their own Splendour care not though they set all on flame about them men that have devested themselves of all Humanity and all good manners men that would never endure any Overture towards the Peace of the Church and Nation wherein they lived lastly men that have always been for the most precipitate brutish and sanguinary Counsels Now though the Character agree well enough and you have ever been a deep Youth yet I cannot think you intend either Hugh Peters his Bran or J. O's Bran or the Tryers Bran or Usinulca's Bran or any other Fanatique or Modern Orthodox Bran but plainly and sincerely Arch-Bishop Land's Bran the Bran that deformed the whole Reign of the best Prince that ever weilded English Scepter the Bran of Ceremonies and the Bran of Arminianism in short the Bran that will not depart from the Church as 't is by Law establish'd only to save the credit of some sturdy Swiss that will not conform for that is your only charge against them that they will not be brought to temper and moderation nor make the least abatement to bring the honest Presbyterians off with some little reputation But your meaning is better to be understood by the Apologies you make to the Church of England it self She has not a more dutiful and devout child than you you cannot name her but you are immediately upon your knees and begging her Blessing And it even joys your heart to hear any thing well said of her and as it is by Law establish'd has such a stock of solid and deserved Reputation that you could even weep for joy And yet are you all this while most lovingly inveighing against her legal Establishments Her three Ceremonies you will not endure for all the World because they are you know as it were Sacraments and that because they want nothing of a Sacramental Nature but a Sacramental Nature and so are as you know too a kind of Antisacraments And so obtruded upon the Church that without condescending to these additional inventions no man is to be admitted to partake of the true Sacraments which were of Christs appointing A dutiful expression of your obedience to the Church as establish'd by Law that she Tyrannically obtrudes