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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43613	The ceremony-monger his character in five chapters ... with some remarks (in the introduction) upon the new-star-chamber, or late course of the Court of King's Bench, of the nature of a libel, and scandalum magnatum, and in conclusion, hinting at some mathematical untruths and escapes in the common-prayer book, both as to doctrine and discipline, and what bishops, were, are, and should be, and concerning ordination, humbly proposed to the consideration of the Parliament / by E. Hickeringill ...	Hickeringill, Edmund, 1631-1708.	1689 (1689)	Wing H1799; ESTC R20364	90,871	81

Rule blows will never cure his Blindness Besides Uniformity is an unnatural impossible and therefore an irrational wicked and vain attempt Go teach God to make a new Heaven with Uniformity of Stars and Skies spangled uniformly they are now all of different Forms and Features Go reach him to make Men uniform they are all now of different Forms and Features Go teach him to make a new Earth and set a new Face on it The Landskip now looks so much the more lovely by the Variety which God and Nature seems to delight in And wilt thou thou silly Ceremony monger and Projector be wiser than God If thou hadst seen our blessed Saviour sometimes stand and pray sometimes kneel and pray sometimes ly on a Bed or Couch and eat the Holy Supper sometimes fall on his Face and pray if thou hadst seen this variety thou wouldst have Excommunicated him then caplass'd and jalled him if thy fierceness had not kick't him and spurn'd him up hadst thou but had an Act of Uniformity to back thee We are bound to honour God with our Substance In Works of Charity the greatest Duty but how much when and how in particular is left to the discretion and liberty of every Man no rule of Imposition is or can be made about it We are obliged to honour God with our Bodies the least thing in true Worship for bodily Exercise profiteth little but how much when and how in particular is lest to the discretion and liberty of every Man no Rule of Imposition is or can be made about it Then you 'l say the Church of England was mistaken in one of her XXXIX Articles that says The Church has power to appoint Ceremonies And also the King and Parliament were mistaken in the Act of Uniformity that enjoint all Bishops and Clergy-men on pain of Deprivation to subscribe assent and consent to all and every thing as true which is contained in the Common-Prayer Book Here is a heavy Charge Convocation-House and Parliament-House both upon my back but come one at once and I 'le deal with them both one after another as well and as fast as I can First then I say in general that any Decree under Heaven that is either unlawful or Impossible to be obeyed is not at all Obligatory This is so plain that it needs no further Proof it is like the Light of the Sun self-evident if the Sun shine no man doubts it but he that is blind or winks on purpose lest he should be convinc'd And as to that Article viz. The Church has power to enjoin Ceremonies it confounds all the Ceremony-mongers amongst us And in all my Travels Reading and Discourses I never met with any Man Bishop Priest or Lay-man that ever did could or durst explain what is there meant by Church If it be taken for the Clergy either in or out of Convocation or Synod viz. That they have of themselves a Jus Divinum a Divine Right to enjoin Ceremonies to the People of England they all incur a Praemunire that claim such a Power and justly for they there by set up a Legislative power independent of and distinct from the King and Parliament the only Legislators and is of most pernicious Consequence and found to be so in all Ages And by the Statutes of Provisors made both by Popish and Protestant Kings and Parliaments condemn'd as most pernicious and insufferable by invading the only Legislative power Kings Lords and Commons the great Fundamental of our Government and setting up a Thing called A Church independent of and equal with or above the State and bearding the State if it be so bold as not to please them or should dare to displease them Better it is not to be a State than to be such a pitiful State at this precarious rate that dare not but be Priest-ridden Our Noble Ancestors in Popish Times scorn'd the motion and were true English Men This distinction of Church and State is a Popish and pernicious distinction two higher powers is one too much But if by the Church in that Article be meant the King and Parliament the Representatives of the whole Body of the people the Convocation and Canon-makers will by no means acknowledge that for that makes them Cyphers and as many people account them useless Tools And never did King and Parliament neither make Laws coercive in matters of Religion or Uniformity in Religion but Confusion Divisions Schisms Tumults Sedicion Blood Ruine and civil Wars were the dismal consequences in England whereas there would be none of these no dissentions no penalties no complaining in our Streets if the Legislative power unsuborned by Priest-craft make no Laws but what are proper for their cognizance and for the peace welfare good manners and good abearing in the State And then where there is no Law there can be no Transgression and those odious Names of Dissention and Sedition Conformist and Nonconformist will find an eternal Grave I 'le give but one Instance in that same Act of Uniformity which requires all Clergy-men to give their assent and consent to all and every thing for Truth which is contained in the Common-prayer Book But who made the Kings and Parliaments of England infallible Popes since the Church of England confesses she may Err And how irrational and unaccountable is it for men that confess their ignorance and yet with the same mouth will vote a Law or Imposition of their Sense in Religion upon all Mankind under their Jurisdiction For ought they know they may command and enact that all Clergy-men shal assent in their Judgments and consent in their Wills to a palpable error lie or untruth or else take their choice to starve lie down and die for Farm they may not Thrash they cannot and if they Beg they are sent to Bridewel And this is our very case this day We may not chuse what Chapters for Lessons what Collects Epistles and Gospels we list to read but must read those that are appointed for the day And the last year they were all falsly appointed or else those words in the Common-prayer Book are false that fixes and ascertains Easter Sunday the Aera or beginning of the Account whence all the Lessons Collects Episties and Gospels are computed nominated and appointed But that is not only silly and uncertain but false and contradictory in the Common-prayer book and therefore both the said Aera's cannot be true As for example by one Common-prayer Book Rule the last Easter Sunday should have been kept upon April 8 because Easter Sunday whence all other Feasts Lessons Collects are computed all the year after is always the first Sunday next after the first Full Moon which happens after March 25 which was April 8 last past But by another Rule in the Common prayer Book it was and so we kept it upon April 15 last past They cannot both be true but one of them is a Mathematical untruth and which no body can deny yet Bishops and

is impossible to superintend or Episcopiz● with one pale of eyes then come first into the Church implicite Faith in their Journey-Men and of all Journey-Men che●fly the Arch-Deacon's called Oculi Episcoporum there are but five Pair of such great Implicite Eyes in our D●ocess and if they could see without spectacles they would be the better Eves I think But the Prospect is too far all over the Diocess for one Bishop to see or superintend But who made that Prospect so large Pa●●ecia a Parish by our antient Canons signifies a Diocess and a 〈◊〉 was no larger than a Parish ' ●ill Popish Avarice and boundless Ambition taught Pluralities A good Bishop if he keep in his Bounds as the King's Commissioner not sancying that he has or can have any New Spiritual Character or greater Spiritual Character than of a Presbyter as appears by the Words of Ordination of both of them the same the very same in all Essential Points only the King's Mandate or Commission gives him an Ecclesiastical Character more than he had and a Temporal Character by making him a Baron of the Realm with Lands and Honours annex● and not one jot too much if he make good use thereof in Hospitallty Charity and somewhat too as an Umbrage against Contempt the Wages are well enough bestowed if he be fit for the place pions prudent and learned and he has as lawfull a Claim and Title to them from his Predecessors as other Lords or Corporations and cannot without great Injustice as well as dangerous President be bereaved of them who but a Fool will go about to remove Groundsells and Fundamental Constitutions But his Work is so great and the necessary Qualifications so eminent and Extraordinary that no one man is fit for so great a Charge and those that are fitt●st will scarcely accept it the Temporal Honours and Rewards are no Temptation to them For a Bishop ought not to ordain any 'till he has first by his own Examination and Knowledge found their fitness for so great and holy a Work Not trusting by Implicite Faith to Mr. Arch-Deacon nor Mr. Deacon's Deputy And how can he with a safe Conscience deliver a soul to the devil by an Anathema when he knows nothing of the Nature of the Crime nor Prool except by blind devotion or Implicite Faith in the Register and Surrogate Mr. Necessity so Men call him Because he has no Law. So that the grand Distempers of our Church do all proceed from this Original Sin radical in our Constitution and no Art of Man can cure it or save us from a Contemptible Clergy and more despicable as well as prophane Discipline but by applying Remedies to the very Constitution which is neither incurable nor hard to cure if wise and willing Physitians do but use their skill When Boy-Popes and Boy-Bishops or ignorant and unlearned Bishops by favour Money or Friends were advanc'd they neither durst attempt to Examine a Scholar's fin●ess for the holy function nor could do it without betraying their own unfitness and ignorance which begot Arch-Deacons they served for Eyes to the blind and at general Councils usually for Mouths and Tongues and Brains too The Dotage of Bishop Alexander brought Arch-Deacon Achanasius into the first Council of Nice which brought him into Request and when the old Mandled into the Bishoprick also of Alexandria But above all the Implicite Faith-Men I ever read have my Commendations remembred to the Pope in the words of Cardinal Bellarmine lib. 4 de Romano Pontifice cap. 5. Si papa erraret praecipiendo vitia vel prohibendo virtutes teneretur Ecclesia ●redere vitia esse bona virtutes malas nisi vellet cont●à Conscientiam peccaere If the Pope err ●hat's a buil● too good Cardinal as wise as you are by Commanding Vice and prohibiting Virtue yet the Church is bound to believe That Vice is good and Virtue evil except the Church sin wilfully and against Conscience Even so if a Bishop by Implicit Faith and Error O●d●in a vitious or ignorant Person a Priest or Bishop and Madam Portsmouth or Father Peter help him to a Presentation or Mandate every thing may be done that has been done or should Silence a vermous Preacher yet the Parish or Diocess must I say must accept him for their Spiritual Shepherd Guide and Watchman though he be never so blind a Guide never so wolvish or cruel a Shepherd never so dull and drowzy a Watchman or Reading-Don or Copy-holding Plagiary except they will be willful sinners though he starve their Souls they must feed him with the Tythe-sheaf and the Tythe-pig He 's not fit to be cail'd to the Bar that can but just read his Breviat though he tell the Judge he has notable Books in his Study that argue the Case and state it notably but he carries them not about never in his head Nor is he fit to be a Fellow in the Colledge of Physidans because Galen and Hypocrates lies moulding in his Study nor is he fit to be free of the Pulpit that if his Sermon Book fall down out of his hand must also come down as wise a man as when he went up l●● the Curtain fall down too and the Play 's at an end good night Parson But all Preachers have no Memory nor Elocution and presence of Mind No no But then there 's a good Thrasher or a good Cobler spoyl'd to make a bad Patson a poor Transcriber and dull Translator whose Character next follows CHAP. III. Of the Reading-Dons of the Pulpit THis Ecclesiastical Sophister is a true Son of the Church of England that ever was and devoted to her Service as in Duty bound for she gave him freely all the Devotion he has namely the Common-Prayer-Book and the Homilies which are very good things to all but to him a God a Creator by which as a Church-man though as lean and cadaverous as a Church-Mouse he lives and moves and has his being But as true a Son of the Church as he is yet he is a Bastard Divine but made a Denizon Ecclesiastick and free of the Church by the King and notwithstanding his spurious Original Legitimated and made capable of Succession in Church-Lands Honours and Dignities by Act of Parliament viz. the Act of Uniformity In England In England I say for in the whole Protestant World That Act has no Paralel nor this fellow I characteriz any Fellow in the whole Christian World but such as himself he is a None such all the World over in all Churches except what he calls and he may well speak well of her the most Incomparable Church of England not only the Protestants all the world over but the very Papists nay the very Stage-players would kick him out the very Boys and Wenches there nay School-Boys must say their Parts better or they are sure to be whip'd for 't Nay the Stage Players would have no Customers except they could get Penal Laws and a Constable A Jaylor and

all Languages As Mat. 1.21 Thou shalt call his Name Jehoshua Joshua or Jesu all one Hebrew word Besides That Holy Text doth not say in the Name Joshua but in the Name of Joshua 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but my Ceremony-Moneer does not bow at the proper Name of our 〈◊〉 or Joshua to wit Emmanuel or God with us which 〈◊〉 both his ●ivinity and Humanity nor at the found of the word Christ Messiah c. but stands as unconcern'd and as 〈◊〉 as a Stake Besides he does not how the Knee but like the Papists nods his Head or puts off his Cap or Hat as the Popish Jesuites do when they Preach every time they mention the word Jesu if they do not forget which they commonly do and as commonly Sin if that Foppery be a Duty Besides That Text says Every Knee shall bow in Heaven and Earth and under the Earth but there are no Knees in Heaven and those in Graves in the Earth and under the Earth are too stiff to how Come 't is Nou sense and Ridiculous all over and as a very Specimen of my Fop as any other For as there is no Scripture to Vouch for him so no Reason What shal Christians be like that Hystaron Proteron Herb. which Physicians as toolishly call Filius ante Patrem The Son before the Father Do we well to blame the Arrians for placing the Father above the Son Do we well to believe the Unity and Equality of the Holy Trinity And yet do we bow at the Name of the Second and not at the Name of the First and Third Person of the Holy Trinity Nay Is Christ divided do we pay more Reverence to the Name Joshua the N●me of my Foot Boy then to the Holy Name of Jesu namely Messia Christ or Emmanuel For shame do not pretend a reason for such Foppish Adoration And if neither Holy Writ nor right R●ason be of thy side Mr. Ceremony-Monger thy Canon will be noll'd by the Statutes the Acts of Uniform●●y that makes it very Penal even deprivation 〈◊〉 for thee to follow thy Trade of making Coremor●es which God never made nor the King and Parliament or right reason ever made Besides there are several 〈◊〉 of Provisors and then he incures also a Prem●ire to set up the Mi●re above the Crown the Bishop and Priest above the King and the Convecation-house above westminster-hall And this Sawey and Priestly Petulaney deriv'd from Rome makes my Ceremony-monger many times very troublesome to the State and to the Crown which he will obey like Thomas a Beck●t with a salvo honore Dei that is many times as far as he list and when he list or in any thing that is for his own ends and his own honour nor a jot further of which I shall give no late instances here of those that could strain at a G●at when against their Interest though for and against Gods glory and yet could swallow a Camel if sent from that Court if it would but advance their Dominion and sway or at least not hinder it witnesses their publishing in Churches the Sports that may be used on the Lords Day c. when this Spirit possesses my Ceremony-monger he is not only troublesome but dangerous and insufferable which will make me repeat some o● my own Speech Printed Anno 1681. p. 3.4 In Vindication of my Book called the naked Truth though I am no Erastian concerning the Keys the the Keys of the Church which some said was true but unseasonably urg'd surely 't is now seasonable what was then said to the Arch-deacon viz. And first like a Churchman of the old stamp he will permit his Majesty to come into the Church that 's more kindness than old St. Ambrose Bishop of Milan would show sometimes to the great Emperour Theodosius when he did not do as he would have him to do nay this Arch-deacon opens the doors himself to let his Majesty into the Church but he will nor trust him with the Keys as who should say we will open the Church doors to your Majesty and come in and welcome whilst we continue good friends But they that keep the Keys and can open the Church-doors to let his Majesty in can also whilst we have the keeping of the Keys upon displeasure lock him out well for this very trick and for another late Scotch trick it I were a Privy Councellour I would advise his Majesty as Head of the Church and the Governour thereof to keep the Keys of the Church in his Pocket or hang them under his Girdle if it be but because this Prclatical Champion this same pitiful Arch-deacon like another Pope or Sr. Peter w●●● keep the Keys of the Church and will keep his Majesty from them and we would f●●● perswade him that our Laws to use his words p. 2. of the Proeme Excludes the purely Spiritual Power of the Keys from the Supremacy of our Kings except it be to see that Spiritual Men do their Duty the 〈◊〉 Belike this same Arch-deacon carries the Leges Angi● the Laws of England in his belly and greedy gut for I am su● he carries the● 〈◊〉 or no where he carries not these bulky L●ws of England in his 〈…〉 no gues in his brains For I pray Good D D. where goes our Laws 〈…〉 ●urely Spiritual Power of the Keys from the Soptemacy of our Kings if our Kings ●ke good King David or wh● King Soloman shou● have a mind to be ●cclesia●tes In the days even of Popery I never heard of a King shut our even from the Topp●n-Pulpit if he had a mind to climb so high stone Henry the 3d. made 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 ●he Pulpit took his Text Psal 85.10 Righteousness and Peace have kiss d●each other and then in his Sermon ad Cierum to the Le●rned M●ks of the Cathedral Church of Winchester when he had a little self end too as some Pulpiteers have also had in the case namely to C●jole the said Monks to Elect his Brother Athelmar Bishop of Winchester Paraphrasing and enlarging upon his Text and saying to use his own words 〈…〉 To me and other Kings who are to govern the people belongs the rigour of Judgment and Justice to you who are men of quiet and Religion Peace and Tranquillity And this day I hear you have for your own good been savourable to my requ●● With many such like words I do not know whether the King had got a License to Preach from a Bishop It seems the Clergy then too would favour Kings in what was for their own good and if it were for their own good would also permit the King to take a Text and preach in their Cathedral Church how hard hearted or strait-lac't soever our Archdean proves and will not suffer our Kings to have the Keys neither of the Church nor Pulpit I say therefore some Kings would therefore keep the Keys of the Church themselves and trust never a D. D. of them