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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39326	A vindication of the clergy from the contempt imposed upon them by the author of The grounds and occasions of the contempt of the clergy and religion with some short reflections on his further observations.	Eachard, John, 1636?-1697.	1672 (1672)	Wing E65; ESTC R35669	53,663	152

than every rash young Shimei will allow them the true Reasons whereof will soon appear if we consider who and what manner of Persons they are who do most industriously throw Contempt upon them and they must be either our professed Enemies or pretended Friends Now our Churches Enemies are reducible to three principal Herds or Bands The first whereof are the openly debauched profane and Men Atheistically disposed who think they were born at all adventures and came into the World as the Leviathan was sent into the Deep meerly to sport and take their pastime therein who are as wise in their own eyes as David's Fool and say in their hearts There is no God who laugh at all things sacred as being out of their Element and make no more accompt of Religion than of an ordinary piece of State-Policy It may be they wear the name of Christians at large and own themselves of ours rather than any other Church for fashions sake or saving their credit or some secular interest but if you examine their Principles and Practises more narrowly they will be found to belong rather to the Devil's Chappel For were they hearty and in earnest they could not possibly differ from all Sects of Religionists in the World who do constantly admire and reverence their respective Priests and Preachers in what quality or circumstances soever they be But the Grandees and most robust among these modern Sadduces don 't level their scoffs and reproaches so low as the inferiour Clergy the little Vicars and Curates that were impar congressus and a fitter task for some young beginner some Novice in Raillery who hath just parts and skill enough to make a Cobweb-Net that will take the lesser Flies but aim rather at the chiefest of our Church-Governors it being a more noble Conquest a more sure and expedite way to wound Religion that 's the great project through their sides They are so far from accompting the Elders that rule never so well worthy of double nay single Honour that they fear not to revile Gods highest Priests to deride slander and lampoon the most renowned Prelate even when he hath his most solemn audience when he is delivering his Embassie from the great Monarch of Heaven to his Vicegerent here on Earth So that it is no fault of our Religion or of the Ministry thereof but ruinous decay of Christian Piety supplanted of late by Unchristian Practise for the true Causes whereof I refer my Readers to that excellent Tractate whose Author 's Name the World is hitherto unworthy of which prompts this Herd of brutish Hectors to defie and contemn our Clergy and Religion both A second Band of our Churches Enemies are the Popish Recusants who taking the advantage of our late intestine differences and having learnt of St. Peter's pretented Successour to fish most advantagiously in troubled waters have much augmented if not doubled their ancient number And he that made such a grievous complaint of our being so much over-stock'd with Divines had never heard of the Iesuites brags beyond Sea sure Sir Edwyn Sandys tells us of that the English Seminaries abroad send forth more Priests than our two Universities at home do Ministers And where should the Scene of their Action be laid more properly than in their own Country What greater service can they do the Court of Rome than to infect and poison their Native Air with foreign Vapours Who more fit to throw the Kingdom into a Church-relapse than they who are so well acquainted with the Temper Language Manners Customs Laws and Religion of the Country It is not to be question'd but they and all the Proselytes they either find or make amongst us are no Favourers of our Religion or Clergy but do privately and openly when they dare calumniate and decry both as destructive to the Game and Interest they are to manage and the true and only reason of their contemning and vilifying us is an eager desire of enlarging their own Territories that the Romans might come in once again and take away both our Place and Nation And therefore that our Church neither is nor expects to be prized by them more than others they are pleas'd to call Hereticks because they cannot digest their corrupt Innovations for current Gospel is their Goodness more than our Desert The third and last Body of our Churches Enemies are the Fanatick Recusants in the other extream for though Manasseh declares fiercely against Ephraim and Ephraim exclaims as much against Manasseh yet both combine and unite their forces against the Common Enemy poor Iudah And truly to speak freely and give these latter their due I must needs say the Church of England hath suffer'd very much of late in her Reputation by their means for they are a sort of clamorous Zealots restless and troublesom Saints as ever pretended to be of Christs retinue who are for reforming Church and State and all things but themselves and their own pernicious Opinions Seneca's character of unstable Men seems to be calculated particularly for them Nihil liberè volunt nihil absolutè nihil semper for they know not what they would have and if you grant all their unreasonable demands they are not satisfied but still crying with the Daughters of the Horse-leech Give give They had too precise thoughts of themselves to continue in our Communion and therefore like the young brood of Vipers made their way through their Mothers Bowels to procure their own liberty And that there might be room for a new Model of Government necessity obliged them to pluck down the old one first To this end all their artifices especially Preachments were directed they crying out against Episcopacy as the children of Edom did of old against Ierusalem Down with it down with it even to the ground making nothing to call it opprobiously the Prelatical Faction though themselves are forc'd to confess it is such a Faction as hath troubled the Church ever since the Apostles times and by this means they quickly begat an odium in Mens Minds as well against the ancient Rites and Ceremonies of the Church as against the Persons of the Bishops and Orthodox Clergy for their sakes To them we owe all that Anarchy in Spiritual and Civil Matters which like a thick Cloud did so long overspread us and broke out at length into Thunder and Lightning about our ears 't was the fruit of their worthy Labours that our Goshen was turned into an Egypt by Usurping Tyrants who knew not Ioseph and the Rod of Aaron served for no other use a long time but to scourge the Sons of Levi. Nor is it any wonder that the prejudices they raised against our Liturgy and its Assertours are not yet worn out considering how presumptuously and in despight of all Law both Sacred and Civil the Nonconformists still keep up their private Conventicles to confirm the Brethren in all the false Notions they had formerly imbibed But all this while the true reason that this

of false Brethren spurious Church-men who have renounc'd the Faith of English Christians and another that presumes to pin false stories and fooleries upon our true genuine and learned Clergy as much as to say because that Author calls it murder to kill a man upon the Kings High way ours may be allowed to say it is also murder for a Judge to sentence a Felon to die upon Conviction or for the Executioner to do his Office In other places he makes a face as if he had a mind to commence Modesty eat his words repent of his manner of expression and perswade us of his good meaning and honest intentions at the bottom for he says pag. 81. I am not yet come to that degree of self-conceit and confidence as to recommend my own words phrase or style and I had rather the Answerer should find fault with the manner of my expression and delight himself in thinking that it is not suitable to the subject than be guilty of so much folly and impudence as vigorously to maintain or magnifie the same Only thus much Sir speaking to R. L. his endeared Friend may possibly be believed by you and perhaps by some few besides that I did not put in one idle or extravagant word on purpose to render any of the Clergy contemptible but did only just endeavour to keep people awake till they read it And again pag. 91. In my first Letter I did rather make it my business to give a short History of what was derided or blamed than studie to invent or complain of what might be represented unprofitable or ridiculous And pag. 101. It was altogether against my design to bring any of the Clergy into contempt c. A fair profession one would think but it must be examined with much tenderness and charity or there will be found very little of reality in it For if it be folly and Impudence to maintain the style and manner of expression in the first Letter as not suitable to the subject why does he carry on the Metaphor and continue the same strain in the second He says further he did not put in one idle or extravagant word into the first part on purpose to make any of the Clergy Contemptible and 't is strange men will not believe him when they find it one great business of his second Adventure to keep people awake still that is to rake up some hundreds of idle extravagant words meerly to expose his Answerer who is one of the Clergy No question it was altogether against his Design to bring his Answerer and the rest of his Brethren into Contempt when he laughs all along rather than writes at him and only tickles the skirts of the business with affected flourishes answering his most material objections with fine stories of a Cock and a Bull and Heyte Teyte's or to morrow morning I found a Horse-shooe but I must tell him that to perswade the world we intend no hurt and design honestly when our actions visibly run counter is an old an antiquated cheat that will not down with wise men now adays being fit to be owned by none but such ungodly miscreants as could take up Arms against and at length murder their lawful Sovereign under pretence of meaning well all this while and intending only to make him a glorious King To proceed better late than never p. 86. he takes notice that the Bishops have augmented the Vicarages in their gift and who knows but he intended to put in the Deans and Chapters too and tells us of sums of money employed towards the redeeming of the great Tithes of Impropriations restored and of the good Inclinations of this present Parliament c. but this should have been done in his first Letter by right and perhaps he had done it there but that he did not think on 't or rather because he did think on 't for it would have taken off somewhat from the Poverty and shrimpedness of his Clergy he was then describing However he falls to salving again at the foot of this page saying I hope I have said nothing to abate the charity or good purposes of pious Benefactors or to stop the assisting hands of our present Governours No then he is infinitely obliged to them that they don't believe him for if all those he calls the Poor Clergy be so Ignorant as he makes them assigning the particular reasons to shew it impossible it should be otherwise viz. their mean Education want of Money Books Time and such other things without which few men prove very great Scholars 'T is pity their maintenance should be made better 30 l. per an being rather too large and magnificent an allowance for such pitiful fellows as he most invidiously and falsly makes them But thanks be to God our present Governours and Benefactors don't take all for current Gospel that every gifted Lay-Brother talks at rovers knowing full well that the generality even of our inferiour Clergy are of good worth and note and see no shadow of reason in both his Letters nor ever will in an hundred more of the same stamp to alter their noble and pious Intentions Lastly whereas he fancies page 101. that if any are so weak and so regardless as to mistake him viz. by thinking his design was to bring the Clergy into Contempt they are either some of the giddy and soft-headed Non-Conformists or some of the idle and inconsiderable Laity I must assure him that a very great part of the Orthodox Clergy and most considerable Laity too are very much of the same opinion it being past their skill to find out any more rational and plausible end that should prompt him to make such an Adventure in English since had he clothed his Discourse in that so much despised thing called Latine it could not have been half so obnoxious And albeit in the sequel of his discourse he bids the Papists Non-Conformists conceited new Philosophists modish Gallants Hectors and Atheists of the age hold their tongues showing he can make the best of them all ridiculous if he please yet what satisfaction is this to the injured Clergy he sends them more company indeed but such as they never much delighted in and he must not think he can undeceive such men with as much ease as he hath deceived them for let him write till Doomsday to the contrary they will take him at his first word and believe he hath given them susfficient reason grounds and occasion to blaspheme the holy Function In the mean time since a man of this Authors parts and confidence may play with any other subject in the world as well as this and abuse any profession of men whether Gentry Lawyers Physicians Citizens c. whilst he takes the liberty of saying what he pleases by inventing false stories adding to perverting and wresting such as are in part true and carrying on the whole work of a Romancer I hope all sober Christians will think never the worse of but rather increase their esteem and good opinion of so Reverend and Learned a Clergy FINIS Camer Medit. Q. Eliz. Can. Ch. 1. 1597.