to the Clink he must go When he came into Prison certain Papists being likewise Prisoners there one of them demanded of Mr. Sharp for what fact he was brought Prisoner who answered for throwing down Images in Banbury Church O sayes the Papist What a hodg-podge is your Religion we are put in for setting of them up and you are put in for pulling of them down And is not thie a pretty hogpodg that an honest man shall not have the liberty to print against the Papists but be discountenanced notwithstanding the aforesaid Act is still in force against printing and publishing Papists Books very many of them having been burnt by Authority But Wife to see how the Papist claws the Bishop in saying that those that you cannot bring into your Fold by your sweet paternal Call may be brought in by the power of your Pastoral Staff Again Your knowledge is super-excellent in all things there are incorporated in your sole person the vertues and faculties of thousands of others That your fair soul ever appears like the precious Bird of Persia called Ibis The Reverend Father that fair soul to gratifie him again rewards his good opinion of him with approbation of his Book and with a Shame-take-them both together to see the correspondency that is between them the one a Papist the other a Protestant in name whithout any Schism or Clashing one against another puts me in mind of the Cat and the Rat which was in our Cupboard not long since You may remember you told me seriously that there was a Rat in the Cupboard which when I had peept into and saw I used the best skill I had to catch a Blanket must be fetcht you held one end I the other the Cupboard thrown open when the Rat leapt into the Blanket we must clap to out comes the Rat into the Blanket but wanted patience to stay till we caught him In he comes another day Then Husband again the Rat is the Cupboard a Gentlewoman one near our own quality a Wantcatchers Wife gave us a verbal Certificate likewise of her Cats super excellency for Mous-hunting which when we had obtained my self being a discreet man got a pair of Tongs and fearing lest any thing might enterpose the fight of other wisely got out the Cheese much like a New Moon and a proportionable quantity of Bready into the Cupboard advanced is the Cat and enemies now in sight one of another some speedy execution is expected but nothing but peace At last I took up one end of the side-Cupboard and jumbled them together up went the other end and jumbled them again but nothing would do the Antipathy in Nature was quite gone I looked in and saw the Prelatical Cat and the Romane Rat sit as lovingly close together as might be without any Schism or Clashing We threw open the Cupboard the Prelatical Cat went home but lost some credict by it but hang 't what cares a Prelatical Cat for a little vulgar Credit so long as he can keep the Master of the companies good will and the Master of the Romane Rats also And is it not pretty to see the Bishop and the Papist like two Colts nabbing one another by the Manes or resembling weanning Calves licking one another Their courteous Carriage and loving Behaviour minds me of that passage of St. Francie who looking out at a Window and saw a Friar kiss a Nun was very thankful there was so much Charity in the world Now Wife I shall acquaint you with some passages in the Book First He commends Seignior Beaumanoir for a bloody Massacre in these words Who like a Noble Cordial Cavalier engaged his Sword in the Kings behalf and slew the Serpent and freed the Monarchy from any more of the Serpentine servitude It is well known that the whole estate of the Church enjoyed a setled Peace and all their Rights and Priviledges all Princes with great devotion were Nursing Fathers and Protectors of it There was a perfect Harmony for all matters of Religion and Faith between the Church of Rome and the Princes of Christendome Anno 1515. Martin Luther a man of a turbulent Spirit was the first that broke this long and happy Peace puf◠up with vain glory and ambitious conceit of himself put himself upon higher strarns and as a man grown sick in his spirit and of a fiery disease he began to rave and defame all Church-Government he abandoned the Cloister cast off his Habit and renounced all obedience to his Superiors for now he preacheth against the whole Clergy and Tyranny of the Bishop of Rome whose Authority in matters of Religion till that time was held Sacred He further saith that The Lord Cobham Sir John Acton and Sir John Oldcastle two of Wickliff's Disciples were deservedly put to death for Heresy Rebellion and Treason in Henry the Fifth's time He saith That this Heresy lay strangled in the Cradle until Edward the Sixth's dayes whence some ends of it were taken up again with more oftentation than ever in that Prince's minority and what rare effects of obedience were produced by that Massacre in Queen Maries dayes who brought them up to the Test we may reade in our English Chronicles wherein it 's plain that in those poor five years of her Reign there was de facto more open Violence Opposition and †Here he accounts the Martyrs for Rebels Rebellion made by her own Subjects than in many years before Again But my abundant care to have the good People of England disabused cleerly from that Abominable Rebellious Brood of Presbyters that Viperous Crew of Cockatrice Christians Again speaking before of killing Princes denies it to come from Rome for its opinions and practises is meer Callumny Again That so impious a thing as the murdering of Princes never entered into the heart tongne or pen of any true Romane Catholick Witness the Gun-powder Treason Again Luther may very well pretend to have taken their water-course from the Wickliffs and Waldenses and they again to have borrowed from the broken Cisterns of God's Church the ancient Sons of Disobedience and Rebellion the declared Enemies and Cast-awayes of Christianity in all ages Again The Preshyter the legitimate successor of the Traytox Judas who undoubtedly was the first Christian of this Crew Diabolical their Pedigree can come but from that high and mighty Lucifer their impious Opinions and prodigious practises do clearly demonstrate them to be but from the Devil Wife This is enough to acquaint you that Bellamy is a Papist but I have the Book to give you further satisfaction and by L'estrang's approbation of it in putting it in the Weekly Intelligence letting it fly to further the sale of it shews plainly what he is The Bishop Bellamy Crack-fart their Brother In point of judgment each like other MAGNA CHARTA Wife Husband the last Winter you and I fell into some discourse by the fire and brake off somewhat abruptly you promised to begin with Magna Charta
the one a Doctor of Dulvinity the other a Doctor of the Civil Law lately at a Sack-shop fit for the Crime could not easily be determined Excommunication could not he was no Member of the Church if a Member little would it advantage the Bishops Court wanting money to pay for his Absolution If the Cat should eat him then the Bread had been twice prophaned kill him they could not before they caught him and it 's questionable whether it were not before the invention of Mouse-traps no doubt but it put the Synod to a great deal of trouble In things of like imoortance our Convocation is as able to manage as that Synod and that Synod able to do as much good as ours have done or would do were they to sit seven years longer VV. Husband what is this Convocation is it constituted according to Magna Charta the Rule of the Gospel H. Wife for your satisfaction I 'le tell you it is not according to the Rule of Gospel for the constitution of it for in the Churches of Christ in the primitive times the Power lay not in any single person but in the Members of the Churches aswel as in the principal Officers This Convocation is of Romes Constitution and left unto us by succession as it was in the darkest times of Popery and as it is at this day under the Romane Empire in which the Laity as they call the common People have no voice in the election of the Clerks according to the Government of the Mystical Body as the Doctor calls it the Church of England the People being denied that priviledge for their precious Souls which they have in some cases in temporal things for their perishing bodies Bear with me for some homely comparisons and some circumstances and I will tell you the manner of this Convocation and constitution of it by and by W. Husband I hope there is no need of such Complements between you and me Pray tell me H. Wife not long since I was standing in Newgate-Market in London where I saw at a distance a strange Creature mounted on the back of a beast but approaching near me I perceived it to be a Gentleman-Fackanapes on Horse-back and the Bears led by the nose following him to the misery of the stake there to baited with Dogs This Gentleman is no English Native but a Foreigner whether of some parts of Italy or America I know not his habit is an hairy rough garment yet nothing but what Nature did afford him and with the bridle on his arm for so I 'le call it for imitation like himself very Ape as we say There is a Gentleman John Priest with whom you may parallel this Gentleman Jackanape's in some passages who is mounted upon the Magisterial power of the Beast and with Institution and Induction which is as pretty a Popish knack as any is in all the Pack comes to the Parish and they must take him for better or worse for their Pastor although he never tasted of one bit of Bread which came down from Heaven nor drop of living Water to which he is a stranger Watchman or Overseer although the Scales never fell from his eyes nor ever opened by that great Occulist who only is in Commission for that purpose and follow him they must although quite blind they must see with his eyes and be led by him into the misery of the Ditch This Gentleman John Priest is no true Native qua Saeerdos as a Priest but as a Romane and his habit a Rough Garment to deceive the People according to the nature of the Beast but not any garment no nor a rag of any thing but what Nature doth afford him For imitation apish and wanton with a strange woman and nothing fits his fancy better than the Fashions of the old Whore Well a Convocation must be called by whom this Gentleman John Priest with the rest of the Gentlemen John Priests of the several Diocesses and Parishes must make choice of the Clerks who are men called to the work of Priesthood as himself and although the Bishops sit in Parliament by vertue of the King 's Writ yet they are of the Corporation and must have not a finger only but a foot in it and then as we say in a Country Proverb The Pottage is never the better what they are we talked on before And whatsoever is brewed in the Convocation I may not say who grinds the Malt being tund up into the House and there a cork put in the Bunn-hole I mean confirmed by Act is Jus Divinum And the People must be led by the nose of an Implicit Faith to believe that it is their duty to observe and practise which Implicit Faith brings more misery than the Bears are brought unto at the Stake the misery of the one is Finite the other Infinite If they observe not the Dictates and Commands of the same they are Fin'd Imprison'd Transportation threatned c. W. Husband what 's become of Sions King all this while one JESUS H. Wife well remembred shall I tell you they have served him as Herod Pontius Pilate and the High Priests sent him into another world or else transported him to Tangier or else where for Deus hic nihil fecet he hath not been seen or heard of here W. Husband that is some comfort to them that shall follow after if their Captain and Head be gone before but what is to be done in this case for remedy H. Wife nothing as I know of but the old Weapons Preces et Lachrime Prayers and Tears wait upon God and then you shall see as Athanasius said in the like case but Nubeculo cito transitura a little Cloud quickly past over But Wife you put me out with your talking what I was going to say concerning John Priest a little more when the House is adjourn'd Acts extant and the Bishop come home Country John Priest in duty gives his Lordship a visit and bids him welcome home thanking him for his pains c. The Bishop gives John some account of their work good thinks John this will help of spin out a little time next Sunday in the Pulpit or Pue and then John addresses his speech unto his Neighbours Neighbours I have been with my Lord Bishop who hath given me a Narrative of the Proceedings of the House for the setling and right regulating thereof The Church of England it 's well known hath been accounted the most Glorious Church and hath had the preheminence of all the Churches in the Christian world however it hath been clouded and eclipsed by some Schismatical and Seditious Spirits in the late unhappy times of Libertinism and still Fanatick Spirits do abound yet such good and wholsome Laws are enacted and made for the suppressing of the same that the Church of England may be restored to its former Beauty and Primitive Purity For never was there a more Learned Pious Wise Grave Juditious Assembly of Divines of Bishops Doctors
came the Gentiles in the interval of Worlds was a companion as for clean so for unclean Beasts for Asses Pigs and Wolves From his loins I received a swinish hellish nature swarming with divers lusts And an Asse-like head stupid and dull without any true understanding of any divine Mysteries or saving Knowledge and therefore can justly claim nothing for my Coal of Arms but a Pigs-tail and an Asses head for the Crest If any of you step further into the old world and speak with the old man there you will find the fountain as purely corrupt if I may use that Epithite as the stream only you may take thence a coat of Fig-leaves which will be too short to hide your cloven-footed devilish natures If you come back into this world to old Jacob and think to take up a coat there which as I have heard some say who pretend to have skill in Heraldry that the rise of it is founded from Jacob falsly understood to be Coats of Arms which he declared as Blessings that should come upon his Sons he would tell you if alive that those Prophetical Predictions which he uttered by the instinct of a divine Spirit were never intended as Presidents to make proud Fools Coats of Honour and therefore you may return and take up my Coat with the addition of a Wolfs-skin which is as honourable as an arch-Arch-Bishops Miter and that as truly honourable as the Popes Triple-Crown My Reverend Lords give me leave to pig it once more with you I am the poor Pig that feeds in a bare-bitten Common a dish of Grains Whey or Wash falls to my share wherewith I am contented and my ears secure You had some better pasture or feeding than mine but Pig-like whyning and discontented therewith you are crept through the hedge into the Corn or Bean-fields and there you are up to he ears and above the cars too you were never turned in at any gate if the Heyward or Field keeper should come peradventure you may answer the trespass with the forfeiture of your ears And lest that you should not understand me we will unpig our selves and then give me leave to take a turn with you in your Palace Parlour and there I shall tell you that the station wherein you stand is none of Christs institution you enter but as Jackdaws into Steeples you are not entred in by Christ who is the door and therefore but Thives and Robbers Diocessan Bishops are but of humane institution Cambden in his Brittania tells us that Dyonisius was the first that divided Italy into Diocesses and Parishes And it 's not unknown to you who first divided England What have you to do to lord it now over God's Heritage and to undertake the office of Apostles nay of Christ himself wherein you are Blasphemers in that you presume to give the Holy-Ghost to your Creatures who are therein guilty of Blasphemy when by your imitation you are as incomperable to Christ and his Apostles as the Apes on the Alps to Alexanders Army These with the rest of your usarpations take heed you do not answer with the loss of your souls And as you have been the grief of the Godly in Ages past so you are at this day and as you live undesired so you dye unlamented by the Diocess wherein you domineer and no more lamentation made for you than for the most fordid Catchpole in the Country And when any of you die I have not heard that ever the Diocess went to prayer for a supply in your places The premises considered I shall assume the boldness to tell you that forasmuch as I hope that there was as great a price paid for me as for the best of you and that by him who is no respecter of persons and hath made all Nations of one blood that qua man I am as good a man as the best of you And although my condition in the world be such that in hard times with the rest of my poor neighbours I have entertained Bishop Bean Doctor Barly and Parson Pease at the upper end of my table with a cup of Cow Beer as good as the best Gentlemans Oxe in the Country drinks and glad I could see them there yet would not I change my present condition with any of you for the best of your Bishopricks which was at first cheated from the poor Country nor for the future swop souls with you in which trade of Soul-swopping some of you have much skill Well Wife this I could tell them if they were present but good Wife keep this Letter close for if the Bishop should meet with it as lately he met with a Book and Letter of which I am the supposed Author it may be as much as my liberty is worth And for the Books for fear lest any of them should be lost give the Children a charge to keep them safely If any accidentally meet with any I desire they would send them home by the hand of those that know where I dwell or make a hole in the ground and bury them If any take up a book and read and be offended at it then 't is Scandalum acceptum et non datum an offence taken not given I throw a bone to my own dog under board other quarrelling curs fall together by the ears about it shake my poor cur and peradventure bite me by the shins into the bargain the fault is not in me I may give a bone to my own dog nor in my dog it cannot be nor in the bone it is in those quarrelling curs that fall together by the ears about that they have nothing to do withal So I dedicate a book to my own Wife for the use and benefit of my own Children some Mastive fellows understanding that I intend such a thing begin before hand to quarrel the fault cannot be in my Wife nor Children nor in the poor innocent Paper nor in me it cannot be it is my duty to inform my Children There is an Act that Tutors and School-masters shall teach no Chatechism but the Church Chatechism I am not restrained thereby What 's the matter these Mastive fellows quarrel about it and be ready to come out with a Bowgh wough at me I have seen a country man walking by a country house which hath stood some what solitary out comes a great ' Dog with a Bowgh wough wough at him the country man spreads his arms runs to meet him as if he would catch him in his arms the dog seeing it claps his tail between his legs away he uns the Country man cryes rut Begone ye cowardly Cur begone what afraid of a naked man This last year travelling upon Bristol-Read I had a wooden Dagger in my hand almost a Swords fellow which a Gentleman commended to a young Kinsman of his by my hand and having it naked in my hand meeting with a man on horseback my self on foot pretended some fear I put him into shunn'd the way and began to