dealt not so hardly with the Ministers as now he doth and that often in his Sermons at Northampton he would confesse that the Discipline was used and practised in the Primitive Church a long time after the Apostles Puritan It is very true and yet he saith in his Book against Martin that the holy Discipline is a platforme devised he knows not by whom And in another place of the same Booke he confestes that it was practised by the Apostles and long time after in the Primitive Church And upon the words where he saith it is not denyed there is pasted at the commandement of the Bishop of Canterbury It is not yet proved so that there is some jarre between themselves although these two are most conversant together and joyn in one to persecute sincere and faithfull Preachers of the Word and others of the Lords Children Iacke I had thought they would not have dissented one from another of them Puritan Why Sir in the 49. page of the same Booke the Bishop of Winchester saith the Bishop of Canterbury is a giddy head and to be bridled because he authorised Doctor Whitaker his readings against Bellarmine wherein the Apocripha is defaced And Mr. Doctor Some one of their affinite no we and a nonresident he calls the Archbishop of Canterbury An absurd Hereticke because he holds Baptisme administred by Women to be the Seale of Gods Covenant pag. 3. of his Booke against Master Penri and many like things I could cite to you of their dissenting one from another Iacke How like you of these things Master Vicker be not these good Fathers of the Church think you Minist I like never a whit the worse of them for your words for I know they are but slaunders Puritan Master Vicker you I know like well of them although the proofes that their adversaries doe bring be never so manifest and plain against them because you are in the same state or worse and may be in that you doe unlawfully usurpe your place and having no fit Gifts to discharge your duty in any measure Remember what the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 6.19 Woe to me if I preach not the Gospel this is rightly pronounced upon you and all such Idols as you are Minist If I read Sermons and Homilies is it not as much as if I preached for Mr. Doctor Bridges saith that reading is preaching Puritan The Lord hath promised no such blessing unto reading as preaching for the Word preached is the onely ordinary meanes to salvation But I pray you for your comfort heare what the Prophet Ieremy saith to you in the 48 Chap. Cursed be that man that doth the worke of the Lord negligently And Mallac 2.7 saith The Priestes lips should preserve knowledge and they should seeke the law at his mouth but how can you shunne this curse Master Vicker I pray God humble your heart that you may acknowledge your sinne and crave pardon at his hands and leave the Ministry lest the Lord with a strong hand throw you out to your everlasting woe Iacke Master Vicker he gives you good councell it were good for you to follow it if you doe not it will be the worse for you Minist Well Sir it is no matter there be as wise as he will give me other councell Iacke Why I see Master Vicker is obstinate he will not be perswaded by you Puritan Even as he will I speak my Conscience to him he may chuse if he will follow it or no. Iacke I marvell what good hospitality the Bishop of London keeps I have heard that he is very covetous Minist Indeed he doth keep a good house Iacke What doth not the dogs runne away out of his house with whole shoulders I think a man may as soone break his neck as break his fast at his house Puritan Surely I can say thus much by report of one that was his Chaplaine whose name is Haiward Vicker of Saint Martins by Charing crosse that often times when he dined at his Pallace in London he hath made his Servants to take the Fragments and carry them to Fulham but if there be any dainty morsell lest he will wrap it up in his Handkerchiefe and carry it in his bosome for feare lest his men should beguile him Iacke O Master Vicker you have a most bountifull Lord he is so liberall that he will not suffer the scraps to be bestowed upon the poore but to be kept for his Servants Supper Minist It is false for I have often seen alines given at his Gates when he hath lien at London Puritan I le tell you what I have heard him say at Panls Grosse my selfe upon a time following his text very well your must think he burst me out with a great exclamation of himselfe in that he was poore and had no money protesting what charges he had bin at and that Pauls Church can beare me witnesse saith he that I have no money And shortly after some of his own Servants being there present and heard him belike thought to make their good Lord a lyarâ— very shortly after rob'd him of certain hundred of pounds for which offence he was so good unto his men as to hang them up three or foure in number I although he had the most part of his money againe and some of the parties executed protested to their knowledge he had much more money at usury and that his servants lived only upon bribes Iacke A Bishop a Lyar and a Usurer nay surely Mr. Vicker if your Lord have those two faults it cannot be but he hath more so that for my own part I think him verily to be the Bishop of the Devill Puritan Nay Sir I can give you proofe for the same more that he is surely the Bishop of the Devill for Martin Mar-prelate hath set down a pretty thing in his Epistle to the terrible Priests that the Bishop of London when he throws his Bowle as he useth it commonly upon the Sabbath day he runnes after it and if it be too hard he cries rub rub rub and saith the Divel goe with thee when he goeth himselfe with it So that by those words he nameth himselfe the Bishop of the Divell but by his practise of tyrannicall dealing against the Lords faithfull Ministers not onely calleth but proveth himselfe to be the Bishop of the Devil Iacke Ha ha Master Vicker you see your Lord Bishop is a Devil by his own confession so indeed you are not the Lords Minister but the Minister of the Devil as your Lord Bishop is the Bishop of the Devil Minist You use your speeches at pleasure of my Lord it may be you will not so easily answer them when you are called thereunto Iacke Yes Master Vicker I warrant you Send a Pursuivant when you will for us and we will answer it if we cannot make our parts good enough we will send the Woman of Hampsteed to him Minist What meane you by that Iacke If you will needs have me I will
I have said and namely the unlawfullnesse of Lord Bishops Minist Sir that point hath been handled by your betters and manifestly confuted by my Lords grace in his writings against Cartwright Puritan Indeed he that will be blind cannot see it but he that looks in both their Works with a single eye cannot but confesse Mr. Cartwright to have confuted him by unanswerable evidence or els why would he not have answered Mr. Cartwrights works now a dozen yeares extant and more Minist As you of the Fantasticall crew think but he hath done it and that so sufficiently already that there needs no more Answers and againe his Grace is now otherwise troubled with matters of State that he cannot intend it or if he could yet it is not for him so to abase himselfe in regard of his high Calling which he is now placed in Puritan As though the cause of God were to be neglected in respect of his high place if he were lawfully called thereunto as he doth very unlawfully usurpe the same contrary to the Law of God for is it possible he can be the true Minister of God and a Temporall Magistrate that is to serve God and Mammon to as the Apostle saith Let him that hath an office attend upon his office and not Offices Minist Why how dare you presume to say so Were not Lord Bishops established by Her Majesty and consent of the whole Parliament Puritan I grant they were but the Lord hath said contrary in the Commandement he gave to his Ministers Luke 22. saying The Kings of the Gentiles raigne over them and they that beare rule over them are called gracious Lords but ye shall not be so but let the greatest among you be as the least and the chiefest as him that serveth And 1 Pet. 5. Feed the Flocke of God which dependeth upon you caring for it not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind Not as though ye were Lords over Gods heritage but that ye may be ensamples to the Flocke And in the first session of Parliament ☜ holden in the First yeare of her Majesties raigne there was never a Lord Bishop in the Land Minist If you will have no Lord Bishop how should the Church be governed then Puritan According as our Saviour Christ hath commanded and as the Holy Ghost hath set it down viz. by Pastors Teachers Elders and Deacons Rom 12. Ephes 4.1 Cor. 12. Minist You are very full of Scripture as though we have not the same Offices in effect though not in the same Titles as for example have not we Parsons for Teachers Vickers for Pastors Churchwardens for Elders and Sidemen for Deacons to distribute to the poore Puritan And what for Archbishops and Lord Bishops Iacke I will tell you for him Archbishops for Popes and Lord Bishops for Cardinals Ha ha Mr Vicker I see you are a good Churchman doe not you use the Pulpit sometimes Minist No indeed Sir but I read the Homilies somtimes and the Queens Injunctions and doe my duty as other Ministers doe Puritan I thought so by that fit comparison that you have made Iacke And have you no more but one Benefice neither and yet doe all that Minist Yes indeed I say Service at two more but I have little profit by them marie the best is they are somwhat neer for they are all three within foure miles together Puritan And how can you serve them all upon the Sabbath day Minist Some of them are but small and I can make quicke dispatch with them betimes and take my Mare and ride to the other and can make an end of all by ten of the clocke and spend an houre with good Fellows at home before Dinner to Puritan And Master Vicker do you think herein that you discharge your duty to God and those Congregations over whom you have taken this charge Minist Why Sir I discharge my duty better then those that take upon them foure or five Puritan Why is there any that takes upon them the charge of so many Minist Yea a hundred in England Puritan Well I will tell you the fearefull judgements of God hangs over our heads and cannot be long deferred but fall upon the whole Land where to such dumb Idolls as you are is committed the charge of soules and to your selves eternall destruction of body and soule wherfore Mr. Vicker as you tender your owne salvation leave this your unlawfull Calling of the Ministry and betake you to some occupation or Husbandry Minist I care not what any of you spightfull Puritans say so long as I can have the favour of my Lord Bishop Iacke I pray you Mr. Vicker let me spurre a question unto you if I may be so bold where do you serve Minist I serve in Middlesex Sir Iacke Who made you Minister Minist My good Lord of London Puritan Like enough he hath made a great many of blind guides in his time besides you for he made the Porter of his Gate Minister of Paddington being blind Iacke O monstrous is this true did he so indeed Puritan It is most true for the Bishop of Winchester hath recorded it in a Booke of his set forth in Print Iacke Why what will our Bishops grow to in time if they be suffered for me thinks this is a fearefull thing to make such Ministers as can neither see nor speake for it is like if he were the Porter no doubt of it he had not the gift of Teaching Puritan Very true but because he could do him no longer service he was so good to him to provide for the poore blind man that he might live Iacke Sure I think when they come once to be Lords they cleane forget God and all Godlinesse for I have heard that there was some good things in him before he was Bishop of London for he wrote a Book called the Harborow of faithfull Subjects against Bishops wherein he saith Come down ye Bishops with your thousands and betake you to your hundreds let your fare be Priestlike and not Princelike c. Puritan Indeed he wrote such a Book and the same words that you repeat I have read in the same but alas when he was at the best he was but a corrupt man and the best things in it savour but of earth for there is many things handled in it very immodestly and unchristianly but one thing especially he sets down there which himselfe practiseth clean contrary where he speaks of the ability that should be in every Minister of the Word that he should know his quarter strocks to be able to convince the adversary c. Minist Why will you have none Ministers but such as can preach I can tell you that the twentieth Minister in the Land cannot preach Puritan The more the worse for you and the rest how many soever there be stand without repentance in a most damnable state for you are most notorious murtherers of soules in taking upon you so high
a Calling and being so farre unfit for it so many as perish for want of teaching in your charge their bloud the Lord will require at your hands Minist The Bishop knew my ability before he mad me Minister Puritan Well he stands in the state of damnation as you do and thus much I say unto you and to all Idoll Ministers and to him and all usurping Archbishops and Lord Bishops leave your unlawfull Callings into which you have intruded your selves and with speed repent and humble your selves before the Majesty of God confessing your horrible and grievous sins with Peters teares in that you are the caufe yea and also the very murtherers of so many soules as perish in your charges knowing that the Lord will in that great and terrible day require their bloud at your hands Iacke O Lord my heart quaketh to heare of so great and grievous sins as are in our Bishops and in the whole Ministry but our Bishops are the cause of all Puritan I will tell you Sir I am perswaded in my very Conscience that the Lord hath given many of our Bishops over into a reprobate sence for they do willfully oppose themselves against the Lord and his known truth yea and persecute it and I suppse them to be in the state of the sinne against the Holy Ghost for they have manifested in their published writings yea and pressed forth by Authority such horrible blasphemous Hereticall yea damnable Doctrines which my very heart trembleth to repeat in sort as they have set them down which if those whom they call Puritans should set down or hold the like errours and dangerous points I warrant you they should soon be cut off from the face of the earth and right well they were worthy Iacke Now Sir I pray you let me heare some of the points they hold and that are so dangerous as you say that I may be able to justifie it to our dumb dogs teeth at Austins Gate in London when I come home Puritan First you shall understand that the Bishop of London hath published in Print and that in an Epistle or Preface before Barnardeus de loques Book of the Church published in English that the Puritans may aswell deny the Sonne of God to be consubstantiall with God the Father as they may deny the superiority of Archbishops and Lord Bishops flat contrary to the saying of our Saviour Christ Luke 22. Iacke O monstrous and blasphemous wretch that to maintaine his fleshly pleasure will make such an odious comparison Puritan Nay what say you to a Bishop that hath two Wives and both now living Do you not thinke it is a thing tollerable in a Christian Common-wealth where the Gospel is professed Iacke No indeed doe I not I hope our Magistrates will not suffer such a Bishop to live it were monstious among common Infidels much more intollerable that a Bishop in such a Land as ours is where the Gospell is truly taught But I pray you is there any such now living Puritan Yes indeed is there and the Bishop of Saint Davids in Wales is the Man he is now living and both his Wives and yet still remaines a Bishop Iacke Is it possible that a Bishop should commit such an horrible act as this how farre are our Bishops from obeying the Commandement of the Apostle Peter who saith Feed the Flocke and be ensamples to the Flock what ensample â—s this And doth not the same God which saith Thou shalt doe no murther which is death by our Laws doth he not say Thou shalt not commit adultery And yet a Bishop to have two Wives at once and live in a Church professing the sincerity of the Gospell What say you to this Master Vicker is not our Church well governed think you Minist If it be true it is I must needs confesse a horrible thing and worthy of death but I do not beleeve it Puritan It is very true for the cause was brought before the High Commissioners at Lambeth and how it is smothered up among the Bishops and the rest of the Commissioners I know not yet but I could tell you the whole conclusion if I were at London but halfe an houre Iacke Why the suffering of this and other like villanies to be committed in our Nation are causes to stirre up the Lord to wrath against the whole Land whereby he may speedily bring his judgements upon us yea even to our utter destruction Minist It is so if it be true but I will not beleeve it Puritan Well for the truth of the matter I referre you to the High Commissioners where it is recorded with his Wives names viz. Elizabeth Gigge and Alice Prime Minist Indeed I have heard of the like before that you Puritans have put forth a Booke in Print under the name of Martin Mar-prelate wherein many such things are mentioned Puritan There is nothing set down in it but there is good proofe of the same and the Bishop of Winchester who took upon him to confute it hath confirmed it for the most part and that he denies is most true Iacke What did he undertake to confute it Alas he is altogether unlearned for I have heard of him in Oxford and the Papists say they can make him beleeve the Moone is made of greene cheese mary to get him a name forsooth being a Correcter with a Printer in Fleet-street in London who Printed a Dictionary called Sir Thomas Eliots Dictionary Cooper transsated a piece of Robert Stephanus his Thesaurus and joyned it to the same with a few Phrases and so bereaved the Famous Knight of his labour and calls it by the name of Coopers Dictionary how say you Master Vicker was not this a knavish tricke tell me Minist I say you deale very unreverently with my Lord for I can say nothing to the matter else for I know it not to be true Puritan What say you to this then Master Vicker did you never heare of your Lord Bishop of London who made the Dyars in Thames-street who were robbed by Theeves that stole their Cloath and brought it within his Liberties which when the poore Dyars hearing where their Cloath was and coming to the Bishop to demand their own goods he said if they would hang the Theeves he would then say more which the Dyars did and at their deaths confessed that to be the Dyars Cloath which the Bishop had but the poore men were never the neare for their Cloath nor cannot get it or any part of it to this day and this is confessed to be true by the Bishop of Winchester in his answer to Martin Mar-prelat published in Print by Authority wherein he saith it is the Bishop of Londons own by the Laws of the Land because it was taken within his Liberties marke he speakes nothing of the Law of God according to Conscience in keeping of Thiefe-stollen goods from their right owners for Conscience is fled from them it seems so soon as they are gotten to
tell you you shall understand Master Vicker that your good Lord at his first coming to be the Divels Lord at London began to play Rex as he hath lately done at Fulham in cutting down the Trees there to the great impoverishing of the Town to cut down the Woods at Hampsteed and needs he would doe it and began prettily well with it The Townes-men became suiters to him that he would not they could not perswade him for he was Lord of it he said Well seeing the men could doe no good with him the women took the matter in hand and as the Divels men came that is your Lords to cut downe their Woods the women fell a swadling of them so that they durst come no more to cut down any Trees there Thus you see the Women overcame the Devill and so feared him that therby they preserved their Woods For by very nature these Devills Bishops are given to destroy both Church and Common-wealth But if we be not good enough for them we will intreat the Women of Hampsteed to take the matter in hand Minist Well I doubt not but you will for all this lustines kisse the Clinke or Gate-house for this geare for my Lords Grace shall know of it if my Lord doe not Iacke Why Vicker of the Divell let the whole Convocation House of Divels know of it and you will for they dare not no not Beelzebub of Canterbury the chiefe of the Devills come to disputation therby to approve their Callings to be lawfull and other points in controversie against the Discipline of God as they have been often challenged and offered by the Puritans even to adventure their lives against their Bishopricks and yet they durst not And I pray you tell me if they were not the Bishops of the Devill indeed would they refuse this offer Minist Why the Puritans have bin often disputed with Puritan Where In the Bishops Closet For they are ashamed to have it tryed before any Magistrate Let them if they dare procure a free disputation whereby every man may freely speak and be indifferently heard and if the Bishops and all their partakers be not overthrowne I will loose my life for it Minist Have they not been already by publicke writing and otherwise but especially by my Lords Grace his works against Cartwright sufficiently confuted I pray you Puritan No indeed but I will tell you what a Noble man professing the Gospell said he demanded of the old Lord Henry Howard the Earle of Arundels Uncle now living being a professed Papist what he thought of Whitgifts answere to Cartwright who answered There was no comparison to be made between them for Whitgift saith he is not worthy to carry Cartwrights Books after him for learning Marke here the opinion of a Papist you know a deadly adversary to Master Cartwright and yet the ambitious wretch wil not stick now he is an Archbishop to call those that are able to teach him and which were in the Gospell before him Boyes and revile them farre beyond all Christian modesty And againe if a man apply any new writer his opinion of the reformed Churches in defence of the Lords Truth as Master Calvin Beza or others he will not also sticke to bragge and tell him that he is able to teach Calvin and Beza or any of them all But the wretch nor his associates dares not dispute with Master Cartwright Calvin or Bezaes inseriours Iacke Tush foe he sits now upon his cogging stoole which may truly be called the Chaire of Pestilence little may he doe if he cannot Bragge Crack and Face it out For the truth is he wrote against the Discipline for no other end but to get a Bishopricke for he never wrote since he hath caught one I warrant you And the pide Faced Foole Doctor Bridges imitating him hoping to leape like as he hath done but it will not be Puritan O you are greatly deceived Dr. Bridges hath utterly renounced the Bishops as I have heard for that the Archbishop hath broken his faith with him Iacke How comes tell you at the beginning of the last Parliament there were Bishops to be stalled and his Grace had promised him very confidently that he would not onely speak for him also assure him of a Bishoprick Upon which the aspiring wretch did only rely otherwise it may be he would have bribed some Courtier to have dealt for him as he did for his Denary But her Majesty lying at Richmond and Mr. Doctor repairing thither upon the green afore Richmond House met with Master Thornbie the Master of the Savoy who told him that he was suiter for the Bishopricke of such a place Master Doctor Bridges answered and said it was true he had the grant of it at his Grace his hands saith Master Thornby I had a promise of it to but it is certaine that his Grace hath got it for another man and he hath finished it and all is past I can assure you of it With that the Doctor was in his mad mood and said Hath he served me so why then I will say and may speake it truly there is no Faith in a Bishop Have I wrote in their defence and have gotten the ignomie shame and reproach of it by publicke writing and now to be thus vildly dealt with I will tell you Master I hornby I doe protest and alwates will affirme it That it is better to have one inch of pollicie then all the Divinity in the world If Master Thornby will deny this to be true there be both godly and worshipfull will justifie it to his face Iacke Nay it is like enough that the Bishop of Canterbury hath served him so it is not the first like pranke he hath played for it is his manner he will promise much and performe nothing but persecute Gods Ministers and glory in himselfe For if any godly Minister or any other that feare God come before him he will offer them the Oath either to accuse themselves or their Christian Brethren or both yea though no body be able to charge them with any offence And if they will not sweare then to the Clinke Gatehouse or White Lyon they goe roundly and when suit is made unto him for their Liberty then except they will enter into bonds to performe this or doe that why he will say they shall lye till they rot with other bitter words And he was wont to use these words often and had a great pride in speaking them I cannot tell whether he hath left them now or no As long as the Queen and I live it shall be this or that Judge you of this man whether he hath a humble spirit or an aspiring mind to joyne himselfe with his dread Soveraigne the Queens Majesty He were best to remember his predecessor Cardinall Wolsey betimes least he have the same end Cardinall Wolsey had Minist I hope for these your taunting speeches to see you trounst if I meet you handsomly in place where Iacke