the Statute made in the Parliament of King Richard the Second after the Conquest at Glocester in the Second Year of his Raign held amongst other things it is Enacted and strictly Charged under great pain That none should be so bold as to devise speak or relate of the Prelates Dukes Earls Barons and other Nobles and Great Men of the Realm of England nor of the Chancellor Treasurer or Clerk of the Privy Seal Steward of the King's House Justice of the one Bench or other nor of any Great Officers of the said Realm any false News Lyes or any such Falsities whereof any Scandal or Discord within the said Realm may arise And whosoever this should do should incur the Penalty otherwise thereof ordained by the Statute of Westminster the First as in the said Statute more fully it is contained Yet the said Edmond Hickeringill the Statute aforesaid not regarding nor the Penalty of the said Statute any ways fearing but craftily designing the Good Name State Credit Dignity and Honour of the said Bishop to hurt and blacken and him the said Bishop into great Displeasure Distrust and Discredit of our said Lord the King that now is and of the great Men and great Officers of this Realm of England and also of divers worthy Persons Subjects of our said Lord the King that now is to bring the fourth day of April in the three and thirtieth Year of the Raign of our said Lord the King at Chelmnesford in the County of Essex divers false News and horrible Lyes of the said Henry then and yet being Bishop of London and one of the Prelates of this Realm of England in the presence and hearing of divers of the Subjects of our said Lord the King falsly maliciously and scandalously devised spoke related published and proclaimed in these English Words following viz. The Lord Bishop of London meaning himthe said Lord Bishop of London is a bold daring impudent Man for sending some Heads in Divinity to all his Clergy in those parts meaning the Clergy within the Diocess of London in those parts which are contrary to Law meaning the Laws of the Realm And of his further Malice the said Edmond afterwards to wit the said fourth day of April in the three and thirtieth Year abovesaid at Chelmnesford in the said County of Essex scandalously and maliciously and further to defame and scandalize the said Bishop likewise devised spoke related published and proclamed of the said Henry then and yet Bishop of London upon a Discourse of the said Bishop then and there had these other false News and horrible Lies in these English Words following that is to say His Lordship meaning the said Henry Lord Bishop of London is very ignorant And the said Edmond further craftily designing not only the good Name State Credit Dignity and Honour of the said Bishop to hurt and blacken and him the said Bishop into further great Displeasure Distrust and Discredit â—our said Soveraign Lord the King that now is and of the great Men and â—â—eat Officers of this Kingdom of England and of divers other worthy Subjects of our said Lord the King to bring but also to cause him to endure the pain and peril of the Laws and Statutes of this Realm against Traitors and such Malefactors made afterwards to wit the said fourth day of April in the said three and thirtieth Year of the Raign of our said Soveraign Lord the King that now is at Chelmnesford aforesaid in the said County divers other false News and horrible Lyes of the said Henry then and yet Bishop of London and one of the Prelates of this Realm in the presence and hearing of divers of the King's Subjects scandalously falsly and maliciously devised spoke related published and declared in these English Words following viz. I meaning him the said Edmond Hickeringill can prove His Lordship meaning the said Henry Lord Bishop of London to be concerned in the Damnable Plot meaning the Popish Plot to destroy the King and subvert the Government of this Realm late discovered By Means of which said several false News and horrible Lyes the said Bishop is not only hurt and scandalized in his Reputation Honour and Dignity and the said Bishop hath lost the Favour good Opinion and Esteem which our said Soveraign Lord the King and other great Men and Prelates of this Realm afore towards him did bear and divers Rumors and Scandals between divers of the Nobles of this Realm and great Men and other the King's Subjects upon the Occasion aforesaid within this Realm are risen and spread abroad and great Scandals and Discords by reason of the Premises between the said Bishop and others of this Realm are risen and daily more and more are likely to arise to the great disturbance of the Peace and Tranquillity of the Realm to the Contempt of our said Lord the King and great Scandal of the said Bishop and against the Form of the said Statute of Richard the Second to the Bishop's Damage 5000 l. and therefore he brings this Suit Issue Non Cul This Trial of so great expectation came on about nine a Clock in the Morning Wednesday the 8th of March 1681. To prove the Declaration only one single Witness was produced for the Plantiff namely one Samuel Harris Clerk Witnesses sworn on the behalf of the Defendant were The Right Honourable Edward Earl of Lincoln Mr. Benjamin Edgar Mr. Ambrose Flanner Robert Potter Henry Bull Christopher Hill and Daniel Howlet all except that Noble Earl Parishioners of the Parish of St. Buttolph's in Colchester and present when the Words were pretended to be spoken Actions for Words ought to be precisely and punctually prov'd and all the Words together without addition or diminution otherwise as the Defendant who pleaded his own Cause told the Court the Sense must differ except they be taken together with the antecedent and subsequent Discourse in sensu conjuncto not diviso jointly and not severally adding that he had a thousand times said that there is no God and yet that saying that looks so scandalously Atheistically and Blasphemously taken disjointed and severally from the foregoing Words are really innocent and harmless and have been spoken a thousand times by every Man that has a thousand times read or repeated Psal 14. 1. The Fool hath said in his Heart there is no God So also in infinite Instances as to say It is not lawful to love God nor to 〈◊〉 our Neighbour dissemblingly or hypocritically take away the last Words and 〈◊〉 looks scandalously and most prophanely but taken altogether no harm all but good and true and like that of the Apostle Let Love be without Dissimulation The said Harris Witness for the Plantiff had got the Words pretty well by Heart but yet did not swear them so roundly off as was expected For as to the first Words namely The Lord Bishop of London is a bold daring impudent Man for sending some Heads of Divinity to all his Clergy in these
I have made to your Lordship that all Differences as well as the Action of Scandalum Magnatum brought against me by your Lordship may be amicably composed before the utmost Extremity be tried If I had spoke the Words modo formâ as they are laid in your Declaration I know not whether upon any Submission your Lordship would find Mercy enough to remit them But my Lord if you will vouchsafe me a Hearing with or without your own Witness or Witnesses I doubt not but he or they will evidence my Innocence that I never spoke the Words as they are laid but without any Interruption or Intermission in a continued Discourse I did explain and explain and express what horrid Plot it was which I said your Lordship had a hand in viz. against my righteous Name and Reputation in the Barretry And that those ungrateful Words of Impudent and Ignorant which are odious if considered abstractly had reference only to a Discourse we had of a printed Paper your Lordship recommended to the Clergy of Essex in your last Visitation and amongst other things the Observation of the Canons of 40 by Name disallowed by 13. Car. 2. 12. Which Statute if your Lordship knew not I said you were ignorant thereof or if you knew it it was impudent to confront the said Act of King and Parliament opposing your Sence against theirs All which my Lord are not scandalous taken together nor against the Statute if true but the last Words were very rashly and irreverently spoken and I am so far from justifying the Irreverence and Indecency of the Expressions what Provocation soever I might have that I will give your Lordship what Satisfaction your Lordship shall reasonably require with all Humility and Contrition And I am the rather hopeful of the good Success of this my humble Submission because I hope your Lordship intended nothing else in bringing the Action but only to bring me to Acknowledgment of the Irreverence of the Expressions and not with a design to enrich your self by any Money of mine or undoing me and my Family Yet my Lord I doubt not but to make it appear if you will admit me to your Lordship that the Action against me is ill laid and that you wlil certainly be non-suited tho it be no Policy to tell your Lordship how and wherein at this time of Day However it will approve me ingenuous towards your Lordship and that I do as industriously avoid a Conquest as well as all Contest with your Lordship and that this Submission proceeds from nobler Principles than Fear can suggest But I have had so ill Success in all my former Applications to your Lordship that I have but little Faith or Hope in the Success of this however nothing on my part shall be wanting to an Accommodation And since Almighty God in Mercy does not send a Thunderbolt for every rash Oath or every irreverent Word against his holy Name your Lordship I faintly hope will after his Example find Mercy and Grace enough to remit My Lord Your Lordship 's humble Servant EDM. HICKERINGIL Now let the Reader judg whether any soft Concession or Submissions can mollify this sort of Men Flints will break upon a Feather-Bed but the Bishop and his Clerks near the Isle of Scilly are harder than Flint harder than the Adamant or the nether Milstone What Advantage did Sir Francis Pemberton the Lord Chief Justice take at the Defendant's ingenuous Concessions which were more than needed in the Case For there are not any Words laid in the Declaration if never so true and well-prov'd that are actionable or within that Statute but are justifiable as they were spoken And upon a Writ of Error it will appear for the Oath of the Judges is to have no respect of Persons in Judgment That the Words in all the three several Counts are not actionable nor scandalous and if so then all this Noise is like the Shearing of Hogs a great Cry and a little Wooll To say His Lordship is very ignorant 't is too true and if he be wise he will confess it as aforesaid St. Paul did and so Socrates and all the wise Men before or since Agur or Solomon one of them says I am more brutish than any Man I have not the Vnderstanding of a Man That Danger is over the other is easy For to say in sensu conjuncto nay in sensu diviso That his Lordship is a bold Man A Souldier should be so much more when he is a Souldier of Christ much more when he mounts so high as to be a Prelate he had need be bold or daring because of the many Oppositions he must expect to encounter The Apostle bids us stand to our Arms and put on the whole Armor of God and stand and when we have done all to stand Aristotle and all the Philosophers make Fortitude to be one of the four Cardinal Vertues I never heard it was scandalous before to say a Man is bold and daring if it had on the contrary been said his Lordship is fearful a Coward and then Then then indeed the Scandal magnat would be greatly scandalous and within the Statute and the Action would well lie but not to say His Lordship is a bold daring Man though you add a bold daring impudent Man for sending some Heads of Divinity in a printed Paper contrary to Law Is it not Impudence to live in the Practice and Office Episcopal acting contrary to those Methods Rules and Rubricks commanded in the Statutes by King and Parliament and contrary to the Common-Prayer Book and Act of Uniformity Yes you must say for a Bishop cannot plead Ignorance nor Frailty for then his Lordship would indeed be very ignorant The Defendant is the Man that will prove if any Body have the Face to deny it and when Time shall serve that there is a Bishop within a Mile of an Oak that has liv'd in the Practice and Office Episcopal acting contrary to those Methods Rules and Rubricks commanded in the Statute by King and Parliament and Common-Prayer Book and Act of Uniformity As for Instance He that confirms all Comers Hand over Head without Exception without Examination without Certificate without knowing that they are Baptiz'd or Catechis'd is not this abominable bold daring and impudent No great Man if he be a Subject is too great for the Law not too great to be corrected reform'd and better taught not too great for King and Parliament and their Statutes It is Treason to deny this Truth What shall Confirmation of which the Papists make a Sacrament and Protestants make an Ordinance and Statute-Law be slubber'd over against the very Design of it be slubber'd over by confirming such as have neither Sureties there nor any Witness nor any God-Father or God-Mother nor any Minister to testify that ever they were baptized O abominable What is bold daring and impudent if this be not The Canon Law says Episcopus non potest statuere contra
take care Sufficient for the day its Evils are But enough of this at present at least let us in the next place consider the Doughty Articles sworn by six Doctor's-Commons Reverend Fellows called Proctors on which was bottom'd and founded a Supplicavit namely ARTICLES OF THE Good Behaviour Exhibited in the Court of our Lord the King before the King at Westminster against Edmond Hickeringill Rector of All-Saints in Colchester in the County of Essex Clerk for several Misdemeanours by him committed Imprimis THat in Trinity Term last Articles were Exhibited against the said Edmund Hickeringill in the Arches Court of Canterbury for Clandestine Marriages at the promotion of Henry Lord Bishop of London of which high Crimes he still 〈…〉 and he said Edmund Hickeringill did several Court days make his 〈…〉 said Court and behaved himself irreverently and did affront 〈…〉 said Court and more particularly 20th of Jan. Anno vicessimo tertio of 〈◊〉 King did again make his Appearance in the said Court then held in the common â—â— all of Doctors-Commons London by Sir Richard Lloyd Knight Doctor of Laws then sitting judicially in the said Court with many persons along with him or following him to the number of thirty or twenty Persons as they do verily believe Tho. Tillot Tho Smith Jur. ad predict primum Articulum Tho. Tyllet Tho. Smith in cur die predict Hillar Anno xxxiii o coram codem Rege 2. Item That the said Edmund Hickeringill did on the said twentieth of January then and there behave himself in the Court of Arches then sitting as aforesaid very indecently and insolently to the Court keeping his Hat on tho by the Judg of the same Court several times monished to the contrary and then the Officer of the said Court by the Judg his Command taking off his Hat he put it on again in a contemptuous manner Tho. Tyllot Tho. Smith Cha. Tuckyr Jur. ad predict secundum Articulum Tho. Tyllet Tho. Smith Carolus Tuckyr in cur die Anno supradict 3. Item The said Edmund Hickeringill then very sawcily and impudently declaring to the Judg of the said Court of Arches That if the Arch-bishop himself was there he would not stand uncovered Jo. Miller Tho. Stoker Char. Turkry Jur. id predict tertium Articulum Johannes Miller Tho. Stokes Carolus Tucker in cur die Anno supradict 4. Item That the said Edmund Hickeringill in the open Court there among other opprobious and abusive Language then used by him to the Court said it was no Court by Law and that they had no power to call him before them and that perhaps the Court of Arches might do him a Mischief but that they never had done any good or he used words to that Effect Tho. Stoker John Coker Jurad predict quartum Articulum Tho. Stokes Johannes Coker in cur die Anno supradict 5. Item That the said Edmund Hickeringill did then in a moct opprobrious manner tell the Judg of the said Court that Toads had Poison in them but had an Antidote also that Vipers had Poison in them but their Flesh was an extraordinary Medicine or to that effect and that every the vilest or worst of God's Creatures had something of good in it saving that Court which he then said never did any good nor ever would or to that effect and that the Persons or many of them that came into the said Court of Arches with the said Edmund Hickeringill laughed aloud at what the said Hickeringill said and followed him out of the said Court with great Noise and laughed to the great Disturbance of the said Court Tho. Smith John Coker Jur. ad predict quintum Articulum Tho. Smith Johannes Coker in cur die Anno supradict In Banco Regis Westminster Dominus Rex versus Edmund Hickeringill Clericum JEremy Ives Cheesmonger and Citizen of London Joseph Ashhurst Draper and Citizen of London and Samuel Wells Mercer and Citizen of London do depose as followeth viz. That on the twentieth day of January in the three and thirtieth Year of this King these Deponents were personally present in the Court commonly called the Arches held in Doctors-Commons London when Mr. Edmund Hickeringill Rector of the Rectory of All Saints in Colchester made his Appearance there and heard the whole Discourse and saw the Actions and Demeanours that passed betwixt Sir Richard Lloyd Official there and the said Mr. Hickeringill during his stay there and that the said Sir Richard commanded the said Mr. Hickeringill to put off his Hat which he refused to do whereupon the said Sir Richard commanded an Officer to take off Mr. Hickeringill's Hat which he delayed to do saying he was afraid that Mr. Hickeringill would have an Action against him for so doing but the said Sir Richard again and again encouraging him at length he pull'd off Mr. Hickeringill's Hat two or three times the said Mr. Hickeringill putting it on so often as his Hat was return'd to him mildly telling the said Sir Richard at the same time that it was not Pride Insolence nor any design to affront them that made him then to be covered but a sence of his Duty except they would own their Court to be the King's Court and that they sate there by the King's Authority and Commission and consequently would make out their Citations Acts and Processes in the Name and Stile of the King according to the Statute and that then but not till then no Man should pay them more Reverence and Respect than He but the said Official not asserting their Court to be the King's Court and as aforesaid to be kept in the King's Name and Stile and by his Authority Mr. Hickeringill would not be uncovered saying That it was against the Oath of Canonical Obedience against the Oath of Supremacy against the Canons and the Statutes to own any Court Ecclesiastical but what sate by the King's Authority and Commission and acted in the Name and Stile of the King And if that Court of Arches was only the Arch-bishop's Court He the said Mr. Hickeringill durst not nor would he be uncovered before the Arch-bishop himself if he were present because it is contrary to their own Canon-Law and the Oath of Canonical Obedience for a Presbyter to stand bare-headed in presence of any Bishop or he used words to the like effect Saying that if they could argue his Hat off his Head by Statute-Law Canon Law Civil-Law or Common-Law it should be at their Service and he would stand bare-headed before them or he used words to the like effect And the said Mr. Hickeringill during his whole stay there used no other Actions nor Speeches that might give just Offence unless the said Sir Richard took Offence when he at the same time said That every Creature that God made was good and had some good in it that a Pearl was sometimes found in the Head of a Toad and the Toads Flesh is an Antidote against its own Venom And the best Cordial
not well how to avoid it And therefore Powel being first ask'd the Question and the rest of them after him one after another was at a stand and knew not what to say Let 's have no Pumping no Pumping I beseech you good Mr. Powel answer directly said the Defendant Is it not an ill thing for a Minister to be Non-Resident ever since before Mid-Summer last Yes replyed he and they there was no help for it Well then Has not Mr. Harris been non-Resident and deserted his Flock ever since Mid-summer last Yes replyed Mr. Powel and the rest of them and yet before they knew no ill thing But says Mr. Powel there has been some Differences and Contentions about the Parishes of St. Buttolphs and St. Leonard's in Colchester which the Bishop gave to Mr. Harris by Sequestration But replyed the Defendant What is that to Fingringhoe to which Vicaridge Harris is Instituted and Inducted to your knowledg for you were present at his Induction and so was Thompson and Shelton the other Witnesses which all of them confest for they could not avoid it by any Evasion or Equivocation only said there was no Vicarage-House at Fingringhoe to whom the Defendant retorted That it might be a good excuse for not residing upon his Vicarage if he resided in any other House of the Parish but what is that to his leaving his Flock at the distance of fourty Miles namely at London and taking upon him another Cure and Charge as Curate under Mr. Grove and leaving none to supply the place for three quarters of a Year nor four Sermons from Mid-summer to Michaelmas and those preach'd by a quondam Logg-river one Mr. Sills Rector of Dounyland a good Rectory but the Man tho a Rector never yet could nor ever was able so much as to read his Accidence yet he that knows not how to supply his own Cure as he ought must for cheapness mumble to boot a little for this prime and single Episcopal-Witness good doings the while This 't is to be in Favour with a Prelate and this 't is to incur the Displeasure of a Prelate and tell bold Truths behold the difference The Defendant silenc'd stigmatiz'd bely'd and slander'd vilify'd as a Common-Varlet and Common-Barretor paid off with Indictments Informations Actions and Accusations in Spiritual Court in Temporal Courts Henry Bishop of London Promoter Suspensions Supplicavits Excommunications Fines outragious Verdicts Plots and Complots Conspiracies and Horrid Plots to ruine him and his Family by enriching the Rich Bishop and all for what For a little Naked-Truth Sir George Jefferies brought the Books and pointed with his Index to the two last Lines of the Black Non-Conformist namely A Bishop sayest Thou lyest Him Cornet call Of the Black-Regiment that Jayles us all The Welsh-man looking merrily at the Defendant and glaring in his Face For Sir George insisted more to the Jury concerning the Defendant's Books and his writing and speaking against Lordly Prelacy than upon the Declaration producing two Letters writ by the Defendant to the Bishop wherein he complain'd to the Bishop how hardly he was used I wish they would Print those Letters as well as produce them to the Jury as if it were a Sin to groan when a Man is pinch'd and tormented First they make us sigh and then accuse us for sighing to ease our Hearts But first Sir George insisted upon the Title and Superscription of those Letters To the Bishop of London which was descanted upon notably by that Critick in Law Sir George Jefferies namely this To HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON These Do you see Gentlemen quoth Sir George Henry Lord Bishop no more I Sir quoth he to the Defendant It might have become you to have styl'd him Reverend Father in God you have not said To the Right Reverend Father in God Henry Lord Bishop c. That quoth Sir George is omitted and seems to be an Aggravation at least if not another Scandalum Magnatum nothing but plain Henry Lord Bishop A Gentleman of a noble Extract and Pedigree I hope the Jury will take notice of this Omission here is no Reverend Father in God That is replyed the Defendant the very Naked-Truth on 't you say right Sir George there is no Reverend Father in God in the case who denies it But said the Defendant I am not innur'd nor desire to be innur'd to Court-Complements I think to say Henry Lord Bishop is pretty fair for him and pretty fair from me Sir George makes little or nothing of a Lordship belike whereas the Bishop of London's Grand-Father William Compton liv'd the greatest part of his Life without the Title of Lordship For indeed William Compton this Bishop's Grand-Father was the first of the Compton's that ever was an Earl since Adam And King James created him Earl of Northampton I could tell the Reader how and for what too Anno Dom. 1618. There are thousands alive that remember the Business But no doubt but the Bishop did come of a noble Extract But if Sir George had not taken notice of it the noble Family would have been never the worse for when Men are always dung in the Teeth with the same and the same Bastinado Self-Preservation makes them stand upon their Guard and perhaps take the length on 't and as it happens this Pedigree that Sir George did so bluster with is not so long neither not so long as a Welsh-Pedigree ap Lewis ap George ap Morgan ap Taphee ap Lloyd is a Pedigree more than twice so long But I should have wondred if the Welsh-man on this occasion too you 'll say had not vapour'd with his Extract and Pedigree But to the Business Here 's no Reverend Father in God 'T is readily granted nor is the Omission a Sin of Omission 't is no Crime For a younger Brother to be a Lord that 's pretty fair and more honour than his Grand-Father arriv'd unto at his Years For a Man that was but the other day a Cornet in Captain Compton's Troop in the Earl of Oxford's Regiment I think by the King's Grace to be made a Prelate and a Lord Bishop there 's no reason in the World that he or any Body else should take it so in disdain to be called only Lord Bishop since that old Complement of Popish-Times namely Reverend Father in God was never given 'till Priests grew abominably and loathsomely Proud and Ambitious when Pride and Prelacy came in Fashion The Defendant in his Epistle Dedicatory to the Arch-Bishop to avoid offence in his Book called the Black-Non-Conformist does give that old Father The Stile namely the Stile that Sir George does so want and does so stare about to the Jury to find it missing To the Reverend Father in God William c. But the Bishop of London is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 newly come to the Faith as being young in Years and a Cornet of Horse within the memory of Youth and unmarried and much a younger Brother to the
Defendant both in Years in Travels in Studies at the University in Experience nay as a Souldier too one a Cornet the other a Captain one a great Traveller as the most Gentlemen in England the other 's greatest Travels is but over the Diocess in Conferences Visitations to gather Procurations and unconformable Confirmations not according to Law as is proved in the Black-Non-Conformist and for the Defendant to have called one who is indeed only by the King's Grace as being made a Bishop and a Doctor and therefore only his Senior but his younger Brother by many Degrees in all other respects as aforesaid if the Defendant had pleased Sir George's Humour and had stiled him Reverend Father in God perhaps the Bishop would have thought the Defendant had jeer'd him and then all the Fat had been in the Fire again and all in a Flame the other Action of Scandalum Magnatum And let the By-standers judg whether it had not been as much for the Bishop's Honour if Sir George had never touch'd upon the Pedigree but have left it quiet as he found it nor yet have star'd about when he mist the old cogging flattering Hierarchical and Prelatical Complement of Reverend Father in God A Complement now worn out at Elbows and as tatter'd trite and Thread-bare as Your Humble Servant And for the noble Pedigree the Welsh-man had as good have let it alone if it had been possible for a Welsh-man to omit the Occasion but the noble Extract and Pedigree which no Body does deny had rested never the worse if he had suffer'd it to sleep quietly to all Posterity without this his Index to disturb it Here 's a flanting-do with these Welsh-men and their Extracts and their Pedigree's and if old Adam or Noah were alive they would equally love a Beggar as one who is as nigh a Kinsman of their Blood as the Welsh Knight himself Away with this musty worm-eaten-Heraldry some by pimping and worse have got to be Lords stand clear there from all his Progeny remember 2 Ric. 2. Sirra we 'll Scandalum Magnat you do you not honour a Lord and a Lord's Son A Lord's Son Can you prove your Words Now it is the Mode in some Countries for Ladies that have Lords to have also a Gallant a strong Back'd Coach-man or sweaty Foot-man or Groom Spindle-shank'd Gentlemen-Ushers as useless being laid aside And now it is the Mode the Court-like Mode for a Lord that has a Wife to keep a Miss likewise That it would puzzle this same little Harris who would make no Bones of a probable Oath but swallow it roundly to swear who is a Lord's Son and yet what a pother Men keep in the World with their Noble Blood Noble Blood when the Chirurgeon swears that there is not one of a hundred Lords upon trial of Phlebotomy has so good Blood in his Veins as the Defendant In Guinee therefore to secure the Blood-Royal infallibly in the Blood and Family-Royal the eldest Son of the King 's eldest Sister does Heir the Crown not the King's Son for so there can be no foul play But the said two Letters were read wherein the Defendant inculcated the Commands of our Saviour to his Disciples that they should not Lord it over one another as the Princes and Men of the World do Look you says Sir Francis Withins he justifies his speaking against Prelates As if it were a Sin to quote our Saviour's own Words But especially He and Sir George storm'd when the Defendant said That Prelacy is condemn'd 1 Tim. 5. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 absque eo ut unum alteri praeferas without preferring or prelating one before another Worse and worse saith Mr. Withins He justifies here 's Scandalum Magnatum again an Aggravation Gentlemen I hope you will remember it in the Damages Ay Ay trouble not your Head The Jury-men were Wise-men and had conn'd their Lesson perfectly and knew their Business and what to do as well as Sir Francis could tell them he might have spar'd his Breath to cool his Pottage or for the next cause and yet when his Tongue did not go his Hand went at every Clause and Period and sometimes at every Word lifting up his Hand and then the Cadence he had seen the Singing-men how they act their Prayers And when the Words of the Letter were full of heavy complaints made to the Bishop by this Defendant at every Period or Clause Hah quoth Sir Francis As when in the Letter the Defendant complains that the Bishop of London listned to clandestine Affidavits Hah quoth Sir Francis about the false Accusations of Barretry Hah and taken illegally Hah and out of Court Hah when there was no Cause depending Hah nor any Issue joined Hah nor any Cause that was of Ecclesiastical cognizance Hah and sworn by two Bum-lifts Martin and Groom Hah two Fellows of the basest Conversation Hah the former Martin whip'd for a Thief Hah in Sudbury Hah and the Record thereof produc'd and prov'd at the Assizes by Mr. George Catesby Town-Clerk of Sudbury Hah still quoth Sir Francis And that the Fellows swore through an Inch-Board as swearing against Records Hah and after his Lordship knew this to be true yet He or his Chancellor Sir Tho. Exton or the Registers Morris and Betts or all of them still prosecuted the Defendant as a Common-Barretor Hah and for taking a Bribe for granting an Administration to Thomas Shortland which they knew by their Register-Books was never granted and yet knowing all this they suffer'd this Martin to swear that he brought the Administration from Chelmnesford from the Register's-Office of that Couple Morris and Betts and Groom their Apparitor fit Companions in their Spiritual Court swore he saw the Administration under Seal of the Court and granted to Thomas Shortland by the Defendant as Surrogate when they knew all was false as God is true and that not the Defendant but Gilbert Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in the Prerogative-Court where the Defendant was never concern'd in his Life and Marcus Cottle not Morris nor Betts Registers and under the Seal of the Arch-Bishop Of such Vexations and Grievances the Defendant humbly complains but smartly and warmly too in his Letters to the Bishop and humbly entreats the Bishop either to give him reparation for the Damages he has causelessly been put unto or if he would stand upon the Plea of his Innocence and Justification that he would please to give this Defendant the Benefit of righting himself by Law Hah And that the said Bishop would be pleased to wave his Priviledg and give Appearance to the Desendants Attorney Mr. Coleman Hah and come in amongst the rest of the Conspirators and Plotters against the Defendants righteous Name and Reputation Hah And that all these Mischiefs had their rise from that old inveterate piece of Malice Hah Sir John Shaw Hah who without any lawful Power or Authority Hah had taken clandestine Affidavits Hah in his House Hah about Barretry Hah
depending in the King's-Bench Hah where Sir John Shaw had no Authority to give or take an Oath Hah in private Hah against the Laws of the Land Hah and made them ready against the Bishop came down to set the Bishop to Roil Mr. Hickeringill whom he knew would not tamely suffer himself and his Reputation to be illegally and publickly brought in question by any Bishop in Christendom Hah This was the Sum and Substance of those two Letters which the Defendant writ to the said Bishop that were never answered but only as Men are when they are prest to Death with more Weight more Weight The Defendant in vain opposed the reading of his private Letters saying it was not genteel civil nor manly to produce such Evidence and nothing to the present Declaration and that tho there was nothing in them but what was modest and true yet private Letters are and ought to be sacred in their Privacy and that Si liceat parvis componere magna King Charles 1. If it be lawful to compare great with small did justly upbraid the Parliament with the Incivility of publishing his private Letters taken at Naseby tho there was nothing in them nor in this Defendants Letters for which any Man need blush or be blam'd But this is the Ecclesiastical-Candor any Method to expose the Defendant no Vengeance is great enough no Fine or Verdict outragious enough to crush one that dares as the Defendant has discover the Mystery of Iniquity Ecclesiastical in Extortions illegal Fees Oppressions and Courts kept in dessance of the Statutes of this Realm Excommunications Absolutions Prophanations Procurations Visitations namely Vexations c. There 's a Villain indeed Plague him All Hands aloft all 's at Stake down goes if you do not help This Fellow is another Germana illa Bestia quae non curat Aurum a German Beast that regards not Preferment as the Cardinal told the Pope when he chid him because he could not by tampering with Luther and the proffer of Gold and a Cardinal's Cap prevail with him nor take him off from writing and preaching against the Abominations and Corruptions of the Church and Church-men Church and Church-men Ay set but the Clergy upon a Man and you need not set any Dogs upon him to worry him Church and Church-men Ha! do you know who you speak against what Find fault with Oppressions and Extortions of Ecclesiastical-Courts with Apparitors Registers Commissaries and all that Fry of Lay-Elders Church and Church-men Ha! Do you speak against Prelacy Say that Word again say it again before Witness Sirrah Villain Rogue How dare you at this time of day speak Scripture dangerous Scripture Scripture against Statute-Law 2 Rich. 2. 5. which Statute makes a Prelate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 8. 9. some great One and you Sirra would have him as your Saviour and the Gospel would have him as lowly as Christ or his Apostles you Sirra do you speak Scripture in a Court of Law Ha! what do you produce a Bible instead of a Breviate Do you plead Gospel against Law and Christ and his Apostles in defiance of Rich. 2 An Aggravation an Aggravation as Sir Francis Withins said the Defendant justifies in a Plea of Non-Culp this is rich indeed These Errors will be committed when you suffer Parsons to be Pleaders and plead their own Cause and understand not the Punctilio's and Methods of nice-pleading very fine What suffer Scripture to be quoted instead of Law and Christ and his Apostles instead of Cook and Littleton for Shame And yet the Defendant ignorant Man did not understand the mischief of urging a little Scripture in this Cause betwixt two Church-men and already there decided namely that of Christ St. Paul and St. Peter against all Prelacy Pride Lordliness and Dominion one Brother over another not Lording it over God's Heritage But Christ and St. Paul and St. Peter were poor Men Silver and Gold had they none they were meek humble and lowly and when they were reviled reviled not again nor brought an Action of Scandalum Magnat nor did Fee a pack of Lawyers to mouth it upon an old Statute made in the time of Popish Prelacy and when Antichrist was Rampant and when the Devil raigned a time as the Defendant told the Court when the Prelates did all and all ill a time when the Prelates were grand Rebels as ever were in England For then in the Raign of Rich. 2. was this Statute made when the Clergy were as very Rebels as Wall the Priest Wat. Tyler or any of that wicked Crew 'T is true Henry Spencer Bishop of Norwich was General for the King both in England and France did not Armour disgrace Bishop Henry's Lawn-Sleeves The Bishop of Ely was Lord Chancellor Countez Two Tho. Arundel Bishop of Hereford Countez Three Lord Treasurer Nicholas Abbot of Waltham Lord Privy-Seal Four William Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Five Alexander Arch-Bishop of York Countez Six William Bishop of Winchester Seven And Thomas Bishop of Exeter Eight Good Men and True that 's a Lye a Pack of damnable Villains and Rebells as ever were in England for taking upon them by Commission to rule the King and Kingdom and so the Judges concluded that Commission of thirteen Persons to rule the King and Kingdom of which eight were Prelates with five Lay-men for fashion-sake for the Prelates could out-vote them when they list a Devilish Rebellion abominable Prelates in Rich. 2d's time when the Statute of Scandalum Magnatum was made and struck at it has been by the last Parliament at Westminster and others as a Statute obsolete or in the Judgment of the Wisdom of the Nation the Honourable House of Commons to be repealed being made in the wicked time aforesaid when the Devil danc'd and Simon Magus vaunted himself to be one of the Magnat some Great One and yet also the Successor of Simon Peter who was a poor Fisher-man and a Fisher of Men not a Pick-Pocket nor a Promoter of Law-Suits nor did he mend his Market by turning Church-man as some have done too well known but to his dying day was poor and pennyless having his Faith and Hope in another World and being a Disciple of him whose Kingdom is not of this World All this and more the Defendant told the Court and the Men that were sworn for to give the Judge his due he gave the Defendant sufficient leave and leisure for three hours to defend himself against the crafty Suggestions and dirty Language thrown at him on purpose to vilify him with Dirt which the Counsel had rak'd up together and in two set-Speeches made on purpose fetch'd it far and not at all to the purpose or to the matter in hand villifying him with the Miseries and Vexations with which they had loaded him in the Barretry and Supplicavit as if his Sufferings were his only Crime But something they must say for their Guinies and for their Lord Prelate and in hopes of Preferment and his
the disguize of Truth and the defeat of many an honest Cause These Quirks the Rabble that use them are useless in the Vnited Provinces where every Man pleads his own Cause of which the same Sun that views the first Process sees the End and Determination before it sleeps in the Ocean Whereas we labour with our nice Pleadings Quirks and Tricks Writs of Errors Pleas Rejoynders and Demurrers eternally A Man was Indicted quia furatus est Equum because he stole a Horse in Holland he had dy'd for it but with us the Indictment was quash'd for lack of Form there wanted Forsooth the Word Felonicè and therefore ill 29. Ass 45. A Man was Indicted that he was communis Latro a common Thief and the Indictment was held vicious because too general never coming on to the particular Proof A Man Murder'd another but the Indictment by the Clerks oversight or worse was only Interfecit and was quash'd for want of the Word Murdravit Thousands of Instances might be given of pretty Quirks and Niceties that are now made such essential parts of the Law that he is accounted the Man of Law that is most nimble at them to take a Cause with a Why not Tick-Tack as if some design had been to make the Law like Sives and Cullenders full of Holes for the nonce But some may say then What shall become of the Vermine the Locusts and the Catterpillars that like those Plagues of Egypt eat up evary green thing in the Land How now Is this good Behaviour Is Sampson bound or bound with Wit hs of smal Cords made on purpose to be broken Explain your self who do you mean by the Vermine the Locusts and the Caterpillars that eat up every green thing in the Land and is the great plague-sore thereof Who do you mean Sir You that are so blunt and such a plain Dealer do you mean those Throngs about Temple-Bar and Chancery-Lane those Crouds of Pen and Inkhorns that a Man can scarce stir there without being justled or run down by them or their Coaches Speak out who do you mean by the Vermine of the Land the Locusts and the Caterpillars Why then really truly and plainly I call those Locusts and Caterpillars and Vermine that live on the Sweat of other Men's Brows and of the sweet Labour and Industry of the painful Husbandman and Country-man who if they were not Fools would agree their Quarrels over a good Fire and a Pot of Ale by the Men of their Neighbourhood for it must come to that at last and why not as well at first before the Estate be wasted time consum'd with Danceing Attendance to Vermine But what shall the Locusts and Caterpillars do Ask Mr. Wilson who tells you in his Description of the new Plantation called Carolina that there is good Air room enough for the Locusts and Caterpillars those unprofitable Insects and Devourers Room enough for the He 's and She 's let them go there and work and Engender why should not Spiders spin And yet with Heraclitus his good leave the Defendant did if it were worth the mentioning in his pleading this Cause this Tick-tack which might as well have been kept secret but that Heraclitus will not be pleased without it For the Declaration is only un'Prelat not un'Magnat and though the Plantiff does declare as Episcop-Lond and un'Prelat yet said the Defendant it does not appear by the Declaration that the Plantiff is un'Magnat and therefore not within the Statute For the Defendant said further that he had consulted the Records of those times whereby the meaning of the Words Bishop and Prelate in those days is best cleared and does not find that ever by Prelates or Bishops is meant Magnates or le Grantz or le Seignieurs and therefore Scandalum Praelatorum nor Scandalum Episcoporum can possibly by that Statute be meant Scandalum Magnatum 25. Edw. 3. The Proceedings and Judgment of Death against Sir William de Thorp Chief Justice for Bribery and brought into Parliament which the King caused to be read Overtment devent les grantz de Parlement c. openly before the Great Men coram Magnatibus that could not be the Bishops Abbots Priors nor Prelates for they were always withdrawn in those days out of the House of Lords in Judgments or Inquest upon Life and Death as this was For the Chief Justice was hang'd for his Bribery right and good reason Cave cave 42. Edw. 3. Sir John de Lee Steward of the King's House was charged in Parliament for several Misdemeanors Et Apres manger vindrent les Prelats Duc's Counts c. After Dinner came the Prelates Dukes Counts c. Here being but a Misdemeanor the Prelates were present it not being in a Question of Life or Death 50. Edw. 3. Alice Perrers was accused for Breach of an Ordinance so is the Record but it was really a Statute which in those Days was called an Ordinance Fait venir devant ' les Prelats les Seignieurs du Parlement Which also was not in a Question of Blood and therefore the Prelates are nam'd as well as the Magnates or les Seigneurs Many Instances of this Nature may be given wherein Prelates were never signified by the words Magnates le Grants or le Seignieurs or Peers For they are tried as all Men ought to be by Magna Charta per Pares by their Peers or Equals and being tried by their Peers that is Commoners they therefore are Commoners not Peers of the Realm as the other Magnates le Seignieurs and le Grantz are And therefore tho the Bishop of London be Magnas as he is a Privy-Councellor and a Great Officer of the Realm yet the Declaration not mentioning any such thing the Defendant urg'd that it was deficient but the Judg over-rul'd him therein Yet 28. Edw. 3. Roger of Wigmore Cousin and Heir of Roger Mortimer Earl of March desires that the Attainder made 4. Edw. 3. against the said Mortimer might be examin'd Et dont le dit Seignieur le Roy vous charge Counts Barons les Piers de son Royalme c. The Lord the King charged the Counts Barons and Peers of his Realm to examine the said Attainder and give righteous Judgment But if the Prelates were meant by Counts Barons and Peers then they also were to examine the Attainder by that Command of the King But they had nothing to do with Attainders it being against their own Canon-Law and Oath of Canonical Obedience as they afterwards declared in another Case to be seen in the Rolls of Parliament 5. Edw. 3. In a Parliament called for Breach of the Peace of the Kingdom away went the Prelates out of the Parliament saying What had they to do with such Matters Et les dits Counts Borones autres Grants per eus mesmes And the Counts Barons and other great Men went by themselves c. to consult c. So in the same Parliament upon Judgment given against Sir John Grey for
laying his hand on his Sword in the King's Presence for which he was question'd for his Life no Bishops nor Prelates being there therefore yet the Record says Le Roy charge touts le Countes Barons autre Grantz The King charges all the Counts Barons and other Great-Men to consult c. And then he must charge the Prelates too if he charged all the Great Men if the Prelates be Magnates or les Grantz which could not be in a Question of Blood 'T is true the Bishops are a kind of Barons and so were the Abbots and Priors by virtue of the Baronies bestowed upon them by the Charity or blind Devotion or for what other reason by William the Conqueror c. who divided his Conquests all over England into Knights-Fees and of several Knights-Fees laid together he made Baronies And some of these Baronies the Lay-men got but the Clergy in the Scuffle and Scramble put in never fear it for a Share and got proportionably and more some Lord-Bishops got and some Lord-Abbots got and some Priors By virtue of which Baronies they had Votes and Places in the House of Lords But one House being not able to hold so many Lords the King divides his Baronies into Majores Minores the Minors he tript off but the Bishops Abbots and Priors held it fast till Hen. 8. and then the Lord-Abots and Priors tripp'd off this was a sore Shock to the Prelacy and only the Bishops of all the Prelates in 2 R. 2. hold it to this Day And who Parliaments as at Bury St. Edmonds and also as aforesaid 2. Edw. 3. have been held without the Prelates and tho it is declared before the Dissolution of the Monasteries the major Part of the Prelates in 7. Hen. 8. in Keilway's Reports p. 184. Dr. Standishes Case Les Justices de soi ent que nostre Seigneur le Roy poit asser bien tener son Parlement per luy ses temporal Seignieurs per ses Commons tout sans les spirituals Seignieurs That our Lord the King may well hold his Parliament by Himself and his Temporal Lords and by his Commons without the Spiritual Lords c. Yet by virtue of their Baronies they have Right to sit in the House of Peers tho their Brethren-Prelates Abbots and Priors be outed and the Privilege of Sitting in the House of Lords does not now continue de facto to those Gentlemen that now enjoy those Baronies which the Abbots had with all their Privileges and Immunities c. Of which Privileges and Immunities c. this was one to sit in the House of Peers and granted and regranted in the same manner the Abbots c. held these Baronies But I do not know de Jure how far this Immunity does extend nor is it my Province to argue it tho I am possessed of the Barony of the Priory of Wickes in Essex to me and my Heirs with all the Immunities c. and therefore one would think I might claim the Privilege of a Prelate out of that old Statute 2 R. 2. that hath caused all this Debate and Debait Nay all Clergy-men that are Rectors are Prelates so Lyndwood a Doctors-Commons Official in his Provincials Con. Otho sacer Ordo verb. illiteratos Quae Ignonantia multò magis detestanda esset in Episcopo seu majori Prelato If there was a major Prelate then there was a minor Prelate little Men are Men tho little A hundred Instances I could give that all Clergy-men that are Rectors are Prelates Now if the speaking against any Prelate who is not Magnas nor so mentioned in the Declaration as here it is not mentioned that the Plantiff is Magnas and if in the Language and Dialect of those Times the Word Bishops does not imply Magnates or les Grants then surely all Prelates and all that have the Fee-simple of those Lands and Baronies granted to the King and his Heirs and Assigns by Act of Parliament and given and regranted to others together with all the Immunities and Privileges that the Abbots had and enjoyed by virtue of those Lands and Baronies c. ought to have the Benefit of this Statute of Scandal Magnat quâ Prelat Why they should not enjoy the Privilege of Prelates in that Act of 2 R. 2. of Scandal Magnat and all other Privileges that ever the Abbots enjoyed by virtue of their Lands and Baronies being meer Temporals not Gospel nor Spiritual Priviledges I cannot imagine if the Bishops do enjoy these Benefits quâ Prelati or quâ Barones Howsoever the other Priviledg of sitting in the House of Lords may be lost for the long Intervall or Vacation of not being call'd thither time out of mind of Man by the King 's Writ be lost or for what other Reason it is not needful here to discuss For if the Bishops sit not in the House of Lords purely ex Gratia Regis but quâ Barones by reason of their Baronies then è fortiori much more may those Gentlemen that have the Abbot's Baronies and other Prelate's Baronies claim the old Privileges belonging to their Baronies and for which and other Immunities they have an Act of Parliament to them and their Heirs Since Bishops have not so firm a Tenure of their Baronies and the Privileges Temporalities and Immunities thereunto belonging because they hold them ex Gratiâ Regis and for Contempt may lawfully be forfeited and seized into the King's Hands But the Baronies of Us that hold them in Fee-simple and by Act of Parliament with the Immunities and Privileges anciently belonging to the Abbot-Prelates and Prior-Prelates cannot for such Contempt ad libitum Regis be so forfeited or seized Nay since many Rectors in England have Baronies annex'd to their Rectories and their Parsonage-House is the Manor-House where Court Barons are kept to this day and the Tenants do their Homage and Fealty and they are really and truly Prelates I see no Reason in Law or Equity but they may have the Benefit of this Statute of 2 Rich. 2. of Scandal Magnat if it pertain to Prelates quâ Prelati And then every little Rector may bring his Action upon this Statute Qui tam c. for Contempt of his Clergy-ship and Prelateship and then Hey day we shall have a little Pope in every Parish and a spiritual Hogen Mogen in every Rectory Hey then up go we and then Thompson and Heraclitus look to 't we 'll pay you off for your Nick-names you had better have been tongue-ty'd And none can give a Reason why this Defendant should not also have the Privilege of a Prelate which his Predecessors had the Abbots of Wicks when this Statute was made whose Successor is this Defendant in the Barony and to him and his Heirs for ever Nay really Thompson and Heraclitus I believe the Defendant is in earnest since so much Money as 2000 l. may be ceined out of old Statutes there are London Juries and Middlesex Juries as well as Essex Juries
Look to 't 'T is readily granted that there is a disserence betwixt the Bishop and the Defendant as to Riches c. But what then As a Prelate a poor Prelate has as much right to his Priviledges as the Rich and more need of it a great deal It is hard to pull off Hairs from the bald Crown or to rob the Spittle but there is no charity nor reason to take the few Hairs from the bald Crown to make a Wigg on for him that has a good Head of Hair of his own and needs no Wigg nor such superfluous Additaments I grant indeed Bishops are Prelats and Barons too So is the Defendant a little one and more than so the Defendant's Barony cannot be seized into the King's Hands as the Bishop's may for Contempt therefore I called the Bishops a sort or kind of Barons Not such Barons as the Temporal Lords who cannot forfeit them to the King nor the King cannot seize them for Contempt as aforesaid therefore there is a vast difference betwixt a Baron who is a Peer of the Realm and a Spiritual Baron the one is Magnas natus born a Peer and sits in the House of Lords as his Birth-right and Inheritance the other is Greatus and sits ex Gratiâ Regis and may upon the King's Displeasure or Contempt lose his Seat near the Wool-Packs and his Baronies and Temporalities forfeited into the King's Hands But what non-sence is it for Heraclitus to prate Numb 59. Jest says They the Whiggs clamour and say the Dammages are excessive Honestly said for a Fool or Jester Why so says Earnest or Sober-sides I think and so must every Man that thinks at all in one Doctor 's Opinion he might have said 't is a very cheap penny-worth to that which the honest Man Honest Man quoth he and a Proctor's Boy good sence and Tory-like had that pull'd off Hick's what plain Hick still no dread of the 2. Rich. 2 Will Men never take warning till they be maul'd 2000 l. thick Sure the Fellow thinks the Defendant cannot get as good a Jury in London or Middlesex as was lately in Essex Hicks Hat except the Privileges of the Saintship be as great as those of the Peerage Peerage The wise Fellow thinks that Bishops are Peers and thinks there 's no difference betwixt Words that are but wind and Blows or Assault and Batteries and Challengings to fight The Bishop is great Who denies it But 't is not so long ago since the Defendant being then as now for he is no Changling Rector of All-Saints and Cornet Compton quartering in Colchester I doubt the Defendant being an old Captain by Commission from two Kings of Sweden and Portugal by Sea and by Land would not have thought himself obliged in good Manners to give him the Wall except he had as Sir George did first told of his Pedigree then indeed then I grant But not a word of this should have been said but that they come so with their Comparisons when the Defendant had told them in the first words of the Naked Truth Second Part that he honoured Bishops but did not Idolize them could say my Lord but not my God But these Hireling Pamphletiers do so deify them that they are netled when Men do not fall down and worship the The Distance is great None envies his Lordships greatness the Distance is great the King made it so great as it is and can as easily make the Distance less when he list But enough of this Folly for such I acknowledg it but only that the Wise Man bids us answer a Fool according to his folly that is beat the Fool at his own Weapon 45. Edw. 3. The two Houses join Counts Barons Communes and represent to the King how the Government of the Kingdom had been a long time in the Hands of the Clergy do you see an old Complaint they were Papists indeed but true born Englishmen and could not tell how to buckle to a Mitre or Lawn-sleeves or that Westminster-Hall should truckle to Doctor's-Commons a great Indignity and a shameful Purent grant Mischiefs Dammages sont avenoz c. for the great Mischiefs and Damages that came thereby c. says the Parliament-Rolls But notwithstanding all this the Prelates baffled both King Lords and Commons having their Spiritual Weapons eek't out with two Temporal Writs namely de Heretico comburendo the other de Excommunicato capiendo The former with much adoe is damn'd to Perdition for the flames it made in Smithfield and all the Kingdom over the other de Excommunicato capiendo is yet in force and fills the Jayls dayly with Men Excommunicated many about Mony-matters and Fees Illegal-Fees and Oppressions Extortions as not paying the Knave a Groat c. For when the Popish Prelates could not burn any that stood in their way for a Heretick yet as obstinate and contemptuous they sent him to the Divel and then he and the Chancellours and the King's-bench and the Sheriffs got the poor Soul buryed alive in a Jayl till he dyed or submitted and swore future Obedience to Holy-Church Seven Years after this of 25. Edw. 3. the Prelates having got the whipping hand claw'd it away and to stop Men's Mouths from muttering got this Statute 2. Ric. 2. 5. Nay they are as cunning to preserve their Prelacy as for the Holy Scripture Christ and his Apostles having declar'd an Abhorrence of Spiritual Pride and Ecclesiastical Tyranny and Oppression calling them greedy Dogs that can never have enough and Wolves in Sheep's cloathing not sparing the Flock but tearing rending and devouring it It concern'd them to fly to Force and Temporal Power for aid of their abominable Hierarchy and the Magistrate in those days what for Fear and what for Folly what for Preferment or to keep Preferment since there was no other way gave his Assistance to the Beast and the false Prophet caw me and I 'le caw thee Rev. 13. 15 16 17. And he had power to give Life unto the Image of the Beast that the Image of the Beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the Image of the Beast should be killed And he causeth all both smal and great rich and poor free and bound to receive a Mark in their right hand or in their foreheads And that no Man might buy or sell save he that had the Mark or the Name of the Beast or the number of his Name Yet in 20. Ric. 2. Eighteen Years after this Statute the House of Commons forgot not that they were Englishmen still and remonstrated to the King complaining that he kept so many Bishops about him in his Court and advanced them and their Partakers The King did not or the Bishops would not suffer him to heed his Subject's herein as aforesaid And Poor King it prov'd his ruine for after he had lost the hearts of his People it was not a few Lawn Sleeves and flattering Sycophants and Parasitical
of the young Courtiers saying My Father made your Yoke heavy but I will add to your Yoke my Father chastised you with Whips but I will chastise you with Scorpions My little Finger shall be thicker than my Father's Loins Cunning Fool and subtil Politician nay the Text says 1 King 12. 15. that the Cause why the King hearkned not unto the People was from the Lord for his Ruin No wonder then the People grew stark mad Cruelty and Oppression had made them so mad and yet we do not read that Rehoboam nor Solomon opprest the People but that they had a Law on their side to vouch the Whips and the Scorpions too Remember Emson and Dudley No wonder then the People run into Rebellion to this day V. 19. and run stark mad and after a foolish Religion too but they that were made desperate by bad usage and cruelty it might be better with them it could not be worse they could but lose their Lives or their Livings Lands Goods and Liberty more dear than Life and therefore they publickly beat up their Drums to a Point of War and makes the Trumpets sound To Horse To Horse Ver. 16. So when all Israel saw that the King hearkned not unto them the People answered the King to his Head and to his Face most irreverently saying What Portion have we in David Neither have we Inheritance in the Son of Jesse To your Tents O Israel Now see to thy House David 1 King 12. 16 17 18 19 20. This 't is to take no warning no Counsel no Advice but of a sort of young unexperienc'd huffing vapouring sanguinary blustering bold daring Coxcombs and very ignorant the poor foolish King found it so to his cost good Man And what Mischiefs have come to the Church to the Nations to Christianity and Christendom by these rash sanguinary ways for every thing is most certainly best preserv'd by the same Means and Methods by which it was made nor was the Peace of Christianity nor its Propagation by Might nor by Power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts The World shall have a large and particular Account thereof if Mr. Hickeringill live and can come at Pen Ink and Paper of which his Enemies with all their Policies and Subtilties have not had power enough as yet to deprive him But will no doubt drive on in the same Road Jehu-like stand and see what an old House some Men have a mind to bring over their own Heads let them alone you cannot advise them more mischievously to themselves than to bid them follow their own Advice and consult only with their own malice hatred and revenge cruelty and mischief Let them alone and give them scope enough go on Mr. Hickeringill will also publickly make appear if God spare him Life Health and Liberty particularly and at large how baneful it has been to the Church to make Church-men and Spiritual Persons vastly rich and vastly powerful in Temporals so incongruous and incompatible with the Apostles the Gospel nay Christ himself whose Kingdom is not of this World and who never encouraged as some do but discouraged a worldly proud pragmatical Tribe overtopping Clergie and Lay as much as their Cathedrals overtop our Houses Though they have endeavoured to shut him out of the Pulpit a while by the help of an old Statute and a Jury they have not power to shut the Doors of the Press God be thanked Luther and Calvin's Reformation of the Idolatries and Superstitions of Rome could never have spread far and wide if Printing had not been invented A few Manuscripts might have been handled about to some few particular Persons and learned Men But the Tyranny Prelatical and Oppressions of Rome in England Scotland Ireland France Sweden Germany Denmark Holland c. could never without a Miracle have been defeated But by the Printing-Press well employ'd by able and Learned Pens not scurrilous News-mongers The three aforesaid Crimes are only personal and singular but there are other abominable Crimes of which the rest are guilty or the most of them Is not this too Scandalum Magnatum Of which many Instances may be given some for Example Namely Their Connivance confident and bold permission of all their under-Officers in their Ecclesiastical Courts if not their incouragement assistance and by their Power and Interest a bold countenance of the daily constant publick and impudent Extortions and Oppressions of the King's Subjects against the Statutes of this Realm that limit the just Fees in Citations Probate of Wills Administrations c. nay against their own Canon-Law Concil London 3. Edw. 3. Anno Dom. 1328. and against their own Table of Fees Wretched universal and abominable Impudence no Name can be bad enough for this wilful and daring Attempt and Contempt What in God's Name are any Prelats greater than the Laws or too big to be subject to the King's Laws or too great to be good God forbid No wonder the whole Tribe unite their Power against the Man who has courage to charge those things home upon them and whom they therefore hate because he is and few Men more acquainted with their Mysteries of Iniquity and knows how to charge them home No wonder therefore they so much dread him and do so unite their Common-Forces and Joint-Interest to ruin him or Jayl him and so tie up his Hands as well as stop his Mouth by their Ecclesiastical-Canon-Shot of Suspensions Silencings Excommunications Curses and the like Spiritual Artillery they act for Life as Men that are drawing on The Silver-Smiths cried out Great is Diana of the Ephesians And yet to tell you true this chast Diana whose Image as the Priests said came down from Jupiter and the Fools and Bigots believed it Tooth and Nail and the crafty Priests and the Shrine-makers and Silver-Smiths false Loons they knew that their great Wealth depended upon the belief on 't no wonder then that they cry and whoop and hallow and the Fools and Bigots eccho'd to the cry which the Shrine-makers made Great is Diana of the Ephesians and yet to tell you the Naked-Truth on 't this chast Diana was a Common-Huntress and Common-Strumpet and Baggage and as arrand a Whore as any in Rome Where is there a Clergy-man now-a-days that will say as of old Nolo Episcopari I will not Bishop it if I might or would gueld himself as some have done to make themselves uncapable of Lawn-sleeves No rather run and ride with Friends and Relations Mony and Flattery Cringing and Foppery to this Miss to that Miss Mony and Complyance against their Consciences by hook and by crook have at it though good Men find how hard it is for a Rich Man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven much more difficult for a Rich Man to be a good Church-man For they that will be Rich 1 Tim. 6. 9. fall into Temptation and a Snare and into many foolish and hurtful Lusts which drown Men yet they venture into Destruction and
Perdition For the love of Mony is the Root of all Evil which while some coveted after they have been seduced from the Faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows 20. Rich. 2. The Commons complain to the King that the King kept so many Bishops about him in his Court c. and advanced them and their Followers An old complaint When the Devil tempted our Blessed Saviour shewed him the Kingdoms of the World and the Glory of them Mat. 4. 8 9 10. Then Jesus said unto him Avoid Satan But how many of our Apostolical Men that vaunt themselves Successors of the Apostles do say as the Apostles did Acts 6. 2 4. It is not meet that we should leave the Word of God and serve Tables But we will give our selves continually to Prayer and to the ministry of the Word Ay Ay that 's a good Work the best Work and work enough and the most proper Work for Apostolical Men. We never read that any Apostle turn'd Action-Driver or Promoter surrounded with the black Regiment of Aparitors Proctors Hangmen and Jaylors Again what bold daring impudence is it for them to keep Courts and not in the Name and Style of the King contrary to 2. Edw. 1. if it be in force A Statute thought so necessary for the Reformation and so agreeable to the King's Supremacy in the wisdom of our Ancestors that one would wonder any good Subject should scruple at its observance much less live in contempt of it It is a Statute lawfully made and never repealed I know what Coke says of it and wherefore he durst say no more during the Tyranny of the High-Commission which High-Commission alone kept off all punishment from the Transgressors thereof an extrajudicial Judgment was once given against it But where is the Judg will declare against its force and say in Westminster-Hall that it is repealed I grant in Queen Mary's Reign all the Statutes against the Pope's Supremacy are repealed and her Repeal is repealed by Queen Elizabeth and King James But the Pope's Supremacy continues in France and yet Process Ecclesiastical might if the French King pleas'd run in his own Name and yet the Pope and he continue very good Friends and the Pope's Supremacy continue therefore the repealing the Statutes made against the Pope's Supremacy is no repeal of this Statute there goes more than general words to repeal a Law and such a Law If this Statute be repealed Why does not the Judges so declare it If it be in force no Name is bad enough nor any Punishment on this side Death for the wilful and stubborn Transgressors thereof and 't is my wonder that no Men in England will put it home to have it argued that it may not continue a Snare to the King's Subjects for if that Statute had not promis'd fair and most Learned Counsellors at Law of the same Opinion the Contest with Ecclesiastical Courts had never been continued against them for any thing but only because of their vile Extortions and Oppressions in high contempt of the Law of God and Man braving his Majesty's Laws his Statutes their own Canon Laws their own Table of Fees against Justice Conscience and Equity What is Impudence if this be not The King may seize their Temporalities for Contempt no wonder they frisk being so netled How they strive for Life And for the words in the last Count more need not be said than that it is ridiculous to insist upon them and therefore Sir Fran. Withins said They would take a Verdict only for the words in the first Count For instead of damnable Plot meaning the Popish Plot their own little single Witness Harris swore against them namely Horrid Plot against my Righteous Name and Person though that word Person was false too for instead of Person it was Reputation and so did all the Witnesses agree never was such a Cause carried on the Testimony of so infamous a Man a Man of so bad Memory that could not tell his Tale right twice together nor twice the same way and therefore though he had not been proved infamous by that Noble Earl yet he ought not to have been believed against the Testimony of so many substantial Witnesses that if they were not crazy must needs have better Memories than he Lastly He swore for himself and in revenge and to get the Defendant's Benefice And yet the precious Jury would not only believe him against so many but would not only find the words that are not actionable in themselves as has been prov'd at large and beyond all contradiction For Men thus to ruin a Man and beggar him to enrich a Rich Man that has enough already one would think or at least as much as he deserves is so like the Parable in 2 Sam. 12. 1 2 3 4. of the Ewe-Lamb the poor Man's whole Substance lost at a clap that the Jury may thank God that they escape King David's Threat For David's Anger Ver. 5. was greatly kindled against the Man and he said to Nathan As the Lord liveth the Man that hath done this thing shall surely die And he shall restore the Lamb four-fold Mark that four times 2000 pounds How much is that 8000 l. because he did this thing and because he had no pitty To dishonour God by a rash Oath taking his Name in vain is but by our Law twelve pence for the temporal Punishment And to defame a Prelat that in comparison of God is but Worms-meat shall the temporal Punishment be no less than Imprisonment or 2000 l. in Mony Oh monstrous The Mercies of the Wicked are Cruelty But cruel Men should remember in time they may have cause to remember the wretched End of Empson and Dudley those grand Pick-pockets that from the Breach of old Statutes and Penalties did ruine Families Sir Richard Baker p. 247. tells us that their principal Working was upon Penal Statutes to use his Words they consider'd not whether the Law was obsolete or in use and had ever a Rabble of Promoters a brave Employ for a Person of Honour and leading Jurors mark that too at their Command They liv'd and they liv'd to be hang'd for their Pains after three long Years for so long God suffered them to drink the Tears of Widows and Orphans namely from Anno Dom. 1406 till 1409. And the Promoters mark that too Canby Page Smith Derby Wight Simson and Stockton 't is fit their loathed Names should be chronicled to all Posterity and so shall others too that drive the same Trade condemn'd to the Pillory and then to ride through the City with Papers on their Heads and their Faces towards the Horses-tails All seven died strangely in seven Days after in Newgate for very shame There 's an End a wretched End of a Pack of Wretches pack'd Jurors and Promoters The Righteous God will hear the Groans and Cries of the Widows and Orphans by unreasonable and wicked Men ruin'd and undone and will pay off the stony-hearted
your Cause even in your own opinion if you dare not upon so fair Terms let go the catching hold you have got and take fair hold when you may assure your Mony your Costs your Credit and your Dammages all now desperate only by playing the Prize over again once more before indifferent and equal Judges and you shall have Mony of me too for playing the Prize again with a naked single Priest friendless helpless but not hopeless though you are arm'd with all your Power Friends Riches and consequently Learned Counsel High Places and Interest and flush'd also with your late Victory and Success I 'le venture all I have in the World upon this Contest if you will stake an equal Gage What Shall such a Man as I am be run down with one little single ill thriven infamous Priest against God's Holy Word and so many substantial Witnesses nay a Priest that cannot tell his own Tale off-book with the exactness uniformity and docillity of a Parrot The World cries shame on 't and of such a Jury Nay further I here promise that I will surcease the prosecution of that same Harris in order to convict him of Perjury 'till first this new Tryal be over he shall have his beggarly Ears a little longer on this condition That 's some comfort for this Episcopal Witness These are the certain Benefits and Honour you may be assured of by consenting to a new Trial And if you do not consent I doubt not but the Judges will grant me a new Trial whether you will or no at the Term upon such Suggestions as I shall make to them and upon such Motives as has been prevalent with them in other Cases and why I should not have Justice nay their Countenance too more than vile Extortioners Oppressors or their Abettors and Partakers I do not understand I believe I shall live to see the day that Judges will value the Oath of a Judg and have no respect of Persons in Judgment though never so great Oh! for Judg Hales at this day and in this Affair or if they warp will warp on the right side and countenance the innocent Sufferer for telling Men of their Sins and not warp in confederacy with the Sinners and grand Contemners of the King's Laws who are very ignorant or else bold daring and impudent to act so contrary to Law in vile Extortions c. At a fair Hearing my Lord you can never justify the Wrongs you have done me in despight of his Majesty's Laws and God's Laws where is Mr. Withins with his dumb shows to give Item hereof His dumb shows could not keep him in the Parliament-House from his Knees How can you answer the invading of my Legal Rights by an Illegal Sequestration contrary to Magna Charta and the Petition of Right How can you answer it to turn Promoter in the Spiritual Court Is it for a Bishop to be a Striker that is an Action-Driver or Promoter and to strike with his two edged Sword and hack and hew both ways as you have hack'd me in Spiritual Court and Temporal Courts Ecce duo gladii The Popishgloss says Temporal and Spiritual Sword but what is that to you How can you answer it to vex me in despight of a Premunire with Law-Suits and Accusations of Barrety in the Spiritual Courts as you have done in defiance of the many Statutes of Provisors Are you above the Law are you indeed we will try that one day It is no Scandalum Magnatum to say that greater Men than you ever were or ever shall be have been glad to kneel and submit their sturdy Necks to the Laws of England How can you answer it to vex me in the Spiritual Court for Barretry in those very Instances whereof I have been honourably acquit upon a fair Hearing in the Courts of our Lord the King How can you answer it as Promoter to cite me and prosecute me in the Name of Robert Wiseman Doctor and Knight or I know not who from my Home my Employment my Cure that you ought to further not hinder and not in the Name and Style of the King as enjoyned 2. Edw. 6. 1. a Statute that I doubt not but to make good against you all and then what will become of you all How can you answer it when you were or might be convinc'd at the King's Head in Colchester that Martin and Groome c. your Apparitors who forswore themselves against me and against the Ecclesiastical Records and Registries still to countenance the Prosecution And when I was acquit honourably still to vex me again and turn Promoter to plague me for Crimes of which I was prov'd Innocent and to vex me in a Court that cannot take cognizance thereof and have incurr'd the danger of a Premunire for the vexation you have done me therein causelesly and for the illegal Prosecution for you as Promoter swore Witnesses to those Articles and cited I was at your Promotion to attend your Motions thereon at Lexden Manent altâ mente repostum when time shall serve you shall hear on 't And when you had plagu'd me almost a Year with these Barretry-Articles then they dwindled only to Marriages without Banes or not paying your Registers or your under-Officers Mony as I used to do for Blanck-Licenses or marrying too cheap this is the worst inconvenience thereof and I think that I can prove that I have as much or more Authority to give Blank-Licences then your Lay-Vicar Doctor Exton or your Lay-Registers a fine World when Matrimony must be the Benefit of those Gray-Fryars instead of the Benefit of the Clergy because the Hermophrodites buy their Places or hire them Besides There is not a Minister in our Town or almost in the whole Country but does the same and why do not you turn Promoter against them also if Justice be not only the Pretence but malice spleen and revenge at the bottom why do you make fish of one and flesh of another why a Picque at mee only or is it because none of them had the Wit or at least not the Grace nor honesty nor courage to discover the Ecclesiastical Corruptions which you are too privy unto and ought to amend and not boulster them up I am ashamed on t and so may others too in time and of such grand Partiality Besides those poor five couples which I am accused off for marrying without Banes first published in time of divine-service in the Parish-Church or Churches is a fault impossible to be avoided for else the couples could never have been Legally and in strictness of Law marryed having no Parish-Churches nor any divine-service at that time and yet your Procters in the Articles swore they were high crimes Oh! My Lord would you be willing to be so serv'd and to be so done by as you have done by me to be plagu'd vext and suspended of your Benefice and Office three years for transgressing the Rubrick in the Common-Prayer-Book which you so dayly
in the case Rare Discipline Let me hear no more talk of Discipline except it were better Where does one of all the Whores in England stand in a white Sheet for lying in polluted Sheets are they amicae Curiae Besides Tho to me it seems improbable that ever Popery should be the State-Religion yet it is possible that it may be so and then by this Act of Uniformity-Principle we must all be Papists or Mariyrs Then I think we have uniform'd sinely and have made a sine Scourge for our own Backs And well may the Inquisition-men stop our Mouths with our own Arguments and Methods unanswerably with Out of thine now Mouth will I judg thee thou wicked Servant But all this while I had almost forgot our old Friend Mr. Manwaring and his Sentence which was 7. That his said Book was worthy to be burnt and that his Majesty may be moved to grant a Proclamation to call in the said Books that they may be all burnt accordingly in London and both the Vniversities and for inhibiting the printing thereof upon a great Penalty This was a true English-Parliament in 28 and not that of 40 nor 41 41 as the rascally-Hireling Pamphleteers thunder it Slaves like Esau that vilely sell their Birth-rights And all the Addressers in England can never chuse other than true English-men to defend their Liberties their Lives their Estates their Children and their Wives basely sold by Pensioners formerly tho the Tantivy-Slaves little deserve such a Parliament England is not frenchisied nor ever will never think on 't they 'll dye first a thousand Deaths if possible Men may as well talk of 21 and 28 and 71 or 91 as 41. For when we are dead our Children will be true free-born English-men and so dye if they be not Bastards Now my Lord compare the Crimes of the Laudian-Convocation of 40 for which you do so stickle and hate me and vex me ever since I opposed them Canon 1. with the Crimes of Manwaring charged upon him in Parliament by Mr. Rous namely a Plot and practice to altar and subvert the Frame and Fabrick of this Estate and Common-wealth 1. In labouring to infuse into the Conscience of his Majesty Oh! may such Ear-wigs never now come so near him the perswasion of a Power not bounding it self with Laws the very Crimes charged against Duke Lauderaale and the E. of Danby by the Loyal Long-Parliament they sate never the longer for that tho But what car'd they which King James of famous Memory calls in his Speech to the Parliament Tyranny yea Tyranny accompaned with Perjury where is your Jus Divinum now my Lord and your Prime-Law In your Constitutions of 40 See the Articles and Impeachment of Arch-bishop Laud. 2. In endeavouring to perswade the Conscience of the Subjects that they are bound to obey Commands illegal yea he damns them for not obeying them vide your Can. 1. of 40 to the same tune 3. In robbing the Subjects of the Propriety of their Goods vid. the Proceedings twelve Years together from 28 till 40 whilst Bishop Laud was a Minion and a Privy-Counsellour in Loanes you may call them Gifts for they were never repayed Ship-money Customs and such like If a High-way-man say with Sword in hand Come Friend I must borrow your Purse we had as good give it him as be cut 4. He brands them that will not lose this Propriety with most scandalous Speeches and odious Titles to make them both hateful to Prince and People so to set a Division between the Head and the Members and between Members themselves and how like my Lord are your Proceedings against me ever since you said you begun to know me when I spoke against your Canon and Constitution of 40. How have I been vext and plagu'd ever since a Martyr for the Publick-weal against your Canons of 40 by your Promotions Citations Processes Ecclesiastical about Fiddle-faddle Suspensions Excommunications except I would pay a Guinny which I did Suits Articles Libels Actions Informations Whispers to Judges and Great Men Supplicavits Informations in the Crown-Office Defamations as a Person convicted of Perjury Declarations and now an outragious and convicted Verdict of 2000 l. And yet for God's sake what one Evil have I done or who swears against me but the for-sworn Rogues Groom and Martin your Apparitors six Proctors Harris and Exton all Ecclesiastical Fellows And yet here 's no Plot belike against my righteous Name and Reputation I never was quiet one whole week together since that fatal time that your Lordship begun to know me Know me for what for what for what you shall know me till I dye against your Lambeth-Canons of 40 a true free-born English-man that hath a lusty Posterity and Estate for my Heirs and Heirs for my Estate if I can but keep it out of your Episcopal-Gripes and I 'le gage all I have chearfully upon this Quarrel and Difference the true cause of all our Differences ever since and more fit to be decided by a Parliament than a Tory Jury pickt and singled out If I had said as you said and as the Convocation of 40 said and as the Poor Clergy then present durst do no other than say It had been 2000 l. in my way and a better penny the Canons of 40. with a Curse and mischief attending them But no Bribes can tempt me nor Fears appale me as the Cardinal told the Pope of Luther when he refused a Cardinals Cap Germana illa bestia non curat aurum Therefore keep your Gifts to your self and your Threats too and reserve your High-Places and Preferments for Tantivies I am none nor for Threat or Money to be made a Slave or a Traitor to the Fundamental Laws and Constitutions of this Kingdom and this as Mr. Rouse stiled it to the Speaker without Rebuke This State and Common-wealth not unlimited and absolute Monarchy but bounded within Laws not by prime Law of Nature nor by express Texts of Holy Scripture as falsly Can. 1. of your Constit 40. but by human Bargain Compact and Stipulation contracted and agreed unto betwixt the King and his People 5. To the same end not much unlike to Faux and his Fellows he seeks to blow up Parliaments and Parliamentary Powers God grant there be no such Vilanies alive at this day No such privy Earwiggs nor therein Successors of Laud. One would think a Bible should better become Bishops than unhinging of Governments and Fundamental Laws that the Sycophanis have no skill in thus unlike Apostolical-Men and leaving the Word of God to serve Tables Acts 6. 2 4. nay leaving it to do Mischief and get the Kingdom 's Curse and sometimes a Block for their Pains and unsuitable Albtro-Episcopal Mischief Hamlet King of Denmark was poysoned and kill'd by Poyson poured into his Ears as he lay carelesly and securely and supinely sleeping by his false Friends and Sychophants We are told this day by Nat. Tompson's Intelligence Numb 134. that John Wolf I
no man dare make any such suggestions for the future and may such Earwigs also be banish't to any part of Earth or into the Earth rather than thus to plague a King and Kingdom at this rate in all Ages and vex and grieve his Sacred Majesty and his Parliaments what a pother and a doe have Parliaments had with these Tantivies in all Ages And how ruinous and ruful were the Consequents I know not whither you my Lord can remember But I can by woful experiment you said you begun to know me now you know me better and I know you in part I hope I shall know you better the onely design of this Letter I wish Synods and Lambeth Convocations and Bishops would keep to their Bibles and mind their own business work enough in conscience for 1000 Bishops in England if they would stoop to be Conformists to the Act of Uniformity and more than a thousand Bishops can legally perform if there were so many in England for there was a greater number in a far less spot of ground in Africa Contemporaries with S. Austin the Bishop of little Hippo that was never so big as Islington which is not impossible nay if we had a thousand Bishops in England they could not at all do the confirming work alone let alone the Work in the House of Lords and at the Councel-Board and their promotions at Doctors Commons and ther Actions Suites and Declarations and Libels as Action-drivers and Promoters and Visitations and vexations of ruinous consequence to the Projectors as well as to the Kingdom such as the Tantivie Doctrine of Manwaring and little Laud that had better minded his Book his excellent Book against Fisher then to turn Politick-Engineer and Master-Gunner in planting of Canons against the Fundamental Laws that such Tantivies are not skill'd in but if they read but of a King in Scripture though it be Rehoboam that Fool or Caesar that Heathen then Heysday for the Pulpit or the Synod Hey for Lambeth and the Canons of 40. But you will say what have I to do a Priest also with these State-matters ' To which I answer 1. These State-matters improperly or foolishly handled by your Tantivee-Archbishop Laud and your Tantivees Bishops that would have been Sybthorp and Manwaring and by your Tantivee Canon 1 of the Constitutions of 40 was by you justified in your publick Visitation and before the Mayor hnd Aldermen of Colchester and the greatest part of the Gentlemen of the Town and Clergy of that Precinct and for you boldly to recommend or justifie this Tantivie-Canon 1 of the Constitutions of 40 I know not whether all the Clergy you have or any Friend in England would have thus adventur'd suo periculo to awake you out of this Tantivee-dream in which as in the old disease the Plague of English-men and of English-men only called Suder Anglicus or the English-sweating-sickness if you sleep in it 't is mortal if you had a hundred thousand lives and I think you are beholden to me above all mankind him that you have thus vext above all mankind for nothing but the cause the cause of the Kingdom the cause and Fundamaentl-Laws scoff't at and derided by none but drunken Tories and Sack-posset-Tantiviees that cry brother let me pledge thee Brother Sybthorp Brother Two Livings Brother Manwaring Brother Arch-Laud they will be loath to follow him though at the long run and latter end But it is that we must all come to If we be Tantivees therefore as you love your self my Lord and me Let me hear no more in my part of Essex any more Commendations Justifications Aggravations or Recommendations of this ignorant Synod and Tantivee-Convocation of Lambeth in their Constitutions of 40 nor of any such Synod-men that were never lick't into Form-Political let them tell Sacred Stories of God and Christ I but no more Politick Canons of 40. against the Fundamental Laws if you love me or my betters innuendo your Lordship for one 2. This Politick-Lecture of State-matters begun by you and your Lambeth-Synod has been a Plaguyvexation to our Kings and Parliaments in all Ages read the History of the Barons Wars in King John's Reign Hen. 2. Hen. 3. The Edwards The Richard's the Henry's I had almost said The Charle's By what I have said you read the said Bickerings in the Reigns of King Charles I. and our present Soveraign King Charles the II and His Loyal House of Commons then which never any King was more Happy than He in that yet though chosen in a time of Languishing Expectation after the Prosits and Benefits of a King which we had too long wanted they were English-men still And he 's an Ass that expects a fitter juncture or more auspicious Election for the choice of Parliament to carry on any Designs but what are Catholick and according to the Good Old Cause I mean the Fundamental Laws which not a few swearing and beggarly Pamphleting Tories and unthinking and very impudent Tantivees and withal very ignorant are able to defeat though they draw down their Canons of 40 which I thought had been nail'd and damn'd and ram'd 40. years ago by the Tories Themselves and Tantivees to whom they prov'd so fatal will men never take warning must Parliaments always be plagu'd with these Earwiggs and Tantivees Flaterers and Court Sycophants and Blesphemous Insinuators of Divinity into Humanity by a most Atheistical Invention of a New Hypostatical Vnion But the Holy Trinity admits no Partners though the Priests teach us or inculcate never so villanously traiterously falsely illegally unscripturely irrationally or blasphemously It is a high shame that 's the truth on'c that such Tantivee-Doctrines should thrive and such as stand up for the Ancient Laws and Liberties must suffer above all others 't is a shame power should be thus abused like a silk worm to ruin and consume its self to bedeck worse Vermin 't is a shame I will not venture to say any more but draw a Curtain over some mens shame because I will not show all their Nakedness I forbear my Lord I have done And leave you to think sadly to think and with sorrow I hope and repentance too for justifying this first Canon of the Constitutions of 40. those Chequer-works of different Hue black and white good and bad especially the First of them nigro carbene notamur let you and I remember that First fatal Canon of the 1. of the Constitutions of 40. that has been so mortal already and will still prove without very timely and immediate Repentance baneful to one of us or rueful to both of us or to this Kingdom State and Common-wealth But still you will object what have I to do to discuss these State-matters sit chiefly for a Parliament I answer That you have given the occasion the sad occasion It now becomes me and becomes necessary what before had been as impertinent as for a Bishop or Synod-man to meddle in the State-affairs But 2. Do you compare my
Skill or Learning or Vndeastanding in Laws and State-matters with meer Cassock men meer Synod-men that never yet were lick't into other Form or Fashion than their own Tantivee Will and Inclination undisciplin'd unrefin'd in Judgment by the study of the Law of the Land the study of men and the Laws and Tempers and Constitutions of Forreign Kingdoms more whereof I have seen than some Tantivee Circingles ever read off in Heylin's Geography if they have it And do you compare my Knowledg-Salt-water-Souldiers Knowledg in State-matters Do you compare us that have been Souldiers at least on this side the Water in times of Peace with meer Cassockmen I Hope there is no Compare at least the Comparison is as odious as groundless But I had almost forgot the Provost of Eaton where I left him Mr. Rous to the Speaker saying For a Conclusion to give you the true Character of this man Dr. Edward Manwaring whom I never saw I will shew it you by one whom I know to be contrary to him Samuel we know all to be a true Prophet now we read of Samuel that he writ the Law of the Kingdom in a Book and laid it up before the Lord. And this he did as Mr. Manwarings own Authors affirms That the King may know what to command and the People what to obey But Mr. Manwaring finding the Law of this Kingdom written in Books tears it in pieces and that in the presence of the Lord right Tantivee in a Pulpit that the King may not know what to command nor the People what to obey Thus Mr. Manwaring being contrary to a true Prophet must needs be a false One and the Judgment of a false Prophet mark that belongs to him I have shewed you an evil Tree that bringeth forth evil fruit and now it rests for you to determine whether the following sentence shall follow cut it down and cast it into the fire Thus have you seen my Lord what a Pother and a do these Clergymen have made in the Kingdom how Parliaments have been plagu'd with these Tantivee-Jehu's nay Kings most of all and themselves also the Rash Phaeton's setting the world in a flame by ambitiously mounting and driving switch and spur Gallop and Tantivee in a Chariot they have Pride to mount but no skill to drive sindging and burning themselves to boot in flames of their own kindling In your next Visitation I hope we shall hear no more of these Canons and Constitutions of 40 I wish it for my own sake that would avoid all occasions of Contests Differences Suits and Disputes with all men more especially with you but I wish it also more for your own sake you will most repent it in Conclusion if it take Air and be nois'd abroad so loud till it come to the Ears of the King and Parliament when we got one His Majesty has promis't his Subjects frequent Parliaments the Fundamental Laws which whosoever attempts to undermine and liker another Faux to blow up it will be his ruin and fall heavy on his head Better leave no Lands no Fields to our Heirs than Akeldama's only or Fields of Blood or else in base Tenure at the Will of the Lord much worse at the mercy of every Court Sycophant that may well beg us and our Estates for Fools if we be willing to part with our Fundamental Laws for Manwaring's Sycophantry or your so magnified Can. 1. of the Constitutions of 40. And in your next Visitation not my Sufferings will so far daunt the English-Clergy but that they will remember they are Englishmen not Scots nor Irish Tories nor Lambeth Canon-men especially when their Eyes are a little more opened with more Naked-Truth for Magna est veritas praevalebit Men will not long be blinded under pretence of Loyalty to abuse the King the Constitutions of the Kingdom and themselves and their Posterities nor be willing to bold their Liberties their Estates their Lives their Wives and their Livings ad nutum Episcopi no nor ad libitum Regis but ad libitum Legis Oh vile Slaves willing by cowardly Pedantry or ambitious Sycophantry to be Hoodwink't and led by the Nose to a certain Precipice and ruine or to have a Ring put through their Nose and led about like Bears for Sport or Collars about their Necks because enamell'd perhaps or made of Silver and snapping and biteing and snarling at him above all others that would take the Collars off wnuld unringle them would unhoodwink the blind-men Buffs in spight of their Teeth I 'le do 't I am resolv'd let them snarle and bite poor hearts it is their nature they cannot help it nor can I in reason expect other requital of my Charity I know them the men and their Communication the men and their innate envy and peevish revenge In time they will grow better when prejudice and passion makes them not forget that they are Englishmen not Irish-men Christians not Bigots and willing to be governed by our ancient English Constitutions and Laws not the Manwaring and Laud's Canons and Constitutions of 40. Have we with so much adoe been puzzling all this while these 40 Years and are we not yet got over the Lambeth-Canons and Constitutions of 40 must the Church and Kingdom twice be split on the same Rock some men endeavour it might and main or else the Loyal Long-Parliament were not the Happy House of Commons as the King styles them at least not happy in their Intelligence if they struck so violently without sufficient Reason against Duke Lauderdail and the Earl of Danby for this very cause of the Kingdom The Good Old Cause without a Sarcasm Good for the King and Kingdom the best and surest if not the only way to make the King and Kingdom happy safe and pleasantly united against which the old and true foundation and principle none ever yet attempted but it prov'd his ruine bringing the Old House over his Head And when you hav impartially weighed the mischiefs that have attended these new Sybthorpian Doctrines Manwaring and Dr. Lauds false Canon of 40. you and I shall never more quarrel nay let us now shake hands enter the Ring again and try the other touch in a New Tryal or let us shake hands and be friends and on Condition you be so Good Natur'd as to remit this Vnconscionable and Outragious Verdict I to shew my Good Nature in requital will Remit the Injuries aforesaid the Original Sin that has tainted the Consequent Differences and Contests I hope I have in this Long Letter given your Lordship such sufficient satisfaction about the Canons of 40 the vanity the Mischief and Falshood especially of the 1. Canon thereof that like eager Disputants we shall end just where we began and yet both be wiser and better and the Kingdom too for this Contest and then this Outragious and Vnconscionable and Vnreasonable Verdict will have a Happy Issue in either Curing the St. Anthonies Fire Heat and Tantivee-Flame that has not
only endamaged Me but Endanger'd the Peace of the Kingdom if we believe the late Long and Loyal Parliament or if not convert at least convict and rise up in Judgment against those Erostratus's that get great Titles by setting the Church on Fire again by such Tantivee-Heats as produc 't and brought forth that destructive-Canon 1. of the Constitutions of 40 and burnt a fine Church Yet some tell me that all this Long Letter is but labour in vain that you are set upon a Will and Revenge and whom you once hate you know not how to Remit but I have other hopes surely I do not wash a Blackamore nor preach thus long a Sermon to as little purpose as St. Bede when he preacht to a heap of Stones or as if I were preaching to the Rocks near Silly called The Bishop and his Clerks you cannot be so Stony-hearted I think but either you will Remit the Verdict and be friends or accept of those Honourable and profitable Proposals which I hear make you of a New-Tryal and if you will do neither the World shall know it that they may judge betwixt you and me and my Six substantial Witnesses and your single interessed Witness that swears for his own ends to get me out of my Rights which you have unlawfully indeavoured to invade by an Illegal sequestration the cause of the words betwixt us and the Canons of 40 the cause and first occasion of your displeasure against me which made you so willing in defiance of 1 Tim. 5. 19. Gods Holy Word to receive an accusation nay and prosecute it too upon the single Testimony of an in famous wretch who wants the necessary accoutrement of a Lyar a good Memory whom I have begun to prosecute for the Perjury I hope you will not still countenance him against such a Man as I am I have also prosecuted for Perjury your other Apparitors Groom Martin and your six Procters of Doctors-Commons blush for them help them not for for shame I hope no noli prosequi nay I am advis'd to make an attaint against the Jury I have in this Letter made very sharp Reflexions and corroding Epithites of the Laudian-Faction and Tantivee-Principle It is not rashly done but upon good Advice such spreading Cancers and dangerous cannot be corrected check't nor cured without Precipitate Corrosives For this Lambeth Divinity ruins Humanity Polity and Policy We do not live in Muscovy where John Valevodsky I believe I do not write it right the Muscovy-Duke and Emperour of Russia Tyrannically laid a Tribute upon the people of several bushels of living Fleas and in default an outragious Fine and arbitrry If it had been bushels of dead Fleas I believe I knew where he might have been fitted the last Summer but Fleas have a skittish Property and are sooner kill'd than jail'd or put into pound except they be dealt with as the Spanish Fryar dealt with the Musquetoes of the Bay of Campeachy in America namely he Excommunicated them and then every body knows it is not very far to the Jail or pound The Tyrant had as good have seized their Lands their Liberties their Lives and their Wives without the Ceremony of Bushels of Fleas only to pick a quarrel For so the Tyrannical Bashaws of Egypt at this day bring thither a Ship load of Tin and without the Philosopher's Stone turns it immediately to a Ship load of Silver by sending to every man according to his Estate a quantity of Tin commanding them to send him the like quantity of Silver and so the Bargain is made or if they do not like the Bargain a Mute goes along with the Janizaries and does the mens business with a Bowstring if they do not cheat them and save them the Labour by making use of his own Bed-Cords before they come nigh when he first hears they are coming and knows their Errand Tyranny needs no Ceremony but a long Sword These arbitrary Cruelties are common in Turky Muscovy and a little I fear in France and the Priests make them believe they have a Jus Divinum and express Texts of Alcoran in English holy Scripture for all But the Canons of 40. are not yet Canonical my Lord nor ever shall if I can help it though you prosecute me with all the united Power privy Whispers Affidavits Verdicts Articles Libels Supplicavits Informations Declarations Suspensions Silencings Jails and Bails or your severest weapon namely what the Fryar frighted the Flys with Excommunications But I have by this fair Proposal so profitable to you acquit my self in the Judgment of all Ingenuous men for if it be profit or my money you seek that I will secure if you recover by an indifferent Jury if Honour that is better secur'd by this Proposal for it can be no Honour to you if you dare not try the cause before not a pitckt Jury for the nonce but such a Jury as is indifferently return'd upon other Tryals And if nothing will prevail with you but you 'l keep the catching hold you have got nor listen to any thing but revenge revenge except I make dishonourable and base Submissions then Scabbard be gone fight on be bold And let him fall that first says hold I believe you do not read my Books for if you had impartially weighed the 7th Page of Naked Truth second part second Edition I should have been more in your books then the Canons and Constitutions forty read 21 Hen. 8. 13. or Acts. 6. 2. 4. against Spiritual-Apostolical-persons medling with temporal Councels and Employments disdain not to bedrawn out of a Pit with rags and do by me as you would be done by when time shall serve for these contests are but a kind of hot-cockles there will be no sport if we do not lye down in our turns especially when I prophesy so right why and how and who it is that smote me Neither despise nor reject with scorn the good Admonitions in this Letter if I had not lov'd you well and better than you deserve at my hands I would not have bestowed so much pains upon you But there is seldome a greater Plague attending Greatness than the flattery of their own judgments and conceits as well as the flattery of Sycophants without but what non-sense is it The King can make a man a Knight but he cannot make the Knight one jot the wiser or more learmed he may be the poorer for his Title The King can make a Bishop but all the Kings in Christendome cannot with the Lord convey Learning and Wisdom but usually less for a Lord-Bishop has more Diversions from his Studies and Books by attending Councils and Parliaments and Confirmations and Procurations and Visitations Promotions Suits and vexations that it is next to impossible that he can study so much as a Country Vicar Robert Grotshead Bishop of Lincoln writ a Letter Monitory to the Pope and the distance betwixt them two was was far greater than betwixt your Lordship and my self nay Abbot