Animadversions: Text

ALthough it be a certaine truth, that they who undertake a Religious Cause need not care to be Men-pleasers; yet because the satisfaction of tender and mild consciences is far different from that which is call'd Men-pleasing; to satisfie such, I shall addresse my selfe in few words to give notice before hand of something in this booke, which to some men perhaps may seeme offensive, that when I have render'd a lawfull reason of what is done, I may trust to have sav'd the labour of defending or excusing hereafter. Wee all know that in private or personall injuries, yea, in publique sufferings for the cause of Christ, his rule and example teaches us to be so farre from a readinesse to speak evill, as not to answer the reviler in his language, though never so much provok't: yet in the detecting, and convincing of any notorious enemie to truth and his Countries peace, especially that is conceited to have a voluble and smart fluence of tongue, and in the vain confidence of that, and out of a more tenacious cling to worldly respects, stands up for all the rest to justifie a long usurpation and convicted Pseudepiscopy of Prelates, with all their ceremonies, Liturgies, and tyrannies, which God and man are now ready to explode and hisse out of the land, I suppose, and more then suppose, it will be nothing disagreeing from Christian meeknesse to handle such a one in a rougher accent, and to send home his haughtinesse well bespurted with his owne holy-water. Nor to do thus are we unautoritied either from the morall precept of SALOMON, to answer him thereafter that prides him in his folly; nor from the example of Christ, and all his followers in all Ages, who, in the refuting of those that resisted sound Doctrine, and by subtile dissimulations corrupted the minds of men, have wrought up their zealous souls into such vehemencies, as nothing could be more killingly spoken: for who can be a greater enemy to Mankind, who a more dangerous deceiver, then he who defending a traditionall corruption uses no common Arts, but with a wily Stratagem of yeelding to the time a greater part of his cause, seeming to forgo all that mans invention hath done therein, and driven from much of his hold in Scripture, yet leaving it hanging by a twin'd threed, not from divine command, but from Apostolicall prudence or assent, as if he had the surety of some rouling trench, creeps up by this meanes to his relinquish't fortresse of divine authority againe; and still hovering betweene the confines of that which hee dares not bee openly, and that which he will not be sincerely, traines on the easie Christian insensibly within the close ambushment of worst errors, and with a slye shuffle of counterfeit principles chopping and changing till hee have glean'd all the good ones out of their minds, leaves them at last, after a slight resemblance of sweeping and garnishing, under the sevenfold possession of a desperate stupidity. And therefore they that love the soules of men, which is the dearest love, and stirs up the noblest jealousie, when they meet with such collusion, cannot be blam'd though they be transported with the zeale of truth to a well heated fervencie; especially, seeing they which thus offend against the soules of their brethren, do it with delight to their great gaine, ease, and advancement in this world, but they that seeke to discover and oppose their false trade of deceiving, do it not without a sad and unwilling anger, not without many hazards, but without all private and personall spleene, and without any thought of earthly reward, when as this very course they take stopps their hopes of ascending above a lowly and unenviable pitch in this life. And although in the serious uncasing of a grand imposture, (for to deale plainly with you, Readers, Prelatry is no better) there be mixt here and there such a grim laughter, as may appeare at the same time in an austere visage, it cannot be taxt of levity or insolence: for even this veine of laughing (as I could produce out of grave Authors) hath oft-times a strong and sinewy force in teaching and confuting; nor can there be a more proper object of indignation and scorne together; then a false Prophet taken in the greatest dearest and most dangerous cheat, the cheat of soules: in the disclosing whereof if it be harmfull to be angry, and withall to cast a lowring smile, when the properest object calls for both, it will be long enough ere any be able to say why those two most rationall faculties of humane intellect anger and laughter were first seated in the brest of man. Thus much (Readers) in favour of the softer spirited Christian, for other exceptioners there was no thought taken. Onely if it bee ask't why this close and succinct manner of coping with the Adversary was rather chosen, this was the reason chiefly, that the ingenuous Reader, without further amusing himselfe in the labyrinth of controversall antiquity, may come to the speediest way to see the truth vindicated, and Sophistry taken short at the first false bound. Next that the Remonstrant himselfe, as oft as hee pleases to be frolick, and brave it with others, may find no gaine of money, and may learne not to insult in so bad a cause. But now he begins.

Remonstrant. My single Remonstrance is with a Adversary.

. Did not your single Remonstrance bring along with it a hot of your more singular affection to pluralities, your would be suspected with all good Christians it is.

Remonst. Their names, persons, qualities, numbers, I care not to know.

Answ. Their names are knowne to the all-knowing power above, and in the meane while doubtlesse they wreck not whether you or your Nomenclator know them or not.

Remonst. But could they say my name is Legion, for wee are many.

Answ. Wherefore should you begin with the Devils name descanting upon the number of your opponents? wherefore that conceit of Legion with a by-wipe? was it because you would have men take notice how you esteeme them, whom through all your booke so bountifully you call your brethren? wee had not thought that Legion could have furnisht the Remonstrant with so many brethren.

Remonst. My cause, yea Gods would bid me meet them undismai'd, &c.

Answ. Ere a foot furder we must bee content to heare a preambling boast of your valour, what a St. Dunstane you are to encounter Legions, either infernall or humane.

Remonst. My cause, yea Gods.

Answ. What gods? unlesse your belly or the god of this world be hee? shew us any one point of your Remonstrance that do's not more concern superiority, pride, ease, and the belly, then the truth and glory of God, or the salvation of soules.

Remonst. My cause, yea Gods, would bid me meet them undismaid, and to say with holy David, though a host, &c.

Answ. Doe not think to Perswade us of your undaunted courage by misapplying to your selfe the words of holy David; we know you feare, and are in an agonie at this present, lest you should lose that superfluity of riches and honour which your party usurp. And whosoever covets, and so earnestly labours to keep such an incumbring surcharge of earthly things, cannot but have an earth-quake still in his bones. You are not arm'd Remonstrant, nor any of your band, you are not dieted nor your loynes girt for spirituall valour, and Christian warfare; the luggage is too great that followes your Camp; your hearts are there, you march heavily. How shall we think you have not carnall feare, while we see you so subject to carnall desires?

Remonst. I doe gladly fly to the barre.

Ans. To the barre with him then. Gladly you say. We beleeve you as gladly as your whole faction wish't, and long'd for the assembling of this Parliament, as gladly as your beneficiaries the Priests came up to answer the complaints and outcries of all the Shires.

Remonst. The Areopagi? who were those? Truly, my masters, I had thought this had beene the name of the place, not of the men.

Answ. A soar-Eagle, would not stoope at a flie; but sure some Pedagogue stood at your Elbow, and made it itch with this parlous Criticisme they urg'd you with a Decree of the sage and severe Judges of Athens, and you cite them to appeare for certaine Paragogicall contempts, before a capricious Pædantie of hot-liver'd Grammarians. Mistake not the matter, courteous Remonstrant; they were not making Latines: if in dealing with an outlandish name, they thought it best not to screw the English mouth to a harsh forreigne termination, so they kept the radicall word, they did no more then the elegantest Authors among the Greeks, Romans, and at this day the Italians, in scorne of such a servility use to doe. Remember how they mangle our Brittish names abroad; what trespasse were it, if wee in requitall should as much neglect theirs? and our learned Chaucer did not stick to doe so, writing Semyramis for Semiramis, Amphiorax for Amphiaraus, K. Sejes for K. Ceyx the husband of Alcyone, with many other names strangely metamorphis'd from the true Orthography, if he had made any account of that in these kind of words.

Remonst. Lest the world should think the presse had of late forgot to speak any language other than libellous, this honest paper hath broken through the throng.

Answ. Mince the matter while you will, it shewed but green practise in the laws of discreet Rhetorique to blurt upon the eares of a judicious Parliament with such a presumptuous and over-weening Proem: but you doe well to be the Sewer of your owne messe.

Remon. That which you miscall the Preface, was a too just complaint of the shamfull number of Libells.

Ans. How long is it that you, and the Prelaticall troop have bin in such distast with Libells? aske your Lysimachus Nicanor what defaming invectives have lately flown abroad against the Subjects of Scotland, and our poore expulsed brethren of New-England, the Prelates rather applauding, then shewing any dislike: and this hath bin ever so, in so much, that Sir Francis Bacon in one of his discourses complaines of the Bishops uneven hand over these Pamflets, confining those against Bishops to darknesse, but Licencing those against Puritans to be utter'd openly, though with the greater mischeife of leading into contempt the exercise of Religion in the persons of sundry Preachers, and disgracing the higher matter in the meaner person.

Remon. A point no lesse essential to that proposed Remonstrance.

Ans. Wee know where the shoe wrings you, you fret, and are gall'd at the quick, and O what a death it is to the Prelates to be thus un-visarded, thus uncas'd, to have the Periwigs pluk'd off that cover your baldnesse, your inside nakednesse thrown open to publick view. The Romans had a time once every year, when their Slaves might freely speake their minds, twere hard if the free borne people of England, with whom the voyce of Truth for these many yeares, even against the proverb, hath not bin heard but in corners, after all your Monkish prohibitions, and expurgatorious indexes, your gags and snaffles, your proud Imprimaturs not to be obtained without the shallow surview, but not shallow hand of some mercenary, narrow Soul'd, and illitterate Chaplain; when liberty of speaking, then which nothing is more sweet to man, was girded, and straight lac't almost to a broken-winded tizzick, if now at a good time, our time of Parliament, the very jubily, and resurrection of the State, if now the conceal'd, the aggreev'd, and long persecuted Truth, could not be suffer'd speak; and though she burst out with some efficacy of words, could not be excus'd after such an injurious strangle of silence, nor avoyde the censure of Libelling, twere hard, twere something pinching in a Kingdome of free spirits. Some Princes, and great Statists, have thought it a prime piece of necessary policy, to thrust themselves under disguise into a popular throng, to stand the night long under eaves of houses, and low windows, that they might hear every where the free utterances of privat brests, and amongst them find out the precious gemme of Truth, as amongst the numberlesse pibbles of the Shoar; wherby they might be the abler to discover, and avoid that deceitfull and close coucht evill of flattery that ever attends them, and misleads them, and might skilfully know how to apply the several redresses to each malady of State, without trusting the disloyall information of Parasites, and Sycophants: wheras now this permission of free writing, were there no good else in it, yet at some times thus licenc't, is such an unripping, such an Anatomie of the shiest, and tenderest particular truths, as makes not only the whole Nation in many points the wiser, but also presents, and carries home to Princes, men most remote from vulgar concourse, such a full insight of every lurking evil, or restrained good among the Commons, as that they shall not need heerafter, in old Cloaks, and false Beards, to stand to the courtesy of a night-walking cudgeller for eaves dropping, nor to accept quietly as a perfume, the over-head emptying of some salt lotion. Who could be angry therefore but those that are guilty, with these free-spoken and plaine harted men, that are the eyes of their Country, and the prospective glasses of their Prince? But these are the nettlers, these are the blabbing Bookes that tell, though not halfe your fellows feats. You love toothlesse Satyrs; let me informe you, a toothlesse Satyr is as improper as a toothed sleekstone, and as bullish.

Remon. I beseech you, brethren, spend your Logick upon your own workes.

Ans. The peremptory Analysis that you call it, I beleeve will be so hardy as once more to unpinne your spruce fastidious oratory, to rumple her laces, her frizzles, and her bobins, though she wince, and fling, never so Peevishly.

Remon. Those verbal exceptions are but light froth, and will sink alone.

Ans. O rare suttlety, beyond all that Cardan ever dream't of, when, I beseech you, will light things sink? when will light froth sink alone. Here in your phrase, the same day that heavy plummets will swimme alone. Trust this man, Readers if you please, whose divinity would reconcile England with Rome, and his philosophy make friends nature with the Chaos, sine pondere habentia pondus.

Remon. That scum may be worth taking off which followes.

Ans. Spare your Ladle, Sir; it will be as the Bishops foot in the broth; the scum will be found upon your own Remonstrance.

Remon. I shall desire all indifferent eyes to judge, whether these men do not endeavour to cast unjust envy upon me.

Ans. Agreed.

Remon. I had said that the civil polity as in generall notion, hath some times varied, and that the civil came from arbitrary imposers, these gracious interpreters would needs draw my words to the present, and particular government of our Monarchy.

Ans. And deservedly have they don so; take up your Logick else and see: civil politie, say you, hath sometimes varied, and come from arbitrary imposers, what proposition is this? Bishop Downam in his Dialecticks will tell you it is a generall axiome, though the universal particle be not express't, and you your selfe in your defence so explaine in these words as in general notion. Hence is justly inferr'd he that saies civil polity is arbitrary, saies that the civil polity of England is Arbitrary. The inference is undeniable, a thesi ad hypothesin, or from the general to the particular, an evincing argument in Logick.

Remon. Brethren, whiles yee desire to seeme Godly, learne to be less malitious.

Ans. Remonstrant, till you have better learnt your principles of Logick, take not upon you to be a Doctor to others.

Remon. God blesse all good men from such charity.

Ans. I never found that Logicall maxims were uncharitable before, yet should a Jury of Logicians passe upon you, you would never be sav'd by the Book.

Remon. And our Sacred Monarchy from such friends.

Ans. Adde, as the Prelates.

Remon. If Episcopacy have yoked Monarchy, it is the Insolence of the Persons, not the fault of the Calling.

Ans. It was the fault of the persons, and of no Calling, we doe not count Prelaty a Calling.

Remon. The testimony of a Pope (whom these men honor highly). Ans. That slanderous insertion was doubtles a pang of your incredible charity, the want whereof you lay so often to their charge; a kind token of your favour lapped up in a parenthesis, a piece of the Clergy benevolence layd by to maintain the Episcopal broile, whether the 1000 Horse or no, time will discover, for certainly had those cavaliers come on to play their parts, such a ticket as this of highly honouring the Pope, from the hand of a Prelate, might have bin of special use, and safety to them that had car'd for such a ransom.

Remon. And what saies Antichrist?

Ans. Ask your Brethren the Prelates, that hold intelligence with him, ask not us. But is the Pope Antichrist now? good newes! take heed you be not shent for this, for it is verily thought, that had this Bill bin put in against him in your last Convocation, he would have bin cleared by most voices.

Remon. Any thing serves against Episcopacy.

Ans. See the frowardnes of this man, he would perswade us that the succession, and divine right of Bishopdom hath bin unquestionable through all ages, yet when they bring against him Kings, they were irreligious, Popes, they are Antichrist, by what Æra of computation, through what Faery Land, would the man deduce this Perpetual beadroul of uncontradicted Episcopacy? The Pope may as well boast his ungainsaid authority to them that will beleive that all his contradicters were either irreligious or heretical.

Remon. If the Bishops, saith the Pope, be declar'd to be of divine right, they would be exempted from regal power, and if there might be this danger in those Kingdomes, why is this enviously upraided to those of ours? who do gladly professe, &c.

Ans. Because your dissever'd principles were but like the mangl'd pieces of a gash't Serpent, that now begun to close, and grow together Popish againe. Whatsoever you now gladly professe out of fear, we know what your drifts were when you thought your selves secure.

Remon. It is a foul slander to charge the name of Episcopacy with a faction, for the fact imputed to some few.

Ans. The more foul your faction that hath brought a harmlesse name into obloquie, and the fact may justly be imputed to all of yee that ought to have withstood it, and did not.

Remon. Fie Brethren, are yee the Presbyters of the Church of England, and dare chalenge Episcopacy of faction?

Ans. Yes, as oft as Episcopacy dares be factious.

Remon. Had you spoken such a word in the time of holy Cyprian, what had become of you?

Ans. They had neither bin hal'd into your Gehenna at Lambeth, nor strappado'd with an Oath Ex Officio by your bow men of the Arches: and as for Cyprians time the cause was farre unlike, he indeed succeeded into an Episcopacy that began then to Prelatize, but his personal excellence like an antidote overcame the malignity of that breeding corruption which was then a disease that lay hid for a while under shew of a full, and healthy constitution, as those hydropick humours not discernible at first from a fair and juicy fleshinesse of body, or that unwonted ruddy colour, which seems gracefull to a cheek otherwise pale, and yet arises from evil causes, either of some inward obstruction, or inflammation, and might deceav the first Phisicians till they had learnt the sequell, which Cyprians dayes did not bring forth, and the Prelatism of Episcopacy, which began then to burgeon, and spread, had as yet, especially in famous men a fair, though a false imitation of flourishing.

Remon. Neither is the wrong lesse to make application of that which was most justly charged upon the practises and combinations of Libelling Separatists, whom I deservedly censur'd, &c.

Ans. To conclude this Section, our Remonstrant we see is resolv'd to make good that which was formerly said of his Book, that it was neither humble nor a Remonstrance, and this his defence is of the same Complexion. When he is constrain'd to mention the notorious violence of his Clergy attempted on the Church of Scotland, he slightlie termes it a fact imputed to some few; but when he speakes of that which the Parliament voutsafes to name the City Petition, which I, saith he, (as if the State had made him publick Censor,) deservedly censur'd. And how? As before for a tumultuarie and underhand way of procured subscriptions, so now in his defence more bitterly, as the practizes and combinations of Libelling Separatists, and the miszealous advocates thereof, justly to be branded for incendiaries. Whether this be for the honour of our cheif Citty to be noted with such an infamie for a Petition, which not without some of the Magistrates, and great numbers of sober, and considerable men, was orderly and meekly presented. Although our great Clarks think that these men, because they have a Trade (as Christ himselfe, and St. Paul had) cannot therefore attain to some good measure of knowledge, and to a reason of their actions, as well as they that spend their youth in loitering, bezzling, and harlotting, their studies in unprofitable questions and barbarous sophistry, their middle age in ambition and idlenesse, their old age in avarice, dotage, and diseases: and whether this reflect not with a contumely upon the Parliament it selfe, which thought this Petition worthy, not only of receaving, but of voting to a commitment, after it had bin advocated, and mov'd for by some honourable, and learned Gentleman of the House, to be cal'd a combination of Libelling Separatists, and the advocates thereof to be branded for Incendiaries; whether this appeach not the judgement and approbation of the Parliament I leave to equall Arbiters.

Remon. After the overflowing of your gall, you descend to Liturgy and Episcopacy.

Ans. The overflow being past, you cannot now in your owne judgement impute any bitternesse to their following discourses.

Remon. D. Hall, whom you name I dare say for honors sake.

Ans. Y'are a merry man Sir, and dare say much.

Remonst. And why should not I speake of Martyrs, as the Authors and users of this holy Liturgie?

Answ. As the Authors? the Translators, you might perhaps have said, for Edward the Sixt, as Hayward hath written in his Story, will tell you upon the word of a K. that the order of the Service, and the use thereof in the English Tongue, is no other then the old Service was, and the same words in English which were in Latine, except a few things omitted, so fond, that it had been a shame to have heard them in English; these are his words: whereby we are left uncertaine who the Author was, but certaine that part of the work was esteem'd so absurd by the Translators thereof, as was to be asham'd of in English. O but the Martyrs were the refiners of it, for that only is left you to say. Admit they were, they could not refine a Scorpion into a Fish, though they had drawn it, and rinc't it with never so cleanly Cookery, which made them fall at variance among themselves about the use either of it, or the Ceremonies belonging to it.

Remonst. Slight you them as you please, we blesse God for such Patrons of our good cause.

Answ. O Benedicite! Qui color ater erat, nunc est contrarius atro. Are not these they which one of your Bishops in print scornfully termes the Foxian Confessors? Are not these they whose Acts and Monuments are not onely so contemptible, but so hatefull to the Prelates, that their Story was almost come to be a prohibited book. which for these two or three Editions hath crept into the world by stealth, and at times of advantage, not without the open regret and vexation of the Bishops, as many honest men that had to doe in setting forth the Book will justifie. And now at a dead lift for your Liturgie you bless God for them: out upon such hypocrisie!

Remonst. As if wee were bound to make good every word that falls from the mouth of every Bishop.

Answ. Your faction then belike is a subtile Janus, and ha's two faces: your bolder face to set forward any innovations or scandalls in the Church, your cautious, and wary face to disavow them if they succeed not, that so the fault may not light upon the function, lest it should spoil the whole plot by giving it an irrecoverable wound. wherefore els did you not long agoe, as a good Bishop should have done, disclaim, and protest against them, Wherefore have you sate still, and comply'd and hoodwinkt, till the generall complaints of the Land have sqeez'd you to a wretched, cold and hollow-hearted confession of some Prelaticall riots both in this and other places of your Booke. Nay, what if you still defend them as followes?

Remonst. If a bishop have said that our Liturgie hath been so wisely and charitably fram'd, as that the devotion of it yeeldeth no cause of offence to a very Popes eare.

Answ. O new and never-heard of Supererogative heighth of wisdome and charity in our Liturgie! is the wisdome of God or the charitable framing of Gods word otherwise inoffensive to the Popes eare, then as hee may turne it to the working of his misterious iniquitie? A little pulley would have stretch't your wise and charitable frame it may be three inches further, that the devotion of it might have yeelded no cause of offence to the very devils eare, and that had beene the same wisdome and charity surmounting to the highest degree. For Antichrist wee know is but the Devils Vicar, and therefore please him with your Liturgie, and you please his maister.

Remonst. Would you thinke it requisite, that wee should chide and quarrell when we speake to the God of peace?

Answ. Fie, no Sir; but forecast our prayers so, that Sathan and his instruments may take as little exception against them as may be, lest they should chide and quarrell with us.

Remonst. It is no little advantage to our cause and piety, that our Liturgy is taught to speak severall languages for use and example.

Answ. The language of Ashdod is one of them, and that makes so many English-men have such a smattering of their Philistian Mother. And indeed our Liturgie hath run up and downe the world like an English gallopping Nun proffering her selfe, but wee hear of none yet that bids money for her.

Remonst. As for that sharp censure of learned Mr. Calvin, it might well have beene forborne by him in aliena Republica.

Answ. Thus this untheologicall Remonstrant would divide the individuall Catholick Church into severall Republicks: know therefore that every worthy Pastor of the Church of Christ hath universall right to admonish over all the world within the Church; nor can that care be alien'd from him by any distance or distinction of nation, so long as in Christ all nations and languages are as one houshold.

Remonst. Neither would you thinke it could become any of our greatest Divines to meddle with his charge.

Answ. It hath ill become 'em indeed to meddle so maliciously, as many of them have done, though that patient and Christian City hath borne hitherto all their profane scoffes with silence.

Remonst. Our Liturgie past the judgement of no lesse reverent heads then his owne.

Answ. It brib'd their judgement with worldly ingagements, and so past it.

Remonst. As for that unparallel'd discourse concerning the antiquity of Liturgies; I cannot help your wonder, but shall justifie mine owne assertion.

Ans. Your justification is but a miserable shifting off those testimonies of the ancientest Fathers alleg'd against you, and the authority of some Synodal Canons which are no warrant to us. We professe to decide our controversies only by the Scriptures; but yet to represse your vain glory, there will be voluntarily bestow'd upon you a sufficient conviction of your novelties out of succeeding antiquity.

Remon. I cannot see how you will avoid your owne contradiction, for I demand is this order of praying and administration set, or no, If it be not set, how is it an order, and if it be a set order both for matter and form.

Answ. Remove that form, lest you tumble over it, while you make such hast to clap a contradiction upon others.

Remon. If the forms were meerly Arbitrary, to what use was the prescription of an order?

Ans. Nothing will cure this mans understanding, but some familiar, and Kitchin physick; which with pardon must for plainnes’ sake be administer'd to him. Call hither your Cook. The order of Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper, answere me, is it set or no? Set. Is a man therefore bound in the morning to potcht eggs, and vinegar, or at noon to Brawn, or Beefe, or at night to fresh Sammon, and French Kickshoes? May he not make his meales in order, though he be not bound to this, or that viand? doubtlesse the neat finger'd Artist will answer yes, and help us out of this great controversy without more trouble. Can we not understand an order in Church assemblies of praying, reading, expounding, and administring, unlesse our praiers be still the same Crambe of words?

Remonst. What a poore exception is this, that Liturgies were compos'd by some particular men?

Ans. It is a greater presumption in any particular men to arrogate to themselves, that which God universally gives to all his Ministers. A Minister that cannot be trusted to pray in his own words without being chew'd to, and fescu'd to a formal injunction of his rote lesson, should as little be trusted to Preach, besides the vain babble of praying over the same things immediatly againe; for there is a large difference in the repetition of some patheticall ejaculation rays'd out of the suddain earnestnesse and vigour of the inflam'd soul, (such as was that of Christ in the Garden) from the continual rehersal of our dayly orisons, which if a man shall kneel down in a morning and say over, and presently in an other part of the Room kneel down again, and in other words ask but still for the same things as it were out of one Inventory, I cannot see how he will escape that heathenish Battologie of multiplying words which Christ himselfe that has the putting up of our Praiers told us would not be acceptable in heaven. Well may men of eminent guifts set forth as many forms, and helps to praier as they please, but to impose them on Ministers lawfully call'd, and sufficiently tri'd, as all ought to be, ere they be admitted, is a supercilious tyranny, impropriating the Spirit of God to themselves.

Remon. Doe we abridge this liberty by ordaining a publick form?

Ans. Your Bishops have set as fair to doe it as they durst for that old Pharisaicall fear that still dogs them, the fear of the people, though you will say you are none of those, still you would seem not to have joyn'd with the worst, and yet keep alooff off from that which is best. I would you would either mingle, or part, most true it is what Savanarola complaines, that while hee endeavour'd to reforme the Church, his greatest enemies were still these Lukewarm ones?

Remon. And if the Lords Praier be an ordinary, and stinted form, why not others?

Ans. Because there bee no other Lords, that can stint with like authority.

Remon. If Justine Martyr said that the instructer of the people prai'd (as they falsly turn it) according to his ability.

Ans. “Οση δύναμις ἀυτῷ will be so render'd to the worlds end by those that are not to learne Greek of the Remonstrant; and so Langus renders it to his face, if he could see; and this ancient Father mentions no antiphonies, or responsories of the people heer, but the only plain acclamation of Amen.

Remon. The instructer of the people prai'd according to his ability 'tis true; so do ours, and yet wee have a Liturgy, and so had they.

Answ. A quick come off. The ancients us'd Pikes, and Targets, and therefore Guns, and great Ordnance, because wee use both.

Remonst. Neither is this liberty of powring out our selves in our praiers ever the more impeach't by a publique form.

Answ. Yes the time is taken up with a tedious number of Liturgicall tautologies, and impertinences.

Remon. The words of the Counsell are full and affirmative.

Ans. Set the grave councels up upon their shelvs again, and string them hard, lest their various, and jangling opinions put their leavs into a flutter. I shall not intend this hot season to bid you the base through the wide, and dusty champaine of the Councels, but shall take councel of that which counsel'd them, reason: and although I know there is an obsolet reprehension now at your tongues end, yet I shall be bold to say that reason is the gift of God in one man, as well as in a thousand; by that which wee have tasted already of their Cesterns, wee may finde that reason was the onely thing, and not any divine command that mov'd them to enjoyn set formes of Liturgy. First lest any thing in generall might be missaid in their publick Prayers through ignorance, or want of care, contrary to the faith: and next, lest the Arians, and Pelagians in particular, should infect the people by their hymns, and formes of Praier. By the leave of these ancient Fathers, this was no solid prevention of spreadding Heresy to debarre the Ministers of God the use of their noblest talent, Praier in the Congregation, unlesse they had forbid the use of Sermons, and Lectures too, but such as were ready made to their hands, as our Homelies, or else he that was heretically dispos'd, had as fair an opportunity of infecting in his discours as in his Praier or hymn. As insufficiently, and to say truth, as imprudently did they provide by their contrived Liturgies, lest any thing should be erroneously praid through ignorance, or want of care in the Ministers. For if they were carelesse, and ignorant in their Praiers, certainly they would be more carelesse in their Preaching, and yet more carelesse in watching over their Flock; and what prescription could reach to bound them both in these? What if reason now illustrated by the word of God, shall be able to produce a better prevention then these Councells have left us against heresie, ignorance, or want of care in the Ministry, that such wisdome and diligence be us'd in the education of those that would be Ministers, and such strict, and serious examination to be undergone ere their admission as Saint Paul to Timothy sets down at large, and then they need not carry such an unworthy suspicion over the Preachers of Gods word, as to tutor their unsoundnesse with the Abcie of a Liturgy, or to diet their ignorance, and want of care, with the limited draught of a Mattin, and even song drench. And this may suffice after all your laborsome scrutinie of the Councels.

Remon. Our Saviour was pleas'd to make use in the celebration of his last and heavenly Banket both of the fashions, and words which were usual in the Jewish Feasts.

Ans. What he pleas'd to make use of, does not justify what you please to force.

Remonst. The set forms of Praier at the Mincha.

Answ. Wee will not buy your Rabbinical fumes, wee have one that calls us to buy of him pure gold tri'd in the fire.

Remon. In the Samaritan Chronicle.

Ans. As little doe wee esteem your Samaritan trumpery, of which people Christ himselfe testifies, Yee worship ye know not what.

Remon. They had their severall Songs.

Ans. And so have wee our severall Psalmes for severall occasions without gramercy to your Liturgy.

Remon. Those forms which we have under the names of Saint James &c. though they have some intersertions which are plainly spurious, yet the substance of them cannot be taxt for other then holy, and ancient.

Ans. Setting aside the odde coinage of your phrase, which no mintmaister of language would allow for sterling, that a thing should be taxt for no other then holy, and ancient, let it be suppos'd the substance of them may savour of something holy, or ancient, this is but the matter; the forme, and the end of the thing may yet render it either superstitious, fruitlesse, or impious, and so, worthy to be rejected. The Garments of a Strumpet are often the same materially, that cloath a chast Matron, and yet ignominious for her to weare, the substance of the tempters words to our Saviour were holy, but his drift nothing lesse.

Remon. In what sense we hold the Roman, a true Church, is so clear'd that this iron is too hot for their fingers.

Ans. Have a care it be not the iron to sear your own conscience.

Remonst. Ye need not doubt but that the alteration of the Liturgie will be considered by wiser heads then your own.

Answ. We doubt it not, because we know your head lookes to be one.

Remonst. Our Liturgie Symbolizeth not with Popish Masse, neither as Masse nor as Popish.

Answ. A pretty slip-skin conveyance to sift Masse into no Masse, and Popish into not Popish; yet saving this passing fine sophisticall boulting hutch, so long as she symbolizes in forme, and pranks her selfe in the weeds of Popish Masse, it may be justly fear'd she provokes the jealousie of God, no otherwise then a wife affecting whorish attire kindles a disturbance in the eye of her discerning husband.

Remonst. If I finde gold in the Channell; shall I throw it away because it was ill laid?

Answ. You have forgot that gold hath been anathematiz'd for the idolatrous use, and to eat the good creatures of God once offer'd to Idols, is in Saint Pauls account to have fellowship with Devils, and to partake of the Devils Table. And thus you throttle your selfe with your own Similies.

Remonst. If the Devils confest the Son of God, shall I disclaime that truth?

Answ. You sifted not so clean before, but you shuffle as foulely now: as if there were the like necessity of confessing Christ, and using the Liturgie: wee do not disclaime that truth; because we never beleeved it for his testimonie; but wee may well reject a Liturgie which had no being that wee can know of, but from the corruptest times: if therefore the Devill should be given never so much to Prayer, I should not therefore cease from that duty, because I learn't it not from him; but if hee would commend to me a new Pater noster, though never so seemingly holy, hee should excuse me the forme which was his, but the matter, which was none of his, he could not give me, nor I bee said to take it from him. 'Tis not the goodnesse of matter therefore which is not, nor can be ow'd to the Liturgie, that will beare it out, if the form, which is the essence of it, be fantastick and superstitious, the end sinister, and the imposition violent.

Remonst. Had it beene composed into this frame on purpose to bring Papists to our Churches.

Answ. To bring them to our Churches? alas, what was that? unlesse they had beene first fitted by repentance, and right instruction. You'l say the word was there preach't which is the meanes of conversion; you should have given so much honour then to the word preach't, as to have left it to Gods working without the interloping of a Liturgy baited for them to bite at.

Remon. The Project had been charitable and gracious.

Answ. It was Pharisaicall, and vain-glorious, a greedy desire to win Proselites by conforming to them unlawfully; like the desire of Tamar, who to raise up seed to her husband sate in the common road drest like a Curtezan, and he that came to her committed incest with her. This was that which made the old Christians Paganize, while by their scandalous and base conforming to heathenisme they did no more, when they had done thir utmost, but bring some Pagans to Christianize; for true Christians they neither were themselves, nor could make other such in this fashion.

Remonst. If there be found ought in Liturgie that may indanger a scandall, it is under carefull hands to remove it.

Answ. Such carefull hands as have showne themselves sooner bent to remove and expell the men from the scandals, then the Scandals from the men, and to lose a Soule rather then a sillable or a Surplice.

Remonst. It is idoliz'd they say in England, they mean at Amsterdam.

Answ. Be it Idoliz'd therefore where it will, it is only Idolatriz'd in England.

Remonst. Multitudes of people they say distast it, more shame for those that have so mistaught them.

Answ. More shame for those that regard not the troubling Gods Church with things by themselves confest to be indifferent, since true charity is afflicted, and burns at the offence of every little one. As for the Christian multitude which you affirme to be so mistaught, it is evident enough, though you would declaime never so long to the contrarie, that God hath now taught them to detest your Liturgie and Prelacie: God who hath promis'd to teach all his Children, and to deliver them out of your hands that hunt and worry their soules: hence is it that a man shall commonly find more savoury knowledge in one Lay-man, then in a dozen of Cathedrall Prelates, as we read in our Saviours time that the common people had a reverend esteeme of him, and held him a great prophet whilst the gowned Rabbies, the incomparable, and invincible Doctors were of opinion that hee was a friend of Beelzebub.

Remonst. If the multitude distast wholesome doctrine, shall we to humor them abandon it?

Answ. Yet againe? as if there were like necessity of saving Doctrine, and arbitrary if not unlawfull, or inconvenient Liturgie: who would have thought a man could have thwackt together so many incongruous similitudes, had it not been to defend the motley incoherence of a patch'd Missall?

Remon. Why did not other Churches conforme to us, I may boldly say ours was, and is the more noble Church.

Ans. O Laodicean, how vainly and how carnally dost thou boast of noblenesse and precedency! more Lordly you have made our Church indeed, but not more noble.

Remonst. The second quære is so weak, that I wonder it could fall from the pens of wisemen.

Answ. Y'are but a bad Fencer, for you never make a proffer against another mans weaknesse; but you leave your owne side alwayes open: mark what followes.

Remonst. Brethren, can yee think that our reformers had any other intentions then all other the founders of Liturgies, the least part of whose care was the help of the Ministers weaknesse.

Answer. Doe you not perceive the noose you have brought your selfe into, whilst you were so briefe to taunt other men with weaknesse? is it cleane out of your mind what you cited from among the Councels; that the principall scope of those Liturgie-founders was to prevent either the malice or the weaknesse of the Ministers, their malice of infusing heresie in their formes of Prayer, their weaknesse, lest somthing might be composed by them through ignorance or want of care contrary to the faith: is it not now rather to bee wondred that such a weaknesse could fall from the pen of such a wise Remonstrant Man?

Remon. Their maine drift was the help of the peoples devotion that they knowing before the matter that should be sued for.

Answ. A sollicitous care, as if the people could be ignorant of the matter to be prayd for; seeing the heads of publique Prayer are either ever constant, or very frequently the same.

Remon. And the words wherwith it should be cloth'd, might be the more prepar'd, and bee so much the more intent and lesse distracted.

Ans. As for the words, it is more to be fear'd lest the same continually should make them carelesse or sleepie, then that varietie on the same knowne Subject should distract; variety (as both Musick and Rhetorick teacheth us) erects and rouses an Auditory, like the maisterfull running over many Cords and divisions; whereas if men should ever bee thumming the drone of one plaine Song, it would bee a dull Opiat to the most wakefull attention.

Remonst. Tell me, is this Liturgie good or evill?

Ans. It is evill: repaire the Acheloian horne of your Dilemma how you can, against the next push.

Remon. If it be evill, it is unlawfull to be us'd.

Answ. We grant you, and we finde you have not your salve about you.

Remon. Were the imposition amisse, what is that to the people?

Answ. Not a little, because they beare an equall part with the Priest in many places, and have their cues and verses as well as he.

Remon. The eares and hearts of our people looke for a settl'd Liturgie.

Ans. You deceive your selfe in their eares and hearts, they looke for no such matter.

Remonst. The like answer serves for Homilies, surely they were enjoyn'd to all, &c.

Answ. Let it serve for them that will bee ignorant, we know that Hayward their owne creature writes that for defect of Preachers Homilies were appointed to bee read in Churches, while Edw. 6. reigned.

Remonst. Away then with the Booke, whilst it may be supply'd with a more profitable nonsence.

Answ. Away with it rather, because it will bee hardly supply'd with a more unprofitable non-scence, then is in some passages of it to be seene.

SECT. 3.

Re. Thus their cavills concerning Liturgy are vanish't.

Answ. You wanted but Hey-passe to have made your transition like a mysticall man of Sturbridge. But for all your sleight of hand, our just exceptions against Liturgie are not vanisht, they stare you still in the face.

Remonst. Certainly had I done so, I had beene no lesse worthy to bee spit upon for my saucy uncharitablenesse, then they are now for their uncharitable falsehood.

Answ. Wee see you are in choler, therefore till you coole a while wee turne us to the ingenuous Reader. See how this Remonstrant would invest himselfe conditionally with all the rheume of the Towne, that hee might have sufficient to bespaul his brethren. They are accus'd by him of uncharitable falshood, whereas their onely crime hath beene that they have too credulously thought him if not an over-logicall, yet a well-meaning man; but now we find him either grossly deficient in his principles of Logick, or else purposely bent to delude the Parliament with equivocall Sophistry, scattering among his periods ambiguous words, whose interpretation he will afterwards dispense according to his pleasure; laying before us universall propositions, and then thinks when he will to pinion them with a limitation: for say, Remonstrant.

Remon. Episcopall government is cry'd down abroad by either weak or factious persons.

Answ. Choose you whether you will have this proposition prov'd to you to be ridiculous or sophisticall; for one of the two it must be. Step againe to Bishop Downam your Patron, and let him gently catechise you in the grounds of Logick, he will shew you that this axiom Episcopall government is cry'd downe abroad by either weak or factious persons, is as much as to say, they that cry downe Episcopacy abroad are either weake or factious persons. He will tell you that this axiom containes a distribution, and that all such axioms are generall; and lastly that the distribution in which any part is wanting, or abundant, is faulty, and fallacious. If therefore distributing by the adjuncts of faction, and weaknes the persons that decry Episcopacy, and you made your distribution imperfect for the nonce, you cannot but be guilty of fraud intended toward the honourable Court to whom you wrote. If you had rather vindicate your honesty, and suffer in your want of Art you cannot condemne them of uncharitable falshood, that attributed to you more skill then you had, thinking you had beene able to have made a distribution, as it ought to be, generall, and full, and so any man would take it, the rather as being accompanied with that large word (abroad) and so take againe either your manifest lesing, or manifest ignorance.

Remon. Now come these brotherly Slanderers.

Answ. Goe on dissembling Joab, as still your use is, call brother and smite; call brother and smite, till it bee said of you, as the like was of Herod, a man had better be your hog than your Brother.

Remon. Which never came within the verge of my thoughts.

Answ. Take a Metaphor or two more as good, the Precinct, or the Diocesse of your thoughts.

Remon. Brethren, if you have any remainders of modesty or truth, cry Godmercy.

Answ. Remonstrant, if you have no ground-worke of Logick, or plain-dealing in you, learne both as fast as you can.

Remon. Of the same straine is their witty descant of my confoundednes.

Answ. Speak no more of it, it was a fatall word, that God put into your mouth when you began to speak for Episcopacy, as boding confusion to it.

Remon. I am still, and shall ever be thus selfe-confounded, as confidently to say that hee is no peaceable, and right affected Son of the Church of England that doth not wish well to Liturgie and Episcopacie.

Answ. If this bee not that saucie uncharitablenesse, with which in the fore-going page you voluntarily invested your selfe with thought to have shifted it off, let the Parliament judge who now themselves are deliberating whether Liturgie and Episcopacy be to be well wish't to, or no.

Remonst. This they say they cannot but rank amongst my notorious_ _ _ speake out Maisters, I would not have that word stick in your teeth or in your throat.

Answ. Take your spectacles Sir, it sticks in the paper, and was a pectoral Roule wee prepar'd for you to swallow downe to your heart.

Remonst. Wanton wits must have leave to play with their owne sterne.

Answ. A Meditation of yours doubtlesse observ'd at Lambeth from one of the Archiepiscopal Kittens.

Remonst. As for that forme of Episcopall Government, surely could those looke with my eyes, they would see cause to be ashamed of this their injurious misconceit.

Answ. We must call the Barber for this wise sentence: one Mr. Ley the other day wrote a Treatise of the Sabbath, and his Preface puts the wisedom of Balaams Asse upon one of our Bishops, bold man for his labour; but we shall have more respect to our Remonstrant, and liken him to the Asses Maister, though the Story say hee was not so quick-sighted as his Beast. Is not this Balaam the son of Beor, the man whose eyes are open, that said to the Parliament surely, could those looke with my eyes; boast not of your eyes, 'tis fear'd you have Balaams disease, a pearle in your eye, Mammons Præstriction.

Remonst. Alas, we could tell you of China, Japan, Peru, Brasil, New England, Virginia, and a thousand others that never had any Bishops to this day.

Answ. O do not foile your cause thus, and trouble Ortelius, we can help you, and tell you where they have bin ever since Constantines time at least, in a place call'd Mundus alter et idem, in the spacious, and rich countries of Crapulia, Pamphagonia, Yuronia, and in the Dukedome of Orgilia, and Variana and their Metropolis of Ucalegonium. It was an oversight that none of your prime Antiquaries could think of these venerable Monuments to deduce Episcopacy by: knowing that Mercurius Britannicus had them forth-comming.

SECT. 4.

Remonst. Hitherto they have flourish't, now I hope they will strike.

Ans. His former transition was in the faire about the Jugglers, now he is at the Pageants among the Whifflers.

Remonst. As if Arguments were Almanacks.

Answ. You will find some such as will prognosticate your date, and tell you that after your long Summer Solstice the Æquator calls for you, to reduce you to the ancient, and equall house of Libra.

Remons. Truely brethren, you have not well taken the heighth of the Pole.

Answ. No marvell, there be many more that doe not take well the height of your pole; but will take better the declination of your altitude.

Remonst. Hee that said I am the way, said that the old way was the good way.

Answ. He bids ask of the old paths, or for the old wayes, where or which is the good way; which implies that all old wayes are not good; but that the good way is to be searcht with diligence among the old wayes, which is a thing that wee doe in the oldest Records wee have, the Gospell. And if others may chance to spend more time with you in canvassing later antiquity, I suppose it is not for that they ground themselves thereon; but that they endeavour by shewing the corruptions, incertainties, and disagreements of those Volumes, and the easines of erring, or overslipping in such a boundlesse and vast search, if they may not convince those that are so strongly perswaded thereof; yet to free ingenuous minds from that over-awfull esteeme of those more ancient then trusty fathers whom custome and fond opinion, weake principles, and the neglect of sounder and superior knowledge hath exalted so high, as to have gain'd them a blind reverence: whose Books in bignesse, and number so endlesse and immeasurable, I cannot think that either God or nature, either divine, or humane wisdome, did ever meane should bee a rule or reliance to us in the decision of any weighty, and positive Doctrine. For certainly, every rule, and instrument of necessary knowledge that God hath given us, ought to be so in proportion as may bee weilded and manag'd by the life of man, without penning him up from the duties of humane society, and such a rule and instrument of knowledge perfectly is the holy Bible. But hee that shall bind himselfe to make Antiquity his rule, if hee read but part, besides the difficulty of choyce, his rule is deficient, and utterly unsatisfying; for there may bee other Writers of another mind which hee hath not seene, and if he undertake all, the length of mans life cannot extend to give him a full and requisite knowledge of what was done in Antiquity. Why doe wee therefore stand worshipping, and admiring this unactive and livelesse Colossus, that, like a carved Gyant terribly menacing to children, and weaklings, lifts up his club, but strikes not, and is subject to the muting of every Sparrow. If you let him rest upon his Basis, hee may perhaps delight the eyes of some with his huge and mountainous Bulk, and the quaint workmanship of his massie limbs; but if yee goe about to take him in pieces, yee marre him; and if you thinke like Pigmees to turne and wind him whole as hee is, besides your vaine toile and sweat, he may chance to fall upon your owne heads. Goe therefore, and use all your Art, apply your sledges, your levers, and your iron crows to heave and hale your mighty Polypheme of Antiquity to the delusion of Novices and unexperienc't Christians. Wee shall adhere close to the Scriptures of God which hee hath left us as the just and adequate measure of truth, fitted, and proportion'd to the diligent study, memory, and use of every faithfull man, whose every part consenting, and making up the harmonious Symmetry of compleat instruction, is able to set out to us a perfect man of God or Bishop throughly furnish't to all the good works of his charge: and with this weapon, without stepping a foot further, wee shall not doubt to batter and throw down your Nebuchadnezzars Image and crumble it like the chaffe of the Summer threshing floores, as well the gold of those Apostolick Successors that you boast of, as your Constantinian silver, together with the iron, the brasse, and the clay of those muddy and strawy ages that follow.

Remon. Let the boldest forehead of them all deny that Episcopacie hath continued thus long in our Iland, or that any till this age contradicted it.

Answ. That bold forehead you have cleanly put upon your selfe, it is you who deny that any till this Age contradicted it; no forehead of ours dares do so much: you have vow'd your selfe fairly between the Scylla and Charybdis either of impudence, or nonsence, and now betake you to whether you please.

Remon. As for that supply of accessory strength, which I not begg.

Answ. Your whole Remonstrance does nothing else but beg it, and your fellow-Prelates do as good as whine to the Parliament for their Flesh-pots of Egypt, making sad Orations at the Funeral of your deare Prelacie, like that doubtie Centurion Afranius in Lucian, who to imitate the noble Pericles in his Epitaphian speech, stepping up after the battell to bewaile the slaine Severianus, falls into a pittifull condolement, to think of those costly suppers and drinking banquets, which he must now taste of no more; and by then he had done, lack't but little to lament the deare-loved memory, and calamitous losse of his Capon, and white broth.

Remon. But raise and evince from the light of Nature, and the rules of just policie, for the continuance of those things which long use and many lawes have firmely established as necessary and beneficiall.

Answ. Open your eyes to the light of grace, a better guide then Nature. Look upon the mean condition of Christ and his Apostles, without that accessory strength you take such paines to raise from the light of Nature and Policie: take Divine Counsell, Labour not for the things that perish: you would be the salt of the earth; if that savour be not found in you doe not thinke much that the time is now come to throw you out, and tread you under foot. Hark how S. Paul writing to Timothy, informs a true Bishop. Bishops (saith he) must not be greedy of filthy lucre, and having food and rayment, let us be therewith content: but they (saith hee, meaning more especially in that place Bishops) that will be rich fall into temptation, and a snare, and into many foolish, and hurtfull lusts, which drowne men in destruction, and perdition: for the love of money is the root of all evill, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith. How can wee therefore expect sound Doctrine, and the solution of this our controversie from any covetous, and honour-hunting Bishop that shall plead so stiffly for these things, while St. Paul thus exhorts, every Bishop: But thou, O man of God flye these things. As for the just policie, that long use and custome, and those many Lawes which you say have conferr'd these benefits upon you, it hath been nothing else but the superstitious devotion of Princes and great men that knew no better, or the base importunity of begging Friers, haunting and harassing the deathbeds of men departing this life, in a blind and wretched condition of hope to merit Heaven for the building of Churches, Cloisters, and Covents. The most of your vaunted possessions, and those proud endowments that yee as sinfully wast, what are they but the black revennues of Purgatorie, the price of abused, and murder'd soules, the damned Simony of Trentals, and Indulgences to mortall Sin: how can ye choose but inherit the curse that goes along with such a Patrimony. Alas! if there be any releasement, any mitigation, or more tollerable being for the soules of our misguided Ancestors, could wee imagine there might be any recovery to some degree of ease left for as many of them as are lost; there cannot bee a better way then to take the misbestowed wealth which they were cheated of, from these our Prelates, who are the true Successors of those that popt them into the other world with this conceit of meriting by their goods, which was their finall undoing: and to bestow their beneficent gifts upon places and meanes of Christian education; and the faithfull labourers in Gods harvest, that may incessantly warn the posterity of Dives, lest they come where their miserable fore-father was sent by the cousenage and misleading of avaritious and worldly Prelates.

Remon. It will stand long enough against the battry of their paper-pellets.

Answ. That must be try'd without a square cap in the Counsell, and if pellets will not doe, your owne Canons shall be turn'd against you.

Remonstr. They cannot name any man in this nation, that ever contradicted Episcopacie, till this present Age.

Answ. What an overworne and bedrid Argument is this, the last refuge ever of old falshood, and therefore a good signe I trust that your Castle cannot hold out long. This was the plea of Judaisme, and Idolatry against Christ and his Apostles, of Papacie against Reformation: and perhaps to the frailty of flesh and blood in a man destitute of better enlight'ning may for some while bee pardonable; for what has fleshly apprehension other to subsist by then Succession, Custome, and Visibility, which onely hold, if in his weaknesse and blindnesse he be loth to lose, who can blame? but in a Protestant Nation that should have throwne off these tatter'd Rudiments long agoe, after the many strivings of Gods Spirit, and our fourscore yeares vexation of him in this our wildernesse since Reformation began, to urge these rotten Principles, and twit us with the present age, which is to us an age of ages wherein God is manifestly come downe among us, to doe some remarkable good to our Church or state, is as if a man should taxe the renovating and re-ingendring Spirit of God with innovation, and that new creature for an upstart noveltie; yea the new Jerusalem, which without your admired linke of succession, descends from Heaven, could not scape some such like censure. If you require a further answer, it will not misbecome a Christian to bee either more magnanimous, or more devout then Scipio was, who in stead of other answer to the frivolous accusations of Petilius the Tribune; This day Romans (saith he) I fought with Hanibal prosperously; let us all goe and thank the gods that gave us so great a victory: in like manner will we now say, not caring otherwise to answer this un-Protestant-like Objection: in this Age, Brittains God hath reform'd his Church after many hundred yeers of Popish corruption; in this Age hee hath freed us from the intolerable yoke of Prelats, and Papall Discipline; in this age he hath renewed our Protestation against all those yet remaining dregs of superstition: Let us all goe every true protested Brittaine, throughout the 3. Kingdoms, and render thanks to God the Father of light, and fountaine of heavenly grace, and to his Son CHRIST our Lord; leaving this Remonstrant and his adherents to their owne designes, and let us recount even here without delay, the patience and long suffering that God hath us'd towards our blindnesse and hardnes time after time. For he being equally neere to his whole Creation of Mankind, and of free power to turne his benefick and fatherly regard to what Region or Kingdome he pleases, hath yet ever had this Iland under the speciall indulgent eye of his providence; and pittying us the first of all other Nations, after he had decreed to purifie and renew his Church that lay wallowing in Idolatrous pollutions, sent first to us a healing messenger to touch softly our sores, and carry a gentle hand over our wounds: he knockt once and twice, and came againe, opening our drousie eye-lids leasurely by that glimmering light which Wicklef and his followers dispers't, and still taking off by degrees the inveterat scales from our nigh perisht sight, purg'd also our deaf eares, and prepar'd them to attend his second warning trumpet in our Grandsires dayes. How else could they have beene able to have receiv'd the sudden assault of his reforming Spirit warring against humane Principles, and carnall sense, the pride of flesh that still cry'd up Antiquity, Custome, Canons, Councels and Lawes, and cry'd down the truth for noveltie, schisme, profanenesse and Sacriledge: when as we that have liv'd so long in abundant light, besides the sunny reflection of all the neighbouring Churches, have yet our hearts rivetted with these old opinions, and so obstructed and benumm'd with the same fleshly reasonings, which in our forefathers soone melted and gave way, against the morning beam of Reformation. If God had left undone this whole worke so contrary to flesh and blood, till these times, how should wee have yeelded to his heavenly call, had we beene taken, as they were, in the starknes of our ignorance, that yet after all these spirituall preparatives, and purgations have our earthly apprehensions so clamm'd and furr'd with the old levin. O if we freeze at noone after their earely thaw, let us feare lest the Sunne for ever hide himselfe, and turn his orient steps from our ingratefull Horizon justly condemn'd to be eternally benighted. Which dreadfull judgement, O thou the ever-begotten light, and perfect image of the Father intercede may never come upon us, as we trust thou hast; for thou hast open'd our difficult and sad times and given us an unexpected breathing after our long oppressions; thou hast done justice upon those that tyranniz'd over us, while some men waver'd, and admir'd a vaine shadow of wisedome in a tongue nothing slow to utter guile, though thou hast taught us to admire onely that which is good, and to count that only praise-worthy, which is grounded upon thy divine Precepts. Thou hast discover'd the plots, and frustrated the hopes of all the wicked in the Land; and put to shame the persecutors of thy Church; thou hast made our false Prophets to be found a lie in the sight of all the people, and chac'd them with sudden confusion and amazement before the redoubled brightnesse of thy descending cloud, that now covers thy Tabernacle. Who is there that cannot trace thee now in thy beamy walke through the midst of thy Sanctuary, amidst those golden candlesticks, which have long suffer'd a dimnesse amongst us through the violence of those that had seiz'd them, and were more taken with the mention of their gold then of their starry light; teaching the doctrine of Balaam, to cast a stumbling-block before thy servants, commanding them to eat things sacrifiz'd to Idols, and forcing them to fornication. Come, therefore, O thou that hast the seven starres in thy right hand, appoint thy chosen Preists according to their Orders, and courses of old, to minister before thee, and duly to dresse and powre out the consecrated oyle into thy holy and ever-burning lamps; thou hast sent out the spirit of prayer upon thy servants over all the Land to this effect, and stirr'd up their vowes as the sound of many waters about thy Throne. Every one can say that now certainly thou hast visited this land, and hast not forgotten the utmost corners of the earth, in a time when men had thought that thou wast gone up from us to the farthest end of the Heavens, and hadst left to do marvellously among the sons of these last Ages. O perfect, and accomplish thy glorious acts; for men may leave their works unfinisht, but thou art a God, thy nature is perfection; shouldst thou bring us thus far onward from Egypt to destroy us in this Wildernesse though wee deserve; yet thy great name would suffer in the rejoycing of thine enemies, and the deluded hope of all thy servants. When thou hast settl'd peace in the Church, and righteous judgement in the Kingdome, then shall all thy Saints addresse their voyces of joy, and triumph to thee, standing on the shoare of that red Sea into which our enemies had almost driven us. And he that now for haste snatches up a plain ungarnish't present as a thanke-offering to thee, which could not bee deferr'd in regard of thy so many late deliverances wrought for us one upon another, may then perhaps take up a Harp, and sing thee an elaborate Song to Generations. In that day it shall no more bee said as in scorne, this or that was never held so till this present Age, when men have better learnt that the times and seasons passe along under thy feet, to goe and come at thy bidding, and as thou didst dignifie our fathers dayes with many revelations above all the fore-going ages, since thou tookst the flesh; so thou canst vouchsafe to us (though unworthy) as large a portion of thy Spirit as thou pleasest: for who shall prejudice thy all-governing will? seeing the power of thy grace is not past away with the primitive times, as fond and faithlesse men imagine, but thy Kingdome is now at hand, and thou standing at the dore. Come forth out of thy Royall Chambers, O Prince of all the kings of the earth, put on the visible roabes of thy imperiall Majesty, take up that unlimited Scepter which thy Almighty Father hath bequeath'd thee; for now the voice of thy Bride calls thee, and all creatures sigh to bee renew'd.

SECT. 5.

Remon. Neglect not the gift which was given thee by Prophecie, and by laying on the hands of Presbytery.

Answ. The English translation expresses the Article (the) and renders it the Presbytery, which you doe injurie to omitt.

Remonst. Which I wonder ye can so presse, when Calvin himself takes it of the Office, and not of the Men.

Ans. You think then you are fairly quit of this proofe, because Calvin interprets it for you, as if we could be put off with Calvins name, unlesse wee be convinc't with Calvins reason; the word πϱισβυτίϱιον is a collective Nowne signifying a certain number of men in one order, as the word privy Councell with us, and so Beza interprets, that knew Calvins mind doubtlesse with whom he liv'd. If any amongst us should say the privy Counsell ordain'd it, and thereby constraine us to understand one mans authoritie, should we not laugh at him? And therefore when you have us'd all your cramping irons to the Text, and done your utmost to cramme a Presbyterie into the skin of one person, 'twill be but a piece of frugall non-sense. But if your meaning be with a violent Hyperbaton to transpose the Text, as if the Words lay thus in order, neglect not the gift of Presbytery; this were a construction like a Harquebuze shot over a File of words twelve deep, without authority to bid them stoop, or to make the word gift like the River Mole in Surrey to runne under the bottome of a long Line, and so start up to governe the word Presbyterie, as in immediate Syntaxis, a device ridiculous enough to make good that old wives tale of a certaine Queene of England that sunk at Charing-crosse, and rose up at Queen-hithe. No marvell though the Prelates bee a troublesome generation, and which way soever they turne them, put all things into a foule discomposure, when to maintaine their domineering they seeke thus to rout and dis-aray the wise and well-couch't order of Saint Pauls owne words, using either a certain textuall riot to chop off the hands of the word Presbyterie, or els a like kind of Simony to clap the word gift betweene them. Besides, if the verse must be read according to this transposition, μή ἀμέλει τοῦ ἐν σοὶ χαϱίσματος του πϱεσβυτεϱίου, it would be improper to call ordination χάϱισμα, when as it is rather only χείϱιασμα, an outward testimony of approbation, unless they will make it a Sacrament as the Papists doe: but surely the Prelates would have Saint Pauls words rampe one over another, as they use to clime into their Livings and Bishopricks.

Remonst. Neither need give any other satisfaction to the point, from Saint Paul , 2 Timoth. 1. 6. up the gift of God which is in thee by the imposition of my hands; mine, and not others.

Answer. Y'are too quick; this last place is to understood by the former, as the Law of Method, which sway in the Art of teaching, requires, that clearest and plainest expressions set , to the end they may enlighten any following obscurity; and wherefore should not attribute a right Method to the of Scripture, there can no reason given: to which Method, if shall now , besides the breaking of a rule, which the Remonstrant hitherto see hath made little account of, shall also put a manifest violence and impropriety upon a word against his common signification, in binding a Collective to a singular person. But if shall, as (or indeed Reason) instructs us, expound the latter place by the former cited, and understand (by the Imposition of my hands) that is, of mine as an Apostle, with the authority and assistance of the , there is nothing more ordinary, or kindly in speech, such a phrase as expresses the in any action, and understands the rest. So that the imposition of Saint hands, without more expression in this place, cannot exclude the act of the by the former Text.

Remon. In the meane while see Brethren how you have with Simon fisht all night, and caught nothing.

Ans. If we fishing with Simon the Apostle can catch nothing: see what you can catch with Simon Magus; for all his hooks & fishing implements he bequeath'd among you.

SECT. 13.

Remon. We doe againe professe; that if our Bishops challenge any other power then was delegated to, and required of Timothy, and Titus, wee shall yeeld them usurpers.

Answ. Ye cannot compare an ordinary Bishop with Timothy, who was an extraordinary man, foretold and promis'd to the Church by many Prophecies, and his name joyned as collaterall with Saint Paul, in most of his Apostolick Epistles, even where hee writes to the Bishops of other Churches, as those in Philippi. Nor can you prove out of the Scripture that Timothy was Bishop of any particular place; for that wherein it is said in the third Verse of the first Epistle: As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, will be such a glosse to prove the constitution of a Bishop by, as would not onely be not so good as a Burdeaux glosse, but scarce be receiv'd to varnish a Vizard of Modona. All that can bee gather'd out of holy writ concerning Timothy is that hee was either an Apostle, or an Apostles extraordinary Vice-gerent, not confin'd to the charge of any place. The like may bee said of Titus, (as those words import in the 5. Verse), that he was for that cause left in Creet, that he might supply or proceed to set in order that which Saint Paul in Apostolick manner had begun, for which hee had his particular Commission, as those words sound, (as I had appointed thee). So that what hee did in Creet, cannot so much be thought the exercise of an ordinary Function, as the direction of an inspired mouth. No lesse also may be gather'd from the 2 Cor. 8. 23.

Remonst. You descend to the Angels of the seven Asian Churches; your shift is, that the Angell is heere taken collectively, not individually.

Answ. That the word is collective appeares plainly, Revel. 2.

First, Because the Text it selfe expounds it so; for having spoken all the while as to the Angell, the seventh verse concludes that this was spoken to the Churches. Now if the Spirit conclude collectively, and kept the same Tenor all the way; for we see not where he particularizes, then certainly hee must begin collectively, else the construction can bee neither Grammaticall nor Logicall.

Secondly, if the word Angel be individuall, then are the faults attributed to him individuall: but they are such as for which God threatens to remove the Candlestick out of its place, which is as much as to take away from that Church the light of his truth: and wee cannot think he will doe so for one Bishops fault. Therefore those faults must be understood collective, and by consequence the subject of them collective.

Thirdly, an individuall cannot branch it selfe into subindividuals; but this word Angel doth in the tenth Verse. Feare none of those things which thou shalt suffer; behold the Devill shall cast some of you into prison. And the like from other places of this and the following Chapter may be observd. Therefore it is no individuall word, but a Collective.

Fourthly, in the 24. Verse this word Angel is made capable of a Pronoune plurall, which could not bee, unlesse it were a collective, as for the supposed manuscript of Tecla, and two or three other Copies that have expung'd the Copulative, wee cannot preferre them before the more receiv'd reading, and wee hope you will not against the Translation of your Mother the Church of England, that pass't the revise of your cheifest Prelates: Besides this, you will lay an unjust censure upon the much-praised Bishop of Thyatira, and reckon him among those that had the Doctrine of Jesabel when the Text sayes he onely suffer'd her. Whereas, if you will but let in a charitable conjunction, as wee know your so much call'd-for Charity will not deny, then you plainly acquit the Bishop, if you comprehend him in the name of Angel, otherwise you leave his case very doubtfull.

Remonstrance. Thou sufferest thy wife : was wife to the whole Company, or to one Bishop alone?

Ans. Not to the whole company doubtles, for that had bin worse then to have been the Levites wife in Gibeah: but heere among all those that constantly read it otherwise, whom you trample upon, your good Mother of England is downe againe in the throng, who with the rest reads it, that Woman Jezabel: but suppose it were Wife, a man might as well interpret that word figuratively, as her name Jezabel no man doubts to be a borrow'd name.

Remonst. Yet what makes this for a Diocesan Bishop? much every way.

Answer. No more a special endorsement could make to up the foreman of a Jury. If deny you more precedence, as the Senior of any society, or deny you this priority to longer , Prove you the contrary from hence, if you can. That you to from the title of eminence, Angel: alas, your wings are too short. 'Tis not Ordination nor Jurisdiction that is , but the heavenly message of the , which is the office of all Ministers alike; in which sense John the Baptist is an Angel, which in signifies a Messenger, as oft as it is meant by a man, and might be so without treason to the Hierarchy; but that the whole to a pitch in types, and Allegories. Seeing then the reason of this name is to the preaching of the , and that this preaching equally to the whole Ministry; hence may a fifth argument, that if the reason of this borrowed name, Angel, be equally collective and communicative to the whole preaching ministry of the place, then must the name be collectively, and communicatively taken; but the reason, that is to say, the office, of preaching and watching over the Flock is equally collective and communicative. Therefore the name it , is to be understood as equally collective, and communicative to the whole preaching of the place; and if you will contend still for a superiority in one person, you must ground it better from this metaphor, which you may now deplore as the Axe head that fell into the water, and say, Alas Master, for it was , unless you have, as good a faculty to make Iron swim, as you had to make light froth sink.

Remonst. What is, if this be not, ordination and jurisdiction?

Answ. Indeed in the constitution, and founding of a Church, that some men inspir'd from God should have an extraordinary calling to appoint, to order, and dispose, must needs be. So Moses, though himselfe no priest, sanctify'd and ordain'd Aaron and his sons; but when all needfull things be set and regulated by the writings of the Apostles, whether it be not a meere folly to keep up a superiour degree in the Church onely for ordination, and jurisdiction, it will be no hurt to debate a while. The Apostles were the builders, and, as it were the Architects of the Christian Church; wherein consisted their excellence above ordinary ministers? A Prelate would say in commanding, in controuling, in appointing, in calling to them and sending from about them to all countryes their Bishops and Archbishops as their deputies, with a kind of Legantine power. No, no, vain Prelates, this was but as the Scaffolding of a new edifice which for the time must board, and overlooke the highest battlements, but if the structure once finish't, any passenger should fall in love with them, and pray that they might still stand, as being a singular grace, and strengthening to the house, who would otherwise thinke, but that the man was presently to be laid hold on, and sent to his friends and kindred. The eminence of the Apostles consisted in their powerfull preaching, their unwearied labouring in the Word, their unquenchable charity, which above all earthly respects like a working flame, had spun up to such a height of pure desire, as might be thought next to that love which dwels in God to save soules; which, while they did, they were contented to be the off-scouring of the world, and to expose themselves willingly to all afflictions, perfecting thereby their hope through patience to a joy unspeakable. As for Ordination, what is it, but the laying on of hands, an outward signe or symbol of admission? It creates nothing, it conferres nothing; it is the inward calling of God that makes a Minister, and his own painfull study and diligence that manures and improves his ministeriall gifts. In the primitive times, many, before ever they had receiv'd ordination from the Apostles, had done the Church noble service, as Apollos and others; it is but an orderly forme of receiving a man already fitted, and committing to him a particular charge, the imployment of Preaching is as holy, and farr more excellent, the care also and judgement to be us'd in the winning of soules, which is thought to be sufficient in every worthy Minister, is an ability above that which is requir'd in ordination: For many may be able to judge who is fit to be made a minister, that would not be found fit to be made Ministers themselves, as it will not be deny'd that he may be the competent Judge of a neat picture, or elegant poem, that cannot limne the like. Why therefore wee should constitute a superiour order in the Church to performe an office which is not onely every ministers function, but inferiour also to that which hee has a confest right to, and why this superiority should remaine thus usurp'd some wise Epimenides tell us. Now for jurisdiction this deare Saint of the Prelates, it will be best to consider, first, what it is: that soveraigne Lord, who in the discharge of his holy anointment from God the Father, which made him supreame Bishop of our soules was so humble as to say, Who made me a Judge, or a divider over yee, hath taught us that a Church-mans jurisdiction is no more but to watch over his flock in season, and out of season, to deale by sweet, and efficacious instructions; gentle admonitions, and somtimes rounder reproofs: against negligence, or obstinacy will be requir'd a rousing volie of Pastorly threatnings, against a persisting stubbornes or the feare of a reprobate sense, a timely separation from the flock by that interdictive sentence, lest his conversation unprohibited, or unbranded might breath a pestilentiall murrein into the other sheepe. In summe, his jurisdiction is to see the thriving and prospering of that which he hath planted: what other work the Prelates have found for Chancellours and suffragans, Delegates and Officialls, with all the bell pestering rabble of Sumners and Apparitors, is but an invasion upon the temporall Magistrate, and affected by them as men that are not asham'd of the ensigne and banner of Antichrist. But true Evangelicall jurisdiction or discipline, is no more, as was said, then for a Minister to see to the thriving and prospering of that which he hath planted. And which is the worthiest worke of these two, to plant as every Ministers office is equally with the Bishops, or to tend that which is planted, which the blind and undiscerning Prelates call jurisdiction, and would appropriate to themselves as a businesse of higher dignity? Have patience therefore a little, and heare a Law case: A certaine man of large possessions, had a faire Garden, and kept therein an honest and laborious servant, whose skill and profession was to set or sow all wholesome herbs, and delightful flowers, according to every season, and whatever else was to be done in a well-husbanded nursery of plants and fruits; now, when the time was come that he should cut his hedges, prune his trees, looke to his tender slips, and pluck up the weeds that hinder'd their growth, he gets him up by breake of day, and makes account to doe what was needfull in his garden, and who would thinke that any other should know better than he how the dayes work was to be spent? Yet for all this there comes another strange Gardener that never knew the soyle, never handl'd a Dibble or Spade to set the least pot-herbe that grew there, much lesse had endur'd an houres sweat or chillnesse, and yet challenges as his right the binding or unbinding of every flower, the clipping of every bush, the weeding and worming of every bed both in that and all other Gardens thereabout; the honest Gardener, that ever since the day-peepe, till now the Sunne was growne somewhat ranke, had wrought painfully about his bankes and seed-plots at this commanding voyce, turnes suddenly about with some wonder, and although hee could have well beteem'd to have thankt him of the ease hee profer'd, yet loving his owne handiworke, modestly refus'd him, telling him withall, that for his part, if hee had thought much of his owne paines, he could for once have committed the worke to one of his fellow-labourers, for as much as it is well knowne to be a matter of lesse skill and lesse labour to keepe a Garden handsome, then it is to plant it, or contrive it, and that he had already perform'd himselfe. No, said the stranger, this is neither for you nor your fellowes to meddle with, but for me onely that am for this purpose in dignity farre above you, and the provision which the Lord of the soyle allowes me in this office is, and that with good reason, ten fold your wages; the Gardener smil'd and shooke his head, but what was determin'd I cannot tell you till the end of this Parliament.

Remon. If in time you shall see wooden chalices, and wooden priests, thanke your selves.

Answ. It had been happy for this land, if your priests had beene but onely wooden; all England knowes they have been to this Iland not wood, but wormewood, that have infected the third part of our waters, like that Apostate starre in the Revelation; that many soules have di'd of their bitternesse, and if you meane by wooden, illiterate or contemptible, there was no want of that sort among you, and their number increasing daily, as their lazinesse, their Tavern-hunting, their neglect of all sound literature, and their liking of doltish and monasticall Schoolemen daily increast. What, should I tell you how the Universities, that men looke should be fountaines of learning and knowledge, have been poyson'd and choak'd under your governance? and if to be wooden be to be base, where could there be found among all the reformed Churches, nay, in the Church of Rome it self a baser brood of flattering and time-serving priests, according as God pronounces by Isaiah, the Prophet that teacheth lies he is the taile. As for your young schollers that petition for Bishopricks and Deaneries to incourage them in their studies, and that many Gentlemen else will not put their sons to learning, away with such young mercenary striplings and their Simoniacall fathers, God has no neede of such, they have no part or lot in his Vineyard, they may as well sue for Nunneries, that they may have some convenient stowage for their wither'd daughters, because they cannot give them portions answerable to the pride and vanity they have bred them in; This is the root of all our mischiefe, that which they alleage for the incouragement of their studies, should be cut away forewith as the very bait of pride and ambition, the very garbage that drawes together all the fowles of prey and ravin in the land to come, and gorge upon the Church; how can it be but ever unhappy to the Church of England, while shee shall thinke to intice men to the pure service of God by the same meanes that were us'd to tempt our Saviour to the service of the devill, by laying before him honour and preferment. Fit professors indeed are they like to be, to teach others that godlinesse with content is great gaine, whenas their godlinesse of teaching had not been but for worldly gaine. The heathen Philosophers thought that vertue was for its owne sake inestimable, and the greatest gaine of a teacher to make a soule vertuous; so Xenophon writes of Socrates who never bargain'd with any for teaching them; he fear'd not lest those who had receiv'd so high a benefit from him, would not of their owne free-will returne him all possible thankes. Was morall vertue so lovely, and so alluring, and heathen men so enamour'd of her, as to teach and study her with greatest neglect and contempt of worldly profit and advancement; and is Christian piety so homely and so unpleasant, and Christian men so cloy'd with her, as that none will study and teach her, but for lucre and preferment! O stale-growne piety! O Gospell rated as cheap as thy Master, at thirty pence, and not worth the study, unlesse thou canst buy those that will sell thee! O race of Capernaitans, senselesse of divine doctrine, and capable only of loaves and belly-cheer! But they will grant, perhaps, piety may thrive, but learning will decay: I would faine aske these men at whose hands they seeke inferior things, as wealth, honour, their dainty fare, their lofty houses? No doubt but they will soone answer that all these things they seeke at Gods hands. Doe they thinke then, that all these meaner and superfluous things come from God, & the divine gift of learning from the den of Plutus, or the cave of Mammon? Certainly never any cleare spirit nurst up from brighter influences with a soule inlarg'd to the dimensions of spacious art and high knowledge ever enter'd there but with scorn, & thought it ever foule disdain to make pelf or ambition the reward of his studies, it being the greatest honor, the greatest fruit and proficiency of learned studies to despise these things. Not liberal science, but illiberal must that needs be that mounts in contemplation meerely for money. And what would it avail us to have a hireling Clergy though never so learned? For such can have neither true wisdom nor grace, and then in vain do men trust in learning, where these be wanting. If in lesse noble and almost mechanick arts according to the definitions of those Authors, he is not esteem'd to deserve the name of a compleate Architect, an excellent Painter, or the like, that beares not a generous mind above the peasantly regard of wages, and hire; much more must we thinke him a most imperfect, and incompleate Divine, who is so farre from being a contemner of filthy lucre; that his whole divinity is moulded and bred up in the beggarl,y and brutish hopes of a fat Prebendary, Deanery, or Bishoprick, which poore and low pitch't desires, if they doe but mixe with those other heavenly intentions that draw a man to this study, it is justly expected that they should bring forth a baseborn issue of Divinity like that of those imperfect and putrid creatures that receive a crawling life from two most unlike procreants the Sun, and mudde. And in matters of Religion, there is not any thing more intollerable, then a learned foole, or a learned Hypocrite, the one is ever coopt up at his empty speculations, a sot, an ideot for any use that mankind can make of him, or else sowing the World with nice, and idle questions and with much toyle, and difficulty wading to his auditors up to the eyebrows in deep shallows that wet not the instep: a plaine unlearned man that lives well by that light which he has, is better, and wiser, and edifies others more towards a godly and happy life then he: The other is still using his sophisticated arts, and bending all his studies how to make his insatiate avarice, & ambition seem pious, and orthodoxall by painting his lewd and deceitfull principles with a smooth, and glossy varnish in a doctrinall way to bring about his wickedest purposes. In stead of the great harme therefore that these men feare upon the dissolving of Prelates, what an ease, and happinesse will it be to us, when tempting rewards are taken away, that the cunningest and most dangerous mercenaries will cease of themselves to frequent the fold, whom otherwise scarce all the prayers of the faithfull could have kept back from devouring the flock? But a true Pastor of Christs sending hath this especiall mark, that for greatest labours, and greatest merits in the Church, he requires either nothing, if he could so subsist, or a very common and reasonable supply of humane necessaries: Wee cannot therefore doe better then to leave this care of ours to God, he can easily send labourers into his Harvest, that shall not cry, Give, give, but be contented with a moderate and beseeming allowance; nor will hee suffer true learning to be wanting, where true grace, and our obedience to him abounds: for if he give us to know him aright, and to practise this our knowledge in right establisht discipline, how much more will hee replenish us with all abilities in tongues and arts, that may conduce to his glory and our good? He can stirre up rich Fathers to bestow exquisite education upon their Children, and so dedicate them to the service of the Gospell; he can make the sons of Nobles his Ministers, and Princes to be his Nazarites; for certainely there is no imployment more honourable, more worthy to take up a great spirit, more requiring a generous and free nurture, then to be the messenger, and Herald of heavenly truth from God to man and by the faithfull worke of holy doctrine, to procreate a number of faithfull men, making a kind of creation like to Gods, by infusing his spirit and likenesse into them, to their salvation, as God did into him; arising to what climat soever he turne him, like that Sun of righteousnesse that sent him, with healing in his wings, and new light to break in upon the chill and gloomy hearts of his hearers, raising out of darksome barrennesse a delicious, and fragrant Spring of saving knowledge, and good workes. Can a man thus imployed, find himselfe discontented, or dishonour'd for want of admittance to have a pragmaticall voyce at Sessions, and Jayle deliveries? or because hee may not as a Judge sit out the wrangling noyse of litigious Courts to shreeve the purses of unconfessing and unmortify'd sinners, and not their soules, or be discourag'd though men call him not Lord, when as the due performance of his office would gaine him even from Lords and Princes, the voluntary title of Father? would he tugge for a Barony to sit and vote in Parliament, knowing that no man can take from him the gift of wisedome and sound doctrine which leaves him free, though not to be a member, yet a teacher, and perswader of the Parliament? and in all wise apprehensions the perswasive power in man to win others to goodnesse by instruction is greater, and more divine, then the compulsive power to restraine men from being evill by terrour of the Law; and therefore Christ left Moses to be the Law-giver, but himselfe came downe amongst us to bee a teacher, with which office his heavenly wisedome was so well pleas'd, as that he was angry with those that would have put a piece of temporall judicature into his hands, disclaiming that he had any commission from above for such matters.

Such a high calling therefore as this, sends not for those drossy spirits that need the lure, and whistle of earthly preferment, like those animals that fetch, and carry for a morsell, no. She can find such as therefore study her precepts, because she teaches to despise preferment. And let not those wretched Fathers thinke they shall impoverish the Church of willing, and able supply, though they keep back their sordid sperm begotten in the lustinesse of their avarice, and turne them to their malting-kils, rather let them take heed what lessons they instill into that lump of flesh which they are the cause of, lest, thinking to offer him as a present to God, they dish him out for the Devill. Let the novice learne first to renounce the world, and so give himselfe to God, and not therefore give himselfe to God, that hee may close the better with the World, like that false Shepherd Palinode in the Eclogue of May, under whom the Poet lively Personates our prelates, whose whole life is a recantation of their pastorall vow, and whose profession to forsake the World, as they use the matter, boggs them deeper into the world: Those our admired Spencer inveighs against, not without some presage of these reforming times.

The time was once and may again return
(For oft may happen that hath been beforn)
When Shepheards had none inheritance,
Ne of land, nor fee in sufferance,
But what might arise of the bare sheep,
(Were it more or lesse) which they did keep.
Well ywis was it with Shepheards tho.
Nought having, nought feared they to foregoe
For Pan himselfe was their inheritance
And little them served for their maintenance,
The Shepheards God so well them guided,
That of nought they were unprovided
Butter enough, honey, milk and whey,
And their flock fleeces them to array.
But tract of Time, and long prosperity
(That nurse of vice, this of insolency)
Lulled the Shepheards in such security,
That not content with loyall obeysance
Some gan to gape for greedy governance,
And match themselves with mighty potentates
Lovers of Lordships and troublers of States.
Tho gan Shepheards Swaines to looke aloft
And leave to live hard, and learne to lig soft.
Tho under colour of Shepheards some while
There crept in wolves full of fraud and guile
That often devoured their owne Sheep,
And often the Shepheard that did them keepe,
This was the first source of Shepheards sorrow
That now nill be quit with bale, nor borrow.

By all this we may conjecture, how little wee neede feare that the unguilding of our Prelates will prove the woodening of our Priests. In the meane while, let no man carry in his head either such narrow, or such evill eyes, as not to looke upon the Churches of Belgia and Helvetia, and that envied city Geneva: where in the Christian world doth learning more flourish than in these places? Not among your beloved Jesuits, nor their favourers, though you take all the Prelates into the number, and instance in what kinde of learning you please. And how in England all noble sciences attending upon the traine of Christian doctrine, may flourish more than ever; and how the able professors of every Art may with ample stipends be honestly provided; And finally, how there may be better care had that their hearers may benefit by them, and all this without the Prelates; the courses are so many and so easie, that I shall passe them over.

Remon. It is God that makes the Bishop, the King that gives the Bishoprick, What can you say to this?

Answ. What you shall not long stay for: we say it is God that makes a Bishop, and the Devill that makes him take a prelaticall Bishoprick; as for the Kings gift, regall bounty may be excusable in giving, where the Bishops covetousnesse is damnable in taking.

Remon. Many eminent Divines of the Churches abroad have earnestly wish'd themselves in our condition.

Answ. I cannot blame them, they were not onely eminent but supereminent Divines, and for stomach much like to Pompey the great, that could indure no equall.

Remon. The Babylonian note sounds well in your ears, Downe with it, downe with it even to the ground.

Answ. You mistake the matter, it was the Edomitish note, but change it, and if you be an Angel, cry with the Angell, It is falln, it is falln.

Remon. But the God of Heav'n will, we hope, vindicate his owne Ordinance so long perpetuated to his Church.

Answ. Goe rather to your God of this world, and see if he can vindicate your Lordships, your temporall and spirituall tyrannies, and all your pelfe: for the God of heav'n is already come downe to vindicate his owne Ordinance from your so long perpetuated usurpation.

Remon. If yet you can blush.

Answ. This is a more Edomitish conceit than the former, and must be silenc'd with a counter quip of the same countrey. So often and so unsavourily has it been repeated, that the Reader may well cry, Downe with it, downe with it, for shame. A man would thinke you had eaten over liberally of Esaus red porradge, and from thence dreame continually of blushing; or perhaps, to heighthen your fancy in writing, are wont to sit in your Doctors scarlet, which through your eyes infecting your pregnant imaginative with a red suffusion, begets a continuall thought of blushing. That you thus persecute ingenuous men over all your booke, with this one over-tir'd rubricall conceit still of blushing; but if you have no mercy upon them, yet spare your selfe, lest you bejade the good galloway, your owne opiniaster wit, and make the very conceit it selfe blush with spur-galling.

Remon. The scandalls of our inferiour Ministers I desir'd to have had lesse publique.

Answ. And what your superiour Archbishop or Bishops? O forbid to have it told in Gath! say you. O dauber! and therefore remove not impieties from Israel. Constantine might have done more justly to have punish'd those Clergicall faults which he could not conceale, than to leave them unpunish'd, that they might remaine conceal'd: better had it beene for him, that the heathen had heard the fame of his justice, than of his wilfull connivence and partiality; and so the name of God and his truth had been lesse blasphem'd among his enemies, and the Clergie amended, which daily, by this impunitie grew worse and worse. But, O to publish in the streetes of Ascalon! Sure some colonie of Puritans have taken Ascalon from the Turke lately, that the Remonstrant is so afraid of Ascalon. The Papists we know condole yee, and neither Constantinople nor your neighbors of Morocco trouble you. What other Ascalon can you allude to?

Remon. What a death it is to thinke of the sport and advantage these watchfull enemies, these opposite spectators, will be sure to make of our sinne and shame?

Answ. This is but to fling and strugle under the inevitable net of God, that now begins to inviron you round.

Remon. No one Clergie in the whole Christian world yeelds so many eminent schollers, learned preachers, grave, holy and accomplish'd Divines, as this church of England doth at this day.

Answ. Ha, ha, ha.

Remon. And long, and ever may it thus flourish.

Answ. O pestilent imprecation! flourish as it does at this day in the Prelates?

Remon. But O forbid to have it told in Gath!

Answ. Forbid him rather, Sacred Parliament, to violate the sense of Scripture, and turne that which is spoken of the afflictions of the Church under her pagan enemies, to a pargetted concealment of those prelatical crying sins; for from these is profanenesse gone forth into all the land; they have hid their eyes from the Sabbaths of the Lord; they have fed themselves, and not their flocks; with force and cruelty have they ruled over Gods people: they have fed his sheep (contrary to that which Saint Peter writes) not of a ready mind, but for filthy lucre, not as examples to the flock, but as being lords over Gods heritage; and yet this Dauber would daub still with his untempered Morter: But hearken what God sayes by the prophet Ezekiel, Say unto them that daub this wall with untempered Morter, that it shall fall, there shall be an overflowing shower, and yee O great hailstones, shall fall and a stormy wind shall rend it, and I will say unto you, the wall is no more, neither they that daubt it.

Remon. Whether of us shall give a better account of our charity to the God of peace, I appeale?

Answ. Your charity is much to your fellow offendors, but nothing to the numberlesse soules that have beene lost by their false feeding; use not therefore so sillily the name of Charity as most commonly you doe, and the peacefull attribute of God to a preposterous end.

Remon. In the next Section, like ill bred sons, you spit in the face of your Mother the Church of England.

Answ. What should we doe or say to this Remonstrant? that by his idle, and shallow reasonings seemes to have been conversant in no Divinity, but that which is colourable to uphold Bishopricks. Wee acknowledge, and beleeve the Catholick reformed Church, and if any man be dispos'd to use a trope or figure, as Saint Paul did in calling her the common Mother of us all, let him doe as his owne rhetorick shall perswade him. If therefore we must needs have a mother, and if the Catholick Church onely be, and must be she, let all Genealogie tell us if it can, what we must call the Church of England, unlesse we shall make every English protestant a kind of poetical Bacchus, to have two mothers: but marke Readers, the crafty scope of these Prelates, they endeavour to impresse deeply into weak, and superstitious fancies the awfull notion of a mother, that hereby they might cheat them into a blind and implicite obedience to whatsoever they shall decree, or think fit. And if we come to ask a reason of ought from our deare mother, she's invisible, under the lock and key of the Prelates her spirituall adulterers, they onely are the internuntio's or the go-betweens of this trim devis'd mummery: whatsoever they say she sayes must be a deadly sin of disobedience not to beleeve. So that we who by Gods special grace have shak'n off the servitude of a great male Tyrant, our pretended Father the Pope, should now, if we be not betimes aware of these wily teachers, sink under the slavery of a Female notion, the cloudy conception of a demy-Iland mother, and, while we think to be obedient sonnes, should make ourselves rather the Bastards, or the Centaurs of their spirituall fornications.

Remon. Take heed of the Ravens of the vally.

Answ. The Ravens wee are to take heede on are your selves, that would peck out the eyes of all knowing Christians.

Remon. Sit you merry Brethren.

Answ. So we shall when the furies of Prelaticall consciences will not give them leave to doe so.

Queries. Whether they would not jeopard their eares rather, &c.

Answ. A punishment that awaites the merits of your bold accomplices for the lopping, and stigmatizing of so many free borne Christians.

Remon. Whether the professed slovenlinesse in Gods service, &c.

Answ. We have heard of Aaron and his linnen Amice, but those dayes are past; and for your priest under the Gospell, that thinks himselfe the purer, or the cleanlier in his office for his new washt Surplesse, we esteem him for sanctitie little better than Apollonius Thyanæus in his white frocke, or the Priest of Isis in his lawne sleeves, and they may all for holinesse lie together in the suds.

Remon. Whether it were not most lawfull and just to punish your presumption and disobedience.

Answ. The punishing of that which you call our presumption and disobedience, lies not now within the execution of your fangs, the mercifull God above and our just Parliament, will deliver us from your Ephesian beasts, your cruell Nimrods, with whom we shall be ever fearelesse to encounter.

Remon. God give you wisdome to see the truth, and grace to follow it.

Answ. I wish the like to all those that resist not the holy Ghost, for of such God commands Jeremie, saying, Pray not thou for them, neither lift up cry or prayer for them, neither make intercession to me, for I will not hear thee; and of such Saint John saith, He that bids them God speed, is partaker of their evill deeds.

To The Postscript.

Remon. A goodly Pasquin borrow'd for a great part out of Sions plea, or the breviate consisting of a rhapsody of histories.

Answ. How wittily you tell us what your wonted course is upon the like occasion: the collection was taken, be it knowne to you, from as authentique authors in this kinde, as any in a Bishops library; and the collector of it sayes moreover, that if the like occasion come againe, he shall lesse need the help of breviates, or historicall rhapsodies, than your reverence to eek out your sermonings shall need repaire to Postills or Polianthea's.

Remon. They were Bishops, you say, true, but they were Popish Bishops.

Answ. Since you would bind us to your jurisdiction by their Canon-law, since you would inforce upon us the old riffe-raffe of Sarum, and other monasticall relics, since you live upon their unjust purchases, alleage their authorities, boast of their succession, walke in their steps, their pride, their titles, their covetousnesse, their persecuting of Gods people, since you disclaime their actions, and build their sepulchres, it is most just, that all their faults should be imputed to yee, and their iniquities visited upon yee.

Remon. Could yee see no Colleges, no Hospitals built?

Answ. At that priméro of piety the Pope and Cardinals are the better gamesters, and will cogge a Die into heav'n before you.

Remon. No Churches re-edified?

Answ. Yes, more Churches then soules.

Remon. No learned volumes writ?

Answ. So did the miscreant bishop of Spalato write learned volumes against the Pope, and run to Rome when he had done, yee write them in your closets, and unwrite them in your Courts, hot Volumists and cold Bishops: a swashbuckler against the Pope, and a dormouse against the Devil, while the whole Diocesse be sown with tares, and none to resist the enemy, but such as let him in at the posterne, a rare superintendent at Rome, and a cipher at home. Hypocrites, the Gospell faithfully preach'd to the poore, the desolate parishes visited and duely fed, loyterers throwne out, wolves driven from the fold, had beene a better confutation of the Pope and Masse, than whole Hecatontomes of controversies; and all this careering with speare in rest, and thundering upon the steel cap of Baronius or Bellarmine.

Remon. No seduced persons reclaim'd?

Answ. More reclaimed persons seduc'd.

Remon. No hospitality kept?

Answ. Bacchanalia's good store in every Bishops family, and good gleeking.

Remon. No great offenders punish'd?

Answ. The trophies of your high Commission are renown'd.

Remon. No good offices done for the publique?

Answ. Yes, the good office of reducing monarchie to tyrannie, of breaking pacifications, and calumniating the people to the King.

Remon. No care of the peace of the Church?

Answ. No, nor of the land, witnesse the two armies in the North that now lies plunder'd and over-run by a liturgie.

Remon. No diligence in preaching?

Answ. Scarce any preaching at all.

Remon. No holinesse in living?

Answ. No.

Remon. Truly, brethren, I can say no more, but that the fault is in your eyes.

Answ. If you can say no more than this, you were a proper Remonstrant to stand up for the whole tribe.

Remon. Wipe them and looke better.

Answ. Wipe your fat corpulencies out of our light.

Remon. Yea, I beseech God to open them rather that they may see good.

Answ. If you mean good Prelates, let be your prayer, aske not impossibilities.

Remon. As for that proverb, the Bishops foot hath been in it, it were more fit for a Scurra in Trivio, or some Ribald upon an Ale-bench.

Answ. The fitter for them then of whom it was meant.

Remon. I doubt not but they will say, the Bishops foot hath been in your booke, for I am sure it is quite spoil'd by this just confutation; for your proverb, Sapit Ollam.

Answ. Spoyld quoth ye? Indeed it is so spoyld, as a good song is spoyld by a lewd singer; or as the saying is, God sends meat, but the Cooks worke their wills; in that sense we grant your Bishops foot may have spoyld it, and made it Sapere ollam, if not Sapere aulam, which is the same in old Latin, and perhaps in plaine English. For certaine your confutation hath achiev'd nothing against it, and left nothing upon it, but a foule taste of your skillet soot, and a more perfect and distinguishable odour of your socks, then of your night-cap. And how the Bishop should confute a book with his foot, unlesse his brains were dropt into his great toe, I cannot meet with any man that can resolve me, onely they tell me that certainly such a confutation must needs be goutie. So much for the Bishops foot.

Remon. You tell us of Bonners broth, it is the fashion in some countries to send in their Keal in the last service, and this it seemes is the manner among our Smectimnuans.

Answ. Your latter service at the high Altar you mean: but soft, Sir, the feast was but begun, the broth was your owne, you have been inviting the Land to it this foure-score yeares, and so long we have been your slaves to serve it up for you, much against our wils, we know you have the Beefe to it, ready in your Kitchins, we are sure it was almost sod before this Parliament begun; what direction you have given since to your Cooks to set it by in the Pantry till some fitter time, we know not, and therefore your deare jest is lost; this broth was but your first service: Alas Sir, why doe you delude your guests? Why doe not those goodly Flanks and Briskets march up in your stately chargers? doubtlesse, if neede be, the Pope that owes you for mollifying the matter so well with him, and making him a true Church, will furnish you with all the fat oxen of Italy.

Remon. Learned and worthy Doctor Moulin shall tell them.

Answ. Moulin sayes in his booke of the calling of Pastors, that because Bishops were the reformers of the English Church, therefore they were left remaining: this argument is but of small force to keepe you in your Cathedrals. For first, it may be deny'd that Bishops were our first Reformers, for Wickliffe was before them; and his egregious labours are not to be neglected, besides, our Bishops were in this worke but the disciples of Priests, and began the reformation before they were Bishops: But what though Luther and other Monks were the reformers of other places; Does it follow therefore that Monks ought to continue? No, though Luther had taught so: and lastly, Moulins argument directly makes against you, for if there be nothing in it, but this, Bishops were left remaining because they were reformers of the Church; by as good a consequence therefore they are now to be remov'd, because they have been the most certaine deformers and ruiners of the Church. Thus you see how little it availes you to take Sanctuary among those Churches which in the generall scope of your actions formerly you have disregarded, and despis'd, however your faire words would now smooth it over otherwise.

Remon. Our Bishops some whereof being crown'd with Martyrdome, subscrib'd the Gospell with their blood.

Answ. You boast much of Martyrs to uphold your Episcopacy, but if you would call to minde what Eusebius in his 5. l. recites from Apolinarius of Hierapolis you should then heare it esteem'd no other then an old hereticall argument, to prove a position true, because some that held it were martyrs: this was that wich gave boldnesse to the Marcionists, and Cataphryges to avouch their impious heresies for pious doctrine, because they could reckon many Martyrs of their sect, and when they were confuted in other points, this was ever their last and stoutest plea.

Remon. In the mean time I beseech the God of Heaven to humble you.

Answ. We shall beseech the same God to give you a more profitable, and pertinent humiliation, then yet you know, and a lesse mistaken charitablenesse, with that peace which you have hitherto so perversely misaffected.

FINIS.

SELECTED CRITICISM	RESEARCH LINKS	COPYRIGHT	CONNECT WITH US
A-B	Milton Sites	Creative Commons License
C-E	Reference Guides	Using This Site
F-H	Classical Literature	About the Editor	Dartmouth
I-K	Bible Commentary
L-M	Religion and Theology
N-Q	Other
R-S
T-Z

ANIMADVERSIONS
Upon the Remonstrants Defence
against SMECTYMNUUS.

The Preface.

SECT. 3.

SECT. 4.

SECT. 5.

SECT. 13.

ANIMADVERSIONS Upon the Remonstrants Defenceagainst SMECTYMNUUS.

The Preface.

SECT. 3.

SECT. 4.

SECT. 5.

SECT. 13.

ANIMADVERSIONS
Upon the Remonstrants Defence
against SMECTYMNUUS.