State Affairs So that in truth in the present humour into which the reading of them has put me I had much rather offend on the other extream by an unjust silence then by impertinent praises of the English Government I will therefore conclude this whole matter as I began it by reflecting on a Passage of his own in the story of Vlefelt wherein he has given undeniable testimony that he is wholly ignorant of the Rights of Princes the true Policy and the Law of Nations He affirms that Vlefelt fled into Sweden that he became thereby effectually a Traytor that he was the cause of the Swedes last invasion into Denmark by advising Carolus Gustavus to turn his Army from the Poles against Coppenhagen These are his own words And what more apparent Crime could there be then this which had like to have drawn after it the utter Ruine of that Kingdome And yet immediately after he professes that he makes no doubt but the Illustrious Heroes Vlefelt and his Wife will live to see their great merits acknowledg'd and to enjoy in peace the applauses that are due to them for their fidelity to their King and their zeal for the Fundamental Laws of their Countrey But this Sir I suppose is one of those which he himself calls the Besueues of his stile which though as he says Monsieur de Vaubrun uses to forgive yet the King of France did not think fit to pass by This is the Idea that he has drawn of the Manners the Religion and the Government of the English But these are not the subjects which he principally regards such matters as these he confesses that he only uses to touch upon as they come in his way I will now therefore Sir consider his commerce with the chief heads of Parnassus and his intrigues of the Muses that is to speak plain sence without the help of Apollo I will examine some particulars in the account that he gives of the state of knowledge amongst us This is the argument in which he triumphs This is a Business in whose promotion he has spent the whole course of his life And that he may appear not to have bestow'd all his labour in vain I will allow that he ought to be numbred amongst the men of Learning Provided that he be content with that definition which he himself has laid down of Learned men in general For he says that it is the good custome of such men to render themselves ridiculous by their malignity and their Billings-gate-language In conformity to this description besides what is already past let us now behold what he reports of Dr. Wallis Dr. Willis Mr. Hobbs the Royal Society the English Stage their Eloquence their Language and their Authors Dr. Wallis he condemns for his ill usage of Mr. Hobbs in the Mathematical Controversies that have passâ—d between them I will not endeavour to make any defence for this knowing and acute Professor as he grants him to be But yet let me say that if Monsieur de Sorbiere himself being the Judg so much modesty of language ought to be preserv'd even in the contentions of Wit and Argument when Passion is apt to overbear the most temperate Minds then certainly he himself ought to have been careful of keeping to the same rule in an Historical Relation wherein he had no adversary to put him into a heat and nothing but his own natural peevishness to exasperate his Anger Dr. Wallis Entertain'd him at his house made him partake of his Experiment upon a dumb Man and behold the Model of a flat Floor which he says did raise admiration in Mr. Hobbs himself And for all this he might have deserv'd at least to have been pass'd by in silence But he had a good subject to be merry with for want of Polish Musick and he must needs give the receipt of making an Vniversity Cap. Take a Portefueille cover it with black Cloth fix a tuft of Silk upon it and sew it to a Calot and you have a perfect four corner'd Scholastical Bonnet Do you not now wonder Sir why he did not call himself Taylor as well as Trumpeter to the Common-wealth of Learning What kind of good breeding is this How can he after this object to Dr. Wallis that he has little in him of the Gallant Man Whose behavior has the strongest scent and wants most to be purify'd by the air of the Court The Geometrician receives him kindly at his Table The Historiographer Laughs at the habit of his Host. While he allows him extraordinary abilities that are proper to himself he abuses him for that which is common with him to the Sorbonists in France and almost all the Vniversities and Clergy-men in Christendom He declares that he profited very little by Dr. Willis's company because he could not understand his Latin And upon this he objects that all the English pronounce that Language with such an odd Tone as renders it almost as difficult to strangers as our own Tongue I might here Sir allege in defence of our pronuntiation that We do as all our neighbors besides We speak the antient Latin after the same way that we pronounce our Mother Tongue so the Germans do so the Italians so the French But the obscurity of our Speech being not only his complaint but of many other Foreiners I will not stand long in its justification There are so many peculiar slanders of greater concernment which he alone has fix'd upon us that I will not regard this small objection wherein there may be others that agree with him But however Sir from hence I may observe that it was therefore impossible for him to take a right measure of the English Manners and Disposition seeing he was incapable of holding any sort of correspondence with us He was not in a condition of being inform'd by our Gentry our Farmers or our Tradesmen because he understood no English nor by our Schollars our Physitians our Divines our Mathematicians because he professes that our Latin was unintelligible to him But to return Sir to Dr. Willis I am able to give another Reason why Monsieur de Sorbiere did profit so little by his Conversation The substance of it was reported to me from Dr. Willis his own Mouth And I doubt not but the remarkable sincerity and integrity whichâ— that excellent Man preserves in all his Writings would make this character of the other's vanity to be believ'd though we had not so many other proofs of it When Monsieur de Sorbiere came first to visit him the Doctor esteem'd him to be a man of some real and solid knowledg the great names of Des Cartes and Mersennas which he hath frequently in his Mouth might have perswaded him as much he began to treat him accordingly he enter'd into discourse with him about some parts of Chymistry and Physick in which he desirâ—d his opinion The Professor deliver'd it franckly and plainly
Crime It is but just that there should be so great a distance if our Clergymen that have Pluralities make their Grooms supply their Cures In this part of his Character he certainly Sir mistook the Country and intended this for some other Kingdom in Europe where he had also miss'd of a Medall It is a sign that he is as little acquainted with his own Church as he is with ours or else he would never have objected to us our Pluralities which are infinitely fewer and more confin'd amongst us he would never have ventur'd to upbraid us with the Ignorance of our Parish Priests lest we should have provok'd the whole Church of Rome to a comparison In breif Sir our Slaves do not serve at our Altars and I will also add that our Cheif Spiritual Dignities are not intayl'd upon Families nor possess'd by Children In all the Parishes of England I dare challenge not onely him that is a Stranger but the most bitter Enemies to our Discipline to shew me Twenty Pulpits that are fill'd with men who have not spent their Youth in Studies to prepare them and who have not the Authority of Holy Orders That He has presum'd to call our Publique Solemn Prayers only a Morsel or a Scrap of a Liturgy I do not much wonder For he that has long made his own Religion his Cook as one of our Poets expresses it may well be thought irreligious enough to take a Metaphor for ours from a Kitchin But besides this he asserts that the Introduction of the English Liturgy into Scotland was the cause of the shedding of all the Blood in the three Nations This Speech might have well fitted the mouth of Bradshaw or the Pen of Ireton For it lays all the guilt of so much Slaughter on the most Innocent and most merciful Prince that ever wore a Crown by whose special care an Uniformity of Worship was attempted in that Kingdome But to give him better light and to let him see that there were other Causes of our Miseries in one of these three Countries at least I would fain have him ask this Question of the Pope's Legat that was in Ireland whether the horrible Irish Massacre was committed for no other reason but only out of a tender Brotherly sense of the Yoke which was laid by the Common-Prayer on the Scotchmen's Consciences He tells us that it is an ordinary thing with our Bishops to exercise their Ecclesiastical Censures upon frivolous accounts But methinks he might have remembred that it was not probable they should seek out any trifling occasions of excommunication when by his own confession they have so many weighty Provocations if that be true that the whole Nation neglects their Discipline But Sir you know it is apparent to all indifferent Men that the Bishops have been most remarkably moderate in their Visitations and that the Punishments which have been inflicted on the Obstinate have for the most part proceeded from the Temporal Sword and not the Spiritual But because he here quarrels at the Absoluteness of our Bishop's power I leave him to be answer'd by the whole Clergy of the Church of Rome who ought to be alarm'd by this For if ours shal be reputed so Tyrannical what will they be eâ—teem'd whose Jurisdiction is so much larger He goes on to deâ—ame our Bishops He says they have imbezled the Church Lands to make their own Families Rich. This Sir is an Objection which though it was at first manag'd against them with great Clamour by the common Enemies of the King and the Church yet now upon a calmer consideration of things it has universally lost its credit even in those places where he says the English take Tobacco half the day together from whence he acknowledges that he had a good part of his Relations The first murmurs against them were rais'd because they receiv'd altogether some part of that which was their due for twenty years before But the Envy of that was quickly scatter'd when it was manifest how many publique and Generous works they have promoted Besides the first Fruits and Tenths and above all the Subsidies which have swept away a good part of their gains they have compounded with a very great Number of the Purchasers they have increas'd the Vicaredges in their Gift to Fourscore Pounds a year they have indow'd Alms-Houses and Colleges they have built Chappels they have repaired the Episcopal Palaces and Cathedrals which were generally gone to Ruine they have redeem'd at once all the English that were Slaves at Algiers and that too I dare assure him without any intent to make Curats of them The Account which he gives of their letting Leases is most ridiculous There is no man amongst them that lets a Lease for thirty years The Reserv'd Rent is that which was always the standing Revenue of the Church Nor ought this Custom to be Objected against the Church of England It is the same course which is taken in France and most other parts of Christendom Nay to go farther the letting of Church Leases is a business whose Regulation was brought about since the time that the Church of Rome divided from us Before Queen Elizabeth's reign the Churchmen had a power of Farming out their Lands not only for Thirty but for Ninety Nine years It was Shee that first confin'd the Term to One and Twenty and so it still remains He ought not therefore to reckon this practice as our disgrace when the good order that is now us'd about it is the peculiar honour that belongs to the English Reformation But to Conclude if no Man fears Simony in England then there is no man that is affrighted with punishment For our Laws are as strict against it and as severely executed as any where else However if it were true which is far from being so that we Simoniacally imploy the Church estate to Secular uses yet this sounds very ill from that Layman's Pen who when he writ this Voyage was maintain'd out of the Ecclesiastical Revenue This Sir was Monsieur de Sorbiere's Case And the first Office of a Churchman that ever he perform'd was in this Book where He devoutly prays to God to make Mr. Hobbs a Roman Catholique Which if his prayers can obtain from Heaven he deserves not only to be made a Priest or Bishop but even a Saint too For this will be a far greater Miracle then any of those for which many have been Canoniz'd And now Sir can you require any greater signs of Monsieur de Sorbier's Sincerity in his Religion He has accus'd of Simony the most Incorrupt of Pride the Humblest of Rapacity the most Innocent of Ignorance the most Learned of false Doctrine the most Primitive of ill Discipline the most Decent Church under Heaven And when nothing else could be said he even upbraids it with its Submission and Obedience To shew that he is as ill a Disciple of Mr. Hobbes's whom he pretends to admire as he is of the Apostles
the Iust had to Lewis the Fourteenth and then let him try to vindicate himself for overturning the Trophies of the Father in the same Book wherein he declares that He travell'd abroad in a Waggon to spread the glory of the Son But the Fame of those dead Princes is plac'd above the reach of his Envy let us Sir consider how he behaves himself towards the living What a long Story or rather as he himself stiles it Romance has he here made of the life of Vlefelt the Dane on which he builds the justification of his Crimes and condemns the King of Denmark's Iustice And yet at the same time he acknowledges that He took the whole Relation only from the Mouth of Vlefelt's own Wife After this have the Kings of China any great reason to be proud of this Mans good will when he has here express'd no more Judgment nor Integrity then from the single and partial Information of a Woman to acquit a man that had been hang'd in Effigie in Denmark and has been since kill'd as he was pursued for High Treason Upon the sight of all this Sir I may well return securely Home to examine his opinion of the Imperfections of our State And here I must not forget to acquaint you that he is not all over Satyrical But in several places he sprinkles some few kind words to our advantage Yet his Commendations are so directly contrary to his reproaches that instead of reconciling me to him they rather supply me with new arguments against him And who can desire an easier Adversary to deal with then such a one who when he speaks against us opposes evident Truth when he speaks for us contradicts himfelf This Inconsistence of his own mind with it self is apparent in this Political part of his Relation which now comes under my Censure He confesses Our King to be one of the best Princes in the World He declares that His Majesty us'd him with all imaginable sweetness and that by the Charms of His Discourse he sent him away as well pleasâ—d as if he had loaded him with his Presents I intreat you now Sir to recollect how this and that which follows hangs together First He suggests that perhaps there was not so much pretence for the people to rebel in the late Kings time as there is at this present In the reply which I shall make to this Passage I cannot Sir confine my self to the bare limits of a satisfactory Answer but I must permit my Zeal for the Prosperity of our Country to break forth into Expressions of Joy and Gratitude It is fit that all the World should know that as our King was restor'd with the most miraculous submission of minds and interests that ever any History can shew as he was establish'd on the Throne of his Ancestors while there were two mighty Armies on Foot that had fought against him and his Father so there can be no difficulty in continuing this quiet now he has all the power of the Nation in his hands and now his Enemies are scattered and disarm'd if yet he can be thought to have any real Enemies after so many Heroick Testimonies of his Mercy The condition of all his affairs abroad is in such a posture in respect of his Neighbors that he is as far from being lyable to receive Injuries unreveng'd as he is averse in his own disposition from doing wrongs unprovok'd And the small dissentions that still remain on some of his Subjects minds at home are so far from hazarding the safety that they will rather make for the Honor of his Reign For by his renew'd and generous indeavors towards the composing of these differences there will arise for him a continued succession of Peaceful Triumphs of which the occasions had been wanting to him if he had found us all of one mind And many such Victories as these we may justly presage to our Sovereigns future Government The Forces which he employs against those few that are still contumacious which are those of Affability and Forgiveness are impossible to be resisted Who ever contends with his Adversaries with those weapons he has not only his own Virtues but theirs on his side And as these are the surest Conquests so they are of the greatest renown In the Triumphs of Warr his Souldiers his Commanders and even Fortune it self would come in for a share in the Fame But those which are obtain'd by pity and by pardoning have no Partners in the honor but are wholy to be attributed to the King himself But for a proof of our calm and well-secur'd condition I appeal from this Triflers Conjectures to the Parliament it self which is the true Representative of the Affections of the whole Kingdom If he would have been willing to refer the matter to their decision he might have found all things so free from any likelyhood of new disturbances that they have been still as inclin'd to be severe against the Kings ill-willers as he himself has been to be gentle and so sollicitous to guard his Royal Person with their lives and fortunes as he has been carefull that he might need no other defence but his own goodness Yet since he is resolv'd not to stand to the determination of that great Assembly which he modestly terms an extravagant Body let us see what reports he has pickâ—d up amongst the malcontents of the Vulgar He says that they every where complain of the neglect of the interest of Trade of the mis-spending of the Treasure of the oppressions of the Court and of the decrease of our glory at Sea All this Sir he professes to take from the murmurs of the multitude And if they are guilty of such discourses more then the Communalty of other Countries they justly deserve the Titles that he gives them of a suspicious a sullen an insolent and an envious Generation But then Sir if the mean and ignorant people ought so much to be condemn'd for upbraiding their Governors though they only do it in private when they are heated with drink and under the protection of a cloud of Tobacco smoak what punishment does that Historian deserve who thought good to collect their discontents and to make himself worse then the Authors of them by being the first that reports them in this publick way What credit could he expect to get by repeating these low scandalls when it was dishonourable for him only to confess that he came into such places and companies where he might over-hear them This Reprehension Sir he ought to have undergone if all this that he relates had been true But if we take it in pieces we shall find that â—e libells the very Suburbs and that his ink is black enough to represent the worst slanders of the Rabble in darker colours then their own As for the repinings which he heard concerning the diminution of Trade You know Sir that it is the publique and the cheerfull voice of all Englishmen
own mind by defying the Conquerour And here Sir I confess he has driven me upon one of the tenderest points in the world which is the speaking concerning the fame of a great Man while he is living But I entreat you to lay before your eyes the many powerfull arguments by which I am mov'd at least to give a true testimony though not a long elogie concerning him My Lord Chancellor is a man through whose hands the greatest part of all the publique and private businesses of our Countrey do passâ— And it will be most dishonourable for us to suffer his name to be revil'd in this manner while he is scarce at leisure to look to its defence himself by reason of his eternal Labors for the publique Justice and Safety And besides this Sir I can for my own particular allege another motive of nearer concernment For I am to consider my self as a Member of the Royal Society and the Vniversity of Oxford and the Earl of Clarendon as Protector of one them and Chancellor of the other These Sir are some of his true Titles however Monsieur de Sorbiere is pleas'd to pass them over and give him worse in their stead First of all he says that he is a Presbyterian At this ridiculous scandall I assure you Sir I am not much griev'd I was to tell you true in a terrible affright when I read what he reports that almost all the City of London are Presbyterians But now this passage has compos'd my mind again For it is like to be a very exact computation which he has made of that Sect when the first man that he names for a Presbyterian is my Lord Chancellor He next tells us that he is a man of the Law a shamefull disgrace the Lord Chancellor of Englandâ— whose Office it is to govern and moderate the Law is a Lawyer As if I should endeavour to lessen the credit of Monsieur de Vaubrun and prove him unfit to be Governour of Philippe Ville and Colonel of Light-horse by objecting that he is a Souldier or of Monsieur de Sorbiere to be Historiographer Royal by saying that he is skill'd in Historie But he is a Lawyer and Statesman at once Can this be any more disparagement to him then it is to the whole Body of Lawyers in France who in all times have manag'd the greatest Imployments of that State Could he not have recollected before he writ this that Monsieur de Segnier the present Chancellor of France is a Gentleman of the Long Robe You see Sir what a good Satyrist we have here got who would undertake to abuse an English Statesman with such an argument which must at the same time reflect as much upon his own Countreymen his chief Friends and Patronsâ— to whom he directs his Speech But the worst is still behind My Lord Chancellor is utterly ignorant of the Belles Lettres This accusation is as decent as all the former He dislikes our Carriers for not bâ—ing Courtly our Souldiers for not putting off their Hatts well our Bishops for their Gravity and our States-men for not being Grammarians and Criticks But I will prove to him by his own confession that My Lord Chancellor deserves not this reprehension and that he is a man skillful in all Polite Learning He himself allows him to be a great Politician and a very Eloquent Man I have obtain'd Sir what I desir'd You see how easy it is to justify the Earl of Clarendon seeing the very man that vilifies him does at the same time gainsay himself and suggest to me his prayses without my interposing any word in his commendation If we should graunt that a man may chance to be a great dealer in Politicks without understanding any thing else which yâ—t nothing but Monsieur de Sorbiereâ—s own example in this place can perswade us to be possible yet how can he be thought to attain to a perfect Eloquence without any skill in the Civil Arts Where now is his Polite Learning whence did he fetch this Idea of Eloquence Let him produce his Notes out of Aristotle Tully Quintilian Seneca or any of the Rhetoricians of Antiquity And then let him tell me whether they do not all with one voyce consent that an Orator must of necessity be acquainted with all sorts of useful knowledg But because he is so free in his reproof of my Lord Chancellors unskillfulness in the Belles Lettres I pray Sir what signs has this great Aristarchus himself given of his own proficience in them Where do we find in him any footsteps of the True Spirit of the Grecian or Roman Wit What reason have we to envy his judgment in the Classical Authors when all the proof that he has given in this Book of his being conversant in them are only three or four pedantical Quotations of which the chief is Os Homini sublime dedit Thus farr Sir in reply to him But more is to be added concerning the Honourable Person of whom he speaks in such mean terms My Lord Chancellor is a Gentleman of a very antient Family of which Mr Cambden makes mention in his Britannia His Education and first years were spent in a strict familiarity with many of the most Famous Men not only of that Age but perhaps of any other of whom to pass by some Reverend and Learned Church-men that are living it is enough to name Mr Chillingsworth and the Lord Falkland His first application to the Affairs of his Countrey was in a time wherein extraordinary fidelity and sufficience were requir'd His Services to the late King were requited by the committing of many eminent Businesses to his management and by a very high share in his Majesties Favour of which there are indelible proofs in many places of that Excellent Prince's Letters Under him he was Chancellor of the Exchequer Privy Counsellor and design'd Secretary of State Since that time hâ— was Extraordinary Embassador into Spain and attended his present Master in his Misfortunes which was undoubtedly the most glorious Scene of Honour in the world By these several degrees of Great Imployments he ascended to that illustrious Station which he now enjoyes And as for the Qualifications of his Minde if it be needfull to adde any thing to the Votes of the Royal Society and the Vniversity of Oxford I will declare that of all the men of great worth who have possess'd that High Office since Learning and the Civill Arts came amongst us there was never any man that has so much resembled Sir Thomas More and the Lord Bacon in their several Excellencies as the Earl of Clarendon There might Sir much more be answer'd against all his false Insinuations concerning the Political Condition of England But I have seen a Book of Monsieur de Sorbiere's Discourses and Letters whereof many were written to the late Cardinal Mazarini and they are so full of gross flatteries that they have wholly turn'd my stomach from speaking any more of
observe that this Catalogue of Slanders is equally made up of those which the most furious of the Romanists on the one side and the most Fanatick amongst the Non-conformists on the other are wont to Revile us withall So that in repeating them he does at once act both the Parts which he had before plaid in the World at several times that of a violent Calvinist and a Iesuitical Papist And first it is false that our English Reformation began upon a shamefull occasion or from the extravagance of a private passion I know he has the famous story of Henry's Divorce to oppose against what I say But I am not startled at that no more then at the Fable of our Bishops Consecration at the Naggs-head Tavern or of the Kentish-mens having long Tayls for the murder of Thomas Becket Such frivolous Arguments as these might have served well enough in the Mouths of the Moncks two hundred years agoe But they will not pass so easily in a Philosophical and Inquisitive Age. In breif therefore Sir it is evident that King Henry the Eighth did never intend to proceed to a much greater distance from the Roman See then the Gallican Church maintains at this day There is no man of our Church that looks upon his breach with the Pope to have been a Reformation We onely esteem it to be of the nature of those Quarrels which many Princes in the most Catholick Countries have manag'd against the Holy Chair The Reformation to which we stand is of a latter date The Primitive Reformers amongst us beheld the Reason of men tamely subjected to one mans Command and the Sovereign Powers of all Christendom still expos'd to be check'd and destroy'd by the Resolutions of his private Will Upon this they arose to perform two of the greatest Works in the World at once to deliver the minds of Christians from Tyranny and the Dignity of the Throne from Spiritual Bondage Whatever was the accidental this was the Real Cause of our first Reformation and of their separation from us not ours from them And this was an event which must needs have come to pass near the time in which it did though King Henry had never forsaken his Wife Let him therefore know that our Doctrine as much spoyl'd as it is in his opinion was establish'd by Christ and his Apostles and that the Ceremonies of our Worship were not set up by faction or by popular Fury but by the deliberate Counsels of Wisemen and by the authority of that power which bears the immediate Image of God This Sir I have said in Vindication of our Church not so much to satisfie this idle Dreamer upon Parnassus as out of the love which I bear to many well-meaning Catholiques amongst us who have this Argument sometimes in their mouths of whom I know very many whose wishes for the happiness of their Country and for its freedom from forein Usurpations are as honourable as any Englishmens living As for Sorbier's part it had been a sufficient Reply to him that I can name a man who has indeed separated from the Religion wherein he was born for a shamefull cause which is known to all the World He declares that the people of England have an universal aversion from the establish'd Worship But here I cannot say that of him for which he commends Doctor Wallis that He is one of the best Accountants in the World This positive Computation he never was in any capacity to make he never saw any of the middle or the remoter parts of our Nation where Non-conformity is but very sparingly spread He never convers'd with the vast Body of Gentry and Yeomanry that live Country lives who are generally uninfected It is London alone on which he must rely for this calculation And yet even in this too I dare openly assure him that the farr greater number is for the Rights of the Church then against them But I advise Monsieur de Sorbiere that before he thinks himself able to make an exact judgment of the Number of our Religious Sects he would first correct all his errours in Arithmetick which are to be found in this Book about the most obvious things in reckoning of which it was enough to have onely had the understanding of the least childe that he ever taught I will onely produce one in this place Have we not reason to rely upon his opinion of the difference of the parties in the whole Kingdom when in the least number that can be he has mistaken half For he says that the double-bottom'd Vessel has two Masts in the Front when every Sculler on the Thames knows it has but One. He affirms that the Government of our Bishops is nothing else but the shaddow and the corruption of a True Hierarchy And he gives this excellent Reason for it because here the Spiritual submits to the Temporal This very Argument I will turn upon himself It is therefore the True the Sound the Apostolical Episcopacy because it does yield to the Temporal Power which else could be nothing but a shaddow It is the glory of the Church of England that it never resisted Authority nor ingag'd in Rebellion which is a praise that makes much to its advantage in the minds of all those who have read of the dismal effects of the Scotch Covenant and the holy League He says that our King did put himself on the most dangerous Enterprise that could be attempted when he restored Episcopacy And yet he confesses that our other Sects are inconsistent with any Government but a Common-wealth What dreadfull danger could be imagin'd in a Monarchs destroying that which must needs fall of it self in a Monarchy But to shew how much he was mistaken It is evident that upon his Majesty's most glorious Return the Church soon recover'd all its rights of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of sitting in Parliament and even all its Lands which had been long held by Armed Usurpers without any other Opposition then what was made by General Vennor and his forty men who it seems did run the greatest hazard of the two He declares that there is so great a distance between our Bishops and our inferior Clergy that these dare not speak to nor stand cover'd before them This Sir you and I can prove to be a manifest Untruth by several Instances But however what course can we take to please this grave Censurer of our Civility He here dislikes the respects that we shew to our cheif Churchmen and in another place He condemns the familiar behaviour of our common Soldiers towards their Officers He abuses the Clergy-men for standing bare to those Reverend and Aged Persons and the Red-Coats for keeping on their Hatts in the presence of their Captains How sufficient a Judge is he of good manners that would bring the rude Customs of a Camp into the Church and the Punctilio's of Observance and Courtship into an Army But he accuses us of a greater