days of Queen Elizabeth Certain hypocritical brethren of the Laity have clapped the Presbyterian or Puritan Ministers on the back followed their Sermons set them at the upper end of their Tables and sought by all means to procure them credit and favour with the people not that they cared for them or for Religion or for Christ himself but hoping that by the violent course which they saw these men run into the Bishops and the Clergy would grow so odious that it would be in time a small matter to dispossess them of all their Livings whereof some portion might come to their shares Another as true I find written Anno Dom. 1603. All wise men even among Protestants see that no Sect in the world can be more prejudicial and pernicious to another than the Puritan Sect is and would be to the Protestant if they could get the upper hand Yet these are the men who so fiercely have cryed out against persecution and against the cruelty of Papists making an Ordinance for Repentance for the Blood spilt in the days of Queen Mary never remembring the persecution of the Church in the Raign of Henry the Eighth which how this Generation have made their own sin I say not intitling their Faction onely to those Martyrs merits as their undoubted Heirs indeed cunningly to colour their pretence of fighting for the Protestant Religion and to enrage the people to a revenge on the Kings Party whom they laboured to make the world believe were the guilty off-spring of those Popish Persecutors whereas like the Jews while they build the Sepulchres of the Prophets they shew themselves to be the Sons of those who persecuted the Prophets And were those Martyrs now alive they would be the greatest Malignants and Delinquents of our days fit to be Plundered Sequestred Banished Imprisoned or Slain by bloody Votes because they would not obey the Parliament in changing Religion as is plain in the story of Mr. John Rogers and crime enough it is in these days to be constant to the Book of Common-prayer which those Martyrs in Queen Mary's time sealed with their Blood and hath ever since been continued in the Church of England till wholly abolished by an Ordinance of this Parliament whose cruelty as it hath slain more thousands of English Subjects than Queen Mary condemned scores so hath it far less shew of Justice or Legal proceedings all being now done coram non judice by upstart Committees and new-erected Judicatories never heard of in England before as also sine Lege by meer Arbitrary Votes and fancies of malitious Adversaries and Judges in their own cause nor were any in Queen Maries Raign condemned but by known Laws of the Land and legal Tryal with disputations and perswasions used to reclaim them from their supposed Errours but the Fauatick persecution is to hunt after matters of accusation not to reform Errours but to torment the persons of men condemnati quoniam accusati is their Justice And when the Faction had thus plundred and sequestred the Clergy of all their Estates for some years another fit of persecution was raised against divers of them from Goldsmiths-hall and Habberdashers-hall upon composition of their Temporal Estate where the Clergy were ever most spitefully used by those cruel Committees the Laity compounding for two years value but the Clergy seldom came off without four or five years purchase of their own Lands and Estate And because I intend not to swell into too big a Volume I 'll give you but one instance of the proceedings of Habberdashers-hall-Committee towards a Clergy-man to whom a Ticket was sent for 240 l. as the twentieth part of his Estate he coming within the ten days limited in their Tickets to the Committee for Mitigation proffering his Oath that all his Estate real and personal was not worth 200 l. could not be admitted to his protestation but was referred to the Committee of Lords and Commons for advance of Moneys whither applying himself the Door-keeper told him that he must not enter in till he was called Thus attending de die in diem the ten days were expired without his being called or his obtaining leave to pass the first or second doors which were duly locked by their Officers Hereupon according to the great Justice of Committee-Orders and Parliament-Ordinances he fell by course into their Messengers hands as their prisoner though at large for not making an end within the ten days After some weeks dancing attendance and feeing a Lawyer his Petition was read to which was annexed an Affidavit that his whole Estate was not worth 100 l. The Answer of the Committee was That until he should bring in the one moity of his Assessment viz. 120 l. according to the custom of that Committee he should not be heard which he not able to perform was sent for by their Pursuyvants and upon his Petition was ordered to bring in 50 l. and then to be further heard After some delay he moved again and was ordered to give present security to bring in 20 l. the next Committeeday or else to prison he must go presently which to prevent he was forced to borrow 20 l. and accordingly deposited it petitioning to be admitted to his protestation But the Committee told him they must observe Rules and ordered him to give security for the other 30 l. to be brought the next sitting or else he must go to prison telling him that if he were not worth so much when he came to hearing the money should be returned to him again whereupon he was again forced to borrow 30 l. more which he brought in accordingly but upon hearing was told that though the Ordinance did admit all men yet the custom of that Committee did not admit of Malignants to their protestation and so took all the borrowed 50 l. as the twentieth part of his Estate which he by Affidavit gave in to them was not worth 100 l. having been long sequestered and plundered of his Goods and by imprisonments and Egyptian years of Famine forced to spend his long-provided Store And just such a Cheat doth the Committee for plundered Ministers put upon the afflicted Wives and Children of the sequestered Clergy in their suing for the fifth part of their Husbands Living which an Ordinance of Parliament pretended to allow them If their Husband or Father hath two Livings their first trick is to tell them that they will allow them the fifth part of but one of them The next is that though the Ordinance run generally without any limitation yet they have secret instructions whereby they grant Orders for a fifth part with this proviso That if the sequestrator or Cutpurse shew not good cause to the contrary This draweth on much travel and charges on Lawyers and Sollicitors and Committee-Officers and the Parliament-Minister upon hearing pretending that the Living is of value little enough to maintain him or any frivolous Plea breeds a demur and although they
THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. A View of the Fanatick Faction of England As also the Ends and Reasons of publishing these Papers in these Times Pag. 1. CHAP. II. A Brief of the divers Ends in desiring to have this Parliament called Of the true Cause of the Contempt and Hatred of the Clergy among the People and what makes the Churches differences irreconcileable p. 3. CHAP. III. What use the Fanaticks have made of Parliaments and the ways whereby that Faction in this Parliament and Kingdom have endeavoured to make the Clergy contemptible and odious to the people p. 8. CHAP. IV. The Fanaticks Arts of framing Accusations to the Parliament against the Clergy and their manner of proving their Charges p. 12. CHAP. V. A View of the New Judges of the thus accused Clergy Their condition and their judging of Doctrines in their Committees for Religion De facto de jure p. 17. CHAP. VI. The Censures of these Judges against the Clergy and the true Reason thereof p. 21. CHAP. VII Of Parliamentary changes in Religion Of the Policy and ways for the destruction of Religion by this Parliament wrought by the long conspiracy and combination of the Fanaticks of England here laid open p. 26. CHAP. VIII A concluding Parallel between the Popish Persecution in Q. Mary's time and this Fanatical Persecution p. 35. PERSECVTIO VNDECIMA Or The CHURCHES Eleventh Persecution Being a Brief of the Fanatick Persecution OF THE PROTESTANT CLERGY OF THE Church of England More particularly within the City of LONDON Begun in Parliament Anno Dom. 1641. And Printed in the Year 1648. But they mocked the messengers of God and misused his Prophets till the wrath of God arose against his people and there was no remedy II. Chron. chap. 36. vers 16. Re-Printed in the Year 1681. And are to be sold by Walter Davis in Amen-Corner near Pater-Noster-Row CHAP. I. A View of the Fanatick Faction of England As also the End and Reasons of publishing these Papers in these Times WHat miseries the Fanatick Faction so long lying like the Canaanites as Thorns in the sides of our Israel would bring upon this Nation England wanted not Ezechiels Watchmen to foretel and the Story of these Times hath proved their Prophesies wanted no Truth but Quos perdere vult Jupiter eos dementat prius Otherwise it were strange to think that of two Factions viz. Papists and Fanaticks mortally hating each other distinctly incorporated from the Church of England and both of them destructive to it the one like cunning Pick-pockets should set the Eyes of the people so busily to look after the Religion of the other and in the mean time rob them of their own and by the same Principles like Firebrands in the Tails of Sampsons Foxes looking divers ways alike endanger the Established Religion The one Faction was made most odious to the people the other seemed most Religious and the due execution of Penal Laws against Popish Recusants hath been accounted Zeal and Justice but any legal Penalties inflicted on Fanatick Recusants was cryed down for Cruelty and Tyranny and made the Judges reproach nor would the people endure to hear the name of Fanatick Dissenters mentioned in a Pulpit which now to drown together with their own folly in countenancing or non-conceiving the Fanaticks designs the more Loyal Party have invented the new name of Round-head the Nobility Gentry and generally all sorts of people accounting the Fanatick Faction a simple inconsiderate Party well meaning People tender Conscienced Christians such as deserved pity rather than punishment little remembring our Saviours Caveat against Wolves in Sheeps clothing which in Demosthenes Fable laying all the breach of publick Peace between them and the Sheep upon the Dogs which were set to watch the Sheep-folds till the seduced Sheep for quietness sake delivering up their Keepers for a Sacrifice to the Wolves too late found their own Folds exposed to such danger as Wisdom might have easilier prevented than it could afterward remedy What else have the causeless clamours of the Fanaticks meant for this many years against the Bishops and the Clergy of England who in our Saviours phrase of Pasce oves watched over the Flock of Christ but to smite the Shepherd that so the Sheep might be scattered Like that of Tully Civium perditorum scelere pulsus à Delubris is qui illa servarat Religionum Jura polluta in Larium sedibus edificatum est Templum licentiae And what havock hath been made among the Sheep since the City-Fanatick-Tumults cryed out No Bishops and armed Fury hath forced thousands of the Clergy from their Flocks the almost Ruines of the Church and of three Kingdoms sufficiently witnesses a just Judgement of God upon a People long contending with their Priests and mocking and mis-using the Prophets and Messengers of God till like the Jews the wrath of God fell upon them and there was no remedy and all this vengeance executed by a generation of Vipers eating out the Bowels of their Mother Church and Country wherein they have long lurked stiling themselves for above twenty years last past I can witness the only people of God the Meek of the Earth Christs little Flock Weak Brethren crying out against Bloud-thirsty Papists for taking up Arms against Kings and Princes and who but those Fanaticks the devout observers of the Fifth of November their only Holy-day in hatred of the Gunpowder Treason though that Gunpowder was never carried in Bandaliers and fired in the Face of the King for the safety of his Person and their daily Sermons were against Persecution yet now themselves weak Christians till so well Arm'd are become the only and most bloody Persecutors having slain more thousands of Protestants in England under colour for fighting for the Protestant Religion than Queen Mary condemned Scores within the like compass of years The truth is the Fanaticks of England have long conceited themselves to be the only people of God like the Jews and a man might swear by their Actions they are Jews indeed and not Christians and all other men not of their Tribe to be the wicked of the World and Gods Enemies Egyptians and Amalekites That so whatever favour was done to any of their Faction they thought themselves nothing beholden to any man for it but they would say God Decreed them to do it so that they could do no otherwise and what ever Justice was done to any of their Tribe was accounted cruelty and persecution of Gods people But whatever Injustice or Cruelty they acted upon their Neighbours better Christians in good sooth than themselves they called it Justice and Zeal for Gods Glory fulfilling Gods Decree and can in their Canting Language the Language of Canaan as they stiled their abusing of Scripture phrase flatter themselves that they must wash their Feet in the Blood of the ungodly and binding Kings in Chains and their Nobles with Links of Iron sit smiting their fellow Servants and fellow Subjects against
the Law while they pretended to Judge according to the Law this being the Old Character of A Fanatick a Strangers Angel a Neighbours Plague a Saint Abroad a Devil at Home but his Children ye are saith our Saviour whose works ye do The Devil was a Lyar from the beginning and the Accuser of the Brethren and who have done the works of such a Father you may here know by a taste of the First Fruits Sower Grapes of their long promised Canaan a glimpse of their Clergy-hating the Foundation of Fanatick-Babel-Reformation and what an Harvest of misery to this Nation hath followed such beginnings when Judgement begins at Gods House may be gathered into Volumes by better Pens It 's enough from a private Hand in such Times as these if any short Copy can be set forth for others to follow and to shew the Fanaticks that all men do not sleep but some stand watching still to give the World warning of such Hypocrites especially considering that is no Records of the particulars of the Tyranny of these Times hath been extant to the World though all honest Protestants have much desired it Time indeed not bearing Truth from a Protestant hand As also considering the multitude of Scandalous Pamphlets Parliament Speeches Centuries Declarations published all and faced with Authority of Parliament the Supreme Court of Justice in England Title enough to charm the World especially Posterity into a belief of such Authentick Records should no particular Counter-work of Truth be left to oppose such slanders For as yet there is none and probably if either an Act of Oblivion should happen or time waste away the present Clergy who by reason of the fury of this Age dare not write their own Sufferings nor by reason of their being so scatter'd can bring them to a general Collection never any may come forth whereby the Fanatick lyes and shameful slanders of the Clergy of this Generation would pass for currant Truths when as the Faction themselves know and cannot but acknowledge as I have heard some of them say that they could never have taken a worse time against the Bishops of England whose personal honest Lives Learning and Piety was so eminent that indeed it made clamours against them the more violent like that against our Saviour Away with him away with him when the Question was asked what evil hath he done that so they might remove them by Tumults against whom they could not work their Designs by Law And for the persecuted Clergy of the Church of England I am confident it is their hearty desire and I dare in their Names make this solemn Appeal to Posterity if ever God send times for Justice in England that after so cruel and barbarous sufferings by banishments and manifold imprisonments some in noysome and foreign Jayles among Thieves and Felons Some in Ships under Decks neer smothered Some starved and dead in Prison others murdered in Prison All of them sequestered spoiled of their Goods and Estates and Houses to the ruine of their Wives and Children also that they might obtain a legal Tryal to know what evil they have done that it may appear whether scandalous Accusers and scandalous Judges have not made a scandalous Clergy and not found them such This being left them their only comfort in their Miseries that they suffer as Christians not as Evil Doers but for Righteousness sake as God and their own Consciences bear them Witness and these ensuing Lines though rude yet true may not a little prove to any impartial Reader to the satisfying also of that newly started Objection by the House of Commons against a Personal Treaty with the King viz. the bringing in again of Scandalous Ministers CHAP. II. A Brief of the divers Ends in desiring to have this Parliament called Of the true Cause of the Contempt and Hatred of the Clergy among the People and what makes the Church differences irreconcileable PRivate Interests and Advantages are ever the grounds of usurped Power and why Lay-men in this Parliament have presumed to intermeddle with matters of Religion and to monopolize all executive and judiciary Power in Doctrine and Discipline of the Church which God knoweth they never understood under pretence of Reformation of Religion Mr. Hampden one of the prime Grandees of the Fanatick Faction hath satisfied the World in his Answer to a Private Friend asking him why they so much pretended Religion when indeed Liberty and Property and Temporal Matters were by them chiefly intended Should we not said he use the pretence of Religion the people would not be drawn to assist us And truly it were pity that Posterity should be left without some memento of the private Interests and Designs of all sorts of people in this Kingdom in themselves different yet all concentring in this one word Reformation to build the Babel of this Generation Not much unlike the hatching of the Belglek Troubles Nobilitas cum Plebe conspirant rem suam curant dum publicam curare videntur Such desires in calling the Council of Trent have been translated into an English madness and superstition in longing for this Parliament which all men fansied such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 medicamentum to each private Malady that not any Humour in the Body Politick or itch in the Breech of the Kingdom but was kept clawed by Mr. Speakers Thanks and large Promises of Redress of their Grievances Even the London Porters Petition received much Thanks from the Parliament and proffers of easing them of their Burdens A fair opportunity had the Great Ones to work their ends over other mens Shoulders 1. The Court emulation for even the Kings House and his Council were poysoned with Fanaticism thought by a Parliament to remove the Favourites that so upon their Ruines themselves next in place might be advanced What also was the sin of the Archbishop and the Earl of Strafford against whom this Parliament was set on fire with heat of Envy but they being greatly loved of their King for their faithful Service to his Majesty the Church and their Country 2. The Country Nobility long discontented with their Court-Banishment as it were hoped by a Parliament to new model the Court and exchange places To this end the Propositions continually clamour that all the Privie Council and all Officers of State may be in the disposal of Parliament that is of Lord Say and his Faction 3. The Gentry of England by a Parliament into which the Gentry used to be called till of late besides their private Preferment and Revenge thought as did the Free-holders and all sorts of people to be eased of Monopolies Taxes never remembring that they paid no Subsidies and especially of an intended Tyranny which the Fanatick Faction with continual Alarums so drummed into the Peoples Ears even to a Frensie of ridiculous Fears and Jealousies 4. The Lecturing House-creeping-Ministers prayed zealously for a Parliament thereby hoping to set up their new-fangled
coming against the City with an Army of Horse when his Majesty was lately forced to fly for the safety of his person The Votes of Lord Digby raising an Army at Kingston upon Thames when he had onely his Coach and six Horses The Votes that the King had raised an Army at York when some chief Actors said in my hearing at that time the Houses of Parliament knew that the King was not able to raise one hundred men The Earl of Warwick and Sir Thomas Barrington sent into Essex to raise the Country told the people in publick meetings that the Queen was landed with an Army of 13000 Papists It were endless to reckon up the multitudes of such Lyes and ridiculous Fears As also to think how ready people were to frame themselves to a belief thereof as given up to believe lies even with greediness when indeed the designe onely was for this Faction hereby to raise an Army to execute whatsoever themselves should conceive would advance their Plots of subverting Religion and Government of this Church and State under the specious colour of Reformation of all grievances whatsoever whereby they drew in to their assistance the Patriotical party also who were the far greater number throughout the Kingdom whose pulse beating wholly after Property desiring destruction neither of King nor Bishop but onely reformation of conceived excess of power was kept continually affrighted by alarms from the Faction that the King would make his Subjects all Slaves which to prevent they thought themselves necessitated to uphold this Parliament in any thing which they should act though never so abominable and unjust for fear if this Parliament should be dissolved they should never have any more Parliaments and these men once unhappily engaged especially the Londoners by vast sums of money which the Parliament had politickly drawn them to lend were bound to follow the Fanaticks madness onely to secure themselves and their publick-Faith debts insomuch that upon the burning down the Excise-house in Smithfield in the year 1647 by the rude Multitudes in the City about the time of the King 's coming to Holdenby it 's strange to think how these moderate men formerly desirous to have the King come to London were suddainly so affrighted with fears that if the King came nearer London surely the people would pay no Excise nor Taxes then how should their Publick Faith-debts be paid and gave advantage to the Faction in the name of the City to petition the Parliament that his Majesty might not come nearer London upon some pretences laid in that Petition but Money was the bottom of the business hoping by delay to make some surer bargain with their King but now too late they see their folly Thus by Hypocrisie Fraud and Violence misguiding the Patriotical party the Fanaticks of England grew so powerful raising an Army which of themselves they could never have done now commanded by most confiding Sectaries which the Citizens at first thought so inconsiderable supposing though they let them run on to do the work which they also desired in reforming State-distempers they could quell them at pleasure perswaded also that the War should last but one Moneth as Mr. Hamden told some Citizens but now they have lived to see the Banners six years displayed to plant in what Religion soever the strongest party of Sectaries with their Sword shall make good upon hopes of gain or fear of loss not likely by Citizens to be opposed and all other men in prosecution of their own different ends are forced to serve for Stales and Blindes for the Fanatical Masters to destroy the King and the Church by the loss of the liberty and property of the Subject on which all parties so doted and no sooner had the Faction their desires of an Army raised for their service but presently they began to execute their long dormient Votes of scquestring the Clergy from their Livings and by an insolent thing called an Ordinance of Parliament repealing five Acts of Parliament made in several Kings Raigns utterly abolished the sacred Liturgy the whole service of God out of the Church planting in room of it a new nothing a senseless Rubrical Directory that will serve all sorts of Religion but the true Religion which to destroy this new Engine was purposely invented meerly upon this wicked policy though other frivolous pretences are alleadged in the Preface to that new-fangled Directory First because in the Liturgy were more Prayers for the King than would consist with their Traiterous ends Secondly the abolishing of the Liturgy took away the daily service of God in Cathedrals and made them of no use a fair way to take away the Land of Deans and Chapters Thirdly the Scots called in for their assistance in time of need as also to engage all sorts of Sectaries to their aid against the King Fourthly their new-erected Ministery and Assembly of Divines and non-Divines at Westminster by abolishing the Liturgy thought to extol their own fame and estimation to the leading captive the people into ignorance the mother of blind obedience to whatsoever burden they should lay upon them from Jesus Christs Throne of their Divine Presbytery Thus as the State-Affairs in the Church came this change or rather destruction of Christian Religion in England like the great Beast in Daniel to whom an Army was given by reason of transgression whereby it took away the daily Sacrifice and threw the truth to the ground and it practised and prospered but what miseries have followed such policy not onely the persecution of the Clergy but the ruine of the Laity of our times can sufficiently witness groaning under all sorts of calamities that War and Rapine and Tyranny can bring upon a Nation when like the Israelites there was no King in England but a mysterious gunpowder-clouded King and Parliament viz. the Fanatical Faction and Conspirators fighting against God and the King under colour of King and Parliament the Riddle of this Generation three times altering they call it purging the House of Commons of Monopolists Malignants and Presbyterians to obtain the Vote and by a post-vote justifying three notorious Symptomes of a wicked Faction viz. the publishing an Order of inviting accusations against the Clergy in the name of the House of Commons which the House had not cognizance of the keeping the King out of Hull by Sir John Hotham which the House knew not of and the imprisoning the King in the Isle of Wight by Hammond for which he had no public korder but the sense of this Faction or some private directions from the Army CHAP. VIII A concluding Parallel between the Popish Persecution in Queen Maries time and this Fanatical persecution THus hath this Faction filled up the measure of their iniquity fulfilling the Prophesies and Predictions of wise wen who gave England warning of the mischiefs which they foresaw the Fanaticks would in time bring upon this Nation to name but two particulars Dr. Bancroft wrote in the