Popery I crave you mercy Mr Bayes I took you a little short For my part I know none you say but the Nonconsormists boysterous and unreasonable opposition to the Church of England This I confess hath some weight in it For truly before I knew none too I was of your Opinion Mr. Bayes believed that Popery could never return into England again but by some very sinister accident This expression of mine is something uncouâ—…h and therefore because I love to give you satisfaction in all things Mr. Bayes I will acquaint you with my reason of using it Henry the fourth of France his Majesties Grandfather lived you know in the dayes of Queen Elizabeth Now the wit of France and England as you may have observed is much of the same mode und hath at all times gone much after the same current Rate and Standard only there hath been some little difference in the alloy and advantage or disadvantage in the exchange according to mens occasions Now Henry the fourth was you know too a Prince like Bishop Bramhall of a brave and enterprising temper and had a mind large and active enough to have managed the Roman Empire at its utmost extent and particularly as far as the prejudice of the age Old Elsibeths Age would permit him he was very wittie and facetious and the Courtiers strove to humour him alwaies in it and increase thâ—… mirth So one night after supper he gave a Subject which recreation did well enough in those times but were now insipid upon which like â—…oyes at Westminster they should make French Verse extempore The Subject was Un Accident sinistre Straight answers I know not whether 't was Bassampierre or Obignè Un sinistre Accident un Accident sinistre De veoir un Pâ—…ere Capuchin chevaucher un Ministre For when I said to see Popery return here would be a very sinister accident I was just thinking upon that story the Verses to humour them in translation being only this O what a trick unlucky and how unlucky a trick To see friend Doctor Patrick bestrid by Father Patrick Which seem'd to me would be the most improbable and preposterous spectacle that ever was seen and more rediculous for a sight than the Friendly Debate is for a Book And yet if Popery come in this must be and worse But now I see there is some danger by the Non-consormists opposition to the Church of England And now your business is all fixed The Fanaticks are ready at hand to bear the blame of all things Many a good job have I seen done in my time upon pretence of the Fanaticks I do not think Mr. Bayes ever breaks his shins but it is by stumbling upon a Fanatick And how shall they bring in Popery why thâ—…s three wayes First By creating disorders and disturbances in the State Secondly By the assistance of Atheism and Irreligion Thirdly By joyning with crafty and sacrilegious Statesmen in confederacy Now here I remark two things One that however you do not find that the Fanaticks are inclinable to Popery only they may accommodate it by creating disturbances in the State Another is that I see these Gentlemen the Fanaticks the Atheists and the Sacrilegious Statesmen are not yet acquainted but you have appointed them a meeting I believe it must be at your Lodging or no where and I hope you will treat them handsomly But I think it was not so wisely done nor very honestly Mr. Bayes to lay so dangerous a Plot as this and instruct men that are strangers yet to one another how to contrive â—…ogether such a Conspiracy But first to your first The Fanaticks you say may probably raise disturbance in the State For they are so little friends to the present Government that their enmity to that is one of the main Grounds of their quarrel to the Church But now though I must confess it is very much to your purpose if you could perswade men so I think you are clear out and misrepresent here the whole matter For I know of no enmity they have to the Church it self but what it was in her power alwayes to have remedied and so it is still But such as you it is that have alwayes strove by your leasings to keep up a strangeness and misunderstanding betwixt the King and his people and all the mischief that hath come on 't does lye much at your door Whereas they as all the rest of mankind are men for their own ends too And no sooner hath the King shown them this late favour but you Mr. Bayes and your partners reproach them for being too much friends to the Pâ—…erogative And no less would they be to the Church had they ever at any age in any time found her in a treatable temper I know nothing they demand but what is so far from doing you any harm that it would only make you better But that indeed is the harm that is the thing you are afraid of Here our Author divides the discourse into a great Elogy of the Church of England that if he were making her Funeral Sermon he could not say more in her commendation and a contrary invective against the Nonconformists upon whom as if all he had said before had been nothing he unloads his whole Leystal and dresseth them up all in Sambenitas painted with all the flames and Devilâ—… in Hell to be led to the place of Execution and there burnt to ashes Nevertheless I find on either side only the natural effect of such Hyperboles and Oratory that is not to be beleived The Church of England I mean as it is by Law Established lest you should think I equivocate hath such a stock of solid and deserved Reputation that it is more than you Mr. Bayes can spoyl or deface by all the Pedantry of your commendation Only there is that party of the Clergy that I not long ago described and who will alwaies presume to be the only Church of England who have been a perpetual Eye-sore that I may not say a Canker and Gangreen in so perfect a beauty And as it joyes my heart to hear any thing well said of her so I must confess it stirs my choler when I hear those men pride and boast themselves under the Mask of her Authority Neither did I therefore approve of an expression you here use The Power of Princes would be a very precarious thing without the assistance of Ecclesiasticks and all Government do's must ow its quiet and continuance to the Churches Patronage That is as much as to say That but for the assistance of your Ecclesiastical Policy Princes might go a begging and that the Church that is you have the Juspatronatus of the Kingdome and may present whom you think fitting to the Crown of England This is indeed something like the return of Popery and right Petra dedit Petro Petrus diadema Rudolpho The Crown were surely well help'd up if it were to be held at your convenience and
is however indeed a most glorious Design to reconcile all the Churches to one Doctrine and Communion though some that meddle in it do it chiefly in order to fetter men straighter under the formal bondage of fictitious Discipline but it is a thing rather to be wished and prayed for than to be expected from these kind of endeavours It is so large a Field that no man can see to the end of it and all that have adventured to travel it have been bewildred That Man must have a vast opinion of his own sufficiency that can think he may by his Oratory or Reason either in his own time or at any of our Author 's more happy juncture of Affairs so far perswade and fascinate the Roman-Church having by a regular contexture of continued Policy for so many Ages interwoven it self with the Secular Interest and made it self necessary to most Princes and having at last erected a Throne of infallibility over their Consciences as to prevail with her to submit a Power and Empire so acquired and established in Compromise to the Arbitration of an humble Proposer God only in his own time and by the inscrutable methods of his Providence is able to effect that Alteration though I think too he hath signified in part by what means he intends to accomplish it and to range so considerable a Church and once so exemplary into Primitive Unity and Christian Order In the mean time such 〈◊〉 are sit 〈◊〉 pregnant Scholars that have nothing else to do to go big with for forty years and may qualifie them to discourse with Princes Statesmen at their leisure but I never saw that they came to use or possibility No more than that of Alexanders Architect who proposed to make him a Statue of the Mountain Achos and that was no Molehil and among other things that Statue to carry in its hand a great habitable City But the Surveyor was gravell'd being asked whence that City should be supplyed with Water I would only have ask'd the Bishop when he had carv'd and hammer'd the Romists and Protestants into one Colossian-Church how we should have done as to matter of Bibles For the Bishop p. 117. complains that unqualified people should have a promiscuous Licence to read the Scriptures and you may guess thence if he had moreover the Pope to friend how the Laity should have been used There have been attempts in former Ages to dig through the Separating Istmos of Peloponnesus and another to make communication between the Red-Sea and the Mediterranean both more easie than to cut this Ecclesiastick Canal and yet both laid by partly upon the difficulty of doing it and partly upon the inconveniences if it had been effected I must confess freely yet I ask pardon for the presumption that I cannot look upon these undertaking Church-men however otherwise of excellent Prudence and Learning but as men struck with a Notio and craz'd on that side of their head And so I think even the Bishop had much better have busied himself in Peaching in his own Diocess and disarming the Papists of their Arguments instead of rebating our weapons than in taking an Oecumenical care upon him which none called him to and as appears by the sequel none conn'd him thanks for But if he were so great a Politicion as I have heard and indeed believe him to have been me-thinks he should in the first place have contrived how we might live well with our Protestant Neighbours and to have united us in one body under the King of England as Head of the Protestant Interest which might have rendred us more considerable and put us into a more likely posture to have reduced the Church of Rome to Reason For the most leading Party of the English Clergy in his time retained such a Pontifical stiffness towards the Foreign Divines that it puts me in mind of Austine the Monk when he came into Kent not deigning to rise up to the Brittish or give them the hand and could scarce afford their Churches either Communion or Charity or common Civility So that it is not to be wondred if they also on their parts look'd upon our Models of Accomodation with the same jealousie that the British Christians had as Austin's Design to unite them first to that is under the Savons and then deliver them both over bound to the Papal Government and Ceremonies But seeing hereby our hands were weakned and there was no probability of arriving so near the end of the work as to a consent among Protestants abroad had the Bishop but gone that step to have reconciled the Ecclesiastical Differences in our own Nations and that we might have stood firm at home before we had taken such a Jump beyond-Sea it would have been a Performance worthy of his Wisdom For at that time the Ecclesiastical Rigours here were in the highest ferment and the Church in being arrayed it self against the peaceable Dissenters only in some points of Worship And what great Undertaking could we be ripe for abroad while so divided at home or what fruit expected from the labour of those Mediating Divines in weighty matters who were not yet past Sucking-bottle but seem'd to place all the business of Chri stianity in persecuting men for their Consciences differing from them in smaller metters How ridiculous must we be to the Church of Rome to interpose in her Affairs and force our Mediation upon her when besides our ill correspondence with Foreign Protestants she must observe our weakness within our selves that we could not or would not step over a straw though for the perpetual settlement and security of our Church and Nation She might well look upon us as those that probably might be forced at some time by our folly to call her into our assistance for with no Weapons or Arguments but what are fetch'd out of 〈◊〉 Arsenals can the Ceremonial Controversie be rightly defended but never could she consider us as of such Authority or Wisdom as to give Ballance to her Counsels But this was far from Bishop Bramhall's thoughts who so he might like Caesar manage the Roman Empire at its utmost extent had quite forgot what would conduce to 〈◊〉 Peace of his own Province and Country For p. 57. he settles this Maxime as a Truth That second Reformations are commonly like Metal upon Metal which is false Heraldry Where by the way it is a wonder that our Author in enumerating the Bioshp's perfections in Divinity Law History and Philosophy neglected this peculiar gift he had in Heraldry and omitted to tell us that his 〈◊〉 was large enough to have animated the Kingdoms of Garter and 〈◊〉 at their greatest dimensions But beside what I have said already in relation to this Project upon Rome there is this more 〈◊〉 I confess was below Bishop Brumhall's reflection and was indeed fit only sor some vulgar Politician or the Commissioners of Scotland about the 〈◊〉 Union Whether it would not have succeeded as
his Madness hath formed it self into a perfect Lycanthropy He doth so severely believe himself to be a Wolf that his speech is all turn'd into howling yelling and barking and if there were any Sheep here you should see him pull out their throats and suck the blood Alas that a sweet Gentleman and so hopeful should miscarry for want of Cattle here you find him raving now against all the Calvinists of England and worrying the whole Flock of them For how can they hope to escape his chaps and his paws better than those of Germany and Geneva of which he is so hungry that he hath scratch'd up even their dead bodies out of their Graves to prey upon And yet this is nothing if you saw him in the height of his fits but he hath so beaten and spent himself before that he is out of breath at present and though you may discover the same fury yet it wants of the same vigor But however you see enough of him my Masters to make you beware I hope of valuing too high and trusting too far to your own Abilities It were a wild thing for me to Squire it aster this Knight and accomprny him here through all his Extravagancies against our Calvinists You find nothing but Orthodoxy Systems and Syntagms 〈◊〉 Theology Subtilties and 〈◊〉 Demosthenes Tankard-bearers 〈◊〉 Controversial General terms without foundation or reason assigned That they seem lik words of Cabal and have no significance till they be decipe 'd Or you would think he were playing at Substantives and Adjâ—…ctives And all that rationally can be gathered from what he saith is that the Man is mad But if you would supply his meaning with â—…our imagination as if he spoke sense and to some determinate purpose it is very strange that conceiving himself to be the Champion of the Church of England he should bid such a general defiance to the Calvinists For he knows or perhaps I may better say he did know before this Phrensy had subverted both his Understanding and Memory that most of our ancient and many of the later Bishops nearer our times did both hold and maintain those Doctrines which he traduces under that by-word And the contrary Opinions were even in Bishop Prideaux's time accounted so novel that being then publick Professor of Divinity he thought fit to tax Doctor Heylin at the Commencement for his new fangled Divinity Cujus saith he in the very words of promotion te Doctorem Creo. He knew likewise that of our present Bishops though one had leisure formerly to write a Rationale of the Ceremonies and Lituygie and another a Treatise of the Holiness of Lent yet that most of them and 't is to be supposed all have studied other Contoversies and at another rate than Mr. Bayes his Lead can fathom And as I know none of them that hath published any Treatise against the Calvinian tenets so I have the Honour to be acquainted with some of them who are in tirely of that judgment and differ nothing but as of good reason in the point of 〈◊〉 And as for that Bishop Bramhal page 61. hath proved that Calvin himself was of the Episcopal perswasion So that I see no reason why Mr. Bayes should here and every where be such an enemy to Controversial skill or the Calvinists But I perceive 't is for Bishop Bramhall's sake here that all the Tribe must suffer This Bayes is not a good Dog for he runs at a whole flock of Sheep when Mr. B. was the Deer whom he had in view from the beginning However having foil'd himself so long with every thing he meets after him now he goes and will never leave till he hath run him down Poor Mr. B. I find that when he was a Boy he pluck'd Bishop Bramhall's Sloes and eat his 〈◊〉 and now when he is as superannuated as the Bishop's book he must be whipp'd 〈◊〉 there is no remedy And yet I have heard and Mr. Bayes himself seems to intimate as much that how-ever he might in his younger years have mistaken yet that even as early as Bishop Bramhall's Discourse he began to retract and that as for all his sins against the Church of England he hath in fome laâ—…We Treatises cryed Peccavy with a Witness But Mr. Bayes doth not this now look like Sorcery and Extortion which of all crimes you purge your self from so often without an Accuser For first whereâ—… the old Bishop was at rest and had under his last Pillow laid by all cares and contests of this lower World you by your Necromancy have disturb'd him and rais'd his Ghost to persecute and haunt Mr. B. whom doubtless at his death he had pardoned But if you called him upto â—…sk some Questions too concerning your Ecclesiastical Policy as I am apt to suppose I doubt you had no better Answer than in the Song Art thou forlorn of God and com'st to me What can I tell thee then but miserie And then as for Extortion who but such an Hebrew Jew as you would after an honest man had made so full and voluntary Restitution not yet have been satisfied without so many Pounds of his flesh over into the bargain Though J. O. be in a desperate condition yet methinks Mr. B. not being past Grace should not neither have been past Mercy Are there no terms of Pradon Mr. Bayes is there no time for 〈◊〉 but after so ample a confeffion as he hath made must he now be hang'd too to make good the Proverb It puts me in mind of a Story in the time of the Guelphs and Ghibilines whom I perceive Mr. Bays hath heard of of They were two Factions in Italy of which the Gâ—…elphs were for the Pope and the Ghibilines 〈◊〉 the Emperour and these were for many years carried on and somented with much animosity â—…o the great disturbance of Christendome Which of these two were the Nonconformists in those days I can no more determine than which of our Parties here at home is now Schismatical But so 〈◊〉 they were to one another that the Historian said they took care to differ in the least circumstances of any humane action and as those that have the Masons Word secretly discern one another so in the peeling or cutting but of an Onion a Guâ—…lp and vice versa would at first sight have distinguished a Ghibiline Now one of this latter sort coming at Rome to Confession upon Ashwednesday the Pope or the Penitentiary sprinkling Ashes on the Man's head with the usual ceremony instead of pronouncing Memento homo quod Cinis es in Cinerem revertêris changed it to Memento homo quod Ghibilinus es c And even thus it fares with Mr. B. who though he should creep on his knees up the whole Stairs of Scholastick 〈◊〉 I am confident neither he nor any of his Party shall by Mr. Bayes his good will ever be absolved And therefore truly if I were in Mr. B's case if I could not have my Confession
the Emperour must lead the Patriarchs Ass all his life-life-time And little better do I like your We may rest satisfied in the present security of the Church of England under the Proâ—…ection of a wise and gracious Prince especially when besides the impregnable confidence that we have from his own Inclination it is so manifest that he never can forsake it either in Honour or Interest This is a prety way of cokesing indeed while you are all this while cutting the grass under his feet and animating the people against the exercise of his Ecclesiastical Supremacy Men are not so plain-hearted but they can see through this oblique Rhetorication and Sophistry If there be no danger in his time of taking a Pin out of the Church for that it is you intended why do you then speak of it in his time but that you mean mischief but here you do not only mow the grass under his feet but you take the pillow from under his head But should it ever happen that any King of England should be prevail'd with to deliver up the Church he bad as good at the same time resign up his Crown This is pretty plain dealing and you have doubtless secur'd hereby that Princes favour I should have thought it better Courtship in a Divine to have said O King Live for ever But I see Mr. Bayes that you and your Partners are very necessary men and it were dangerous disobliging you But in this imprudent and nauseous discourse you have all along appropriated or impropriated all the Loyalty from the Nobility the Gentry and the Commonalty and dedicated it to the Church So I doubtyou are a little too immoderate against the body of the Nonconformists You represent them to a man to be all of them of Republican Principles most pestilent and eo nomine enemies to Monarchy Traytors and Rebells such miscreants as never was in the world before and fit to be pack'd out of it with the first convenience And I observe that all the Argument of your Books is but very frivolous and trivial only the memory of the late War serves for demonstration and the detestable sentence and execution of his lute Majesty is represented again upon the Scaffold and you having been I suspect better acquainted with Parliament Declarations formerly upon another account do now apply and turn them all over to prove that the late War was wholly upon a Fanatical Cause and the dissenting party do still go big with the same Monster I grew hereupon much displeased with my own ignorance of the occasion of those Troubles so near our own times and betook my self to get the best Information concerning them to the end that I might If it appear'd so decline the dangerous acquaintance of the Nonconformists some of whom I had taken for honest men nor therefore avoided their Company But I took care nevertheless not to receive Impressions from any of their party but to gather my lights from the most impartial Authorities that I could meet with And I think I am now partly prepared to give you Mr. Bayes some better satisfaction in this matter And because you are a dangerous person I shall as little as possible say any thing of my own but speak too before good Witnesses First of all therefore I will without farther Ceremony fall upon you with the but-end of another Arch-bishop 'T is the Arch-bishop of Canterbury Abbot in the Narrative under his own hand concerning his disgrace at Court in the time of his late Majesty I shall only in the way demand excuse if contrary to my fashion the names of some eminent persons in our Church long since dead be reviv'd here under no very good character and most particularly that of Archbishop Laud who if for nothing else yet for his learned Book against Fisher deserved for another Fate than he met with and ought not now to be mentioned without due honourâ—… But those names having so many years since escaped the Press it is not in my power to conceal them and I believe Archbishop Abbot did not write but upon good Consideration This I have premised for my own Satisfaction and I will add one thing more Mr. Bayes for yours That whereas the things now to be alledged relate much to some Impositions of Money in the late King's time that were carryed on by the Clergy I know you will be ready to carp at that as if the Nonconformists had and would be alwayes enemies to the Kings supply Whereas Mr. â—…ayes if I can do the Nonconformists no good I am resolv'd I will do them no harm nor desire that they should lye under any imputation on my account For I write by my own advice and what I shall alledge concerning the Clergies intermedling with supplies is upon a particular aversion that I have upon good Reason against their disposing of our Money And Mr. Bayes I will acquaint you with the Reason which is this 'T is not very many years ago that I used to play at Picket and there was a Gentleman of your Robe a Dignitary of Lincoln very well known and remembred in the Ordinaries but being not long â—…ince dead I will save his name Now I used to play Pieces and this Gentleman would alwayes go half a Crown with me and so all the while he sate on my hand he very honestly gave the Sign so that I was alwaies sure to lose I afterwards discovered it but of all the money that ever I was cheated of in my life none ever vexed me so as what I lost by his occasion And ever since I have born a great grudge against their fingring of any thing that belongs to me And I have been told and show'd the place where the man dwelt in the late King's time near Hampton Court that there was one that used to rob on the high-way in the habit of a Bishop and all his fellows rid too in Canonical Coats And I can but fancy how it madded those that would have perhaps been content to releive an honest Gentleman in distress or however would have been less griev'd to be robb'd by such an â—…ne to see themselves so Episcopally pillaged Neither must it be less displeasing alwaies to the Gâ—…ntry and â—…ommonalty of England that the Clergy as you do Mâ—… Bayes should tell them that they are never sui Juris not only as to their Consciences buâ—… even as to their Purses and you should pretend to have this Power of the Keys too where they lock their Money Nay I dare almost aver upon my best observation that there never was nor ever will be a Parliament in England that could or can refuse the King supplies propoâ—…ionable to his occasions wiâ—…hout any need of recouâ—…se to extraordinary wayes but for the pickâ—…hankness of the Clergy who will alwaies pâ—…sume to have the thanks and honour of it nay and are ready alwayes to obstruct the Parliamentary Aids unless they may have their own little project pass