granting that all authority of jurisdiction spirituall is derived from the King as supreme head of the Church of England although that title by that name be not now assumed in the stile Imperiall and that all Courts Ecclesiasticall within this Realme be kept by no other authoritie either forreine or within this Realme but by authority of the kings most excellent majestie as is averred in the sayd Preamble of King Edwards statute yet this if rightly understood would never hurt the Bishops or advantage you But my reason is because that whensoever the king grants out his Conge d' peslier for the election of a Bishop and afterwards doth passe his royall assent to the said election send his Mandate to the Metropolitan for consecration of the party which is so elected he doth withall conferre upon him a power to exercise that jurisdiction which by his consecration done by the kings especiall Mandate he hath atteined to And this may also serve for answere to your other cavill but that Bishops may not hold their courts or visitations without letters Patents from the king For were there such a law as there is no such yet were the Prelates safe enough from your Praemunire because the Royall assent to the election and Mandat for the consecration passing by broad seale as the custome is inable them once consecrated to exercise what ever jurisdiction is by the Canon incident to Episcopall power No neede of speciall letters Parents for every Act of jurisdiction as you idly dreame No more than if a man being made a Iustice of the Peace under the broad seale of England and having tooke his oath as the law requires should neede for every speciall Act some speciall warrant or any other kinde of warrant than what was given him in the generall when first made a Iustice And yet I trow the King is the immediate fountaine also of all temporall power and no man dare execute authority but from and by him Touching his Majesties supremacie more than in answere to your clamours I shall say nothing at this present as neither of this place nor purpose It is an Argument of great weight fit rather for a speciall treatise than an occasionall replication Only I will be bold to tell you that if the kings supremacy were not more truely and sincerely without any colour or dissimulation as the Canon hath it defended by my Lords the Bishops than by such as you it would be at a losse ere long and setled on the vestrie wherein you preside For wot you what King Iames replied on the like occasion When Dr. Reynolds in the Conference at Hampton Court came in unseasonably once or twice with the Kings Supremacie Dr. Reynolds quoth the King you have often spoken for my supremacie and it is well But know you any here or any elsewhere who like of the present Government Ecclesiasticall that finde fault or dislike with my supremacie And shortly after putting his hand unto his hat his Matie sayd My Lords the Bishops I may thanke you that these men doe thus pleade for my Supremacie They thinke they cannot make their party good against you but by appealing unto it as if you or some that adhere unto you were not well affected towards it But if once you were out and they in place I know what would become of my supremacie No Bishop no King as before I sayd How like you this Mass Burton is not this your case Mutato nomine de ie fabula narratur You plead indeed for the Kings supremacie but intend your owne The next great crime you have to charge upon the Bishops is that they doe oppresse the kings Leige people against law and conscience How so Because as you informe us Prohibitions are not got so easily from the Courts of Iustice as they have beene formerly and being gotten finde not such entertainement and obedience as before they did This you conceive to be their fault and charge them that by stopping the ordinary course of law the Kings people are cut off from the benefit of the Kings good lawes so as it is become very geason and a rare matter to obteine a Prohibition against their illegall practises in vexing and oppressing the kings good subjects Nay they are growne so formidable of late as if they were some new generation of Giants that the very motion of a Prohibition against a Prelate or their proceedings in the high Commission makes the Courts of Iustice startle so as good causes are lost and Innocents condemned because none dare pleade and judge their cause according to the Kings Lawes whereby wee ought all to be governed p. 69.70 My Masters of the Law and my Lords the Iudges will conne you little thankes for so soule a slander greater then which cannot be laid on the profession or the Courts of Iustice What none dare pleade nor none dare judge according to the Lawes So you say indeed And more then so in your addresse unto the Iudges What meane's say you that difficulty of obtaining prohibitions now adayes whereby the Kings innocent Subjects you are an innocent indeed God helpe you should be relieved against their unjust molestations and oppressions in the Ecclesiastical Courts and high Commission What meaneth that consternation of spirit among Lawyers that few or none can be found to pleade a cause be it never so just against an oppressing Prelate and are either menaced or imprisoned if they doe p. 29. Hoc est quod palles Is this the thing that so offends you that prohibitions are restrained or not sent out so frequently from the Courts of Law as of late they were to the diminishing if not annulling the authority of the Court Christian I trow you are the onely Clergie-man that complaines of this Or if there be more such they be such as you who onely make a property of the civill Courts by them to scape their censures in the Ecclesiasticall Were you so innocent as you would have us thinke you rather should rejoyce for the Churches sake that Prohibitions flie not out so thicke as they have done formely to the great oppression of the Clergie in their suites and businesses especially in those which did concerne the Patrimony of the Church their tithes And if my Lords the Iudges are with more difficulty mooved to send abroad their Prohibitions then were their predecessours in the place before them it is a pregnant evidence of their great love to justice Nor can it but be counted an honour to them to leave every Court to that which is proper to it and for the which it was established And God forbid the Church should aske or doe any thing that should incroach upon them or invade any of their rights What doth this greeve your conscience also Good Sir consider with your selfe what mischiefes Clergie-men were put to when they could scarce commence a suite but prohibitione cautio est a Prohibition was sent out to stop the course of his proceedings
and to bring in the contrary errours as did the Arian Emperours by their law of Amnestia His Majesties Declaration about lawfull sports upon the Sunday you taxe as tending manely to the dishonour of God the prophanation of the Sabbath the annihilation of the fourth Commandment and charge him that thereby and by his silencing of those doctrines before remembred and restraint of preaching on the Fast-dayes in infected places hee hath given way to Innovations contrary to his solemne promise made unto his people His Majesties Chappell Royall and the furniture thereof you liken unto Nehu chadnezzars golden Image and Julians Altar the King himselfe to Nebuchadnezzar the Apostate Julian and that Idolatrous King Ahab incouraging the people both by particular instances and a generall exhortation to stand stoutly to it Finally you lay down a most odious and disloyall supposition touching the setting up of Masse in his Majesties Chappel and what is to be done when that comes to passe And ever and anon informe him as if you meant to terrifie and affright him with it how much the people doe beginne to stagger in their good opinion of his Majestie that they grow jealous of some dangerous plot that all the people of the Land by your commitment to the prison may be possessed with a sinister opinion of the Kings justice and constancie in keeping his solemne Couenant made with his people as in that Petition of right and if hee observe his word no better it will be said of him in succeeding Annalls that hee had no regard to sacred vowes and solemne Protestations Thus having taught the people that all obedience to the King is founded on a mutuall stipulation betweene him and them and telling them how often and in how great matters he hath broke the Covenant made betweene them you have released the people ipso facto of all obedience duetie and alleageance to their Soveraigne Lord and thereby made them free subjects as you please to call them so free that it is wholy in their pleasure whither they will obey or not Thus have I briefely layed together your carraige and behaviour towards our Lord the King wherein expressely contrarie to the Statute of Westminster that no man tell or publish any false newes or tales whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may growe betweene the King and his people or the nobles you have as much as in you was made a breach betweene them For though the Lord be praysed no such discord bee yet is your crime no lesse then if it were the law forbidding such false tales not onely by the which discord or slander doth arise but by which it might Oldnoll a yeoman of the Guard was on this very Statute endicted in Queene Maries time pour parrols horrible slanderous parrols del Roigno for horrible and slanderous words against her Highnesse unde scandalum in regno inter dominam Reginam Magnates vel populum suum â—riri poterit c. And howsoever no dissension did arise on the said false tales yet seeing there was occasion given he was proceeded with and punished according to that Statute as you may finde in Iustice Dier p. 155. So farre the lawes provide to prevent all discord and the occasions of the same but for preventing of sedition and seditious either words or writings they are more severe of which how far you have been guiltie we shal see annon Mean time you may take notice if at lest you will that it hath beene the antient practise of those men whose stepps you follow to put into the peoples mindes seditious humours thereby to make themselves of power against the Magistrates and sometimes also to terrifie and affright the Prince or supreame Magistrate with the feare of uproares the better to accomplish what they had projected This was the device of Flacius Illyricus the father of the stiffe or rigid Lutherans in high Germany whom as you follow in his doctrines deprovidentia Praedestinatione Gratia Libero arbitrio Adiaphoris and such heads as those so doe you also follow him in his fiery nature and seditious Principles One of which was Principes potius metu seditionum terrendos quam vel minimum pacis causa indulgendum that Princes should be rather terrified with the feare of tumults then any thing should bee yeilded to for quietnesse sake The other was ut plebs opiniones suas populari seditione tueretur that the common people ought to take up armes against the magistrat in maintenance of those opinions which they were possessed of Which as Paraeus tells us hath beene the practice ever since of all his followers whereof you are chiefe And for your odious supposition of setting up of Masse in the Kings Chappell let mee tell you this That it is Criminall if not Capitall to use Ifs and And 's and suppositions in matters of so high a nature and such as in some cases hath beene judged high Treason Sir William Stanley a man as of especiall merit so in especiall favor with King Henry the seventh found it no jesting matter to use Ifs and And 's in things which doe so neerely concerne a King For saying onely that if he thought the young man Perkin Warbeck to bee the undoubted sonne of King Edward the fourth hee never would beare armes against him he was condemned of treason and executed for the same the Judges thinking it unsafe to admitt ifs and ands in such dangerous points So for your dealing with the Bishops you labour to expose them as much as in you is to the publicke hatred and to stirre up the people to effect their ruine Not to repeate those scandalous and odious names which passim almost in every page you have cast upon them to bring them into discredit and contempt with the common people you have accused them of invading his Majesties supreme authoritie and left them as you thinke in a Premunire the better to incense his Majestie against them also whom having exasperated as you hope against them you call upon him in plaine termes to hang them up as once the Gibeonites did the 7. sonnes of Saul at least to joyne with God and his good subjects Courtiers Nobles Judges Magistrates and the rest together to cut them off and roote them out Which if hee will not doe you tell him roundly that for his owne part he will make a very sorrie accompt to almightie God for the great charge committed to him and then that God for his part will rather adde unto then decrease our Plagues till he hath utterly destroyed vs. But fearing lest this should not edifie with so wise a Prince you practise next upon the people And knowing that there is nothing which they prize so highly as the defence of their religion and lawfull liberties you lay about you lustilie to let them see how much they are in danger of loosing both For this cause you accuse the Prelates allmost every where for bringing
in of Poperie tooth and nayle for Poperie confederating with Priests and Jesuites for rearing up of that religion and setting up againe the the throne of Anti-Christ and all their actions you interpret to tend that way Next you crie out how much the people are oppressed contrarie to their rights and liberties affirming that the Bishops doe not onely over toppe the royall throne but that they trample the lawes liberties and just rights of the Kings subjects under their feete and cutt the people off from the free use and benefit of the Kings good lawes Which said and pressed in every place with all spight and rancour you call upon the nobles to rowze up their noble Christian zeale and magnanimous courage upon the judges to drawe forth their sword of justice upon the Courtiers nobles others if they have any sparke of pietie now to put their helping hands in so great a neede and lest all these should faile you call upon the nation generally to take notice of their Antichristian practises to redresse them withall their force and power What doe you thinke of this Alarme this Ad arma ad arma this calling of all sorts of people to combine together to rouze their spirits drawe their swords put to their hands muster upp all their force and power doe you not thinke this comes within the compasse of sedition have not you done your best or your worst rather to raise an insurrection in the state under pretence of looking to the safety of religion and the Subjects rights I wil not judge your conscience I leave that to God But if one may collect your meaning by your words and writings or if your words and writings may bee censured not onely according to the effect which they have produced but which they might you are but in a sorry taking And because possiblie when you finde your danger you will the better find your error and so prepare your selfe for a sincere and sound repentance I will a little lay it open Make you what use there of you shall thinke most fitt And first supposing that these your factious and false clamours are onely such as might occasion discord betweene my LL. the Bishops and the Commons where had you beene then there passed a Statute still in force 2. Ric. 2. cap. 5. for punishment of Counterfeiters of false newes and of horrible and false messages mistaken in the English bookes for the French Mensonges i. e. â—â—es of Prelates Dukes Earles Barons and other Noâ—â—es and great men of the Realme c. of things which by the said Prelates Lords c. were never spoken 〈◊〉 or thought pray marke this well in great slander of the said Prelates c. whereby debates and discords might arise not doth but might arise betwixt the said Lords and Commons which God forbid and whereof great perill and mischiefe might come to all the Realme and quicke subversion and destruction of the said Realme if due remedie bee not provided And for the remedy provided which in this statute was according to that of Westminster the first before remembred that in the 12. of this King Richard cap. 11. is left to the discretion of his Majesties Councell So that what ever punishment His Majesties most honourable Privie Councell may inflict upon you you have justly merited in taking so much paines to so bad a purpose as to set discord and debate betweene the Prelates and the people But where you have gone further to excite the people what say I people nay the Lords Judges Courtiers all the Nation generally to draw their powers and force together I see no reason why you should bee so angry with the High Commissioners for laying sedition to your charge or if that please you better a seditious Sermon And being a seditious Sermon then and a seditious Pamphlet now dispersed up and downe throughout the kingdome especially amongst those whom you and such as you have seasoned with a disaffection to the present governement What have not you for your part done to put all into open tumult I doe not meane to charge it on you but I will tell you how it was resolved in former times by Bracton and Glanvill two great Lawyers in those dayes viz. Siquis machinatus fuerit vel aliquid fecerit in morteÌ„ D. regis vel ad seditioneÌ„ regis vel exercitus sui vel coÌ„senserit coÌ„siliumve dederit c licet id quod in voluntate habuit non produxerit ad effectum tenetur tamen criminis laesae Majestatis Construe me this and you will find your selfe in a pretty pickle And I will tell you also two particular cases which you may find with little paines in our common Chronicles The first of one John Bennet Wooll-man who had in London scattered schedules full of sedition and for that was drawn hanged and beheaded in the fourth yeare of Henry the Fifth The other of Thomas Bagnall Jo. Scot Jo. Heath and Jo. Kennington who being all Sanctuary men of Saint Martins le Grand were taken out of the said Sanctuary for forging of seditious Bills to the slander of the King and some of his Counsell will you marke this well for the which three of them were condemned and executed and the fourth upon his plea returned to Sanctuary in the ninth yeare of King Henry the Seventh I instance only in these two because both ancient both of them hapning before the Statute 23. Eliz. 〈…〉 which being restrained unto the naturall life of the said Queene is not now in force and which as long as it continued was a strong bridle in the mouths of your forefathers in the Faction to hold them in from publishing and printing such seditious Pamphlets The common Chronicles will tell you how that most excellent Lady dealt with those who had offended her in that kinde wherein you excell Thaâ—ker and Capping Barrow Greenwood Studly Billot and Bowlar Penry and Vdall zealous Puritans all being all condemned to death and the more part executed And you may please to know for your further comfort that in King James his time May the third Anno 1619. one Iohn Williams a Barrister of the middle Temple was arraigned at the Kings Bench for a seditious book by him then but lately writteÌ„ secretly disperst abroad never printed as yoâ—urs are or which hee was condemned and executed at Charing crosse some two dayes after And it was afterwards resolved at the first censure of Mass Prynne in the Starre-chamber by the Lord Chiefe Justice that then was that had hee beene put over to his Tribunall hee had beene forfeit to the gallowes All which being represented to you I close up my addresse in the words of Tullie Miror te quorum act a imitere eorum exitus non perhorrescere So God blesse the man And yet I must not leave you so As I have raised one use for your reprehension so give mee leave to raise one more for the
reach you may see in the first of Sam. and 8 chap. though in concreto a just Prince will not breake those lawes which he hath promised to observe Princes are debtors to their subjects as God to man non aliquid a nobis accipiendo sed omnia nobis promittendo as S. Austine hath it And we may say of them in S. Bernards words Promissum quidem ex misericordia sed ex justitia persolvendum that they have promised to observe the lawes was of speciall grace and its agreeable to their justice to observe their promise Otherwise we may say of kings as the Apostle of the just Iusto lex non est posita saith the Apostle and Principi lexnon est posita saith the law of nature Doe you expect more proofe than you use to give Plutarch affirmes it of some kings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they did not governe onely by the law but were above it The like saith Dion of Augustus Caesar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he was sure and had an absolute authoritie aswell upon his lawes as upon himselfe Besides in case the power of kings were restrained by law after the manner that you would have it yet should the king neglect those lawes whereby you apprehend that his power is limited how would you helpe your selfe by this limited power I hope you would not call a Consistorie and convent him there or arme the people to assert their pretended liberties though as before I said the Puritan tenet is that you may doe both Your learned Councell might have told you out of Bracton an ancient Lawyer of this kingdome omnem esse sub Rege ipsum sub nullo sed tantum sub Deo And Horace could have told you that kings are under none but God Reges in ipsos imperium est Iovis as he there hath it You may moreover please to know what Gregorie of Tours said once to a king of France Si quis e nobis O Rex justitiae tramites transcendere voluerit a te corripi potest si vero tu excesseris quis te corripiet c. If any of us O king offend against the rules of justice thou hast power to punish him but if thou breake those rules who hath power to doe it We tell you of it and when you list you please to heare us but when you will not who shall judge you but he that tels us of himselfe that he is justice This was you see the ancient doctrine touching the power and right of kings not onely amongst Iewes and Christians but in heathen states what ever new opinion of a limited power you have pleased to raise But you goe further yet and tell us of some things the king cannot do and that there is a power which the king hath not what is it say you that the king cannot doe Marry you say he cannot institute new rites and ceremonies with the advise of his Commissioners Ecclesiasticall or the Metropolitan according as some pleade from the Act of Parliament before the Communion booke pag. 65. Why so Because according to your law this clause of the Act is limited to Queene Elizabeth and not extended to her successours of the Crowne This you affirme indeede but you bring no proofe onely it seemes you heard so from your learned councell You are I see of Calvins minde who tels us in his Commentarie on the 7 of Amos what had beene sayd by Doctor Gardiner after Bishop of Winchester and then Ambassadour in Germany touching the headship or Supremacie of the king his master and closeth up the storie with this short note inconsiderati homines sunt qui faciunt eos nimis spirituales that it was unadvisedly done to give kings such authority in spirituall matters But sir I hope you may afford the king that power which you take your selves or which your brethren at the least have tooke before you who in Queene Elizabeths time had their Classicall meetings without leave or licence and therein did ordeine new rites new Canons and new formes of service This you may doe it seemes though the kings hands are bound that he may not doe it And there 's a power too as you tell us that the king neither hath nor may give to others Not give to others certainely if he have it not for nemo dat quod non habet as the saying is But what is this you first suppose and take for granted that the Bishops make foule havocke in the Church of God and persecute his faithfull servants and then suppose which yet you say is not to be supposed that they have procured a grant from the king to doe all those things which of late they have done tending to the utter overthrow of religion by law established And on these suppositions you doe thus proceede Yet whatsoever colour pretext or shew they make for this the king to speake with all humble reverence cannot give that power to others which hee hath not himselfe For the power that is in the king is given him by God and confirmed by the lawes of the kingdome Now neither God in his law nor the lawes of the land doe allow the king a power to alter the state of religion or to oppresse and suppresse the faithfull ministers of the Gospell against both law and conscience For kings are the ministers of God for the good of his people as wee shewed before p. 72.73 So you and it was bravely said like a valiant man The Brethren now may follow after their owne inventions with a full securitie for since you have proclaimed them to be faithfull ministers no king nor Keisar dares suppresse them or if he should the lawes of God and the law of the land to boote would rise in judgement to condemne him for usurpation of a power which they have not given him But take me with you brother Bâ—â— and I perhaps may tell you somewhat that is worth your knowledge And I will tell you sir if you please to hearken that whatsoever power is in the king is from God alone and founded on the law of nature The positive lawes of the land as they conferre none on him so they confirme none to him Rather the kings of England have parted with their native royalties for the peoples good which being by their owne consent established for a positive law are now become the greatest part of the subjects liberties So that the liberties possessions and estates of the kings leige people are if you will confirmed by the lawes of the land not the kings authoritie As for the power of kings which is given by God and founded on the law of nature how farre it may extend in the true latitude thereof we have said already Whether to alter the state of religion none but a most seditious spirit such as yours would put unto the question his majesties pietie and zeale being too well knowne to give occasion to such quaeres Onely I needes must
admitted The high Commissioners neither parties in the cause nor Adversaries to the Person of the Appellant The Bishops no usurpers of the Jurisdiction belonging to the King The Oath of Supremacie not derogatorie to Episcopall power Objections against the Oath Ex Officio with an answere to them Other objections against the Proceedings in the high-Commission answered Of giving forth a Copie of ones Sermon upon Oath Sedition how it may be punishable in the High Commission Archbishop Whitgifts name abused and his words mis-reported by H. B. HItherto Mass Burton wee have laid you open by the way of an Historicall narration though all Historicall narrations be offensive to you for the sake of one and consequently spake only of you in the third Person as hic et ille But being now employed in the Examiners Office I must deale with you as if Coram in the second Person which I perswade my self will better sort with your ambition the second Person if you remember so much of your Accidens being more worthy then the third And first I would faine know what mooved you to appeale unto His Majestie at your first conventing before you had just grievance or an unjust sentence Your conscience sure accused you and pronounced you guiltie and told you what you should expect in a legall triall and on the other side your presumption flattered you that being an Old Courtier though worn out of favour you might have some friend there to promote your suite Sir you forget it seemes what is related in the conference at Hampion Court in the self same case My L. of London moved his M tie that then was K. James of B. memory that Pulpits might not be made Pasquils Pray sir mark this well wherin every humorous or discontented fellow might traduce his Superiors This the King very gratiously accepted exceedingly reproving that as a lewd custom threatning that if he should but heare of such a one in a Pulpit He would make him an example this is just your case And that if any thing were amisse in the Church Officers not to make the Pulpit a place of personall reproofe but to let His Majestie heare of it yet by degrees First let complaint be made unto the Ordinarie of the place from him to goe to the Archbishop from him to the Lords of the Counsell and from them if in all these places no remedie is found to his own self which Caveat His Majestie put in for that the Bp. of London had told him that if he left himself open to admit of all complaints neither His Majestie should ever be quiet nor his under Officers regarded seeing that now already no fault can be censured but presently the delinquent threatneth a complaint to the King Here is a long gradation and that after censure but you will venter on the King per saltem not by faire degrees and that not only before censure but before any grievance to be complained of The King would quickly have his hands full were that course allowed of and wee must needs conceive him God as well by nature as resemblance it being impossible he should have any spare time left either to eare sleepe or refresh his Spirits or whatsoever other businesse doth concern this life or shew him mortall But wee must needs conceive there was some speciall reason in it which might induce you to cry out before you were hurt more then the matter of the Articles which were read vnto you or your own guiltie conscience which had precondemned you Yes sure for you except against as well the incompetencie of the Judges as the illegall manner of proceedings in the high Commission The Judges you except against excepting those honorable Nobles Judges Counsellers of state which are seldome there as parties in the cause and adversaries to your person for the causes sake p. 6. parties because you have traduced them for Innovators and Adversaries for the reasons which hereafter follow Suppose them parties and what then Then by the Lawes of God and nature as also by the Common Canon and Civill Lawes they are prohibited from being Judges This is the first Crutch your Appeale halts with and this will faile you For howsoever it be true in ordinary course that no man can be Judge in his own cause there where the cause concernes himself in his own particular yet it is otherwise in a body aggregate or a publick person Suppose in time of Parliament a man should taxe that great assembly with some grievous crime should the whole body be disabled from proceeding with him Or that a man should raise some odious scandall on my Lords the Judges should he escape unpunished because there is none else to judge him Or that some sawcie fellow behaves himself audaciously and Contra bonos more 's before the Justices on the bench at their Quarter Sessions should not the Bench have power to bind him to his good behaviour Or that a man within the Liberties of London should say a fig for my Lord Major might not my Lord Major clap him in the Counter And yet the Parliament and the Judges and the Justices and the Lord Major of London are asmuch parties in these cases as the Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors and the rest of the High Commission are by you said and only said to be in the other For that they are not parties wee shall see anon when wee shall come to cleere them of those imputations which in a furious zeal you have laid upon them That which you next attempt is to prove them Adversaries and Adversaries to your person for the causes sake Good Sir what see you in your self that you should think such great and eminent men should beare malice to you Tullie a wiser man then you and a better Orator as I take it and in more credit with the common people though you grieve to heare it might have taught you better Non video nec in vita nec in gratia nec in hac mea mediocritate quid despicere possit Antonius Was it not you sweet Sir that did Protest thus roundly of my LL. the Bishops I speake not this God is my witnesse out of any base envy to their Lordly honor and pompe which is so far beneath my envy Poore soul are those great persons and their honors beneath your envie and is your person a fit marke for theirs Diogenes and your self two magnanimious Cynicks You know the story wel enough and can best applie it Calco Platonis fastum sed mafore fastu Yea but they are the Adversaries of your person for the causes sake Say then the Adversaries of the cause let your person goe as a contemptible thing that provokes no Adversary Yet wee will take you with us to avoid exceptions and see what proofe you have to make them Adversaries to your person for the causes sake And first they are your Adversaries because the Adversaries of those trueths by you delivered in
expect a particular answer And lest your expectation should be frustrate I will see you satisfied First for your language such it is as one may thence conjecture easily what foule heart it comes from They that have pure hearts cannot possibly have so impure a mouth for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the abundance of the heart it is that the mouth speaketh And though your rayling accusation doth deserve no other answere than the Lord rebuke thee yet I must tell you now being thus put to it that you are much mistaken in the man you drive at And you had come more neere unto him and the trueth it selfe had you bestowed that character on him which Possidonius gives you of S. Austin viz. Profactibus studiis favens erat exultans bononum omnium indisciplinationem pie sancte tolenans fratrum ingemiscens que de iniquitatibus malorum sive eorum qui intra ecclesiā sive eorum qui extra ecclesiam constituti sunt dominicis lucris semper gaudens damnis moerens which may thus be Englished He was a favorer of learning a friend of goodnesse and good men and suffered with great both patience and pietie the inconformable aversenesse of his brethren from the publicke discipline and grieved at the iniquitie of ill men whether they were within the pale of the Church or without the same as one that alwayes was affected with the successes of Gods Church according as it gained or lost as it thrived or faded This character if your malice will not suffer you to apply unto him give me leave to doe it and disproove any of it if you can And I will adde withall though you grieve to heare it that both for the sinceritie of his conversation as a private man and for the pietie of his endeavours as a publicke person you would be shrewdly troubled to finde his equall in this Church since the first reformation of religion in K. Edwards time And for a witnesse hereunto I dare call your selfe who making all the search you could into him and that with a malicious eye which commonly is wont to spie the smallest errour you have not yet detected him of any personall default as a private man And as for those particular charges which you lay unto him as a publicke person they are so poore more than the clamour that they make that they are hardly worth the answering Next for your charges which that you may the better see I meane to take them all as they lye in order and speake as briefely to them as you would desire First for the enterteinment of his Majestie at the universitie tell me I pray you of all loves how would you have contrived it better had you beene master of the Ceremonies for that place and time Would you have had a sermon Why the king had one Would you have fitted him with Academicall exercises there was as little want of that Orations in the fields the Church the Colledges the Convocation and the Library Would you have left out playes When did you ever know an Academicall enterteinment of the king without them Would you have had the playes in Latine Consider that the Queene was a principall guest and they were commanded to be in English But sir conceale your griefe no longer I know what t is that troubles you and makes you call it scurrillous enterlude and say that it was made in disgrace of pietie All that offends you is that Melancholico a Puritan passion in one of the commedies was in conclusion marryed to Concupiscentia In case you doe not like the wedding why did you not come thither to forbid the banes The Spartans used to shew their drunken slaves unto their children the better to deterre them from so base a vice And how know you but that the representing of that humour on the open stage may let men see the follies of it and so weane them from it But however the person you so grossely abuse could not possibly have leisure farther than in the generall to command all things should be without offence which he most carefully did That which you next except against is the audatious presumptuous speech that you so much talke of And what was that Assuredly no more than that his Grace then Bishop of London threatned your learned Counsell Mr. Prinne to lay him by the heeles for his too much sawcinesse Not as you say and would have simple folke beleeve you for bringing a Prohibition from the Courts of law but for his insolent and irreverent behaviour intendring it unto the Court of the high Commission Your selfe Mass Burton are not called in question for your preaching but for your factious and seditious preaching nor was hee threatned because he tendred to the Court a Prohibition but because he tendred it in such a malapert and ungracious manner This makes a difference in the case Had he behaved himselfe contra bonos more 's before an Ordinary Iustice he must have either found out suerties for his good behaviour or beene committed for his fault no remedy And will you not allow the Court of high-Commission or any Prelate in the same as much if not a little more authority then a common Iustice Perhaps you thinke because Mass Prinne is of a factious Tribunitian spirit he must be Sancrosanct and uncontrolable as the Tribunes were When you can proove his calling to so high a place you may doe well to chalenge the prerogatives belonging to it In the meane time suffer him to be taken up and censured as hee hath deserved Next for his Majesties declaration about lawfull sports you have no reason to charge that on my Lord Archbishop as if it were a matter of his procuring or if it were to reckon it amongst his faults His sacred Majesty treading in the steps of his royall Father thought fit to suffer his good Subjects to enjoy that innocent freedome which before they did in using moderate and lawfull recreations on the Sunday after the divine and publicke Offices of the Church were ended both for morning and evening and of the which they had been more deprived in these latter dayes then before they were And it was more then time perhaps that somewhat should be done to represse your follies who under a pretence of hindering recreations upon that day had in some parts put downe all feasts of dedications of the Churches commonly called Wakes which they which did it did without all authority A pious and a Princely Act however you and such as you traduce it every day in your scandalous pamphlets Nor doth it more belong to a Christian King to keepe the holy dayes by the Church established whereof that is one from being prophaned by labour and unlawfull pleasures then to preserve them quantum in ipsis est at lest from being overcome with Iudaisme or superstition And you might see how some out of your principles came to have as much if not more of
draw it forth to defend the lawes against such innovators who as much as in them lieth divide betweene the King and the people p. 31. In that from Ipswich you and your brethren in that made it call out upon the nation generally saying O England England if ever thou wilt bee free from Pests and Iudgements take notice of these thy Antichristian prelates desperate practises innovations and Popish designes to bewaile oppose redresse them with all thy force and power Then those of the better sort O all you English Courtiers Nobles and others who have any love or sparke of religion piety zeale any tendernesse of his Majesties honour or care for the Churches Peoples or the Kingdomes safety yet remaining within your generous brests put to your helping hands and prayers to rescue our religion faithfull Ministers now suspended from the jawes of these devouring wolves and tyrannizing Lordly Prelates c. All sorts of people thus implored to promote the cause you labour to perswade the King in your Epistle Dedicatory before the Pasquill how deepely he is ingaged to close with God and his good subjects against all these innovators and disturbers of the peace and distracters of the vnity of his kingdome especially considering whose Vice-gerent he is and before whose woefull Tribunall hee must give a strict accompt how hee hath mannaged so weighty a charge in the Epistle to your Apologie Finally in your Pasquill p. 141. You tell us how it doth concerne our gracious Soveraigne our Nobles and Magistrates of the land to strengthen their hands with judgement and justice to cut of these workers of iniquity and to roote them out of the confines and limits of the Kingdome c. applying so to them a passage in the booke of prayers for the Gunpowder day intended by the Church against all such as are so treacherously affected as those traytors were Here is enough a man would thinke to effect the businesse yet this is not all For should there come a Parliament you would adventure your owne life to make sure worke on 't Assuring us that if it were a law in England as once amongst the Locrians that whosoever would propound a new law should come with an halter about his necke that if it pleased not the Senate the hangman was ready to doe his office and that if opportunity served you would come with an halter about your necke with this proposition that it would please the great Senate of this land to take into their sad consideration whether upon such woefull experience it were not both more honorable to the King and more safe for his kingdome c. That the Lordly prelacy were turned into such a godly government as might suite better with Gods word and Christs sweet yoke p. 109.110 Nay so transcendent is your malice that you propose a speedy execution of them as the only remedy to divert Gods judgements for thus you state the question in the newes from Ipswich Is it not then high time for his Majesty to hang up such Arch traytors to our faith Church Religion and such true-bred sonnes of the Romane Antichrist And anon after more expressely Certainely till his Majesty shall see these purgations rectified superstition and idolatry removed c. and hang up some of these Romish Prelates and inquisitors before the Lord as the Gibeonites once did the seaven sonnes of Saul wee can never hope to abate any of Gods Plagues c. And to the same effect in your addresse to the nobility All the world feele in what a distracted state things do stand what a cloud of divine displeasure hangs over us how ill wee thrive in our affaires c. Certainely if such be suffred to goe on thus as they doe God must needes destroy us p. 24. Finally that you may seeme to shew some compassion on them before the executioner doe his office you thus invite them to repentance Certainely hell enlargeth her selfe for you and your damnation sleepeth not if you speedily repent not p. 81. Of your Pulpit-libell Hanging and hell and all too little to appease your malice which is advanced so high that no chastizement of their persons but an utter abolition of the calling will in fine content you You may remember what you preached once at a fast in London Where pleading for reformation under Ioshua's removall of the accursed thing you told the people that the maine thing to be removed was that damnable Hierarchy of Bishops who made no matter of sincking Church and State so they might swimme in honours and worldly wealth This is the thing you aime at and so greatly long for which to effect you care not what strange course you run so you may effect it Scelus omne nefasque hac mercede placent Thus have I briefely summed together those most uncharitable and unchristian passages which every where occurre dispersed and scattered in your Pamphlets And having summed them up dare make a chalenge unto all the world to shew me if they can such a rayling Rabsakeh so sanguinarian a spirit so pestilentiall a disease in a Christian Church All the marre-Prelates and make-bates of the former times with those which have succeeded since though Masters in this art of mischiefe come so short of this that I perswade my selfe you doe condemne them in you heart as poore spirited fellowes in whom there is too much of that Christian prudence which you so deride p. 28. But I forget my first intent which was to muster up your raylings and produce them onely but not to quit you with the like though should I use you in your kinde and lay the whip on the fooles back it were a very easie errour and such as possibly might receive a faire construction Nam cujus temperantiae fuerit de Antonio querentem abstinere maledictis To speake of such a thing as you and not flie out a little were a kind of dulnesse Yet I shall hold my hand a while until we meete againe at the halfe turne where possibly I may be bold to tell you more of my opinion Meane time I hope you doe not thinke that all this barking at the Moone will make her either hide her head or chang her course or that by all this noise and clamor you can attract the Nobles Iudges Courtiers or any other to take part with you and follow those most desperate counsels which you lay before them The world is growne too well acquainted with these dotages to be moved much at them Nor could my Lords the Bishops but expect before hand what censures would be passed upon them by such tongues as yours if once they went about to suppresse your follies and to reduce the Church to that decent order from which your selfe and your accomplices have so strangely wandered Howsoever their great care deserve better recompense yet was it very proper you should doe your kinde and they may count it for an honour that such a one as your selfe
them Iew then the Christian in them about the time when the declaration came forth All that my Lord the Archbishop had to doe therein was to commit the publication of it to his suffragan Bishops according to his Maties just will and pleasure and if that be the thing you except against your quarrell is not at his Act but his obedience Last of all where you say that with his right hand he is able to sweepe downe the third part of the starres in heaven and that hee hath a Papall infallibility of spirit by which as by a Divine Oracle all questions in religion are finally determined that onely is put in because you have a minde to charge on him those innovations as you call them that you complaine of in the Church What innovations you have noted wee shall see hereafter when they will prove to be no other then a sicke mans dreame I onely tell you now that in all the Hierarchy you could not possibly have pitched on one lesse liable and obnoxious to the accusation For being vir antiquae fidei and antiquissimi moris take them both together you may be sure he neither will nor can doe any thing that tends to innovation either in faith or discipline In case your selfe and such as you would suffer him in quiet to restore this Church to its antient lustre and bring it unto that estate in which it was in Queene Elizabeths first time before your predecessours in the faction had turned all decency and order out of the publicke service of Almighty God I dare presume he would not trouble you nor them by bringing in new ordinances of his owne devising But this if he endeavour as hee ought to doe you charge him presently for an innovator not that he innovates any thing in the antient formes of worship in this Church established but that he labours to suppresse those innovations which you and those of your discent have introduced into the same But one may see by that which followes that it is malice to his person and no regard unto the Church that makes you picke out him to beare so great a share in these impudent clamours For where his grace had tooke great care for inhibiting the sale of bookes tending to Socinianisme and had therefore received thankes from the penne of a Iesuite as your selfe informes us that his most pious care is by you calumniated for prohibiting of such bookes as exalt the sole authority of Scripture for the onely rule of faith p. 153. I see Socinus and his followers are beholding to you for your good opinion and so you may cry downe the Prelates you care not how you doe advance the reputation of such desperate heretickes But it is now with him and the other Prelates as heretofore it was with the Primitive Christians Tanti non est bonum quanti est odium Christianorum as Tertullian hath it Nor stay you here Other particulars there are which you have a fling at You tell us of my Lord of Ely whose bookes you are not fit to carry that if he undertake an answer unto your doughty dialogue betweene A. and B. Surely he will sacrifice all the remainder of his reason if any be left in him upon it Why so For you are sure he can neuer answer it except with rayling and perverting wherein lyeth his principall faculty your owne you meane in fighting against the truth c. p. 127. Of my Lord Bishop of Chichester you give this Item that it were strange if such a mystery of iniquity as you there complaine of should be found in any but a Prelate and in this one by name for a tryed champion of Rome and so devout a votary to his Queene of Heaven p. 126. My Lord of Norwich is entituled in the Newes from Ipswich by the name of little Pope Regulus most exceeding prettily And finally you tell us of those Bishops that attend the Court whom you include unâ—er the name of Amasiahs as did your learned Counsell in his Histrio-Mastix that there 's not any thing more common in their mouthes then declamations against the good Ministers of the land the Kings most loyall dutifull faithfull obedient peaceable subjects whom they accuse you say as factious seditious and turbulent persons dissaffected to present government enemies of the Kings prerogative and what not p. 48.49 So you but were it any thing materiall I could tell you otherwise and make it manifest both to you and all the world that those whom you traduce most fouly and against whom your stomacke riseth in so vile a manner are such who both for their endeavours for this Churches honour fidelity unto the service of the King and full abilities in learning have had no equals in this Church since the Reformation This could I doe if I conceived it proper to this place and time and that I did not call to minde what Velleius taught me viz. Vivorum ut magna admiratio ita censura est difficilis Nor doe you onely breath out malice but you threaten ruine you conjure all the kingdome to rise up against them and magnifie those disobedient spirits which hitherto have stood it out in defiance of them and seeme content in case their lives might runne an hazard to foregoe your owne For likening them unto the builders of the Tower of Babel p. 32. you doe thus proceede But as then so now the Lord is able by an uncouth way which they never dreamed of to confound them and their worke to their eternall infamy Even so O Lord. p. 33. And more then so you tell us also by what meanes it shall come to passe viz. that it shall rise as it were from beneath them whereas their height seemes to secure them from all danger as trampling all things under feete c. yet by that which seemeth to them most contemptible shall they fall from that which is below them shall their calamity arise p. 97. However to make all things sure you stirre both heaven and earth against them You let the nobility to understand that if we sit downe thus and hide us under the hatches whilest the Romish Pirats doe surprize us and cut our throates c. What Volumes will be sufficient to chronicle to posterity the basenesse of degenerous English spirits become so unchristianized as to set up antichrist above Christ and his annointed and to suffer our selves to be cheated and nose-wiped of our religion lawes liberties and all our glories and that by a sort of bold Romish mountebankes and juglers p. 20. What then advise you to be done that in the name of Christ they rouze up their noble and christian zeale and magnanimous courage for the truth and now sticke close to God and the King in helping the Lord and his annointed against the mighty p. 23. In your addresse unto the Iudges you conjure them thus For Gods sake therefore sith his Majesty hath committed unto you the sword of Iustice