Medico Mastix OR, A Pill for the Doctor:
Being a short Reply to a late Vindictive Letter, sent to M r. Vicars, in the name of Doctor Bastwick, concerning Leiut: Coll: JOHN LILBURN.
By E. A. A She PRESBITERIAN.
Printed in the Yeare. 1645.
Medico Mastix, OR A Pill for the Doctor.
Being a short Reply to a late Vindictive letter sent to Master Vicars, &c.
IN regard none of the Independent party hath taken upon them to answer your Booke of no Manners. I your Sister a Member of the Church of England, have undertaken the taske, it being fittest for a Foole to answer a Foole in his Folly.
YOu say in the first page of your Idle Pamphlet you have taught Leiv. Coll: Lilburn (so much) manners. That J in answer unto you say, You have left your selfe never a whit: For you have gone beyond the bounds of Modesty and Civillity. (In your seventeenth page) you have reviled your Creator, in the despising of his creatures. Secondly, The last Petitioners for the Liberty of the subject, you call them Gastly, Vgly faces, having Complexions like the Belly of a Toad. O blasphemous lie! For God himselfe saith of his works they are all very good. In page Six, you say the Devill shit out Independent Ministers. Brother, I feare you are [Page 4] one of his treatles: For its like you are of his very nature, you know so well what he doth; Why are you so foolish to find fault with the Sucking Apothecary, seeing you your selfe order the Pipe? Brother, I thinke you have scoured your Pate, as cleane of Wit, and your Tongue of Manners, as some doe their Closse Stooles after the sound of your Glisters. A Taylor, or a Controwler of the dreeping pans are better trades then a Milke-Wench, that milkes her Cowes backwards. and lets them Scomer in the Paile. I hope you will not condemne me, seeing I am so apt a Scholler of yours to learne your owne Language, at the first teaching: For it is the manner of Schoolmasters, to commend their forward puples.
I thought to gratifie my Master with a Cap and a Cockes Fether, with a Bell, a Ladle and a Pudding; because he is more fit for a Vice in a Morrice, then to be neere a Wise Councell.
No marvell (Dr, Bastwick) you have so impudently belyed the Independents (as you call them) to say They purpose to put downe all the Nobility and Gentry in the Kingdome (page 21.) when as your owne Conscience can witnesse: they are the readiest people, to give God his due and Cesar his.)
Sir, In the latter end of your railing Pamphlet, you say that there is no Kindred so good, that hath not either a Whore or a Knave in it. So it is impossible in such a great Councell as the Parliament is, but they should have some Ninnyes and Groles, and men that have no more wit, then will reach from their Nose to their mouths. If I had beene a man, and had spoken such words in this Age, I should never have lived to come to so great an honour, as to have a Gray Beard, and a Set of thin teeth of Gods placing: But I should surely be Hanged, and well I had deserved it: For it is as great Treason as any is, to make [Page 5] a Kingdome so void of wisedome, as to make choise of Naturalls to sit in so great a Court as a Parliament is: Oh that the wisedome of the Parliament would consider what you have done, for you seeme to vindicate the one party, and revile the other: and so divide the House. Then, how shall it stand, where workes of Truth and Righteousnesse are, they will justifie themselves, and have no need of a Foule-mouthed railing-Lyar, to mantaine them, for that is a great disgrace.
Brother, the number of those honest people (whom you call Independents) is so greatly increased, and so surely grounded are they upon the Rock Christ, that its neither you, nor I, nor all our Brethren the Presbyterians, nor the Gates of Hell, that shall ever remove them, For the rage of man shall turne to the praise of God (as it is said in the 76. Psalme.
Are these the fruits of our Fasts, to fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickednesse? for even so it appeares by those lying-railing-Pamphlets, which daily are suffered to come forth to make Gods People odious: but that will never prevaile; You call them Independents, but I thinke by their Profession and practises, we may judge them to be as cheife Dependants, as any Presbyterian in the world. Brother take their Profession, according as I your Sister have taken it from their owne mouths, That they depend first upon the great power of Heaven and Earth, upon the Father, Son and Holy Ghost for protection, the Word for their direction, life, and rule to walke in and by. Secondly, That they depend upon the Civill Magistrate, and submit to all godly Civil Lawes. And good brother, give me leave to tell you, that Gideons Armie had the exercise of their Tongues, as well as the use of their hands, see (Iudges 6. and 7. and 8. And the Lord prospered them, and wrought a great deliverance for them. [Page 6] And therefore why should you envie at the Lievtenant Collonell or any other for preaching in the Armie. Have Souldiers no Soules? Surely I thinke the very worst of them have, as much as you have Conscience: But there is a God above all, and he is greater then all.
Brother. The man of God was not seduced by wicked Jeroboam, but was deceived by a Prophet, that came to him with a lie in his mouth, as if it had beene from the word of the Lord, (see 1 King. 13. 10.) So this our Parliament was not seduced by the wicked Prelates, and I pray, they may not be deceived by you, and those wee call good men and Prophets of the Lord, that come with lies in their mouthes (as it were) from the word of the Lord.
Doctor Bastwick, surely your cause is bad, for a good cause will make the owner better, not worse. I should have wondred greatly at your great and painefull labour so much (in your evill way) for our Brethren the Presbyterian Ministers, but that they themselves are so helpelesse (in thumpping the Pues and managing their businesse almost after your manner) that the most of them have scarred away their Hearers: And it is not the sent of the Independents pissing and scomering (as you speake) in their Churches and Pulpits: And if you meane the Separates also, that is as grosse a lye as to say The Independents can smell the good cheere out of England into other Countryes, For surely God never made men such long Noses, and the Separates never come neere your Pues to trouble you.
You say the Independents have demanded their money of you which they gave you, and that is false, some [of them] imployed me severall times, and I brought you three or foure pounds at a time, which was never demanded, and many friends more did the like, beside my selfe. Brother I am [Page 7] sory you have not remembred to be thankfull, nor forgotten to lye. Gods Children are Children that will not lye, So I rest, your Sister but no Independent. Therefore charge them not with my worke. I have sent you but two Letters of my name, not for feare have I omitted them, but meerly for Modestie sake: for truly I am ashamed of my Masters teaching, Deare Sir, If you happen to conjure for me, you shall never find me in a Bulls Hide, It may be you may in a Cowes.
I have got great light, by Englands Birth-right.