A Fair CHARACTER OF THE Presbyterian Reformling's Just and Sober VINDICATION OF HIS OBSERVATIONS Upon the 30 th of January, and 29 th of May, In Defence of the REFORMER RACK'D.
BEING An ANSWER to J.G.G.'s New vile RANT, and the Weekly Observator's invidious and false Reflections on it.
Fiat Justitia, ruat novus Reformator.
London: Printed in the Year 1695.
TO THE READER.
THis Prefatory Occasion to the ensuing Character of the Presbyterian Reformer, is taken from the Weekly Observator 's Reflections on two Pamphlets: Observations upon, &c. and my Remarks upon them. Observ. Vol. 7. Numb. 24. Saturday June 30. 1694. concerning our Intestine Divisions.
For an Author to appear in Print without a Preface, by some fopling Criticks is reckoned as ungenteel and wild, as for Ray the Madman to haire it about Town without his Cravat on, or the Court-Baux to air in the Park without a Steinkirk Twisted-post Neckcloth: Just so perhaps for the Compleat Attorney not to preamble [Page] in his Dressing-room to his Glass or false Reflector before he flings into Grays-Inn Walks or expatiates into the Fields, is inconsiderate and Sloven-like. I am now in the Fashion; thank Mr. Observator: but if we would submit, and Valet it to his Latitudinarian Nicety and Modish Looseness, should we not Preface our Recantation of the Church of England's Upbraidings and Inveighings against the Presbyterians with a peccavimus omnes in our Mouths, or a confessory or revocatory Rope about our Necks? God-a-mercy Mercurius Brittanicus for this.
J.G.G. has Vindicated his Observations: and I have here a Counter-Cuffe for the Vindicator as well as the Observator; but it is Two to One that the Castle in the Air goes down, and I am worsted in the Engagement. Mighty Antagonists indeed, Pelion upon Ossa-Blades! And when I come on my Marrow-Bones to either for Quarter,
Farewel Reader.
A Fair Character of the Presbyterian Reformling's, Just and Sober Vindication of his Observations upon the Thirtieth of January and Twenty ninth of May, — in Defence of the Reformer Rack'd, &c.
THE Reformling would gladly be reputed Just and Sober in his Vindication, and if the World will take it upon the credit of his Title Page, or read no more of his Vertues, than what they may do Walking, upon a placarted great Gate, or a plastered Signpost, he may be so still in a vulgar Eye. Sober! what? Because he has so out-run the Constable, But, stand in the Name of Justice; can he be Just too that does so? Well, however he sets a good Face on the matter, and carries himself Just and Sober in his Frontispiece, and as sure as Caudles are Caudles, he that will herd among the Sober Party, must look as modest and demure, as a Whore at a Christening.
Many a good old Sign promises Sobriety and Mortification enough, when there is nothing but revelling, rant, Hey-go-mad, Murder—Watch! Watch! within: Some Men will not keep the peace, because it is the Kings, nor keep the Kings nor keep the Church, because it is not Theirs, and John of Leyden or Jerome of Prague never established nor endowed it. But up stalk Mid-night-justice, and the Raunters no sooner see the Staff and the Lanthorn appear, but they are as Just and Sober as Peace can make them; every Man is ready with his Vindication in his Mouth, and nothing falls out but good Neighbourhood between the Cup and the Lip. This might suit J.G.G. for a Tiring-Room, where to put on his Vizards of Truth, Justice, and Soberness; and be a proper Stage for the Impostor to masque the face of a lye or reproach, and to act his false qualities on. Here's likewise the exact Emblem of our Reformlings smoothing o're, and palliating a quarrelsome business; a serene brow with a Head-ful of Storms, and the Aeolus speaks [Page 2]fair, breaths a soft and gentle breeze, when he designs a Hurricane the next blast. His Title forsooth, must needs be a Just and Sober Vindicator; but to Vindicate the Truth of that, and justifie the Usurpation, he might swell his Fustian into a bigger Volume of Faction, and never make a better Cloak on't, nor the true Herald ever think him worthier of a Coat of Moderation.
There's a Comical Story of one Aletheia Gray in the North, Christened with Truth enough: Her Name had some Divinity in it, tho' her Nature had none; for she prov'd as great a lyer as any of the Masculine Sex in the Kingdom, and so noted, it's believed that she might have carryed off the Whet-stone at Temple-Sowerby in spite of her Baptism. This may be a pretty Sister-Motto for J.G.G's just falseness and revengefulness, and Aletheia Lyar might very well have weigh'd the Panniers against his sober Madness in his Vindication.
Sober Gentleman! Ah! What should ale him unless Presbytery intoxicate, for a Man sometimes grows drunk with his Cordial. Just too! no doubt of it; if he have Authority, he'll act within his Commission, although his stomaching pride knows no rules of devouring; He is a foolish Cobler that goes beyond his Last. But it's an unfortunate thing to be confined or encircled, except it be to keep the Devil out: His Sphere is not large enough for all Liberty of Conscience, and an honester Man may grow giddy with the rapt and motion of his own narrow Orb with Toleration. Thus like a turn-sick Child at running round-play, the civil Copernican may chance to reel, and make a false step of Ambition over the Globe, to justle out his Neighbouring lights and keep himself still in the dark, not believing all the while his farther distance from the Sun; The Son of Righteousness and Peace. He may indeed bid as fair for Heaven, by his gloryed Justness and Seberness, and Charity, as another for any thing I shall tell him yet of treading his own Antipodes, to a Heavenly Union; let him make his way thither as fast as he can: But in the interim, let him be advised to be content with his own station and lot here; be wise on this side Heaven, not mutinous on this side of the Water, and then I wish him his Belly full of Milk and Honey beyond it. In sine therefore of his factious Covetousness, when his adulterate Astraea has pimped Victoria to his insatiable embraces, and he becomes master of one World, let not the imperious spirit of our Alexander make him weep and put his Finger in his greedy Eye for another.
Notwithstanding a Brother full of the Creature may be Sober and Just too; the Club of Saints have perhaps a Sober Hatcham-Barn Statute, to make their own Indentures as they go, and Stagger all the Laws in England to keep their own Potvaliant Legislations out of the Kennel. Such a Brother I have seen lately Stamping it homewards, and moving, passing Nemine contra dicente, and, as it were, Engrossing some new Model of Church-Government with his Toes, by the same token that a Bantering wagg said, he wondered whether his Socks were Paper, and his Shoes Parchment. Excuse; The Parrot had got into ill Company. 'Tis excusable in one of the Holy Cloak'd Fraternity, and He's sober enough to be of the Party still. Much Truth is in the Bottle; but no more of your Religion in your Cups, pray.
Ours is a Soberer Gentleman, and is full of the Scripture: He seems such a sworn Enemy to the WHORE, that I believe he would not Cuckold the POPE for his Infallibility. Infal. lible! no, he had rather be a mistaken St. John, and have no more Religion than is in the 43. Chapter of the GOSPEL. Title page. Page 3. Whether he or the Printer was better read in the Geneva, I determine not in this Error; But EZEKIEL was like to have lost a Text between them. If this Scripture had only been misquoted to an Auditory of Dear Brethren and Sisters, there would have been spitting on Thumbs, and ruffling of Dutch Bibles, to find out John 43.9. but then the mistake might have been hush'd up and mutter'd for an inspired piece of his own Illumination, or passed for the Word of God with the Godly, and he not thought a whit the less a Gospeller or Minor Prophet, for the miscall. The 43. of Go-look, would have done as well among the Religious, I would say Infallible Gracelesses, ('tis all one in the Greek, as the Town-talk has it for sameness) though they had consulted St. Luke for the Divinity. The Words then, the words, wheresoever they are written. — Now let them put away their Whoredom, and the Carcasses of their Kings, far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them. How Apocriphal, how uncanonical he renders this Scripture in his use and application of it! and would make the Prophet speak from his mouth, call the Dead Kings WHOREMASTERS in their Graves, and lay all the abominations of the Kingdom of England upon their Monuments. As for King Charles the First's Carcass, [Page 4]much good may the put away or removal do him; he has his wish on't already, if the most received and common Fame lies not; and had he Interpreted This of Windsor-Castle, the Prophecy had been fulfilled long ago to his purpose: But then he might as well have talked of Christmas-fare, after Twelfth-day; yet who will not remember his Box for all that. That the Royal Body was removed, seems to be no News, and what became of it a Courante need not post from the other World to inform us 'Tis believed, if the Presbyterians would be so Ingenuous, they might shorten the Stage, and save the Labour and Travail of a long tedious Truth.
I will not bring a railing accusation against any of them; But the Arch-Angel contended for the Body of Moses, and defied the Devil, Jude Ep. verse 9. Let the report, true or false, hurt or disgrace no Body more then it does him; for the most dishonourable Interment of him, either in a Vault or Ditch, only gives Foil and Lustre to Massacred CHARLES; and if no misreport, why should we strive with the Presbyterians for Him, when Heaven has Him no doubt before the struggle; and will give Him a nobler Resurrection than they did that stole Him away? He has been worse used, if this story be untrue. But let Englands Iliads record the story of Homer's, that it was the Honour of Dead Patroclus, that two Armies fought for his Corps. The Living are sometimes not unreasonably alarumed for the Glory of the Dead. A Soveraign so unhumanly persecuted after Death, deserves a Monument at least, and Montrosses Epitaph.
As great an Additioner as the Reformling would falsly State me to our CHURCH, Fage 12, 13. I need add little more to those Truths I published before, to clear the Glorious Kings of such a Bigot's Defamation and Personal Aspersions, but St. Hierom's words, Ep. ad Gelant. Adversus Obtrectatorum libidinem pugnat meritorum magnitudo. They have deserved better rank in the Estimations of all Loyal Christians and Subjects: For if Subjection were fairly, or even Parliamentary now canvassed, I doubt whether the Presbyterians would in courtesie d' Angleterre, or could by their dangerous Principles, be found to be any to English Monarchy; and our Reformling may chew the Cud twice upon this before he digests an Ecclesiastical or Civil Obedience, to either Church or State. He may be the Lurdans Fellow-Labourer, that was troubled with an Atrophy of both, consume em both, says he, for want of being nourished, [Page 5] that is, glutted, by either; and indeed our Just, Sober Gentleman talks as if he wanted Preferment too, by his envying me mine, when he does not know but I may be in Lobs-pound to morrow.
One King was laid out in his Gore with a murdering conclamatum est in derision, and for a raree show to the pitying Loyalist and dejected Cavilier: A jolly Fellow indeed Catachrestically blest himself at the sight, and was asked, why? says he, I am a Rope-maker. The Second's heels were trod upon by the same Power, and the like Plot; How far from having his Throat cut, or the Back-stroke and Fore-stroke of injustice, the Goward in Eighty one at Oxford can tell: Where such as he impudently avouched, — They wanted a King, whom they might trust. 'Tis true, Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris; A sense of that error will never exstimulate them to their Duty; A Word and a Blow with the Ring is an Old Parliament-Law, and happy were the Man that could wrest the same Club out of Hercules's Hand; the Reforming Sisyphus, will still be rowling up the same Stone he must expect to tumble down with.
I would call Religion and Loyalty the two Poles of steering any Government by, but a cast-away, if it were not for the artick and antartick Opposition that is made of them. But this can break no squares in a similitude; and Tantive-College run the Presbyterians and Protestant Tribe of Tantivee-College run to our Established Religion? A Scholar may speak now I hope, and like a Gentleman. Page 2. — Did they not use all the Spades and Mattocks of Seditious contrivances, to undermine the Foundation of our well establisht Church-Government? Did they not envy us the support of our Chief Pillars, the Bishops, whom they would first have made weaker, and then pulled down? would they not have let in many Beasts of the Forrest to our Vine-yard, by making a breach in our Fence, in taking out three stakes from our Hedge of the 39. Articles? Page 60, 61. Would not they have given encouragement to Divisions, by granting liberty to Dissent, and by removing of Penalties, have invited many to transgress? Did not they take up at the second hand, many Old Artifices of innovating a Change; as crying out against the unreasonableness of Pluralities, the inconveniencies of Non-residence, and affirming the necessity of a Redress of both? And finally, did they not use all methods of irritating the Vulgar to vilifie the Clergy, [Page 6]because they were the chief opposers of Sedition and perswaders to Allegiance and Uniformity. And then in opposition to Loyalty; How Arbitrary and Magisterial were their own proceedings, while they pretended to be doing nothing else but preventing the Arbitrary Power of another? How many Honest and Loyal Gentlemen did they force to do the Penance of falling down and Worshipping them, for speaking. Blasphemy against their Authority, while Treason against a higher Power past unquestioned? How crosly and resolutely did they always deny His Majesties just Demands, though they were to be employed for the Nations security? And at last, how saucily would they have cried down the King by debarring him of the priviledge of the meanest Subject, making it unlawful for any one to turn his Creditor, though on never so good security? This is not the moity of what might be said, but perhaps in this case; [...]. The Vetus Fabula only wanted the Curtains drawing and Parliament Candles lighting, of being acted on an Oxford Theatre; and the Novi Historiones, with some of the Veteres too perhaps, had played their Parts of the like Tragedy over again; if they had been so successful, as not to have been hissed off before they came to Prologue to't. However the Reformling will have King Charles the Second to be beholden to his Party for his Restoration, and peaceable injoyment of his Royalty; and certainly he was, just as the Father Dotard was beholden to the Son, who flatter'd him into a Settlement, and then burn'd his House about his Ears, for his Daddy to rost his Eggs with. Our Sons of Faction could love uproars and Bonefires too, but that they hate Rumps, and it looks too much like Sacrificing to the Genius of Restauration.
At an Election of a Member for the approaching Parliament at Oxon, (The Loyal Pudsey and Whorewood Candidates) it is pleasantly storied of a brisk Mechanick, in the Van of a Tumultuous Crowd, who hearing a Graduate exclaiming no Round-head, no Round-head, reparteed him with no Square-head, no Square-head; when all the University knew they were for no Head at all, or at best not for a Crown'd Rowly-Head.
I am afraid I shall be tedious on the face and complexion of his Pamphlet, but if length be not the Picture of him, it is his best Character at a Vindication, or one of his Sixteenthly Beloveds. Now I cannot imagine what he would be at, have [Page 7]done or prevented, the Pope is not like to be Lord Mayor next Year, nor King JAMES to be in his Throne again the next Moon. Popery is out of Doors, he needs but give it an Alms, or send the Cripple to the next Constable; Authority will take care of it: But it may be he has an extraordinary knack at Reforming; he may have as good and Religious a God-piece as King Henry the Eighth, and can Whistle a better Tune too in Divisions, that would make the Rabble Dance a Common-wealth Morisco.
The Reformer needs but lead up the Figure of three, four, Heptarchy or a hundred, the Piper's paid: Cut the first Caper, and protest he wishes England as well as the Duke of Burgundy once did France, when he swore, He lov'd France so well, that for one King, he wish'd she had twenty, and then you are all of a Litter quoth Lambert. Let me tell you Lylly's Grammer comprehended a great deal of policy in it's Neutram modo, mas modo vulgus, but it is Aes in presenti that must carry on the business effectually, to persection, and what not. The Mobb love variety, and every Body knows what is as good for a Sow as a Pancake, — A Fartical Raskal that bid a KING kiss his Posteriors, I conceive and presume, saving J.G. G's presence, would make an excellent Tool for his Arsie-Farsie Reformation. At this rate every Wat Tyler, or Jack Straw, with a fair Wind and auspicious opportunity will be invading and matching Politicks with King and Council; and if the Green-pated Reformer Heads but well, and puts Liberty, and Property, and the Old State Quibble of Personal and Politick Capacity, into the Mouth of the Moabites, the Man STUART may be cut off, and the King ne're the worse hurt. A Second Oliver may chance to drop out of the Clouds, and then defiance to the Powers of the Earth, our Soveraign Lord the People are, as assuredly as the Rebels against King John the Army of God. Any New Coin gains acceptance with the Lower Mobb from its Stamp of Novelty; and if the upper sort of Mobb mints it but with a popular App [...]ause, Vogue, and Reputation, it has Credit, Justice and Authority enough to abide their Test.
The next thing our good Gentleman does, is as wise as he can make Solomon, not Solomon him, to call his Adversary a Fool, and the worst of the sort, a self-conceited Fool: Surely if Robin Wisdom sets not up for an Author and Fools not the [Page 8]rest of Mankind, the Press cannot blame him for it. But the would-be Solomon, presently starts a Fool out of the Proverbs before he enters the Field; no, if he had not been besides the Bush, Page 18. and had had the good luck to have thrown his UTINAM SAPEREM soon enough in his tail (as the No vice-hunter carries Salt to catch the Hare with) he had taken him too, and might have Sounded his Triumph of the Prey at the first View. Many a one has had the fortune to Course the Hare and catch the Witch. He mistakes his Fool and his Game: And well remembred, Wise man of Gotham, how the Scot tuke the Tartar, and the Tartar prov'd the Conqueror.
I might have dwelt longer upon his Title-page, sufficiently answer'd him, and never have gone farther than the Porch: But curiosity prompts me to shew his Guests what better entertainment or welcome they and I must be treated with in the House. At the Threshold then I shall only premise a gross injury done me, and soberly good morrow his passionate ELDERSHIPS scandals and misconstructions of me: For in my Remarks or Reflections, Page 12. (which I allow him to take in the worst sense) on his Observations, I fully declared my propo's and design, which he has run Counter to with a full cry, almost throughout his Vindication, only coldly chopping on't here and there. The Mungrel-hound often flings off and runs a back-scent; But a worse Nose than his might have taken the right Game and made a truer chase of it: A false pursuit never obtain'd the least Quarry. Having waved the Divinity of his King-killing, and traducing Pamphlet, let the unbiass'd Judge, if it is fair play to be bid keep close to the Text, — ho! Religion is the Province of our Learned Clergy; there were eleven Apostles for one Judas; and we have Orthodox Divines enough to confute his Schismatical Doctrine, though too many follow their Master, like Peter, at a distance in secular Persecutions; and it is well if more do not deny him: In all Don Quevedo's Visions Judas was the only Man in Hell for selling his God; but there was a number for buying of HIM. But I never intended to meddle with those matters that were too high for me, or handling of Controversies in Religion, which required an Ordained Pen. I have often thought of the Story of the silly Ass that carryed the Goddess Isis so long to and from the Temple, that at last he began to take State upon him, and would needs [Page 9]play the Goddess: So I have gone a long time to the Church of England by Law Established, and I never yet could call the Preacher God Almighty's Spiritual Merry Andrew, or the Lecturer Gods after-noon Jester; A Libertine or Atheist may banter his Soul, and jest with his Salvation: I never thought the Minister in the Surplice an Owl in an Ivy Bush, as Islington Cook had it in the days of Oliver's Gospel. And I do not yet see any reason for Schism and Dissention. Neither am I able to be the tottering Churches Atlas, nor to Sampson it down with the strength of Conviction and Division. Believe me, Reformling, I am in the same humour with the modest Lay-Countrey man, who coming up to London did not aspire to a Mitre, or think to set his Foot at next step of Preferment upon St. Pauls.
Thus far you see the Front of our Just, Sober and Wise VINDICATOR, yet enter, and his Inner Rooms are no better Furnished.
At first Salute he begins like a Proclamation, opens his Rhetorick, and declares as it were for a Kingdom. The Mountain is in labour, and nascitur Sooterkin. Ridiculous! Page 1. I not out of any peevish humour — and the Verb, his great AUXILIARY, have taken the freedom — comes trotting in jaded seven or eight lines, I had like to have said, MILES, behind: His words of Truth and Soberness hang-an-arse too in the mid-way to the journeys period, and seem unwilling to come up to his undefiled Worship, and say, Amen. But he hath found out a sore about me, and hath an Hospital for the Wounded on the first floor, if the Patient will not start, take wing or fly out; as if he were about curing a Butter-fly, which Domitian had unmercifully run up to the Hilts: nor make a noise, while he handles and probes the unsoundness; as if he were about to salve the crackt pericranium of a Wasp in a Honey-pot. Let him resolve to crush the Cockatrice-Egg of his own hatching, lest in the end it prove a hissing Scrpent to himself. The Duramater of his own Brain stands in need of the Physician; and I wish the same Gentleman Chirurgeon would be sensible of his own Errors, and so become Achillean to cure the Wounds, which himself hath made in our Church and State.
In the next place are his Combustibles: Room enough for the Fire of Foxes Tails, which shall do no more harm than in Judges 15. Chapter. I wonder to see him so much in love [Page 10]with Foxes and Fire-brands; A Book called so. our burned Child dreads not the Fire. He would pun a Man to Death, and the shades of Ghosts almost with Lovalist, Page 22. LOYOLIST, to derive me from LOYOLA, a few ap's from a Hellish Pedigree: But I will assure him the POPE is none of my Soveraign Lord, though such as J. G. G. are Ignatians, (i.e.) Fire-brands to all the World beside: Rome may well laugh at the Grinder when she has the Grist: Neither do I think Martial's rule an axiom for my Pen — Parcere personis dicere de vitiis. For I look upon the sly Jesuite and Barge-sainted Fanatick, with my own as well as anothers Eye, as two dangerous Philistine Foxes, that carry between their Tails that Brand of confusion — The Lawful deposition of Supream Magistrates. Hill at Cambridge prayed —Deposc him, O Lord, who would D [...]pose us. Assem. Man. p. 14. If their Faces be contrary, they are coupled by the Tails, and although they may not tug with the same Oar; Their Faces look one way against White-hall and Lambeth: it is no great matter whether they Row and are bound for Rome or Geneva-hey! Here he plays the Doctor upon me again with capouring and vapouring of the Spleen and low parts, which cause great fumes and disturbances in the Head: And are the Natural Members then subject to the Higher Powers? Would he be willing that his Head should ake till he professed this politically? If he will agree to't; the Colledge surely must make much of him for his new Invention, and honour him like Harvey for a Circulation: The Government should call him good Subject, stroak him, and buy him Monumental Ginger-bread, as Clieveland uses the Rebel Scot. Oh! that he could be clawed into a retraction of Noll's Arts and Practices, that he would pur and pur while we rub off his Old Mange! Then we should hear no such scrieking and catter-wauling against our Church-Order. But I am afraid Sir Empirick Presbyter understands not the Nations Pulse, Vena Basilica. nor the Basilick-vein to make a Politick Phlebotomy, and will be working upon the superfluous Humours, till he wasts and consumes the very Vitals. What signifies this among Friends? The Quack and the Sexton are Cater-Cousins still, if one can but kill as fast as the other cuts out Oblivion for the Murder. Page 1.14. Acts of Parliament will perpetuate Divisions, else the Reformling means nothing by laying that scandal at the Parsons Door for Preaching on the Anniversaries of Rebellion and Murder, the blessing of Peace and Right; for nothing and nothing to purpose in every Ninnys Logick is all one; the [Page 11]Saddle on the right Ass is this; [...] is the English of it; we keep up a Church by Law against the Presbyterians, and till we line their Purses with her Revenues and Equipe 'em with Cloaks out of our Vestiary, they are resolved never to Unite or Mount our Altar, Baptistery or Pulpit, for they cannot ride Triumphantly else, Page 66. and we shall never be eased of the burden, din, or eternal Clack of their dissenting Faction. That our Anniversary Fast and Thanksgiving chiefly disgusts, continues, or perpetuates their division and Schism, I will believe, when I see them throw their Carolus a Carolo Money out of their Pockets, and hold it Superstitition to carry Britania's Picture about them. If the Reformling can give me one probatum of the Truth of Paracelsus's Doctrine— That to eat Creatures alive will perpetuate Mans Life: I may probably be induced to swallow a less absurdity, that our Anniversary Worship wherein in the Creature (his Dialect) is no otherwise concerned, than as a Heinous Sin was committed and a providential blessing was bestowed upon HIM, does occasion immortal hatred and Schism, which he Englishes perpetuate Divisions. Page 37. I am amaz'd to hear the Lawfulness of Preaching, Page 42. the blackest Rebellion down to its Grand-fire, and right re-inthroned, Justice restored up to the King of Kings, controverted by any but the Imps and Zanies of Infernal Empire. This is the all of our Worship on the Royal Anniversaries, and yet dissenting obstinacy says, we may as soon meet upon a needless Point as this, or center in Union: We neither pray to, for, nor against the Souls separate of our Kings; God is the Author and sole Object of our Devotions. Page 42. Truth may as well be said to Lie as rail in our Sermons on the Thirtieth of January, and Twenty ninth of May, Page 13. which his contradictious spirit calls Seditious; but he hits himself no small Fillip there. And in short, there is less mixture of the Creature in our occasional Worship, than the Presbyterian had in his Comical Grace, wherein he begged a blessing upon the Turky-pie, for though it be no Christian Fowl, says he, yet thou hast commanded us to pray for all Jews, TURKS, Infidels and Hereticks. As another Graces it in complaisance to his Fare; Souse us and dowse us in the powdering-tub of Repentance, and make us fit Tripes and Chitterlings for thy Heavenly Table. Strange! How some Capricio's hugg their singularity in that Monumental sin of Rebellion, not thinking the Witchcraft will leave them at the Gallows: The [Page 12]Devil never hugg'd the Witch upon any other score; and if the impenitent Rebel slips his Collar, Old Nick's an Ass. My whole drift before was to rub this Tetter, and the worse it spreads in his Vindication. But hold, I task my self too far with Religion; and if our Reformling be a Lay-man as well as I am, for he's Plato's Servant to my knowledge: He is an impertinent Beast of reason, and as Coltish to take this Religious Controversie upon him, as Nero's Brute was in State with the Consulship. Every Wood will not make a Mercury: A judicious foresight of the Heathens: For had he been touchwood; since we had a smoaking World, the Tobacco Funker would not have stuck to have lighted his Pipe with a Finger of the God. But every uppish Conventicler can set up for a Professor of Divinity; and were the Bugbear Epithet REGIUS kickt out of the Schools, J. G. G were as fit a Man as hath sprung from the Loyns of Calvin to domineer a republican Moderator. Sermon at Pauls Cross 25. November. No woonder then, as the ingenious Henry King observed 1621. If Preaching may breed surfeits that so many Crudities lie in the stomack of the People; that so many Fumes and giddy Vapours fly up into the head, to the no small disturbance of the Churches quiet; that so many hot spirits, like the Canons overcharged, recoyle against all Discipline, break into divers Factions, and with the Splints of those crackt opinions, do more mischief then Deliberation or Justice can suddenly salve. I speak no new unheard Language. This Community of Preaching hath brought it into such cheap rate and contempt, with many, that, as if the gift of Tongues were prostitute to Idiots, and Trades; you shall have a sort of Lay Mechanick Presbyters of both Sexes (Praedicatores & Praedicantissae) presume too far upon their acquaintance with the Pulpit, that they will venture upon an exposition, or undertake to manage a long unweildy Prayer conceived on the sudden, though not so suddenly uttered; nay, they are so desperate, they will torment a Text, and in their resty Conventicles Teach as boldly, as if they were as well able to become Journey-men to the Pulpit, as to their own Trades.
As for Predestination, Election, and Reprobation, they are [...]: Page 11, 19. Good and Gracious words, but no such Mysteries, as our Reformling misunderstands and misinterprets; and although I do not sport with the Tremendous and Eternal [Page 13]Decrees of Heaven, yet I can whistle at his Heavenly inspired Bag-pipes, and look upon such inquisitive record searchers of the Supreme Judge, but as bold Astrologers, who saucily and presumptuously pretend to bring intelligence from the Privy Council of Heaven, as if they had pickt the Cabinet of Fate and Providence through the Key-hole of the Stars. The Dutch-man found himself in the wrong Box at last, and swore there was no Butter there.
You are scarce sooner entered the Glorious Fabrick of his contriving Brain, but whip he goes, as nimble as a Monkey, to the House-top, and as swift as exhalations from the Earth, he's rapt and transported with Thunder and Lightning, many Stories above Bedlam Garrets, into the second Region of the Air: But the Storm ceases, Page 2. and down comes he like gentle Snow — [...] Hom. [...]. to Boil Solomons Pot with the crackling of Thorns, as if he had stolen 'em from the Man in the Moon. This is his Vagarie; and I leave my Incerti Laris — Friend to maunder here and Cook by himself.
His next Paragraph couples him with the Observator, and I shall answer them in the leash. As they come in my way, Page 3.1 [...]. I am for them, armed with reason, not Sword and Pistol: For a Man may as soon beat Religion, as good Manners into either Head with a Pole-axe; and therefore I would not have them cry out Murther with such a false hollow! Sure, had our Reformling been an Antidiluvian, he would have cryed out Fire, Fire lustily, in Noah's Flood. As Castor and Pollux shine by turns, so they must ever expect an alternate extinction. Take care of your Candles both, else for the glimmerings of your reason, you may walk Home with the fainter light of a Gloworm. Though the Pamphlet in Question, be not in any thing worth a reply, and the Pamphleteer deserves to be answered otherwise then with a Pen; a Pen, Man! what can be a better argument, except his Cudgel or Kill-zadock, and convincing Club-law? Here I might eat his words, as he often does mine, and retort, it were a sufficient Reyonder. But he mercifully leaves me to my Competent Judge, p. 7. Did not his own hand shake when he wrote, JUDGE? His own guilt might very well have given him the Palsie. This Sentence he borrows from the Weekly Observator, and publishes himself a Plagiary in his Postscript: And for all our Reformling's different Physiognomy [Page 14]of Religions, they are much of the same Feature: I leave the Devil and the Colliar to parley whether had the blacker Complexion. Now since he does stand upon the Observator's Legs, Page 73. for the Support and Authority of his illegal Observations, he shall seem to be as good a Man as he pleases, but then he must acknowledge himself, to be very much mistaken in several of his Notions, and especially in Church Ceremonies: And so he gives up his Cause, and looses his Tub as the Butcher lost his Knife, which he had all the while between his Teeth.
As never any Beauty or fair Face, gained all Hearts their suffrages or admiration; nor any ingenuity and plain-dealing a general applause: So there hath seldom been wanting an Apologist to refute the pittiful and paultry Imputations of the reflector. Page 12. An Author now a days has no civiler treatment than a Pissing-post; every little Cur holds up his Leg at him, cocks his Tail, and throws dirt in his Face. As I should have the stomack of a Night-man to read Tartaretus de more cacandi; so truly I would as soon choose to be condemned to be a Scavenger for the Streets of London, and to carry all the Dung out of this little World of Sin and Sea-Goal, as to examine the foul and filthy absurdities of the Reformer, or the mercenary Scandals of the Observator, more then I have or shall do, in short. A Muckender for 'em both to rake their puddles of reproach.
The Reformling wrests, culls, and tears my Book in an incensed Mood for Forty and more Pages together, as if he had never drawn bit nor breath for't; and he makes the veriest Tatter de mallion of it, Page 13. with half words and half sentences, that it would certainly cry for the Rag-man, but that it had been at the Paper-mill already. He hath the bien tourne, I'le say't, at marring of sense, and as excellent a knack of a Laconick answer, as a Popish Priest in the late times, who, Preaching in a Chappel about Town, Reported by Bishop— brought a petit Library of Heretical reformed Authors with him, and told the Auditory with a brisk look, he must confute them; the first he touch'd upon chanced to be John Calvin: This is that grand Enemy to our Church, John Calvin, says he; his first word is Institutiones, gives him a quick turn-over, his last word is Iniquitates. His Institutiones are Iniquitates, ye may conclude with himself, and so he lays him by with confutation enough to his Hearers. [Page 15]So J. G. G. picks out words, strips them of all antecedent and consequent Sense, and when he has them naked, he whips them off with a Jerque. Thus Atheism shall be proved out of Scripture; the Psalmist has it — There is no God; not considering what went before, The Fool hath said it in his Heart: For who but a Fool would have said so? He rakes up an Oglio of a few scattered words Higlede-piglede in my expressions; and then he Mauls, and Slanders, and Rogues them ad arbitrium; as the Cock-bawd will be bespattering the Carted-whore of his own making; though of all Men in the World he should not cast the Stone or Horns at her. As Division is his Talent he improves it upon my sense and words to his own Note. He shatters the whole Frame of my Discourse to pieces, like the splinters of the Knight Errant's Lance: But he breaks no Bones, but what being set by an unprejudiced Hand, will knit more firmly and strong against him. Page 4. For my abusive and brutish Language I had his parol that he would not take advantage of the Law Talionis upon it, but it is so material a Limb of Magna Charta, that he must now stand upon it as a piece of priviledge to quit scores with me: And the fundamental constitution of Billingsgate is — You're a Rogue, and you're a Rogue. This is his Religion, which cannot govern his Morality; and such an one, is not a Dram better than my Mastiff Dog, so long as you stroke him and please him, and do not pinch him, he will play with you as finely as may be, and wag his Tail: He is a very good Moral Mastiff; but if you hurt him, he will fly in your Face, and tear out your Throat, says Selden p. 36. Where Scripture should shackle his hot-spur spirit, he breaks forth pell-mell upon me; and calls me Fool, and Fool, and Fool, to the end of the Chapter. He would turn me a grazing to converse with none but Nebuchadnezzar's Society. pag. 4. certainly he does not wish me his Metamorphose too, of long Nails for fear of a Scratch't Face. I am a Lion in his Roaring pag. 31. that would have all under a spoiling Paw; yes, when he is my Jackal I shall never want Prey. All along he insinuates me to be a Papist, a furious Persecutor. pag. 6. That would promote the Ruin and Consusion of Kingdoms with Fire and Fagot. This is his Ignis fatuus: Such wild-fire does not burn; and it's all made by the antiperistasis of his own clod pate, Neroe's Fiddle would have sounded harsh to my Ear in the combustion of blazing Rome; and I could [Page 16]have wished, when London was of a Flame, that the Fire had not lookt and rag'd so much like the Final conflagration; that it had been no greater, no fiercer, than what any Man might have pissed out. What a pother and calenture were the Brains of that Hyper-critical Philosopher in, to find out the Materials God first struck Light with? I pity the nice folly, but I hold, and practice according to my Tenet, that fire was not made to blow up Parliaments, or to serve either a Popish or Presbyterian Plot. I should have been content never to have seen Englands Wonder, a Monument erected upon the ashes of our Metropolis: Oh! that every Mans Engine could have quenched the Flames; and fewer Tears then were shed might have put them out! I do not think King Charles II. brought the Goal or the Incendiary home with him, as he would intimate in his Observations p. 13, 14. Neither do I believe it was for the Sin of Gluttony, though the Fire began in Pudding-Lane and ended in Pye-Corner: The Heavens have spent much Fire and Brimstone in Old Story, upon Murder, Rebellion and Faction. He hints at my Dear Sister Popery again pag. 18. when I deny the Relation or Affinity; and was never wedded yet so far to any Religion, but upon good Evidence and true Conviction I might be Divorced. Jacobitism and Popery are his Darlings, Ibid. The last time we shak'd Hands with Popery I bid it a Farewell with all my Heart. Ibidem. A liar, a Child of the Devil, a false accuser, that is, the Devil's Devil, as Hugh Peters was said to Possess Satan, not Satan Hugh Peters. The Protestant Cause is perfidiously betrayed by me, pag. 68. He may Trumpet this with a Silver Tongue to be neither impious, nor prophane, nor scurrilous, nor perfidious, but I must tell him, his Fore-head is of the same Metal with his Kitchin, if there is any Brass in it, for doing so. A Villain, page 65. an Arminian, page 66. a Cut-throat, an Executioner, a Hangman, page 15, 34. I arraign God for his Decree, page 57. Mentiris impudentissime, page 70. and his own English of it. — Thou art a most impudent liar, Quid pro quo. is a pretty concise answer to all that he hath scandalously held forth. For Uniformity-sake we must hang together, page 34. He gives me all the Hangman's Office, but wheres the Gallows? Haman made a Gallows for another, and was Hang'd on it himself. What a Maygame he makes of an Act of Parliawent with his Uniformitytwang? He little considers surely, how his jest intrenches upon [Page 17]the old Round-head Cant, Good Lord, make us of one Accord, Concord, Record, or Any-Cord, Good Lord, that we may hang all together; and a bold daring Cavalier said Amen to't. But I would stab him if I could, pag. 14. I never push home a Topick with the Rhetorick of the Sword: I write with such Ink as He does, not with Blood; for Sanguinary Laws I am averse to, yet I do not think or esteem DRACO the worse Lawgiver for His. Indeed to be called so many Names, would make a Man scratch where it does not itch, as CHAUCER has it upon another Account: To see Men live poor to dye rich. I care not what the Italians say; but I wonder he should travel so far for an Itch of a Popish Expression, pag. 16. He's a great Linguist, I suppose; for he says Latin is the Language of the Beast, pag. 23. But it would certainly be worth his Enquiry, whether Balaam's Ass spoke Latin.
My Language is abusive, unbecoming, immodest, unclean, ridiculous, reviling, impious, injurious, rubbish, trash, and stuff. — Well said Textor! So he hashes it, and makes such a Hotch-potch Sluttery of it, that, like the Greedy gut who spit in his porridge, he designs it all for himself. Enter Observator. The Painter that should put a Pen into the Angel's hand would detract from his Knowledge, and degrade Intuition. But were it no Grotesque, and if Angels themselves wrote Books, I am apt to think we should not have fewer Mercury's: and their happiest Notions would hardly escape the Libelling, Censure, and Burlesque of a braving Observator. How nobly would Grubstreet encounter Heaven and cry out upon the abusive language of Thunder, and the Nonsense of Flashes and Lightnings for foul play in the Quarrel! Page 7. were the pacifick Angels to converse with Presbyterians: for I am so charitable as not to wish the destroying ones among them; in order to proselite so many persecuting Sauls of our Church. Were they commissioned to make them loyal and pious Converts by conforming them to our Monarchy and Liturgy; would not one believe that the main stress and argument of their Revelation would be urged from the Novelty, Inhumanity, and Unchristian Cruelty of their King-killing or Schismatical Principles and Zealous Biggoticism? Which in the Language of Man, were to call them, the Dissenters, Schismaticks, and Regicides. Where is the Harshness or Impiety of the Dialect then? To call a Man [Page 18]an Eternal Villain whose Ears bear witness of the Cruelty, if he pleases, or Justice of the Pillory, and have eternized his Fame, can be no great Abuse, I hope, or unjust Affront. You cannot take the Sow by the wrong Ear when she has none left. O Edipodas facito, Telegonosque voces, says Ovid of his Amourettes; he bids his Tristia call 'em Rogues and Rascals: OEdipus's and Telegonus's, Murderers.
And may not an artificial height of Passion be allowed in an Orator as well as the sweet-tongu'd Poet? He's not the less mild and soft for a Counterfeit-Anger: for He only sung a feigned Chastisement of his de Arte amandi Adventures, which He yet lov'd so far, I dare say, as to pride Himself in Banishment for innocent Wit and Amour. No; this is not allowable: it is abusive. Why? for what Reason but a Woman's? Because it is. Or an Observator's IPSE DIXIT? The notable Pansophist hath said so. Methinks a little Sense and less Wit might distinguish the Persons from their Good Old Cause: I can love the Observator, and hate his Extravagance; What! Not one penny left of five hundred a year? Have Charity for the Rebel, and abominate the Rebellion; the Vicious Person and the Vice are distinguishable by an easie Logick, and I think the Tongue may stab a base Principle through and through the sides of a Presbyterian, and the patient Person be ne're the worse hurt. A sort of humoursome people are labouring with a Ic ne scay que of a singular Distemper and Ruptures of their own making; well, Corrosives are applied, and the Wound probed deep in order to a safer Cure: The Patient groans under the tart Remedy; in comes Sir Empirick, and calls the Physician abusive: A wonderful Quack-assurance and Judgment indeed! I'll warrant you Presbytery is not to be handled but with such a comprehensive Wafer-Charity as His: the Wafer is easily broken with the least dry touch, and then the whole Bond of Christian Love is cancelled and nullified. If he opinions that Presbytery cannot endure the Test and Touch of Controversie, he will bring it into the like Suspicion and Disgrace with the salivated Gentleman's tender Nose, that had got the Noli me tangere, and could not abide the Jest of a Naso suspendere adunco: who slightly made use of his Handkerchief, and wip'd off the angry Bow spreat of his Face into his Pocket, because it should be no longer the Subject of a [Page 19]pockify'd Bantre or Jeer. He that would be cured of the King's Evil, must have the Royal Touch; some perhaps had rather rest incurable. A Presbyterian can no otherwise pretend breach of Charity for a Reason why it should not be touched with the severest Truths, than a Corps kept under ground seemingly entire, which being once touched, soon falls to dust and ashes. How strange a Paradox, how monstrous a Notion does he frame of Charity, Love, and Concord, who would have the satyrical canvassing of Presbyterian Polity and the Invectives of Controversie to be Transgressions of Gospel-Vertue! I would ask him but this Question civilly: Does he think Mr. Observator's Head might not be broken without breach of Charity? the one stand in need of a plaister, and the other not need the least salvo? With Charity I hold the Affirmative: and I am sure there is less blood drawn from lashing their Principles and Opinions. What if I mean no Body or no individual, particularly? There are no broken pates among Universals: and he knows no Body breaks his windows at Foot-ball.
Could my Pen write as deep a style and more legible Characters of Perjury, Disloyalty, and Rebellion, than the Whip does, on the Backs of such respective Malefactors at a Carts Arse; I should not think my self the worse Christian for an Observator's exclaiming, inhumane, uncharitable, abusive Tory: Page 6. I have nothing to say but Sir William Coventry for the Trimmers; but to call Church-men highflown names is Billingsgate all over. I might have advertised them of a notable Petition of the moderate Divines drawn up by a comical Witling last Session of Parliament — That the 30th of January and 29th of May be discarded out of Partridge's Almanack, as being great Eye-sores to the Godly Party; but they are resolved for anotherguise Debate. Could the dint of Pen cry Slash, like the Whip, at every period: Law and Justice would authorize and justifie the Severities of the one with as much tender reason as the Slashes of the other, and no Law rightly interpreted, is repugnant to that of Humanity: so that the whole charge and burden of Nonsense and abusive Language thrown at me, I am afraid, for all the Verbosity and bluff Moderation of an Observator, will recoil upon him that first discharged the reviling Mouth-Granado.
Perhaps it was a cruel Wish to have the Reformer's Book burned: I can give him an old Rule for this Animosity; Igne pereat qui fumum vendidit: and pity it should be obsolete as long as such Authors as he kindle those Flames in their own Works, which shall consume them; the silly Phaenix will be burning her own Nest. For any thing I know his Friend Baldwin anticipated my Wish, to make his Book sailable. Palace-Yard, the Bookseller knows, makes a thing Sell incomparably. I confess my Expressions were sometimes troubled and storming, sometimes serene, calm and moderate. Here my Words fall like Hail, there like softer Snow; and with Mr. Observator's leave and a shallow-brain'd Sciolist's Favour, I rather judge it a piece of Art than a Fault or abusive Language, to vary the Idea or Character of my Speech: now to smooth a Period, then to thunder, according to the quality of the Subject, and my satyrick Design on notorious Scandals: Scandals and Reproaches of two great, good, and just Kings! Their Fame is traduced: of our Church! Her Peace is disquieted, and our Jerusalem rabbled by Sectaries into an Uproar of Dissention. How liberal was Propertius in bestowing his artful Curses on the Baiae that kill'd Augustus's Nephew! And where is the Abuse or Imprudence in taunting those with impassionated Satyr who kill'd Caesar himself? Those, whose Principles either oblige them to apologize for the heinous Fact, or to write it down to eternal Shades of Oblivion: Those, who could frame a Panegyrick for Busyris, a Vindication for Nero; with varnished Tenents, pleasing Delirium's, Shifts and Disguises, put such a face on the Matter, as to accuse Innocence, without guilt, of Calumny and Cruelty, Detraction and Inhumanity: Those lastly, who would put all England into a doubt, not only to raise Vulgar Mens wonder, but to win a popular Belief, that what they called Justice was better executed on their Sovereign, than it had been if omitted. Here I shall take liberty for one Digression on our Reformling pag. 28. Neither St—ns, J. G. G. nor John A-styles, are over-passionately concerned for King C.'s Death. Not over passionately; that is, in our Idiom, not passionately enough. They are Democritus's to day. King Charles the Second's Restauration, suppose we, is to morrow; then they are Heraclitus's. This is like the Saints Gibbrish of Grantham. Page 27. Excess of Joy and [Page 21]Sorrow are equally dangerous: neither would I have Men revel till their Faces are all on Illuminations on this, nor weep into Funeral Marble on that occasion. Passions are to be suppressed when they rise against reason: But the Moralist is not for rooting them out, but moderating them; we must not take away diversity of Tunes in Musick, but reduce 'em to good Order, and so make up a Harmony, till such as our Reformling, I do not say Pigs, play upon Church Organs. Page 17. Another Paradox is advanced, pag. 59. That those who had been for the Parliament were the great Instruments in bringing King Charles 1. home again. It may be so: He that hath not so wise and worldling a Foresight as to save his own Bacon, is the greater Hog of the two. The truth of it is not upon Record, and their subsequent Actions never verified the Report; for they were always nibling under-board at Kingly Power afterwards, and mouthing under the Rose at Despotick Prerogative and Penal Laws. His Challenge to disprove what he says of King Charles 2, pag. 13, 14. of his Observations, is huffing brave: It is more Honour to refuse than accept such Provocations; but I durst dispute it upon a Pillory with him, and he that lost the Prize should pay the Excise of his Ears or the Poll of his Head. However, he reproaches him; while his Miscarriages as a Man ought to be obliterated in the Ashes of Oblivion, and rak'd up in the Embers of an ardent and mutual Affection for his Memory, as a good and peaceable and merciful King; for he might put all the Blood, he unlawfully spilt, in his Eye, and never see Mercy and Indemnity the worse for't. Now because Scripture bids him not Curse, nor I presume, revile, slander, traduce, the King in his Thought, he does it in Print, and saves the Letter of the Text: Because Majesty is sacred, it must be prophaned with a private Reign, A Novel intituled so. which those of his Cabinet never knew any thing of: where he is falsly Romanced into the Murder of the Earl of Essex, Incest, and I know not what Aspersions. Justly then hath Fancy given Satyr Teeth, and may they now bite like a Badger's till they meet: What bad Decoctions of Stile must he stomach with, who in his undigested Rifts would call Sarcasm, the very Purity and Nettetee of Rhetorick, abusive Language? Nevertheless, says the high and mighty Observator: The Author of The Reformer Rack'd has broken all bounds and rules of [Page 22]Humanity with Mankind; and perhaps never was there in a Pamphlet so much Nonsense and so much of abusive Language as in this: But what can be expected from a Man, who in his second Page looks upon Calvinism as an Heresie as damnable as Socinianism, Arrianism, and Anabaptism? Such a Champion of our Church deserveth, I am sure, to be taken notice of some other way than by an Observator; especially if it has stolen out with no License from Authority, as I may reasonably presume it has.
Here the Erroneous and Reviling Philistine is upon me, but the least peble of an Argument drawn from clear Reason; Truth as naked and unarmed as David may humble or sink into the Goliah's Forehead and convince him, if he were more brazen'd than he is. How Magisterially does he pronounce me in a State of War with Mankind? Let him be assured I am none of Hobbs's Creatures: though I think Selfpreservation is almost arrived at his pitch and state of it; since I see most Men now a-days possessed with a specious pretended necessity of Defence, where no Offence is half so much given as unfairly taken: and some are affrighted with Fantasms, Fears, and Jealousies of their own Wind-mill or Quixotian Fancies, standing upon their own Guards never so unjustly. It would have made his Position good upon me to have proved every Swordsman that carries Toledo dangling at his side was in such a Duelling Frolick, who never drew it in Anger or unsheathed for Inhumanity. The Pen was never yet reckoned a Weapon of War, but by the strained Metaphor of a Paper-fight, or Writing- Combate. Exit.
Enter Reformling pag. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. — The Reformer Rack'd was an unmerciful Title: yes, if I had misconstrued his Principles, or misrepresented his Vagaries; made him confess or depose Things upon that Titular Rack different from his Intentions or Perswasion, though he brings himself off, pag. 26. with the Equivocation of a Not Guilty King Charles 1. Racking is a hard Word: Suppose I had entituled my Pamphlet, The Reformer Booted and Thummakin'd: But the gude Covenant would na allow that misleard Lownery, na, na, Billy. It must be a strong Imagination that this Idea can extort a Sob or a Sigh from: A stout Malefactor may tremble at the Sight or Thought of the Three-legged Tree; but I never heard of any one that was choak'd with [Page 23]the Fancy. As for Reformation, I like nothing so ill in it indeed, as the NAME, and the Reformers. We know our Upstart Reformling is as singular and prepossessed as he that would eat no Fish but what was taken out of the Lake of Geneva; that was the only relishing Fish for the Presbyterian Maw. I do not say Omnia bene: Queen Elizabeth might have reason to reform many Things in the Church, and had the sole Supreme Authority to do it, howsoever she might be advised. Will he grant this? Apud omnes Gentes, quaevis administratio solennis erat sacerdotem, authoritas tamen summa sanciendae, reformandae, vindicandae religionis, semper erat penes Magistratum. Reges Israelitici & Christiani idem jus sibi vendicarunt, Davenant: Deter. quaest. 19. Exod. 31.18. And because he falsly taxes me with Scripture-Ignorance, Page 60. I shall humour him with another Text, Exod. c. 34.32, 34. Such as J. G. G. are not to be their own Carvers in a Reformation. But every Cot-Queen, that is scarce fit to make Kitchin-stuff, will have a finger in the Pye, and then it is not for my Tooth. Does he remember how long his Predecessors sat towards a new Religion, and in the interim left none at all. We had had a hopeful World on't, if the King of Arragon had been to assist God in the making of it; and yet the blasphemous Architect thought he could have contrived it much better. The Giants built themselves a very high Fall: and since our Reformling dislikes Fables, he may love the Moral if he will. The Self-interest and Fat-livings of our Clergy, as he maligns them, retards a Reformation. Page 11. O Interest, Interest! I can cry out against Interest as loud as he with his O's! and tell him that some Worthy Personages have gone through Traytor's Gate towards Heaven by the barbarous Interest of his Party. He may keep the Opinion of a Perfection in this Life to his Puritan-self: Page 10. an Age is not enough for this Accomplishment; but when seven years are run out, the Fanaticks may begin again and finish an Apprenticeship as long as Life, yet come short of that freedom and perfection they seek. Our Clergy would be still improving the Reformation: and it is not Interest so much as Schism that hinders, which has been so often baffled for all his new Challenge, that it gives ground and runs back to an Accommodation. Some have reformed out of Interest, and to be ingenuous, whether Interest and a Pique did not set [Page 24] Luther's Reformation on foot, let Thuanus's History of it be the Umpire. Let Erasmus jest: Luther might have cracked a Creeper or beat a reforming Parley upon the Priests Belly with the Pope; but as far as I can impartially judge, the loss of a little Interest more than a religious Dislike, mov'd him to quarrel with Indulgences; as the Man that missed of being the King's Treasurer, began to rail at his Coin and the Revenues of the Crown. I submit this Conjecture to the candid Reader of that Relation in the Council of Trent. The Occasion was the Necessity of Pope Leo the Tenth, who by his Profusion had so exhausted the Treasure of the Church, that he was constrained to have recourse to the publishing of Indulgences, to raise Moneys: some of which he had destined to his own Treasury, and other part to his Allies; and particularly to his Sister, he gave all the Money that should be raised in Saxony; and she, that she might make the best profit of the Donation, commits it to one Aremboldas, a Bishop, to appoint Treasurers for these Indulgences. Now the Custom was, that whensoever these Indulgences were sent into Saxony, they were to be divulged by the Fryars Eremites, (of which Order Luther then was.) But Aremboldus's Agents thinking with themselves, that the Fryars Eremites were not so well acquainted with the Trade, that if the Business should be lest to them, they should either be able to give so good an account of their Negotiation, Annotations upon Dr. Brown his Religio Medici. or get so much themselves by it as they might do in case the Business were committed to another Order; they therefore recommend it to (and the Business is undertaken by) the Dominican Fryars, who performed it so ill, that the Scandal arising both from thence, and from the ill Lives of those that set them on work, stirred up Luther to write against the Abuses of these Indulgences; which was all he did at first; but then not long after being provoked by some Sermons and small Discourses that had been published against what he had written, he rip; up the Business from the Beginning, and publishes XCV Theses against it at Wittenberg. Against these Tekel a Dominican writes; then Luther adds an Explication to his. Eckins and Pierius, Dominicans, thereupon take up the Controversie against him: and now Luther begins to be hot; and because his Adversaries [Page 25]could not found the Matter of Indulgences upon other Foundations than the Pope's Power and Infallibility, that begets a Disputation betwixt them concerning the Pope's Power, which Luther insists upon as inferiour to that of a General Council; and so by degrees he came on to oppose the Popish Doctrine of Remission of Sins, Penances, and Purgatory; and by reason of Cardinal Cajetan's imprudent management of the Conference he had with him, it came to pass that he rejected the whole Body of Popish Doctrine. So that by this we may see what was the accidental Occasion wherein, the slender mean, which in my sense smells something of Interest, whereby; and the abject condition of the Person by whom, the Work of Reformation of Religion was set on foot. But the Reformation's a good Reformation, and we have it in the comparative degree. Any Woman will say her own Eggs are the best in the Market.
Now our Reformling would be at the Altar, Pag. 49, 50, &c. to level or take it away for our superstitious Idolatry of bowing to it: and he might as well go about to pull the Sun out of the Heavens because we bow to the East. Ad and Versus, in his Grammar, are all one; but when he proves an external Act of Worship of Jesus Christ performed towards the Altar to be Superstition, I will give his Worship my Cap, make him a leg, and turn to what point of the Compasses his Indifferency pleases. Yet our Religion shall stand unmoveable, no more shaken by the breath of Factious Spirits, than the Rays of the Sun are diverted by the Wind; blow it from Rome or Amsterdam.
What I spoke of in the soure Grape, other Authors, In the Reformer Rack'd. I may say, have done in stale Vinegar, without the Imputation of abusive Language, that ever I heard or read of. The Royal Charter granted unto Kings, pag. 125. characterizes the Conception, and Birth, and Education of John Calvin's Infant Schism with the most salt and tartest Excursions. Never was there such a Monster as this ruling, and thus constituted Presbytery; the Father of it Rebellion, the Mother Insurrection. Witness the Fall of the Prince and Bishop of Geneva to the puny Historian, our Observator: the Midwife, Sacrilege; the Nurse, Covetousness, Pride and Ambition; the Milk, Schism; the Coats, Armour; the Rattle, Drums; a [Page 26]bloody Sword, the Coral; Money, (and Janus-fac'd too perhaps) the Babies it delights to play withal: It grows up to be a Stripling, and goes to school to a Council of War; its Lesson is on a Trumpet; its Fescue, a Pistol; its going out of school in rank and file; its Play-days the days of Battel; and Black-Munday the day of Judgment: It comes of age, and is married with a solemn League and Covenant; it begets Children like it self, whose blessing upon them is the power of the sword, and whose imposition of hands are broken pates; the Monster cries down this truly ancient Catholick and Apostolick Power which the Bishops exercised, and then tacks it up again, and use it themselves in a higher nature than ever any Bishops or Apostles themselves did or durst have done, even to the Excommunication and Deposement of their Kings, to the delivering of them up to Satan and to Heads-men, to whom the Apostles taught submission (how faulty soever they were) and if not obedience, yet submission still to every one of their Ordinances, if not for their own sakes, yet for the Lord's sake and for Conscience-sake: these men cry down the same Authority as Popish, whilst they exalt themselves above all that are called Gods in a higher manner than ever any Pope of Rome ever yet did. The Observator might observe and remember a certain Pope treated an Emperour as uncivilly as a Querry, in making him hold his Stirrop till he mounted his Horse, Frederick I. waited on Pope Adrian 's Stirrop. walk a foot while he rode: But the Presbyterians dismount our Kings, hold our Kings in chains, and our Nobles in fetters of Iron, for themselves to ascend their Thrones. They take from Caesar the things which are Caesars; not only the Tribute, but Crown and Life too. Yet our Government was never long a Bucephalus, to be ridden by such new Masters as they: He always knew his Alexander from their uneasie Sitting, and they were once fairly thrown out of the Saddle. As for their old Arts and new Practices, we know they usually play at Tennis with our Church; either strike it down like a Ball for themselves to rebound the higher by, or throw it up, as the Beast does its prey, only to catch it coming down again in his mouth, devour, and sport it to ruin; so some Parasites may be assured by experience that the most feasible way to bring a haughty King down, is to make him yet a haughtier Monarch, pride him, stick a feather in his Cap to take off his CROWN, and so honourably kick him up stairs; Fidlers [Page 27]and Drawers are only flung down 'em. The ingeniousest and most infallible Maxim, Politick or Religious, that has been stated, since Philosophy, Certainty, and Demonstration came to perfection, was King James's, in his Basil. Dor. Sublato Episcopo tollitur Rex. And the same Princely Wisdom that said Monarchy and Presbytery agreed like God and the Devil, might have called Episcopacy, Michael in the Battel. That our Bishops are Jure divino, Page 34. I am convinced from another Gospel than [...], from the Fathers, Councils, Sanderson's Episcopacy, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Morice's Vindication of Diocesan Episcopacy against Baxter's Church-History, and the Learned Lowth's laborious Subject of Church Power, &c. He must confute them, or he proves nothing. The World's come to this Gue, you must either trip up another's heels, or he's your Master. This is the Juggle of Parity, they would have no Body above them; but we guess who they would have under.
'Tis storied, that after " Luther had made a Combustion in Germany about Religion, he was sent to by the Pope, to be taken off, and offer'd any preferment in the Church, that he would make choice of: Luther answered, if he had offered half as much at first, he would have accepted it; but now he had gone so far, he could not come back: in truth he had made himself a greater Thing than they could make him; the German Princes courted him; he was become the Author of a Sect ever after to be called Lutherans. So have our Preachers done that are against the Bishops; they have made themselves greater with the People, than they can be made the other way, and golden Mountains cannot bring them off now. The Reformling is angry that I do not prove every thing out of Scripture, pag. 60. What will become of the Parliament and Westminster-Hall then, if we cannot find them in the Bible? What shall I do for Words to fit this Man, unless I took the length of his Ear, or the measure of his Mouth, as the Fellow said that was to make a Speech for my Lord Mayor?
Farther yet the forecited Loyal Author, pag. 136, 137. may as well exemplifie and justifie my Language as obviate an Objection of an Elder-date, which might now be urged. To recite him then: Oh but the Presbyterians had no hand in [Page 28]it, they prayed, and preached, and wrote against it, fasted and prayed for a diversion of all such Intentions: but I pray who took the Scepter out of his hand, in taking away the Militia, of which it was an Emblem, that should have defended him; was it not the Presbyterian? Who cast down his Throne by taking away his negative Voice; was it not the Presbyterian? Who took off his Crown, the fountain of Honour, from off his Head, by denying Those Honour on whom he had conferr'd it without them; was it not the Presbyterian? Who took away his Supremacy signify'd by the sacred Unction wherewith he was anointed, in not allowing him the liberty of his own Conscience in the point of Episcopacy and Church Government; was it not the Presbyterian? Who would not treat a minute with their King before they had made him acknowledge himself guilty (as they say) of all the blood that had been spilt throughout his Dominions; was it not the Presbyterian? who (notwithstanding all the Concessions on his part that could be granted, even to the very grating his Princely Conscience when he bid them ask flesh from off his bones, and he would not deny it them, if it might have been a benefit unto his people, prayed that he might keep his Conscience whole, it was the Queen-Regent of all good mens Actions, and he hoped there were none would force his Queen before him in his House, as Ahasuer us said to Haman) voted not satisfactory so long, untill the Independant Army came from Edenburgh, and surpriz'd and murder'd him; was it not the Presbyterians? He that said the Presbyterians held him down by the Hair, while the Independants cut off his Head, said true enough; they murder'd him as a King, before ever they murder'd him as a Man; for what may the Independant say to the Presbyter? If you'll take off his Authority, we'll take off his Head: if you'll make him no King, we'll make him no Body: if you'll make him a man of Blood, we'll use him accordingly: therefore at your doors, O Presbyterian Hypocrites! do I lay his innocent Blood: it is but like the rest of your Actions committed by your Ancestors to former Princes all along. These primed the pan, and those gave fire in the very face of Majesty; as some are Designers, and others put in Execution.
'Tis true, we are miserably divided in point of Politicks and in point of Religion; and I wi [...]h the Church and State had not occasion to use St. Augustine's Litany — Libera [Page 29]me à me: and that her true Sons had no need to pray unto Almighty God that he would save his Church out of the hands of her Church men, for she now almost lies upon the ground like the Tree that complained, that she was rent in sunder by Wedges made out of her own Body. But for Divisions of the first magnitude, we are beholden to the Presbyterians; and for a lying Observator to level my Desires or Actions at widening the Gap, when I wish to be a Phineas to stand in't, and compose or repair it with my own ruins, is as irreconcileable a Contradiction, as that I should breath hot and cold at once, or carry the very entire Elements of Fire and Water together in my mouth.
Brotherly Love and Charity are sacred Commands of the Gospel, and some Libertines practise them, like the Oaths in the Play, as the best broken Commodities in the Nation: But that we break them in being Zealous for those little Trifles, as he intimates our Church-Ceremonies or the Authority of our Church are, I doubt not but 'twould puzzle a solider Head than an Observator's to prove. Ceremonies may be Trifles, Play things, Scotch Buchanan nicknamed them so. Theatrical Fopperies, by the way of Observatoring, and he may villifie our Church to a sanctified sort of Gawdy Toyshop too, if his Observatorship please: and from what himself meanly advances, I cannot but take a hint of Ridicule on the Dissenters for parting with Christian Union at as ignorant, frivolous, and cheap a rate as a Fondling that parts with his whole Estate for an Apple in the Fairing-season, and which a Hobby horse trap'd with glittering Tinsel from a Pedlars shop, or a Rattle, may purchase at any time of his unthinking Infancy.
Our Church stands like the everywhere wounded Man in the Almanack, pointed and push'd at by more Diabolical and Schismatical Designs, than there are Celestial Signs in the Heavens: Aries, Scorpio, Taurus, and Leo, are her Enemies, and all confederate to ravage her: The Planets have their Goodness and Malignancy, and from Mercury's Conjunction with insulting Mars and Opposition to us, our Church expects no favourable Aspect or pacifick Influence.
If I have done the Presbyterians a Discourtesie, that's all; and I have done it without breach of Charity: and let the Observator know, though our Opinions differ, it is not necessary that our Affections should disagree. As the best [Page 30]of modern Epistolar Orators hath observed, Balsack 's Letters. The Head and the Heart have their several Motions and Actions distinct: and moral Vertue can reconcile and unite what the Intellectual might separate. With Charity I say it to them; Travellers may fall out by the way, and yet set their Horses up together, and both meet at the same Inn at their Journey's end. The Pilgrim must meet with Distractions in his Progress: [...]unnyan. I do not mean the Tinker. Notwithstanding there are two principal Things which might advance our Peace and Unanimity so far, that we might draw nearer every day, to the great Centre of the One Religion; and little else would hinder but that we might maintain Christian Commerce and Traffick in things lawful. FIRST, That the Dissenters would leave Preaching up Novelty, and Sedition: not maintain our Saviour's Religion by Insurrection and Rebellion; for this is to maintain it by means condemned by the same Religion they would maintain. And SECONDLY, That they would unlearn their Principle of Fighting for the Liberty and Property of the Subject: The Religious Rebellion's Stalking-Horse, under whose Belly the King is wounded: since thereby the Subjects do alter the very property of their Goods and Estates; forfeit, their Great All, their Lives too, which they would seem to fight for or preserve.
Once more let me tell this Pseudo-Moderator, that much of that Sarcastick Wit which he miscalls abusive Language, has been written in Tears and Pity for our Divisions in point of Religion. As Howel neatly complains and languishes in England's Tears, pag. 10, 11. But the principal thing that I hear that Reverend Lady the Church (that Queen of Souls and Key of Heaven) make her moan of, is, that that seemless Garment of Unity and Love, which our Saviour left her for a Legacy, should be torn and rent into so many Scissures and Sects by those that would make that Coat which she wore in her infancy, to serve her in her riper years: I hear her cry out at the monstrous exorbitant Liberty that almost every capricious Mechanick takes to himself to shape and form what Religion he lists: for the World is come now to that pass, that the Taylor and Shooe-maker may cut out what Religion they please; the Vintner and Tapster may baoach what [Page 31]Religion they please; the Druggist and Apothecary may mingle her as they please; the Haberdasher may put her upon what Block he pleases; the Armourer and Cutler may furbish her as they please; the Dyer may put what Colour, the Painter may put what Face upon her he pleases; the Weaver may cast her upon what Loom he please; the Boat-swain and Mariner may bring her to what Dock they please; the Gardiner may lop her as he please; the Blacksmith may forge what Religion he please, and so every Artizan, according to his Profession and Fancy, may form her as he please. Methinks I hear that venerable Matron complain further, how her Pulpits in some places are become Beacons; how in lieu of Lights, her Churches up and down are full of Firebands; Page 27. how every Caprice of the Brain is termed Tenderness of Conscience, which well examined, is nothing but some frantick Fancy, or Frenzy rather of some shallow-brain'd Sciolist: and whereas others have been used to run mad for excess of Knowledge, some of my Children grow mad now-a-days out of too much ignorance.
The Mitre never wore the Cleft with more reason of Division than for the Presbyterian Blows it has received; and i [...]'s wonderful that the Crown is not cloven too: we are divided in point of Politicks. Some Men are like the mad Fidler, I remember, that would run Divisions with a clever Bow by himself; but he could never endure to play in Consort: these Humourists make bad Musick and harsh Discords in Church and State. Other Minions, when they have got on to the Battlements of our Church, are not contented on that Pinnacle, but they must stilt their heights of Ambition over Civil Policy too. These are the Coryphaeus's, the Brutus and Gassius that march in the Van of Confusion: the Generalissimo's of Squeak and Disorder; and it is merciful enough to thunder upon such singular Parasites and Schismaticks, whose evil Paradoxes it were no Cruelty to answer with the Bolt. The keenest Satyr has a charitable point enough for such Eye-sores of publick Weal. I would fain ask the Observator, whether he likes an Easie Majesty in this dissolute chowsing Age, where KINGS are slyly gulled and made their Favourites Cullies? whom I can compare to nothing but Meteors appearing glorious for a time, till by their [Page 32]yielding more and more to Court-air-Candidates, they fall and vanish to unnatural Earth. Oh the precarious Grandeur of Princes, which is little more than a Tenure of a Grandee's Courtesie! What signifies it then for Kings, like the Sun in the Firmament of Glory, to look biggest with gullifying Sciophantry, when they are going down, and must never hope to rise again with Crowns on their Heads but in another World? If every Tub were to stand upon its own bottom, I am confident there would be work for the Cooper: I see nothing so absolute, that does not stand in need of mending, and nothing mended, but like botch'd Tinker's Work, three holes are made for't. The Observator and I agree in one Opinion, that the Reconciliation of the Williamites and Jacobites is very improbable: and I fancy it is impossible too for our WEEKLY SOLOMON to moderate their Contentions successfully with all his Statism, and give the Child to the right Owner. The Sword must decide that Quarrel. Yet I am apt to believe that his boasted Humanity would not, like the unnatural WOMAN, have it divided: though the indifferent Man's moderation perhaps might be willing to go halves or part stakes with the Winner, play what Game of Religion you please. Will he accept this Motto for himself — Regis ad Exemplum componitur Observator? Cannot he trim as those at the Helm steer? He may bluster and mediate with a Pennyworth of Weekly Scribble for a PEACE, and Heaven could not send a Welcomer present on Earth: but to call him a STATESMAN for this, were to Knight a Mandrake, to view him through a magnifying Perspective, and by that gross Hyperbole to give the Reputation of an Engineer to a Maker of Mouse-traps. He may see all his Beauties and Perfections in a true Reflection of Queen Mab's Register's Looking-Glass; and read his own in CLIEVELAND's Character of a Diurnal-Maker. A Statesman! by the same reason that Sir Roger L'estrange is no Statesman, no Observator superlative, none of the best Translator's of the letter'd World. A Statesman! yes, as much as Merry Andrew last Bartholomew-Fair but one, would needs pretend to be an Admiral, and put to Sea with a Ship called the TOWER, take the Monument for the Main-mast, and make such a DESCENT, that Neptune should tremble and drop his [Page 33]Trident, and the Tyrant of France flag him. Have a care of a Mercurius Britannicus Vapulans: the Punchanello was soundly whip'd for his Jest. A Statesman! a Plagiary rather, that struts in borrowed Plumes, and makes a great Figure and Shew of the Frippery and Brocage of Gazettes and Foreign Prints: Mercury was always Thieving and Filching. Let him be put in the Gazette for the amusing Intelligencer, and the deluded Country's Bubble: the Hawkers and Coffee-House Wholesail Merchant for Politicks: and that may make him talk so much of my Nonsense in the Lump, for he can no more speak it, I suppose, than some sell, by Retail. This general Nonsense must be much of the same Line and Lineament with accumulative Treason: Twins of the same Nonsensical Brain perhaps. Accumulative Treason is a huddle of Nonsense; Nonsense is Nonsense, as a Block's a Block all the World over: and so both have the same complex face and feature, wrought up like a Mass of Paste or Puff before it has received its Christmas-form, or dough-bak'd a Pye with half an Observator under it. Accumulative Treason, I hope, is to be no Precedent for taking a man's life away: He may remember, THAT for THIS was no Nonsense, for it had a capital meaning in it; and a notable Construction could behead a Peer for a Monosyllable. Nonsense indeed, it may be, is as inconsistent with an Author's credit, as a Nobleman's Head was thought with his Shoulders, without any fairer Law or farther Examination. Yea, but he particularizes: In my second Page I look upon Calvinism as an Heresie as damnable as Socinianism, Arrianism, and Anabaptism, and so our Reformling has it pag. 65. and this is peccant Nonsense with a vengeance. Can the Reader believe the busie Observator ever read this Pamphlet by his misquotation of the second page for the eleventh? But a false Report, a false step in the Threshold, is an easie Mistake in a Hearsay and Say-so Writer; and I esteem him little else than a Hackney or Huckster of other Mens Notions: Political Inventions are cheap indeed that are cry'd off at Two Bunches a penny Ho. I appeal to any Man of Letters, or so much Logick as he has been born with; Whether [Page 34]there be Nonsense, or even Absurdity, in these Words: If an Enemy is suffered to come in upon us, he may easily wrestle us into his mercy, and the melancholly Stander-by may see us thrown at their will and pleasure into Socinianism, Arrianism, Anabaptism, Calvinism, Commonwealthism, or any other Heretical-ism, to the utter abolition of our Communion, or downfall, ruin, and rubbish of the Fundamentals as well as Ceremonies of our Religion and Devotion. Reformer Rack'd, J. G. G's Vindication. pag. 11. Now let Them both open their Eyes, and see their own blind Misconstruction: Any other Heretical-ism, has no manner of relation to any of the foregoing Terms, much less particularly to CALVINISM: the Expression is aptly and clearly distinguished from them, inasmuch as other-isms points at Nestorianism, Pelagianism, or such like other Heretical isms; if the Reformling pleases, Arminianism: and they do not know but I meant peculiarly the late Masonism. The late Millenarian in Bucking hamshire. Moreover, if it had a connexed relation to any of the forementioned HERESIES or Words; how comes it to be Nonsense? For if in any just Sense, CALVINISM may be called Heretical, I hope it is not Nonsense to call it so: now that Heresie hath a large and a stricter Sense is plain; it may signifie an Erroneous Sect, according to the Etymon of Election or Division, from [...] or [...], whether Theme they please: so the Philosophers also laudably used it to signifie a Dogma or an Opinion, good or ill: strictly taken, it signifies in the Schools, an Opinion contrary to sound and fundamental Principles of Religion. Hence the Theologue's Axioms, Non quilibet Error facit Haereticum: Non omnis Schismaticus est Hareticus. Wolleb. Th. Christ. pag. 137. Schismaticus est qui salvo fidei fundamento à ritu aliquo Ecclesiae petulanter & ambitionis studio discedit: But he goes on; aut enim erratur (meaning ab Haeretico) in fundamento; ut fit ab Arrianis & Marcionitis, quorum illi Deitatem, hi vero humanitatem Christi negant: aut circa fundamentum; qualiter Errant Pontificii docentes transubstantiationem, quâ naturae humanae Christi veritas tollitur: aut praeter fundamentum, quales Errores à Paulo faeno, ligno, &c. assimilantur, 1 Cor. 3.12. And, in fine, that CALVINISM is Heretical in a larger Acceptation, and in the stricter [Page 35]sense of Heresie, PRAETER FUNDAMENTUM, I assert. Through the Labyrinths of Logick is not the easiest way to Heaven, nor overmuch Curiosity the readiest course to search out Truth by: Nevertheless, if they will have Recourse to their Ante-Predicaments, and consider that it is only, Aristotle's Organon. Analogum per se positum quod praesumitur stare pro famosiore analogato; and but make out Their Calumny of Nonsense upon my Assertion, by proving, à Consilio, that there cannot be assigned any reason of an analogical Dependance or Similitude between CALVINISM and ARRIANISM, &c. Cur conveniant in nomine Haereseos, I will recant my Error as willingly as he that makes as common a Trade of Begging Pardons as of Writing pieces of Scandal. What Impertinence is it for Them to say, I look upon CALVINISM as an Heresie as damnable as Socinianism, Arrianism, and Anabaptism; when the Distinction and Degrees of their Wickedness is manifested in the Cadence of the Sentence: where I allot the Destruction of the Fundamentals of our Religion to Arrianism, Socinianism, or Anabaptism; and the Abolition or Abrogation of our Lawful Ceremonies, only to Calvinism or Commonwealthism? So the Physician may prescribe to his Patient against Pease-Pottage, Livers, Lights, Hasty-Pudding, Wine, Cherries; they are bad for him in a Fever, and unwholsome Food in a sanebrisk Constitution: yet he would not have all these dislik'd with an equal Disgust. But to give Mr. Observator a more sensible Example of his Misunderstanding: if I mention ATWOOD, Bellwood, Wellwood, Elwood, or any other ill Wood; yet perhaps I should never find such a special Stick as he, nor mean to bring the rest into equal Disgrace of Prodigality and Profuseness of Pen, Tongue, or Estate with Him.
Their great Concern for Unity in Religion, they may imagine will justifie them in branding me with Nonsense and abusive Language: This is pretty Sophistry with a witness; as Quiblers, when strain'd, and have little more to say, make use of a true Proposition to infer and quirk in an Erroneous Conclusion: Fallacies are difficultly detected, but easily refuted and solved after a Discovery. [Page 36] Pettifoggers will still be citing Law as quick and voluble as Mercury, to authorize their Injustice, Barretry, and Vexations. The Observator's Religion, I surmise, is reformed according to the fundamental Articles of Scold, of Railery. How should we expect an Harmonicon in Discords; a Peace or Reconciliation with those Zealots who are so madded with Spirit, and I know not what of Bigotry of Persuasion, that they are fitter to pick Straws in Bedlam, than to Preach or Lecture an Union about the Nation? One is for shoving the heavy ars'd Christian to Heaven, or making high-heel'd shooes for the Dwarf in Christ. Another wildly harangues, that if we have not better Success with our Arms against Turkish Lewis, the ensuing Campaign, he will conclude that God is turn'd Jacobite: B [...]verley. Burgess. But he prayed that he would rather stand Neuter, and have no more to do in our Camps than the Kings of Sweden and Denmark. A third found King William out in the Revelations, but not till some time after the Prince of Orange landed at Torbay: while the poor Revelationer mistook the Fleet-prison for God's Cabinet. This is their Triumvirate of Frenzy; and the Presbyterians Gullery.
The Reformling, pag. 36.69. repeats — Were it better to wrap up our Gospel-Talents in an idle Napkin of Silence and Oblivion, than to preach and Evangelize the Jews out of the pale of the Christian Church? Reform. Rack'd, p. 19. for a piece of uncharitable Monstrosity. Was the Messias crucified, the Lord of Eternal Life put to Death? And do not the Jews disbelieve the whole History? Must they not be told they are no Christians then? That they are of the wrong side of the Hedge or Pale? Yet if the Unbelievers will come over, we are willing to lend them a hand, and think it no Trespass. That they would come in and welcome, is the meaning of my Evangelizing them out. But he handles the Napkin as if he had got the Glander with a Horse-pox to him, and makes no better use of it, than the Widow in Don Quevedo, throwing Snot about the Mourning-Room. He might as well have busied himself about computing how many Bushels of Flegm would go to manuring an Acre of Land, as in [Page 37] sniveling at me and misrepresenting an idle Napkin of Oblivion and Silence: might as well have said they had washed their hands cleaner than Pilot in a Laver of Repentance, and that the Jews and Moorish Infidels, whose Religion lies not in their Skins I confess, were now as fair Christians as any in Europe.
To call Mr. Observator a Bankrupt of Reason as well as Estate, would be but Fleet-Language; and he may keep his Tongue a prisoner to his Heart there too, his Pen to his Ink-Bottle, his politick Thoughts to his Head; for he's indebted more to the News-monger for acceptance and perusal of Mercurius Britannicus, than ever he will be able to repay with Wit or Policy. But if Observatoring is his Livelihood, I shall give him free leave to have a fling at me when he pleases; no, to make me his Jack-a-lent, as many Throws as he will, if he can make a penny on't. And if I suffer a Shrove-Tuesdays persecution to get him a Mess of Cock-broth; will not he dye me with Red for a Martyr of my own Folly, in his Diary?
How Authoritatively he Lords it over the High-Churchmen with Bluster, Rancour, and Bile! He can find nothing but Priest-Craft among them, can hear nothing from the Pulpit on the Day of King Charles 's Martyrdom, but Invectives, railing Accusations, and abusive Language, instead of Christian Exhortations to Repentance, Union, and Charity: and his appealing to all the Sermons that have been published on that Subject, is notorious; just such another Appeal to prove HIMSELF mendacious, as SOME BODY brought to prove Himself a Cuckold. He romances yet a little farther, and calls me a Champion of our Church: Christendom had but seven: I thank him for the honour of an Eighth Champion, and return him a SAPIENTUM OCTAVUS for that.
How Magisterial he is with his pennyworth of Licensed Scribble, Page 19. and the Reformling Pedant with his Lash of Punishment, in dealing with me not by Argument but Remonstrance, not by their vaunted Moderation, but Menace of having me made an Example, and our Church purged of me too? And had they the power of Executing the arbitrary By-Laws of their Sic volo's, Cross and [Page 38]Pile whether they would make any Bones of Difference, whether I, or the Cause I satyrically wrote for and still espouse with the same unblunted edge, should drop and perish. But the Observator's Mercury has not cured my itch of Writing: it tickles the more; and I shall never sollicit them to a Cessation of the innocent Arms of Pen, Ink, and Paper, let Them rally again as soon as they can accoutre. They cannot disturb my Reputation and Sedateness, so long as they cannot plunder or sequestre me of this Humour — Alte non temo & humili non Sdegno. The Cynick vied Conquests with the Great: I neither fear the High, nor disdain the Low. For I esteem it no Disgrace to be censured by those whom I would account it no Credit or Applause to be favoured by: Should an Observator commend my Travels, I should call my self in question, and task my Thoughts with a stricter Scrutiny, whether I had not sat all my Life in the Chimney-Corner, and never got farther out of the Smoak, than the homebred Girl that was got on to the top of a high Mountain, and cry'd, Whoo Father, Here's another World. A Man should never publish any thing, but only read his own Composures to his own Ears and make Wall-Lectures of them, if he were afraid of awaking Envy. When the time of Paper-Kiteing comes about, and highflown Observators make up most of the giddy Airy thing; I shall not truckle under any other Wing but Truth's, let him take me up like a Chicken or Gizzard, prey upon me Hagard-like, and whistle the Insolence of his false Triumph to the Publick. Nevertheless, one Courtesie I must beg of my Adversaries, when the Clumsy Mercury and the Reformling decypher my Intentions; not to tell a Tale of a Tub, not to make me intend what they please, not to adapt such foreign Idea's to my Words and Phrase, not to put such a vast difference between my Text and their Commentaries, and lastly, not stupidly or maliciously to wrest my Sense, and put me to the trouble of being my own Interpreter again; for I have only given Them a fair MARFORIO for their PASQUIN.