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forges. Had any one writt'n and divulg'd erroneous things and scandalous to honest life, misusing and forfeiting the esteem had of his reason among men, if after conviction this only censure were adjudg'd him, 5 that he should never henceforth write but what were first examin'd by an appointed officer, whose hand should be annext to passe his credit for him that now he might be safely read, it could not be apprehended lesse then a disgracefull punishment. Whence to include the 10 whole Nation, and those that never yet thus offended, under such a diffident and suspectfull prohibition, may plainly be understood what a disparagement it is. So much the more, when as dettors and delinquents may walk abroad without a keeper, but unoffensive books 15 must not stirre forth without a visible jaylor in thir title. Nor is it to the common people lesse then a reproach; for if we so jealous over them as that we dare not trust them with an English pamphlet, what doe we but censure them for a giddy, vitious, and ungrounded people, 20 in such a sick and weak estate of faith and discretion, as to be able to take nothing down but through the pipe of a licencer? That this is care or love of them, we cannot pretend, whenas in those Popish places where the Laity are most hated and despis'd the same strictnes 25 is us'd over them. Wisdom we cannot call it, because it stops but one breach of licence, nor that neither; whenas those corruptions which it seeks to prevent, break in faster at other dores which cannot be shut.

And in conclusion it reflects to the disrepute of our 30 Ministers also, of whose labours we should hope better, and of the proficiencie which thir flock reaps by them: then that after all this light of the Gospel which is, and is to be, and all this continuall preaching, they should

be still frequented with such an unprincipl'd, unedify'd, and laick rabble, as that the whiffe of every new pamphlet should stagger them out of thir catechism and Christian walking. This may have much reason 5 to discourage the Ministers when such a low conceit is had of all their exhortations and the benefiting of their hearers, as that they are not thought fit to be turn'd loose to three sheets of paper without a licencer; that all the Sermons, all the Lectures preacht, printed, vented 10 in such numbers and such volumes as have now wellnigh made all other books unsalable, should not be armor anough against one single enchiridion, without the castle St. Angelo of an Imprimatur.

And lest som should perswade ye, Lords and Com15 mons, that these arguments of lerned mens discouragement at this your order, are meer flourishes and not reall, I could recount what I have seen and heard in other Countries, where this kind of inquisition tyrannizes; when I have sat among their lerned men, for 20 that honor I had, and bin counted happy to be born in such a place of Philosophic freedom as they suppos'd England was, while themselvs did nothing but bemoan the servil condition into which lerning amongst them was brought; that this was it which had dampt the 25 glory of Italian wits, that nothing had bin there writt'n

now these many years but flattery and fustian. There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo grown old, a prisner to the Inquisition, for thinking in Astronomy otherwise then the Franciscan and Do30 minican licencers thought. And though I knew that England then was groaning loudest under the Prelaticall yoak, neverthelesse I tooke it as a pledge of future happines, that other Nations were so perswaded of her

liberty. Yet was it beyond my hope that those Worthies were then breathing in her air, who should be her leaders to such a deliverance as shall never be forgott'n by any revolution of time that this world hath to finish. 5 When that was once begun, it was as little in my fear, that what words of complaint I heard among lerned men of other parts utter'd against the Inquisition, the same I should hear by as lerned men at home utter'd in time of Parlament against an order of licencing; Io and that so generally, that when I disclos'd' my self a companion of their discontent, I might say, if without envy, that he whom an honest quaestorship had indear'd to the Sicilians, was not more by them importun'd against Verres then the favourable opinion which I had 15 among many who honour ye and are known and re

spected by ye, loaded me with entreaties and perswasions, that I would not despair to lay together that which just reason should bring into my mind toward the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon lerning. 20 That this is not therefore the disburdning of a particular fancie, but the common grievance of all those who had prepar'd their minds and studies above the vulgar pitch to advance truth in others and from others to entertain it, thus much may satisfie. And in their conceal what

25 name I shall for neither friend nor foe the generall murmur is; that if it come to inquisitioning again and licencing, and that we are so timorous of our selvs, and so suspicious of all men, as to fear each book, and the shaking of every leaf, before we know 30 what the contents are, if some who but of late were

little better then silenc't from preaching, shall come now to silence us from reading except what they please, it cannot be guest what is intended by som but a second

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tyranny over learning; and will soon put it out of controversie that Bishops and Presbyters are the same to us both name and thing. That those evills of Prelaty which before from five or six and twenty Sees were dis5 tributivly charg'd upon the whole people, will now light wholly upon learning, is not obscure to us: whenas now the Pastor of a small unlearned Parish on the sudden shall be exalted Archbishop over a large dioces of books, and yet not remove, but keep his other cure 10 too, a mysticall pluralist. He who but of late cry'd down the sole ordination of every novice Batchelor of Art, and deny'd sole jurisdiction over the simplest Parishioner, shall now at home in his privat chair assume both these over worthiest and excellentest books and ablest authors that write them. This is not, Yee Covenants and Protestations that we have made, this is not to put down Prelaty; this is but to chop an Episcopacy; this is but to translate the Palace Metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another; 20 this is but an old cannonicall slight of commuting our penance. To startle thus betimes at a meer unlicenc't pamphlet will after a while be afraid of every conventicle, and a while after will make a conventicle of every Christian meeting. But I am certain that a State 25 govern'd by the rules of justice and fortitude, or a Church built and founded upon the rock of faith and true knowledge, cannot be so pusillanimous. While things are yet not constituted in Religion, that freedom of writing should be restrain'd by a discipline imitated 30 from the Prelats and learnt by them from the Inquisition, to shut us up all again into the brest of a licencer, must needs give cause of doubt and discouragement to all learned and religious men. Who cannot but discern

the finenes of this politic drift, and who are the contrivers that while Bishops were to be baited down, then all Presses might be open; it was the people's birthright and priviledge in time of Parlament, it was the breaking 5 forth of light? But now the Bishops abrogated and voided out of the Church, as if our Reformation sought no more but to make room for others into their seats under another name, the Episcopall arts begin to, bud again, the cruse of truth must run no more oyle, liberty 10 of Printing must be enthrall'd again under a Prelaticall commission of twenty, the privilege of the people nullify'd, and which is wors, the freedom of learning must groan again and to her old fetters, all this the Parlament yet sitting. Although their own late arguments and 15 defences against the Prelats might remember them that this obstructing violence meets for the most part with an event utterly opposite to the end which it drives at : instead of suppressing sects and schisms, it raises them and invests them with a reputation. The punishing of 20 wits enhaunces their autority, saith the Vicount St. Albans, and a forbidd'n writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth that flies up in the faces of them who seeke to tread it out. This order therefore may prove a nursing mother to sects, but I shall easily shew how it will be a step25 dame to Truth: and first by disinabling us to the maintenance of what is known already:

Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise as well as our limbs and complexion. Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a 30 streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetuall progression, they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may be a heretick in the truth; and if he beleeve things only because his

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