with tares, and none to refift the enemy, but fuch as let him in at the postern; a rare fuperintendent at Rome, and a cipher at home. Hypocrites! the gospel faithfully preached to the poor, the defolate parifhes vifited and duly fed; loiterers thrown out, wolves driven from the fold, had been a better confutation of the pope and mafs, than whole hecatontomes of controverfies; and all this careering with fpear in reft, and thundering upon the steel cap of Baronius or Bellarmine. Remonft. No feduced perfons reclaimed ? Anfw. Bacchanalias good ftore in every bishop's family, and good gleeking. Remonft. No great offenders punished? Anfw. The trophies of your high commiffion are renowned. Remonft. No good offices done for the public? Anfw. Yes, the good office of reducing monarchy to tyranny, of breaking pacifications, and calumniating the people to the king. Remonft. No care of the peace of the church? Anfw. No, nor of the land; witness the two armies in the North, that now lie plundered, and overrun by a liturgy. Remonft. No diligence in preaching? Anfw. Scarce any preaching at all. Remonft. No holiness in living? Anfw. No. Remonft. Truly, brethren, I can say no more, but that the fault is in your eyes. Anfw. If you can fay no more than this, you were a proper Remonftrant to ftand up for the whole tribe! Remonft. Wipe them and look better. Anfw. Wipe your fat corpulencies out of our light. Remonft. Yea, I befeech God to open them rather that they may fee good. Anfw. If you mean good prelates, let be your prayer, Afk not impoffibilities. Remonft. As for that proverb, 'the bishop's foot hath been in it,' it were more fit for a Scurra in Trivio, or some ribald upon an alebench. Anfw. Anfw. The fitter for them then of whom it was meant. Remonft. I doubt not but they will fay, the bifhop's foot hath been in your book, for I am fure it is quite spoiled by this juft confutation; for your proverb, Sapit ollam. Anfw. Spoiled, quoth ye? Indeed it is fo fpoiled, as a good fong is spoiled by a lewd finger; or as the faying is, "God fends meat, but the cooks work their wills:" in that fense we grant your bishop's foot may have spoiled it, and made it "Sapere ollam," if not," Sapere aulam ;" which is the fame in old Latin, and perhaps in plain English. For certain your confutation hath achieved nothing against it, and left nothing upon it, but a foul tafte of your skillet foot, and a more perfect and distinguishable odour of your focks, than of your nightcap. And how the bishop fhould confute a book with his foot, unless his brains were dropped into his great toe, I cannot meet with any man that can refolve me; only they tell me that certainly fuch a confutation must needs be gouty. So much for the bishop's foot. Remonft. You tell us of Bonner's broth; it is the fashion in fome countries to fend in their keal in the laft fervice, and this it feems is the manner among our Smectymnuans. Anfw. Your latter fervice at the high altar you mean: but soft, fir, the feaft was but begun, the broth was your own, you have been inviting the land to it this four core years; and fo long we have been your flaves to serve it up for you, much againft our wills: we know you have the beef to it, ready in your kitchens, we are sure it was almost fod before this parliament begun; what direction you have given fince to your cooks, to fet it by in the pantry till fome fitter time, we know not, and therefore your dear jeft is loft; this broth was but your first fervice: alas, fir, why do you delude your guests? Why do not thofe goodly flanks and brifkets march up in your flately chargers? Doubtlefs if need be, the pope that owes you for mollifying the matter fo well with him, and making him a true church, will furnifh you with all the fat oxen of Italy. Remonft. Learned and worthy doctor Moulin fhall tell them. Anfw. Anfw. Moulin fays in his book of the calling of paftors, that because bishops were the reformers of the English church, therefore they were left remaining: this argument is but of fmall force to keep you in your cathedrals. For firft it may be denied that bishops were our first reformers, for Wickliff was before them, and his egregious labours are not to be neglected: befides, our bishops were in this work but the difciples of priests, and began the reformation before they were bishops. But what though Luther and other monks were the reformers of other places? Does it follow therefore that monks ought to continue? No, though Luther had taught fo. And laftly, Moulin's argument directly makes against you; for if there be nothing in it but this, bifhops were left remaining because they were reformers of the church, by as good a confequence therefore they are now to be removed, because they have been the moft certain deformers and ruiners of the church. Thus you fee how little it avails you to take fanctuary among those churches which in the general fcope of your actions formerly you have difregarded and defpifed; however, your fair words would now fmooth it over otherwise. Remonft. Our bishops, fome whereof being crowned with martyrdom, fubfcribed the gospel with their blood. Anfw. You boaft much of martyrs to uphold your epifcopacy; but if you would call to mind what Eufebius in his fifth book recites from Apollinarius of Hierapolis, you should then hear it efteemed no other than an old heretical argument, to prove a pofition true, because fome that held it were martyrs; this was that which gave boldness to the Marcionifts and Cataphryges to avouch their impious herefies for pious doctrine, because they could reckon many martyrs of their fect; and when they were confuted in other points, this was ever their laft and ftouteft plea. Remonft. In the mean time I befeech the God of Heaven to humble you. Anfw. We fhall befeech the fame God to give you a more profitable and pertinent humiliation than yet you know, and a less mistaken charitableness, with that peace which you have hitherto fo perversely mifaffected. AN AN APOLOGY FOR SMECTYMNUUS. Ir, readers, to that fame great difficulty of well-doing what we certainly know, were not added in most men as great a careleffness of knowing what they and others ought to do, we had been long ere this, no doubt but all of us, much farther on our way to fome degree of peace and happiness in this kingdom. But fince our finful neglect of practifing that which we know to be undoubtedly true and good, hath brought forth among us, through God's just anger, fo great a difficulty now to know that which otherwife might be foon learnt, and hath divided us by a controverfy of great importance indeed, but of no hard solution, which is the more our punishment; I refolved (of what fmall moment foever I might be thought) to ftand on that fide where I faw both the plain authority of fcripture leading, and the reafon of juftice and equity perfuading; with this opinion, which efteems it more unlike a chriftian to be a cold neuter in the cause of the church, than the law of Solon made it punishable after a fedition in the ftate. And because I obferve that fear and dull difpofition, lukewarmness and floth, are not seldomer wont to cloak themfelves under the affected name of moderation, than true and lively zeal is cuftomably difparaged with the term of indifcretion, bitternefs, and choler; I could not to my thinking honour a good caufe more from the heart, than by defending it earneftly, as oft as I could judge it to behove me, notwithstanding any falfe name that could be invented to wrong or undervalue an honeft meaning. Wherein although I have not doubted to fingle forth more than once fuch of them as were thought the chief and moft nominated oppofers on the other fide, whom no man elfe undertook; if I have done well either either to be confident of the truth, whofe force is beft feen against the ablest resistance, or to be jealous and tender of the hurt that might be done among the weaker by the intrapping authority of great names titled to falfe opinions; or that it be lawful to attribute fomewhat to gifts of God's imparting, which I boast not, but thankfully acknowledge, and fear alfo left at my certain account they be reckoned to me rather many than few; or if laftly it be but justice not to defraud of due esteem the wearifome labours and ftudious watchings, wherein I have spent and tired out almoft a whole youth, I thall not diftruft to be acquitted of prefumption: knowing, that if heretofore all ages have received with favour and good acceptance the early industry of him that hath been hopeful, it were but hard measure now, if the freedom of any timely spirit fhould be oppreffed merely by the big and blunted fame of his elder adverfary; and that his fufficiency must be now sentenced, not by pondering the reason he shows, but by calculating the years he brings. However as my purpose is not, nor hath been formerly, to look on my adverfary abroad, through the deceiving glass of other men's great opinion of him, but at home, where I may find him in the proper light of his own worth; fo now against the rancour of an evil tongue, from which I never thought fo abfurdly, as that I of all men fhould be exempt, I must be forced to proceed from the unfeigned and diligent inquiry of my own confcience at home (for better way I know not, readers) to give a more true account of myfelf abroad than this modeft confuter, as he calls himself, hath given of me. Albeit, that in doing this, I fhall be fenfible of two things which to me will be nothing pleasant; the one is, that not unlikely I fhall be thought too much a party in mine own caufe, and therein to fee leaft: the other, that I fhall be put unwillingly to moleft the public view with the vindication of a private name; as if it were worth the while that the people fhould care whether fuch a one were thus, or thus. Yet those I entreat who have found the leifure to read that name, however of fmall repute, unworthily defamed, would be fo good and fo patient as to hear the fame perfon not unneedfully defended. |