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purpose to return a fufficing anfwer, and were able enough to lay the duft and pudder in antiquity, which he and his, out of ftratagem, are wont to raise; but when I saw his weak arguments headed with fharp taunts, and that his defign was, if he could not refute them, yet at leaft with quips and fnapping adages to vapour them out, which they, bent only upon the business, were minded to let pafs; by how much I faw them taking little thought for their own injuries, I must confefs I took it as my part the less to endure that my refpected friends, through their own unneceffary patience, fhould thus lie at the mercy of a coy flirting ftyle; to be girded with frumps and curtal gibes, by one who makes fentences by the ftatute, as if all above three inches long were confifcate. To me it seemed an indignity, that whom his whole wisdom could not move from their place, them his impetuous folly should prefume to ride over. And if I were more warm than was meet in any paffage of that book, which yet I do not yield, I might ufe therein the patronage of no worfe an author than Gregory Nyffen, who mentioning his fharpnefs againft Eunomius in the defence of his brother Bafil, holds himfelf irreprovable in that "it was not for himself, but in the caufe of his brother; and in fuch cafes," faith he, "perhaps it is worthier pardon to be angry than to be cooler." whereas this confuter taxes the whole difcourfe of levity, I shall show ye, readers, whereforver it fhall be objected. in particular, that I have answered with as little lightnefs as the Remonftrant hath given example. I have not been fo light as the palm of a bifhop, which is the lightest thing in the world when he brings out his book of ordination for then, contrary to that which is wont in releafing out of prison, any one that will pay his fees is laid hands on. Another reason, it would not be amiss though the Remonftrant were told, wherefore he was in that unusual manner beleaguered; and this was it, to pluck out of the heads of his admirers the conceit that all who are not prelatical, are grofs-headed, thick-witted, illiterate, fhallow. Can nothing then but epifcopacy teach men to speak good english, to pick and order a fet of words judiciously? Muft we learn from canons and

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And

quaint

quaint fermonings, interlined with barbarous latin, to illumine a period, to wreath an enthymema with masterous dexterity? I rather incline, as I have heard it obferved, that a jefuit's Italian when he writes, is ever naught, though he be born and bred a Florentine, fo to think, that from like causes we may go near to obferve the fame in the ftyle of a prelate. For doubtlefs that indeed according to art is moft eloquent, which turns and approaches nearest to nature from whence it came; and they exprefs nature beft, who in their lives leaft wander from her fafe leading, which may be called regenerate reason. So that how he fhould be truly eloquent who is not withal a good man, I fee not. Nevertheless, as oft as is to be dealt with men who pride themfelves in their fuppofed art, to leave them inexcufable wherein they will not be bettered; there be of those that esteem prelaty a figment, who yet can pipe if they can dance, nor will be unfurnished to show, that what the prelates admire and have not, others have and admire not. The knowledge whereof, and not of that only, but of what the fcripture teacheth us how we ought to withstand the perverters of the gospel, were those other motives, which gave the Animadverfions no leave to remit a continual vehemence throughout the book. For as in teaching doubtless the spirit of meekness is most powerful, fo are the meek only fit perfons to be taught: as for the proud, the obftinate, and falfe doctors of men's devices, be taught they will not, but difcovered and laid open they muft be. For how can they admit of teaching, who have the condemnation of God already upon them for refufing divine inftruction? That is, to be filled with their own devices, as in the Proverbs we may read: therefore we may fafely imitate the method that God ufes; "with the froward to be froward, and to throw fcorn upon the fcorner," whom, if any thing, nothing elfe will heal. And if the "righteous fhall laugh at the deftruction of the ungodly," they may alfo laugh at the pertinacious and incurable obftinacy, and at the fame time be moved with deteftation of their feducing malice, who employ all their wits to defend a prelaty ufurped, and to deprave that just government, which pride and ambition, partly by fine fetches and pretences, partly by force, hath fhoul

dered

dered out of the church. And against such kind of deceivers openly and earnestly to proteft, left any one fhould be inquifitive wherefore this or that man is forwarder than others, let him know that this office goes not by age or youth, but to whomfoever God fhall give apparently the will, the fpirit, and the utterance. Ye have heard the reafons for which I thought not myself exempted from affociating with good men in their labours toward the church's welfare; to which, if any one brought oppofition, I brought my best refiftance. If in requital of this, and for that I have not been negligent toward the reputation of my friends, I have gained a name bestuck, or as I may fay, bedecked with the reproaches and reviles of this modeft confuter; it shall be to me neither strange nor unwelcome, as that which could not come in a better time.

Having rendered an account what induced me to write those animadverfions in that manner as I writ them, I come now to fee what the confutation hath to say against them; but fo as the confuter fhall hear first what I have to fay against his confutation. And because he pretends to be a great conjector at other men by their writings, I will not fail to give ye, readers, a prefent taste of him from his title, hung out like a tolling fign poft to call paffengers, not fimply a confutation, but "a modeft confutation," with a laudatory of itself obtruded in the very first word. Whereas a modeft title fhould only

inform the buyer what the book contains without further infinuation; this officious epithet fo haftily affuming the modefty which others are to judge of by reading, not the author to anticipate to himfelf by foreftalling, is a ftrong prefumption, that his modefty, fet there to fale in the frontispiece, is not much addicted to blush. A furer fign of his loft fhame he could not have given, than feeking thus unfeasonably to prepoffefs men of his modefty. And feeing he hath neither kept his word in the fequel, nor omitted any kind of boldness in flandering, it is manifeft his purpose was only to rub the forehead of his title with this word modeft, that he might not want colour to be the more impudent throughout his whole confutation. Next, what can equally favour of injustice

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injuftice and plain arrogance, as to prejudice and forecondemn his adverfary in the title for "flanderous and fcurrilous," and as the Remonftrant's fashion is, for frivolous, tedious, and falfe, not staying till the reader can hear him proved fo in the following difcourfe? Which is one caufe of a fufpicion that in fetting forth this pamphlet the Remonftrant was not unconfulted with: thus his firft addrefs was " an humble remonftrance by a dutiful fon of the church," almoft as if he had faid, her white-boy. His next was, "a Defence" (a wonder how it efcaped fome praifing adjunct)" against the frivolous and falfe exceptions against Smectymnuus," fitting in the chair of his title-page upon his poor caft adverfaries both as a judge and party, and that before the jury of readers can be impannelled. His laft was "a fhort answer to a tedious vindication;" fo little can he fuffer a man to measure either with his eye or judgment, what is fhort or what tedious, without his preoccupying direction: and from hence is begotten this " modeft confutation against a flanderous and fcurrilous libel," I conceive, readers, much may be gueffed at the man and his book, what depth there is, by the framing of his title; which being in this Remonftrant fo rafh and unadvised as ye fee, I conceit him to be near akin to him who fet forth a paffion fermon with a formal dedicatory in great letters to our Saviour. Although I know that all we do ought to begin and end in his praife and glory, yet to infcribe him in a void place with flourishes, as a man in compliment ufes to trick up the name of fome efquire, gentleman, or lord paramount at common law, to be his book-patron, with the appendant form of a ceremonious prefentment, will ever appear among the judicious to be but an infulfe and frigid affectation. As no lefs was that before his book against the Brownifts, to write a letter to a Profopopoeia, a certain rhetorized woman whom he calls mother, and complains of fome that laid whoredom to her charge; and certainly had he folded his epiftle with a fuperfcription to be delivered to that female figure by any poft or carrier, who were not a ubiquitary, it had been a most miraculous greeting. We find the primitive doctors, as oft as they writ to churches, fpeaking to them as to a

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number of faithful brethren and fons, and not to make a cloudy tranfmigration of fexes in fuch a familiar way of writing as an epiftle ought to be, leaving the track of common address, to run up, and tread the air in metaphorical compellations, and many fond utterances better let alone. But I ftep again to this emblazoner of his titlepage, (whether it be the fame man or no, I leave it in the midft,) and here I find him pronouncing without reprieve, thofe animadverfions to be a flanderous and fcurrilous libel. To which I, readers, that they are neither flanderous, nor fcurrilous, will answer in what place of his book he shall be found with reason, and not ink only in his mouth. Nor can it be a libel more than his own, which is both namelefs and full of flanders; and if in this that it freely fpeaks of things amifs in religion, but established by act of state, I fee not how Wickliff and Luther, with all the firft martyrs and reformers, could avoid the imputation of libelling. I never thought the human frailty of erring in cafes of religion, infamy to a state, no more than to a council: it had therefore been neither civil nor chriftianly, to derogate the honour of the ftate for that caufe, efpecially when I faw the parliament itself pioufly and magnanimously bent to fupply and reform the defects and overfights of their forefathers, which to the godly and repentant ages of the Jews were often matter of humble confeffing and bewailing, not of confident afferting and maintaining. Of the ftate therefore I found good reafon to speak all honourable things, and to join in petition with good men that petitioned: but against the prelates, who were the only feducers and misleaders of the ftate to conftitute the government of the church not rightly, methought I had not vehemence enough. And thus, readers, by the example which he hath fet me, I have given ye two or three notes of him out of his titlepage; by which his firstlings fear not to guess boldly at his whole lump, for that guefs will not fail ye; and although I tell him keen truth, yet he may bear with me, fince I am like to chase him into fome good knowledge, and others, I trust, shall not mifpend their leifure. For this my aim is, if I am forced to be unpleafing to him whose fault it is, I fhall

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