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of the bordello. But having had the doctrine of holy fcripture, unfolding those chafte and high myfteries, with timelieft care infufed, that "the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body;" thus alfo I argued to myself, that if unchaftity in a woman, whom St. Paul terms the glory of man, be fuch a scandal and dishonour, then certainly in a man, who is both the image and glory of God, it must, though commonly not fo thought, be much more deflowering and difhonourable; in that he fins both against his own body, which is the perfecter fex, and his own glory, which is in the woman; and that which is worst, against the image and glory of God, which is in hinfelf. Nor did I flumber over that place, expreffing fuch high rewards of ever accompanying the Lamb, with thofe celeftial fongs to others inapprehenfible, but not to those who were not defiled with women, which doubtless means fornication; for marriage muft not be called a defilement. Thus large I have purposely: been, that if I have been juftly taxed with this crime, it may come upon me, after all this my confeffion, with a tenfold shame: but if I have hitherto deserved no fuch opprobrious word, or fufpicion, I may hereby engage myself now openly to the faithful obfervation of what I have profeffed. I go on to fhow you the unbridled impudence of this loofe railer, who, having once begun his race, regards not how far he flies out beyond all truth and shame; who, from the fingle notice of the Animadverfions, as he protefts, will undertake to tell ye the very clothes I wear, though he be much mistaken in my wardrobe: and, like a fon of Belial, without the hire of Jezebel, charges me "of blafpheming God and the king," as ordinarily as he imagines "me to drink fack and fwear," merely because this was a fhred in his commonplace book, and feemed to come off roundly, as if he were fome empiric of false accufations, to try his poifons upon me, whether they would work or no. Whom what fhould I endeavour to refute more, whenas that book, which is his only teftimony, returns the lie upon him; not giving him the least hint of the author to be either a fwearer or a fackdrinker. And for the readers, if they can believe me, principally

principally for those reasons which I have alleged, to be of life and purpose neither dishoneft nor unchafte, they will be easily induced to think me fober both of wine and of word; but if I have been already fuccefsless in perfuading them, all that I can further fay, will be but vain; and it will be better thrift to fave two tedious labours, mine of excufing, and theirs of needless hearing.

Proceeding, further, I am met with a whole ging of words and phrases not mine, for he hath maimed them, and, like a fly depraver, mangled them in this his wicked. limbo, worse than the ghoft of Deiphobus appeared to his friend Æneas. Here I scarce know them, and he that would, let him repair to the place in that book where I fet them: for certainly this tormentor of femicolons is as good at difmembering and flitting fentences, as his grave fathers the prelates have been at ftigmatizing and flitting nofes. By fuch handicraft as this what might he not traduce? Only that odour, which being his own muft needs offend his fenfe of fmelling, fince he will needs beftow his foot among us, and not allow us to think he wears a fock, I fhall endeavour it may be offencelefs to other men's ears. The Remonftrant having to do with grave and reverend men his` adversaries, thought it became him to tell them in scorn, that," the bishop's foot had been in their book and confuted it;" which when I faw him arrogate, to have done that with his heels that furpaffed the beft confideration of his head, to spurn a confutation among refpected men, I queftioned not the lawfulness of moving his jollity to bethink him, what odour a fock would have in fuch painful business. And this may have chanced to touch him more nearly than I was aware, for indeed a bishop's foot that hath all his toes maugre the gout, and a linen fock over it, is the apteft emblem of the prelate himself; who being a pluralift, may under one furplice, which is alfo linen, hide four benefices, befides the metropolitan toe, and fends a fouler ftench to Heaven, than that which this young queafinefs retches at. And this is the immediate reafon here why our enraged confuter, that he may be as perfect a hypocrite as Caiphas, ere he be a high

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prieft, cries out, "Horrid blafphemy !" and, like a recre ant Jew, calls for ftones. I befeech ye, friends, ere the brickbats fly, refolve me and yourfelves, is it blafphemy, or any whit difagreeing from chriftian meeknefs, whenas Christ himself, fpeaking of unfavoury traditions, fcruples not to name the dunghill and the jakes, for me to answer a flovenly wincer of a confutation, that if he would needs put his foot to such a sweaty service, the odour of his fock was like to be neither mufk nor benjamin? Thus did that foolish monk in a barbarous declamation accufe Petrarch of blafphemy for difpraifing the french wines. But this which follows is plain Bedlam ftuff, this is the demoniac legion indeed, which the Remonftrant feared had been against him, and now he may fee is for him. "You that love Chrift," faith he, "and know this mifereant wretch, ftone him to death, left you finart for his impunity." What thinks the Remonftrant? does he like that fuch words as these fhould come out of his fhop, out of his Trojan horfe? To give the watchword like a Guifian of Paris to a mutiny or massacre; to proclaim a croifade against his fellow-chriftian now in this troublous and divided time of the kingdom? If he do, I fhall fay that to be the Remonftrant, is no better than to be a jefuit; and that if he and his accomplices could do as the rebels have done in Ireland to the proteftants, they would do in England the fame to them that would no prelates. For a more feditious and butcherly fpeech no cell of Loyola could have belched against one who in all his writing fpake not, that any man's fkin should be raised. And yet this curfing Shimei, a hurler of ftones, as well as a railer, wants not the face inftantly to make as though he " despaired of victory, unless a modeft defence would get it him." Did I err at all, readers, to foretel ye, when firft I met with. his title, that the epithet of modeft there was a certain red portending fign, that he meant ere long to be moft tempeftuoufly bold and fhameless? Neverthelefs," he dares not fay but there may be hid in his nature as much venomous atheism and profanation, as he thinks hath broke out at his adverfary's lips; but he hath not the fore running upon him," as he would intimate I have.

Now

Now truft me not, readers, if I be not already weary of pluming and footing this fea-gull, fo open he lies to ftrokes, and never offers at another, but brings home the dorre upon himself. For if the fore be running upon me, in all judgment I have efcaped the difeafe but he who hath as much hid in him, as he hath voluntarily confeffed, and cannot expel it, becaufe he is dull, (for venomous atheism were no treasure to be kept within him elfe,) let him take the part he hath chofep, which muft needs follow, to fwell and burft with his own inward venom.

SECT. I.

But mark, readers, there is a kind of juftice obferved among them that do evil, but this man loves injuftice in the very order of his malice. For having all this while abused the good name of his adverfary with all manner of licence in revenge of his Remonftrant, if they be not both one perfon, or, as I am told, father and fon, yet after all this he calls for fatisfaction, whenas he himself hath already taken the utmost farthing. "Violence hath been done," fays he, "to the person of a holy and religious prelate." To which, fomething in effect to what St. Paul answered of Ananias, I anfwer, "I wift not, brethren, that he was a holy and religious prelate ;" for evil is written of thofe who would be prelates. And finding him thus in difguife without his fuperfcription or phylactery either of holy or prelate, it were no fin to ferve him as Longchamp bishop of Ely was ferved in his difguife at Dover: he hath begun the measure nameless, and when he pleafes we may all appear as we are. And let him be then what he will, he fhall be to me fo as I find him principled. For neither muft prelate or archprelate hope to exempt himself from being reckoned as one of the vulgar, which is for him only to hope whom true wifdom and the contempt of vulgar opinions exempts, it being taught us in the Pfalms, that he who is in honour and underftandeth not, is as the beafts that perish. And now firft" the manner of handling that caufe," which I undertook, he thinks is fufpicious, as if

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the wifeft, and the best words were not ever to fome or other fufpicious. But where is the offence, the difagreement from chriftian meekness, or the precept of Solomon in answering folly? When the Remonftrant talks of froth and fcum, I tell him there is none, and bid him fpare his ladle: when he brings in the mess with keal, beef, and brewefs, what ftomach in England could forbear to call for flanks and brifkets? Capon and white broth having been likely fometimes in the fame room with Chrift and his apoftles, why does it trouble him, that it should be now in the fame leaf, especially where the discourse is not continued, but interrupt? And let him tell me, is he wont to fay grace, doth he not then name holiest names over the team of coftlieft fuperfluities? Does he judge it foolish or difhoneft, to write that among religious things, which, when he talks of religious things, he can devoutly chew? Is he afraid to name Chrift where thofe things are written in the fame leaf, whom he fears not to name while the fame things are in his mouth? Doth not Chrift himself teach the highest things by the fimilitude of old bottles and patched clothes? Doth he not illuftrate beft things by things moft evil? His own coming to be as a thief in the night, and the righteous man's wisdom to that of an unjust fteward? He might therefore have done better to have kept in his canting beggars, and heathen altar, to facrifice his threadbare criticism of Bomolochus to an unfeasonable goddess fit for him called Importunity, and have reserved his greek derivation till he lecture to his fresh men, for here his itching pedantry is but flouted.

But to the end that nothing may be omitted, which may farther fatisfy any conscionable man, who, notwithstanding what I could explain before the animadverfions, remains yet unfatisfied concerning that way of writing which I there defended, but this confuter, whom it pinches, utterly disapproves; I fhall affay once again, and perhaps with more fuccefs. If therefore the question were in oratory, whether a vehement vein throwing out indignation or fcorn upon an object that merits it, were among the apteft ideas of fpeech to be allowed, it were my work, and that an eafy one, to make it clear both by the rules of

beft

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