faft height refts upon the unmovable foundations of juftice, and heroic virtue, than to chain it in a dependance of fubfifting, or ruining, to the painted battlements and gaudy rottennefs of prelatry, which want but one puff of the king's to blow them down like a pafteboard house built of court-cards? Sir, the little ado which methinks I find in untacking thefe pleafant fophifms, puts me into the mood to tell you a tale ere I proceed further; and Menenius Agrippa speed us. Upon a time the body fummoned all the members to meet in the guild for the common good, (as fop's chronicles aver many ftranger accidents :) the head by right takes the first feat, and next to it a huge and monftrous wen little lefs than the head itfelf, growing to it by a narrower excrefcency. The members, amazed, began to afk one another what he was that took place next their chief? none could refolve. Whereat the wen, though unwieldy, with much ado gets up, and befpeaks the affembly to this purpofe: that as in place he was fecond to the head, fo by due of merit; that he was to it an ornament, and ftrength, and of special near relation; and that if the head fhould fail, none were fitter than himself to step into his place: therefore he thought it for the honour of the body, that such dignities and rich endowments fhould be decreed him, as did adorn, and set out the nobleft members. To this was answered, that it fhould be confulted. Then was a wife and learned philofopher fent for, that knew all the charters, laws, and tenures of the body. On him it is impofed by all, as chief committee to examine, and difcufs the claim and petition of right put in by the wen; who foon perceiving the matter, and wondering at the boldnefs of fuch a fwoln tumor, Wilt thou (quoth he) that art but a bottle of vicious and hardened excrements, contend with the lawful and freeborn members, whofe certain number is fet by ancient, and unrepealable ftatute? head thou art none, though thou receive this huge fubftance from it: what office beareft thou? what good canft thou show by thee done to the commonweal? The wen not easily dafhed, replies, that his office was his glory; for so oft as the foul would retire out of the head from over the fteaming fleaming vapours of the lower parts to divine contemplation, with him the found the pureft and quieteft retreat, as being most remote from foil and difturbance. Lourdan, quoth the philofopher, thy folly is as great as thy filth: know that all the faculties of the foul are confined of old to their feveral veffels and ventricles, from which they cannot part without diffolution of the whole body; and that thou containeft no good thing in thee, but a heap of hard and loathfome uncleanness, and art to the head a foul disfigurement and burden, when I have cut thee off, and opened thee, as by the help of these implements I will do, all men fhall fee. But to return whence was digreffed: feeing that the throne of a king, as the wife king Solomon often remembers us," is established in justice," which is the universal juftice that Ariftotle fo much praifes, containing in it all other virtues, it may affure us that the fall of prelacy, whofe actions are fo far diftant from juftice, cannot fhake the leaft fringe that borders the royal canopy; but that their standing doth continually oppofe and lay battery to regal fafety, fhall by that which follows eafily appear. Amongst many fecondary and acceffary caufes that fupport monarchy, these are not of leaft reckoning, though common to all other ftates; the love of the fubjects, the multitude and valour of the people, and ftore of treasure. In all these things hath the kingdom been of late fore weakened, and chiefly by the prelates. First, let any man confider, that if any prince fhall fuffer under him a commiffion of authority to be exercised, till all the land groan and cry out, as againft a whip of fcorpions, whether this be not likely to leffen, and keel the affections of the fubject. Next, what numbers of faithful and freeborn Englishmen, and good Chriftians, have been conftrained to forfake their deareft home, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide ocean, and the favage deferts of America, could hide and shelter from the fury of the bishops? O fir, if we could but fee the hape of our dear mother England, as poets are wont to give a perfonal form to what they please, how would the appear, think ye, but in a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head, and tears abundantly flowing from her eyes, to be 1 hold fo many of her children exposed at once, and thruft from things of deareft neceffity, because their confcience could not affent to things which the bishops thought indifferent? What more binding than confcience? What more free than indifferency? Cruel then must that indifferency needs be, that fhall violate the ftrict neceffity of confcience; mercilefs and inhuman that free choice and liberty that shall break asunder the bonds of religion! Let the aftrologer be difmayed at the portentous blaze of comets, and impreffions in the air, as foretelling troubles and changes to ftates: I fhall believe there cannot be a more ill-boding fign to a nation (God turn the omen from us!) than when the inhabitants, to avoid infufferable grievances at home, are enforced by heaps to forsake their native country. Now, whereas the only remedy and amends against the depopulation and thinness of a land within, is the borrowed ftrength of firm alliance from without, these prieftly policies of theirs having thus exhaufted our domeftic forces, have gone the way also to leave us as naked of our firmeft and faithfulleft neighbours abroad, by disparaging and alienating from us all proteftant princes and commonwealths; who are not ignorant that our prelates, and as many as they can infect, account them no better than a fort of facrilegious and puritanical rebels, preferring the Spaniard our deadly enemy before them, and fet all orthodox writers at nought in comparison of the Jefuits, who are indeed the only corrupters of youth and good learning and I have heard many wife and learned men in Italy fay as much. It cannot be that the strongest knot of confederacy fhould not daily flacken, when religion, which is the chief engagement of our league, fhall be turned to their reproach. Hence it is that the profperous and prudent ftates of the United Provinces, (whom we ought to love, if not for themfelves, yet for our own good work in them, they having been in a manner planted and erected by us, and having been fince to us the faithful watchmen and difcoverers of many a popith and Auftrian complotted treason, and with us the partners of many a bloody and victorious battle;) whom the fimilitude of manners and language, the commodity of traffick, which founded the old Bur gundian gundian league betwixt us, but chiefly religion, should bind to us immortally; even fuch friends as thefe, out of fome principles inftilled into us by the prelates, have been often difmiffed with diftafteful anfwers, and fometimes unfriendly actions: nor is it to be confidered to the breach of confederate nations, whofe mutual interefts is of fuch high confequence, though their merchants bicker in the Eaft Indies; neither is it fafe, or wary, or indeed chriftianly, that the French king, of a different faith, fhould afford our nearest allies as good protection as we. Sir, I perfuade myself, if our zeal to true religion, and the brotherly ufage of our trueft friends, were as notorious to the world, as our prelatical fchifm, and captivity to rochet apophthegms, we had ere this feen our old conquerors, and afterwards liegemen the Normans, together with the Britains our proper colony, and all the Gafcoins that are the rightful dowry of our ancient kings, come with cap and knee, defiring the fhadow of the English fceptre to defend them from the hot perfecutions and taxes of the French. But when they come hither, and fee a tympany of Spaniolized bifhops fwaggering in the foretop of the state, and meddling to turn and dandle the royal ball with unfkilful and pedantic palms, no marvel though they think it as unfafe to commit religion and liberty to their arbitrating as to a fynagogue of Jefuits. But what do I ftand reckoning upon advantages and gains loft by the misrule and turbulency of the prelates? What do I pick up fo thriftily their fcatterings and diminishings of the meaner fubject, whilst they by their feditious practices have endangered to lofe the king one third of his main ftock? What have they not done to banish him from his own native country? But to speak of this as it ought, would ask a volume by itself. Thus as they have unpeopled the kingdom by expulfion of fo many thousands, as they have endeavoured to lay the skirts of it bare by difheartening and difhonouring our loyalleft confederates abroad, fo have they hamstrung the valour of the subject by seeking to effeminate us all at home. Well knows every wife nation that their liberty confifts in manly and honeft labours, in fobriety and rigorous honour to the marriagebed, which in both fexes D4 fhould fhould be bred up from chafte hopes to loyal enjoyments; and when the people flacken, and fall to loofenefs and riot, then do they as much as if they laid down their necks for fome wild tyrant to get up and ride. Thus learnt Cyrus to tame the Lydians, whom by arms he could not whilst they kept themselves from luxury; with one eafy proclamation to fet up ftews, dancing, feafting, and dicing, he made them foon his flaves. I know not what drift the prelates had, whofe brokers they were to prepare, and fupple us either for a foreign invafion or domeftic oppreffion; but this I am fure, they took the ready way to defpoil us both of manhood and grace at once, and that in the fhamefulleft and ungodlieft manner, upon that day which God's law, and even our own reason hath confecrated, that we might have one day at leaft of feven set apart wherein to examine and increase our knowledge of God, to meditate and commune of our faith, our hope, our eternal city in Heaven, and to quicken withal the study and exercise of charity; at fuch a time that men fhould be plucked from their foberest and saddest thoughts, and by bishops, the pretended fathers of the church, infiigated, by public edict, and with earneft endeavour pushed forward to gaming, jigging, waffailing, and mixed dancing, is a horror to think! Thus did the reprobate hireling priest Balaam feek to fubdue the Ifraelites to Moab, if not by force, then by this devilish policy, to draw them from the fanctuary of God to the luxurious and ribald feafts of Baal-peor. Thus have they trefpaffed not only against the monarchy of England, but of Heaven alfo, as others, I doubt not, can profecute against them. I proceed within my own bounds to fhow you next what good agents they are about the revenues and riches of the kingdom, which declare of what moment they are to monarchy, or what avail. Two leeches they have that ftill fuck, and fuck the kingdom, their ceremonies and their courts. If any man will contend that ceremonies be lawful under the gofpel, he may be answered other where. This doubtlefs, that they ought to be many and overcostly, no true proteftant will affirm. Now I appeal to all wife men, what an exceffive waste of treasure hath been within thefe few years in this land, not in the expe |