Canterburys Tools

Canterburies Tooles: OR, Instruments wherewith he hath effected many rare feats and egregious exploits as is very well known and notoriously manifested to all men.

Inprimis,

T He Popes old Decrees and Decretals which are very useful for Civilians and Canonists, who study the Popes old Canon law, and thereby get great wealth, and likewise they are of singular use for Prelates to teach them church government after the fashion of Rome and church policy, after the Popes own most holy manner, how to frame Church-Wardens articles to bring in great store of Presentments and money to uphold the pomp and state of the Prelates Officers and Followers.

2. The old book of Canons which for their antiquity are now something stale, yet they have been of singular use for Chancellors, Registers, Proctors, Pa • a • ors, Promoters and such like, and the only thing whereby they have got their livings by citing, presenting, informing, suspending excommunicating and molesting many of the best ministers and people, until their purses come off handsomely, which is the final cause of making this book of Canons, which lucky book hath been gainful to Prelatists as ever Purgatory was to the popes Kitchen.

3. The new book of Canons which for want of wit and skill in the makers (who were some of them no better then doults) were made clean Kam contrary to expectation, and something too boisterous and violent, so that at the first shooting off they recoiled upon the authors and knocked down their makers, and being neither made of bell metal nor Parliament proof they burst in the discharging being over charged with Altarwise powder amunition shot and leaden et cetrae whereby their metal is marred so that it is held but vain for the Convocation to mould or cast them anew: yet they are worth their weight of brown paper at any time for Grocers, Chandlers, Tobacco-shops, and Physicians; for such patients as have laxes and trotting agues going often to thee stool; if they have but a new Canon in their hand they may come off more cleanly then the Convocation did who marred them in the making:

4. The new Canon Oath, or Oath for Prelacy, which Oath was intended for many singular uses as the sinful sinod knew very well; as, 1. To swear up the Bishops though the devil himself cannot do it. 2. To swear down all the honest ministers in England who for refusing this periurious Oath should presently be deprived of their livings though their wives and children were beggared, so that there might be great store of church livings void whereby his little Grace & the rest of the reverend Fathers might have choice for their chaplains and prefer their mad kindred cracked Chambermaids light kinsewomen and younger brother (as Oxford petitioned) & might put in such idol shepherds dumb dogs and Baal Priests as should be sworn slaves to the Prelates and they to forswear and periure all the fatbelly Prelatists who should take this Oath and must swear to take it willingly (though no man in the world would not rather be free then bound) so that they being become odious to God and good men might stick faster to the Bishops on whom they depend both for bodies souls and estates, but this Oath being now cashiered by some critical fellows of the Temple who have proved wiser then the sinod it will hardly be valied as it might have been.

5. A numberless number of many hundred thousand weight and an infinite multitude of yards and ells of length and breadth and many millions of fathoms deep of an et cetra, a most precious thing in the Canon oath a thing of so great weight, worth, length, breadth deepness, thickness and bulk, that it is beyond all extensions dimensions so that the goodly wise fathers of the late more than holy sinod (though they put it in with both hands) yet all those monstrous wise and hugely tearned men themselves never knew either the quantity, quality, value, worth or weight of this, et cetera, it may be said of this; that Datur processus in infinitum, it may be divided in semper divisibilia & expounded in semper exponenda, they and their successors might from time to time and at all times make of it what they would so that if the Bishops should lose theier Bishoprics and all but this, this alone were riches enough for them and theirs forever, and tis pity but that they should take them this and be packing.

6. A most rare and super excellent thing called the oath Ex Officio or the Beneficiall oath, for never was auricular confession so useful and gainful to the juggling priests of Rome as this hath been to Prelates, for that did but only make woman and people to confess their relapses and maids their backslidings: and only touched deeds done and the Priests would pardon them but this Oath makes men to confess their thoughts, for which sometimes the Bishop will make them pay dear, and if at any time either the Bishop or any of his shavelings have not their bags crammed by Church Wardens presentments or Parrators information, then they send for some minister of honest man whom they know to be not so desperately wicked, as their injurious maintainers, & tender him this oath, w ^ch if he refuse, to prison he goes if he were as good as George a Green, and if he take it, he must either forswear and damme himself as the Bishop doth, or else betray himself and confess his most private matters, words, & the very thoughts of his heart which he poor man chooseth rather to do, and so puts himself in the mouth of the wolf, than to periure and damme himself, and to go to hell with Bishops, where upon he confessing, the Bishop suspends, excōmunicates, deprives, degrades, imprisons or punisheth the poor man at his pleasure, then he being in this woeful case will be very glad to speak with some of the Bishops Officers, who will show him so much friendly honesty as to take a great bribe to speak a small word for him, and so perhaps meets with the man who for that purpose first caused him to be questioned and so he seeing his friend, and the Bishop feeling his man's pulses, gives the poor man some releasement, though he will not quite discharge him, but that his servants may at other times have some feeling of him, and thus this Oath Ex Officio hath formerly been wondrous beneficial though now it grow something old and rotten, and begins to stink and putrefy, yet it will pass currant in some countries, as Italy and Spain, and some part of France, but by all means carry it not into Scotland, for they be such resolute fellows they will put it in a poke mantle and hang it on blind Balaam's Nagge and send it packing to Rome where is no need of it because there is already great plenty of this and many such like.

7. A Most profitable and gainful piece of Prelatical policy, to wit, the rubrick of the Liturgy or Service, for the most wise and politick prelates, knowing that men are of divers minds and dispositions, have so framed the rubrick of the service book that it is improbable that all men should like of it, and almost impossible, that all man should follow it so strickly as the Bishops inioyn it, and among some good things, taken out of the Bible, they have mingled some bad things taken out of the Mass book, and then if any honest minister do but omit by oversight some things least necessary, or pass by other, some things most offensive or leave out anything which is most fabulous, he is to be had before the Bishop either by the Church Warden, who are sworn to present him, or by the Pararors or some such like who are ready to inform against him and the Bishop (who taketh himself to be the Lord of the church) perceiving him to be a man of some great conscience (which is an odious thing to some Bishop to have some care to discharge his duty uprightly, he hates him and persecutes him and brands him with the nicknames of Puritan Brownist scismaticke and precise fellow, and never leaves him till he either make him forsake all conscience and honesty, or else his living and country and such examples as these there have been many thousands so that this is an excellent and gainful rubrick to the Bishops Officers who while these things are in agitation have many a good feeling, whom here I leave to feel the justice of our happy Parliament.

8. Certain things of great antiquity and almost as ancient as the subtlety of the Serpent; so wit Ceremonies, which though it might be thought that Bishops might spare them without prejudice to themselves, yet those politick Prelates (for what reason themselves know best) hold that no Ceremony, no Bishop, and they are so little in their defense, that before they will loose one corner of a cap, theyle throw the whole Miter off for it, or one end of a Cross, theyle break all the crosier to shivers, or one sleeve of a Surplice, theyle burn their Lawne sleeves, and 'tis pity but that Bishops and Ceremonies should both be sent packing to Rome the place of their original.