A Memorial Offered to John Williams
86. After our Bishop was cut off from all Place in the State, and withered away in a happy Retirement, he that watched him a • l the harm he could, assisted many (and they were many) to pelt him with slight and bald Complaints, like the Clowns about Virgil 's Ash-tree, Crebris{que} bipennibus instant certatim eruere agricolae: With all their hewing they got not a Chip from the Defendant, but had their Wages from him that was the Setter; as Fulgentius says in the Life of Friar Paul, Many shown Hatred against the innocent Father, looking to get Favor for it from the Court of Rome. It was hard, and yet not strange, for ours, that being vext with many Suits, he could not obtain Orders, or not so full as his Causes did merit; for Archbishop Abbot, his Copartner in Sufferings, cries out in his Manuscript, That his own Suit for the Privileges of his Church, against the Townsmen of Canterbury, was slopt, and wanted that Justice which was not to be denied to any Subject. Had he, good man, such a Sentiment of one Wrong? How then did Lincoln take so many? The Heathens say, That Constancy in Suffering wears out the Cruelty of the God's. I will not compare a polished Statue, that hath no life, with a living Man; yet the Heathen presumed of better things from their Imagegods, than he could find among the living gods, that sit in the Congregation of Princes, Psal. 82. Is it worth it, to take his Wrongs in a general sum? Expect them. He could not censure a Misdemeanour in his Ecclesiastical Courts, but he was called in question for it by Reference, Petition, or Appeal; and yet the Appellants very Rake-hells upon Fame and Proof: But, as we say of ill Cloaths, they are good enough for the Dirt; so these could not be too bad to be taken into the Service for which they were used. And yet Xenophon did esteem it a Baseness in the Athenians, lib. Abb. Resp. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; because they would cherish those that were sit and helpful to them, though they were Knaves. He could not institute a Clerk to a Benefice of value, but a Quarrel was raised by one Scholar, or more, that pretended to it, knowing it would be well looked upon by no little body. What an Unease it was to be troubled with the humming of so many Gnatts? Pliny relates it for a marvelous Story, That Cato major answered against Indictments four and forty times, lib. 7. c. 21. Compare him with this Lord, and he escaped well; whose Suits hung upon him like Fruits on the Citron Tree, as Servius says upon Virgil 's Ecloges, Omni tempore plena est pomis, quae in eâ partim matura, partim acerba, partim in store sunt. It bore some ripe ones, and some sour ones, some in the Knot, and some in the Blossom altogether. No matter though the Bishop came off without a Scratch in Credit, it was enough that he was impoverish'd, for Costs he could get none. And it was held to be a Shred of Policy, to make him spend away his Substance; for, by taking away as much Earth as they could about the Tree, it would cool the Root. The Bishop looking into the Throng, and variety of such bad Humors and Dispositions, was ashamed to see so many in holy Calling brought up in Faction and Flattery: Qui pro hierophant is sycophantae, esse decreverunt, as Erasmus writes to Bovillus, Ep. p. 61. Yet further, he could let no Lease, chiefly if it were devolved to him, by expiration of Years or Lives, but that the Tenants, or their Heirs, sought to enforce him to their own Conditions, before His Majesty and Privy Council. Who ever saw such a thing in the face of former times? A Gentlewoman, by the Interest of a Daughter, matched to one of a mean Place in the Presence-Chamber, pursued him many years, to enforce his agreement to her own asking, and never prevailing, had leave to take out her Penniworths in ill words: Like the Poet's Frogs, lib. 6. Metamor. Quamvis sint sub aquâ, sub aquâ maledicere tentant: But of all Attempts, those Suspicions plied him on the weak side, that chased him upon the wrong scent of Corruption, and taking Rewards. He had undergone as strict an Inquisition as ever was, of Thirteen Commissioners, to search if he had taken but one Bribe, while he kept the Seal, and they broke up with a Non-inventus, yet is now impeach'd for taking the Gratuity of a Saddle, a piddling Trifle; for all that, the Enquiry about it cost more than a good Stable of Horses, with all their Furniture; and when all came to all, it was found the Prosecutor importuned the Steward of the House to receive it, who laid it by, and never presented it to his Lordship, because it was too gaudy for his use. The Complainant was a Doctor, preferred by this Patron to a good Parsonage, thro' the intercession of Sir W. Powel the Bishop's Brother-in-Law. For the rest, I leave the man in Obscurity, without a Name, as St. Jerome said to Heliodor, Grown into note by defending an Heresy; Quis te oro, ante hanc blasphemiam noverat? So let this Party sink in Forgetfulness, that his Memory may not be preserved by the advantage of his Vice. If Homer had spared a few Verses, Thersites had never been known. Any one may gather now out of the Premises, that when one single person was beset on every side, it was not an ordinary Fortitude, nor an ordinary Wisdom, that broke all their Ranks: But was it not a craven Spirit that turned loose so many Mirmydons against him? Honor is least where Odds appear the most, says our great Poet Spencer, Lib. 2. Cant. 8. He had no Favor, but Innocency to bear him out; as those places under the Poles have no Light in Winter, but from the whiteness of the Snow upon their own Ground, not the least • eam of the Sun shining upon them. And which is eminent, charitable, and generous, he never showed himself offended against any of these Adversaries when the Brunt was over. An Observator, as he calls himself, the Wolf that howls against this Bishop both living and dead, remembers what pleasant and courteous words he had with him, anon after he came out of the Tower. Upon which I will compare him once again with Melancthon, according to Camerarius, p. 57. Nullum dictum aut factum alicujus tam duriter unquam accepit, ut ab illius benevolentia, ac familiar itate recederet. And my L. Bacon tells us well what a Gallantry it is; For in taking Revenge a man is but even with his Enemies; in passing them over he is superior. Had this Example been followed by Churchmen, and by Theophilus Churchman, our Foes had not entered in upon us at those Gaps, which ourselves did cause. Bishops driving out Bishops was that which the Devil watched for, says Euseb. lib. 8. Praep. Evan. cap. 1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . By the Jars, and Jostlings, and ambitious Contentions of the chief Fathers among themselves, their Inheritance was given to Strangers.
87. Our Bishop being Storm-beaten without intermission, he requested the Lord Cottington to inform him what he should do to get his Peace, and such ordinary Favors as other Bishops had from His Majesty; this noble Lord returned him answer in two Points: First, the Luster wherein he lived, the great Company that resorted to him, and his profuse Hospitality were objected; that it was not the King's Meaning, that one whom he had plucked down should live so high. Secondly, His Majesty did not like that he should be so near a Neighbor to Whitehall, but would be better contented if he would part with his Deanry. In the first he took him out a Lesson, which he would never learn, to live in a dark and Miser-like fashion. The Italians have had a meeting of Academics at Rome, called Compagna della Lesina, the thrifty Congregation, of which Profession he could never have been a Member. Nor did he abate from living in Decorum and Liberality in the worst Times; as Mr. A. Cowly writes to him in his Miscellanies, p. 13.
88. Yet the more he did thrust off this Importunity, the more it did follow him, and a finer shift was thought of to esloign him from Westminster. Archbishop Abbot had Directions from the King to press him to Residency upon his Bishopric by the Statute; the Archbishop of the Province having the oversight of the said Statute, to see it put in execution. And some words were dropt in the Archbishop's Letter, to signify, that it was presumed, that being in the Place of Lord Keeper, he had passed a Dispensation under the Great Seal for himself, to enjoy the Commenda of the Deanry, for his better accommodation in that Office. His Answer hereunto, as followeth, is his own in every word.
Most Reverend, &c.
TO that Apostyle touching my Dispensation to reside upon the Deanry of Westminster, the said Deanry being, as all Commenda's are in the Eye of the Law, united for the time of my Incumbency upon this poor Bishopric, I can say no more than what your Grace knoweth as well as I, that I use the said Dispensation very modestly and sparingly, and that I am resolved in this, and everything else, to give His Majesty all Satisfaction, in a due and reasonable order to his Royal Orders; which no Bishop doth yield more exactly than myself. He breaks no Law who pleads a Privilege; nor doth that Subject transgress in Order, who produceth a just and lawful Dispensation to exempt him from the same, as your Grace by daily experience well knoweth. For other matters, that proceed from wrong and sinister Informations, I do intend to procure one or other of my good Lord's of the Council, to let His Majesty understand how these things are misconcerved, as soon as I can: As first, to represent unto His Majesty, that no L. Keeper can issue forth a Dispensation of this nature, nor any other person whosoever, but either His Majesty, immediately by his Regal Right, and Eminency of Power, or your Grace by the Act of Parliament: So as my being Lord Keeper did contribute no more to this Patent, than it did to all others; that is to say, Wax and Impression. Your Grace may call to mind, we were four Governors of several Colleges made Bishops at one time, and two of these had their Colleges put into their Commenda's, as well as myself. And in your Graces Memory also, in the most exact times of Ecclesiastical Government, when those Promotions were managed with the Advice of that great and wise Prelate the Lord Bancroft, a Bishop of Bristol kept the Deanry of York together, and a Bishop of Rochester this of Westminster, during his Incumbency, with many others the like. Neither did the then L. Keeper procure the Faculty to hold this Deanry; for the late King, my dear Master, of Blessed Memory, was not about London, but at Rutford in Nottingham-shire, when he granted me this gracious Favor. Nor, to deal ingenuously with your Grace, was it gained by mine own Power, or Interest with His Majesty, but by the Mediation of His Majesty now reigning, and by the Duke of Buck. together with some inducement of the deceased King, not unknown to some yet living; and howbeit my Faculty is without distinction of Time, yet am I no chaser of mine own Time, but do confine myself to those particular seasons, which the local Statutes of the College, and my express Oath to perform the said Statutes, do enjoin me: That is to say, the two Chapters, and the great Festivals. All which space of time doth not, being taken in the disjunct spaces, make a Bishop a Non-resident by any Law I know of, nor consequently infringe his Majesty's Instructions, though a man had no Dispensation; which Instructions require only that Bishops should reside: but we presume that it is no part of his Majesty's gracious intention, that they should be confined, or as it were imprisoned in their Bishoprics. I hope to procure a fair representation of these particulars to his Majesty, and thereby to obtain his gracious approbation, of as much residence as I intend to make in the Deanry. Where (as your Grace knoweth as well as I) in regard of Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical and Temporal, of preventing Ruins and Dilapidations, of Hospitality, of Suits in Law, of the Church, the School, the College, and the like, I have no less necessity of abiding sometimes then upon my Bishopric, and somewhat more, because of my Oath.
So most humbly, &c.
89. Can he that hath run over these Passages imagine, but that such as encamped against the Bishop would beat up his Quarters no more to make him fly his Deanery? It is the worst of Miseries to be incurable, the heighth of Malice to be implacable. The stubborn Spartans had a Proverb, says Plutarch Vit. Agis & Cleom. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Though they were in a wrong pursuit, it was base to give Ground. For this work was never like to be given over, but was shifted after a few years into new hands. These were a few of the Prebendaries of the later Instalment. Volucres ad jussa paratae, winged Posts that would fly as far as they were sent, who may as well be known by Character, as by their Names. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as Aeschylus would say no more of a Fool, but that he was his self-undoing. Another, whom I have heard called General Wrangler, the Challenger that undertakes all Modern Writers, of as much ingenuity as Tertullian 's Hermogenes, Maledicere singulis officium bonae conscientiae judicat. These preferred Articles to his Majesty, and the Lord's of the Council, against their Dean for 〈◊〉 government, three dozen of Articles (yet none to the vantage) that their number might supply the nothingness of their weight; a few Auger-holes are of too small a bore for a Nest of Wasps to breed in; add these Alledgments, though Archbishop Laud did manage them at the hearing, were of no tack to hold, yet sharpened against all Modesty with Insultations and Revilings. Some of great magnanimity have been heart-broken, that they were drawn to contest for their Honor with a Faction of Grooms, or a Conspiracy of more honorable Impeachers. To begin with Scipio; says Quintil. lib. 11. Prior Affricanus Patrià cedere, quàm cum tribuno plebis humillimo contendere de innocentiâ suâ malluit: He would retire, and leave his Country, rather than contend with a Plebeian. L. Philip Chabot Admiral of France, took such grief, says Thuanus, at the unkindness of Francis the First, to let his Chancellor Poet sift him for Trespasses committed in his Office, who had ever been most noble and faithful, that he sickned and died. It is no longer since than the Twentieth of King James, says Archbishop Spotswood, Hist. p. 541. that Information being put on by the Lord Ochiltry against Sir Gideon Murray, Treasurer-Deputy, and remitted to the Trial of certain Counselors, Sir Gideon having ever given great proof of his Integrity, contracted so deep a Melancholy, as neither Comfort nor Counsel could reclaim him, and in a few days he departed this Life, the King sorrowing that ever he had given ear to such Delations. Aemilius Scaurus sped better with his Judges in the Roman Senate, that let him say nothing, but cast a Scorn upon his Adversary Varius, and acquitted him. Varii Sucronensis atrocissimam calumniam Aem. Scaurus summâ gravitate contempsit, solo contemptu refutavit; which Jo. Cameron opposeth in his own behalf against one Elias an Advocate of Paris, Oper. p. 855. Our Bishop did not look for the Privilege of Scaurus, but was held to his Answer, which did no more disquiet his Spirit, then to say the Pater-noster, nor one grey hair grew on his head the sooner; but made himself merry with the Conceit, how easy it was to stride over such Urchin Articles. No Man would find leisure to read the whole 36, they are so frivolous. Taste them all in these. First, They complain that he came not always in his Habit, and came late to Divine Service. (Answer, sometimes both, not always.) 2. He stays Singing-men with him at Bugden. (He did not invite them, and they came with the Sub-deans leave.) 4. He is not resident often. (The Charge in former days was, that he resided there too much.) 5. He did not preach in propria personá; (because he was frowned at if he were there in propriá personâ ). The 15th, The Dean and Treasurer did not ride progress to keep Courts; (who was not to ride otherwise by Statute, than si velit. ) 23. He made Dr. Hacket his Vicar in the Election 1632. (The three Electors may choose their Vicar, whom they will at their own pleasure.) 24. Verses were not hung up in the Hall upon the King's day, Anno 1634. (The Scholars were corrected for the Fault.) 26. He calls the Schoolmaster often away, keeps him many weeks in the Country, and employs him in his great Affairs, to the neglect of his Scholars. (He never staid with the Bishop above two nights at a time: his great business he doth is to buy a Book, or to convey a Letter; and the School by his Attendance is in an excellent case.) The daring Courage of Mr. Osbalston troubled the Bishops ill-willers, more then all his Friends beside that did negotiate for him. For, as my Lord Bacon observes, A bold person may serve for great use at the direction of a wiser man. All the rest of the Articles were goll-sheaves, that went out in a sudden blaze, and the Bishops triumph was, Adversis rerum immersabilis undis, Hoart ep. l. 1. But because there is nothing new under the Sun, I will pluck for a parallel to this in the Life of Padre Paulo: Soto and Archangelo his professed Enemies objected against him to Cardinal Severino the Grand Inquisitor: First, That sometime he kept Company with Heretics. 2. That he wore a Cap upon his head. 3. That he wore Slippers after the French fashion 4. That he did not recite Salve Regina at the end of the Mass. Flea-bites, like the former, of which you can see no mark in an hour. But says St. Austin Serm. 〈◊〉 de diver. Quid refert utrum te plumbum premat, an aren • ? Nay, with good leave, it is not all one. The Lead will not be removed so soon, as the Wind may blow the Sind into their faces that laid it. To stay no more upon this; the Articles flew away over the Abby, like a flock of Wild-geese, if you cast but one stone among them: yet the Promoters were not one whit dismayed; they had laid their Betrs so sure, that they would get, whether the Game were won or lost. If their Articles succeeded, they got the day: if otherwise, it would be worth a Hen and her Chickens to bid defiance to their Dean. For everyone of his Adversaries had a Recompence given them, like a Coral to rub their Gums, and make their Teeth come the faster.
90. Readers impartial must judge of these things, and will be tried at the great Assize of common Discretion, whether he that had been so liberal to the structure of the Church and Library, had erected some Scholarships, their number being a great deal short of the Foundations of Eaton and Winchester, whether he deserved that they should fly at his Throat to worry him, who had as much relation to the place as himself, where these good Deeds were done. But there is a Writer, (and not one year scapes him, but that he publisheth somewhat to bespatter the Bishop of Lincoln 's good Name; Odimus accipitrem quia semper vivit in armis, Ovid. Art. Amand.) he it is that would cover all the Monuments of his Bounty with one Blot, if he could find Readers, such as he wishit, that would take all that he vents without examination. Mr. Fuller in his Church History of Britain, after he had given some unhandsome Scratches to this Bishop, parts with him thus; Envy itself could not deny, but that whit hersoever he went, he might be traced by the foot-steps of his Benefaction—That he expended much in the repair of the Abby-Church of Westminster, and that the Library was the effect of his Bounty. This is truth, and praise-worthy in the Historian; and yet I say not the Bishop is beholding to him for it, because it is truth. That's Politian 's judgment in an Epistle to Baptista, p. 197. Pro v • ris laudibus, hoc est pro suis, nemo cuiquam debet. Quis enim pro suo debeat? But what says one of the Swallows to it, that built under the roof of the Abby? Just like a Swallow, carried all the filth he could pick up to his Nest. But worse then a miry Swallow, he resembles those obscene Birds that use to flutter about the Sepulchers of the Dead, and insults extremely over the Grave of the Deceased in his Animadversions upon the Church History, p. 273. That Lincoln received so much out of the Rents of the College, in the time when he was Lord Keeper, four years and more, that the Surplusage of all that he paid out in several sums respectively, amounted to more then he laid out upon the Church and Library. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Demost. orat. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . about the end; The very Enemies of the dead cease to hate them when they are dead. But as Anabaptists and Quakers say they are above Ordinances, so it seems the Conscience of some Divines is above moral Niceties. As to the Calumny, squeeze it, and in round Russian Language you shall wring out a great lie. First, before the Dean was Lord Keeper, or dreamt of that honor, that is, before the Chapter had committed the Rents to his management, he had repaired the great Ruins of the south side of the Church, abutting upon the stately Chapel of Henry the Seventh. If the Animadverter knew this, why did he not separate it from that which was expended in those four years wherein he lays his Challenge • If he did not know it (for it was done ten years before he was hatched into a Prebend) then when blind men throw stones, whose head is not like to be broken? For that which was laid out by the Lord Keeper to strengthen and beautify the north side of the Abby, to the end that the right Pay-master may be known, and the mouth of all Detraction stopped, the Chapter shall testify in their Act, as followeth: Whereas there hath lately been divulged, as we have heard, an unjust report, that the Right Honorable and Right Reverend Father in God, the Lord-Bishop of Lincoln our Dean, should have repaired and new-built our Church on the north side of the same, and south side of the Chapels belonging to it, out of the Diet and Bellies of the Prebendaries, and Revenues of our said Church, and not out of his own Revenues; We therefore the Prebendaries of the same, with one consent do affirm, That we verily believe the same to be a false and injurious Report. And for ourselves we do testify every man under his own Protestation, that we are neither the Authors nor Abettors of any such injurious Report, untruly uttered by any mean man with intention to reflect upon his Lordship. And this we do voluntarily record and witness by our Chapter Act, dated this present Chapter Decemb. 8. 1628. Theo. Price Sub-Deacon, Christopher Sutton, George Darrel, Gabriel Grant, Jo. King, Rob. Newell, John H • lt, Gr. Williams. Whether will we believe eight men in their right minds, or one in his rage?—To slight the Bishops erecting such a beautiful Pile, the Library of St. John 's College (and put that of Westminster with it) he is as froward as a Child that hath worms in his Stomach, and tells us that it possibly cost him more Wit than Money, many Books being daily sent unto him; Vis dicam tibi veriora veris; Martial. It was not only possible, but very true. For what Library, no not the Bodleian, the choicest of England, but grew up, and doth grow by contributory Oblations? as Athenaeus says Lib. 8. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . The Symbols or Portions that many Friends bring in to furnish a public work, have good influence into it, but the Founder is the Lord of the Ascendant. A great deal of the like the Author hath crowded into a few Leaves: I do not accuse it for want of Salt, it is a whole Hogshead of Brine. Wisely and mildly Melanchthou was wont to say, Answer not Slanders, but let them vanish; Et si quid adhuc in hujus saeculi levitate quasi innat at, brevi interiturum est cum autorum nominibus, Camer. p. 79. The worthy Works of the Bishop's excessive cost at Westminster, and in both Universities, will stand, when Pamphlets shall be consumed with moths. The liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things he shall stand, Isai. 32.8. A fair Walnut-tree the more it bears, the more it is beaten, as it complains in the Greek Epigram, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . But such as yield the fruits of good works in this world, shall become Trees of Life hereafter: as I have read it from some good Pen, He is well that is the better for others, but he shall be happy for whom others are the better.
91. Method hath digested the troubles about the Deanry altogether, which is the reason why this Paragraph recoils five years back, that is, to 1630 to make a transition into the next disturbance. A Commission was directed this year to very honorable and knowing persons, the Lord Privy Seal, Earl of Arundel, Viscount Wimbleton, Lord Wentworth, Sir Hugh Middleton, Sir W. Slingsby, Sir Hen. Spelman, Ed. Ascough, Th. Brett, Th. Bridgman, to question the oppression of exacted Fees in all Courts and Offices, Civil and Ecclesiastical, throughout all England. A noble Examination, and full of Justice, if due and convenient Fees thereupon had been straitened and appointed; which was frustrated two ways: First by indigent and craving Courtiers, who inquired after such as were suspected for Delinquency, and of great Wealth, with whom they compounded to get them Indemnity, though not a Doit of a Fee were abated. Secondly, By vexatious Prosecutions of abundance, that were Innocent, before Sub-committees, where Promoters got a great livelihood to themselves, to redeem them from chargeable Attendance; which deserves such a Complaint as Budaeus makes of his Master's Court. That it was a Divine Privilege of the Kings of France, that they had the gift of healing, and could cure the Stromosi by the touch of their hand; Si dedisset providentia ut consilia publica auspicato inirentur, and if they could thrust away flattery and false clamours with their hand, it would be the happiest Government in Europe, Lib. 2. Pandec. fol. 36. This Commission sitting, the Bishop of Lincoln 's Adversaries thought they had him sure, and had found his Laire, presuming they could ripen some Trespasses of his in that kind for a Sentence in the Star-Chamber. Jungant ur tum gryphes equis, &c. that had been strange to catch him in an over-sight about the Mammon of Iniquity: For the Elogy which Grotius gives, Lib. 1. Hist. Belg. to William of Nassau, was as much this Bishop's, as it was that great Prince's, Crudelitas, & avaritia nullo ab ingenio longiùs abfuere. But what cannot great Men bring about, when there are no Parliaments to overlook them? As Tully says of Brutus, Philip. 12. Multis in rebus ipse sibi Senatus suit; All must be as Brutus will, if Brutus will be as absolute, as if himself were a Parliament. Who but Mr. Ratcliff the King's Attorney for York (and we know the Orestes to whom this Pylades was so dear) was instructed to prepare a Bill to be put into the Star-Chamber against the Bishop, who had laid his ear to the ground to hark after the digging of the Mine, and knew the Substance of it, before the Draught was fully pen'd. Such, as are so fortunate in their Discoveries, and have intelligence of all Practices against them, are the Moral of those fabulous People that are called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the Greek Tongue, some of a strange plantation, that could cover all their body with their Ears. The charges upon which mr. Ratcliff was devising an Information, were two; the one about the Fees of the Clerk of the Hamper, (which is, according to Sir H. Spelman's Glossary, Sport a grandior cui inferuntur pecuniae e sigillatione diplomatum, brevium, chartarum regiarum proveni • ntes, which were as good as fixed before he came to be Lord Keeper The other was about Fees in the Episcopal Registry at Lincoln, presented for undue in the persons of some Officers, but without reflection on the Bishop, whom one thing puzzled; for he knew not whether there were a Mystery▪ or Madness in it. A Prelate or twain were consulted about this Bill of extorted Fees, and they bid it good speed; which was no less than to pull an old House upon their own heads; for the Sums, according to the Tables of their own Registries, were the same or greater. Did they think he would not plead it? Communis culpae cur reus unus agor? Proper. l. 2. el. 10. Did they conceive but he would declare his Cause was theirs, and theirs was his? Or would they blow up themselves upon their own Deck to blow up him? As Justin shows how desperate the Boeotians were in their malice against the Phocians, lib. 8. Baeotii tanto odio Phocensium ardentes, ut perire ipsi, quàm non perdere eos praeoptarent. Better had it been for the Reverend Fathers of Holy Orders, rather to strengthen, than to weaken one another; for the Kite might come (O holy Lord he came to soon) who would make but one Morsel of them altogether.
92. But before any Suit could begin, the Bishop represented the Case in a Letter to the King:
May it please your most excellent Majesty;
BEing much wounded by a pinching and uneven Report drawn up by some Officer of your Majesty's Commissioners for the Fees, and presented unto your Majesty; Jul. 1630. though but very lately come to my knowledge, without any touch of the full and satisfying Answer, which I had given some three weeks before unto the Lord's Commissioners, and to others in that behalf. Although I am content, as Men of My Calling ought to be, to pass with the rest of the World through good report and bad, yet I am not able to endure that impression which the said Relation may peradventure have wrought in your Majesty's breast against me; a Bishop that hath served your Father in so near a place while be lived, and closed his Eyes when he died, and remains still in the number of your poor Chaplains, free from the least suspicion of such sordid Avarice, as might cause him to spot his Roche • , with the exaction of so mean a Sum as 20 l. a year, which is the utmost of that pretended Extorsion. The Charges pressed upon me with many Words, but no Matter at all, are two: The first concerning an Order for Increasing the Clerk of the Hamper's Fees, 19 Jac. The second about Fees for Institutions, and Resignations taken by the Bishop of Lincoln. My Answer for the Clerk of the Hampers Fees consists of these Heads: 1. That the King may justly and legally increase the Fees of all Offices in his own immediate donation, not limited by Act of Parliament, and hath ever been done so; which was granted by all the Lord's. 2. His late Majesty, before my coming to the Seal, had refer'd the suggestions of the Clerk of the Hamper for this increase of Fees unto those four great Lord's, who had the Seal in their custody, and that their Lordships by their report did allow the same, and returned a Certificate unto his Majesty of all the Species wherein the Fees were to be increased; which was confessed by two of their Lordships then present. 3. This Certificate was recommended to me both by word of mouth from his Majesty, and by direction upon a Petition, subscribed, to my Remembrance, by the Secretary of State, which Petition the Commissioners might call for from the Clerk of the Hamper, who had it for the instructing of his Council, and fortifying his Evidence. 4. Upon my doubting of the form, how this might be done by Law and President, the King's Council learned, to wit, the Attorny and Sergeant, did, not in the Clerk of the Hanpers only, but in the King's behalf, satisfy the Court fully in both those particulars, which is express in the Order. 5. That thereupon the Court being assisted with one or two Judges, without examining the Suggestions, (which the Court supposed to be sufficiently done by the former Referrees) the Order was made; which Order for the ease of the Subjects, doth retrench and cut short very much of the Fees allowed by the former Certificate. 6. For Orders made in the High Court of Chancery, the Judge for that time being, doth not conceive that he is responsable to any Power under Heaven, beside the King himself. And this was the effect of my Answer concerning that Order for increasing the Fees of the Clerk of the Hanper. My Answer concerning the Fees in the Diocese of Lincoln is wholly omitted in the Report, as though I had been only called before the Commissioners, but for form; and it was to this effect, 1.That the Certificate from the Country layeth nothing to my charge. 2. That I never gave Direction for receiving of any Fees, but took those only which were delivered to me by the Register. 3. That I conceived the Fees of Lincoln Diocese to be much lower than of any other in England, which the L. Wentworth seemed to confess to be so. 4. That if the Register did receive 23 s. 4 d. of every Clerk instituted for the Bishop's Fee, it was no more than the Table allowed. 5. That the Fees questioned were received by my four immediate Predecessors, Bishops Mountain, Neal, Barlow, Chaderton, Which four Bishops take up a space of time, which extends beyond the Table of Fees. And the L. Wentworth said, he believed as much, and promised to report it. 6. My L. of Winchester is able to assure as much, that these are the ancient Fees of the Diocese; and that I believe my •• of London, who was beneficed and dignified in this Diocese, and hath twice or thrice paid the said Fees in his own person, can, and I doubt not, will be ready to testify as much. 7. That for mine own part, and mine own time, I was ready to lay all my Fees (being, God wot, a most contemptible Sum) at your Majesty's Feet, to be disposed of as your Majesty pleased. Nor had I ever in my Life touched one Penny of the same, but given it away from time to time to mend my Servants Entertainment. 8. That the 135 th Canon mentioned by the Commissioners, refers the examination of all Fees in question, not settled by Acts of Parliament, to the Archbishop only, and the Cognizance ecclesiastical, who is the only proper Judge of these Questions: Therefore I humbly beseech your Majesty, that I may not be drawn to contest with my Sovereign, in a Suit of Law of so mean and miserable a Charge as this is, but rather, if those two reverend Prelates shall not be able to satisfy your Majesty, you will be pleased to hear me yourself, or transmit the Cause to the Lord's of the Council, or where it is only proper to be heard, to the Archbishop of the Province, and that Mr. Attorny-General may stay the Prosecution elsewhere; which I shall embrace with all humble Duty and Thankfulness, &c.
93. Remember that in this petitionary Letter the Bishop calls himself the King's Chaplain, but not his Counselor; for about a year by-gone the King had commanded that his Name should be expunged, and not remain in the Catalogue of those honorable persons: And who is so faithful among all thy servants as David? 1 Sam. 22.24. Yet so it was decreed, he must not challenge the Privilege, nor keep the Ceremony of the Name; and more he had not in four years before. No worse an Author than Sir E. Coke tells us, in Jurisd. of Courts, p. 54.
94. One Quarrel, commenc'd upon no ground, continued to this day, by the Animadverter on the Church-History of Britain, and elder than the Troubles with Sir R. O. was thus:
95. There would be no end to repeat with how many Quarrels this unfortunate Bishop was provoked, yet his Adversaries did but dry-ditch their matters, and digged in vain, though they still cast up Earth, who were no better than the Arians, of whom Athanasius writes, Lib. ad Sol. Vit. Agen. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . They fretted if they had spent a day wherein they could not do a Mischief. And it will do the Sufferer no right, to tell how he threw all day, and cast not one good Chance, but was worsted in all his just Appeals: Quis enim suâ praelia victus—Commemorare velit? Metam. l. 9. Yet I will insist in that noble Contest he had with the Archbishop of Canterbury, about his metropolitical Visitation, that hereafter, when God shall send the like occasion, (as I trust he will) the Diocesans of Lincoln may know what their stout Predecessor did allege for their exemption. This may come to pass. But as the unknown Orator said to Constantine in his Panegyric, p. 246. Ista felicitas viderit utrum adhuc meae aetati debeatur. Archbishop Land enterprising to visit his whole Province, found opposition only from the Universities, from Cambridge I am sure, and from the Bishop of Lincoln, whom, next to the substance of the Cause, one circumstance displeased, that Sir John Lamb was commissioned to be the metropolitan Vicar, to visit his Diocese: Sir John had been very officious about him for many years: I let it go with that of Tully to Atticus, Pompeius Scauro studet, sed utrum front an mente dubitatur. And the Bishop had done as much for Sir John as he could have done for the Worthiest of all his Profession. 'It is amplified enough before, and makes another instance, That so wise a man was not always circumspect in his Patronage. Lamb was crafty, and of much experience, but in the running of some years, he was hated of all men, and much complained of, that he was ravenous in taking Fees: Like as one says of the Pope's drawing in Moneys from all Parties, That he was a Participle that took from Clergy and Laity. When he perceived these things distasted Bishop Williams, and that he had not Encouragement from him as before, and dreaming of Golden Mountains from another hand, he turned the falsest man, and the greatest Enemy to him in the World: Archbishop Laud he'd worm him quite from adhering to Lincoln; and much good do him with him. Whereupon I remember what Plutarch tells merrily, of a goutish man that had his Slippers stolen from him; says the man full of Pain, I wish the Thief no more harm, but that my Slippers were fit for him. Well, the Visitation being designed, and to be carried on by Lieutenant Lamb, our Bishop wrote to my Lord of Canterbury, as followeth.
96.
Most Reverend, &c.
UPon the Message which I received from Mr. Sherman, of your Graces intention to visit my Diocese this year, being the year of mine own Triennial Visitation; and the certain News I heard of Sir J. Lamb's collecting of Presidents, to induce your Officers to stir up your Grace thereunto, I have, both by myself and others, made some enquiry into the Records, and several Registries of the Diocese, and do find clearly, that in Grosthead's time, anno 1235. this Diocese had never been metropolitically visited, and that ever since that time, until now, no Archbishop of Canterbury did visit this Diocese (otherwise than in vacancy of the See) but by the virtue and power of some particular Bull procured from the Pope, or Letter of Assistance from the King's Majesty, since the Supremacy was reassumed in this Realm. And I find the several Bishops in these several Ages to have assented to these Visitations, as they were Papal and Regal only, not forbearing notwithstanding to exercise all manner of Act or Acts belonging to their Jurisdiction Episcopal, not only in the times, but in and on the very days of these Archiepiscopal Visitations, and refusing to pay any Procurations or other Fees, by virtue of a special exemption granted unto this See, and some others, by Pope Innocent the Fourth, by the procurement of Bishop Grosthead, deposited in this Registry, and never waved by the Bishops of this See, however, some other of your Graces Suffragans have omitted peradventure (as having not the custody thereof) to implead the same: Yet do I differ (may it please your Grace) in this particular from all my Predecessors in this See, that I do believe your Grace may visit, even by your own metropolitical Power, all this Diocese, (unless this great Prescription of an hundred years may debar the same) but truly I do, under Favor, conceive, that your Grace ought not to inhibit my ordinary Jurisdiction, nor do any acts to impeach the same. Nor can I find any word sounding that way, in any one of all the Visitations kept, as before is rehearsed, by your Grace's Predecessors, excepting only in Archbishop Cranmer's, the last Archbishop, who above one hundred years since visited this Diocese; and yet Longland, then Bishop of Lincoln, did not only execute all parts of his Jurisdiction, pendente visitatione metropoliticâ, but the Dean of the Arches, Archbishop Cranmer's, and the King's chief Commissioner for that Service, did freely and voluntarily of himself set all the Bishop's Officers at full liberty, to exercise all their Jurisdictions, after the first day of his Visitation, reserving his Detections only to his own cognizance. Now, since this Visitation of Archbishop Cranmer, (which was more Regal than Metropolitical, as appears by the Instructions given to the Commissioners at that time) no Archbishop of Canterbury hath ever offered to visit this Diocese, as well for the Reasons premised, as because all the means of Livelihood belonging to this See, being taken away by the Duke of Somerset, 2 Ed. 61. and a new, airy, and phantastical Corps being framed for the miserable Bishopric, consisting in great part of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, if your Grace should inhibit the exercise thereof, and divert the Profits assigned therefrom for the Bishop's Maintenance, he should not be able to eat or drink, much less to pay unto his Majesty First-fruits, Tenths, and Subsidies, charged upon this Bishopric, with relation to this last Endowment: In the which last Difference this Bishopric is, for ought I know, miserably distinguished from all others. Thus I conceive the case to stand, my gracious Lord; and I hope, (unless your Grace will be pleased to permit me to go on with my Visitation for this year, and take further time to consider thereof) by our Lady-Eve, to procure all those several pieces, which confirm these Premises, to be transcribed out of our Records and Registries, and sent by my Officers to attend your Grace's further Good-will and Pleasure, &c.
How reasonable the Propositions of this Letter are I know not; I know they did not prevail: Sed ne querelae tum quidem gratae fuere, cum forsitan erant necessariae, says Livy in his Preface. His Complaints were not well taken, though they were necessary, and good to stand upon Record, to show what was alleged for the benefit of his own See, and the emolument of smaller Bishoprics. In the end our Bishop let it go on the Archbishop's side, without more contradiction, having not forgotten that Philosophy in Seneca, Acerbissimam partem servitutis effugit, qui imperium libens excipit.
97. All this, and so many Quarrels piled one upon another, were too little to bow the straightness of his Spirit, yet there was enough to make his Foes audacious, because a heavy Charge in Star chamber depended Seven years against him, prosecuted for the King by the Attorny-General, concurrent all along with the rehearsed Troubles; Omne tulit secum Caesaris ira malum, Ov. 3. Trist. el. 12. God complains of the Rigour of the Heathen against Jerusalem, I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction, Zech. 1.15. Beware to help Affliction forward, Revenge is fierce when Misery cannot mitigate it: It may be a Court-lesson, it is not a Christian, to thrust him down that is a falling: Mark Reader, that the Actors herein came into the hands of a Power, or rather of a Tyranny, that had no compassion of any. Optima vindex insolentiae variet as humanae conditionis, Valer. lib. 4. c. 7. The Wheel of Vicissitude turning many Sticklers that were at the top to the bottom, is the Act and Motion of Providence, to be the Scourge of Insolency. Among all Devices to thrust him under Water, that was sinking already, none was hatched of more Despight and Indignity, than a Book published by a Bluster-master, ann. 1636. called, A Coal from the Altar, to defame a Letter sent nine years before by the Bishop, to some Divines of the Neighbourhood of Grantham in Lincolnshire, to resolve a Doubt upon the Site of the Communion-Table, or Altar, as the Vicar of Grantham called it, from whose Indiscretion the Contention began. If ever any had a Wolf by the Ear, the Bishop was in that quandary upon this provocation. Gladly he would have made his Peace with the King, to which he came near twice or thrice, but at last utterly lost the sight of it: It behooved him, for his Safety, not to make them his Enemies, who were like to be his Judges; chiefly not to trespass against the Likings of Archbishop Laud, who could draw the King with one Hand farther than all the Lord's in the Court with their whole Arm. From anno 1627, when the Letter was written in the Case of the Vicar of Grantham, to anno 1636, there had been much done in Preaching and Practice, to introduce some comelinesses in the Worship of God, as they were styled, which had not been before. The Archbishop set his Mind upon it, which a late Writer calls his Pregnancy to revive ancient Ceremonies; and another Book, Antid. Lincol. p. 85.
98. I have cleared the rise of the Controversy which follows, That a Letter of the Bishop's was sent to some few persons, nine years before, to stop a Debate in a private Parish, and to make Peace in the place. This was published by Dr. Heylin, with a Confutation, and censured for Popular Affectation, Disaffection to the Church, Sedition, and for no better than No Learning: And the Plot was, as Concurrencies will not let it be denied, to pop out this Pamphlet, when the Bishop's Cause in Star-chamber was now ripe for hearing: And this was the Pack-needle to draw the Whip-cord of the Censure after it. But what was this about? Take the Substance, or rather the Shadow, that was contended for, out of the Letter, in an Abstract: The Vicar of Grantham, P. T. of his own Head, and never consulting the Ordinary, had removed the Communion-Table to that upper part of the Chancel, which he called the Altar-place, where he would officiate when there was a Communion, and read that part of Service belonging to the Communion, when there was none. And when the People shown much dislike at it, because it was impossible, as they alleged, that the 24th part of the Parish should see or hear him, if he officiated in that place, he persisted in his way, and told them he would build an Altar of Stone upon his own cost at the upper end of the Choir, and set it with the ends North and South, Altar-wise, and six it there, that it might not be removed upon any occasion. A Complaint being made against this, by the Alderman, and a multitude of the Town, the Bishop contented himself at first to send a Message to the Magistrate, and the Vicar, that they should not presume either the one or the other of them, to move or remove that Table anymore, otherwise than by special direction of him and his Chancellor; that in his Journey that way he would view the place, and accommodate the matter according to the Rubric and Canons. There being no certain day set when the Bishop would come, the Inhabitants of Grantham prevented him, and came with open cry to Bugden against the Vicar, who was among them at the Hearing. Some Heat, and sharp Impeachments against each other being over, the Bishop did his best to make them Friends, and supp'd them together in his great Hall, while himself retired to his Study, and bade them expect that he would frame somewhat, in a thing so indifferent to him, to give them content against the Morning. So he bestowed that night in writing, and made his Papers ready by day: As the Panegyrist said to Constantine of such Celerity, Quorum igneae & immortales mentes, mint •• e sentiunt corporis moras, p. 303. The Secretary gave a short Letter to the Alderman, in which that which concerns the case in hand, is this little:
99. Scan this now, both for the Form and Matter, before equal Judges in some Moral and Prudential Rules: The Letter or private Monition, as he calls it that drew it up, Hol. Tab. p. 82. was written nine years before, and in all that time had gained this Praise, that it savor'd of Fatherly Sweetness, to satisfy the Scrupulous by Learning in matter of Ceremony, rather than to strike the case dead with Will and Command. The Contents of it had been quoted in a Parliament, with well done good and faithful Servant, thou hast been faithful in a little. A Divinity-Professor in his Chair, Dr. Pr. had spoken reverendly of it by the relation of many; it was punctually read, or opened fully to the King at the hearing of the Cause of St. Gregory 's Church, Ho. Tab. p. 58. and no Counselor did inform that it was disparaged. A Litter of blind Whelps will see by that time they are nine days old; and was the Answerer blind, that could not see the reputation this Paper had got, by that time it was nine years old? Let a Presbyter, for me, dispute the truth with him that is of the greatest Order in the Church, yet what Canons will suffer him to taunt and revile a Bishop, whose whole Book was but a Libel against a Diocesan, p. 58. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Clem. Const. lib. 2. c. 31. Which Canon will not allow a Clerk of a lower degree to raise an evil Murmur against a Bishop. Much of the like is an Antiquity from Ignatius downward. Their supereminent Order is not to be exposed to petulant Scoffings by their own Tribe; Sed servanda est uniuscujus{que} Episcopy reverentia, says Gregory, Ep. 65. Ind. 2. since the Age grew learned, and Knowledge puffed men up, Ministers are more malapart among us, and in every state with the Fathers of the Church; but from the beginning it was not so. If the like to this had been done upon the Person of another Bishop, he would have been taught better Manners that had presumed it. The Example is the same wheresoever it lighted, and might have taught them, that where Reverence is forgotten to any of the chief Order, that he that abuseth one, doth threaten many. It is a sad Presage to my Heart, to apply that of Baronius to them that did not maintain the Honor of their Brother, Quod Praesides ecclesiarum alter alterius vires infringebant, Deus tranquilla tempora in persecutiones convertebat, an. 312. p. 6. These Annals prevent me not to forget, that for a better color to make licentious Invectives, the Respondent takes no notice that a Bishop wrote the Letter: For, why not rather some Minorite among the Clergy? Indeed it had not the Name, but the Style tells him all the way, that it could come from none but the Diocesan of Grantham: Therefore I will give him his Match out of Baronius, anno 520. p. 22. Maxentius contra epistolam Hormisdae scripsit: sed ut liberam sibi dicendi compararet facultatem, Hormisdae esse negavit, sed ab adversariis ejus nomine scriptam esse affirmans. This is a stale Trick to bait a Pope or a Prelate, in the name of one that was much beneath them; Sternitur infoelix alieno vulnere, Aen. lib. 10. but he that willfully makes these mistakes, I take him for what he is. I pass to the main Question, What did this Letter prescribe, that it should be torn with the Thorns of the Wilderness? It pared away no Ceremony enjoined; O none further from it; but it moderated a doubtful case, upon the Mode and Practice of a Ceremony, how the Communion-Board should stand, and how the Vicar in that Church should pray and read at it for best edification of his Flock. He must give me time to study upon it, that would demand me to start him a Question belonging to God's Service of less moment: Had the Gensdarmery of our great Writers no other Enemy to fight with? Nothing to grind in their Brain-mill but Orts? This the Colleges of Rome would have, to see us warm in petty Wranglings, and remiss in great Causes; as Laertius says of one Xenophon, of the Privy-Purse to Alexander the Great, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , p. 632 He would quiver for cold in the hot Sun, and sweat in the Shade. It was a Task most laudably performed by Whitgift, Bridges, Hooker, Morton, Burgess, to maintain the use of innocent Ceremonies, with whom Bishop Williams did ever jump; and, as Fulgentius says in P. Paulo 's Life, would defend and observe all Ordinances, the least considerable, and no whit essential. But this was a great deal below it, to litigate not about the continuance, but about the placing of a Ceremony; an evil beginning, to distract Conformists, who were at unity before, and to make them sight like Cocks, which are all of a Feather, and yet never at peace with themselves. Woe be to the Authors of such Cadmaean Wars, Quibus semper praelia clade pari. Propertius. A most unnecessary Gap made in the Vine. yard, through which both the wild Boar, our foreign Enemy, and the little Foxes at home may enter in to spoil the Grapes. Plutarch, lib. de Is. & Osyr. tells me of a Contention between the Oxyndrites and Cynopolites, who went to War for the killing of a Fish, which one of the Factions accounted to be a sacred Creature; and when they were weakened with slaughter on both sides, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in sine, the Romans over-run them, and made them their Slaves. Let the Story be to them that hates us, and the Interpretation fall upon our Enemies.
100. Yet will some of the stiffer Faction say, it was time to clip the Wings of this Letter, or if it could be done, to make it odious abroad; for the Mctropolitan intending one common decency in all Churches of his Province, about the Table of Christ's Holy Supper, this Paper (six years older than his translation to the See of Canterbury ) where it was spread, made it difficult to be obeyed. One about that time would have replied thus: Hold your Hands for all that, is ye be Good-fellows, for your hour is not yet come: The Stream is against you: Both they that have read this Letter, and they that never heard of it, wonder why you are so double-diligent about Accessories, more than about the Work itself. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . says Aristoph. in Acharn. and are not pliable for this Alteration. He that seeks a thing in the wrong way, goes so far backward. The sage Prelates that ruled for 80 years before, did overlook this matter; and they neither wanted Will nor Care to advance Decency with God's Glory. If you think that he hath more Power that now sits in chief, than the best of his Order before him, that's true: Yet let him rein in a galloping Fortune, and he will sit the surer: Beside, he must have more than Power, he must have the Hearts of Men, that will form them to a new Model; this the Metropolitan wants; if he had that, he might easily command them; if he have not, he must slatter them, or he will do worse: And it is well known, how he that will bring a People from a Custom in God's Worship, with which they have been inured, to a Change, must be more than wise; that is, he must be thought to be wise: Look you to that. Can you say there is any harm in that which you are so busy to correct? Then what good can you hope to bring in, which is more valuable than Constancy? I think Plato was a prudent Moralist, from whom this came, 7. de Leg. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . 'It is hazardous to tamper with that, which hath continued long, to mend it, unless it be evil: But list Sirs, and tell me what Bell it is that rouls in your Ears; Do you not hear that Great and Small are not only froward, but sull of Threatning against the Grandeur of the Church? As yet we have lost nothing, all our care should be to keep that which we have; else, as good Bishop Hall wrote, while we plead for a higher strain of Prosperity, we bring ourselves into a necessity of Ruin. Archbishop Abbot said often, Parta tueri; Play for no more, lest you lose your Stake. It is an Epitaph for the Grave-stone of a Fool, I was well, and would be better; I took Physic, and died. Can you be insensible of this impendent Ruin? Are you so intent upon your Altars, that you know not how the Nation bears a grudge at you? Are you only Strangers in Jerusalem? As Budaeus said of the Troubles that broke in while he lived, de Ass l. 4. p. 110. France wanted Eyes and Ears, and which is strange, it wanted a Nose. Qui tantam cladem odorari ante non potuimus, quàm ab eâ oppressi. You do not smell the Vultures, but while you are chopping and changing, the Vultures smell after you, to prey upon the Carcass of your Patrimony. You cannot say that there is anything in it of Conscience to God, why you should not forbear to provoke the Discontents of the Kingdom any further: Lege fidei manente coetera jam disciplinae & conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis, Tertul. de Vel. Virg. c. 1. Keep the Old Faith, God is the Judge of that; Order and Discipline may vary, according to the liking of the Times, Discretion is the Judge of that. In a word, we do not see but the Swarms of God's Servants work well in all Parishes, if you will let them alone; if you remove their Hives, or stir them, take heed they do not sting you. It may be a Coal-kindler would think such Counsel as this not worth the hearing, Fore-cast and Fear with him are phlegmatic things; the Piety of the Times, and a rigid prosecution of a comely Uniformity, must not stoop unto them. Then do I say no more, but that I do not altogether dislike what a wise man hath taught me, That warm Devotion quiet and innocent, is less hurtful than ardent Zeal which is turbulent and misdirected.
101. So much advisedly thought of might have conduced not to meddle in that Cause at this time; but this Bishop and his Estimation was shot at, and he must be tempted what he would do by a Provocation in Print. They were none of the Bishop's worst Friends, that wished him, when he read the Coal, to look no more after it. It is a small thing, but a pretty, which Camerarius tells of Melancthon, p. 79. His Daughter had gadded from home till it was late, What will you say to your Mother, if she chide you, says he? Nothing, says the Girl. 'It is well resolved, says her Father. The Bishop had more reason to take that course, because the Rulers of the time frowned on him; and he that Answers a Calumny keeps it alive, he that will not, starves it: A Reproach is warm when it is fresh, but no longer: As Astronomers say of the Dog-star, Cunicula calore oritur, frigore occidit; It riseth in a hot Month, it sets in a cold. 'It is much he did not listen to this, and if it were but for another reason, that he thought Learning did surfeit of too many Books, and that the most of our late Authors were more troublesome than profitable: To which Sir H. Wootton 's Motto comes near, That the Itch of Writing makes a Scabby Church. And what else made so great a Wit as Friar Paul profess, (it is in his Life) That he would never write anything with intention to print it, unless Necessity constrained him? It may be the Bishop fancied somewhat like Necessity in this case; or it was because everyone hath not both the Qualities of the brave General Decebalus in Dion, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; He knew how to charge on, and how to retreat upon occasion: Therefore he published a little Tractate, called, The Holy Table, under the name of a Lincolnshire Minister. The Analyse of it may be spared, since it is in many hands; it insists chiefly upon two Heads, the Name Altar, and the Posture of Christ's Table Altar-wise; a mean Subject for the Pen of so good a Scholar, but Art is confined to small things sometimes, as well as Nature: And Pliny teacheth us, lib. 29. c. 1. Non puduit naturam gignere muscam, cum gignat hominem. Nature is not ashamed to be the Parent of a Fly, as well as to be the Parent of a Man. That the name of Altar might pass with more allowance, the Vicar of Grantham declared, that he would set up a Fabric of Stone, to support the Elements of the Holy Sacrament: Quite cross to the Advertisements 17 of Q. Eliz. That the Parish provide a decent Table standing on a frame for the Communion; and cross to the Canons Anno 1571. Title Church-wardens, They shall see there be a joined handsome Table, which may serve for the administration of the Holy Communion; in the Latin, Curabunt mensam ex asseribus composite junctam. This is irrefragable, unless one be refractory, that he will not learn; as Erasmus says of Poggius in his Epistles, p. 262. Poggius hôc erat animo, ut doctissimus haberi mallet, quàm reddi doctior: For if these were only Orders of Sufferance, they were nothing, but Canons are Church-Laws: Convocations meet not to make Permissions, but binding Canons to be obeyed by the Subjects, and by all the Ordinaries of the Kingdom, Hol. Tab. p. 205. Yet it was so forgotten by some, that while this Bishop was in the Tower, one of his own Clergy in Bedford-shire, Dr. Jas. Fisher, a fair Marble Stone being digged up in his Chancel, he set Workmen to smooth it, and to erect it for an Altar, till Troubles mar'd the Work, and Impeachments of Articles broke the Heart of a modest able man: He and the Vicar, that would be Altar-builders, might have spared their Stone, for the Altar of Incense was made of Shittim-wood, Exod. 30.1. or of Cedar, 1 Kin. 6.20. and over-laid with Gold, that the Wood might not catch Fire. Or, what if a Stone were set up? It were not the further for that from being a Table. H. T. p. 115. cites out of learned Gerard, Cessante sacrificio altaria illa nihil sunt aliud quàm mensae lapideae. Allowing no Sacrifice, those Altars are nothing but Stone Tables. Of Judea I can say nothing, but in Rome, about Christ's days on Earth, the People did eat upon Tables, not only of Limon and Maple wood, but of Stone. We have added, and Decency commends it, a fair white Linnen-Cloth, to cover God's Board, and our own at Meal-times, which was not in use when our Savior instituted the Sacrament, as far as I can see into the convival Customs of those days; for since the Waiters did wipe away, at the end of Supper, the Liquors which were spilled from Cups or Dishes with Sponges, it will not hold, that they had a Cloth spread upon the Table. What will Novelists say to this, that think we break the Second Command, if we vary from Christ in any circumstance in the ordaining of the Holy Supper? Some of them may, perhaps, be ready hereupon to take away the Linnen Cloth: Why not? since one Faction of them hath taken away the Table: For, says Bayly in his Dissuasive of Errors, p. 121. The Brownists at this day, at Amsterdam, have no Table at all, but send the Elements from the Pulpit, where the Minister preacheth, and celebrateth the Sacrament, by the Hands of the Deacon; and adds, that some Independents at London affect the like. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Nothing so dangerous to do all kind of Evil as an ignorant Rabble. They that will not grant a Table to Christ's Servants, to come to his Feast, will not, if they can prevail, grant a Church or Chancel to place it in. From which Madness and Sacrilege God deliver us. Manil. lib. 5. Si forte accesser it impetus ausis,—Improbitas fiet virtus.
102. From the matter of Stone, the Dispute leads us into a Strise about the Name. In the first Liturgy of Edw. 6. Altar is most in use: In the second, and from that day forward, the word Table is altogether read. In a year or two after the first of King Charles, the word Altar, per postliminium, was much in the mouth of many Divines, when it had been laid aside. Observe Peace and Truth, and call it either, or both, and it is all one: But charge them before the Lord, that they strive not about words to no profit, says St. Paul, 2 Tim. 2.4. For vanity, and things wherein there is no profit, are all one, Jer. 2.23. Scholars will understand me by this Instance; Altar for Table, or Table put for Altar, make no change in the sense with knowing men; the Council at Syrmium turned 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the Nicene Creed into 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , with no small Injury to our Lord Christ: But a Bishop in Nicephorus, instead of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Couch, as it is Jo. c. 4. read 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which is a Synonymum; yet Spiridion, a morose man, rose up, and spake against the Novelty. Vitiosum est propter nominum mutationem contentionem intendere, says the Author to Herennius. They are as near as can be to be Friends, that have nothing but two words of the same signification to part them. Yet two things were to be cleared to stop mistakings; First, It must be yielded, that our Mother-language, our Church-canonical word is Table, Altar is arbitrary at large. Secondly, for the right insight into the nature of the Sacrament, Table is the proper word, and Altar metaphorical. The Bishop comprehends them both very well in these words. H. T. p. 75 He doth not deny but the name Altar hath been long in the Church in a metaphorical usurpation; nor would he have blamed the Vicar, if he had, in a Quotation from the Fathers, or a Discourse in the Pulpit, named it an Altar in this borrowed sense; but to give the usual call of an Altar (he says usual) unto the Utensil, which the Law, that always speaks properly, never calls otherwise than by the name of a Table, is justly by him disliked. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . And again in that Page; Where we have a Law and Canon to direct us how to call a thing, we ought not to hunt after Reasons and Conceits, to give it another Appellation. It is apparent how the Liturgy confirmed Anno 1549. chooseth the word Altar, which Liturgy is agreeable to God's Word, and the Primitive Church; yet since the alteration came in by the next Liturgy three years after, the first Book doth not allow you to call it an Altar for the present; your Tongue ought to speak as the present Book and Law speaks it to you; and when men in their nomination of things do vary from the Law, which is the quintessence of Reason, they do it in a Humor, which is the quintessence of Fancy. Thus far he again, p. 142. And it is truly said in Antid. Lin. p. 96. Another Liturgy confirmed by Act of Parliament, made void the old: Neither is it pretended out of any Law or Canon to be called Altar more than once. Statute 1 Ed. 6. c. 1. The most comfortable Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Savior Jesus Christ, commonly called the Sacrament of the Altar, and in Scripture the Supper and Table of the Lord, the Communion and Partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ. Says the Bishop to this, H. T. p. 94. The holy Scripture should carry it quite away for the Name—and Sacrament of the Altar is not the Name, but the Nick-name,—and a Penal Statute, as this is, was to take notice of every Appellation it was at that time known by, and discerned. The last Reformation, which is orderly, as ours was, is the best: As St. Ambrose writing how Christianity came in after other Religions, discourseth thus, Ep. 32. Quis reprehendit vindemiam, quia in occasu anni est? Aut • livam quia postremus est fructus? Suppose some Antiquity be alleged from the Fathers, it shall have its due reverence, and will help a little, and but little in this matter: For, says Bishop Montague, Orig. Eccles. Tom. 1. P. 2. pag. 314. Aram habemus, seu potius altare, quibus nominibus vetusti proceres locum illum, in quo erant 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 vocabant, sed mensam saepius. The Bishop quotes the words of C. Bellarm. lib. 1. de missâ, c. 27. That the New Testament, by the special instinct of the Holy Ghost, did purposely forbear to insert into their Writings the name of an Altar. This is p. 116. Join to this what you find p. 147. That in the Romish Reformation of the Canon of the Mass, they never use in Rubric or Prayer, literally, nor so much as by allusion, the name of Table. And is it not time to keep the proper, and Scripture Word, in authority, when the Papalines, with an ill mind, had quite shoulder'd it out? If there were any reasons, as I know none, to think the name Altar as pertinent as Table, yet our Rubric and Canons will be above them; for it is a prudent Maxim in Baron. anno 542. p. 205. Deseratur reverentiae Synodorum, ut in his, quae minus intelliguntur, earum cedatur authoritati.
103. Which Rubric and Canons have rejected the name Altar, and substituted the other of Table, as being conjunct with the Sacrament, ordained for eating and drinking from the Table. So out of Bishop Morton, p. 130. H. T. Tell us, where was it ever known, that any Altar was ordained for eating and drinking? Out of C. Peron. p. 102. It is ever called a Table when it points to a Communion Supper, and an Altar when it points to the Sacrifice. Out of Bishop Andrew's Strictures, p. 131. Christ was given to us per modum victimae on the Cross, per modum epuli in the Sacrament. Out of the Act of K. Edward 's Privy Council, p. 132. If we come to feed on Christ spiritually, and spiritually to drink his Blood, which is the use of the Lord's Supper, then no man can deny, but the form of a Table is more meet for the Lord's Board, than the form of an Altar. The alteration of Words came in then (as, who doth not see it?) partly because we would be beholden to the Scripture for our terms, rather than to the wisest men in the World; partly to give in this Evidence among others, that we had renounced the Sacrifice of the Mass, the very offering up our Savior in an unbloody Oblation, not again, but by one and the same Act with which he offered up himself on the Cross; a Chymaera which is not intelligible to any mortal man. This was never dreamt of by those holy men, who freely called this Sacrament a Sacrifice and Oblation. Honesta quidem, sed ex quibus deterrima orirentur, Tac. An. lib. 1. They are excellent Notes which our Bishop quotes out of Bishop Bilson, p. 116. Christ and his Apostles did forbear the term of Sacrifice, therefore our Faith may stand without it. The Speeches of the Fathers in this kind are dark and obscure, and consequently unuseful for the edifying of the People. Lastly, We find by experience, that the very Expression hath been a great fomenter of Superstition and Popery: Therefore this is an Exception at the word Altar, that it is a Relative to a Sacrifice. Dr. Heylin, Antid. p. 79. pleads for the Vicar, that in that name he aimed at no propitiatory Sacrifice. I believe him: And the like for many other of the noble Army of our Hierarchical Church; for when that Sacrifice was exploded, yet for a while Christ's Board was called an Altar. This was our Bishop's mind; and, I take it, the same was and is in all our learned men, That in that Holy Sacrament there is a Spectacle of the Sacrifice of Christ's Body, as it suffered on the Cross, represented by breaking the Bread, and pouring out the Wine, by eating the one and drinking the other; that there is a commemoration of that Sacrifice in the repetition of the words of Institution; that there is an application of that Sacrifice to their Souls, that partake by Faith; and that all this makes properly a Sacrament, improperly and figuratively a Sacrifice. Hereupon, lest the notion of a Sacrifice, in this improper and secondary acception, should be forgotten, some are willing blamelessly to refresh it in their Memory, by calling the place of the representation of it an Altar. Nec cuiquam sunt injucunda quae cantant sibi, says Quintil. lib. II. But stay there, and step no further, because Lauds and Thanksgivings, the sweet odour of the Oblation of Alms, the Calves of our Lips, a broken and contrite Heart, a mortified Body, are spiritual Victims before and after the Sacrament, as well as in it. Sed non ibi consistunt exempla ubi caeperunt, Pater. lib. 2. It is good Counsel to be sparing in the use of those words, whose elegancy and innocence cannot countervail the Errors that have encroached from them. There are some, I have heard it from their own Lips, who say, that they call this Utensil an Altar, without any reference to a Sacrifice: Thus they explain themselves; That what is set apart to God should be differenc'd in its Name from common things, that Religion might have a Dialect proper to itself, as Paten, Chalice, Corporal, Albe, Paraphront, Suffront, for the Hangings above and beneath the Table: Instances are innumerous, and Church-men were ever pleased with Terms of Art peculiar to their own Mysteries, which are not common and familiar with secular occasions. But if this Project breed confusion, it is against edifying; if it give Offence, it is against Charity. And if I may not offend my Brother with my Meat, when I am free, that is, when my Superiors have made no Ordinance upon it; then, if I walk conscionably, I must not offend him in usurpation of words, when I am free, and shall not break the Commandment of Authority. I see not then but the word Table was to prevail, for the Gospel brought it forch, the Church among us did more generally like it, the Canons and Rubric score it to be used; and if you will ascend as high as to the Figures of the Old Testament, says the Bishop, p. 126. not the great Altar for Sacrifice, but the Table of the Inner Temple, on which the Shew-bread was set, was the true Type and Presiguration of the Communion-Table, as divers Jesuits yield it. Now, in the end of this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or Word-strife, I profess it had never been inserted into this Memorial of the Bishop of Lincoln, if the Doctor had not revived it in some late pieces, which he hath printed: For who hath leisure to cast his Thoughts upon such small Contentions, when we are overwhelmed with Heresies and Schisms that pluck up our Foundations? Praesentia hobetantur incommoda, si cui dolor major accesserit, as Sidonius setcheth it out of Hippocrates, p. 163. When such Wounds are made in our Body, little Scratches should be insensible.
104. The same Author hath listed up the Quarrel again, which was fallen, about the Place of the Holy Table: I would it stood in any place of the House of God, so it might be used, but it is extremely disused. Was there ever such a negligence among Christians before? Sometimes the Pope hath interdicted the Churches of a Nation for a year or more; the greater was his Sin: But I will make Affidavit, that some Parishes among us have been interdicted from the Lord's Supper, by the Hirelings that teach them, from anno 1642. to anno 1659. and this Famine of the holy Bread is like to continue among them. Is this a Season to renew what past anno 1637. between the Bishop and him, how the Table should stand? Deficilis est exitus veterum jurgiorum, Sym. Ep. p. 17. I speak, as well assured, that the Dr. hath been often since that time prostrate at that sacred Banquet; why then doth he break out into old Grudges for their Quidlibets? First, the Bishop did desire to satisfy his Reader where the holy Table should stand, when the Communion Service was celebrated. Secondly, where it should continue when that pious work was over. For the first, he durst not decide it, but as the Liturgy hath it, To stand in the body of the Church or Chancel, in the Communion-time, where Morning and Evening-Prayer be appointed to be said. And as the Advertisements state it, That Common-Prayer (the Communion being the supereminent part) be said or sung decently and distinctly in such place as the Ordinary shall think meet, for the largeness and straightness of the Church and Choir, so that the People may be most edisied. And as Canon 82 doth enjoin, When the Holy Communion is to be administered, it shall be placed in so good sort within the Church or Chancel, as thereby the Minister may be more conveniently heard of the Communicants, in his Prayer and Ministration, and that they may conveniently, and in more number, communicate with the Minister. And therefore the Bishop sums it up, Ep. p. 59. That this Liberty for a convenient place of Church or Chancel, is left to the Judgment of the Ordinary, and that the King, in his Princely Order about St. Gregory 's Church, did leave it to the Law, to the Communion book, to the Canon and Diocesan. The Law refers to Salus populi, to the edifying of the People; which was never respected under Popery, for their Mass was mutter'd at high Altars, far remote from the Auditory: Which Harding maintains, H. T. p. 204. That they never meant the People should understand anymore than what they could guess by dumb Shows, and outward Ceremonies. In old Liturgies it appears, that not only the Clerks, but where a Church had no more than one Clerk to officiate, the People made answer in Versicles and Suffrages; an excellent way to keep them in godly action; of which Privilege and Comfort they have been robbed in corrupt times, Erasmus says, p. 216. of his Ep. That King Harry 8. defended, that no Prayer was to be expected from the People; Praeteream quae meant is cogitatione Deum alloquitur. And that is it which is intended in Cardinal Pool 's Articles of his Visitation, anno 1556. Whether the People be contemplative in holy Prayer? But we have not so learned Christ, whose Communion is so ordered, that all that are present may hear and be edisied, everyone say the Confession of Sins after him that pronounceth it, everyone professes, as he is invited, to lift up his Heart unto the Lord. Let the Table stand so commodiously for the benesit of Receivers, when it is employed, and it is not here or there, whether the Minister stand at the North side, as the Church in terminis directs it, or at the North end, as Altar-contrivers contend for it. So we are told that the Table stands, and unremovably under the East Window in the King's Chapel. And says the Doctor, Antid. p. 41. That which is wisely and religiously done in the Chapel-Royal, why should it not give Law to Parish-Churches? The King's Chapel (I should say was, but my Heart will not let me) is a sacred Oratory of great regard, and ancient mention. Constantine the Great had one portable with him in his Camp. In Charles the Great 's time the Chapel of his Palace is samous. Luitprandus King of the Lombards had one in his Palace; Baron. anno 744. p. 23. And in the Reign of our William Conquestor, we read out of his Mouth, Mea Dominica Capella, Selden. Eadm. p. 165. Such Chapels, if like to our King's in all his Courts, were of no great dimension; the holy Board could not stand nowhere inconveniently in them, but that all might hear; therefore one constant site was most decent for it, where it deserved the highest Room, it being the Fabric on which the principal Service Evangelical is solemniz'd. The Bishop, p. 182. remembers out of Suarez, that Altars in Oratories and Chapels, among them who are the Mint-masters of Ceremonies, are not agreeable in situation to the Altars in Churches: Therefore private Chapels, nay, even the Kings, cannot be the Directories for all places, because very often Parish Chancels being but a few strides broad and long, cannot contain the multitude of all the People that come to take the Holy Mysteries. And when the Belfry is between the Chancel and the Nave of the Church, as at Carshalton in Surrey, the Minister can neither be heard, nor seen, unless he officiate in the Church, where all may enjoy the Exhortations, behold the Consecration, and join in Prayer. Therefore the Bishop answers prudently, H. T. p. 34. It is not His Majesty's Chapel, but his Laws, Rubrics, Canons, Proclamations, which we are to follow in outward Ceremonies.
105. Neither can the Opponent appeal to Rubric and Canons, but he betakes him to an Order, wherein the King's Majesty was present at the Council-Table, Nov. 3. 1633. This is quoted at length, Antid. p. 62. and in some of his latter Works, for approving the Table to be removed from the middle of the Chancel to the upper end, and there to be placed Altar-wise. If the King had intended that the like should be observed in all Parochial Churches, the Question had been decided against the Bishop's Letter. Nec turpe est ab eo vinci, quem vincere esset nefas, as Tigranes says of Pompey, Velle. lib. 1. The Bishop subscribes, p. 163. That the addition of anymore Ceremonies than are prescribed in our Book, is referred to the person of the King by Act of Parliament. The Contention remains, whether that Order of His Majesty with his Council hath influence upon other places, beside the particular of St. Gregory, which occasioned it. The Dr. himself says no such matter directly, but, Antid. p. 36. The King did not command, but hath given encouragement to the Metropolitan, and Bishops, and other Ordinaries, to require the like in all Churches committed to them. The Bishop says, He hath left all to the Law, to the Communion-book, to the Canons and Diocesan, p. 59. And which is much they two should agree, the Doctor says so too, Ant. p. 64. That it is left to the Judgment of the Ordinary, for the thing, for the time (N. B.) when, and how long he may find cause. The Bishop says more, That after this Order he had heard of no Bishop that had exacted of his Diocese the placing of the Holy Table Altar-wise, p. 69. And in the year following, 1634. the Archbishop holding a Metropolitical Visitation, keeps him to the ancient form in this Interrogatory, Doth the Table stand in a convenient place of Chancel or Church? If one Prelate was singular in his Visitation of Norwich Diocese, which the Dr. would seem not to speak out, but to intimate, our Bishop hath a Passage to meet it, p. 85. out of Archbishop Whitgift; There is no manner of reason, that the Orders of the Church should depend upon one or two men's liking or disliking, Where now appears, I say not the Command, but the Encouragement, that the Order made for St. Gregory 's Church should be observed in all Parishes? It will conduce to this Cause, to borrow one Quotation out of the Bishop, and two out of the Doctor; the Bishop's is taken from an Act of Council made for reformation, 1 Edw. 6. That the form of a Table shall never move the simple from the superstitious Opinions of the Popish Mass; and that this superstitious Opinion is more held in the minds of the simple and ignorant, by the form of an Altar, than of a Table. The Dr. p. 105. out of a Sermon of Bishop Hooper 's, preached before K. Edward, It were well it might please the Magistrates to turn the Altars into Tables, according to the first Institution of Christ, to take away the false Perswasion of the People, which they have of Sacrifices to be done upon the Altars; for as long as the Altars remain, both the ignorant People, and the ignorant evil-persuaded Priest will dream always of Sacrifice. Then p. 129. Bishop Ridley took down Altars, and appointed the form of a right Table to be used in all his Diocese, Duo Scipiadae. These two Bishops were very learned, and very Martyrs. A little remains to shut up this Controversy, or rather to shut it out: For to set the Table under the East Window of the Chancel, the ends running North and South, is this to set it Altar-wise? Verily it is a mere English Phrase, or rather an English Error, because Altars beyond the Seas are placed promiscuously, either at the top, or in the midst of the Chancel; as the Bishop notes p. 218. and commonly so far from the Wall, that the Priests and Deacons might stand round about them: As in Cardinal Borromaeo 's Reformation, a space of eight cubits was to be left between the Altar and the Wall. Altare in medio Ecclesiae situm, says Baron. anno 451. p. 62. Josephus Vicecomes, a skillful man in these punctilio's, Altaria in medio Ecclesiae allocata fuisse. But to fasten it sure, I refer it to Marcellus Corcyrensis, lib. 3. Sacr. Ceremony. p. 215. he says, The Pope never preacheth, but when he celebrates the Mass himself; he goes not up into a Pulpit, but sits in his Chair. Sedet ante altare super faldistorium, si altare est apud Parietem.—Si autem sedes Papae non infra, sed supra altare est, ut in Ecclesiâ S. Petri, & similibus, tune Papa vertit faciem ad chorum sedens in praedictâ seed. Here's the Altar, in the chief Mother-Church of Rome, in the midst of the Choir; which falls into this conclusion, that these local Differences among us, about the Holy Table, are not in imitation of any Church, but forms taken up at home; so that upon the final Sentence, Maxima de nihilo nascitur historia, as Propertius says fitly.
106. Here you have the Book of the Holy Table epitomiz'd, and you see the Bishop broke not the Peace of the Church, but was upon the defense. His Adversary tells us lately, that it was a Book cried up everywhere with great applause, when it came first to light. What would it have been if it had been studied any long time, and licked over with a second or third examination? But one month in the Autumn began it, and ended it, as not only the Author, but the Amanuensis testified. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; that is, when one is swift in doing a good thing, God and he were join'd together. But this Praise belongs to the Dr. as well as to him who is a swift Dromedary traversing her ways, Jer. 2.23. There are Passages between them with some bitterness on both sides; I like it in neither; they that spit upon one another are both defiled: I cite nothing fallen in that kind, for every Dunghill smells ill, but not till you stir it. To excuse such things, Non contumelias, sed argutias vocamus, says Seneca; It may be sharpness of Wit, but it is bluntness of Wisdom. One thing the Critics noted beside, That in some Passages the Holy Table is too light and merry; and no Merriment is worse than the Laughter of Anger; Subridens mistâ Mezentius irâ. Virg. It was not published in the person of a Bishop. And to me it seems that a joculary Style was not amiss for a frivolous Cause: Nor would the Author seem to be damp'd or troubled, but full of sanguine Alacrity for all the Provocation. And if Mirth keep decorum, it is a good Rule of Theages the Pythagorean, Laert. p. 847. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : It is the office of Virtue to act with pleasure, and not with sadness: Or as Solomon much better, A merry heart doth good like a medicine, Prov. 17.22. But if any the least thing were amiss, he heard of it on both Ears, in the Antidotum Lincolniense, which I pass over, because no Reply was made unto it: Not that the Author had won the Field, but as Livy said, Dec. 1. lib. 3. when the People of Rome retired to the Aventine Mountain, for the Injury done to Virginia, and the Senators asked them what they would have, Non defuit quid responderetur, defuit qui responsum daret. The Bishop, I know, was making his Notes ready to vindicate his Book, and was resolved, as the Italian Proverb runs, to give his Adversary Cake for Bread; for he was like to Bishop Fisher in Erasmus 's Character of him, Ep. p. 396. Roffensis vir pius cum primis, ac eruditus: sed eo ingenio, ut non facile desinat, ubi semel incaluit in certamine. He was prevented by his Cause in Star-chamber, which was brought to hearing in the same month that the Antidotum came abroad; a Censure passed upon him, which was executed with that rigor, that all that he had, even his Books, were seized, and he deprived of his Library: He could not fight without his Arms; or how could the Bell ring out, when they had stolen away the Clapper? Baronius pities Photios, whom he could not abide, for sustaining that hard usage, an. 871. p. 14. and brings him in complaining to his unkind Lord Basilius, of whom he had deserved better, Libris privati sumus, novâ in nos excogitatâ poenâ,—librorum amissio non est poena in corpus sed in animam. But hear himself speak, Epist. 97. of Bishop Montague 's Edition, that Constantine had censured some Bishops, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Yet he spoiled them not of their Goods, nor deprived them of their Books. But the Bishop of Lincoln found not that mercy, because he might be indefensible, and bear the Reproaches that fell thick upon him: Even sorry Clerks came into the Lists, when they knew they should not meet the Champion. Children talk most when they can speak least sense. Among these was a Doctor, like Theophrastus 's 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or Ardelio, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that will be a Guide to Travelers, when he knew not a foot of the way. He thrust out his Altare Christianum, to revile his Master, and his Patron; for the Bishop in his great Office had protected him against a Justice of Peace, who had served this Doctor with a Warrant for some Misdemeanors; the then L. Keeper put the Justice out of Commission for it, and made this Doctor a Justice in his place, took him to be his Chaplain, kept him often by some months together in his House, bestowed on him a Prebend in Lincoln Church, commended him to the L. Chamberlain, to swear him the King's Chaplain in ordinary, and prevailed. Indeed the Dr. lost some favor with the Bishop at last, because he was a Tell-tale, and made needless Complaints against his Brethren. In those black days, when the Bishop was over-clouded, this man strikes at him with all the force of his no-great Learning: Want makes men busy and industrious; the man wanted Preferment, for he would not have been so fierce if he had been full. The Puritans might sit still, and look on, when the King's Chaplains were allowed and preferred for their forwardness to do disgrace against a Bishop. There was a time when those factious Romans were most extolled, that cried down their honorable Patricians, Quae res & Marii potentiam peperit, & reip. ruinam, Match. Resp. lib. 1. c. 5. Now if these two Doctors think they got the Garland, because no Answer was made to their Books, let them wear it; if they desired work to write more, and to get Money by the Press, like the diurnal Scribler, they were disappointed. And well did Camerarius content himself, not to defend Melancthon against the Flaccians, because it was in vain to meddle with them; they had no Forehead to be ashamed, if they were convicted; Et ad unum probrum statim erant quae adjicerentur decem. So far, if not too far, upon the Bishop's Letter, and his Book The Holy Table, to set some Ceremonies in order in the Church of Grantham; and I will listen to Sidonius, lib. 8. c. 1. Post mortem non opuscula, sed opeea pensanda. We are to consider, after a good man's Death, his Works of Bounty and Mercy, rather than his Books of Controversy.
107. It was not Art, but Power; it was not a Book, but a Bill, that crushed our stout Prelate: All other Billows, even to the Rage of his Enemies, lifted him up, but this sunk him. Now I must bring his Boat to the Tower-wharf, the worst landing-place in all the River: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Court and Court-luck, for Company, from that day forward farewell, he never more looked for good from you. Here's as much occasion to open a wide Gate to let in Complaint and Sorrow, as any case will afford, upon the oppression and downfall of the most complete Bishop that the Age afforded, take him in the latitude of all his Abilities: Yet Thankfulness was not sensible of the Good-turns he had done, nor Honor of his Affronts, nor Justice of his Wrongs, nor Wrath of his Sufferings, nor Charity of his Undoing. If the Prosecution against him were fair, and the Sentence righteous, let him not be pitied, nor the Blot wiped out from his Memory: Se quisque ut vivit & effert; As he lived, so let him hear well or ill, being dead. But he was so secure, so ready to represent his Cause to the Judgment of the whole Kingdom, that against a Parliament was called in April 1640. he drew up the whole matter of his Suits and Troubles, in twenty sheets of Paper, to offer it to that Honorable House, for their severest Review: And if his Remonstrance were a Clamour, and not a just Complaint, he invited his Judges to lay a new and a severer Censure upon him. And it is fit that every Complainant should be devoved to that Court of Justice wherein he begins a Quarrel, to suffer as much Penalty, if he make not good his Bill, as he would have those to undergo, whom he challenged for his pretended Injuries: Which was Roman Law in Symmachus 's days, Ep. p. 67. Provisum est ne quis temere in alieni capitis crimen irrueret, nisi se idem priùs poenae sponsione vinciret. But it came not to that dint, for this Parliament was bespoken four months before, and was dissolved when it had met but three weeks: A Duck could not hatch an Egg, if she had sat no longer. The opportunity therefore was prevented for the Plaintiff to make use of his Papers, which were prepared for this Parliament: Fortune had mocked him, if he had tried her Courtesie at that time, who is a true Handmaid to no Mistress but Good-occasion: Yet this Memorial of his Case, which came not to their Hands, but to mine, so large, so exact, so fairly copied, without expunction of a word, without interlining, or the least correction in the Margin, is fortunately kept till now, (when so many noble Registries have been torn, and embezzled in these consuming times) to content both itching Curiosities and staid Judgments, that would know the Truth; out of which I will glean up faithfully a few handfuls, and no more, for these reasons: First, For the length it may pass for a Book, and I affect not to make this Book swell with the incorporation of another. Secondly, The Press at London, by hook or crook, lights upon every man's Papers, and doth license itself to publish them; the more shame for them that are in power, and do not mend it: And to save me the pains, Lincoln 's Star-chamber-Trial will come ere long into the Fingers of some sharking Broker of Stationers-hall, and be entered in there for his own Chattel, as well as the Author's Prayers and Meditations, made Anno 1621. for the use of L. M. B. which I glanced at in their due place, which a bold fellow hath filed up in his Hall, to be printed, to which he hath no more Right than Sir Ro. H— had to Charing-cross. Thirdly, My Breviate shall only tell you, and no more, who they were in great Place, that trod this man down by oppression and false ways, whose Pictures are drawn out at length in the larger Frame. 'It is too much the Recreation of the common man, to stick longest in that Page wherein he reads Invectives. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Demosth. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . So engrafted it is in us to listen unto Contumelies, as unto Music. But I will not feed my Guests with such Acorns: It is enough for a Warning to others, that God did quickly bring the day which he had called, and they were made like him, Lam. 1.21. Or worse, that oppressed the Bishop, for the abuse of Fiduciary Power will never pass long unpunished.
108. Every Effect is best known in its Cause, that's the best ground for a beginning. It is apparent, that much Anger was seeded, and thrust out of one bitter Root. The chief Counselors of K. James, and of his Cabinet, that devised with their Master how to compass the Spanish Match, and took no joy in the Failing, pleased their old Master, but lost the Prince his Son, alienated from them by Buckingham, after he had returned home. Richmond, Hamilton, Belfast lived not long after: Middlesex and Bristol, the first blown down, the other shaken by Impeachments in Parliament, and both laid aside: Arundel sent to the Tower, and there had continued, but for the clamour of the Peers in the Upper House, for nothing but for marrying his eldest Son to a Daughter of the House of Lenox: How then could Lincoln escape, who was K. James 's right hand in all Dispatches about that Treaty? Nothing was unassay'd to scourge him, because he knew more Secrets than any man, and shown most Stomach to defend himself. Sir A. Well. beyond his wont, tells Truth in this, p. 174. That his Ruin was determined, not upon any known Crime, but upon Circumstances, and upon Examinations, to pick out Faults committed in his whole life-time. And the blow was given, after nine years had been spent upon one matter, to frame a Censure out of it. Majora animalia diutiùs visceribus parentum continentur, Quint. lib. II. The Whelps and Cubbs of great Beasts are long in the Womb before they be brought forth. It came about anno 1628. that the Bishop had suspended Burden and Allen, the one a Surrogate to Sir J. Lamb, the other a Proctor in his Court, both of Leicestershire, for doing Injustice, and being vexatious both to Clergy and Laity. Ut non—Compositus meliùs cum Bytho Baccius. They petition'd and clamour'd to be restored, but as Budaeus says proverbially of a Land-leaper, that makes himself a Cripple, and cries out for help, Tolleeum qui non novit, De Ass p. 104. Let him pity him that doth not know him. So Burden and Allen were too well known to get any Favor. At last Sir J. Lamb, a Creature of dark Practices, and Dr. Sibthorp, undertook for them, and propounded it to the Bishop at his Table, when their Hand was with him in the Dish. But when they would ingratiate them for their good Parts, as Mr. Hooker said of Ithacius, that there was nothing commendable in him, but his Zeal against the Priscillianists; so these had nothing to brag of in their Brace of Greyhounds, but that they were the swiftest of their kind to chase the Puritans. The Bishop told them, (Dr. Morrison and Mr. Pregian Register of Lincoln and Leicester, being present)
109. And that prevailed to the expiration of about three years, as in the next place will be cleared, when a few lines are first spent, what the Censure of understanding men was upon this Treachery of the two Delators. Lamb was the most hated of all that trod on the Earth in the County of Northampton, where he dwelt; yet as Tally said of Asinius Pollio, lib. 3. ep. 31. Quem nequaquam, perinde ut dignus est, oderunt homines. He was branded with the charge of many Crimes, under the Hands of all the Justices and Gentry, in a manner, in the Shire, and in two several Bills to be presented to the Parliaments, anno 1621. anno 1624. This Person, whose Throat he went about to cut, brought him off from his Troubles, dubb'd him a Doctor and a Knight, settled him in his former Offices, and got him more; for which, I confess, he got no good name to himself. Lamb marked the Revolution of the Times, saw the Bishop discarded, and observed, that he might pluck himself into a better Fortune, sooner by being his Enemy than his Friend: Then what ensues, but as a shifter says in Plautus, Ut sursum in alto ventus est, exin velum vortitur; Veer the Sail as the Wind blows? So he watcheth a day to cast off his Patron, and, to make it more meritorious, to cast him down. Cum secum servilis animus praemia perfidiae reputaret, cessit fas, & salus patroni: As if we had found this Wretch foretold by Tacitus, lib. 15. Annal. An ungrateful Creature in the old times was held a Monster, nowadays none shall be sooner taken into play, to be a State-Minister. Like Tobacco, every man stopped his Nose at it, when Sir W. Raleigh brought it first into England; now the Pipe is in every man's Mouth. But how easy was it for the Bishop to trust this fellow with as much as he durst utter to any man? He had redeemed him, he had bought him for his own, and every false Knave doth not smell like a Pole-Cat. They are subtler in their Generation than the Children of Light. The best skilled in the Greek Tongue say, that the Devout in the New Testament are called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , quia facile possunt capi; because they are charitable, and less suspicious of others, so they are easily taken: Aditum nocendi perfido praest at fides, Sen. Oed. The Credit that is given to a perfidious man furnisheth him with advantage to do a Mischief. He can hurt none but such as he is beholden to for their good Opinion. Et perditissimi est hominis fallere eum, qui non laesus esset, nisi credidisset, Cic. lib. 2. off. And of all Hypocrites, take heed of him that gropes into a man's Heart, to pluck out his Secrets. Which is well set forth in a Proverbial Similitude, Venti sunt molestissimi qui abstrahunt nobis pallia. 'It is ill travelling when the Wind blows a man's Cloak abroad, and will not let him keep it close about him. Meaning, that it is ill conversing with an Ensnarer, delving into the bottom of your Mind, to know what is hid in it. I would ask a Casuist, if it were not lawful for me not only to hide my Mind, but to cast somewhat which is not true before such a Pocher? I mean it tentative, not with intention to deceive him, but to try if he would deceive me; and I mean it of no other, but of such a one as Ben Sirach sets out, and this Bishop found to his cost: Ecclus. 13. v. 11, 12. With much communication will he tempt thee, and smiling upon thee will he get out thy secrets, but cruelly he will lay up thy words, and will not spare to do thee hurt, and to put thee in prison. Ingratitude is Sir J. Lamb 's Badge, Perfidiousness both his and Sibthorp 's: And that's not all. Quisquam hominum est quem tu contentum videris uno—Flagitio? Juven. These were such as durst do more than one Unseemliness, and deserved to be baffl'd for breaking the Laws of Hospitality. They did eat at the Bishop's Board, gathered that Discourse, which they carried away to kindle Coals of Fire to consume him, and deposed what they heard, and more than they heard; Unde illud apud Graecos, da mihi testimonium. Cicero pro Flacco. Fair Conversation should keep up Table-talk: As Plutarch says of the Spartans in his Licurgus, That being frollick at Meat, they were wont to say, Not a word goes out of doors. They that brake that Order, should dine alone, like the Hangmen of Germany. But seriously the ancient Tragedy-Writers, in their Buskin Scenes, exclaim mightily against those who betrayed them that had feasted them; as Hecuba inveighs against Polymestor, that murder'd her Son Polydor, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : What a Fiend was Polymestor, to do such an Act, that had been her Guest so often? The very Emblem of the Wolf, that had eaten the Sheep, and would eat the Shepherd, if he could get him. Thus far of the Crime, and the Criminators, or rather the Tale and the Tale-bearers, that so little, they so bad: Qui ad notitiam posterorum per odia virtutum decurrerunt. Sidon. lib. 8. c. 1.
110. I have dealt with the Pick-thanks as they deserved, who travelling from Bugden to Higham-Ferrers, confer'd their Notes, as they deposed, and lost not a day, but sent Burden and Allen to the Court, as soon as they could be found, with an Accusation against the Bishop. As Fr. Junius gives his reason in cap. 3. Gen. why he thought the Devil tempted Eve not long after she was made: Maleficus non potest feriari, ex quo est maleficus: So in this Instance we see, that Malice is Lead in weight, and Fire in swiftness. The King is moved to acquaint the Lord's of the Council with it, where it gasp'd in the first Hearing, and died. Allen the Proctor Petitions for it again, for B. L. upheld his Spirit in his Wickedness: The examining is referred to the L. Treasurer Weston, the Earl of Penbrock, the Earl of Montgomery, the Earl of Holland, who with one consent cast it away, as not worthy a Debate, that no Blame could stick upon Lincoln, that Allen was as good as frentick, for he had drawn up one Petition in Rhime. This the Bishop alledgeth in his Address prepared for the Parliament, while the third and fourth of the Lord's-Referrees were living: But though they are all under Earth, Faith forbid that their Names should be abused to a wrong Report. To keep History uncorrupt from such baseness, 'tis daintily observed out of the Poets by Salmasius Clymac. p. 819. Apud orcum defunctae animae jurare dicuntur, ne quid suos, quos in vitâ reliquerint, contra fas adjuvent. The Souls departed take an Oath, not to help their surviving Friends against Justice: But no such Protestation needs in this Cause. There is a Petition to be produced, written with the Hand of Dr. Walker, a Gentleman living, and well known, wherein His Majesty is minded, that he had cancel'd this Complaint, and had given his Royal Hand to confirm it. What could be more sure? Yet it turned to nothing; the Wound was never suffered to heal by the daily Whispering of Bishop Laud, diligent in the King's Ear. You may read of one in Suetonius 's Caligula, Cui ad insaniam Gaius favebat: So the King suffered this Prelate, in excess of Power, to turn and return Causes as he would, and was obnoxious, by the bewitching of his Tongue, to facility of Perswasions, to grant and retract as he possessed him: Which was seen too late in this excellent Passage of His Majesty, in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , I wish I had not suffered mine own Judgment to be overborn in some things, more by others Importunities than their Arguments. As Erasmus wrote honestly to a mighty Monarch Harry the Eighth, Ep. p. 74. Eximia quaedam inter mortals res est Monarcha, sed homo tamen. And with much liberty our Poet Johnson, in his Forest, p. 815.
The Faults of the Blessed Charles were small, yet some he had; who having assured Lincoln he should never be questioned again about the matter brought against him by Lamb and Sibthorp, yet remitted it to the Star-chamber: The Defendant conceived it would spend like a Snail, or the untimely Fruit of a Woman, but when he found himself deceived, and that the Cause was glowing hot in Prosecution, he sought the King's Clemency, Quaedam enim meliùs fugiuntur quàm superantur; it is in Erasm. Ep. p. 18. He thought it better to fly the Trial, than to get the Cause, and he put up this which follows into the Hands of His Majesty.
The Humble Petition and Submission of John Bishop of Lincoln, &c.
THAT although he is innocent from any Crime committed against your Majesty, in thought, word, or deed, yet abhorring (as he finds by Presidents, all other Bishops of this Realm have done) Placitare cum Domino rege, to have any Suit with his Sovereign Lord, Master, and Patron; he casts himself in all humility at Your Majesty's Feet, and implores your Royal Mercy and Clemency, Non intrare in judicium cum servo tuo, coveting to ascribe his Deliverance to Your Majesty's Clemency: And whereas your most Excellent Majesty having, in the fourth year of your happy Reign, received the Opinion of the four Lord's Committees, concerning these very self-same Charges, did in your Majesty's Gallery at Whitehall admit this Defendant, brought in by the Right Honorable the Lord Treasurer, one of the said Committees, to kiss your Majesty's Hand, and did use unto him this Defendant, in the presence and hearing of the said Right Honorable Lord, these gracious words: That your Majesty was pleased to forgive all that was past, and would esteem of this Defendant according as he should deserve by his Service for the time to come. He most humbly beseecheth your most Excellent Majesty, that according to that so gracious Remission and Absolution, no further Prosecution at your Majesty's Suit may be used against him, concerning the said Charges; all which he doth the rather hope for from your Majesty, because he is a Bishop that hath endeavored not to live scandalously in his Calling, and hath formerly had the Favor from Almighty God, with his own Hands, to close your Majesty's Father's Eyes, and to have written and drawn up that Commission and Contract for your Majesty's Marriage, whereupon ensued to this Kingdom a most invaluable Blessing; and heartily prayeth, that God, who hath delivered your Majesty from your late Sickness, may bless you in all Health, Happiness, and Prosperity.
So far the Petition: I will not teach the Reader what Sallads to pick out of it, but only the Herb of Grace, that the Bishop kist the King's Hand upon the assurance of his Peace; that the Offence which was taken was buried, and should never rise up in Judgment more: Nihil periculi Soloni à Pisistrato, Diog. Laert. Now, whoever liked Julian the Cardinal, that made Ladislaus K. of Polonia break his League with the Turk? And who will defend B. L. that made his Sovereign break his word with his Subject? It was he, and none else, that put in an unseasonable Bar to hinder Lincoln the fullness of the Benefit. I know none that had the nearest part in B. L 's Favor, that can deny it: And let them turn it about as they will, is it possible they should excuse it? 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . It is Theodoret 's Ep. 2. Children see no uncomeliness in their Parents. But although they will see no ill in the Person, they must in the Fact: For, what a Trespass is this in Justice, to punish that which was forgiven? Let the King do Righteous Judgment like God, in whose Throne he sits; before whom this holds inviolable, Peccata dimissa nunquam redeunt: No, not original Sin, when remitted in Baptism, it shall not be imputed to them anymore, that are damned for actual Crimes, whereof they did not repent. So Grotius cites it out of Prosper in Matth. c. 18. v. 34. Extinctam semel obligationem non reviviscere, sed propter postrema crimina affici. The most that seems to be against this Rule, but falls in with it, is this; That when former Sins are forgiven, and new ones are superadded, the latter shall be punished the more for the ungratefulness of the Sinner. Non quod jam remissa puniantur, sed quod sequens peccatum minùs graviter pun • retur, si priora remissa non fuissent; says Maldonado. My Sentence is at the last of all with Syracides, c. 29.3. Keep thy word, and deal faithfully; revoke not your Kindness; pluck not up the Seeds of a Benefit, which you had sown with your own Hand: It is worse to turn Mercy than Justice into Wormwood.
111. Destiny is unavoidable. A Bill is filed in the Star-Chamber, and prosecuted for the King, for Revealing his Councils. The Defendant made him ready for his Answer, and plied the King with Petitions together; in Parody like Virgil 's Aeneas, Et se collegit in arma—Poplite subsidens. At first he tried Bishop Laud, if he would be so generous as to heal the Wound that he had made, and anointed him with the Weapon-Salve of remembrance of Friendship past, and protestation of the like forever; he courted him to mediate for him. And was it not likely he would think, who had procured him his first Rochet, well fringed with good Commendums? But what Suspicion, to find a thankful Man did bring Lincoln into this Error? 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , says Pindar; Old kindness is fast asleep, and Men are forgetful. This Hand returned him nothing from his Majesty but Denials and Despairs; as if he had lighted upon one of the Genethliaci, or Figure-Casters, that never portend a good Horoscope to any; or as I may better set it down in Gassendi 's Complaint, De Pareliis p. 309. Ita praeposteri sumus, ut nunquam captemus bona omina. A good word from so gracious an Agent would have cleared any man, who made Lincoln 's Fidelity more suspected to his Royal Master. Bishop Laud knew him, how strong he was in his Intellectuals, how fit to manage Civil and Church Affairs, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , as Tully translates it out of Aratus, Huic non una modo caput ornans stella relucet. He thought it a disparagement to have a Parage with any of his Rank; and out of Emulation did dry his Substance, that it might not flow so fast into Charitable Works. Therefore as the Orator wrote to Atticus, Qui mihi pennas inciderunt, nolunt easdem renasci, so he kept the Feathers of the other short, that they might not grow again, to fly before him. Lincoln took it not a whit to heart, because he foresaw it. I have heard him say, Though I did as much for him as I could, when he wanted me; yet I knew he would fail, if ever I wanted him. What remedy but the Cause, which had rotted three years in the Dung, must now be made ripe? a Mischief which had lain like a Match kindled to give fire to a Train of Powder long after. So it came to be sifted by the great Abilities of Mr. William Noy Attorney General, a Man of Cynical behavior, but of an honest heart to his Friends and Clients, and both together did become him. This famous Lawyer professed a great averseness from dealing in this Cause: for he wanted a Ground to plead upon. The Defendant maintains that he had opened no Counsels of the Kings; but what he spake to Lamb and Sibthorp was Parliamentary Communication. Let the Peers and Commons look to it; it concerns them all that their Privileges be maintained, to be unquestionable for those things which past from one to another at that season; who, by the Writ that Summons them, do meet as Counselors for great Affairs concerning the Church and Commonwealth. And by this very Demurrer Mr. Selden, about two years before, had quashit a Bill which was prefer'd in the Star-Chamber against him in a like Accusation. Neither contemn the Inconvenience, because the storm fell upon one Bishop, and no more. The whole Tree was as good as unfastned, when one Bough was shaken. It is a good Caution in Arist. 5. Polit. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , It is all assumed to say, The Danger is not great that lights upon one or two Particulars, when by that Entrance it will break in upon the whole Kind. Be it known therefore, that this Bill was kept under Hatches, and never came to hearing: For which way could the Council stir to plead upon it? As great a Pleader as ever lived, Demosthenes, gives us this Rule, Olynth.. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . As the Foundation of an House, and the Keel of a Ship must be laid strong and firm, so should the Foundations of all Actions. But in this charge let Wit and Learning turn itself every way, there was no Bottom to build upon. Therefore Mr. Noy, after two years, grew weary of it, and slackened the Prosecution. He died untimely for our Bishop's good, who acknowledgeth it under his Hand, That he dealt fairly with him: not reckoning by his Maundings and rough Language, which came from him to please the supervising Prelate. But Lincoln never felt harm from him, whose Finger he cut but with the back of his Knife. Therefore I pronounce him innocent of this Man's ruin, upon the reason that Ulysses spared Terpiades, Odyss. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , He sung such Songs, as the riotous Suitors of Penelope would have him, by constraint and necessity.
112. Who have we next to play this Game but notorious Kilvert? and for the same reason that God gave, why Phocas was made Emperor of the World, because there was not a worse. Hem! Si quid recte curatum velis, huic mandes oportet. A Man branded long before in a Parliament for Perjury; a Knight of the Post, as we call it. A Name which some learned Scholar gave at first to such Catives: For Casaubon in his Theophrastus shows out of Pausanias in his Atticks, that perjured Men were called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that usually stood about the Panathenaick Race-posts, called Adrettum, to be hired to give a Testimony, whether it were right or wrong. Here's one that wore that Badge: and our Bishop writes more, and Truth in all, That in scorn of Justice, for many years, he lived from his own Wife, a virtuous and well-born Gentlewoman, whom he had stol'n away from her Parents, and lived in open Adultery with another Man's Wife, one Mr. Bines, hard by White-hall, and begot divers Bastards upon her Body, besides his other Debaucheries and Infamies of all kinds. This Man, as himself avouched, was found out, and employed by Archbishop Laud (by this time he is in that Throne) by Secretary Windebank and Sir J. Lamb, to prosecute the Cause against the Bishop, without entering him as a Prosecutor upon Record, as he ought to have done; and was assured he should advance his Fortunes thereby; which was truly performed. This Fellow interloping into the Prosecution of the Cause, disturbed it in every point of the due Proceeding, left not one Rule or Practice of the Court unbroken, menacing, and intimidating Witnesses, Clerks, Registers, Examiners, Judges, and the Lord keeper himself. One that would undertake any Office to serve Greatness, and would preserve their Favor that kept him upon any Conditions: who lackit not such Wisdom as St. James abhors, c. 3. v. 15. which is earthly, sensual, devilish; whose Description I cut off with that which Cutzen the Jesuit said of Illyricus, from his own Opinion about Original Sin, Cujus vel substantia peccatum est, a vitiated Leper in his whole Substance. O evil World! that the Vices of such a Creature should make free way for him to be gracious, instead of Virtues! how much do Powers and Dominions dishonor themselves, when it is not close, but openly seen, that such Instruments have their Countenance, nay their Recompence. Budaeus lib. 1. de As. f. 15. spared not a great one in France for that Error; Immemor personae quam gerebat, quod virtuti debebatur, illiberali obsequio dandum esse censuit. While Kilvert ranted it, and bore down all Justice before him, there was not an honest Man, either that acted in this matter, or only looked on, whose silent consent the Bishop had not to awaken the King, that he would look upon these Courses, that cried abroad to the amazement of his Subjects. All wish it done, and the Bishop did not fear to do it. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . It is Theodorets stout Divinity, Ep. 21. Under the hand of God there is no remedy but patience; suffering under the hand of Man the best Remedy is Courage. So he stepped forward to his Majesty, with the confidence of this Petition.
To the King's most Excellent Majesty, &c.
THat if your Majesty be not pleased to accept as yet of his humble Submission for his Peace, your Majesty would graciously vouchsafe not to interrupt, but to permit the Petitioner to proceed, according to the ordinary Rules and Course of the Court of Star-Chamber, against Kilvert the Solicitor, for his manifold Falshoods and Injuries in the Prosecution of this Cause; particularly first, for menacing and frighting your Petitioners Witnesses. 2. For publicly defaming this Petitioner to be your Enemy; averring that neither he, nor any of his, did know what the name of a King meant. 3. For offering to sell the Prosecution of your Majesty's Cause against this Petitioner for Money: and because this Petitioner refused to tamper with him in that kind, for procuring base People to make false and aspersing Affidavits, to incense your Majesty, and that Court against your Petitioner. 4. For menacing the Judges that should report and certify anything for your Petitioner. 5. For not sparing to tax most falsely your most Sacred Majesty, with pressing upon the Lord's the Sentencing of your Petitioner: All which the Petitioner will clearly prove, and pray to God, &c.
So strong an Accusation, upon such foul Heads, was fit to be sifted, especially upon the last Branch: For grant it was a lie; here's a false Report raised against the King's Honor. If it were true, what more criminal than to impart such Secrets of his Majesty's to his Gossips at a Tavern, where they flew abroad? But some may more safely steal a Horse, than others look over the Hedge. The Bishop could get no leave to call this shameless Mate to an answer. From that day Kilvert was free from Righteousness, and might do anything. Ipse sibi Lex est, & quà fert cunque voluntas—Praecipitat vires, Manil. lib. 5. He that hath no Conscience, and need to fear nothing, will turn a Monster. So true is that of Livy, Dec. 1. lib. 4. Hominem improbum non accusari tutius est quàm absolvi: 'It is safer to have a nocent Person never accused, than to have him discharged for an Innocent.
113. For all this the Defendant thought he had said so much against the Prosecutor, that he should never appear in Court again: But as Calvin said of Bucer, Ep. 30. Qui sibi est optime conscius, securior est quam utile sit. Yet he proved against him as foul a prank as ever was committed; That he got Warren the Examiner to the Fountain Tavern near to Shoe-Lane ( Kilvert 's daily Rendezvouz, from whence the Bishop got continual and sure intelligence) and fetched out of him, contrary to his express Oath, the Depositions which the Defendants Witnesses had made; an heinous wrong to be done before Publication: which coming to light, Warren fled away from his Office, and never appeared more. But whether could he run from God's Vengeance? Omnia quidem Deo plena sunt, nec ullus perfidis tutus est locus, Sym. p. 54. Kilvert stood to it, as if the sin were not his, that drew the Examiner to Perjury; and no notice was taken of that constant Rule, which the Casuists took from Tertullian de Bapt. c. 11. Semper is dicitur facere, cui praemmistratur; The Sin was Ahab 's that purchased a Field of Blood by the Oath of the Sons of Belial. Let Religion look to this, for that Court would not; nothing would lace it in, it was so wide in the waste. From this exorbitancy, from this, and nothing else, sprung the Iliad of wrongs which the Bishop endured: for Kilvert finding, by Warren 's disclosures, that the Depositions for the Defendant were material, and some of the Witnesses to be Learned men, that had deposed upon Notes and Remembrances, he turned himself into all shapes to crack their Credit. At first he made an Affidavit of slight pretended Abuses, which were over-ruled against him. Whereupon he vapor'd in the hearing of the Register, and divers others, That he cared not what Orders the Lord's made in Court, for he would go to Greenwich, and cause them all to be changed. It was the most scornful Defiance that ever was given to the Honor and Justice of the Star-Chamber, as the Bishop's Counsel pressed it home. Everyone expected the Ruin of the Prosecutor: yet the Lord's perceiving, upupon the Archbishop's Motion, that it was not safe to punish him, it past over with a slight Submission. One presaged the Ruin of the Athenian State, because Rats had eaten up the Books of Plato 's Commonwealth. And might not a man that had no more Prophecy than Prudence, foresee the Ruin of this Court, when such a Rat-catcher did despise their Authority, telling them he could fetch Orders to sweep away theirs from such Powers: Quae nec tuto narrantur, nec tuto audiuntur, Seneca de Tranquil. Sir Robert Heath, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, was but one of the Lord's Assessors, yet as just and sufficient as any of his order; and the Indignity done to him, was as if done to all: Who made his own Complaint, That Kilvert threatened to procure him to be turned out of his place for his forwardness. Yet this also was slubber'd over with a little acknowledgment of Rashness. So much were those honorable Persons now no longer themselves, fearing that Severity which they perceived impending upon them. As Pliny bewails the Roman Senate in his Panegyric, Vidimus curiam, sed curiam trepidam, & elinguem: cum dicere quid velles periculosum, quod nolles miserum esset. It was become like Ezekiel 's Vine-tree, c. 15. v. 3. you could not make a Pin out of it to hang a good Order upon it, that was equal and generous. Beshrew the Varlet, that kept his word (which he was not wont to do) for Sir Robert Heath was displaced, and for no Misdemeanour proved. But it was to bring in a Successor, who was more forward to undo Lincoln, than ever the Lord Heath was to preserve him. A man of choice parts, which yet he shown not in this Cause, which cannot be smothered without defacing the truth, which Posterity must not want; Desipiunt qui faeces ob v • ni nobilitatem absorbent. The Dregs of the best Wine are but Dregs, and must be spit out as distasteful; his Lordship's part cannot be spared in this Tragedy; yet it shall be short, because I will leave him to those Figures that live in the House of Memory.
114. The main Bill against the Defendant being not like to hold, the quarrel broke out into a collateral Point, the weighing of the Credit of Jo. Pregion, a man that had enjoyed two O • lices of great account for divers years, and was never questioned before this time in his Reputation. So the Siege of Troy was forgot, and the Battle was drawn out on both sides, to get, or to recover the Body of Patroclus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Il. ρ. The Bishop could not defend his first Cause without the Testimony of Pregion, which made him diligent to keep his good Name from being stained; and the Adversaries were as resolute to Impeach him, looking to spring up a new Information from the Defense of the old Matter. This tugg held eighteen Months, to the Bishop's Vexation and Cost, having spent as much upon it, as would have founded an Hospital to keep twenty poor People. The Archbishop took occasion, upon the spinning out of so much time, to blame the Defendant for Traverses and Delays: (a Course which the wisdom of Treasurer Weston had put into him) and if it were bad to fly, with his Grace's leave, was it not worse to Persecute? Baronius justifies the Christians that made escape from Heathen Tyrants with a good reason, An. 205. p. 12. Qui non fugit, cum potest, adjuvat ejus iniquitatem qui persequitur. The Exceptions against Pregion were referred to the Lord Chief Justice Richardson, and Lord Chief Baron Damport, which charged Pregion that he endeavor'd to lay a Bastard-Child of his own begetting upon another. The two Judge, having heard all that could be alleged pro and con, disallowed the Exception; and an order being drawn up for it, when the Lord Richardson was about to sign it, Kilvert most imperiously charged him not to do it, till he had heard from the King. The Judge, whose Coat had been singed at the Court before, stopped his Hand, but delivered a Copy of the Certificate to the Bishop's Solicitor, and avowing he would maintain it, that is to say, if he durst: but fear shook his Conscience out of him. The Lord Damport would not vary from himself, and charged his Brother Richardson freely with Inconstancy. Of which Disagreement the Star-Chamber having notice, added to these three more, the Lord Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas, Judge Jones, and Judge Vernon. These sitting together in the Lord Richardson 's Lodgings, Kilvert brought in Secretary Windebank among them, (though neither Referree, nor Witness, nor Party in the Cause) who argued the Business an hour and half against the Bishop's Witness, and performed it weakly; for all men are not called to knowledge with their places; as Is • crates would have us believe in his Areopag. Oration, that the Office of an Areopagite transformed a man, Ut tanquam loci genio afflatus, ex ingenio suo migraret. Budaeus in 1. lib. Pand. p. 283. The Secretary having done his part, and shewn what was expected from White-hall, departed. The five Judges drew up a Certificate, signed it, and assured the Bishop all in general, and one by one, it should not be changed. So said the L. F. among the rest; but he supit a Promise into his mouth, and spit it out again. This predominant Judge, like a Falcon upon her stretches, took home the Certificate with him, and the Bishop with him, who staid at his House till almost midnight, because the Lord F. would not give him the Order, till Kilvert had carried it to the Court to show it to somebody. This was not fair; for to be just and honest is so forcible, that it should be done extempore; not an hour should be borrowed to advise upon it. Yet the Judge solemnly protested, That he would die rather than recede from it, it being the sense, and under the Hand of all his Brethren. The Bishop being in a withdrawing Chamber, read over the Order so often, that by the benefit of a good memory he got it by heart verbatim, and so departed to Bugden against Christmas-day. About the midst of the Holy-days, he heard by a good Hand that the Certificate was altered, and all that Matter inserted which had been rejected by the Judges. He came up in all haste to London, and finding Judge Jones, asked him if these things were so. Yes, says he, 'tis true, all is changed from white to black, and your Friend the L. F. hath done all this. A Friend he might call him, if merit might have purchased him, for whom the Bishop had done more than for any pleader in England, when he was in great place; Quae potest esse jucunditas sublatis amicitiis! quae porro amicitia potest esse inter ingratos? The Bishop charging this Alteration upon the Judge to his Face, he replied, Quod scripsi, scripsi, and would not hear Mr. Herbert, the Defendant's Counsel, who told the Judge with some passion, That there was more matter for Examination of Witnesses couched in the new Certificate, than was in all the Cause. But the Bishop demanded calmly of that Lord that had altered all, What he meant to use an old Acquaintance in that unheard of manner? He answered, (and said the same to others) He had been soundly chidden by his Majesty, and would not destroy himself for any man's sake. This Judge was worthy of greater Honors, and did affect them. Haud sane aequo animo in secundo se sustinens gradu, Curt. lib. 4. and not long after he got the Garland, by being the most active of all his Rank to bring about the King's Undertakings, chiefly against this forlorn Defendant; but held not the place one full year. From whence a Scholar may Contemplate upon those two Verses of Homer, Il. ρ.
115. By this time, Kilvert put in Courage with these Stratagems, is ready to proceed to examination—of Witnesses. Let me show how he is armed, like Pliny 's Ichneumon, lib. 8. Nat. Hist. Mergit se limo saepiùs, siccat{que} sole, mox ubi plurimis eodem modo se coriis loricavit, in dimicationem pergit. He dips himself often in Mudd, and every time crusts it hard in the Sun, and being covered with this dirty Harnass, he falls to fight with his Enemy. All will run even in the application. The Bishop is forced, at an intolerable expense, to tumble in person with his Lawyers and Solicitors from place to place, over six or seven Counties of the Kingdom. The first Abuse done unto him in this course, was to deny him several Commissions to dispatch his Troubles about the Witnesses, which was never denied to any Subject before, and to force him to take an Examiner of the Court whether he would or no. 2ly, Every Defendant being allowed to choose which Examiner he likes best, by the practice of that Court, the Bishop pitched upon an ancient and experienced Clerk, yet could not enjoy him; for in conference with Kilvert he had said, That in this Service he must be an indifferent man: Whereupon Secretary Windebank commands the Clerk of the Court, by a Letter under the Signet, to stay the Commission so ordered, and to appoint another Examiner whom Kilvert did nominate. Thirdly, The same Secretary directed one Peachy, a Messenger of the Chamber, (start not at it Reader, for 'tis true) to attend Kilvert in his Coat of Arms, all along with the Commission, to apprehend and close imprison such as Kilvert should appoint, pretending Matters of State, and of deep consequence against them. And Peachy did apprehend and close imprison, in the face of the Commission, Philip Pregion, George Walker, and Thomas Lund, Witnesses for the Bishop, and chased away most of the rest, that durst not be seen for fear. Those three Prisoners were brought to London, to the Secretary, who told them he had nothing against them, but bade them give Satisfaction to Kilvert; who could get no Liberty by his Masterships Leave, till they had confessed Crimes against the Bishop and themselves, which afterward they revok'd upon Oath. Nor would he permit George Walker 's Wife to see her Husband, close kept by the Messenger, but for a base Courtesie, not to be named. Is not the Wand of Mercury like to charm Witnesses to say and swear what they would have them, when such Snakes as Kilvert and Peachy are twined about it? If all this be not true, though incomparably vile, Aut Thetidi, aut Veneris largire marito, either wash the Book away, or throw it into the Fire. I meet with a mighty Concussion of Justice in Sidon. Apol. lib. 5. c. 7. yet nothing so bad as this; yet take it, because it is the nearest to it upon Record: Deputant arbitros, judicanda dictant, dictata convellunt, attrahunt litigaturos, protrahunt audiendos. The French Mercury hath related strange Presidents from the Parliament of Grenoble, let him match this if he can. But the Bishop coming home from his Progress with Kilvert, and the Examiner having sped his Commission, in all haste Publication must be granted, and the Bishop is served for a Hearing; so he came prepared with excellent Counsel to defend a Cause which he feared the more, because neither he nor his Counsel could see, in a matter so violently pursued, anything to be feared. But the King's Counsel having perused the Books, spied more than Kilvert could see, and found that the imaginary false News, and blazing the King's Counsels, were the damnable Invention and Conspiracy of Lamb, Sibthorp, All • n, and Burden. Much was urged to expunge all on the Bishop's part, that laid a Combination of Villany to their charge, because it did impeach the Credit of the King's Witnesses. The L. F. pressed it over and over, which was but once, and that fairly and modestly offered by the King's Counsel. After a long Argument of five hours at the least, the Court did all vote, (except the Archbishop, and the L. F. ) that the Defense should remain undispunged, for else an unavoidable Mischief would follow to all the King's Subjects, that being accused by two desperate Witnesses, they were remediless in that high Court, if they may not be called in question by the Defendant for their Acts and Honesties. The L. Coventry having gathered the Votes of the Court, and being ready to pronounce the Order, so much conducing to the good of all men, the L. Finch desired their Lordships to take notice, that his Opinion continued contrary to them all. Quibusdam evenit ut quaedam scire se nesciant, Sen. Ep. 7. Nay, such Spleen was conceived at this just Order, that though the L. Keeper had pronounced it, the Register had drawn it up, a Copy of it given to the Defendant, yet so precious a Rule for the common Safety of all honest men, durst never be entered into the Book to this day. Yet this Order, though smothered and buried, made an end of this first Cause; for the Combination of the four Contrivers was not held meet to come abroad into pleading, who would have fallen to pieces with a little shaking, that thought to lay the dead Child in the Bishop's Bosom, while he slept; but their Patron had a care to keep them from Scandal, and that they knew. As Hegesippus says of Mariamne the Wife of Herod the Great, Secura quod nihil ab eo exitii perpeti possit, qui supra modum dilexit. So these were the bolder to come off untouched, under the shelter of that Favor that did never forsake them.
116. Of a sudden, by the persuasion of some noble Lord's, the King began to grow milder to the Bishop. Et reserata viget vegetabilis aura Favoni. Lucret. His Majesty hearkened to some Conditions, to have all Bills against the Bishop cast out, and to let him purchase his Peace with his Purse. Some would dissuade Lincoln from it, because to buy a Pardon was to confess a Guiltiness: A Nicety, says Xenophon, that cost Socrates his Life, Apol. pro. Socr. who would pay no Fine to the Court of Athens, nor suffer any to be paid in his Name. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . He said, To be acquit with a Ransom, was to confess a Crime. The like was told me by the Lady Eliz. Hotton, That the Lord Cook was offered his Place in the Kings-bench, from which he had been removed, if he would bind himself in again with a Golden Chain: But he stood upon a Rule made by his own Wisdom, That a Judge must not take a Bribe, nor pay a Bribe. Our Bishop's Resolution stuck not in those Briers, who saw that this Offer proceeded out of the straits of his Occasions: Though no Evil were found in him, yet if the King's Power contest, who can stand upright? And if Malice will take no satisfaction but Ruin, the most innocent must fall: The L. Keeper, a good man, was over-balanc'd; the Star-chamber was become like the Tribunal of L. Cassius, Scopulus reorum, Tacit. Annal. l. 13. a Rock that split all Causes, that lately came into it, in pieces. The Archbishop thought not himself absolute, till this man was unprelated, and cared not what he cast at him, so he might hit him home: As Grotius accuseth the Spaniards, that they are so set upon Revenge, Ut in hostem nihil turpe sit, nihil illicitum, An. Belg. p. 5. He feared the L. F. as much as any, who in his private Chambers slasht and cut out from his Defences that which was most material to his Safety. Et stylus non minùs agit cum delet, says Quintilian. He that puts out the Marrow of Defense, is worse than he that puts in the Venom of an Accusation. The Secretary was prepared for any Execution, yet the Bishop gives him this Praise in his Notes, That he was a modest and a virtuous Gentleman, but in this Cause set on by his Maker. Therefore the Bishop is content to satisfy the King's Demands, that is, to pitch and pay. The first Condition brought to him by the L. Cottington, was to part with 4000 l. with his Deanry, and two inconsiderable Commenda's. For the Money, says the Bishop, I am low in Cash, but will make a shift to pay it: To part with the Deanry will make an open Scar, and no fair one: Beside, the Money is useful for the King's Revenue, the Deanry is no Profit to His Majesty, to take it from my hand, and to put it into another; and what the World hath given me, I am willing to give it back again; but what His Majesty's Father did give me, and by the Mediation of His Majesty, being Prince, I can take no comfort in my Life, if I be stripped of it. That Lord returned again with a Message to leave him his Deanry and Commenda 's, but to raise up the Sum of Composition to 8000 l. The Bishop held up his Hands to Heaven in amazement at it: But you will lift your Hands at a greater Wonder, says L. Cottington, if you do not pay it. Well, I will satisfy the King, says Lincoln, and I will sell some Land for it. The Match is struck, done 'tis, and the Bishop as good as undone by it. He delighted to do charitable Works, but this would sear the Vein, that it could run no more. It was a sweet Apophthegm, which I heard come from him when all was exhausted: I care not for Poverty, but I shall not be able to requite a Benefit; God grant every good King a better way than this was, to enrich him. Fiscus bonorum Principum non sacerdotum damnis, sed hostium spoliis angeatur I commend thee Symmachus for it, p. 56. But on goes the Game; the Bishop is dealing in London to take up a Cart-load of Money, and that right worthy Attorney Sir J. Blanks was sedulous to draw up a full Pardon, so absolute, that it included more than the Bishop desired; as this Letter to the L. Keeper will declare.
My very good Lord,
MR. Attorney hath once or twice sent unto me, by my Man, some imperfect Propositions, about the manner of a Pardon, which His Most Excellent Majesty should grant unto me, which Propositions (not speaking with Mr. Attorney himself) I do not well understand; for as it is delivered to me, His Majesty's Offer's more than ever I desired, by naming a general Pardon, to wit, to pardon all Offences contained in the two Informations, and any other Offence or Misdemeanor I should desire particularly to be freedfrom; which, if it be so, is as gracious a Favor from His Majesty as any reasonable man can expect. But, my good Lord, I know nothing by myself that should of necessity be so solemnly pardoned: Yet hearing His Majesty's Inclinations to grant unto others in the condition that I stand, general Abolitions, and being not so wise as the last Parliament, to refuse the benefit of a general Pardon, I confess I fell, in my Parley with your Lordship, upon that way propounded unto me by my Counsel Learned: But hearing of late it is construed by others as a kind of Capitulation with my Sovereign, I beseech your Lordship I may wave it altogether; and that your Lordship would represent me kneeling at His Majesty's Feet, craving that his Goodness and Mercy only (without anything in Writing) together with my Industry in his Service for the time to come, may be the substance and extent of all my Pardon; and this but for such things, as by Informations or Petitions I have been (though undeservedly) presented as an Offender against His Most Excellent Majesty, and desired to be proceeded against by His Majesty's immediate Directions. If any other private Subject hath ought to say against me, for any Trespass or Misdemeanour committed against himself, (and not His Majesty) I desire no Protection, but those of His Majesty's Courts of Justice, against any such person whosoever, &c.
December 11th 1635.
From December it hung as it were between Heaven and Earth, it will, and it will not be done, till the King had occasion to go to Windsor, and the Bishop had order to lie at Eaton, expecting to be sent for to kiss the King's Hand; But who comes thither that was not looked for, it being the middle of the week, but the Archbishop, who malleated the King's Gentleness into stronger Metal? When Lincoln had labored for Peace, from thenceforth it was as far set back, as if it had never been in Treaty. How was his good Soul tossed about between Friends and Foes, between Mercy and Frowns, and now in the last Attempt put to Job 's note, c. 16. v. 11. God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over to the hands of the wicked: I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for a mark! Intempestiva benevolentia nihil à simultate differt, Polit. Ep. p. 26. A constant Enmity is more generous than to interrupt it with Offers of never-intended, or never-composed Agreements. Now the Archbishop looked for the day when he should trample upon this Bishop, in a Censure: Azorius the Jesuit shall apply it for me, Moral. tom. 1. lib. 13. c. 6. When the Order of the Knights Templars was plotted to be overthrown in a Council at Vienna in Dauphine, says Pope Clement V. Etsi non per viam justitiae potest destrui, destruatur per viam expedientiae, ne scandalizetur filius noster rex Franciae. If they cannot fall by Justice, they must fall for convenience sake: But here's the difference in the Story; There a Bishop did gratify the King, here the King did gratify a Bishop.
117. Proceed then to another Information, since it must be so. The first Cause being mortified, a new one took life from it; as Gorgias Leontinus his Mother was delivered of him when she was dead. Viva fuit sterilis, mortua facta parens, as Dr. Alabaster writes in his Epigram upon it. They are but ill Examples in the New Testament, when an Accusation is turned into a new Species. The Jews impleaded our Savior at first, that he said he would destroy the Temple, &c. and changed it before Pilate into another Charge, that he made himself a King. Paul was Indicted by the same Nation, that he brought a Greek into the Temple to pollute it; but it was turned into another matter, Revilest thou God's High Priest? They that will not stand to their own Bill, are more set upon Destruction than Justice. Kilvert onerated the Bishop with Ten Charges together; the use of the Court being, as Judge Popham had regulated it, to admit but Four at once. But chiefly he was active to grime the Defendant with one foul fault, Subornation of Witness, that is, to foment Perjury. But the King's Counsel perusing the Depositions, waved it, and gave it another form, Seducing of Witnesses, a manifest injury to the attestation of Truth, and for contraction in a new phrase, Tampering with Witnesses, as my Lord of Canterbury called it in his Sentence, Perhaps it is not Subornation of Perjury, but it is Tampering. The Defendant thought to help himself with a Demur upon four Heads: First, That it was utterly against the Practice of the Court, from the Foundation of it, to fall upon a new Charge, started out of a former, before the first had been heard. 2. That advantage was taken to undo any man living, to gather new Impeachments out of the Books, after the publication of the precedent Cause. 3. That for all that was offered to the Court, complaint had been openly made by Counsel, and not disproved, That it rose from the Prosecutors misleading and menacing of Witnesses, whom Terror and Imprisonment would not suffer to be constant to themselves. Like as Eusebius reports, lib. 6. Praepar. Ervang. c. 1. that when one importuned the Oracle for an Answer, and threatened if he staid any longer; the Oracle told him, Retine vim istam, falsa enim dicam si coges; Use no violence, for I must tell a lie, if you do. Lastly, The Bishop pleaded with Animosity ( quid enim loqueretur Achilles? Ovid. Met. 13.) that their Lordships ought to take such a Charge into Cognisance, for Tampering had never been noted for Criminal Action before any Judgment in the Land; which is not a Colour, but a Maxim of Law, which appears by that which is since publishit by the Lord Cook in Jurisdiction of Courts, c. 5. How that Court dealeth not with any offense, which is not Malum in se, against the Common Law; or Malum prohibitum, against some Statute. And that Novelties without warrant of Praesidents, are not to be allowed. Assume now out of the Premises, that no Example could be found, that the censorious magnificence of the Star-Chamber had ever tamper'd with such a peccatulum as tampering. Alteration in the forms of a Court beget the Corruption of the Substance. Who ever read, that a Bench of Honorable Judges came into hatred, so long as it kept close to the ways of their wise and venerable Predecessors? But says Symmachus in Ep. p. 14. Si adjiciantur insolita, forsan consueta cessabunt. When the People are over-laid with new Discipline, perhaps the old Seats of Justice may crack in pieces. The Lord Keeper knew Justice, and loved it; and did not obscurely signify, that he thought the Demur was reasonable: which had almost removed him. And he found by one occurrence, that the Bishop's Case was to be severed from other men's: For whereas a Proclamation came forth in October 1636. that because a Plague was begun in London and Westminster, therefore all Pleas and Suits in Law should be suspended till Hillary Term was opened, and the Bishop claimed the Privilege, that all things might be respited about his Cause, branched out into ten Heads, till that season. The Proclamation indeed is full and clear on your side, says the Lord Keeper, but I have special directions, that you shall have no benefit thereof. And I tell you as a Friend, if you rely upon the Proclamation, your imprisonment is aimed at. As if there were one Rule of Justice for all the Subjects in the Land, and another for this Bishop; who took his qu. from this Caveat to attend his Business; and he did it with the more confidence, that in seven years his Adversaries had got no ground of him; as Grotius writes of the Spaniards siege at Ha • rlem, being seven months about it; Annal. Belg. p. 42. Visi sunt vinci posse, qui tam lente vicerant.
118. Of which none that looked into the Cause despair'd, till the Scale was overturned by the weight of a most rigorous Censure. The Charge in debate, without any favor to the Defendant, is thus comprised: Anno 1634. when Kilvert wanted Water to turn his Mill, Sir John Mounson, and Dr. Farmery, Chancellor of Lincoln, offered themselves to debauch the Credit of Pregion, the Bishop's Witness; who both expected to have gained, and did gain almost as much as Kilvert by the Avenues of the Cause. To bring their Contrivance about, a Bastard is laid to Pregion, to be begotten of the Body of Elizabeth Hodgson, and that he bribed her to lay it upon another Father. The Bishop was to defend the Credit of his Witness, and had to do with Matters and Persons in this Point, wherein himself was altogether a Stranger. He suspected ill dealing from Sir J. Mounson, the great Stickler, because he knew he hated Pregion, for casting a Scandal upon his Lady, as virtuous a Gentlewoman as the Country had; in which Cause the Bishop had caused Pregion to give Satisfaction long before. Then he had more assurance of Pregions Innocency, because he was cleared of this Bastard in a Sessions held at Lincoln in May, Car. 9. and whereas it came again into debate at the Sessions 3 Octob. following, and it was given out that an Order was past to find Pregion guilty, the Bishop was certified that the Order was not drawn up in open Court, and that it was inserted in many places with Farmeries hand. And Thomas Lund being present at the Sessions, asserted, That it was not consented to by the Justices, but drawn out of Sir J. Mounson's pocket. He had Letters from Knights of far greater Estates than Sir John, who likewise testified the same; and from Mr. Richardson the Clerk of the Peace, who refused to enter that Order; and that it was excepted against in open Sessions by Mr. Sanderson, a Counselor of the Laws, and by the greater part of the Bench, as utterly illegal. So that afterward being tried at the King's Bench for the illegality of it, it was damned by all the four Judges. Yet more to detect the Corruption of that Order, at the next Sessions held in May, the Justices discharged Pregion, and laid the base Child upon one Booth a Recusant, a Kinsman of Sir J. Mounson 's; which Judgment was so inerrable, that it was proved by three Witnesses, That upon the very day that the Bishop was sentenced, Booth himself confessed, in the hearing of those Witnesses, that Pregion had nothing to do with that baggage Woman, but that he, the said Booth, at such a time and place, did get her with Child, and that Kilvert, whom he cursed bitterly, had promised him half the Fine to charge the Child upon Pregion, and had not performed it; and did vainly brag, that Kilvert had brought him to kiss the King's hand. This was detected when the sad day was over. Et instaurant dolorem sera solatia, Sym. p. 86. But the Objection lay not only upon the getting of the Child, but how that Pregion, or rather the Bishop, had carried themselves, to entangle the Witnesses that had sworn against Pregion, which was the main Charge of the Information, and the color for the heavy Sentence. The Bishop being authorized from the Star-Chamber to uphold the Credit of his Witness, he found the Depositions of Lund, Wetheral, Alice Smith, and Anne Tubb to press upon Pregion. Grande doloris—Ingenium est, miserisque venit solertia rebus. Metam. lib. 6. So he did light upon a course which was inoffensive, to extricate Pregion for his own safety. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Xeno. Ath. Resp. 'It is pardonable for every man to help himself. Nor was it an indirect way, no not a jot; for there was neither Perjury nor Contradiction found between the first and second Depositions of the Parties: And what the Bishop did was by the advice of the best Counsel in England, to draw up some few Interrogatories to be put to the four Witnesses, only to interpret, and not to vary from, or to subtract, or contradict what they had deposed before: For the words being ambiguous in themselves, might be taken in one sense to Defame, in another fence not at all to touch upon the credit of Pregion. It was agreed that Pregion offered money to A. Tubb, and Alice Smith to procure Eliz. Hodgson to lay the base Child upon another man; this they had sworn: this the Bishop never endeavored to impeach. But an interrogatory is drawn up, and offered to them, whether El. Hodgson was dealt with to lay it upon the right Father, (which was a just and lawful motion) or upon some other, whether he had been the Father or no. They both answer, That Pregion solicited her to lay it upon another, that was the true Father. And this variation is all the Offence, that is, none at all, in that particular. And in that right meaning Sir J. Wray, Sir J. Bolls, and Richardson the Clerk of the Peace, did receive it in the Sessions. This Practice, so little as it is, is the grand Objection, all beside comes not to so much as a filip on the Forehead: For instance, one Ward swears, that he heard a Servant of the Bishop, C. Powel, offer Alice Smith Monies to take an Oath of his framing; but Alice swears directly it was not so. Powel swears he offered and paid her Money to bear her Charges, as a Witness, which is fit and lawful. Nec ist a benignitas adimenda est, quae liberalitatem magis significat, quàm largitionem, Cic. pro Murenâ. T. Lund takes his Oath, That Pregion told him, that he never had touched El Hodgson but twice: Being demanded hereof more strictly in his examination in the Star-chamber, he swears, That Pregion did not say to him, that he touched her carnally, nor did he know what he meant by touching. Is there either subtraction or contradiction in this? or anymore than a plain interpretation? Lastly, Wetheral had deposed, That he was entreated by Pregion not to be at the Sessions: He stands to it, but adds, that he was not bound to be there, nor summoned: He had deposed, That Pregion spake to him to swear to no more, than the Court should ask him. What harm was there in that Caution? Being examined in Star-chamber, he swears, That Pregion tempted him to nothing by Bribes or Reward, but that he told him, if he were sworn to tell the whole Truth, he would not conceal it. Only one Witness, George Walker, layeth it on the Bishop, how Powel and Richard Owen entreated him in the Bishop's Name to speak with Witheral upon these matters; which though it include no ill, yet Owen and Powel depose, They were never employed by the Bishop to deal with G. Walker upon such an Errand. So the Bishop is cleared in every Information by sufficient Oaths of such, against whose Faith there was no exception. How easy a Province had the Defendant's Counsel to crumble these Impeachments into Dust, and to blow them into the Eyes of the Impeachers? Verba innocenti reperire facile est, Curt. lib. 6. Yet the Oratory of the Court, by pre-instructions, did turn them into filthy Crimes. As Irenaeus says in the beginning of his Work, That out of the same Jewels, which being handsomely put together make the Image of a Prince, being taken asunder, you may contrive them into the Shape of a Monster.
119. Could it be expected that such Driblets, or rather Phantoms of Under-dealing with Witnesses, should hold the Court ten days hearing, in the long Vacation after Trinity-Term? What leisure was taken to bolt out, to exaggerate, to wrack, to distort, to make an Elephant of a Fly! which I may justly pour forth in the words of Tully for his Client, Quintius de fortunis omnibus deturbandus est. Potentes, diserti, nobiles, omnes advocandi. Adhibenda vis est veritati, minae intentantur, pericula intenduntur, formidines opponuntur. But here were worse things, which the Orator had never cause to complain of under the Roman Laws. All the Depositions of the main Witnesses for the Bishop were deleted, not fairly by a Hearing in open Court, where their Lordships might everyone have considered of it, but were spunged out by that Judge in his private Chamber, who was the bane of the Cause from the beginning to the end; and forsooth, because they were impertinent Scandals against Kilvert, and others that had deposed for the King: Only the Bishop was allowed to put in a cross Bill when it was too late, after he was first ruined in his Honor, Fortunes, and Liberty, and then lest to seek a Remedy against a Companion not worth a Groat. And who was ever used like this Defendant since the Star-chamber sat? that when his Cause was so far proceeded, as to be heard in three sittings, that two new Affidavits should be brought in by Kilvert, which struck to the very substance of the Cause, to which no Answer could be given, because they were new matters, quite out of the Books, obtruded long after publication, yet from thenceforth produced every day, which seduced divers of the noble Lord's, and no doubt many of the Hearers, as though they had been Depositions in that Cause, which were not so, but Materials of another information, and in their due time were fully cleared and disproved. When was it known before, that in every of the ten days that the Cause was in debate, a Closet-meeting was held at Greenwich, the Lord's sent for to it one by one, the Proofs there repeated to them, and their Votes bespoken? Which was no better than when Junius Marius, in Tacitus, bespake the Emperor Claudius to impart his private Commentaries unto him, Per quos nosceret quisque quem accusandum poposcisset. And between the full hearing and sentencing the Cause, the Lord's were well told a Passage, That a noble Personage had offered Ten thousand pounds to compound for the Bishop's Peace, (which is true, that the Duke of Richmond did it, when he saw how the Game went in the Cabinet.) Which was the very reason that induced their Lordships to lay such an immense Fine upon a Fault conceived, that was never sentenced in any Kingdom or State before. Yet all this did not suffice, but in that morning of the day, when the Cause was sentenced, it was first debated in an inner Chamber, so long till many hundreds waited for their coming forth till high noon, wherein Agreement was concluded by all Parties before they sat. There, and then it was, that the Archbishop pressed for the degradation of his Brother Bishop, and his deportation, God knows whither. Now, to decline that Extremity, the most of the Lord's, who endeavor'd to do all the Favor that they durst show, concluded upon a Fine of 10000 l. Imprisonment in the Tower during Pleasure, (which had been but short, as they were assured before, if the King had been but left to his own gracious Gentleness) and to be suspended during Pleasure, in the High-Commission-Court, from all his Jurisdiction: Which Suspension passed in that Commission July 23. And it would not be passed over, that Sir Ed. Littleton, then L. Chief-Justice of the Common-Pleas, Anno 1640. in the Month of July, brought Lincoln to Lambeth face to face, with the L. of Canterbury, when Lincoln told his Grace, That the Commission under the Great Seal had not a word in it to enable him to suspend either Bishop or Priest by direction from a Sentence of Star-chamber, but only for Offences specified in the Commission; and that the Fact which His Grace had done, had brought him and the Commissioners into a Praemunire. To which the Archbishop answered, That he had never read the Commission. A learned Satisfaction; Was it not? when he had censured so many by the Power of that Commission, which he confessed he had never read. But consider now, as Isocrates pleaded it well, ad Plat. p. 456. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Whether it be right to inflict such unjust and grievous Penalties upon such petty pretended Misdemeanors. Or did not the Latin Orator provide better against it? Cic. 1. de Off. Cavendum ne major poena, quàm culpa sit; & ne iisdem de causis alii plectantur, alii ne appellentur quidem. And let those who meet with this Narration be acquainted, that albeit the Compact was in the Inner Chamber, that the Lord's should speak all the same in their Judgment, yet a little Vanity slipped from some few to ease their Stomach: The L. Finch said, That if it had liked others, he would have laid some Ignominy on the Bishop's person. Promptum ad asperura ingenium, Tac. An. lib. 1. So this Lord looked on the Bishop's Cause not only with a blear'd but with a blood-shotten Eye; for it was conceived he meant the cutting off his Ears, who had never sat a Judge, in all likelihood, if this Bishop, being then L. Keeper, had not prevented him from leaving his Calling, and travelling beyond Seas; from which courses he kept him, by fair Promises to provide for him, and he made them good: I will name the time and place, Aug. 1621, and the Earl of Exeter 's House in St. John 's Close. Mr. Secretary Winnebanke said, It was his desire, if it might have seemed good to others, to have the Bishop degraded. Hold, Sir Francis, and learn the Canons of the Church; it is not in the Power of Laymen to degrade Bishops at their discretion; and as little can a Knight depose a Peer of the upper House of Parliament; for he that can thrust a Bishop out of that House, why not as well an Earl or a Duke? But Sir Francis shown his Good will, as the Athenians did to Philip the Son of Demetrius, in Livy: Additum est decreto ut si quid postea, quod ad noxam ignominiam{que} Philippi pertineret, adderetur, id omne populum Atheniensium jussurum, Dec. 4. lib. 1. Then comes in the Archbishop with a Trick, to hoise up the Bishop with some Praise, that it might push him in pieces with a greater Censure, That when he thought upon this Delinquent's Learning, Wisdom, Agility in Dispatch, Memory, and Experience, that accompanied him with all these Endowments, he wondered at his Follies and Sins in this Cause. O Sins by all means! for by dioptrical Glasses some find Blemishes in the Sun: Telescopia fabri facimus ut in sole maculas quaeramus, says Alex. More, in his Preface to Strangius 's learned Book. So upon this matter his Grace took up no less than a full Hour to declaim against the horrid Sin of Perjury; and in this Cause he might as well have spoken against the horrid Sin of Piracy: So he lays all his Censure upon that Charge. Spirat inexhaustum flagranti pectore sulphur, as Claudian of Enceladus. The Auditors thought he would never have made an end, till at last he pleaded for more Right to be done Sir J. Mounson. The Lord's (let me say it freely and truly) had overshot themselves to fine the Bishop to pay Sir John a Thousand Marks, for saying that his Charge against Pregion was a Pocket-Order. It is confessed the Bishop said so, and said the Truth. But beside, the Bishop pleaded, that he heard it of T. Lund; Lund stands to it, that he told it the Bishop, yet the Bishop is censured, and Lund, that took it upon himself, is not questioned. But the L. of Canterbury, who did ever mount highest in all Censures, said, He was sorry the Fine was not a Thousand pounds.
120. This is the shutting up of the Censure, grievous to the Bishop's Purse and Liberty, but not a whit to his Honor and Good Name; which was so esteemed by almost all that heard the actings of that day, and shook their Heads at them. As Cicero says in pro Plancio, Opimii calamitas turpitudo Po. Ro. non judicium putandum est. I that write this was chosen to bring the relation of this Censure to the Bishop, then hard at his Study; which he received with no change at all of his Countenance or Voice, but only said, Now the Work is over my Heart is at rest, so is not many of theirs that have censured me. And here began the way to Episcopal Disgrace and Declension. It was his turn now, it was Canterbury 's not long after. Howl Fir-tree, for the Cedar is fallen, Zech. 11.3. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; as Salmasius of the Elephant and Dragon in Solinum, p. 307. The Vanquish'd was cast down, and the Conqueror fell likewise. When such a Pillar of the Church was demolished with Prosecutions, so uncover'd to every Eye, so transparent, that you might see the Blush of Injustice quite through them, how ominous was it to the higher and lower Dignities of the Clergy! As Mr. Morice says in his Coena 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , p. 354. Perhaps it may be with them as with Staddels in a Wood, which scarce ever prosper when their fellows are cut down, and themselves left naked. And what became in three years, or little more, of that Honorable Court of Star-chamber? of which the L. Coke says, That in the right institution, and the ancient Orders of it being observed, it keeps all England in quiet. But in some late Causes it grew distasteful even to wonder; as in that of the Soap-boilers, and that of London Derry, that of Mr. Osbolston, nay, in that of Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton, men not to be favor'd in the matter of their seditious Writings, but for their Qualities and Places sake, to be pitied for the Indignity done to their Persons; which I receive from a wise Hand, Bodin de Rep. l. 6. c. 6. Legibus Francorum ac Saliorum quamplurimae pro cujusque statu ac conditione poenae infliguntur—Quin & barbarissimi Indi, qui ad occasum positi sunt, cum de sceleribus conviclum nobilem ac plebeium tenerent, nobili capillos aut brachialia truncabant, plebeio nares & auriculas praecidebant. But I said, that after the Censure of the forenamed Causes, and that of this Bishop, all much against the popular Judgment, many great men did presage, and the Commonalty did wish the extinction of that noble Court; and it was overthrown by Vote in the first five months of the Long Parliament, before the King had carried away his most considerable Friends to York. This is the condition of mortal things, says Pliny, Ut à necessariis primùm cuncta venerint ad nimium, Nat. Hist. l. 26. Many Tribunals were of necessary institution at first, and of necessary destruction when they run into Excess. Indeed it is not the primitive Court that is pulled down, but another, when it waxeth quite unlike itself. Non est eadem harmonia, ubi e Phrygio in Doricum transit, says Aristotle, 5 Pol. The Music is not the same, which is altered from a shrill to a grave Note. Yet better terms, I hope, may set it up in a better Constitution. A Pot that boils over may be taken from the Fire, and set on again: Howsoever, I am not so bold with holy Providences, to determine why God caused or permitted this great Court to be shut up like an unclean place; or why Divine Judgment was so severe against their persons especially, that inflamed the Censure against our Bishop. But I will cover his Case with St. Austin 's Eloquence, touching the Doom passed upon St. Cyprian, Alia est Sella terrena (aut Stella terrena) aliud tribunal coelorum, ab inferiore accepit sententiam, à superiore coronam, Ps. 36. Conc. 3. And certainly Christ doth feel the Injuries done to an Innocent, who was sentenced by unrighteous Judgment.
121. My Pen must not now go with the Bishop, my good Master, to his Lodgings in the Tower, whither in my Person I resorted to him weekly, and if I said daily, a lesser Figure than an Hyperbole would salve it; excepting when he was confined to close Imprisonment, which was not wont, but upon the Discoveries or Jealousies of dangerous Treasons. The Christians that were committed by idolatrous Emperors, were in liberâ custodiâ,