Against a Late Pamphlet

THE FALSITYES AND FORGERIES OF AN Anonymous Author.

I T is an easy matter for any person of a brazen face, and seared Conscience to be a slanderer, and by a fallacious misreciteing, perverting, dismembering, other men's works, to become a seeming Refuter of them. The fairest natural or artificial Bodies, may soon be metamorphozed into the most misshapen Monsters, if torn into confused fragments, and then patched up together into a disorderly Chaos, where all the parts and members shall be dislocated, disunited, confounded and put into Hotch-Potch. This cobling kind of Artifice hath that Botcher used, who composed the Pamphlet entitled, The Fallacies of Mr. William Prynne discovered and refuted: who instead of discovering and refuting any Fallacies, or Falsities of Mr. Prynne's, in an orderly or Scolasticall manner, hath taken much unnecessary pains, to cull out here and there a word or line, out of his wrightings on several subjects, and then patched them up together into inferences and arguments of his own forging; fighting only with his own shadow, and mangling, misreporting, perverting all the passages he recites, (as the Reader may at first view discern) instead of answering, or refuting anything which he hath written.

Wherefore I shall desire the ingenious Reader, only seriously to peruse the several Quotations this Cobbler hath botched together, in my Books themselves, as they are there urged, applied, connected with the precedent and subsequent discourses to which they have relation, and then the Fallacies, Falsities, and Calumnies of this Anonymous Patcher, (who is so penurious of matter, substance, that he produceth not one text or Author of his own) will be so apparently discovered, as they will need no further Refutation.

This is not mine own solitary opinion, but the judgment of other intelligent men, who have read this Pamphlet, to which I was minded to give no answer, as unworthy anything but contempt. Yet being desired by some friends to reply some-what to it, least this Champion should deem his Patched Fardle irrefragable, and overmuch abuse the Reader and myself with his slanderous falsehoods, I shall return no other answer to his charge of Calumniating falsehoods, wresting of the scriptures, Points of Popery, gross absurdities, mere contradictions, heinous Treasons, and plain betraying of the Cause, but only this, that the Pamphletter is most grossly mistaken, and hath most falsely aspersed me in all these particulars, as the mangled pages of my books, which he recites by fragments, will manifest to all who shall do me so much justice as to appeal unto, and seriously peruse them, without diminution or prejudice.

There are only two or three more considerable Calumnies he would fix upon me, that need some answer, and in answering them alone, you may clearly discover, both the palpable Falsities, Forgeries, Fallacies of this Slanderer, who is ashamed to set his name to his shameful work.

The first and principal charge against me is, false Quotations, witness the title page; Wherein is laid open his false quotations, &c. & p. 2. to 9. he doth deliver in an heavy imputation in the plural mumber; of false quotations. Yet when he brings in his Catalogue of them, among those thousand quotatiōs I have produced in my wrightings, he can charge me but with one, no more p. 3. I will not (saith he) undertake to examine his false Quotations, being deterred by their magnitude and multitude. I will produce but One Quotation. A strange kind of Calumny, to charge me in the Title and Book with a magnitude and multitude of false quotations, and yet to be able to instance but in one alone.

First, In the place quoted l. 2. c. 1. there are no such words, &c. So he p. 3 Here is a great cry indeed, but little wool, for in the very same page, we have confitentem reum, in these most positive terms. Secondly, I (writes he) confess the words quoted are in the fifth chapter of the 2 book (and that in page. 222. which I quoted:) where then is the false quotation? The words are there; but not in the first but fifth Chapter of the second Book: what then? they are in the same Book and Page I quoted, but the Printer printed the first chapter instead of the fifth in some Copies, Contrary to my Written Coppie, and Quotations in Print in other Copies, and places. Ergo my Quoquotation is false; Grant this, yet it is not false, neither in the matter, page, book, but Chapter only, which the Printer, not I mistook? Surely a very grand offense if reduced into a Logical Argument. The Printer misprinted the chapter in some copies; But Mr. Prynne misquoted not the words, book, page, nor chapter of Bodine in any kind: Ergo he is guilty of a multitude of false quotations, at least of one, at Leonem, but a rare one. So he disputes.

A rare one indeed, such as was never heard of in the world before, a true Quotation in every particle, yet slandered for a false one: which gives me just occasion to repay him with his own coin. p. 3. Ex ungue Leonem, guess at the (truth of this) Author by this example, the sole misquotation he chargeth me with.

Yea but he subjoins p. 3.

This indeed is my inference, which he neither doth nor can disprove, since the Ancient Gauls had no other Kings but these their Reguli; who might be put to death: and no universal absolute Monarchs, as Bodine and all French Historians acknowledge.

Yet his greatest quarrel with me is behind. p. 4. for leaving out part of Bodines words with an, &c. Appendix, p. 18. viz. But if the Prince be an absolute Soveraine, as are the true Monarchs of France, &c. Where the Kings themselves have the Sovereignty, without all doubt or question not divided with their subjects. In which &c. I omitted these words, of Spain, England, Scotland, Turkey, Moscovy, Tartary, Persia, Ethiopia, India, and of almost all the Kingdoms of Africa and Asia, which interveene between, where the Kings themselves have the soverainty, and, the true Monarchs of France, and for this omission though with an, &c. he cries out thus,

But I pray you Sir, what cause is there of such an exclamation for this omission, with an, &c? In that place of my Appendix I had nothing to do with the Kings of England, Spain, or any other Kingdoms there named by Bodine, but with the Kings of France alone, whom from p. 17. to 51. I prove by undeniable histories and Authorities, to have been inferior to their Kingdoms, and Parliaments. To recite all these other Kings there upon this occasion, whē I discoursed of the Fench kings alone, had been an impertinency, a Tautologie, since I distinctly handled the several jurisdictions of the Kings of England, Spain, Scotland, &c. in their proper places & refuted the error of Bodine (though I truly cite his words) that neither the Kings 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 of Spain, nor France, nor England, nor Scotland, are such absolute Sovereigns as he would make them. The omission therefore of Spain, England, and Scotland, with an &c. which pointed to, not concealed them, can no ways be charged on me as a false quotation, or as a witting or willing abuse of Bodines words, as will appear by turning this accusation into arguments.

Master Prynne in reciting Bodines words, concerning the Kings of France alone, omits his mentioning of the Kings of Spain, England, Scotland, &c. with an, &c. (as this very Momus himself in his Censure omits Turkey, Moscovy, Tartary, Persia, &c. rather to be ranked among absolute Tyrants than Kings,) Ergo he hath falsely quoted, and willfully perverted Bodine.

Master Prynne recites and refutes Bodines opinion, of the absolute Sovereignty of those Kings, in the objected and other places. Ergo he misrecites Bodine. If these be not most absurd Arguments, and calumniating falsehoods, let the world judge.

In fine, Mr. Prynne hath frequently quoted Bodine, and this very Chapter of his, in sundry pages of his Books, but misquoted him in no place whatsoever: Ergo this Botcher hath misquoted, misreported Mr. Prynne, and must cry peccavi for it. And for his odious subinference p. 4. it is his own alone, not mine.

This Champion having thus manfully played the slanderer in this one Quotation, which he in vain labors to prove false, would willingly proceed to others, p. 7. but he there ingeniously confesseth, he wants his tools to do his work, and I have not (quoth he) the books cited by him. Certainly if he wants his Books, and the Books I cite, to examine my quotations by, it must needs be an impudent apparent slander in him, to tax me of misquotations of those Authors he confesseth, he never saw nor read: the rather, because he writes in the same page, that my Quotation out of Speed seemeth somewhat amiss; yet presently confesseth of himself in the same page; I never saw it, nor heard it, till I read it in Mr. Prynne's Book, and that he never read Mr. Speed, How dares he then term it, a seeming Misquotation?

Is this man (think you) likely to refute or convince me of false Quotations, who thus confesseth, that he neither hath, nor hath read, nor heard of the Books and Passages which I cite? Si judicas, cognosce, was the Ancient rule: I pray therefore get and read my quoted Authors hereafter, before you presume to charge me with misquotations, else all must censure you for the grossest slanderer that ever put pen to paper.

For the pretended Falshoods, Paradoxes, Absurdities and Absurd opinions he would fasten on me, p. 8. to 14. they are most of them his own misrecitals, not my assertions; and so far as any of them are really mine, my Pages whence they are transcribed, will sufficiently manifest them to be neither Falshods, Paradoxes, Absurdities, nor absurd opinions.

The Popery he would asperse me with page 14. 15. is easily wiped of.

For first, both the text and Comment of Roomes-master piece, is neither a Fiction, nor pia fraus, unless he will make it so in the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, Sir William Boswell, Habernfield, and the King himself, under whose hands it is extant, and hath been represented to the Parliament. If this suffice not, the Preface to the second Edition of Roomes-master piece, will either satisfy or silence this Father of falsehoods.

Secondly, the visions and Revelations of King Edward the Confessor, cited in my Remonstrance against Shipmoney▪ p. 22. & of one of the Monks of Clervaulx, Opening of the great Seal, p, 5. 6. are not recited by Mr. Prynne, as real verityes, or convincing arguments against Shipmoney, & Lordly Bishops, but only, de been esse, to manifest what opinion the Monks and Historians who record them, had of Danegeld and Prelacy. And Mr. Prynne's other Arguments, Authorityes against Ship-money cited in that Remonstrance, and against Lordly Prelates and Prelacy, registered in his Vnbishoping of Timothy and Titus, his Breviate Catalogue of Authors of all ages, and Antypathy of the English Lordly Prelacy, to Unity and Monarchy, are so solid and Copious, that no man hath hitherto attempted to return the least answer to them, nor indeed can do it, so that he needed not the help of Visions, Revelations, or popish pious Frauds, to satisfy or delude his Readers in these points debated by him.

For the other pretended points of Popery, perverting of the Scripture, of Laws, Treasons, and betraying of the Cause, they are so abundantly answered, refuted in my Books at large, in the pages quoted by this Author, that I shall wholly appeal to them, & the indifferent perusers of them, both for my Purgation and Justification, in all particulars; which books having both the special licenced & good Approbation of the high Court of Parliament, and of thousands of all sorts both at home and beyond the Seas, (who have highly approved them, and received good satisfaction by them, in the present unhappy controverted differences that distract us,) need no further Apology against this Namelesse Slanderer and Depraver, to whom I only wish more verity, honesty, ingenuity, for the future, then he hath here discovered for the present.