may

arrogance; who fhall warrant me his judgment? The ftate, fir, replies the ftationer: but has a quick return, the ftate fhall be my governors, but not my critics; they be mistaken in the choice of a licenfer, as easily as this licenfer may be mistaken in an author. This is fome common ftuff; and he might add from fir Francis Bacon, that "fuch authorized books are but the language of the times." For though a licenfer fhould happen to be judicious more than ordinary, which will be a great jeopardy of the next fucceffion, yet his very office, and his commiffion enjoins him to let país nothing but what is vulgarly received already. Nay, which is more lamentable, if the work of any deceased author, though never fo famous in his lifetime, and even to this day, comes to their hands for licence to be printed, or reprinted, if there be found in his book one fentence of a venturous edge, uttered in the height of zeal, (and who knows whether it might not be the dictate of a divine spirit?) yet not fuiting with every low decrepit humour of their own, though it were Knox himself, the reformer of a kingdom that spake it, they will not pardon him their dash; the fenfe of that great man fhall to all pofterity be loft, for the fearfulness, or the prefumptuous rafhnefs of a perfunctory licenser. And to what an author this violence hath been lately done; and in what book of greatest confequence to be faithfully published, I could now instance, but fhall forbear till a more convenient feafon. Yet if these things be not refented seriously and timely by them who have the remedy in their power, but that such ironmoulds as these fhall have authority to gnaw out the choiceft periods of exquifiteft books, and to commit fuch a treacherous fraud against the orphan remainders of worthieft men after death, the more forrow will belong to that hapless race of men, whofe misfortune it is to have understanding. Henceforth let no man care to learn, or care to be more than worldly wife; for certainly in higher matters to be ignorant and flothful, to be a common steadfast dunce, will be the only pleasant life, and only in request.

And as it is a particular difefteem of every knowing perfon alive, and most injurious to the written labours

X 4

and

and monuments of the dead, fo to me it seems an undervaluing and vilifying of the whole nation. I cannot set fo light by all the invention, the art, the wit, the grave and folid judgment which is in England, as that it can be comprehended in any twenty capacities how good foever; much less that it fhould not país except their fuperintendence be over it, except it be fifted and ftrained with their ftrainers, that it fhould be uncurrent without their manual ftamp. Truth and understanding are not fuch wares as to be monopolized and traded in by tickets, and statutes, and ftandards. We must not think to make a staple commodity of all the knowledge in the land, to mark and licenfe it like our broad cloth and our woolpacks. What is it but a fervitude like that impofed by the Philiftines, not to be allowed the fharpening of our own axes and coulters, but we muft repair from all quarters to twenty licensing forges? Had any one written and divulged erroneous things and fcandalous to honeft life, mifufing and forfeiting the efteem had of his reafon among men, if after conviction this only cenfure were adjudged him, that he fhould never henceforth write, but what were firft examined by an appointed officer, whose hand should be annexed to pafs his credit for him, that now he might be fafely read; it could not be apprehended less than a difgraceful punishment. Whence to include the whole nation, and thofe that never yet thus offended, under fuch a diffident and fufpectful prohibition, may plainly be understood what a disparagement it is. So much the more whenas debtors and delinquents may walk abroad without a keeper, but unoffenfive books muft not ftir forth without a visible jailor in their title. Nor is it to the common people lefs than a reproach; for if we be fo jealous over them, as that we dare not truft them with an English pamphlet, what do we but cenfure them for a giddy, vicious, and ungrounded people; in fuch a fick and weak estate of faith and discretion, as to be able to take nothing down but through the pipe of a licenfer? That this is care or love of them, we cannot pretend, whenas in those popish places, where the laity are moft hated and despised, the fame ftrictness is used over them. Wisdom we cannot call it, because it

ftops

ftops but one breach of licence, nor that neither : whenas thofe corruptions, which it feeks to prevent, break in fafter at other doors, which cannot be shut.

And in conclufion it reflects to the difrepute of our minifters alfo, of whofe labours we fhould hope better, and of their proficiency which their flock reaps by them, than that after all this light of the gofpel which is, and is to be, and all this continual preaching, they should be ftill frequented with fuch an unprincipled, unedified, and laic rabble, as that the whiff of every new pamphlet fhould ftagger them out of their catechifm and christian walking. This may have much reason to discourage the minifters, when fuch a low conceit is had of all their exhortations, and the benefiting of their hearers, as that they are not thought fit to be turned loose to three sheets paper without a licenser; that all the fermons, all the lectures preached, printed, vended in fuch numbers, and fuch volumes, as have now well-nigh made all other books unfaleable, fhould not be armour enough against one fingle Enchiridion, without the caftle of St. Angelo of an Imprimatur.

of

And left fome fhould perfuade ye, lords and commons, that these arguments of learned men's difcouragement at this your order are mere flourishes, and not real, I could recount what I have feen and heard in other countries, where this kind of inquifition tyrannizes; when I have fat among their learned men, (for that honour I had,) and been counted happy to be born in fuch a place of philofophic freedom, as they fuppofed England was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the fervile condition into which learning amongst them was brought; that this was it which had damped the glory of Italian wits; that nothing had been there written now these many years but flattery and fuftian. There it was that I found and vifited the famous Galileo grown old, a prifoner to the inquifition, for thinking in aftronomy otherwife than the franciscan and dominican licenfers thought. And though I knew that England then was groaning loudeft under the prelatical yoke, nevertheless I took it as a pledge of future happiness, that other nations were fo perfuaded of her liberty. Yet was it beyond my hope,

that

that those worthies were then breathing in her air, who fhould be her leaders to fuch a deliverance, as fhall never be forgotten by any revolution of time that this world hath to finish. When that was once begun, it was as little in my fear, that what words of complaint I heard among learned men of other parts uttered againft the inquifition, the fame I fhould hear by as learned men at home uttered in time of parliament against an order of licenfing; and that fo generally, that when I had difclofed myself a companion of their discontent, I might fay, if without envy, that he whom an honeft quæftorfhip had endeared to the Sicilians, was not more by them importuned againft Verres, than the favourable opinion which I had among many who honour ye, and are known and respected by ye, loaded me with entreaties and perfuafions, that I would not defpair to lay together that which juft reafon fhould bring into my mind, toward the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon learning. That this is not therefore the disburdening of a particular fancy, but the common grievance of all thole who had prepared their minds and ftudies above the vulgar pitch to advance truth in others, and from others to entertain it, thus much may fatisfy. And in their name I fhall for neither friend nor foe conceal what the general murmur is; that if it come to inquifitioning again, and licenfing, and that we are fo timorous of ourfelves, and fufpicious of all men, as to fear each book, and the fhaking of every leaf, before we know what the contents are; if fome who but of late were little better than filenced from preaching, fhall come now to filence us from reading, except what they pleafe, it cannot be gueffed what is intended by fome but a fecond tyranny over learning and will foon put it out of controverfy, that bishops and prefbyters are the fame to us both name and thing. That thofe evils of prelaty which before from five or fix and twenty fees were diftributively charged upon the whole people, will now light wholly upon learning, is not obfcure to us: whenas now the paftor of a small unlearned parish, on the fudden shall be exalted archbishop over a large diocefe of books, and yet not remove, but keep his other cure too, a myftical

pluralift.

pluralift. He who but of late cried down the fole ordination of every novice bachelor of art, and denied fole jurifdiction over the fimpleft parishioner, fhall now at home in his private chair affume both these over worthieft and excellenteft books, and ableft authors that write them. This is not, ye covenants and proteftations that we have made! this is not to put down prelaty; this is but to chop an epifcopacy; this is but to tranflate the palace metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another; this is but an old canonical flight of commuting our penance. To ftartle thus betimes at a mere unlicensed pamphlet, will, after a while, be afraid of every conventicle, and a while after will make a conventicle of every chriftian meeting. But I am certain, that a state governed by the rules of juftice and fortitude, or a church built and founded upon the rock of faith and true knowledge, cannot be fo pufillanimous. While things are yet not conftituted in religion, that freedom of writing fhould be reftrained by a difcipline imitated from the prelates, and learned by them from the inquifition to shut us up all again into the breast of a licenser, muft needs give caufe of doubt and difcouragement to all learned and religious men: who cannot but difcern the fineness of this politic drift, and who are the contrivers; that while bishops were to be baited down, then all preffes might be open; it was the people's birthright and privilege in time of parliament, it was the breaking forth of light. But now the bishops abrogated and voided out of the church, as if our reformation fought no more, but to make room for others into their feats under another name; the epifcopal arts begin to bud again; the cruife of truth muft run no more oil; liberty of printing must be enthralled again under a prelatical commiffion of twenty; the privilege of the people nullified; and which is worse, the freedom of learning must groan again, and to her old fetters: all this the parliament yet fitting. Although their own late arguments and defences against the prelates might remember them, that this obftructing violence meets for the most part with an event utterly oppofite to the end which it drives at instead of fuppreffing fects and fchifms, it raises them

and