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that their ends and aims are no more friendly to monarchy, than the pope's.

This he begins in the Ploughman fpeaking, Part ii. Stanz. 28.

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And in the next Stanza, which begins the third part of the tale, he argues that they ought not to be lords.

Mofes law forbode it tho

That priefts fhould no lordship welde,
Chrift's golpel biddeth also

That they thould no lordships held:
Ne Chrift's apoftles were never fo bold
No fuch lordthips to hem embrace,

But fmeren her sheep and keep her fold.

And fo forward. Whether the bishops of England have deferved thus to be feared by men fo wife as our Chaucer is esteemed; and how agreeable to our monarchy and monarchs their demeanour has been, he that is but meanly read in our chronicles needs not be inftructed. Have they not been as the Canaanites, and Philiftines, to this kingdom? what treafons, what revolts to the pope? what rebellions, and those the baseft and most pretencelefs, have they not been chief in? What could monarchy think, when Becket durft challenge the cuftody of. Rochefter-castle, and the Tower of London, as appertaining to his fignory? To omit his other infolencies and affronts to regal majesty, until the lashes inflicted on the anointed body of the king, washed off the holy unction with his blood drawn by the polluted hands of bishops, abbots, and monks.

What good upholders of royalty were the bishops, when by their rebellious oppofition against king John; Normandy was loft, he himself depofed, and this king

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dom made over to the pope? When the bishop of Winchefter durft tell the nobles, the pillars of the realm, that there were no peers in England, as in France, but that the king might do what he pleased. What could tyranny fay more? It would be pretty now, if I fhould infift upon the rendering up of Tournay by Woolfey's treason, the excommunications, curfings, and interdicts upon the whole land; for haply I fhall be cut off fhort by a reply, that these were the faults of men and their popish errours, not of epifcopacy, that hath now renounced the pope, and is a proteftant. Yes fure; as wife and famous men have fufpected and feared the proteftant epifcopacy in England, as those that have feared the papal.

You know, fir, what was the judgment of Padre Paolo, the great Venetian antagonist of the pope, for it is extant in the hands of many men, whereby he declares his fear, that when the hierarchy of England fhall light into the hands of busy and audacious men, or fhall meet with princes tractable to the prelacy, then much mifchief is like to enfue. And can it be nearer hand, than when bishops fhall openly affirm that, no bishop no king? A trim paradox, and that ye may know where they have been a begging for it, I will fetch you the twin brother to it out of the Jefuits cell: they feeling the axe of God's reformation, hewing at the old and hollow trunk of papacy, and finding the Spaniard their fureft friend, and fafeft refuge, to footh him up in his dream of a fifth monarchy, and withal to uphold the decrepit papalty, have invented this fuperpolitic aphorifm, as one terms it, one pope and one king.

Surely there is not any prince in christendom, who, hearing this rare fophiftry, can choose but smile; and if we be not blind at home, we may as well perceive that this worthy motto, no bifhop no king, is of the fame batch, and infanted out of the fame fears, a mere aguecake coagulated of a certain fever they have, prefaging their time to be but fhort: and now like thofe that are finking, they catch round of that which is likelieft to hold them up; and would perfuade regal power, that if they dive, he muft after. But what greater debasement can there be to royal dignity, whofe towering and sted

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faft height refts upon the unmovable foundations of juftice, and heroic virtue, than to chain it in a dependance of fubfifting, or ruining, to the painted battlements and gaudy rottennefs of prelatry, which want but one puff of the king's to blow them down like a pasteboard house built of court-cards? Sir, the little ado which methinks I find in untacking these pleasant fophifms, puts me into the mood to tell you a tale ere I proceed further; and Menenius Agrippa speed us.

Upon a time the body fummoned all the members to meet in the guild for the common good, (as Æsop's chronicles aver many ftranger accidents :) the head by right takes the first seat, and next to it a huge and monftrous wen little less than the head itfelf, growing to it by a narrower excrefcency. The members, amazed, began to afk one another what he was that took place next their chief? none could refolve. Whereat the wen, though unwieldy, with much ado gets up, and befpeaks the alfembly to this purpose: that as in place he was fecond to the head, fo by due of merit; that he was to it an ornament, and ftrength, and of special near relation; and that if the head fhould fail, none were fitter than himself to step into his place: therefore he thought it for the honour of the body, that fuch dignities and rich endowments should be decreed him, as did adorn, and fet out the nobleft members. To this was anfwered, that it should be confulted. Then was a wife and learned philofopher fent for, that knew all the charters, laws, and tenures of the body. On him it is impofed by all, as chief committee to examine, and difcufs the claim and petition of right put in by the wen; who foon perceiving the matter, and wondering at the boldness of such a swoln tumor, Wilt thou (quoth he) that art but a bottle of vicious and hardened excrements, contend with the lawful and freeborn members, whofe certain number is fet by ancient, and unrepealable ftatute? head thou art none, though thou receive this huge substance from it: what office beareft thou? what good canst thou show by thee done to the commonweal? The wen not eafily dafhed, replies, that his office was his glory; for fso oft as the foul would retire out of the head from over the

fteaming

ftcaming vapours of the lower parts to divine contemplation, with him the found the pureft and quieteft retreat, as being moft remote from foil and difturbance. Lourdan, quoth the philofopher, thy folly is as great as thy filth: know that all the faculties of the foul are confined of old to their feveral veffels and ventricles, from which they cannot part without diffolution of the whole body; and that thou containeft no good thing in thee, but a heap of hard and loathsome uncleannefs, and art: to the head a foul disfigurement and burden, when I have cut thee off, and opened thee, as by the help of thefe implements I will do, all men fhall fee.

But to return whence was digreffed: feeing that the throne of a king, as the wife king Solomon often remembers us, "is established in justice," which is the universal juftice that Ariftotle fo much praifes, containing in it all other virtues, it may affure us that the fall of prelacy, whose actions are so far diftant from juftice, cannot shake the leaft fringe that borders the royal canopy; but that their standing doth continually oppofe and lay battery to regal fafety, fhall by that which follows eafily appear. Amongst many fecondary and acceffary caufes that fupport monarchy, these are not of leaft reckoning, though common to all other states; the love of the fubjects, the multitude and valour of the people, and ftore of treasure. In all these things hath the kingdom been of late fore weakened, and chiefly by the prelates. First, let any man confider, that if any prince shall suffer under him a commiffion of authority to be exercised, till all the land groan and cry out, as against a whip of fcorpions, whether this be not likely to leffen, and keel the affections of the fubject. Next, what numbers of faithful and freeborn Englishmen, and good Chriftians, have been constrained to forfake their deareft home, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide ocean, and the favage deferts of America, could hide and shelter from the fury of the bishops? O fir, if we could but fee the shape of our dear mother England, as poets are wont to give a personal form to what they please, how would the appear, think ye, but in a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head, and tears abundantly flowing from her eyes, to be

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hold

hold fo many of her children exposed at once, and thrust from things of deareft neceffity, because their confcience could not affent to things which the bishops thought indifferent? What more binding than confcience? What more free than indifferency? Cruel then muft that indifferency needs be, that thall violate the ftrict neceflity of confcience; merciless and inhuman that free choice and liberty that shall break afunder the bonds of religion! Let the aftrologer be difmayed at the portentous blaze of comets, and impreffions in the air, as foretelling troubles and changes to ftates: I fhall believe there cannot be a more ill-boding fign to a nation (God turn the omen from us!) than when the inhabitants, to avoid infufferable grievances at home, are enforced by heaps to forsake their native country. Now, whereas the only remedy and amends against the depopulation and thinness of a land within, is the borrowed strength of firm alliance from without, these prieftly policies of theirs having thus exhaufted our domeftic forces, have gone the way also to leave us as naked of our firmeft and faithfulleft neighbours abroad, by disparaging and alienating from us all proteftant princes and commonwealths; who are not ignorant that our prelates, and as many as they can infect, account them no better than a fort of facrilegious and puritanical rebels, preferring the Spaniard our deadly enemy before them, and fet all orthodox writers at nought in comparison of the Jefuits, who are indeed the only corrupters of youth and good learning and I have heard 'many wife and learned men in Italy fay as much. It cannot be that the ftrongest knot of confederacy should not daily flacken, when religion, which is the chief engagement of our league, fhall be turned to their reproach. Hence it is that the profperous and prudent ftates of the United Provinces, (whom we ought to love, if not for themselves, yet for our own good work in them, they having been in a manner planted and erected by us, and having been fince to us the faithful watchmen and difcoverers of many a popish and Auftrian complotted treason, and with us the partners of many a bloody and victorious battle ;) whom the fimilitude of manners and language, the commodity of traffick, which founded the old Burgundian

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