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brought into subjection to the mercy of the bores and swads, they may not flaunt so stately in their pontificalibus, being but publick servants, and a hickle of animals, which breathe by the iniquities of the land.

29. That, whereas incontinence has been evermore held by the ancients a most decried and punishable vice, and trick of youth in most countries, it is conceived fit to be esteemed venial, and more pardonable in this cold climate; and to permit all men, of experienced activity, the freedom of a wife and an intimate, for the fructifying of the sisterhood, and the enlargement of the number of the Geneva fry.

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30. That the old proverb, Change is no robbery,' be put in practice in these moderate times. And whereas the grievous and mighty tax, called ship-money, imposed by the royalists, hath been esteemed tyranny, injustice, and covetousness: The easy and frivolous sess of sixty-thousand pounds a month, loaded by the reformed sighers and groaners, shall be construed by all sorts of pay-masters a trifle, a piece of nothingness, necessary to the supportation of the armies, and other small disbursements, which do not amount to half the sum.

31. That whereas the taking up of arms in former ages against a prince, by his own subjects, was by the law found treason; in respect that now we know he is but a man, obnoxious to death and mortality at pleasure; it shall no longer be judged treason, but convenience; and that such ought to be rewarded for it, under the notion of good service and gallantry.

32. That whereas in case of manslaughter, and other casual offences, men were allowed the benefit of their clergy; it is granted necessary in this metamorphosis of things, that no man be put to his book again, for there is hardly one in a hundred can read his neck-verse, and so many of the good intenders to the weal-publick may incur the hazard of the hempen twist.

33. That all subsizing, querpo, gizzard clerks, which farm a parcel of scribbling at three pence a day, shall not be suffered hence-forward to lay out their fathers allowance, and their own lamentable revenue, upon a suit of cloaths, and a horse collar of ribbands. For, as it is even in the greatest order of the bustling gallants a most unseemly, ranting, loose, profuse, ugly garb, to be dressed about the hips like a morris-dancer, and to have more variety of strange colours than good conditions, it is judged commendable both in state policy and common civility to enact, that all such which are found whiffling in such antick dresses, be accounted no better than w--masters, toothdrawers, and mountebanks, from this time forth for evermore.

34. - That all lawyers wives, which have come sneaking into the Inns of Court, with their bag and baggage, whether it be to be proficients in their husbands' absence in the practice of fee-tail, or whether it be to convert those gallant edifices from a nursery of law, to a shambles of laundry-women, I know not; but it is requested to be voted, that all such presumptuous whipsters, with their litter and lumber, reduce themselves either into Ram alley, Purple-lane, or Castle-Yard, more fit stages for such comical subjects, than seminaries of learning, and there to set up for themselves, where only such kind of cattle are to be expected.

35. That the corruption of courts has been a most horrid and crying crime in this nation, in that the poor have been overborne by the rich in a most high way, and all by intercession of the Lady Pecunia, a gentlewoman much idolised of late; it is therefore ordained, that no more money be produced to tempt the frailty of a clerk's conscience, but that every thing be carried in a round way between man and man, and, by that time the excise, sequestration, monthly taxes, &c. have continued their reign over us one year more, be it accounted treason for any man whatsoever to be able to offer an attorney, sollicitor, or council, more than his just fee, except it be a rasher of bacon, to relish his morning's draught.

36. That there may be a distinction made between clerks of the children's threes, and stagers of the long twelves, men of the tribe of Anack in their profession, and tipplers of the stock of Benjamin, whose goose-quill fancies were never elevated beyond the Parnassus of a green nogging in their masters absence: It is therefore proposed, that such niffling fellows be distinguished by the childish wear of yellow ribbands, from the marshal seniors with their fiery faces.

37. Item, That all indentures, bills, leases, conveyances, and bonds obligatory, shall no more be dated from the year of our Lord God, nor the coronation of the King, but stilo novo, from the first day of the eleventh month, in such a model of the state government, under the conduct of such a party.

38. Item, That all impropriations, college-holds, lapses, or patronage of church means, be all referred to a jury of saints to dispose of: Because it is the patrimony of the elect in this world, and to sustain the indigency of the spirit of talking.

39. That all right might be judged by the touch-stone of affection, and if so be the plaintiff, or defendant, cannot bring proof, that he is one of such a collected church of the marching ministry, it is fitting he hould be reprobated in estate, as well as point of salvation.

40. That no married persons may justify themselves by the old common prayer book, but he, that means to be dabbling with his mistress now, must permit himself to be posted three several Sundays upon the church door; and, when every country hogo has spent his greasy jear upon him, then he must be examined by two justices of peace upon oath, whether he has his and her friends consent, and then, if it please the parties, they may go to bed together without any farther ceremony. Qui aliter maritaverit perdit dotem.

41. That the multiplicity of heriots be reduced to nothing, and the marketa mulieris be set up in their place, or rather the forfeiture of that money by the occupation of the feminine feature by the three articles of the lord of the manour.

42. That the lottery and the public faith may walk hand in hand together from town to town, to see if it be possible to inveigle any more silver spoons or bodkins into the common or the Commons treasury.

43. That it may be lawful for any man to exercise, own, preach about, or practise any religion, heresy, or diabolical tenets; that the law may be brought into six words, Do as thou wouldest be done to ;

that divinity may be made mercenary, and the fundamentals of the church and commonwealth laid waste and abolished; that one man may be as good a gentleman as another, and for all this, We beseech you to hear us, great Lords.

Sic tetigi portum quo mihi cursus erat.

Παιδεία Θριαμβός,

THE

TRIUMPH OF LEARNING OVER IGNORANCE,

AND OF

TRUTH OVER FALSHOOD;

Being an Answer to Four Queries:

Whether there be any need of universities?
Who is to be accounted an heretick?
Whether it be lawful to use conventicles?
Whether a lay-man may preach?

Which were lately proposed by a zealot, in the parish church at Swacy near Cambridge, after the second sermon, October 3, 1652. -Since that enlarged by the answerer, R. B. B. D. and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

TALMUD.

Qui auget academias, auget sapientiam et מרבה ישיבה מרבה חכמה

sapientes.

IGNAT.

Τὰς τὰ σχίσματα ποιῶντας φεύγετε ὡς ἀρχὴν κακῶν.

ROM. xvi. 17.

Mark them which cause divisions, and avoid them.

ROM. x. 15.

. How shall they preach, except they be sent?

[From a Quarto, containing thirty-eight pages, printed at London, in 1653.]

THE author of this pamphlet, Robert Boreman, brother to Sir William Boreman, or Boureman, clerk of the green cloth to King Charles the Second, was fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge, afterwards Doc

tor of divinity, and rector of St. Giles's in the Fields, near London, and very probaby of the family of the Boremans in the Isle of Wight. He published several other small pieces, and a sermon on Phil. iii. 20. and died at Greenwich in Kent, about the latter end of the year 1675.

It appears by this piece, that he was a man of both learning and piety; for, I doubt not, but the reader will presently see, that he had not only read much, but was blessed with a happy, methodical, and impartial talent, whereby he confutes, without depreciating his adversary; and, throughout the whole, there runs a sensible vein of compassion, and sincere and hearty prayer for the conversion of those that are misled, and for the subsiding of all disputes in matters of faith.

The subjects, here treated of, are not only well handled, but are such as, at that time, were most necessary to be explained, when ignorance was, under the power of the sword, triumphing over learning; when sectaries increased daily, and every opinionated cobler, or taylor, usurped the ministerial office, and gloried in his endless capacity of dividing the church of Christ; when private assemblies in rooms or garrets, after the manner of our modern schismaticks, the disciples of Westly and Whitefield, &c. who, had they the same power, are of no less turbulent and aspiring spirits, were preferred to the worship of God's house, the publick prayers and preaching in the church, and lay teachers and preachers were substituted in their private meetings, in opposition to their stated and lawful ministers. But our author's reasons will best appear from his own preface, as follows:

To all sincere and true-hearted Christians, lovers of learning, truth, and peace.

The Jews have a saying, not more short than ingenious, that truth stands upon two legs, and a lye upon one*: Their meaning is, that as falshood and heresy fall at the length of themselves, without any contradiction, so truth is, and ever was firm, stable, and lasting, getting ground, growth, and strength, by opposition. By this means, many questions, which lay hid, and, as it were, buried in the grave of silence, are raised, discussed, and evidenced even to vulgar capacities.

St. Augustine, in his 18th lib. de Civ. Dei. cap. 51, treating of hereticks, and proving that the catholick faith is strengthened and confirmed by heretical dissensions, says thus of false teachers, Habentur in exercentibus inimicis, &c. i. e. 'They are to be put into the file or number of those enemies who exercise the gifts and graces of God's servants;' who, like the stars that shine brightest in the cold nights of winter, are, in times of opposition, more active than ever in zeal, more vigilant and circumspect in their lives (as those + religious men were, in the days of Apollinaris, who laboured to outshine him in strictness of life, knowing that, by this, his opinions thrived and prevailed.) Lastly, more earnest in their devotion and prayers to the father of lights, that the seduced may be undeceived, and the seducers convinced of their errors. This

* Talmud. + Dabant operam per inculpatos mores ut illius dogmata non plus valerent. Sozom: Lib. 6. Cap. 27. Jam. i. 17.

now,

(not to be seen in print, which is a poor piece of ambitious pride) is the scope of my pen, and the aim of my unworthy endeavours: Especially that * little birds, scarce fledged, or hatched, flying with their shells upon their heads, and having only a feather or two of boldness in their faces, shall dare, and that in the bosom of their nurse, or mother, preach, or rather prate against learning, which they never had, and inveigh against universities, quà tales, simply as universities, of which they never deserved to be members.

It is an ill bird, &c. Every Englishman knows what follows in the proverb. There are no such enemies to learning, as the malicious and ignorant.

It was my happiness, of late, to meet with some adversaries, not, perhaps, so knowing, yet more candid than the former, declaimers against academies, and men of more Christian spirits, not (as St. Augustine + writes of the Donatists) pertinaciâ insuperabiles, invincible and pertina cious in their opinions; but such, whose minds were tuned to that obedience and meekness, that they, after a mild and long debate, yielded, with thankful acknowledgments, and protestations of love, to my reasons. And hereby declared plainly, before the congregation, that they were free from that whereof they were falsely suspected, i. e. heresy; agreeable to that of the learned and most profound Augustine; Qui sententiam suam quamvis falsam atque perversam nullâ pertinaci animositate defendunt, sed veritatem cautâ solicitudine quærunt, corrigi parati cùm invenerint, nequa quàm sunt inter hæreticos deputandi.' The meaning of which words, in brief, is this, that he only is to be counted an heretick, who persists, with obstinacy, in an opinion, which is against the word; not he, who errs, yet is ready to forsake his error, and yield to the truth, so soon as he is convinced of it.'

This pious and humble temper was in those my antagonists; for whose farther confirmation, and satisfaction to their modest desires, together with the rest of that populous parish of Swacy, I have published the discourse, with some enlargements, hoping that it will meet with as good success (by God's blessing on it) in the conviction of those by whom it shall be perused, whose judgments, perhaps, have been formerly perverted by false teachers, who beguile unstable souls, having hearts exercised (or overcome) with covetousness; cursed children (they are children for their ignorance) who, forsaking the way of all righteousness, have gone astray, following the way of Balaam, that made Israel to sin §. Such blind guides as these have been the cause of many poor souls falling into the ditch of heresy, which (if backed with obstinacy) is a bar that shuts men out of all hope of glory. This, hereafter, shall be proved, in my answer to the second doubt.

May the Infinite Goodness, (to whose only glory I humbly desire to devote myself, and all my weak endeavours) make them as useful and beneficial in the confirming and reforming of weak deceived souls, as they

Hujus furfuris (ne dicam farina) est Burtonus iste, hesterne diei homulus, cui doctrinam et pietatem audaciæ inauditæ parem optamus. + Ep. 167. + Ep. 162. 2 Pet. ii. 14, 15. Jude ver. 11. Numb. xxv. 2. xxxi. 16.

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