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发帖数: 6791 | 1 A SPEECH OF Mr. JOHN MILTON
For the Liberty of VNLICENC'D PRINTING,
To the PARLAMENT of ENGLAND.
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This is true Liberty when free born men
Having to advise the public may speak free,
Which he who can, and will, deserv's high praise,
Who neither can nor will, may hold his peace;
What can be juster in a State then this?
Eurip.
Hicetid.
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For the Liberty of unlicenc'd Printing
hey who to States and Governours of the Commonwealth direct their Speech,
High Court of Parlament, or wanting such accesse in a private condition,
write that which they foresee may advance the publick good; I suppose them
as at the beginning of no meane endeavour, not a little alter'd and mov'd
inwardly in their mindes: Some with doubt of what will be the successe,
others with fear of what will be the censure; some with hope, others with
confidence of what they have to speak. And me perhaps each of these
dispositions, as the subject was whereon I enter'd, may have at other times
variously affected; and likely might in these formost expressions now also
disclose which of them sway'd most, but that the very attempt of this
addresse thus made, and the thought of whom it hath recourse to, hath got
the power within me to a passion, farre more welcome then incidentall to a
Preface. Which though I stay not to confess ere any aske, I shall be
blamelesse, if it be no other, then the joy and gratulation which it brings
to all who wish and promote their Countries liberty; whereof this whole
Discourse propos'd will be a certaine testimony, if not a Trophey. For this
is not the liberty which wee can hope, that no grievance ever should arise
in the Commonwealth, that let no man in this World expect; but when
complaints are freely heard, deeply consider'd and speedily reform'd, then
is the utmost bound of civill liberty attain'd, that wise men looke for. To
which if I now manifest by the very sound of this which I shall utter, that
wee are already in good part arriv'd, and yet from such a steepe
disadvantage of tyranny and superstition grounded into our principles as was
beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery, it will be attributed first, as is
most due, to the strong assistance of God our deliverer, next to your
faithful guidance and undaunted Wisdome, Lords and Commons of England.
Neither is it in Gods esteeme the diminution of his glory, when honourable
things are spoken of good men and worthy Magistrates; which if I now first
should begin to doe, after so fair a progresse of your laudable deeds, and
such a long obligement upon the whole Realme to your indefatigable virtues,
I might be justly reckn'd among the tardiest, and the unwillingest of them
that praise yee. Nevertheless there being three principall things, without
which all praising is but Courtship and flattery, First, when that only is
prais'd which is solidly worth praise: next, when greatest likelihoods are
brought that such things are truly and really in those persons to whom they
are ascrib'd, the other, when he who praises, by shewing that such his
actuall perswasion is of whom he writes, can demonstrate that he flatters
not; the former two of these I have heretofore endeavour'd, rescuing the
employment from him who went about to impaire your merits with a triviall
and malignant Encomium; the latter as belonging chiefly to mine own
acquittall, that whom I so extoll'd I did not flatter, hath been reserv'd
opportunely to this occasion. For he who freely magnifies what hath been
nobly done, and fears not to declare as freely what might be done better,
gives ye the best cov'nant of his fidelity; and that his loyalest affection
and his hope waits on your proceedings. His highest praising is not flattery
, and his plainest advice is a kinde of praising; for though I should
affirme and hold by argument, that it would fare better with truth, with
learning, and the Commonwealth, if one of your publisht Orders which I
should name, were call'd in, yet at the same time it could not but much
redound to the lustre of your milde and equall Government, when as private
persons are hereby animated to thinke ye better pleas'd with publick advice,
then other statists have been delighted heretofore with publicke flattery.
And men will then see what difference there is between the magnanimity of a
trienniall Parlament, and that jealous hautinesse of Prelates and cabin
Counsellours that usurpt of late, when as they shall observe yee in the midd
'st of your Victories and successes more gently brooking writt'n exceptions
against a voted Order, then other Courts, which had produc't nothing worth
memory but the weake ostentation of wealth, would have endured the least
signifi'd dislike at any sudden Proclamation. If I should thus farre presume
upon the meek demeanour of your civill and gentle greatnesse, Lords and
Commons, as what your publisht Order hath directly said, that to gainsay, I
might defend my selfe with ease, if any should accuse me of being new or
insolent, did they but know how much better I find ye esteem it to imitate
the old and elegant humanity of Greece, then the barbarick pride of a
Hunnish and Norwegian statelines. And out of those ages, to whose polite
wisdom and letters we ow that we are not yet Gothes and Jutlanders,* I could
name him who from his private house wrote that discourse to the Parlament
of Athens, that perswades them to change the form of Democraty which was
then establisht. Such honour was done in those dayes to men who profest the
study of wisdome and eloquence, not only in their own Country, but in other
Lands, that Cities and Siniories heard them gladly, and with great respect,
if they had aught in publick to admonish the State. Thus did Dion Prus?us, a
stranger and a privat Orator counsell the Rhodians against a former Edict:
and I abound with other like examples, which to set heer would be
superfluous. But if from the industry of a life wholly dedicated to studious
labours, and those naturall endowments haply not the worst for two and
fifty degrees of northern latitude, so much must be derogated, as to count
me not equall to any of those who had this priviledge, I would obtain to be
thought not so inferior, as your selves are superior to the most of them who
receiv'd their counsell: and how farre you excell them, be assur'd, Lords
and Commons, there can no greater testimony appear, then when your prudent
spirit acknowledges and obeyes the voice of reason from what quarter soever
it be heard speaking; and renders ye as willing to repeal any Act of your
own setting forth, as any set forth by your Predecessors.
If ye be thus resolv'd, as it were injury to think ye were not; I know not
what should withhold me from presenting ye with fit instance wherein to shew
both that love of truth which ye eminently professe, and that uprightnesse
of your judgement which is not wont to be partiall to your selves: by
judging over again that Order which ye have ordain'd to regulate Printing,
That no Book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth Printed, unlesse the
same be first approv'd and licenc't by such, or at least one of such as
shall be thereto appointed. For that part which preserves justly every mans
Copy to himselfe, or provides for the poor, I touch not, only wish they be
not made pretenses to abuse and persecute honest and painfull Men, who
offend not in either of these particulars. But that other clause of
Licencing Books, which we thought had dy'd with his brother quadragesimal
and matrimonial when the Prelats expir'd, I shall now attend with such a
Homily, as shall lay before ye, first the inventors of it to bee those whom
ye will be loath to own; next what is to be thought in generall of reading,
what ever sort the Books be; and that this Order avails nothing to the
suppressing of scandalous, seditious, and libellous Books, which were mainly
intended to be supprest. Last, that it will be primely to the
discouragement of all learning, and the stop of Truth, not only by
disexercising and blunting our abilities in what we know already, but by
hindring and cropping the discovery that might bee yet further made both in
religious and civill Wisdome.
I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and
Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how Bookes demeane themselves as well
as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them
as malefactors: For Books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a
potencie of life in them to be as active as that soule was whose progeny
they are; nay they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and
extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as
lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragons teeth; and
being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the
other hand unlesse warinesse be us'd, as good almost kill a Man as kill a
good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image; but hee
who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God,
as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good
Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm'd and treasur'd
up on purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can restore a life,
whereof perhaps there is no great losse; and revolutions of ages do not oft
recover the losse of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole Nations
fare the worse. We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise
against the living labours of publick men, how we spill that season'd life
of man preserv'd and stor'd up in Books; since we see a kind of homicide may
be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdome, and if it extend to the whole
impression, a kinde of massacre,whereof the execution ends not in the
slaying of an elementall life, but strikes at that ethereall and fift
essence, the breath of reason it selfe, slaies an immortality rather then a
life. But lest I should be condemned of introducing licence, while I oppose
Licencing, I refuse not the paines to be so much Historicall, as will serve
to shew what hath been done by ancient and famous Commonwealths, against
this disorder, till the very time that this project of licencing crept out
of the Inquisition, was catcht up by our Prelates, and hath caught some of
our Presbyters.
In Athens where Books and Wits were ever busier then in any other part of
Greece, I finde but only two sorts of writings which the Magistrate car'd to
take notice of; those either blasphemous and Atheisticall, or Libellous.
Thus the Books of Protagoras were by the Iudges of Areopagus commanded to be
burnt, and himselfe banisht the territory for a discourse begun with his
confessing not to know whether there were gods, or whether not: And against
defaming, it was decreed that none should be traduc'd by name, as was the
manner of Vetus Com?dia, whereby we may guesse how they censur'd libelling:
And this course was quick enough, as Cicero writes, to quell both the
desperate wits of other Atheists, and the open way of defaming, as the event
shew'd. Of other sects and opinions, though tending to voluptuousnesse, and
the denying of divine providence, they tooke no heed. Therefore we do not
read that either Epicurus, or that libertine school of Cyrene, or what the
Cynick impudence utter'd, was ever question'd by the Laws. Neither is it
recorded that the writings of those old Comedians were suppresst, though the
acting of them were forbid; and that Plato commended the reading of
Aristophanes, the loosest of them all, to his royall scholler Dionysius, is
commonly known, and may be excus'd, if holy Chrysostome, as is reported,
nightly studied so much the same Author and had the art to cleanse a
scurrilous vehemence into the style of a rousing Sermon. That other leading
city of Greece, Laced?mon, considering that Lycurgus their Law-giver was so
addicted to elegant learning, as to have been the first that brought out of
Ionia the scatter'd workes of Homer, and sent the poet Thales from Creet to
prepare and mollifie the Spartan surlinesse with his smooth songs and odes,
the better to plant among them law and civility, it is to be wonder'd how
muselesse and unbookish they were, minding nought but the feats of Warre.
There needed no licencing of Books among them for they dislik'd all, but
their owne Laconick Apothegms, and took a slight occasion to chase
Archilochus out of their City, perhaps for composing in a higher straine
then their own souldierly ballats and roundels could reach to : Or if it
were for his broad verses, they were not therein so cautious, but they were
as dissolute in their promiscuous conversing; whence Euripides affirmes in
Andromache, that their women were all unchaste. Thus much may give us light
after what sort Bookes were prohibited among the Greeks. The Romans also for
many ages train'd up only to a military roughnes, resembling most the Laced
?monian guise, knew of learning little but what their twelve Tables, and the
Pontifick College with their Augurs and Flamins taught them in Religion and
Law, so unacquainted with other learning, that when Carneades and Critolaus
, with the Stoick Diogenes comming Embassadors to Rome, tooke thereby
occasion to give the City a taste of their Philosophy, they were suspected
for seducers by no lesse a man then Cato the Censor, who mov'd it in the
Senat to dismisse them speedily, and to banish all such Attick bablers out
of Italy. But Scipio and others of the noblest Senators withstood him and
his old Sabin austerity; honour'd and admir'd the men; and the Censor
himself at last in his old age fell to the study of that whereof before hee
was so scrupulous. And yet at the same time N?vius and Plautus the first
Latine comedians had fill'd the City with all the borrow'd Scenes of
Menander and Philemon. Then began to be consider'd there also what was to be
don to libellous books and Authors; for N?vius was quickly cast into prison
for his unbridl'd pen, and releas'd by the Tribunes upon his recantation:
We read also that libels were burnt, and the makers punisht by Augustus. The
like severity no doubt was us'd if ought were impiously writt'n against
their esteemed gods. Except in these two points, how the world went in Books
, the Magistrat kept no reckning. And therefore Lucretius without
impeachment versifies his Epicurism to Memmius, and had the honour to be set
forth the second time by Cicero so great a father of the Commonwealth;
although himselfe disputes against that opinion in his own writings. Nor was
the Satyricall sharpnesse, or naked plainnes of Lucilius, or Catullus, or
Flaccus, by any order prohibited. And for matters of State, the story of
Titus Livius, though it extoll'd that part which Pompey held, was not
therefore suppresst by Octavius C?sar of the other Faction. But that Naso
was by him banisht in his old age, for the wanton Poems of his youth, was
but a meer covert of State over some secret cause: and besides, the Books
were neither banisht nor call'd in. From hence we shall meet with little
else but tyranny in the Roman Empire, that we may not marvell, if not so
often bad, as good Books were silenc't. I shall therefore deem to have bin
large anough in producing what among the ancients was punishable to write,
save only which, all other arguments were free to treat on.
By this time the Emperors were become Christians, whose discipline in this
point I doe not finde to have bin more severe then what was formerly in
practice. The Books of those whom they took to be grand Hereticks were
examin'd, refuted, and condemn'd in the general Councels; and not till then
were prohibited, or burnt by autority of the Emperor. As for the writings of
Heathen authors, unlesse they were plaine invectives against Christianity,
as those of Porphyrius and Proclus, they met with no interdict that can be
cited, till about the year 400. in a Carthaginian Councel, wherein Bishops
themselves were forbid to read the Books of Gentiles, but Heresies they
might read: while others long before them on the contrary scrupl'd more the
Books of Hereticks, then of Gentiles. And that the primitive Councels and
Bishops were wont only to declare what Books were not commendable, passing
no furder, but leaving it to each ones conscience to read or to lay by, till
after the year 800. is observ'd already by Padre Paolo, the great unmasker
of the Trentine Councel. After which time the Popes of Rome, engrossing what
they pleas'd of Politicall rule into their owne hands, extended their
dominion over mens eyes, as they had before over their judgements, burning
and prohibiting to be read, what they fancied not; yet sparing in their
censures, and the Books not many which they so dealt with: till Martin the 5
. by his Bull not only prohibited, but was the first that excommunicated the
reading of hereticall Books; for about that time Wicklef and Husse growing
terrible, were they who first drove the Papall Court to a stricter policy of
prohibiting. Which cours Leo the 10, and his successors follow'd, untill
the Councell of Trent, and the Spanish Inquisition engendring together
brought forth, or perfeted those Catalogues, and expurging Indexes that rake
through the entralls of many an old good Author, with a violation wors then
any could be offer'd to his tomb. Nor did they stay in matters Hereticall,
but any subject that was not to their palat, they either condemn'd in a
prohibition, or had it strait into the new Purgatory of an Index. To fill up
the measure of encroachment, their last invention was to ordain that no
Book, pamphlet, or paper should be Printed (as if St. Peter had bequeath'd
them the keys of the Presse also out of Paradise) unlesse it were approv'd
and licenc't under the hands of 2 or 3 glutton Friers. For example:
Let the Chancellor Cini be pleas'd to see if in this present work be contain
'd ought that may withstand the Printing.
Vincent Rabbatta, Vicar of Florence.
I have seen this present work, and finde nothing athwart the Catholick faith
and good manners: in witness whereof I have given, &c.
Nicolo Cini, Chancellor of Florence.
Attending the precedent relation, it is allowed that this present work of
Davanzati may be printed.
Vincent Rabbatta, &c.
It may be printed, July 15.
Friar Simon Mompei d'Amelia, Chancellor of the holy office in Florence.
Sure they have a conceit, if he of the bottomlesse pit had not long since
broke prison, that this quadruple exorcism would barre him down. I fear
their next designe will be to get into their custody the licensing of that
which they say *Claudius intended, but went not through with. Voutsafe to
see another of their forms the Roman stamp:
Imprimatur, If it seem good to the reverend Master of the holy Palace.
Belcastro Vicegerent.
Imprimatur
Friar Nicolo Rodolphi, Master of the holy Palace.
Sometimes 5 Imprimaturs are seen together dialogue-wise in the Piatza of one
Title page, complementing and ducking each to other with their shav'n
reverences, whether the Author, who stands by in perplexity at the foot of
his Epistle, shall to the Presse or to the spunge. These are the prety
responsories, these are the dear Antiphonies, that so bewitcht of late our
Prelats, and their Chaplaines with the goodly Eccho they made; and besotted
us to the gay imitation of a lordly Imprimatur, one from Lambeth house,
another from the West end of Pauls; so apishly Romanizing, that the word of
command still was set downe in Latine; as if the learned Grammaticall pen
that wrote it, would cast no ink without Latine: or perhaps, as they thought
, because no vulgar tongue was worthy to expresse the pure conceit of an
Imprimatur; but rather, as I hope, for that our English, the language of men
ever famous, and formost in the atchievements of liberty, will not easily
finde servile letters anow to spell such a dictatorie presumption in English
. And thus ye have the Inventors and the originall of Book-licencing ript up
and drawn as lineally as any pedigree. We have it not, that can be heard of
, from any ancient State, or politie, or Church, nor by any Statute left us
by our Ancestors elder or later; nor from the moderne custom of any reformed
Citty, or Church abroad; but from the most Antichristian Councel and the
most tyrannous Inquisition that ever inquir'd. Till then Books were ever as
freely admitted into the World as any other birth; the issue of the brain
was no then the issue of the womb: no envious Juno sate cros-leg'd over the
nativity of any man's intellectuall off spring; but if it prov'd a Monster,
who denies, but that it was justly burnt, or sunk into the Sea. But that a
Book in wors condition then a peccant soul, should be to stand before a Jury
ere it be borne to the World, and undergo yet in darknesse the judgment of
Radamanth and his Collegues, ere it can pass the ferry backward into light,
was never heard before, till that mysterious iniquity, provokt and troubl'd
at the first entrance of Reformation, sought out new limbo's and new hells
wherein they might include our Books also within the number of their damned.
And this was the rare morsell so officiously snatcht up, and so
ilfavouredly imitated by our inquisiturient Bishops, and the attendant
minorites their Chaplains. That ye like not now these most certain Authors
of this licencing order, and that all sinister intention was farre distant
from your thoughts, when ye were importun'd the passing it, all men who know
the integrity of your actions, and how ye honour Truth, will clear yee
readily.
But some will say, What though the inventors were bad, the thing for all
that may be good? It may be so; yet if that thing be no such deep invention,
but obvious, and easie for any man to light on, and yet best and wisest
Commonwealths through all ages, and occasions have foreborne to use it, and
falsest seducers, and oppressors of men were the first who tooke it up, and
to no other purpose but to obstruct and hinder the first approach of
Reformation; I am of those who beleeve, it will be a harder alchymy then
Lullius ever knew, to sublimat any good use out of such an invention. Yet
this only is what I request to gain from this reason, that it may be held a
dangerous and suspicious fruit, as certainly it deserves, for the tree that
bore it, untill I can dissect one by one the properties it has. But I have
first to finish, as was propounded, what is to be thought in generall of
reading Books, what ever sort they be, and whether be more the benefit, or
the harm that thence proceeds?
Not to insist upon the examples of Moses, Daniel, & Paul, who were skilfull
in all the learning of the ?gyptians, Caldeans, and Greeks, which could not
probably be without reading their Books of all sorts; in Paul especially,
who thought it no defilement to insert into holy Scripture the sentences of
three Greek Poets, and one of them a Tragedian, the question was,
notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the Primitive Doctors, but with
great odds on that side which affirm'd it both lawfull and profitable, as
was then evidently perceiv'd, when Julian the Apostat, and suttlest enemy to
our faith, made a decree forbidding Christians the study of heathen
learning: for, said he, they wound us with our own weapons, and with our
owne arts and sciences they overcome us. And indeed the Christians were put
so to their shifts by this crafty means, and so much in danger to decline
into all ignorance, that the two Apollinarii were fain as a man may say, to
coin all the seven liberall Sciences out of the Bible, reducing it into
divers forms of Orations, Poems, Dialogues, ev'n to the calculating of a new
Christian grammar. But, saith the Historian Socrates, The providence of God
provided better then the industry of Apollinarius and his son, by taking
away that illiterat law with the life of him who devis'd it. So great an
injury they then held it to be depriv'd of Hellenick learning; and thought
it a persecution more undermining, and secretly decaying the Church, then
the open cruelty of Decius or Dioclesian. And perhaps it was the same
politick drift that the Divell whipt St. Jerom in a lenten dream, for
reading Cicero; or else it was a fantasm bred by the feaver which had then
seis'd him. For had an Angel bin his discipliner, unlesse it were for
dwelling too much upon Ciceronianisms, & had chastiz'd the reading, not the
vanity, it had bin plainly partiall; first to correct him for grave Cicero,
and not for scurrill Plautus, whom he confesses to have bin reading not long
before; next to correct him only, and let so many more ancient Fathers wax
old in those pleasant and florid studies without the lash of such a tutoring
apparition; insomuch that Basil teaches how some good use may be made of
Margites, a sportfull Poem, not now extant, writ by Homer; and why not then
of Morgante, an Italian Romanze much to the same purpose. But if it be
agreed we shall be try'd by visions, there is a vision recorded by Eusebius
far ancienter then this tale of Jerom to the Nun Eustochium, and besides has
nothing of a feavor in it. Dionysius Alexandrinus was about the year 240, a
person of great name in the Church for piety and learning, who had wont to
avail himself much against hereticks by being conversant in their Books;
untill a certain Presbyter laid it scrupulously to his conscience, how he
durst venture himselfe among those defiling volumes. The worthy man loath to
give offence fell into a new debate with himselfe what was to be thought;
when suddenly a vision sent from God, it is his own Epistle that so averrs
it, confirm'd him in these words: Read any books what ever come to thy hands
, for thou art sufficient both to judge aright, and to examine each matter.
To this revelation he assented the sooner, as he confesses, because it was
answerable to that of the Apostle to the Thessalonians, Prove all things,
hold fast that which is good. And he might have added another remarkable
saying of the same Author; To the pure, all things are pure, not only meats
and drinks, but all kinde of knowledge whether of good or evill; the
knowledge cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the will and
conscience be not defil'd. For books are as meats and viands are; some of
good, some of evill substance; and yet God in that unapocryphal vision, said
without exception, Rise Peter, kill and eat, leaving the choice to each
mans discretion. Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomack differ little or
nothing from unwholesome; and best books to a naughty mind are not
unappliable to occasions of evill. Bad meats will scarce breed good
nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is of
bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many
respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate. Wherof
what better witnes can ye expect I should produce, then one of your own now
sitting in Parlament, the chief of learned men reputed in this land, Mr.
Selden, whose volume of naturall & national laws proves, not only by great
autorities brought together, but by exquisite reasons and theorems almost
mathematically demonstrative, that all opinions, yea errors, known, read,
and collated, are of main service & assistance toward the speedy attainment
of what is truest. I conceive therefore, that when God did enlarge the
universall diet of mans body, saving ever the rules of temperance, he then
also, as before, left arbitrary the dyeting and repasting of our minds; as
wherein every mature man might have to exercise his owne leading capacity.
How great a virtue is temperance, how much of moment through the whole life
of man? yet God committs the managing so great a trust, without particular
Law or prescription, wholly to the demeanour of every grown man. And
therefore when he himself tabl'd the Jews from heaven, that Omer which was
every mans daily portion of Manna, is computed to have bin more then might
have well suffic'd the heartiest feeder thrice as many meals. For those
actions which enter into a man, rather then issue out of him, and therefore
defile not, God uses not to captivat under a perpetuall childhood of
prescription, but trusts him with the gift of reason to be his own chooser;
there were but little work left for preaching, if law and compulsion should
grow so fast upon those things which heretofore were govern'd only by
exhortation. Salomon informs us that much reading is a wearines to the flesh
; but neither he, nor other inspir'd author tells us that such, or such
reading is unlawfull: yet certainly had God thought good to limit us herein,
it had bin much more expedient to have told us what was unlawfull, then
what was wearisome. As for the burning of those Ephesian books by St. Pauls
converts, tis reply'd the books were magick, the Syriack so renders them. It
was a privat act, a voluntary act, and leaves us to a voluntary imitation:
the men in remorse burnt those books which were their own; the Magistrat by
this example is not appointed; these men practiz'd the books, another might
perhaps have read them in some sort usefully. Good and evill we know in the
field of this World grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge
of good is so involv'd and interwoven with the knowledge of evill, and in so
many cunning resemblances hardly to be discern'd, that those confused seeds
which were impos'd on Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out, and sort
asunder, were not more intermixt. It was from out the rinde of one apple
tasted, that the knowledge of good and evill as two twins cleaving together
leapt forth into the World. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell
into of knowing good and evill, that is to say of knowing good by evill. As
therefore the state of man now is; what wisdome can there be to choose, what
continence to forbeare without the knowledge of evill? He that can
apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and
yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better,
he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloister
'd vertue, unexercis'd & unbreath'd, that never sallies out and sees her
adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortall garland is to be
run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into
the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is triall,
and triall is by what is contrary. That vertue therefore which is but a
youngling in the contemplation of evill, and knows not the utmost that vice
promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank vertue, not a pure
; her whitenesse is but an excrementall whitenesse; Which was the reason why
our sage and serious Poet Spencer, whom I dare be known to think a better
teacher then Scotus or Aquinas,describing true temperance under the person
of Guion, brings him in with his palmer through the cave of Mammon, and the
bowr of earthly blisse that he might see and know, and yet abstain. Since
therefore the knowledge and survay of vice is in this world so necessary to
the constituting of human vertue, and the scanning of error to the
confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with lesse danger scout
into the regions of sin and falsity then by reading all manner of tractats,
and hearing all manner of reason? And this is the benefit which may be had
of books promiscuously read. But of the harm that may result hence three
kinds are usually reckn'd. First, is fear'd the infection that may spread;
but then all human learning and controversie in religious points must remove
out of the world, yea the Bible it selfe; for that oftimes relates
blasphemy not nicely, it describes the carnall sense of wicked men not
unelegantly, it brings in holiest men passionately murmuring against
providence through all the arguments of Epicurus: in other great disputes it
answers dubiously and darkly to the common reader: And ask a Talmudist what
ails the modesty of his marginal Keri, that Moses and all the Prophets
cannot perswade him to pronounce the textuall Chetiv. For these causes we
all know the Bible it selfe put by the Papist into the first rank of
prohibited books. The ancientest Fathers must be next remov'd, as Clement of
Alexandria, and that Eusebian book of Evangelick preparation, transmitting
our ears through a hoard of heathenish obscenities to receive the Gospel.
Who finds not that Iren?us, Epiphanius, Jerom, and others discover more
heresies then they well confute, and that oft for heresie which is the truer
opinion. Nor boots it to say for these, and all the heathen Writers of
greatest infection, if it must be thought so, with whom is bound up the life
of human learning, that they writ in an unknown tongue, so long as we are
sure those languages are known as well to the worst of men, who are both
most able, and most diligent to instill the poison they suck, first into the
Courts of Princes, acquainting them with the choicest delights, and
criticisms of sin. As perhaps did that Petronius whom Nero call'd his
Arbiter, the Master of his revels; and that notorious ribald of Arezzo,
dreaded, and yet dear to the Italian Courtiers. I name not him for
posterities sake, whom Harry the 8. nam'd in merriment his Vicar of hell. By
which compendious way all the contagion that foreine books can infuse, will
find a passage to the people farre easier and shorter then an Indian voyage
, though it could be sail'd either by the North of Cataio Eastward, or of
Canada Westward, while our Spanish licencing gags the English Presse never
so severely. But on the other side that infection which is from books of
controversie in Religion, is more doubtfull and dangerous to the learned,
then to the ignorant; and yet those books must be permitted untoucht by the
licencer. It will be hard to instance where any ignorant man hath bin ever
seduc't by Papisticall book in English, unlesse it were commended and
expounded to him by some of that Clergy: and indeed all such tractats
whether false or true are as the Prophesie of Isaiah was to the Eunuch, not
to be understood without a guide. But of our Priests and Doctors how many
have bin corrupted by studying the comments of Jesuits and Sorbonists, and
how fast they could transfuse that corruption into the people, our
experience is both late and sad. It is not forgot, since the acute and
distinct Arminius was perverted meerly by the perusing of a namelesse
discourse writt'n at Delf, which at first he took in hand to confute. Seeing
therefore that those books, & those in great abundance which are likeliest
to taint both life and doctrine, cannot be suppresst without the fall of
learning, and of all ability in disputation, and that these books of either
sort are most and soonest catching to the learned, from whom to the common
people whatever is hereticall or dissolute may quickly be convey'd, and that
evill manners are as perfectly learnt without books a thousand other ways
which cannot be stopt, and evill doctrine not with books can propagate,
except a teacher guide, which he might also doe without writing, and so
beyond prohibiting, I am not able to unfold, how this cautelous enterprise
of licencing can be exempted from the number of vain and impossible attempts
. And he who were pleasantly dispos'd could not well avoid to lik'n it to
the exploit of that gallant man who thought to pound up the crows by
shutting his Parkgate. Besides another inconvenience, if learned men be the
first receivers out of books & dispredders both of vice and error, how shall
the licencers themselves be confided in, unlesse we can conferr upon them,
or they assume to themselves above all others in the Land, the grace of
infallibility, and uncorruptednesse? And again if it be true, that a wise
man like a good refiner can gather gold out of the drossiest volume, and
that a fool will be a fool with the best book, yea or without book, there is
no reason that we should deprive a wise man of any advantage to his wisdom,
while we seek to restrain from a fool, that which being restrain'd will be
no hindrance to his folly. For if there should be so much exactnesse always
us'd to keep that from him which is unfit for his reading, we should in the
judgement of Aristotle not only, but of Salomon, and of our Saviour, not
voutsafe him good precepts, and by consequence not willingly admit him to
good books; as being certain that a wise man will make better use of an idle
pamphlet, then a fool will do of sacred Scripture. 'Tis next alleg'd we
must not expose ourselves to temptations without necessity, and next to that
, not imploy our time in vain things. To both these objections one answer
will serve, out of the grounds already laid, that to all men such books are
not temptations, nor vanities; but usefull drugs and materialls wherewith to
temper and compose effective and strong med'cins, which mans life cannot
want. The rest, as children and childish men, who have not the art to
qualifie and prepare these working mineralls, well may be exhorted to
forbear, but hinder'd forcibly they cannot be by all the licencing that
Sainted Inquisition could ever yet contrive; which is what I promis'd to
deliver next, That this order of licening conduces nothing to the end for
which it was fram'd; and hath almost prevented me by being clear already
while thus much hath bin explaining. See the ingenuity of Truth, who when
she gets a free and willing hand, opens herself faster then the pace of
method and discours can overtake her. It was the task which I began with, To
shew that no Nation, or well instituted State, if they valu'd books at all,
did ever use this way of licencing; and it might be answer'd, that this is
a piece of prudence lately discover'd. To which I return, that as it was a
thing slight and obvious to think on, so if it had bin difficult to finde
out, there wanted not among them long since, who suggested such a cours;
which they not following, leave us a pattern of their judgement, that it was
not the not knowing, but the not approving, which was the cause of their
not using it. Plato, a man of high autority, indeed, but least of all for
his Commonwealth, in the book of his laws, which no City ever yet receiv'd,
fed his fancie with making many edicts to his ayrie Burgomasters, which they
who otherwise admire him, wish had bin rather buried and excus'd in the
genial cups of an Academick night-sitting. By which laws he seems to tolerat
no kind of learning, but by unalterable decree, consisting most of
practicall traditions, to the attainment whereof a Library of smaller bulk
then his own dialogues would be abundant. And there also enacts that no Poet
should so much as read to any privat man, what he had writt'n, until the
Judges and Law-keepers had seen it, and allow'd it: But that Plato meant
this Law peculiarly to that Commonwealth which he had imagin'd, and to no
other, is evident. Why was he not else a Law-giver to himself, but a
transgressor, and to be expell'd by his own Magistrats; both for the wanton
epigrams and dialogues which he made, and his perpetuall reading of Sophron
Mimus and Aristophanes, books of grossest infamy, and also for commending
the latter of them, though he were the malicious libeller of his chief
friends, to be read by the Tyrant Dionysius, who had little need of such
trash to spend his time on? But that he knew this licencing of Poems had
reference and dependence to many other proviso's there set down in his
fancied republic, which in this world could have no place: and so neither he
himself, nor any Magistrat, or City ever imitated that cours, which tak'n
apart from those other collaterall injunctions, must needs be vain and
fruitlesse. For if they fell upon one kind of strictnesse, unlesse their
care were equall to regulat all other things of like aptnes to corrupt the
mind, that single endeavour they knew would be but a fond labour; to shut
and fortifie one gate against corruption, and be necessitated to leave
others round about wide open. If we think to regulat Printing, thereby to
rectifie manners, we must regulat all recreations and pastimes, all that is
delightful to man. No music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what
is grave and Dorick. There must be licencing dancers, that no gesture,
motion, or deportment be taught our youth but what by their allowance shall
be thought honest; for such Plato was provided of; It will ask more then the
work of twenty licencers to examine all the lutes, the violins, and the
ghittarrs in every house; they must not be suffer'd to prattle as they doe,
but must be licenc'd what they may say. And who shall silence all the airs
and madrigalls, that whisper softnes in chambers? The Windows also, and the
Balcone's must be thought on, there are shrewd books, with dangerous
Frontispices set to sale; who shall prohibit them, shall twenty licencers?
The villages also must have their visitors to enquire what lectures the
bagpipe and the rebbeck reads ev'n to the ballatry, and the gammuth of every
municipal fidler, for these are the Countrymans Arcadia's and his Monte
Mayors. Next, what more Nationall corruption, for which England hears ill
abroad, then houshold gluttony; who shall be the rectors of our daily
rioting? and what shall be done to inhibit the multitudes that frequent
those houses where drunk'nes is sold and harbour'd? Our garments also should
be referr'd to the licencing of some more sober work-masters to see them
cut into a lesse wanton garb. Who shall regulat all the mixt conversation of
our youth, male and female together, as is the fashion of this Country, who
shall still appoint what shall be discours'd, what presum'd, and no furder?
Lastly, who shall forbid and separat all idle resort, all evill company?
These things will be, and must be; but how they shall be lest hurtfull, how
lest enticing, herein consists the grave and governing wisdom of a State. To
sequester out of the world into Atlantick and Eutopian polities which never
can be drawn into use, will not mend our condition; but to ordain wisely as
in this world of evill, in the midd'st whereof God hath plac't us
unavoidably. Nor is it Plato's licencing of books will doe this, which
necessarily pulls along with it so many other kinds of licencing, as will
make us all both ridiculous and weary, and yet frustrat; but those unwritt'n
, or at least unconstraining laws of vertuous education, religious and
civill nurture, which Plato there mentions, as the bonds and ligaments of
the Commonwealth, the pillars
Another reason, whereby to make it plain that this order will misse the end
it seeks, consider by the quality which ought to be in every licencer. It
cannot be deny'd but that he who is made judge to sit upon the birth, or
death of books whether they may be wafted into this world, or not, had need
to be a man above the common measure, both studious, learned, and judicious;
there may be else no mean mistakes in the censure of what is passable or
not; which is also no mean injury. If he be of such worth as behoovs him,
there cannot be a more tedious and unpleasing Journey-work, a greater losse
of time levied upon his head, then to be made the perpetuall reader of
unchosen books and pamphlets, oftimes huge volumes. There is no book that is
acceptable unlesse at certain seasons; but to be enjoyn'd the reading of
that at all times, and in a hand scars legible, whereof three pages would
not down at any time in the fairest Print, is an imposition I cannot beleeve
how he that values time, and his own studies, or is but of a sensible
nostrill should be able to endure. In this one thing I crave leave of the
present licencers to be pardon'd for so thinking: who doubtlesse took this
office up, looking on it through their obedience to the Parlament, whose
command perhaps made all things seem easie and unlaborious to them; but that
this short triall hath wearied them out already, their own expressions and
excuses to them who make so many journeys to sollicit their licence, are
testimony anough. Seeing therefore those who now possesse the imployment, by
all evident signs wish themselves well ridd of it, and that no man of worth
, none that is not a plain unthrift of his own hours is ever likely to
succeed them, except he mean to put himself to the salary of a Presse-
corrector, we may easily foresee what kind of licencers we are to expect
hereafter, either ignorant, imperious, and remisse, or basely pecuniary.
This is what I had to shew, wherein this order cannot conduce to that end,
whereof it bears the intention.
I lastly proceed from the no good it can do, to the manifest hurt it causes,
in being first the greatest discouragement and affront, that can be offer'd
to learning and to learned men. It was the complaint and lamentation of
Prelats, upon every least breath of a motion to remove pluralities, and
distribute more equally Church revennu's, that then all learning would be
for ever dasht and discourag'd. But as for that opinion, I never found cause
to think that the tenth part of learning stood or fell with the Clergy: nor
could I ever but hold it for a sordid and unworthy speech of any Churchman
who had a competency left him. If therefore ye be loath to dishearten
utterly and discontent, not the mercenary crew of false pretenders to
learning, but the free and ingenuous sort of such as evidently were born to
study, and love lerning for it self, not for lucre, or any other end, but
the service of God and of truth, and perhaps that lasting fame and
perpetuity of praise which God and good men have consented shall be the
reward of those whose publisht labours advance the good of mankind, then
know, that so far to distrust the judgement & the honesty of one who hath
but a common repute in learning, and never yet offended, as not to count him
fit to print his mind without a tutor and examiner, lest he should drop a
scism, or something of corruption, is the greatest displeasure and indignity
to a free and knowing spirit that can be put upon him. What advantage is it
to be a man over it is to be a boy at school, if we have only scapt the
ferular, to come under the fescu of an Imprimatur? if serious and elaborat
writings, as if they were no more then the theam of a Grammar lad under his
Pedagogue must not be utter'd without the cursory eyes of a temporizing and
extemporizing licencer. He who is not trusted with his own actions, his
drift not being known to be evill, and standing to the hazard of law and
penalty, has no great argument to think himself reputed in the Commonwealth
wherein he was born, for other then a fool or a foreiner. When a man writes
to the world, he summons up all his reason and deliberation to assist him;
he searches, meditats, is industrious, and likely consults and conferrs with
his judicious friends; after all which done he takes himself to be inform'd
in what he writes, as well as any that writ before him; if in this the most
consummat act of his fidelity and ripenesse, no years, no industry, no
former proof of his abilities can bring him to that state of maturity, as
not to be still mistrusted and suspected, unlesse he carry all his
considerat diligence, all his midnight watchings, and expence of Palladian
oyl, to the hasty view of an unleasur'd licencer, perhaps much his younger,
perhaps far his inferiour in judgement, perhaps one who never knew the
labour of book-writing, and if he be not repulst, or slighted, must appear
in Print like a punie with his guardian, and his censors hand on the back of
his title to be his bayl and surety, that he is no idiot, or seducer, it
cannot be but a dishonour and derogation to the author, to the book, to the
priviledge and dignity of Learning. And what if the author shall be one so
copious of fancie, as to have many things well worth the adding, come into
his mind after licencing, while the book is yet under the Presse, which not
seldom happ'ns to the best and diligentest writers; and that perhaps a dozen
times in one book. The Printer dares not go beyond his licenc't copy; so
often then must the author trudge to his leav-giver, that those his new
insertions may be viewd; and many a jaunt will be made, ere that licencer,
for it must be the same man, can either be found, or found at leisure; mean
while either the Presse must stand still, which is no small damage, or the
author loose his accuratest thoughts, & send the book forth wors then he had
made it, which to a diligent writer is the greatest melancholy and vexation
that can befall. And how can a man teach with autority, which is the life
of teaching, how can he be a Doctor in his book as he ought to be, or else
had better be silent, whenas all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under
the tuition, under the correction of his patriarchal licencer to blot or
alter what precisely accords not with the hidebound humor which he calls his
judgement. When every acute reader upon the first sight of a pedantick
licence, will be ready with these like words to ding the book a coits
distance from him, I hate a pupil teacher, I endure not an instructor that
comes to me under the wardship of an overseeing fist. I know nothing of the
licencer, but that I have his own hand here for his arrogance; who shall
warrant me his judgement? The State Sir, replies the Stationer, but has a
quick return, The State shall be my governours, but not my criticks; they
may be mistak'n in the choice of a licencer, as easily as this licencer may
be mistak'n in an author: This is some common stuffe: and he might adde from
Sir Francis Bacon, That such authoriz'd books are but the language of the
times. For though a licencer should happ'n to be judicious more then ordnary
, which will be a great jeopardy of the next succession, yet his very office
and his commission enjoyns him to let passe nothing but what is vulgarly
receiv'd already. Nay, which is more lamentable, if the work of any deceased
author, though never so famous in his life time, and even to this day, come
to their hands for licence to be Printed, or Reprinted, if there be found
in his book one sentence of a ventrous edge, utter'd in the height of zeal,
and who knows whether it might not be the dictat of a divine Spirit, yet not
suiting with every low decrepit humor of their own, though it were Knox
himself, the Reformer of a Kingdom that spake it, they will not pardon him
their dash: the sense of that great man shall to all posterity be lost, for
the fearfulnesse or the presumptuous rashnesse of a perfunctory licencer.
And to what an author this violence hath bin lately done, and in what book
of greatest consequence to be faithfully publisht, I could now instance, but
shall forbear till a more convenient season. Yet if these things be not
resented seriously and timely by them who have the remedy in their power,
but that such iron moulds as these shall have autority to knaw out the
choicest periods of exquisitest books, and to commit such a treacherous
fraud against the orphan remainders of worthiest men after death, the more
sorrow will belong to that haples race of men, whose misfortune it is to
have understanding. Henceforth let no man care to learn, or care to be more
then worldly wise; for certainly in higher matters to be ignorant and
slothfull, to be a common stedfast dunce will be the only pleasant life, and
only in request.
And as it is a particular disesteem of every knowing person alive, and most
injurious to the writt'n labours and monuments of the dead, so to me it
seems an undervaluing and vilifying of the whole Nation. I cannot set so
light by all the invention, the art, the wit, the grave and solid judgement
which is in England, as that it can be comprehended in any twenty capacities
how good soever, much lesse that it should not passe except their
superintendence be over it, except it be sifted and strain'd with their
strainers, that it should be uncurrant without their manuall stamp. Truth
and understanding are not such wares as to be monopoliz'd and traded in by
tickets and statutes, and standards. We must not think to make a staple
commodity of all the knowledge in the Land, to mark and licence it like our
broad cloath, and our wooll packs. What is it but a servitude like that
impos'd by the Philistims, not to be allow'd the sharpening of our own axes
and coulters, but we must repair from all quarters to twenty licencing
forges. Had any one writt'n and divulg'd erroneous things & scandalous to
honest life, misusing and forfeiting the esteem had of his reason among men,
if after conviction this only censure were adjudg'd him, that he should
never henceforth write, but what were first examin'd by an appointed officer
, whose hand should be annext to passe his credit for him, that now he might
be safely read, it could not be apprehended lesse then a disgracefull
punishment. Whence to include the whole Nation, and those that never yet
thus offended, under such a diffident and suspectfull prohibition, may
plainly be understood what a disparagement it is. So much the more, when
dettors and delinquents may walk abroad without a keeper, but unoffensive
books must not stirre forth without a visible jaylor in thir title. Nor is
it to the common people lesse then a reproach; for if we be so jealous over
them, as that we dare not trust them with an English pamphlet, what doe we
but censure them for a giddy, vitious, and ungrounded people; in such a sick
and weak estate of faith and discretion, as to be able to take nothing down
but through the pipe of a licencer. That this is care or love of them, we
cannot pretend, whenas in those Popish places where the Laity are most hated
and dispis'd the same strictnes is us'd over them. Wisdom we cannot call it
, because it stops but one breach of licence, nor that neither; whenas those
corruptions which it seeks to prevent, break in faster at other dores which
cannot be shut.
And in conclusion it reflects to the disrepute of our Ministers also, of
whose labours we should hope better, and of the proficiencie which thir
flock reaps by them, then that after all this light of the Gospel which is,
and is to be, and all this continuall preaching, they should be still
frequented with such an unprincipl'd, unedify'd, and laick rabble, as that
the whiffe of every new pamphlet should stagger them out of their catechism,
and Christian walking. This may have much reason to discourage the
Ministers when such a low conceit is had of all their exhortations, and the
benefiting of their hearers, as that they are not thought fit to be turn'd
loose to three sheets of paper without a licencer, that all the Sermons, all
the Lectures preacht, printed, vented in such numbers, and such volumes, as
have now wellnigh made all other books unsalable, should not be armor
anough against one single enchiridion, without the castle of St. Angelo of
an Imprimatur.
And lest som should perswade ye, Lords and Commons, that these arguments of
lerned mens discouragement at this your order, are meer flourishes, and not
reall, I could recount what I have seen and heard in other Countries, where
this kind of inquisition tyrannizes; when I have sat among their lerned men,
for that honor I had, and bin counted happy to be born in such a place of
Philosophic freedom, as they suppos'd England was, while themselvs did
nothing but bemoan the servil condition into which lerning amongst them was
brought; that this was it which had dampt the glory of Italian wits; that
nothing had bin there writt'n now these many years but flattery and fustian.
There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo grown old, a
prisner to the Inquisition, for thinking in Astronomy otherwise then the
Franciscan and Dominican licencers thought. And though I knew that England
then was groaning loudest under the Prelaticall yoak, neverthelesse I took
it as a pledge of future happines, that other Nations were so perswaded of
her liberty. Yet was it beyond my hope that those Worthies were then
breathing in her air, who should be her leaders to such a deliverance, as
shall never be forgott'n 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 lerned men of other parts utter'd against
the Inquisition, the same I should hear by as lerned men at home utterd in
time of Parlament against an order of licencing; and that so generally, that
when I had disclos'd my self a companion of their discontent, I might say,
if without envy, that he whom an honest qu?storship had indear'd to the
Sicilians, was not more by them importun'd against Verres, then the
favourable opinion which I had among many who honour ye, and are known and
respected by ye, loaded me with entreaties and perswasions, that I would not
despair to lay together that which just reason should bring into my mind,
toward the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon lerning. That this is not
therefore the disburdning of a particular fancie, but the common grievance
of all those who had prepar'd their minds and studies above the vulgar pitch
to advance truth in others, and from others to entertain it, thus much may
satisfie. And in their name I shall for neither friend nor foe conceal what
the generall murmur is; that if it come to inquisitioning again, and
licencing, and that we are so timorous of our selvs, and so suspicious of
all men, as to fear each book, and the shaking of every leaf, before we know
what the contents are, if some who but of late were little better then
silenc't from preaching, shall come now to silence us from reading, except
what they please, it cannot be guest what is intended by som but a second
tyranny over learning: and will soon put it out of controversie that Bishops
and Presbyters are the same to us both name and thing. That those evills of
Prelaty which before from five or six and twenty Sees were distributivly
charg'd upon the whole people, will now light wholly upon learning, is not
obscure to us: whenas now the Pastor of a small unlearned Parish, on the
sudden shall be exalted Archbishop over a large dioces of books, and yet not
remove, but keep his other cure too, a mysticall pluralist. He who but of
late cry'd down the sole ordination of every novice Batchelor of Art, and
deny'd sole jurisdiction over the simplest Parishioner, shall now at home in
his privat chair assume both these over worthiest and excellentest books
and ablest authors that write them. This is not, Yee Covnants and
Protestations that we have made, this is not to put down Prelaty, this is
but to chop an Episcopacy; this is but to translate the Palace Metropolitan
from one kind of dominion into another, this is but an old canonicall
sleight of commuting our penance. To startle thus betimes at a mere unlicenc
't pamphlet will after a while be afraid of every conventicle, and a while
after will make a conventicle of every Christian meeting. But I am certain
that a State govern'd by the rules of justice and fortitude, or a Church
built and founded upon the rock of faith and true knowledge, cannot be so
pusillanimous. While things are yet not constituted in Religion, that
freedom of writing should be restrain'd by a discipline imitated from the
Prelats, and learnt by them from the Inquisition to shut us up all again
into the brest of a licencer, must needs give cause of doubt and
discouragement to all learned and religious men. Who cannot but discern the
finenes of this politic drift, and who are the contrivers; that while
Bishops were to be baited down, then all Presses might be open; it was the
peoples birthright and priviledge in time of Parlament, it was the breaking
forth of light. But now the Bishops abrogated and voided out of the Church,
as if our Reformation sought no more, but to make room for others into their
seats under another name, the Episcopall arts begin to bud again, the cruse
of truth must run no more oyle, liberty of Printing must be enthrall'd
again under a Prelaticall commission of twenty, the privilege of the people
nullify'd, and which is wors, the freedom of learning must groan again, and
to her old fetters; all this the Parlament yet sitting. Although their own
late arguments and defences against the Prelats might remember them that
this obstructing violence meets for the most part with an event utterly
opposite to the end which it drives at: instead of suppressing sects and
schisms, it raises them and invests them with a reputation: The punishing of
wits enhaunces their autority, saith the Vicount St. Albans, and a forbidd'
n writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth that flies up in the
faces of them who seeke to tread it out. This order therefore may prove a
nursing mother to sects, but I shall easily shew how it will be a step-dame
to Truth: and first by disinabling us to the maintenance of what is known
already.
Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by
exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion. Truth is compar'd in
Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetuall
progression, they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A
man may be a heretick in the truth; and if he beleeve things only because
his Pastor says so, or the Assembly so determins, without knowing other
reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds, becomes his
heresie. There is not any burden that som would gladlier post off to another
, then the charge and care of their Religion. There be, who knows not that
there be of Protestants and professors who live and dye in as arrant an
implicit faith, as any lay Papist of Loretto. A wealthy man addicted to his
pleasure and to his profits, finds Religion to be a traffick so entangl'd,
and of so many piddling accounts, that of all mysteries he cannot skill to
keep a stock going upon that trade. What should he doe? fain he would have
the name to be religious, fain he would bear up with his neighbours in that.
What does he therefore, but resolvs to give over toyling, and to find
himself out some factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole
managing of his religious affairs; som Divine of note and estimation that
must be. To him he adheres, resigns the whole ware-house of his religion,
with all the locks and keyes into his custody; and indeed makes the very
person of that man his religion; esteems his associating with him a
sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety. So that a man may say
his religion is now no more within himself, but is becom a dividuall
movable, and goes and comes neer him, according as that good man frequents
the house. He entertains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him; his
religion comes home at night, praies, is liberally supt, and sumptuously
laid to sleep, rises, is saluted, and after the malmsey, or some well spic't
bruage, and better breakfasted then he whose morning appetite would have
gladly fed on green figs between Betheny and Ierusalem, his Religion walks
abroad at eight, and leavs his kind entertainer in the shop trading all day
without his religion.
Another sort there be who when they hear that all things shall be order'd,
all things regulated and setl'd, nothing writt'n but what passes through the
custom-house of certain Publicans that have the tunaging and the poundaging
of all free spok'n truth, will strait give themselvs up into your hands,
mak'em & cut'em out what religion ye please; there be delights, there be
recreations and jolly pastimes that will fetch the day about from sun to sun
, and rock the tedious year as in a delightfull dream. What need they
torture their heads with that which others have tak'n so strictly, and so
unalterably into their own pourveying. These are the fruits which a dull
ease and cessation of our knowledge will bring forth among the people. How
goodly, and how to be wisht were such an obedient unanimity as this, what a
fine conformity would it starch us all into? doubtles a stanch and solid
peece of frame-work, as any January could freeze together.
Nor much better will be the consequence ev'n among the clergy themselvs; it
is no new thing never heard of before, for a parochiall Minister, who has
his reward, and is at his Hercules pillars in a warm benefice, to be easily
inclinable, if he have nothing else that may rouse up his studies, to finish
his circuit in an English concordance and a topic folio, the gatherings and
savings of a sober graduatship, a Harmony and a Catena, treading the
constant round of certain common doctrinall heads, attended with their uses,
motives, marks and means, out of which as out of an alphabet or sol fa by
forming and transforming, joyning and dis-joyning variously a little book-
craft, and two hours meditation might furnish him unspeakably to the
performance of more then a weekly charge of sermoning: not to reck'n up the
infinit helps of interlinearies, breviaries, synopses, and other loitering
gear. But as for the multitude of Sermons ready printed and pil'd up, on
every text that is not difficult, our London trading St. Thomas in his
vestry, and adde to boot St. Martin, and St. Hugh, have not within their
hallow'd limits more vendible ware of all sorts ready made: so that penury
he never need fear of Pulpit provision, having where so plenteously to
refresh his magazin. But if his rear and flanks be not impal'd, if his back
dore be not secur'd by the rigid licencer, but that a bold book may now and
then issue forth, and give the assault to some of his old collections in
their trenches, it will concern him then to keep waking, to stand in watch,
to set good guards and sentinells about his receiv'd opinions, to walk the
round and counter-round with his fellow inspectors, fearing lest any of his
flock be seduc't, who also then would be better instructed, better exercis'd
and disciplin'd. And God send that the fear of this diligence which must
then be us'd, doe not make us affect the lazines of a licencing Church.
For if we be sure we are in the right, and doe not hold the truth guiltily,
which becomes not, if we our selves condemn not our own weak and frivolous
teaching, and the people for an untaught and irreligious gadding rout, what
can be more fair, then when a man judicious, learned, and of a conscience,
for aught we know, as good as theirs that taught us what we know, shall not
privily from house to house, which is more dangerous, but openly by writing
publish to the world what his opinion is, what his reasons, and wherefore
that which is now thought cannot be sound. Christ urg'd it as wherewith to
justifie himself, that he preacht in publick; yet writing is more publick
then preaching; and more easie to refutation, if need be, there being so
many whose businesse and profession meerly it is, to be the champions of
Truth; which if they neglect, what can be imputed but their sloth, or
unability?
Thus much we are hinder'd and dis-inur'd by this cours of licencing toward
the true knowledge of what we seem to know. For how much it hurts and
hinders the licencers themselves in the calling of their Ministry, more then
any secular employment, if they will discharge that office as they ought,
so that of necessity they must neglect either the one duty or the other, I
insist not, because it is a particular, but leave it to their own conscience
, how they will decide it there.
There is yet behind of what I purpos'd to lay open, the incredible losse,
and detriment that this plot of licencing puts us to, more then if som enemy
at sea should stop up all our hav'ns and ports, and creeks, it hinders and
retards the importation of our richest Marchandize, Truth: nay it was first
establisht and put in practice by Antichristian malice and mystery on set
purpose to extinguish, if it were possible, the light of Reformation, and to
settle falshood; little differing from that policie wherewith the Turk
upholds his Alcoran, by the prohibition of Printing. 'Tis not deny'd, but
gladly confest, we are to send our thenks and vows to heav'n louder then
most of Nations, for that great measure of truth which we enjoy, especially
in those main points between us and the Pope, with his appertinences the
Prelats: but he who thinks we are to pitch our tent here, and have attain'd
the utmost prospect of reformation, that the mortall glasse wherein we
contemplate, can shew us, till we come to beatific vision, that man by this
very opinion declares, that he is yet farre short of Truth.
Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a
perfect shape most glorious to look on: but when he ascended, and his
Apostles after Him were laid asleep, then strait arose a wicked race of
deceivers, who as that story goes of the ?gyptian Typhon with his
conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth,
hewd her lovely form into a thousand peeces, and scatter'd them to the four
winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst
appear, imitating the carefull search that Isis made for the mangl'd body of
Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find
them. We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, nor ever shall doe
, till her Masters second comming; he shall bring together every joynt and
member, and shall mould them into an immortall feature of lovelines and
perfection. Suffer not these licencing prohibitions to stand at every place
of opportunity forbidding and disturbing them that continue seeking, that
continue to do our obsequies to the torn body of our martyr'd Saint. We
boast our light; but if we look not wisely on the Sun it self, it smites us
into darknes. Who can discern those planets that are oft Combust, and those
stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the Sun, untill the
opposite motion of their orbs bring them to such a place in the firmament,
where they may be seen evning or morning. The light which we have gain'd,
was giv'n us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things
more remote from our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a Priest, the
unmitring of a Bishop, and the removing him from off the Presbyterian
shoulders that will make us a happy Nation, no, if other things as great in
the Church, and in the rule of life both economicall and politicall be not
lookt into and reform'd, we have lookt so long upon the blaze that Zuinglius
and Calvin hath beacon'd up to us, that we are stark blind. There be who
perpetually complain of schisms and sects, and make it such a calamity that
any man dissents from their maxims. 'Tis their own pride and ignorance which
causes the disturbing, who neither will hear with meeknes, nor can convince
, yet all must be suppresst which is not found in their Syntagma. They are
the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and permit not
others to unite those dissever'd peeces which are yet wanting to the body of
Truth. To be still searching what we know not, by what we know, still
closing up truth to truth as we find it (for all her body is homogeneal, and
proportionall), this is the golden rule in Theology as well as in
Arithmetick, and makes up the best harmony in a Church; not the forc't and
outward union of cold, and neutrall, and inwardly divided minds.
Lords and Commons of England, consider what Nation it is whereof ye are, and
whereof ye are the governours: a Nation not slow and dull, but of a quick,
ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, suttle and sinewy to
discours, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity
can soar to. Therefore the studies of learning in her deepest Sciences have
bin so ancient, and so eminent among us, that Writers of good antiquity,
and ablest judgment have bin perswaded that ev'n the school of Pythagoras,
and the Persian wisdom took beginning from the old Philosophy of this Iland.
And that wise and civill Roman, Julius Agricola, who govern'd once here for
C?sar, preferr'd the naturall wits of Britain, before the labour'd studies
of the French. Nor is it for nothing that the grave and frugal Transylvanian
sends out yearly from as farre as the mountanous borders of Russia, and
beyond the Hercynian wildernes, not their youth, but their stay'd men, to
learn our language, and our theologic arts. Yet that which is above all this
, the favour and the love of heav'n we have great argument to think in a
peculiar manner propitious and propending towards us. Why else was this
Nation chos'n before any other, that out of her as out of Sion should be
proclam'd and sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of Reformation to
all Europ. And had it not bin the obstinat perversenes of our Prelats
against the divine and admirable spirit of Wicklef, to suppresse him as a
schismatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bohemian Husse and Jerom, no
nor the name of Luther, or of Calvin had bin ever known: the glory of
reforming all our neighbours had bin compleatly ours. But now, as our
obdurat Clergy have with violence demean'd the matter, we are become
hitherto the latest and backwardest Schollers, of whom God offer'd to have
made us the teachers. Now once again by all concurrence of signs, and by the
generall instinct of holy and devout men, as they daily and solemnly
expresse their thoughts, God is decreeing to begin some new and great period
in his Church, ev'n to the reforming of Reformation it self: what does he
then but reveal Himself to his servants, and as his manner is, first to his
English-men; I say as his manner is, first to us, though we mark not the
method of his counsels, and are unworthy. Behold now this vast City: a City
of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompast and surrounded with his
protection; the shop of warre hath not there more anvils and hammers waking,
to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed Justice in defence of
beleaguer'd Truth, then there be pens and heads there, sitting by their
studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and idea's
wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty the approaching
Reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the
force of reason and convincement. What could a man require more from a
Nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge. What wants there to
such a towardly and pregnant soile, but wise and faithfull labourers, to
make a knowing people, a Nation of Prophets, of Sages, and of Worthies. We
reck'n more then five months yet to harvest; there need not be five weeks,
had we but eyes to lift up, the fields are white already. Where there is
much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing,
many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.
Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we wrong the earnest and
zealous thirst after knowledge and understanding which God hath stirr'd up
in this city. What some lament of, we rather should rejoyce at, should
rather praise this pious forwardnes among men, to reassume the ill deputed
care of their Religion into their own hands again. A little generous
prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and som grain of charity
might win all these diligences to joyn, and unite into one generall and
brotherly search after Truth; could we but forgoe this Prelaticall tradition
of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and
precepts of men. I doubt not, if some great and worthy stranger should come
among us, wise to discern the mould and temper of a people, and how to
govern it, observing the high hopes and aims, the diligent alacrity of our
extended thoughts and reasonings in the pursuance of truth and freedom, but
that he would cry out as Pirrhus did, admiring the Roman docility and
courage, if such were my Epirots, I would not despair the greatest design
that could be attempted to make a Church or Kingdom happy. Yet these are the
men cry'd out against for schismaticks and sectaries; as if, while the
Temple of the Lord was building, some cutting, some squaring the marble,
others hewing the cedars, there should be a sort of irrationall men who
could not consider there must be many schisms and many dissections made in
the quarry and in the timber, ere the house of God can be built. And when
every stone is laid artfully together, it cannot be united into a continuity
, it can but be contiguous in this world; neither can every peece of the
building be of one form; nay rather the perfection consists in this, that
out of many moderat varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes that are not
vastly disproportionall arises the goodly and the gracefull symmetry that
commends the whole pile and structure. Let us therefore be more considerat
builders, more wise in spirituall architecture, when great reformation is
expected. For now the time seems come, wherein Moses the great Prophet may
sit in heav'n rejoycing to see that memorable and glorious wish of his
fulfill'd, when not only our sev'nty Elders, but all the Lords people are
become Prophets. No marvell then though some men, and some good men too
perhaps, but young in goodnesse, as Joshua then was, envy them. They fret,
and out of their own weaknes are in agony, lest these divisions and
subdivisions will undoe us. The adversarie again applauds, and waits the
hour, when they have brancht themselves out, saith he, small anough into
parties and partitions, then will be our time. Fool! he sees not the firm
root, out of which we all grow, though into branches: nor will be ware
untill he see our small divided maniples cutting through at every angle of
his ill united and unweildy brigade. And that we are to hope better of all
these supposed sects and schisms, and that we shall not need that solicitude
honest perhaps though over timorous of them that vex in this behalf, but
shall laugh in the end, at those malicious applauders of our differences, I
have these reasons to perswade me.
First, when a City shall be as it were besieg'd and blockt about, her
navigable river infested, inrodes and incursions round, defiance and battell
oft rumour'd to be marching up ev'n to her walls, and suburb trenches, that
then the people, or the greater part, more then at other times, wholly tak'
n up with the study of highest and most important matters to be reform'd,
should be disputing, reasoning, reading, inventing, discoursing, ev'n to a
rarity, and admiration, things not before discourst or writt'n of, argues
first a singular good will, contentednesse and confidence in your prudent
foresight, and safe government, Lords and Commons; and from thence derives
it self to a gallant bravery and well grounded contempt of their enemies, as
if there were no small number of as great spirits among us, as his was, who
when Rome was nigh besieg'd by Hanibal, being in the City, bought that
peece of ground at no cheap rate, whereon Hanibal himself encampt his own
regiment. Next it is a lively and cherfull presage of our happy successe and
victory. For as in a body, when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and
vigorous, not only to vital, but to rationall faculties, and those in the
acutest, and the pertest operations of wit and suttlety, it argues in what
good plight and constitution the body is, so when the cherfulnesse of the
people is so sprightly up, as that it has not only wherewith to guard well
its own freedom and safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest
and sublimest points of controversie, and new invention, it betok'ns us not
degenerated, nor drooping to a fatall decay, but casting off the old and
wrincl'd skin of corruption to outlive these pangs and wax young again,
entring the glorious waies of Truth and prosperous vertue destin'd to become
great and honourable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my mind a
noble and puissant Nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and
shaking her invincible locks: Methinks I see her as an Eagle muing her
mighty youth, and kindling her undazl'd eyes at the full midday beam;
purging and unscaling her long abused sight at the fountain it self of heav'
nly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with
those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amaz'd at what she means,
and in their envious gabble would prognosticat a year of sects and schisms.
What would ye doe then, should ye suppresse all this flowry crop of
knowledge and new light sprung up and yet springing daily in this City,
should ye set an Oligarchy of twenty ingrossers over it, to bring a famin
upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what is measur'd to us
by their bushel? Beleeve it, Lords and Commons, they who counsell ye to such
a suppressing, doe as good as bid ye suppresse your selves; and I will soon
shew how. If it be desir'd to know the immediat cause of all this free
writing and free speaking, there cannot be assign'd a truer then your own
mild, and free, and human government; it is the liberty, Lords and Commons,
which your own valorous and happy counsels have purchast us, liberty which
is the nurse of all great wits; this is that which hath rarify'd and
enlighten'd our spirits like the influence of heav'n; this is that which
hath enfranchis'd, enlarg'd and lifted up our apprehensions degrees above
themselves. Ye cannot make us now lesse capable, lesse knowing, lesse
eagarly pursuing of the truth, unlesse ye first make your selves, that made
us so, lesse the lovers, lesse the founders of our true liberty. We can grow
ignorant again, brutish, formall, and slavish, as ye found us; but you then
must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, and
tyrannous, as they were from whom ye have free'd us. That our hearts are now
more capacious, our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of
greatest and exactest things, is the issue of your owne vertu propagated in
us; ye cannot suppresse that unlesse ye reinforce an abrogated and
mercilesse law, that fathers may dispatch at will their own children. And
who shall then stick closest to ye, and excite others? not he who takes up
armes for cote and conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt. Although I
dispraise not the defence of just immunities, yet love my peace better, if
that were all. Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely
according to conscience, above all liberties.
What would be best advis'd then, if it be found so hurtfull and so unequall
to suppresse opinions for the newnes, or the unsutablenes to a customary
acceptance, will not be my task to say; I only shall repeat what I have
learned from one of your own honourable number, a right noble and pious Lord
, who had he not sacrific'd his life and fortunes to the Church and
Commonwealth, we had not now mist and bewayl'd a worthy and undoubted patron
of this argument. Ye know him I am sure; yet I for honours sake, and may it
be eternall to him, shall name him, the Lord Brook. He writing of
Episcopacy, and by the way treating of sects and schisms, left Ye his vote,
or rather now the last words of his dying charge, which I know will ever be
of dear and honour'd regard with Ye, so full of meeknes and breathing
charity, that next to his last testament, who bequeath'd love and peace to
his Disciples, I cannot call to mind where I have read or heard words more
mild and peacefull. He there exhorts us to hear with patience and humility
those, however they be miscall'd, that desire to live purely, in such a use
of Gods Ordinances, as the best guidance of their conscience gives them, and
to tolerat them, though in some disconformity to our selves. The book
itself will tell us more at large being publisht to the world, and dedicated
to the Parlament by him who both for his life and for his death deserves,
that what advice he left be not laid by without perusall.
And now the time in speciall is, by priviledge to write and speak what may
help to the furder discussing of matters in agitation. The temple of Janus
with his two controversal faces might now not unsignificantly be set open.
And though all the windes of doctrin were let loose to play upon the earth,
so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licencing and prohibiting to
misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falshood grapple; who ever knew Truth
put to the wors, in a free and open encounter. Her confuting is the best and
surest suppressing. He who hears what praying there is for light and
clearer knowledge to be sent down among us, would think of other matters to
be constituted beyond the discipline of Geneva, fram'd and fabric't already
to our hands. Yet when the new light which we beg for shines in upon us,
there be who envy, and oppose, if it come not first in at their casements.
What a collusion is this, whenas we are exhorted by the wise man to use
diligence, to seek for wisdom as for hidd'n treasures early and late, that
another order shall enjoyn us to know nothing but by statute. When a man
hath bin labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge, hath
furnisht out his findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as
it were a battell raung'd, scatter'd and defeated all objections in his way,
calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind
and sun, if he please; only that he may try the matter by dint of argument,
for his opponents then to sculk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge
of licencing where the challenger should passe, though it be valour anough
in souldiership, is but weaknes and cowardice in the wars of Truth. For who
knows not that Truth is strong next to the Almighty; she needs no policies,
nor stratagems, nor licencings to make her victorious, those are the shifts
and the defences that error uses against her power: give her but room, & do
not bind her when she sleeps, for then she speaks not true, as the old
Proteus did, who spake oracles only when he was caught & bound, but then
rather she turns herself into all shapes, except her own, and perhaps tunes
her voice according to the time, as Micaiah did before Ahab, untill she be
adjur'd into her own likenes. Yet is it not impossible that she may have
more shapes then one. What else is all that rank of things indifferent,
wherein Truth may be on this side, or on the other, without being unlike her
self. What but a vain shadow else is the abolition of those ordinances,
that hand writing nayl'd to the crosse, what great purchase is this
Christian liberty which Paul so often boasts of. His doctrine is, that he
who eats or eats not, regards a day, or regards it not, may doe either to
the Lord. How many other things might be tolerated in peace, and left to
conscience, had we but charity, and were it not the chief strong hold of our
hypocrisie to be ever judging one another. I fear yet this iron yoke of
outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks; the ghost of a
linnen decency yet haunts us. We stumble and are impatient at the least
dividing of one visible congregation from another, though it be not in
fundamentalls; and through our forwardnes to suppresse, and our backwardnes
to recover any enthrall'd peece of truth out of the gripe of custom, we care
not to keep truth separated from truth, which is the fiercest rent and
disunion of all. We doe not see that while we still affect by all means a
rigid externall formality, we may as soon fall again into a grosse
conforming stupidity, a stark and dead congealment of wood and hay and
stubble forc't and frozen together, which is more to the sudden degenerating
of a Church then many subdichotomies of petty schisms. Not that I can think
well of every light separation, or that all in a Church is to be expected
gold and silver and pretious stones: it is not possible for man to sever the
wheat from the tares, the good fish from the other frie; that must be the
Angels Ministry at the end of mortall things. Yet if all cannot be of one
mind, as who looks they should be? this doubtles is more wholsome, more
prudent, and more Christian that many be tolerated, rather then all compell'
d. I mean not tolerated Popery, and open superstition, which as it extirpats
all religions and civill supremacies, so it self should be extirpat,
provided first that all charitable and compassionat means be us'd to win and
regain the weak and the misled: that also which is impious or evil
absolutely either against faith or maners no law can possibly permit, that
intends not to unlaw it self: but those neighboring differences, or rather
indifferences, are what I speak of, whether in some point of doctrine or of
discipline, which though they may be many, yet need not interrupt the unity
of Spirit, if we could but find among us the bond of peace. In the mean
while if any one would write, and bring his helpfull hand to the slow-moving
Reformation which we labour under, if Truth have spok'n to him before
others, or but seem'd at least to speak, who hath so bejesuited us that we
should trouble that man with asking licence to doe so worthy a deed? and not
consider this, that if it come to prohibiting, there is not ought more
likely to be prohibited then truth it self; whose first appearance to our
eyes blear'd and dimm'd with prejudice and custom, is more unsightly and
unplausible then many errors, ev'n as the person is of many a great man
slight and contemptible to see to. And what doe they tell us vainly of new
opinions, when this very opinion of theirs, that none must be heard, but
whom they like, is the worst and newest opinion of all others; and is the
chief cause why sects and schisms doe so much abound, and true knowledge is
kept at distance from us; besides yet a greater danger which is in it. For
when God shakes a Kingdome with strong and healthfull commotions to a
generall reforming, 'tis not untrue that many sectaries and false teachers
are then busiest in seducing; but yet more true it is, that God then raises
to his own work men of rare abilities, and more then common industry not
only to look back and revise what hath bin taught heretofore, but to gain
furder and goe on, some new enlighten'd steps in the discovery of truth. For
such is the order of Gods enlightning his Church, to dispense and deal out
by degrees his beam, so as our earthly eyes may best sustain it. Neither is
God appointed and confin'd, where and out of what place these his chosen
shall be first heard to speak; for he sees not as man sees, chooses not as
man chooses, lest we should devote our selves again to set places, and
assemblies, and outward callings of men; planting our faith one while in the
old Convocation house, and another while in the Chapell at Westminster;
when all the faith and religion that shall be there canoniz'd, is not
sufficient without plain convincement, and the charity of patient
instruction to supple the least bruise of conscience, to edifie the meanest
Christian, who desires to walk in the Spirit, and not in the letter of human
trust, for all the number of voices that can be there made; no though Harry
the 7. himself there, with all his leige tombs about him, should lend them
voices from the dead, to swell their number. And if the men be erroneous who
appear to be the leading schismaticks, what witholds us but our sloth, our
self-will, and distrust in the right cause, that we doe not give them gentle
meeting and gentle dismissions, that we debate not and examin the matter
throughly with liberall and frequent audience; if not for their sakes, yet
for our own? seeing no man who hath tasted learning, but will confesse the
many waies of profiting by those who not contented with stale receits are
able to manage, and set forth new positions to the world. And were they but
as the dust and cinders of our feet, so long as in that notion they may yet
serve to polish and brighten the armoury of Truth, ev'n for that respect
they were not utterly to be cast away. But if they be of those whom God hath
fitted for the speciall use of these times with eminent and ample gifts,
and those perhaps neither among the Priests, nor among the Pharisees, and we
in the hast of a precipitant zeal shall make no distinction, but resolve to
stop their mouths, because we fear they come with new and dangerous
opinions, as we commonly forejudge them ere we understand them, no lesse
then woe to us, while thinking thus to defend the Gospel, we are found the
persecutors.
There have bin not a few since the beginning of this Parlament, both of the
Presbytery and others who by their unlicen't books to the contempt of an
Imprimatur first broke that triple ice clung about our hearts, and taught
the people to see day: I hope that none of those were the perswaders to
renew upon us this bondage which they themselves have wrought so much good
by contemning. But if neither the check that Moses gave to young Joshua, nor
the countermand which our Saviour gave to young John, who was so ready to
prohibit those whom he thought unlicenc't, be not anough to admonish our
Elders how unacceptable to God their testy mood of prohibiting is, if
neither their own remembrance what evill hath abounded in the Church by this
lett of licencing, and what good they themselves have begun by
transgressing it, be not anough, but that they will perswade, and execute
the most Dominican part of the Inquisition over us, and are already with one
foot in the stirrup so active at suppressing, it would be no unequall
distribution in the first place to suppresse the suppressors themselves;
whom the change of their condition hath puft up, more then their late
experience of harder times hath made wise.
And as for regulating the Presse, let no man think to have the honour of
advising ye better then your selves have done in that Order publisht next
before this, that no book be Printed, unlesse the Printers and the Authors
name, or at least the Printers be register'd. Those which otherwise come
forth, if they be found mischievous and libellous, the fire and the
executioner will be the timeliest and the most effectuall remedy, that mans
prevention can use. For this authentic Spanish policy of licencing books, if
I have said aught, will prove the most unlicenc't book it self within a
short while; and was the immediat image of a Star-chamber decree to that
purpose made in those very times when that Court did the rest of those her
pious works, for which she is now fall'n from the Starres with Lucifer.
Whereby ye may guesse what kinde of State prudence, what love of the people,
what care of Religion, or good manners there was at the contriving,
although with singular hypocrisie it pretended to bind books to their good
behaviour. And how it got the upper hand of your precedent Order so well
constituted before, if we may beleeve those men whose profession gives them
cause to enquire most, it may be doubted there was in it the fraud of some
old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of book-selling; who under
pretence of the poor in their Company not to be defrauded, and the just
retaining of each man his severall copy, which God forbid should be gainsaid
, brought divers glosing colours to the House, which were indeed but colours
, and serving to no end except it be to exercise a superiority over their
neighbours, men who doe not therefore labour in an honest profession to
which learning is indetted, that they should be made other mens vassalls.
Another end is thought was aym'd at by some of them in procuring by petition
this Order, that having power in their hands, malignant books might the
easier scape abroad, as the event shews. But of these Sophisms and Elenchs
of marchandize I skill not: This I know, that errors in a good government
and in a bad are equally almost incident; for what Magistrate may not be mis
-inform'd, and much the sooner, if liberty of Printing be reduc't into the
power of a few; but to redresse willingly and speedily what hath bin err'd,
and in highest autority to esteem a plain advertisement more then others
have done a sumptuous bribe, is a vertue (honour'd Lords and Commons)
answerable to Your highest actions, and whereof none can participat but
greatest and wisest men.
The End. |
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