Innovations unjustly charged upon the present church and state. Or An ansvver to the most materiall passages of a libellous pamphlet made by Mr. Henry Burton, and intituled An apologie of an appeale, &c. By Christopher Dow, B.D.

CHAP. II.

A short Relation, or Description, of M^r. H. Burton his course and manner of life. Of the occasion of his discontent, his dismission from the Court. The ground of his dislike and hatred against the Bishops, and betaking himselfe to the Peo∣ple. The course hee hath since taken, in his Bookes and Sermons, to make himselfe plausi∣ble, and the Bishops envied. Of the Booke called A divine Tragedie, &c.

VVHERE the waight and power of reason enforceth a Discourse, it makes its owne way to credit, and challengeth beleefe without respect to the Au∣thor: but when matters of fact are barely rela∣ted,

or opinions or conjectures broached, they must bring their credence from the Authors worth, whose wisedome and sinceritie must usher them to beleefe with wise men: For in this case it is with words, as with weapons, which receive their force from the hand that useth them; and so these pierce according to the waight of the speakers authoritie. Now, the worke, whose sur∣vey I have undertaken, being (for the most part) of this kinde, it will be very requisite that the Au∣thor of it be taken into our consideration. To which end I shall make a briefe relation of some part of his story, with this onely intention, that the impartiall Reader may be able to know at what rate to value his authoritie, and what credit his bare word may justly merit.

The Author then M^r. H. Burton, had his bree∣ding at first, for some short time, in S^t. Iohns Col∣ledge in Cambridge, where hee was never obser∣ved for any excellency, but that hee could play well on an Instrument: and after his removall from thence (having for a while been a Schoole∣master in a Noble-mans house) hee found the fa∣vour to be admitted to a meane place in the Clo∣set of His Majestie that now is, then Prince of Wales: Which sometime he was wont to exe∣cute in his hose and dublet, with a perfuming pot in one hand, and a fire-shovell in another; and as I have heard, received for his pains 5^li. per annū. & a livery. But the Prince being gone into Spaine, and M^r. Burton before this time being got into Holy orders: among others of his Highness Houshold

that were designed to goe thither, this man was one: But whether his indiscretion (which he hath since abundantly manifested) did then minister grounds of suspition, or what ever the cause were, certaine it is, that hee was put out of the List for that voyage, & that when his goods were a-ship∣board, which he was fain to take home again, and to stay behinde. Now all this while, and for some space after, he was not any whit popular, (I meane, gratious with the People) no not in his owne Pa∣rish, witnesse his seldome preaching, and (when he did preach) his thinne audience: yea so ill was he relisht in those dayes, that it was usuall with ma∣ny in his parish (though I doe not commend them for it) to enquire who preached, and if it were he, they would forsake their owne Church, and wan∣der elsewhere.

Hee did not then inveigh against those which did not preach twice every Lords-day, which him∣self did not practice; neither was he noted to ex∣press any distaste of the forme of Divine service used at Court in the Royall Chappell, or to call it, long Baby lonish a 1.1 service bellowed and warbled out, nor the use of Organs b 1.2 Piping; the Copes, Altar, tapers, &c. which were dayly in his eye, did not then offend him, or if, haply, they did not altoge∣ther please him, yet hee was content to hold his peace, and to tolerate them. But to go on. After it pleased the King of kings to put a period to the terrestriall Kingdome of King Iames of fa∣mous memory, our gracious Soveraigne suc∣ceeding, M^r. B. would needs serve His Majesty

in the same place as before when he was Prince of Wales. And he thinking the time now come wherein hee might come even with those whom he conceived to be his adversaries and hinderers of that his intrusion into the Closet, and of his hoped voyage into Spaine (and so of his desired preferment) hee behaved himselfe in such sort, that His Majesty dismissed him the Court and his service: whence being cashier'd, and all his hopes of preferment dasht, he betakes himselfe to the people, as more patient of his criminations, and more apt to side with him, against the Re∣verend Bishops; and having, by the help of popu∣lar applause, advanced, from the hatred of some Bishops persons, to a totall dislike of their order, and of all their proceedings; hee made their actions his continuall theme, and his Sermons * 1.3 and writings so many satyres, and bitter inve∣ctives, accusing them of Arminianisme, Popery, * 1.4 and whatsoever might make them odious, and himselfe gracious with his new-masters, the People, and proceeding in this course with strange violence, (the State and Church-gover∣nours, as I conceive, bearing the more with him, in regard of his discontent for the losse of his hopes at Court) hee sent forth a booke called A Divine Tragedy lately acted, &c. wherein he hath * 1.5 in a strangely presumptuous and daring manner perckt up into Gods throne, and taken upon him to read the darke and dimme characters of the causes of his inscrutable judgements: and wre∣sted many late accidents that have happened, to

make them speake Gods indignation against such as have used the liberty granted by His Majesties late Declaration for sports upon the Sundayes and Holy-dayes: of which accidents, there are some which fayle in the truth of story; others, that are so common and ordinary, that it is ridiculous to reckon the for memorable examples of Gods judgments: others that though they may well be accounted such, yet have other causes of them, that may with more probability bee assigned, than that for which he brings them: yea, there is not one of them that so clearely speakes that which hee pretends, that any man (without the just imputation of impious rashness) can say that they were inflicted for that cause onely or prin∣cipally: and (which is yet more) granting that they were all true, and so remarkable as hee makes them, and that they did (in as plaine lan∣guage as is possible for them) speake Gods in∣dignation against the profanation of the Lords∣day, yet will it not follow, that God did thereby confirme the Sunday-Sabbatarian doctrine, and condemne the contrary, and express, from Hea∣ven, his disallowance of his Majesties Declarati∣on, or the lawfull making use of that liberty which is there permitted. For, without all que∣stion, whether the observation of the Lords-day stand by vertue of Gods immediate precept, in the fourth Commandement, or otherwise; or onely by Apostolicall or Ecclesiasticall constitution, the pro∣fanation of that day must needs bee a grievous sinne and powerfull attractive of Divine ven∣geance:

seeing it is acknowledged by all, that, in the prophanation of that day, both Gods precept (so farre as it is moral in the fourth Commande∣ment) is violated, and the authority which God hath commanded all Christians to obey, is con∣temned: yea and the publick worship of God, without which there can bee no true religion, neglected, vilified and overthrowne. But his chie∣fest ayme in all this was, by this means, to stirre up, against the Prelacy, the envy and hatred of the people, who are easily wrought upon by the noyse of judgements, and more taken with a bold assertion of what neither they, nor he that speakes it, are able to discerne the truth of, than by the power of solid reason, or the plaine e∣vidence of naked truth. At last he preached these sermons which wee have before us, in which hee shewed that extremity of virulency, as the like I thinke hath not beene heard to be delivered out of the Pulpit, against the persons of some Prelates and their actions, against the High Commission Court, the most reverend Father in God the L. Arch-bishop of Canterbury, yea, he hath not spared the Royall Person of his Sacred Majesty, whose piety and religious government he hath most unchristianly and undutifully (to say no worse) endeavoured to blast, by most odious in∣sinuations and calumnies. And having thus ven∣ted these things in the Pulpit, they were sent abroad (by way of an abstract or Epitome) in a libell intituled Newes from Ipswich: for any man that compares that libell with his Sermons,

shall finde, that in both the materials are the same; and if both (in their formes) were not his, it must needs bee that hee and the author of that libell had consulted together, and conferred notes; or perhaps they were set out by some zelote which gathered notes from his Sermons. And being questioned in the High Commission for the things by him delivered in these Sermons, he Appealed from them to His Sacred Majesty, and printed his Appeale and an Apology for it, and two Epistles inscribed, one to the true-hearted Nobility, and another to the reverend Iudges, to∣gether with the Sermons, and dedicated both by two severall Epistles to His Majesty.

For the man, Charity commands me to pity him, but I can see no foundation for charity to ex∣cuse him; for when I doe but read him in this, and see to what an height of desperate boldness, dis∣content, fomented by popularity, hath brought him, I can devise no better Apology, nor other way to free him from the just imputation of im∣bittered malice, and trayterous intention, than to say that discontent at once hath crackt his braine and his conscience. Nor can I give a better character of him, than that which S. Hierom long * 1.6 since did of Helvidius, that he is a turbulent man, and one that esteemes loquacity eloquence, and to speake evill of others the signe of a good con∣science.

How truely I have censured the man, there is nothing able so fully to demonstrate as his book, which, being true-bred, resembles him to

the life; and gives the world a more perfect pi∣cture of him, than that which is sold by the Sta∣tioners: without more adoe then to begin our view of that.

Notes

• a 1.1

  p. 160.
• b 1.2

  p. 163.
• * 1.3

  See his Plea to an Appeale.
• * 1.4

  Seven vials &c.
• * 1.5

  See p 61.
• * 1.6

  Homo turbulen∣tus—qui—Loquacitatem facundiam exi∣stimat, et male∣dicere omnibus bonae conscientiae signū arbitratur. Hieron. advers. Helvid.