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or whether ever he gave him his consent to use his name publicly for a countenance unto such a defamatory libel. It were endless and useless to cull out the remaining instances of the same kind, whereof I think there is scarce a page free in his book, unless it be taken up with quotations; and I am sure that whosoever will give the least credit unto any of his stories and assertions will do it at the utmost peril of being deceived. And where any thing he aims at hath the least of truth in it, he doth but make it a foundation to build a falsehood upon. Such are his ingenious repetitions of some things I should say fourteen or fifteen years ago in private dis- courses; which yet, supposing them true, in the terms by him re- ported, as they are not, contain nothing of immorality, nothing of injury unto or reflection on others. Surely this man must be thought to study the adorning and freedom of conversation, who thus openly traduceth a person for words occasionally and it may be hastily spoken, without the least injury to any or evil in themselves, four- teen or fifteen years after ! And these also are such as he hath taken upon mere reports ; for I believe he will not say that ever he spake one word with me himself in his life. How any one can safely con- verse with a man of this spirit and humour I know not.
I shall wholly pass by his malicious wresting and false applica- tions of the passages he hath quoted out of some things published by me : for as for the greatest part of those small perishing treatises, whence he and others have extracted their pretended advantages, it is many years since I saw them, — some of them twenty at the least ; nor do I know how they have dealt in repeating their " excerpta," which with so much diligence they have collected; that they are several times wrested and perverted by this malicious scribbler unto things never intended by me, that I do know. One discourse, about Communion with God, I find there is much wrath stirred up against ; and yet, upon the severe scrutiny which it hath in several hands un- dergone, nothing can be found to lay to its charge but one passage concerning some differences about external worship, which they needed not to have put themselves to so much trouble to have found out and declared. But as for this man, he makes such inferences from it and applications of it as are full of malice and poison, — being not inferior in these good qualifications unto any of his other pro- digious tales : for from what I speak concerning the purity of in- stituted worshijj, he concludes that I judge that all who in the worship of God make use of the Common-prayer are not loyal to Christ, nor have communion with God, nor can promote the interest of the gospel ; all which are notoriously false, never thought, never spoken, never written by me. And I do believe that many that have used that book in the public administrations have been as loyal
276 REFLECTIONS ON A SLANDEROUS LIBEL.
to Clirist, had as much communion with God, and been as zealous to promote the interest of the gospel, as any who have lived in the world these thousand years ; for men are accepted with God accord- ing to what they have, and not according to what they have not.
The next charge I can meet withal in this confused heap, — which is like the grave, a place of darkness, without any order, — is no less than of peijury; and this principally he doth on such an account as is not at all peculiar to me, but the reproach he manageth is equally cast on the greatest part of the kingdom by this public de- famer. And I suppose others do, though I do not, know the prudence of en<!ouraging such a slanderous libeller to cast fire-brands among peaceable subjects, and to revive the remembrance of things which the wisdom, clemenc}^, and righteousness of his majesty, with and by the law of the laud, upon the best and most assured principles of piety and policy, have put into oblivion. And it also seems strange to me how bold he and some other scribblers make by their in- teresting the sacred name of his majesty and his concerns in their impertinent squabblings, as they do on all occasions. But such things are of another cognizance, and there I leave them. What is peculiar to myself in this charge is represented under a double instance: —
1. Of the oath of canonical obedience, which I took and violated ; and, 2. Of the university oath.
For the first, although I could easily return an answer unto the thing itself, yet, as to what concerns me, I shall give no other but " Mentitur irapudentissime ;" I never took any such oath.
And for the other, I doubt not to speak with some confidence that the intention and design of the oath was observed by me with as much conscience and diligence as by any who have since acted in the same capacity wherein I was at that time reflected on. And upon the provocation of this man, whoever he be, I do not fear to say, that, considering the state and condition of affairs at that time in the nation and the university, I do not believe there is any per- son of learning, ingenuity, or common modesty, who had relation in those days unto that place, but will grant, at least, that notwith- standing some lesser differences from them about things of very small importance, I was not altogether useless to the interests of learning, morality, peace, and the preservation of the place itself; and further I am not concerned in the ingratitude and envy of a few illiterate and malicious persons, as knowing that " Obtrectatio est stultorum thesaurus, quern in Unguis gerunt."