Consult with after-times, they'll tell Our off-spring will the truth discover, SER On the great Montrose. SERAPHIC Soul, what heavenly powers' combine Thy glorious relicts, by malice bonds detain'd Mr. John Chalmers. A Reflection on the first and second Funerals of the great AN Montrose. MAZED with these glorious shews, I find While I behold the trophies of thy worth, Thy conquering palm with loading higher rise, To see thy friends their honour yet retain, To see thy torments travelling with thy praise, These do commence our joys, these expiate A sight would made, had he been there to see't, Shall stile, hereafter, second Calvary. It was no dint of steel, nor force of arms, Was one to him; at his nativity, He had Mars in the ascendant, whose bright flame Too mean a tribute of a slow-pac'd verse Dignum laude virum musa vetat mori. IN patriam, regem, legis ceu perfidus hostis That they were buried, not how they fell; Let it content thee, passenger, that I SEMPER IIDEM: OR, A PARALLEL BETWIXT THE ANCIENT AND MODERN FANATICKS. 1 Tim. iv. 1. In the latter Times, some shall depart from the Faith, giving heed to seducing Spirits, and Doctrines of Devils. London: Printed for Richard Lownds, at the White Lion, in St. Paul's Church Yard, over-against the little North-Door, 1661. Quarto, containing twenty-four Pages. TO THE READER. AFTER the great disturbance, which the Fanaticks gave the City of London, and other parts of this Kingdom, in January, 1660, and the reading their pernicious pamphlet, intitled, ‘A Door of Hope; or, A Call and Declaration for the Gather ing together of the first ripe Fruits unto the Standard of our Lord King Jesus:' I began to reflect upon what I had many years since read, touching their predecessors, in our histories and chronicles; and, upon a re-perusal of them, I found much of what the worst of our modern Fanaticks have, in these late days, acted and attempted, to be strangely copied out to their hand, by their brethren in the former age; and this, for the most part, in so exact a parallel of particulars, persons and circumstances, that I thought the publication of some of those histories in brief, with the tragical ends, which those sectaries received, as a just reward of their impiety and treason, might, if not deter the remnant ofthem, from holding such blasphemous opinions towards God, or ever attempting such treasons against the king, yet, at least, confirm good Christians, in a settled religion towards the one, and encourage good subjects in a perfect loyalty to the other. IN N the year 1414, Henry the Fifth, king of England, keeping his Christmas, saith Stow, at his mannor of Eltham, seven miles from London, received notice, that certain persons had conspired to have taken, or suddenly slain him, and his brethren, on the twelfth-day at night; to wit, Sir John Oldcastle, Sir Roger Acton, and others; whereupon he sent to the mayor of London to arrest all such suspicious persons, &c. and removed himself privately to Westminster, went into St. Giles's-fields at midnight, where divers were taken, &c. and, on the twelfth of January, sixty-nine of them were condemned of treason at Westminster; of which, on the morrow, thirty-seven of them were hanged in St. Giles's-fields, &c. And, shortly after, Sir Roger Acton was apprehended, and, on the tenth of February, drawn, hanged, and buried under the gallows. Sir John Oldcastle, some three years after, was taken by chance in the territory of the Lord Powis, in the borders of Wales, not without danger and hurt to some that took him; nor could he himself be laid hold on before he was wounded, and was so brought up to London in a litter during the parliament, and there examined, indicted, &c. To which, he having made a resolute answer, was, for the aforesaid treason and other conspiracies, condemned to be drawn, and hanged upon a gallows, as a traitor, and to be burnt, as an heretick, hanging upon the same; which judgment was executed upon him on the fourteenth of December, in St. Giles's-fields; where many honourable persons being present, the last words he spoke were to Sir Thomas Copingham, adjuring him, That, if he saw him rise from death to life again the third day, he would procure, that his sect might be in peace. Tanta prædictus fuit dementia, says Walsingham, ut putaret se post triduum a morte resurrecturum. This Oldcastle was grown so great a Fanatick, that he persuaded himself, he should rise again the third day, as another saviour of his sectaries. Now, if you would know of what particular sect these two rebel knights, and their adherents were, our chronologers will tell you, they were (according to the appellation of those times) Lollards, or Wickliffians, which may also be gathered from Mr. Fox's Acts and Monuments, where he says, his martyrs were, in some places, called, poor people of Lions; in other places, Lollards; in others, Turrelupins and Chagnards, but most commonly Waldois. And, in another place, he represents the picture of the burning and hanging of divers persons counted for Lollards in Henry the Fifth's time, which were of this gang, that is, all really Fanaticks, as plainly appears by their being all guided by the same fantastical spirit. Mr. Fuller (arguing the case of this Sir John, whether innocent or nocent, a saint or a heretick) at last resolves thus: The records of the Tower and acts of parliament, wherein he was solemnly condemned for a traitor, as well as heretick, challenge belief.-Let Mr. Fox therefore be his compurgator, I dare not. Thus Mr. Fuller, a frank ingenious pen. The Lollards were so called, from one Walter Lollard, a Ger,` man, the first author of this sect, who lived about the year 1315, and was infected with divers errors and heresies, which yet did not get much footing in Christendom, till such time as John Wickliff, curate of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, about the year 1380, did espouse their tenets, and augment their number; of whom Dr. Heylin, in his learned Certamen Epistolare, says thus, Though he held many points against those of Rome, yet had his field more tares than wheat; and that, amongst many other errors, he maintained these: 1. That the sacrament of the altar is nothing else but a piece of bread. 2. That priests have no more authority to administer sacraments than laymen. 3. That all things ought to be in common. 4. That it is as lawful to christen a child in a tub of water at home, or in a ditch by the way, as in a font-stone in the church. 5. That it is as lawful at all times to confess unto a layman as to a priest. 6. That it is not necessary or profitable to have any church or chapel to pray, or perform divine service in. 7. That buryings in the churchyard are unprofitable and vain. 8. That holydays instituted by the church are not to be observed and kept in reverence, inasmuch as all days are alike. 9. That it is sufficient to believe, though a man do no good works at all. 10. That no human laws or constitutions do oblige a christian. 11. That God never gave grace or knowledge to a great person' or rich man, and that they in no wise follow the same. To these other authors add that he held: 12. That any layman may preach by his own authority, without license of the ordinary. 13. That the infant, though he die unbaptised, is saved, &c. 14. That all sins are not abolished by baptism. Mr. Fuller, in his church-history, Lib. iv, P. 129, says in the margin, Wickliff guilty of many errors; and proceeds to enumerate, as well the abovementioned, as many more wherewith he stood charged, and was condemned by the council of Constance, in those times the supreme spiritual authority in the world. |