yea and truly sweareth, then the bishop proves his assertion. And is not there a difference between 13 and raw? So, in meekness and love, read this over in that from which it was sent.
Christ Jesus, who is the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, the Beginning and Ending, First and Last, him by whom God will judge the world in righteousness.
We quæry of you whether he or any of his apostles, after they had given forth a command that none should swear, but keep to yea and nay, in all their communications, can any minister or teacher prove this in express words out of the New Testament that they ever commanded to swear, or did swear? That will satisfy, that will end all. But that we should be cast into prison for our obedience to Christ's command, by you, that profess yourselves to be Christians, and own Christ Jesus as you say, is not right: And he commands you to love enemies, if you did obey his commands, and love one another; for they that are Christians, and own Christ Jesus, they should love one another: For this was a mark by which they were known to be disciples, learners of him. And so they, that are lovers of him, own him and obey him and his doctrine; so, though we do suffer here by you all the sessions or assizes, we do commit our cause, and you that do persecute us, to the general assizes and terrible day wherein God will judge the world in righteousness, whose commands we obey in tenderness; and there we know we shall have true judgment without respect of persons, there our hats will not be looked at before the Almighty, but the action and transgression, and who hath served God, and who hath not served him: For Christ hath told you before-hand, what he will say to them, that visits him not in prison, where he is made manifest in his brethren: Then what will become of them that casts them into prison for tenderness towards God, for obeying his doctrine, and keeps to yea or nay in their communications according to his words?-And so these things we leave to the general day, though we can say, the Lord forgive you that doth thus persecute us, if it be his will, freely from our hearts, for we do you, nor no man harm, but seek the good and peace of all men, and for this cause, for obeying the truth, we do suffer.
FRENCH DECLARATION OF WAR,
IN ALLIANCE WITH THE DUTCH AND DANES, IN THE YEAR 1665.
London: Printed for the Author, in 1665-6, on a Broad-side.
THE heavens look big with wonder, and inform
Our expectations of some, present storm.
French, Dutch, and Dane too, all at once? Why then
'Tis time to shew that we are Englishmen.
They say, at foot-ball, three to one is odds;
But this is nothing, for the cause is God's.
Have at them all, we care not where we come,
Since gracious heaven is reconcil'd at home.
Courage, brave Britons, then, we do no more
But fight with those whom we have beat before.
And now, methinks, much better may we, since
We fight for such an all-accomplish'd prince,
Who the world's conquest is as fair to get
As Alexander, like himself, the great.
Talk not of ten to one, pitiful story,
Alas! the odds does but increase the glory :
Besides the English from their ancestry
Derive themselves the heirs of victory.
Where should the sons of honour, if they die,
But in the field, the bed of honour, lie?
The world will know, when time shall serve, we dare
Come out, and meet that prince of pitch and tar ;*
Bring your wind-selling Laplanders too, do,
Sure we shall deal † with you, and board † you too;
And you will tell us, when this comes to pass,
Your Bergen bus'ness no such bargain was.
Danes! we don't fear you; come, alas! ye know
Our women beat you once, and so may now.
Nor value we that kingdom of kick-shaws,§
We come not to receive, but give them laws;
We shall provide 'em such a fricasee
Of legs and arms, ¶ they'll scarce be glad to see.
They now must understand with whom they cope,
A mighty prince,** and not a miter'd Pope; ++
The King of Denmark, to whom Norway is subject, from whence comes our pitch and tar. Two epithets intimating that, although we trade with him for deal and boards, yet we are able to deal, or behave manfully in fight with him, and upon occasion board his ships.
Viz. When they in one night conspired to cut all the Danish men's throats throughout England, thereby to deliver their country from their government; upon which account it is said, that the Englishmen have ever since given the women the wall, and the most honourable places at all times. France. Of soldiers slain in battle.
**The King of Great Britain.
++ Alluding to the dispute which then subsisted between the French king and the Pope,
One that will otherwise the matter handle,
With glitt'ring swords, and not bell, book, and candle;
One that shall anathematise you worse,
Not to pronounce, but execute your curse.
He'll bring you Jeggery home to your door;
Instead of Bulls you'll hear his cannons roar;
And I make bold to tell you in the close,
Although no Popes, we'll make you kiss our toes.
An English monarch + (monsieur) no new thing,
Has sent his son to fetch him a French king;
If ye suspect, or scruple our report,
Enquire at Poictiers, Cressy, Agincourt, +
That place § never to be forgotten, where
The prisoners more than we that took them were:
The French shall know it too, as we advance,
'Tis we, not they, fight for the king I of France.
Ye boast of gold and silver, and such stuff,
We'll bring you pockets for it sure enough.
And, if we meet ye on the foaming source,
We'll have a word or too of deep ++ discourse.
A fig for France, or any that accords
With those low-country leather-apron ‡‡ lords.
THE CHARACTER OF HOLLAND.
London: Printed by T. Mabb for Robert Horn, at the Angel in Pope's-HeadAlley, 1665. Folio, containing eight Pages.
OLLAND, that scarce deserves the name of land,
As but th' off-scowring of the British sand;
And so much earth as was contributed
By English pilots, when they heav'd the lead;
Or what by th' ocean's slow alluvion fell
Of shipwreck'd cockle and the muscle shell;
This indigested vomit of the sea
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.
Glad then, as miners that have found the ore,
They with mad labour fish'd the land to shore;
And div'd as desperately for each piece
Of earth, as if 't had been of ambergris ;
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay,
Less than what building swallows bear away;
Or than those piles which sordid beetles roul
Transfusing into them their dunghill soul.
At which place the English have given the French total overthrows in battle. Because the King of Great Britain still maintains his title of King of France. tt Equivocally signifying both serious and on the sea; for the deep is the sea.
Agincourt. ** The sea. The Dutch.
How did they rivet with gigantick piles
Thorough the center their new-catched miles:
And to the stake a struggling country bound,
Where barking waves still bait the forced ground;
Building their watʼry Babel far more high
To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky?
Yet still his claim the injur'd ocean laid,
And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples play'd,
As if on purpose it on land had come
To shew them what's their Mare Liberum.
A daily deluge over them does boil:
The earth and water play at level-coil.
The fish oft-times the burgher dispossest,
And sat not as a meat, but as a guest:
And oft the Tritons and the sea-nymphs saw
Whole sholes of Dutch serv'd up for Cabillau.
Or, as they over the new level rang'd,
For pickled Herring, pickled Heeren chang'd.
Nature, it seem'd, asham'd of her mistake,
Would throw their land away at duck and drake.
Therefore necessity, that first made kings,
Something like government among them brings.
For as with pygmies, who best kills the crane;
Among the hungry, he that treasures grain;
Among the blind, the one-ey'd blinkard reigns;
So rules, among the drowned, he that drains.
Not who first sees the rising sun commands,
But who could first discern the rising lands,
Who best could know to pump an earth so leak,
Him they their lord and country's father speak.
To make a bank was a great plot of state,
Invent a shovel and be magistrate.
Hence some small dyke-grave, unperceiv'd, invades
The power, and grows as 't were a king of spades:
But for less envy some joint state endures,
Who look like a commission of the sewers.
For these half-anders, half wet, and half dry,
Nor bear strict service nor pure liberty.
'Tis probable religion after this
Came next in order, which they could not miss :
How could the Dutch but be converted, when
Th' apostles were so many fisher-men?
Beside, the waters of themselves did rise,
And, as their land, so them did re-baptise.
Though Herring for their God few voices mist,
And poor John to have been th' Evangelist.
Faith, that could never twins conceive before,
Never so fertile, spawn'd upon this shore:
More pregnant than their Marg'et, that laid down
For Hans-in-Kelder of a whole Hans-Town.
Sure, when religion did itself embark,
And from the east would westward steer its ark,
It struck; and, splitting on this unknown ground,
Each one thence pillag'd the first piece he found:
Hence Amsterdam-Turk-Christian-Pagan-Jew,
Staple of sects, and mint of schism grew;
That bank of conscience, where not one so strange
Opinion, but finds credit and exchange.
In vain for Catholicks ourselves we bear,
The universal church is only there.
Nor can civility there want for tillage,
Where wisely for their court they chose a village:
How fit a title clothes their governors!
Themselves the Hogs, as all their subjects Boors.
Let it suffice to give their country fame,
That it had one Civilis call'd by name,
Some fifteen-hundred and more years ago,
But, surely, never any that was so.
See but their mermaids, with their tails of fish
Reeking at church over the chafing-dish.
A vestal turf, enshrin'd in earthen ware,
Fumes through the loop-holes of a wooden square ;
Each to the temple with these altars tend
(But still do place it at her western end)
While the fat steam of female sacrifice
Fills the priest's nostrils, and puts out his eyes.
Or what a spectacle the skipper gross,
A Water-Hercules, Butter-Coloss,
Tunn'd up with all their several towns of beer;
When, stagg'ring upon some land, Snick and Sneer,
They try, like statuaries, if they can
Cut out each other's Athos to a man;
And carve in their large bodies, where they please,
The arms of the United Provinces.
Vainly did this slap-dragon fury hope
With sober English valour e'er to cope;
Not though they prim'd their barbarous morning's draught
With powder, and with pipes of brandy fraught;
Yet Rupert, Sandwich, and of all, the Duke,
The Duke has made their sea-sick courage puke,
Like the three comets sent from heaven down,
With fiery flails, to swinge th' ungrateful clown.
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