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And laid about as hot and brain-fick
As th' Utter barrister of Swanswick;
Engag'd with money-bags, as bold
As men with fand-bags did of old,
That brought the lawyers in more fees
Than all unfanctify'd Trustees;

Till he who had no more to show
I' th' cafe, receiv'd the overthrow;
Or, both fides having had the worst,
They parted as they met at firft.
Poor Prefbyter was now reduc'd,
Secluded, and cashier'd, and chous'd!
Turn'd out, and excommunicate
From all affairs of Church and State,
Reform'd t'a reformado Saint,

And glad to turn itinerant,

To troll and teach from town to town,
And those he had taught up teach down,
And make thofe ufes ferve again
Against the New-enlighten'd men,
As fit as when at firft they were
Reveal'd against the Cavalier;
Damn Anabaptist and Fanatic
As pat as Popish and Prelatic ;,
And, with as little variation,.

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85

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Ver. 78.] W. Prynne, a voluminous writer.

Had store of money in her purse,

When he took her for better or worfe :
But now was grown deform'd and poor,
And fit to be turn'd out of door.

The Independents (whofe firft ftation
Was in the rear of Reformation,
A mongrel kind of Church-dragoons,

That ferv'd for horfe and foot at once,

And in the faddle of one fteed

The Saracen and Christian rid;

Were free of every spiritual order,

To preach, and fight, and pray, and murder)

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115

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Ver. 118.] The officers and foldiers among the Independents got into pulpits, and preached and prayed as well as fought. Oliver Cromwell was fam'd for a preacher, and has a fermon* in print, intituled, Cromwell's Learned, Devout, and Confcientious Exercise, beld at Sir Peter Temple's in Lincoln's Inn-fields, upon Rom. xiii. 1. in which are the following flowers of rhetoric: "Dearly beloved brethren and fifters, it is "true, this text is a malignant one; the wicked and ungodly have abufed it very much; but, thanks be "to God, it was to their own ruin.

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"But now that I spoke of Kings, the question is, "Whether, by the higher powers, are meant kings or "commoners? Truly, beloved, it is a very great question among thofe that are learned: for may not every one that can read obferve, that Paul fpeaks in "the plural number, higher powers? Now, had he "meant fubjectic. to a king, he would have faid, "Let every foul be fubject to the higher power," if ed meant one man; but by this you fee he "C meant 3, however, is now well known to be an im

N.

No fooner got the start, to lurch

Both difciplines of War and Church,

And Providence enough to run

The chief commanders of them down,
But carry'd on the war against

The common enemy o' th' Saints,

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And

"meant more than one: he bids us "be subject to "the higher powers," that is, the Council of State, "the House of Commons, and the Army." Ib. p. 3.

When in the Humble Petition there was inferted an article against public preachers being members of Parliament, Oliver Cromwell excepted against it exprefsly; "Because he (he faid) was one, and divers officers of "the army, by whom much good had been done"and therefore defired they would explain their ar"ticle." (Heath's Chronicle, p. 408.)

Ib.] Sir Roger L'Eftrange obferves (Reflection upon Poggius's Fable of the Hufband, Wife, and Ghoftly Father, part I. fab. 357.) upon the pretended faints of thofe times, "That they did not fet one ftep, in the "whole tract of this iniquity, without fecking the "Lord first, and going up to enquire of the Lord,

according to the cant of thofe days; which was no "other than to make God the author of fin, and to "impute the blackest practices of hell to the infpira❝tion of the Holy Gholt."

It was with this pretext, of feeking the Lord in prayer, that Cromwell, Ireton, Harrifon, and others of the Regicides, cajoled General Fairfax, who was determined to refcue the King from execution, giving orders to have it fpeedily done: and, when they had notice that it was over, they perfuaded the General that this was a full return of prayer; and, God having fo manifefted his pleasure, they ought to acquiefce in it. (Perenchief's Life of King Charles 1.)

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