Thus, then, this mighty Wren unto the fair
Brought his cathedral pack thus stuft with ware,
The door's wide-op't, there thousands came to see
The Romish relicks of the hierarchy—

Where all were set for sale, and at low rate,
Because they 'gan to wax quite out of date.
'Buy my high altars,' he lifts up his voice,
All sorts of mass-books, here you may have choice;
Here's bells baptiz'd, will make a dainty sound,
Pray, if you please, step in and ring them round.'

... Then cried another, 'Sir, what will you buy?
I pray step in, sir, do not so pass by.
Here's a cathedra, once Saint Peter's chair,
The rarest thing to buy in Lambeth Fair.
The candid surplice and the wedding-rings,
Pictures for Bibles, and such pretty things;
Here's the late Canons, and the new found oath,
To sell et cetera I am very loath...

Here's Ember-weeks, with thin-chapt Jack-a-Lent,
To help you at a pinch when all is spent:
Here's Holy-days to sport the time away,
Or Book of Pastimes for the Sabbath-day'...
Wax candles, tapers,' another cries and calls,
These brought I with me from Cathedral Paul's;
They'll scare the devil, and put him to flight,
When he perceives a consecrated light:
When we at matins, and at even-song were,
We had them by us then, devoid of fear;
They'll bring delight unto your eyes and nose,
They burn so clear, and smell so like a rose;
And when you think that it hath burnt enough,
Then blow it out, you shall not smell the snuff,
Or else you may on whom you will bestow it,
They'll joy to think a Bishop once did owe it'...
'Come hither, friend, another loud doth call,
I'll sell you here my Common-Prayer Books all'...
'I'm broke, I'm broke,' another there did say,
'Come, buy my hoods, I can no longer stay:

What mean ye, sirs? the day is almost spent,
Come buy my trinkets all incontinent;
Come hither, friend, the price is very small,
I'll sell my coat, it is canonical:

Come buy this mitre, sir, if you be able,
The virtue of it is inestimable;

Buy 't, sir, and wear it, and then soon, I hope,
You will rise higher, and become a Pope:

I tell you truly, had not fortune left me,

I would have kept it until death bereft me.'

It now beginning to grow towards night,
Comes a grave Doctor* running in with might;
His courage stout was somewhat now abated,
He brings his golden slippers consecrated,

And cries, Come buy these slippers here of mine,
They are emboss'd with holiness divine'...

Whilst thus the Bishops there, their guts and they,
Called to their customers to come away,

A messenger came running through the crowd,
And to the Bishops thus he spake aloud:
'Away to Rome, or Tyburn, choose you whether,
I know your shoes are made of running leather;
For all the laws o' th' land you have outrun,
And I come here to tell you what is done:

The Parliament hath pull'd your pride to th' ground,
And by the House three times y' are voted down'...
'Alas!' cried they, is all our labour loss?
Others get money, we have but the cross!
For we are crossed in our expedition,
And fly we must, for all Oxford's petition;
Yet, notwithstanding, herein lies our hope,
We shall be entertained by the Pope.'
With that, like men of senses quite bereft,
They ran away, and all their trinkets left,
A friend of mine to me did then repair,
Desiring me to pen this famous Fair,

* Probably Dr. Cosin, afterwards Bishop of Durham.-Ero.

Which I have done, and have it here to sell,
Come buy the 'Fair' of me, and so farewell."

Lambeth Fair, wherein you have all the Bishops'
Trinkets sent to Sale, pp. 1-9, 4to. 1641.

Puritanical Charges against the Caroline Prelates and Clergy.

[472]

1641.] “Their [the "Prelatical Clergy"] endeavours have been, as we conceive, to draw the people from immediate regard to, or dependence on, GOD and His will and Word, unto more, or more immediate and that necessary regard to and dependence on themselves and their power, dictates or actions, in matters of religion......... more particularly endeavouring the same in matters of Belief, Practice, or Hope. I. In matters of Belief or knowledge, whereby the people may be more easily ruled and swayed by them in all things. Their endeavours have been (as we conceive) to keep the people in ignorance of Divine things, (more than serves for a foundation of their affected sway,) and to hinder the free and full knowledge of GOD, and the means thereof. To which purpose, and for their own case in example, makes their-1. Teaching or insinuating that much knowledge or preaching is not needful, but rather distracting or dangerous. 2. The restraining the use of Catechism to the bare words of the common Catechism without any exposition. 3. Opposing, discountenancing, and suppressing the diligent preaching and hearing of God's Word. By-1. Prohibiting afternoon sermons on the LORD'S-Day. 2. Suppressing lectures, and, where idle and unpreaching ministers are, denying to let others preach, though the people would procure one (and that) at their own charge. 3. Punishing good people for going to hear sermons at neighbour churches when none at their own; and for meeting to repeat sermons on the LORD'S-Day. 4. Hindering also the full audience of sermons, and withdrawing the opinion of the use of churches for auditories, by pulling down lofts in great congregations. 5. Restraining pious and orthodox books from printing and publishing; such books

formerly licensed from reprinting (or blotting out and adding what they pleased), but allowing lascivious and idle books freely to be printed and published, which may withdraw people from diviner studies. 6. Discountenancing or disparaging canonical Scripture, countenancing and giving Divine authority to apocryphal with other human books, and to traditions. 7. Teaching and insinuating the necessity and sufficiency of implicit faith in the doctrine of the Church whereof they appropriate the name ......... II. In matters of Practice, especially of Divine worship. Their endeavours, we conceive, have been to take off men's hearts from the spiritual fervency and purity of worship (viz. the immediate direction of it to GOD), and to stay them and make them rest in outward actions, forms, and things (such as must depend on the prelates or priests, and come through their hands), or at least to make them worship GoD (idolatrously) only in and through such things; and to draw them from GOD's prescript (for the form of worship) to their own inventions, and (for the matter of obedience) to their own rules and commands. To which purpose tend, Their-1. requiring, using, and observing in Divine worship, such specious habits, ceremonies, and formalities (in the outward state and majesty whereof the sense and fancy might be amused, and the minds of the people detained from the rational part of the work) and confounding all with noise, especially in the cathedral service, which they make exemplary to all other churches. 2. Secondly, disgracing zeal and fervency of worship under scandalous names, as enthusiasm or madness: Purity in it, or the immediate direction to GOD, under the like ill names, as slovenliness, unmannerliness, presumption, &c.; and commending the contrary, under specious titles of discretion, order, decency, &c. 3. Thirdly, resolving all Divine worships into set forms as having peculiar spiritual efficacy, though of only human invention and proposal, viz. of words, even the preacher's prayer before sermon: of gestures (standing at one part, as Gloria PATRI, and the Gospel, other gestures at other parts, bowing at the Name of JESUS, &c.), and into Divine reverence to supposed holy places, and other outward things dependent on the prelacy and priesthood. For which—4. Fourthly, attributing special holiness to places and things by their appointment and consecrations; as if without their consecration all things were unclean, nothing fit for holy uses: and being consecrated they may never admit of common uses, though lawful, publick, necessary, and

inoffensive; or, if by such polluted, they must be re-consecrated ere used. 5. Fifthly, attributing distinct degrees of holiness to several things by special consecrations, viz. 1. To persons in several orders: the Priest holier than the Deacon, the Bishop than the Priest, &c., unto his Holiness, where only, we conceive, their comparison would rest superlative. 2. To places; viz. to churchyards one degree, to churches more, and of churches, the Mothers or Cathedrals holier than others, the Metropolitans yet more holy and in each church the navis or body holy, the chancel more, the place of the altar with the altar, holiest of all. And to that purpose-6. Sixthly, preferring the Communion-table to the east end of the chancel, turning it to the posture and name of an altar, advancing it with new steps to it, railing it in with single or double rails, placing a canopy over it, tapers by it, crucifixes or other superstitious images upon, over, or about it, approximating peculiar parts of service to it. In all which things, as we conceive, a power is assumed as if they could confine GOD to special presence or exhibition thereof where they please; or impart spiritual virtue to outward things as they please. 7. Drawing worship or reverence to external things aforesaid, according to such supposed holiness (at least) to be directed immediately towards the same, as especially in bowing or praying towards the east, bowing to the altar upon approaches, in coming and kneeling to the rail for the Sacrament, whereto they force the people by denying the Sacrament to such as will not, and further punishing them for the neglect for or by such things they subinduce the opinion of the corporal Presence there. All such things they have pressed by doctrine, example, and discipline, as most necessary. 8. Discountenancing the religious observation of the LORD'S-Day, in obedience to GOD; denying the morality of the fourth Commandment to leave no other ground for keeping a Sabbath than the Church's (i.e. their own) appointment; and enforcing the observation of their holydays and festivals, equal with, or above, the LORD'S-Day, (by punishing people for working thereon, though poor, or in harvest,) and requiring the observance of other times for fasting, as being of peculiar holiness. 9. Commanding or commending sports to the younger people, apt to make them lascivious, especially on the LORD'S-Day, whereby they may be taken off from religious exercises by vain and sensual delights: whence the great profanation of that day, especially at wakes, by them so much