thefe fhall have autority to knaw out the choifeft periods of exquifiteft books, and to commit fuch, a treacherous fraud against the orphan remainders of worthieft men after death, the more forrow will belong to that haples race of men, whofe misfortune it is to have understanding. Henceforth let no man care to learn, or care to be more then worldly wife; for certainly in higher matters to be ignorant and flothfull, to be a common ftedfaft dunce will be the only pleasant life, and only in request.

And as it is a particular difesteem of every knowing perfon alive, and moft injurious to the writt'n labours and monuments of the dead, fo to me it seems an undervaluing and vilifying of the

whole

whole Nation. I cannot fet fo light by all the invention, the art, the wit, the grave and folid judgement which is in England, as that it can be comprehended in any twenty capacities how good foever, much leffe that it fhould not paffe except their fuperintendence be over it, except it be fifted and ftrain'd with their ftrainers, that it fhould be uncurrant

without their manuall ftamp.

Truth

and understanding are not fuch wares as to be monopoliz'd and traded in by tickets and ftatutes, and ftandards. We must not think to make a ftaple commodity of all the knowledge in the Land, to mark and licence it like our broad cloath, and our wooll packs. What is it but a fervitude like that im

pos'd by the Philiftims, not to be allow'd the fharpning of our own axes and coulters, but we muft repair from all quarters to twenty licencing forges. Had any one writt❜n and divulg'd erroneous things & fcandalous to honeft life, mifufing and forfeiting the esteem had of his reafon among men, if after conviction this only cenfure were adjudg'd him, that he fhould never henceforth write, but what were firft examin'd by an appointed officer, whofe hand should be annext to paffe his credit for him, that now he might be fafely read, it could not be apprehended leffe then a difgracefull punishment. Whence to include the whole Nation, and those that never yet thus offended, under fuch a

diffident

⚫diffident and fufpectfull prohibition, may plainly be understood what a difparagement it is. So much the more, when as dettors and delinquents may walk abroad without a keeper, but unoffenfive books must not stirre forth without a vifible jaylor in thir title. Nor is it to the common people leffe then a reproach; for if we be fo jealous over them, as that we dare not trust them with an English pamphlet, what doe we but cenfure them for a giddy, vitious, and ungrounded people; in fuch a fick and weak eftate of faith and difcretion, as to be able to take nothing down but through the pipe of a licencer? That this is care or love of them, we cannot pretend, whenas in thofe Popish places where

X 2

where the Laity are moft hated and difpis'd the same strictnes is us'd over them. Wisdom we cannot call it, because it ftops but one breach of licence, nor that neither; when as thofe corruptions which it fecks to prevent, break in fafter at other dores which cannot be fhut.

And in conclufion it reflects to the difrepute of our Minifters alfo, of whofe labours we should hope better, and of the proficiencie which thir flock reaps by them, then that after all this light of the Gofpel which is, and is to be, and all this continuall preaching, they should be ftill frequented with fuch an unprincipl'd, unedify'd, and laick rabble, as that the whiffe of every new pamphlet fhould ftagger them out of thir catechism,