who had this priviledge, I would obtain to be thought not so inferior, as your felves are fuperior to the most of them who receiv'd their counsell: and how farre you excell them, be affur'd, Lords and Commons, there can no greater testimony appear, then when your prudent spirit acknowledges and obeyes the voice of reafon from what quarter foever it be heard speaking; and renders ye as willing to repeal any Act of your own setting forth, as any set forth by your Predeceffors.

3

If ye be thus refolv'd, as it were injury to thinke ye were not, I know not what should withhold me from presenting ye with a fit inftance wherein to fhew both that love of truth which ye eminently profeffe, and that uprightneffe of your judgement which is not wont to be partiall to your felves; by judging over again that Order which ye have ordain'd to regulate Printing That no Book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth Printed, unleffe the fame be first approv'd and licenc't by fuch, or at least one of fuch as shall be thereto appointed. For that • part which preserves justly every mans Copy to himselfe, or provides for the poor, I touch not, only wish they be not made pretenses to abuse and perfecute honest and painfull Men, who offend not in either of these particulars. But that other clause of Licencing Books, which we thought had dy'd with his brother quadragefimal and matrimonial when the Prelats expir'd, I fhall now attend with fuch a Homily, as fhall lay before ye, first the inventors of it to bee those whom ye will be loath to own; next what is to be thought in generall of reading, what ever fort the Books be; and that this Order avails nothing to the fuppreffing of fcandalous, feditious, and libellous Books, which were mainly intended to be suppreft. Last, that it will be primely to the difcouragement of all learning, and the stop of Truth, not only by the difexercising and blunting our abilities in what we know already, but by hindring and cropping the dif covery that might bee yet further made both in religious and civill Wisdome.

I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in

the Church and Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how Bookes demeane themselves as well as men and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do fharpest justice on them as malefactors: For Books are not abfolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them to be as active as that foule was whofe progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a violl the pureft efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as thofe fabulous Dragons teeth; and being fown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand unleffe warineffe be us'd, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image, but hee who deftroyes a good Booke, kills reafon it felfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm'd and treafur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life.] 'Tis true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loffe; and revolutions of ages doe not oft recover the loffe of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole Nations fare the worse. We should be wary therefore what perfecution we raise against the living labours of publick men, how we fpill that season'd life of man preferv'd and flor'd up in Books; fince we see a kinde of homicide may be thus committed, fometimes a martyrdome, and if it extend to the whole impreffion, a kinde of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the flaying of an elementall life, but strikes at that ethereall and fift effence, the breath of reason it felfe, flaies an immortality rather then a life. But left I should be condemn'd of introducing licence, while I oppofe Licencing, I refuse not the paines to be fo much Historicall, as will serve to shew what hath been done by ancient and famous Commonwealths, against this disorder, till the very time that this project of licencing crept out of the Inquifition, was catcht up by our Prelates, and hath caught some of our Prefbyters.

Greek

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In Athens where Books and Wits were ever bufier then in any other part of Greece, I find but only two sorts of writings which the Magiftrate car'd to take notice of; thofe either blafphemous and Atheisticall, or Libellous. Thus the Books of Protagoras were by the Judges of Areopagus commanded to be burnt, and himfelfe banifht the territory for a discourse begun with his confeffing not to know whether there were gods, or whether not: And against defaming, it was decreed that none should be tradue'd by name, as was the manner of Vetus Comadia, whereby we may gueffe how they cenfur'd libelling: And this courfe was quick enough, as Cicero writes, to quell both the defperate wits of other Atheists, and the open way of defaming, as the event fhew'd, Of other fects and opinions though tending to voluptuoufneffe, and the denying of divine providence they tooke no heed. Therefore we do not read that either Epicurus, or that libertine school of Cyrene, or what the Cynick impudence utter'd, was ever question'd by the Laws. Neither is it recorded that the writings of thofe old Comedians were fuppreft, though the acting of them were forbid; and that Plato commended the reading of Ariflophanes the loofeft of them all, to his royall fcholler Dionyfius, is commonly known, and may be excus'd, if holy Chrysoftome, as is reported, nightly studied so much the fame Author and had the art to cleanse a fcurrilous vehemence into the still of a rousing Sermon. That other leading City of Greece, Lacedæmon, confidering that Lycurgus their Law-giver was fo addicted to elegant learning, as to have been the first that brought out of Ionia the scatter'd workes of Homer, and fent the Poet Thales from Creet to prepare and mollifie the Spartan furlineffe with his smooth fongs and odes, the better to plant among them law and civility, it is to be wonder'd how mufeiefs and unbookish they were, minding nought but the feats of Warre. There needed no licencing of Books among them for they diflik'd all, but their owne Laconick Apothegms, and took a flight occafion to chafe Archilochus

religio

ligion; cont termin

out of their City, perhaps for compofing in a higher straine then their owne souldierly ballats and roundels could reach to: Or if it were for his broad verses, they were not therein fo cautious, but they were as diffolute in their promifcuous converfing; whence Euripides affirmes in Andromache, that their women were all unchafte. Thus much may give us light after what sort Bookes were prohibited among the Greeks. The Romans alfo for many ages train'd up only to a military roughnes, resembling moft of the Lacedæmonian guife, knew of learning little but what their twelve Tables, and the Pontifick College with their Augurs and Flamins taught them in Religion and Law, fo unacquainted with other learning, that when Carneades and Critolaus, with the Stoick Diogenes comming Embaffadors to Rome, tooke thereby occasion to give the City a tast of their Philosophy, they were suspected for seducers by no lesse a man then Cato the Cenfor, who mov'd it in the Senat to dismisse them speedily, and to banish all fuch Attick bablers out of Italy. But Scipio and others of the nobleft Senators withstood him and his old Sabin aufterity; honour'd and admir'd the men ; and the Cenfor himself at last in his old age fell to the study of that whereof before hee was fo fcrupulous. And yet at the fame time Nævius and Plautus the firft Latine comedians had fill'd the City with all the borrow'd Scenes of Menander and Philemon. Then began to be confider'd there also what was to be don to libellous books and Authors; for Nævius was quickly cast into prison for his unbridl'd pen, and releas'd by the Tribunes upon his recantation: We read alfo that libels were burnt, and the makers punifht by Augutus. The like severity no doubt was us'd if ought were impiously writt'n against their efteemed gods. Except in thefe two points, how the world went in Books, the Magiftrat kept no reckning. And therefore Lucretius without impeachment verfifies his Epicurifm to Memmius, and had the honour to be set forth the second time by Cicero fo great a father of the Commonwealth; although himselfe disputes

punishment

the auth is

havishree

against that opinion in his own writings. Nor was the Satyricall fharpneffe, or naked plainnes of Lucilius, or Catullus, or Flaccus, by any order prohibited. And for matters of State, the ftory of Titius Livius, though it extoll'd that part which Pompey held, was not therefore fuppreft by Octavius Cæsar of the other Faction. But that Nafo was by him banisht in his old age, for the wanton Poems of his youth, was but a meer covert of State over fome fecret caufe; and befides, the Books were neither banisht nor call'd in. From hence we shall meet with little else but tyranny in the Roman Empire, that we may not marvell, if not so often bad, as good Books were filenc't. I fhall therefore deem to have bin large anough in producing what among the ancients was punishable to write, fave only which, all other arguments were free to treat on.

By this time the Emperours were become Christians, whofe difcipline in this point I doe not finde to have bin more fevere then what was formerly in practice. The Books of those whom they took to be grand Hereticks were examin'd, refuted, and condemn'd in the generall Councels; and not till then were prohibited, or burnt by autority of the Emperor. As for the writings of Heathen authors, unleffe they were plaine invectives againft Chriftianity, as thofe of Porphyrius and Proclus, they met with no interdict that can be cited, till about the year 400, in a Carthaginian Councel, wherein Bishops themselves were forbid to read the Books of Gentiles, but Herefies they might read: while others long before them on the contrary scrupl'd more the Books of Hereticks, then of Gentiles. And that the primitive Councels and Bishops were wont only to declare what Books were not commendable, paffing no furder, but leaving it to each ones confcience to read or to lay by, till after the year 800 is obferv'd already by Padre Paolo the great unmasker of the Trentine Councel. After which time the Popes of Rome engroffing what they pleas'd of Politicall rule into their owne hands, extended their dominion over mens eyes, as they had

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