ow Priests to jeer and make Invectives against the People_.
And I humbly conceive, that such Matters had much better be suffer'd to go
on in the World, and take their Course, than that Courts of Judicature
should be employ'd about them. A Sentence that imply'd some _Clergymen_
corrupt, as well as some _Laymen_, of whom _Laud_ would only allow to have
it said, that they had _corrupted their Ways_; a _Jest_ upon St.
_Martin_'s _Hood_, which, according to Ecclesiastical History, _cur'd sore
Eyes_; and a _Ridicule_ upon a High-Church Book of _Heylin_'s, by calling
it a Pamphlet, tho it was really a Pamphlet, as consisting of but seventy
Pages in Quarto; seem less _wicked_ and hurtful than disturbing, fining,
and undoing Men about them. And the having some Concern for the People,
that they should not be used as the Priest pleas'd; that the _People_
belong to _God_ and the _King_, and _not to the Priest_; and the _not
allowing_ the _Priests_ to _jeer and make Invectives against the People_;
seem all Errors fit to be born with.

Archbishop _Laud_ was also thought guilty of an excessive Piece of
Weakness in the Punishment of [134] _Archibald_ the King's Fool, by laying
the Matter before the Privy-Council, and occasioning him to be expell'd
the King's House for a poor _Jest_ upon himself; who, as he was a Man at
the Head of the State, should have despis'd such a thing in any Body, much
more in a _Fool_, and who should never have been hurried on to be the
Instrument of any _Motion_ against him, but have left it to others; who
upon the least Intimation would have been glad to make their court to
_Laud_, by sacrificing a _Fool_ only to his Resentment.

XVIII. I could have entertain'd the Reader with a great Variety of
Passages out of the Fathers of the Church, whose Writings are Magazines of
Authority, and urg'd upon us upon all Occasions by Ecclesiasticks, and are
particularly full of _Burlesque_ and _Ridicule_ on the _Gods and Religion_
of the _Pagans_; in the use whereof they are much more unanimous, than in
the Articles of their _Creed_. But that being a Subject too great and
extensive for a Digression, I shall content my self with the few following
Reflections; which will sufficiently evince, that the _Taste_ of the
Primitive Christians was like that of the rest of the World; that they
could laugh and be as merry as the _Greeks_ and other _Pagans_; and that
they would take the Advantage of the _Pagans_ weak Cause, to introduc