Daniel Burgess’s Answer to Hugh Peters.
I Receiv’d your insolent epistle with no small dissatisfaction, and had you not inform’d me, I should have guess’d it came from hell, and that none but the devil, besides yourself, could have digitis’d a pen after so scurrillous a manner: how I came to be your brother, as you are pleas’d very sawcily to call me, I can’t tell, for thou wer’t no more than a meer pulpit merry-andrew, fit only to jest poor ignorant wenches out of their bodkins and thimbles, and I, Daniel Burgess am known thro’ all England to be a reverend teacher of the good word the gospel, and a saver of souls by the means of grace, and the help of mercy.
’Tis true, I cannot but acknowledge that you were a serviceable agent in the promotion of the good old cause; but when you came to die a martyr for it, the whimsical fear of damnation so disturb’d your fly-blown brains, that a dog hang’d by a cleanly housewife for dropping a sirreverence in a room new wash’d, or a cat condemn’d to the same punishment for licking up the childrens milk, were never certainly such a scandal to a halter, as thy frantick self. When like a true teacher of spiritual dissention, thou should’st have glory’d in all the past actions of thy life, that had the least tendency to the pulling down of that papistical government, that whore of Babylon, monarchy, and setting up in its stead, that wholesome and inseparable twins, presbytery and a commonwealth; you hasten’d on your own damnation by foolish fear and cowardly repentance, and shew’d fifty times more distraction than a horn-mad cuckold, that had catch’d his wife playing at flipflap with her tail like a live flownder in a frying-pan.
As for that woolen jack-a-dandy, that fed his family by the product of a sheeps-back, that unrighteous tell-tail rogue, that us’d to curse his wife for being godly, if ever you will do me a piece of good service in your damnable country, I beg you to entreat Lucifer on my behalf, to freeze him once a day into a cake of ice, and then thaw him without mercy, in one of his hottest hell-kettles; or let him be flogg’d three times a day by your old master, worse than Titus Oates, or brother Johnson, for he’s as rank a cavalier as ever had the impudence to spit in a round-head’s face, or speak treason against the rump-parliament; and tell him, tho’ he made me pay for the cloth, given me as a just reward of my pastoral care of his wife’s immortality, yet she had the christian gratitude, to make me doubly amends before a fortnight was expir’d; but how the donor came by the benefit she bestow’d, I thought was a little ungrateful for the receiver to enquire into, and unbecoming a minister of the word, bearing my figure and character.
As for the sorry wretches you mention, who by the virtue and efficacy of my doctrine, took a by-path into the other world, that happen’d to lead ’em into your territories: I must tell you, they were such a parcel of scoundrels, whose diminutive souls I look’d upon to be meer trumpery, damag’d goods, not worthy their freight, fit for nothing but to be thrown over-board; poor tatter’d scraps of immortality crouded into skins, each of less value than a hog’s-pudding. Lucifer himself, I’m sure, should he wage new war with heaven, would not have given three-pence a-piece to have lifted them into his service, they would not have been fit for so much as powder-monkeys, to have handed fire and brimstone after the army; for my part, I wonder now you have got ’em, how you bestow ’em, or what use the devil can put ’em to; I protest when they were living upon earth, I found them such needy communicants, I thought them fitter to be confin’d within the narrow limits of some old alms-house for subsistance, there to read and practise Mr. Tryon’s water-gruel directory, and enjoy the charitable income of three-half-pence a day, settled by some old rogue who had cheated the world of thousands, and hopes to make an atonement by starving perhaps twenty old women every year in his little row of charity pigeon-holes, endow’d with nine-pence per week, and a thimbleful of coals; as if providing a miserable life for one person, was a sufficient recompence for cheating another: I say, they were fitter to be made close tenants to some such bountiful nest of drawers, than to come like a parcel of thread-bare zealots into a meeting, like bullies into a tavern, without a penny of money in their pockets, and disturb people of good fashion and credit, zealous benefactors to their guide, in the height of their devotion, an intolerable grievance to a pious congregation, that pay well for the assurance of salvation: and if we did not sometimes by the frightful doctrine of non-election and damnation, make these ragamuffin reprobates take up the knife of dispair, and clear the garden of the righteous from those rascally poor weeds who are always sucking juice from the more valuable plants, in a little time the fruitful soil would be so over-run with docks and nettles, that there would be no living for the gardner, whose profits must arise from the products of those trees laden with rich fruit, which for yielding plentifully in due season, become more worthy of his care.
This is the case, and therefore who can blame me for my doctrine, if it should be a means of making two or three garetteers, and as many cellar-divers, by the help of twisted-hemp, or cold iron, forward their journies to the lord knows whither, the world has the less to provide for, and those that are gone have, according to the opinion of our fore-fathers, nothing to care for? So to tell you the truth on’t, I am never without a score of such communicants to spare, and if they were all to be with you before night, I should think it a very comfortable riddance.
I am sorry I have not so much time to abuse you as I could heartily wish I had, for you cannot but be sensible how much you have deserv’d it, and how well qualified I am for such an undertaking, if I had but leisure to exert my talent; and why we of the same function should treat one another scurvily, would be no wonder, because two of a trade can never agree; however I shall reserve my fury till another opportunity, being just now invited to a supper by a devout communicant, whose husband’s in the country, and I am sure she will have provided something worth my nibbling at, which I scorn to lose the benefit of for a piece of revenge: so farewel,
D. Burgess.
Ludlow the Regicide to the Calves-Head Club.
Most diabolical Sons of Darkness,