His reply was, that if this ordinance could not reach vnto that sanctity which dependeth on the first table, yet it succeeded the same in the next degree, as appertayning to the second. Mine exception against the title, he mockingly matched with their scrupulous precisenes, who (forsooth) would not say Christmas, nor Michaelmas, as other folk did; but Christs tide, and Michaels tide: who (quoth he) by like consequence must also bind themselues to say, Toms tide, Lams tide, and Candles tide. But if the name of ale relish so ill, whereas the licour itselfe is the English mans ancientest and wholesomest drinke, and serueth many for meate and cloth too; he was contented I should call it Church beere, or Church wine, or what else I listed: mary, for his part hee would loqui cum vulgo, though hee studied sentire cum sapientibus. Where I affirmed, that the people might by other meanes be trayned with an equall largesse to semblable workes of charitie, he suspected lest I did not enter into a through consideration of their nature and qualitie, which he had obserued to be this: that they would sooner depart with 12. pennyworth of ware, then sixepence in coyne, and this shilling they would willingly double, so they might share but some pittance thereof againe. Now in such indifferent matters, to serue their humours, for working them to a good purpose, could breed no maner of scandall. As for the argument of abuse, which I so largely dilated, that should rather conclude a reformation of the fault, then an abrogation of the fact.
For to prosecute your owne Metaphore (quoth hee) surely I holde him for a sory Surgeon, that cannot skill to salue a sore, but by taking away the lymme, and little better then the Phisicion, who, to helpe the disease, will reaue the life of his Patient from him. Abuses, doubtlesse, great and many [71] haue, by successe of time, crept hereinto, as into what other almost, diuine, or ciuill, doe they not? and yet in these publike meetings, they are so presented to euery mans sight, as shame somewhat restrayneth the excesse, and they may much the sooner bee both espied and redressed. If you thinke I goe about to defend Church-ales, with all their faults, you wrong your iudgement, & your iudgement wrongeth mee. I would rather (as a Burgesse of this ale-parliament) enact certaine lawes, by which such assemblies should be gouerned: namely, that the drinke should neither be too strong in taste, nor too often tasted: that the ghests should be enterlarded, after the Persian custome, by ages, yong and old, distinguished by degrees of the better and meaner: and seuered into sexes, the men from the women: that the meats should be sawced with pleasant, but honest talke: that their songs should be of their auncestours honourable actions: the principall time of the morning, I would haue hallowed to Gods seruice: the after-noones applied to manlike actiuities: and yet I would not altogether barre sober and open dauncing, vntill it were first thoroughly banished from mariages, Christmas reuels, and (our Countries patterne) the court: all which should be concluded, with a reasonable and seasonable portion of the night: and so (sayd hee) will I conclude this part of my speech, with adding onely one word more for my better iustification: that in defending feasts, I maintayne neither Paradox, nor conceite in nubibus, but a matter practised amongst vs from our eldest auncestours, with profitable and well pleasing fruit, and not onely by our nation, but, both in former ages, by the best and strictest disciplined common wealth of the Lacedemonians, who had their ordinary Sissitia, and now in our dayes, as well by the reformed, as Catholike Switzers, who place therein a principal Arcanum imperij.
Now touching the Saints feasts, if you taynt them with suspect: of superstition, because they are held vpon those Saints daies, by whose names the parish Churches are stiled, I will ward that blow with the shield of Arch-Saint Austines authoritie, who in his 8. booke of Gods Citie, and 27.