Particulars (which he there mentions) from that Confeffion. After this followed, as all the World knows, one of the Bloodiest Scenes that ever that Country faw; which whether it were owing to this Incendiary's Sophistry, I cannot tell, but any one may fee he was a Well-wisher to the Defign. Now if we, Mr. Bays, had been fo malicious as to have trumped the fame Card upon your Priests, writ a Letter to the Pope, and told him, Worthy Sir, Whereas certain Perfons, here in the Kingdom of England, who pretend themselves to be true Catholics, have fhamefully denied and mif-represented moft of the Eftablished Doctrines of your Church; have discarded your Depofing-Power, and made you dwindle from the Univerfal Bishop, into the Western Patriarch: Nay and to do greater Affronts to your Unerring Majefty, have acquainted all His Majefty's Subjects, that you Eat and Drink, juft for all the World like other Men, and keep a CloseStool too for your private occafions; nothing of which we could have believed before: This is to acquaint your Infallibility with their Names and Offences, that you may reduce them to their Duty in time; for we are afraid, if they continue ftill to make the fame Advances into Herefie, as they began, that they'll every Man of them turn Proteftants before the Year's ended, and fo become chargeable to the Parishes where they live. Had we done this, Mr. Bays, as you know we had Reafon enough to do it, I dare not take upon me to conje&ure, what had been the Event; whether immuring between Four Walls, or a Pilgrimage to Lapland, or their Ecclefiaftical Livery pull'd over their Ears; but certain I am, that be bad difown'd them for his Sons, as heartily as a former Pope difowned a certain French Bishop, that was fent to him in his Military Habit. As I was a faying befor, Mr. Bays, your Predeceffors managed the Controverfie much more like Gentlemen, than those that that pretended to manage it after them in the late Reign. If they palmed any Spurious Fathers upon us, it is to be confidered, that fuch Artifices were the ancient, laudable Practices of their Church, witneß Conftantine's Charter, and the Forgery of the Nicene Canons; that they found them ready cut and dried to their hands, and fo drew them out of the Papal Armory, to fupport a Declining Caufe, that could not otherwife fubfist; and how far this Policy is allowable in a State of War, I leave it for the Cafuifts to judge. After all, Forgery itself, as odious and defpicable as it looks, is not in my Opinion half so black a Crime, as down-right Lying; as you know, Mr. Bays, counterfeiting another Man's Hand, is nothing near fo bad, as denying his own: There is fome Art and Dexterity required in the one, but there is nothing but bare-faced Impudence, or Cowardize in the other. He that puts falfe Dice upon me at Play, will be reck'ned (as the World goes now-a-days) an expert Gamester, and I only to be blamed, that would Suffer my felf to be fo impofed upon; but he that shall tell me Seven and Four is not Eleven, or that a Deuce is a Cinque, is to be used after another manner. Therefore I could methinks willingly excufe your Ancestors, who conjured up fom Suppofititious Authors to defend the Principles of their Church, because it had been our Fault, if we had not difcover'd the Trick; but I shall never forgive thofe everlasting Blockheads, that difowned most of the DoEtrines of their Religion, all the while they were a practising them within Doors. If it had been my Fortune,Mr.Bays, to bave been in company with the Author of the Nubes Teftium, or the Speculum Ecclefiafticum, I promise you, upon the Word of a Young Author, that hopes to Flourish in this wicked World, I had not fallen into the least Paffion or Fury, but only offered them a little fober Advice: Pray good Gentlemen don't fquander away the poor Patrimony of the Church after fo profufe a manner; take fome Mercy of your Fathers, and don't fet them all upon one fingle Throw ; confider how how many hundred Years they have been a gathering for you, use your Fathers frugally and difcreetly; do you think their Keeping has coft the Pope nothing all this while? Let St. Jerome and St.Auftin come on to day, and bring St. Ambrofe and honeft St. Bernard, into the Field to morrow. Take a Friend's Counfel, Gentlemen, and never hazard all upon one Chance: Alas! He that throws away his Fathers extravagantly, was never at the pains of collecting them himself; as we fay, that Alderman's Son that makes Ducks and Drakes with his Money, never knew the trouble of getting it; and therefore, good Gentlemen, pray don't make Ducks and Drakes with your Fathers. This is all, Mr.Bays, I affure you, that I should have faid to them; but if I had met with the Bishop of Meaux, or any of the Mifreprefenters that Copied from him, I don't know how far my Refentments might have carried me. We have all the reafon in the World, Mr. Bays, to thank our Stars, that your Divines, in the late Reign proved as feeble Statefmen as they were Difputers. Had a wife able Cabal, Men of Forefight and Conduct, been to manage fo golden an Opportunity, perhaps we might have had as much reafon then to curfe the dexterity of their Policies, as we have now to congratulate their Blunders. Infallibility was the word in the Church, as Arbitrary Power was in the State, and by the found of these two Almighty Words, you thought to Profelyte the whole Nation; but Experience has fince convinc'd you, how little they fignified. Of a Jefuit, before we came to make trial of him, we had as terrible an Idea as the Romans had of Elephants in their War with Pyrrhus; we forgave them for being fo tamely vanquilid in the Age before, and charitably afcribed it to the Restraint they lay under in former Reigns; but when they had the Government to fupport them, befides the Goodne of their Caufe, we expected nothing less than miraculous Performances. They were pleased, however, to disap point our Expectations in that Cafe, as well as feveral others, till at last they grew fo very contemptible, that even one of our Proteftant Footmen took a Father of the Society, and held his Nofe to Dr. Sherlock's Prefervative, just as the Americans, to try the Immortality of their new Invaders, took a ftragling Spaniard, and dip'd bis Head Underwater. We expected you would have performed your Promifes, in relation to the Established Religion, not fo much for the Principles of your Church (for those we knew very well) as for your Honour and Intereft, and yet even there you thought fit to disappoint us. What need I say more?" There was nothing in the whole Riddle of the late Reign, that did not fail our Expectations, except the Irish that came over, and the Diffenters; the last promised to facrifice their Lives and Fortunes, as the former, without queftion, promised to fight: But, as we all imagined, neither of them kept their word, and therein they answered our Expectation. Certainly, Mr. Bays, no Men in the World ever miscarried fo fhamefully in all their Projects as your Priests did; they acted the Counter-part to Dionyfius's Story, came from a School to a Kingdom; and like bim too, at last, were thrown from a Kingdom to a School. They took care, we thank them, to break the Neck of their Religion before they withdrew, and left us of the Refor mation to inter her; and we shall take care, like the Young Gentleman that buried his penurious Father, to lay fo beavy a Tomb-ftone upon her, that she shall never rife in Judgment against us. There's a remarkable Passage, Mr. Bays, in your Tragedy of Don Sebaftian, about Clergymen, which I shall make bold to tranfcribe. p. 24. For Churchmen, tho' they itch to govern all, Are filly, woful, awkard Politicians; it well. Their Interest is not finely drawn and hid, But Seams are courfly bungled up, and feen. Whether you had an Eye upon your own Church-men, when you wrote thefe Lines, does not fignifie a farthing; but for your comfort, Mr. Bays, the Character fuits them as exactly as if they had fat for their Pictures. To give your old Enemies, the Diffenters, Liberty of Conscience, after you had fo unmercifully barraft them before, was fo palpable a Sham, that without difpute they understood it well enough; and tho' for their prefent cafe they accepted of it, they were not fuch errant Fools to imagine, that because Fanaticifm brought in Popery, therefore Popery would out of complaifance bring in Fanaticism. To publish King Charles's Papers that were pretended to be found in his Clofet, mas another lamentable Miscarriage; for what could create a greater Averfion to your Church, than to let People know, that it tolerated a Man to live in a contrary Perfuafion, notwithstanding he was otherwife obliged by every thing that was facred bere upon Earth, and that it countenanced the blackest Hypocrifie. I dare not take upon me to conjecture, whether thofe Papers were fpurious or no, but by making them publick, I am fure King Charles fecured as many to the Established Church, as he did by paffing the Teft; and if I had been one of the Cabinet ·Council, I am fure I had fooner confented to let the Bible walk abroad in English than to Print them. To ride the late Unhappy Monarch after that unfufferable rate as your Priesthood did, to make the best of Friends, and the justest Mafter, a Prince that had every thing that was Generous and Heroick in his Nature, condefcend to feel the Pulfe of his meanest Officers about the Penal Laws, to make him facrifice his Promife fo folemnly plighted to his People; what was it but to let the Subject fee before-hand, how triumphantly you wou'd domineer over him, if you had once got the Afcendant? Tho' you had adulterated all the Ecclefiaftical Writers between this and the Creation, we could |