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Of nunnerys, and Romish priests.

very many, there were in the old Irish and Scotch; but what I have mentioned are enough for a fpecimen of this extraordinary dormitory. We opened the farcophagi of all thofe I have named, and found the bodies of fome of them intire, black, and hard, as if they had been pickled or preferved; but we fhut them up very carefully again, and left them in peace on their couch of night, to fleep till the laft trumpet awakes them in the morning of the great rifing day. Their characters charmed me. Such excellent women demonftrat there can be a worthynefs in a Roman catholic convert.

By the way, Jewks, it is very wrong to ridicule nunnerys in the manner fome proteftants do. They are generally fuppofed to be the habitations of moped fuperftition, or fcenes of the greatcft impurity. But this is not juft. There is good fenfe in fome of them, and great virtue, and great piety, to my knowledge. I have had an intimacy with feveral ladies who had taken the vow and veil in Roman catholic cloyfters, and to do all the world juftice, fo far as I am able, I declare that I never faw the leaft tendency to levity or indifcretion in the converfation, or behavior of those nuns; but on the contrary obferved, in years of obfervation, both in their actions and difcourfe, fuch a fupreme regard to the honor of God, and

fuch

fuch an intire fubmiffion to his commands, as would render them very glorious chriftians, and equal to the nobleft inftances of piety in the primitive church, if they had not blended with this religion a marianolatry, a tranfubftantiation, an Athanafian Symbol, etc. in obedience to their bigotted and interefted theologers. This is the fad charge we are to bring against the church of Rome, in her cloysters, and out of her cloyfters. But as to the ftorys of love in a nunnery, they are for the most part idle inventions; and if there be an unfortunat cafe now and then, it no more affects the church of Rome, than the debauch of a proteftant daughter in her father's house, by a vifitor or domeftic, which has been feveral times the cafe, can be a blot in the morals of her pious parents.

The storys told by Lambard in his perambulations of Kent may be very true, as he is esteemed an honeft writer. We may credit venerable Bede, when he tells us in his ecclefiaftical hiftory, that the abbefs of the monaftery of Vetadun, in the time of St. John of Beverly, that is, A. D. 720, had a carnal daughter (as Bede expreffes it) who was a nun of that houfe. And what we read in the Sieur de Valprivaz may have happened, to wit, that prince Selred, the fon of Sigibert the good, having visited a monaftery of men and women, feparated by a wall, according

Ff2

cording to the cuftom of that time, and governed by an abbefs; which monastery was founded by his ancestors; he approved the good order of every thing in it, except the number of the pricfts and nuns, which in his opinion was inverted, for, inftead of forty nuns and twenty priefts, faid he to the abbefs, it would have been more proper, if there had been forty priefts, and only twenty nuns. The abbess perceived what the prince meant, and anfwered him in these words; Sir, the thing is not fo ill contrived as you might fanfy. You are not to wonder at our numbers. There are twenty nuns for twenty priests; and the other twenty are for ftrangers. Monfieur, cela n'a pas efté fi mal a propos que vous penferiez bien, et ne vous en fault emerveiller; car des quarante nonnains il y en a vingt pour les vingt preftres, et les autres vingt font pour les allous et furvenans (a).

All this may be true perhaps, and many other ftorys to the fame purpose, collected within the large territorys of the church of Rome; but to argue from thence, that all the cloysters are bad, is ridiculous in reasoning, and unjust in judging. Lewdness in any fhape is no more favored by the church of Rome than by the church of England. As

(a) Diverfes Leçons. book iv. p. 257.

Tournon 1604. edit. 5.

before

before declared, I have been well acquainted with many Roman catholic female recluses, and have correfponded with several of them, and can affirm, that among women I have not found more beautiful and upright minds. In all the converfations I had with them, in every letter I had the honor of receiving from them, (and fine letters fome of them are) they manifefted fuch a temper and behavior towards God, as becomes his excellencies, and cur relations to him. Every woman of them deferves an infcription on the tomb-stone like those we found on the monuments of the ladies in the Green Ifland. In one thing only they were culpable. Their worship was

wrong.

This, and a perfecuting principle, is what renders popery a curfed thing. The reprobates excepted (and what communion is without them); there have been, and are in the Romish communion, priefts and nuns of every order, as glorious moral characters as ever have appeared in human nature. My acquaintance among the people called catholics hath been very large. I have lived among them in feveral countrys: I have been in their houses for months, and paffed much time with them in their ferious and their feftal hours, and I do affure you, Fewks, that if I have met among the priests a few reverend monsters of this church; as meet I

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A reflexion

on popery.

did; I have already mentioned one mafs priest who debauched a proteftant lady of my acquaintance in converting her to popery (a); yet, on the other hand, I have spent many evenings with a great number of priests and friars, who were admirable men, not only on account of a fine delightful learning, but for that fobriety which includes all the perfonal duties, and felf-government; that righteoufnefs which includes all we ought to do to our fellow-creatures; and that godliness which they thought the religion of God.

This is the teftimony of an enemy; an enemy to popery, not to the profeffors of it. I love the men; I hate the thing. The thing called popery, Jewks, is an extravagance of blind credulity and implicit faith, which deftroys the juft, exalted fentiments we ought to have of the Deity, and robs mankind of civil and religious liberty. It dishonors almighty God and his Mediator, by the tritheifm of St. Athanafius, and the adoration of a boft in the Eucharift; by an univerfal dominion afcribed to the Virgin Mary, and plalters, creeds, litanys, and hymns, applyed to her (b); by praying to a thousand patron fuperiorities, and with an immense vene

(a) The lady is ftill living; the priest was drowned. (b) See St. Bonaventure's works, licensed by the pope: And contemplations of the life and glory of holy Mary, published permiffu fuperiorum. There are befides thefe a hundred books and offices which prove the thing.

ration,

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