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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29779	The late converts exposed, or, The reasons of Mr. Bays's changing his religion considered in a dialogue : part the second : with reflections on the life of St. Xavier, Don Sebastian King of Portugal, as also the fable of the bat and the birds.	Brown, Thomas, 1663-1704.	1690 (1690)	Wing B5061; ESTC R13424	82,114	78

Mediator only that makes continual intercession for us and she has been so civil as to furnish us with above forty thousand Universal Tradition has handed down to us but twenty two books in the Old Testament and she has added the Apocrypha and may in due time if she summons another Council at Trent introduce the Talmud into the Canon Thus Mr. Bays your Catholick Church has improv'd the Christian Religion with a witness made the Porch bigger than the Building it self and renew'd the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes where the voider exceeded the Bill of fare Eugen. Let us now turn the Tables Mr. Bays and see whether your Church continues still in this giving humour it would certainly exhaust the treasure of any Church in the Universe to be always issuing out largesses and never retrenching her expence and therefore it may be worth our while to examine whether the Roman Church that has been guilty of so much profuseness one way has not made as many retrenchments another way to ballance her accounts The Apostles left us the Scriptures in common as a part of our property and inheritance but she for certain prudential considerations has thought to keep them under Lock and Key Crites Primitive Institution left us the Sacrament under both kinds Bibite ex hoc omnes is the word but she has retrench'd us of the Cup. Our Religion allows us a free possession of our Reason and Senses but she obliges us to renounce them The Scriptures only forbid Marriage within the degrees of Consanguinity but she has forbid it within the degrees even of a spiritual Relation Eugen. The Apostles left us at large exempt from the Iewish observations of clean and unclean but she has introduced them again Praestat nubere quam uri says you know who no by no means cries the Hind let the Priests rather commit Incest Sodomy and Adultery than be allow'd the liberty to Marry Thus you see Mr. Bays what the Sea gives in one place it takes away in another and thus your Mother Church of Rome if she gives with the right hand she takes away with the left to make amends for her extraordinary charges just as you see some Gentlemen of this end of the Town discard their Servants and pinch their Families to put themselves in a capacity of keeping a Glass-Coach and a single pair of Horses Bays Well Gentlemen you have both of you run your selves out of breath with this discourse but not a word all this while of Infallibility Crites Oh dear Confessor I am obliged to you for refreshing my memory as to that point for I love Infallibility extreamly I am clearly of thy opinion little Bays that Infallibility if it were any where to be found were worth both Testaments and cast all the Creeds in Christendom into the bargain and now I 'll tell you a Story There was a certain Country Gentleman no matter for his Name or where he lived but he had read the Sadducismus Triumphatus and was so mightily taken with Dr. More 's Notion of a Vehicle that he could not rest till he had bought him a Vehicle call'd in English a Calash so he eat and drank in his Vehicle and slept in his Vehicle and lay with his Wife in his Vehicle and got an Heir Apparent upon her Virtuous body in his Vehicle and Vehicle was his Name a. Baye And what of all this prithee Here 's a Story with all my heart Crites Why as foolish as it is it shall serve for a Vehicle to another story which is of a certain Tooth-drawer of my acquaintance that lived in the Strand Bays The Devil take your Tooth-drrwer for me what have I to do with him I am affraid your story will prove as troublesome to me as a fit of the Tooth-ach Crites A very good jest i'saith I protest dear Rogue thou begin'st to mend upon it Why this same fellow you must understand had made a shift out of some Church-yard or other to pick up some two or three hundred Teeth and hung them on a string before his Shop to perswade the World that he was a man of great business in his Mystery of Tooth-drawing but all would not do no body came nigh him so he was ready to starve and as he has since told me he was brought to those extremities that he resolved one Friday about eight in the morning to draw his own Teeth out and his Wives and his little Daughter Bettys and hang them on a string because there was no occasion for them in his Family he having not a bit of bread in his House to employ them At last says a friend of his to whom he made known his condition to him Iack come down with your Sign and set up a new one with this Inscription Here lives an Operator in Teeth that draws all manner of old Srumps and rotten Gums without any manner of pain most Infallibly and I 'll engage that within this fortnight thou shalt have as much business as thou canst turn thy hands to He followed the advice and wou'd you believe it Mr. Bays got the greatest practice of any Touth-drawer in City or Country In one Week as I was credibly inform'd the last year he drew the Teeth of a hundred and fifty Courtiers besides of half the Court of Aldermen and my Lord Mayor's into the bargain and he has so well batten'd upon his profession that he 's in a fair way now to keep his Vehicle Bays Keep his Vehicle so let him and be hanged an he pleases Why what 's all this to the purpose Crites Oh very much Sir for even so a certain Gentleman at Rome do ye mind me Mr. Bays when he was only Bishop of Rome and nothing else he had scarce Money enough to set his Pot a boyling but when he once got the Tooth-drawer's trick of Writing Here lives Infallibility on his Sign why then he had customers from all parts of the World and in a short time got so much Money from his Clients that he scorns now to trudge it a foot as his Predecessors used to do and keeps a sett of brawny fat Porters to carry him on their Shoulders Bays Nay he that has the patience Mr. Crites to hear you tell a story may defie I think all the plagues on this side Hell as a declaiming Parliamentman a Case-repealing Templar a Quibling Justice of Peace and an University Critick This is all Sir and so farewel Eugen. How Mr. Bays have you so soon forgot your Philosopher Socrates Come I see I must remind you of him once an hour at least or you 'll be apt to renounce his acquaintance Why prithee man he 's only in jest and there 's no harm in what he says therefore let it not to use Mr. Shadwell's expression disturb the serene tranquillity of thy sagacious Soul Bays At your entreaty dear Mr. Eugenius I 'le go on and to let you see what dexterity I use in my Ergotering

consequently don 't stand in need of 'em and as for the Miracles of our Saviour and the Apostles we have as good a title to 'em as you can have As for what relates to all those stupid ill-contriv'd prodigies and delusions by which the Monks have supported their superstitious practises ever since the days of Gregory the Great to whom Trajan was more beholding than to his Master Plutarch for he pray'd him out of Hell much good may they do you and if I had a mind to curse any one heartily methinks I cou'd not do it more effectually than by wishing him the late Quakers stomach to devour all manner of Offel and for the second course a faith capacious enough to believe all the senseless stories in Iacobus de Voragine and L' Escole d' Euchariste Crites Under favour Mr. Bays I wou'd not have you rely too much upon the argument of Miracles for to my certain knowledge the best and the most gainful nay I was going to say the only distinguishing Doctrine of your Church scorns as much to be defended by a Miracle as a Gentleman of the Town wou'd scorn to take a Poet or a Parson for his Second in a Duel Eugen. The Doctrine my Friend is talking of Mr. Bays will never pass the Ordeal of miracle for to prove Transubstantiation a tenet that contradicts all our Senses by a Miracle which is a formal appeal to 'em is as solemn a piece of nonsense as to go about to prove one of Euclid's propositions out of Littleton's Tenures or the circulation of the Blood out of Dr. Chamberlain's Apology for Man-midwifery Crites In this case Mr. Bays a Miracle does the same mischief as the Saxons did in the case of the poor Britains it ruines the very cause it was sent for to support If you believe a Miracle is as I told you an appeal to the Sences 't is as impossible then to justifie Transubstantiation by one as if you admit a Dispensing Power to suppose there can be any such thing in the World as an inviolable Magna Charta for Liberty of Conscience Eugenius But why Mr. Bays should you expect that condescension in the Almighty Poet as you are pleas'd to call him which you wou'd severely condemn in an ordinary Tragedian You know what Horace says to this point and perhaps he 's as good a Casuist in the matter as any of your Trent-Divines Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus Intererit Now most of your pretended Miracles are delivered down to us by a pack of such dreaming unthinking Sots were wrought in such obscure places under the protection of such a Barbarous Age and what chiefly moves me were performed for such trival insignificant ends except you think the enriching a few strowling Spiritual jugglers cause enough to put Heaven to the perpetual expence of Miracles that I had much rather believe there was never any such thing as a Miracle since the Creation than receive all for such that your Priests have recounted as I can sooner perswade my self there was never such a person as King Arthur than that he perform'd all those mighty exploits that the History relates of him Crites Now we are upon this Subject Mr. Bays there goes a Golden saying of King Iames the first Cited by my Lord of St. Albans Kings ought to govern by the received Laws of their Country as God by the ordinary rules of Nature and ought as seldom to make use of their Prerogative as God does of his power of Miracles Bays And what of all that Mr. Crites Crites Why in my opinion 't is the noblest Apothegm that ever any Prince in the World was guilty of and I wish one of his Successors had followed the advice I have not without a great deal of regret observed in the late Reign that the very same persons who make the Almighty so familiarly violate the Laws upon of Nature every frivolous account were the men that perswaded his Vicegerent the late unfortunate King to dispense with that is to break half the Laws of his Land and all for the noble end of gratifying a few Starving Irishmen hungry Converts impudent Priests and needy Officers Now as the Prerogative must needs grow very Cheap when it is prostituted to every sawcy Petitioner so must the power of Miracles certainly fall into contempt when they are challenged upon every inconsiderable pretence Eugenius To the shame of your Church be it spoken the Heathen Poets were a great deal more civil to the Deity than the writers of the Saints Lives among you have been They never Subpaena him to appear on the Stage or to hazard himself in a Machine but when an intricate perplex'd affair happens which only a Iupiter or an Apollo is capable of unravelling But 't is otherwise with the Monks for they 'l scarce let the Saint whom they recommend Eat or Drink or Sleep or go to Stool without a Miracle to keep him Company he never makes the sign of a Cross but the Devil is in as great a fear as an overgrown Bawd at the sight of an unmerciful Justice and when the freak takes him to Preach alone in the Fields as St. Francis and St. Anthony have done the Birds and Beasts make an Audience for him and listen to his harangue with as much Complaisance and attention as a Midwife to a discourse of a Procreation or a City Prentice to a story of Knight-errantry Bays And is not this a down right Calumny Mr. Eugenius Why do you father any such reproachful things on the writers of our Communion I dare engage to forfeit all my Acres in Parnassus if a Syllable of such extravagant stuff as you have mention'd is to be found in any of their Books Eugenius Why thou art as unacquainted I perceive with the Historians of your own Church as a Iapannese with the affairs of Europe or the Lyncei at Rome with the Beaux of Covent-Garden Therefore prithee do but read some half a score Pages in any of the Volumes of Bollandus for your house Mr. Bays is no more able to contain the whole Book than it is to lodge a whole Troop of Horse and you 'l find to your great satisfaction how finely you have Fool'd your self out of your Plantation in Parnassus He and Father Cressy and the rest of your Miracle-mongers have served those excellent persons whose Lives they pretended to write just as some late Translators have served our friend Horace that instead of making him more 't is your own observation Mr. Bays have made him less So that I fancy what Mr. Cowly has advised in his Ode about Wit Iewels at Nose and Ears but ill appear Rather than all be Wit let none be there Ought to be carefully observ'd in the present case rather than every thing that any of your Saints does be Miracle let not so much as one single Miracle be seen about him Bays But what say you Gentlemen to the Life of St.

Infallibly true and the Roman Church of which he was so Zealous a Member teaches nothing disagreeable to the Will of Heaven This is the summ and substance of the Book is it not Mr. Bays Bays No body makes a question on 't as I know of Crites Very good Now say I what advantage cou'd the Author propose to himself by Writing such a Book He knew very well that we Hereticks did not believe a Syllable of the Miracles wrought here by the Fathers of the Society in Europe and did he then imagine we could ever be brought to believe all their pretended Miracles in the East-Indias This is such a piece of stuff as if a man that ask'd me to lend him half a Crown and I thought fit to deny him that small summ should therefore desire me to lend him a Guinea Negavi Mille tibi nummes millia quinque dabo No Mr. Bays our understandings are not altogether so Irish as to be thus impos'd upon The late Leige-Letters and the fine account they sent to Rome of the progresses they made in Converting the three Kigdoms have sufficiently instructed us what a share of Faith is to be given to the Disciples of Ignatius If a Protestant had been worth the saving methinks they might have allow'd us one Miracle at least here at home It had been as necessary I am sure as in China or Iapan Eugenius So now Mr. Bays what Complements have you in store for this honest friend of yours Oh 't is a fine thing to have one's performances commended by a person of judgment it comforts and relieves the poor heart infinitely beyond Daffy's Elixir or the Ros Florentinus Bays Nay I gad I think the Devil himself can't tell me to which of you two I am the most indebted Crites Besides Mr. Bays there are ten thousand passages in that History even too gross for a Laplander's apprehension Cou'd not the honest Father drop his Crucifix in the Sea but a Crab must be presently employ'd to bring it ashore Cou'd not he go a Ship-board as well as other People upon their Lawful occasions without entailing a Miracle upon it and preserving it afterwards from the injuries of wind and weather Cou'd not he dye after the usual rate of mankind but an Old Image at his Father's Castle must out of pure pitty drip at the very same moment Cou'd not a poor Taper or so burn before his Image but the very droppings of it must immediately cure all manner of Infirmities Cou'd not he be content to instruct the Infidels after the plain manner of the Old Apostles without teaching them the Confiteor and the Ave-Mary and leaving them that foolish Catechism which you may find copied in Ludovicus Dieu Cou'd he with any safe conscience reprove the Bonza's for cheating the poor people of their Money and pretending to return it them with Usury in the next World and then instruct them in the Doctrines of his Mother Church about private Masses and Purgatory which practises the very self same Imposture Bays Well Sir after this rate you may ridicule every thing in the World if you please Crites I profess Mr. Bays I don't see any reason why the Saint should fall so severely upon those Indian Recluses the Bonza's as the History informs us he did since they led no other lives than the Monks generally do here in Christendom they pretended to a great deal of austerity when they walked abroad and in their private Cells gave themselves over to all the licentiousness imaginable Hypocrisie was their peculiar Talent and they were expert masters at the Trade one principle they held which is I am sure Orthodox enough and very agreeable to the sentiments of your Church viz. that Poverty is a damnable sin and no one can be saved who has not the grace to be Rich. Methinks for the sake of this single Doctrine the Pious Father might have been enclin'd to pass by their other infirmities and look upon 'em not as meer Infidels and Aliens but as half-converts and fellow-labourers in the Vineyard Eugen. My Friend has already told you Mr. Bays to what little purpose the Author writ the History of St. Xavier Prithee then tell me what advantages you cou'd propose to your self in the Translating it Was it to get a pretty round sum of money or so from your friend T-ns-n Come I saith Little Rogue thou must tell me the reason Bays Must Mr Eugenius What do you give the Must to a man of my Character and Gravity Were Reasons as cheap as Black-berries I 'de not give you one I gad upon compulsion What must give you a Reason dear Mr. Eugenius Eugenius Why if that won't do Mr. Bays I intreat and conjure thee as thou hopest for no Famine in this World and no Gnashing of Teeth in the next nay as thou hopest for preferment for the Virtuous Sons of thy Body and a good Third Day for the last issue of thy brain Don Sebastian to acquaint me with the Reason why thou didst undertake the aforesaid Translation Bays Nay now you accost me with Civil Language and all that I can deny you nothing You must know then that 't was purely done for the sake of the Late Queen when she gave the people hopes of obliging 'em with a Prince of Wales St. Xavier was the Card she depended upon and let me tell you he 's a Person that never fails to oblige his Votaries Eugen. The reason is because he has liv'd but a short while in the Calender but when he has passed an age or two there 't is ten to one but he 'l grow as sleepy and unmindful of his Clients as the rest of his Brother Saints have done We see the same things practised by our Lawyers when they first set up for themselves nothing can be more diligent in attending all manner of Causes than they are but when they have once acquir'd a Reputation and an Estate you may dance attendance a long while at their Chambers before you can get 'em to mind your business Crites I find Mr. Bays you of the Church of Rome are as passionately affected for a new Saint as the Gentlemen at this end of the Town are for a new Play a new Tavern and a new Mistress you know how the late famous Cardinal of Millain St. Carlo has overtopt the name of venerable St. Ambrose But prithee tell me how St. Xavier came to be pitcht upon in this weighty affair one that had herded so long amongst the Indians and besides was not half so well acquainted with the condition of Europe as his contemporaries St. Ignatius and St. Francis de Sales were Bays For a very good reason Sir The late Queen-mother of France you must understand for a long time had no Children and tho she used the most effectual means in the world to remove her barreness as the Eugen. As the help of Cardinal Mazarine Bays Prithee Mr. Eugenius don't disturb me thus as the Prayers