see that Canting will move a passion as well as a Crucifix but methinks your Charity is very narrow to allow none to be saved but your selves and the House of Commons Ph. You and I may differ in some matters of Faith but I am sure we are Brethren in the measures of Charity for we are both agreed to damn all the world but our selves the only difference is that I am for plain right-down damming but you are for the Ceremonies of Malediction and must Curse with the Superstitions of B â—ll Book and Candle Po. But how can your Conscience dispense with so much profane Burlesque to serve a Popular Interest Ph. I think your Conscience is as well matcht as our Charity your Jesuits first taught me the art of Canting nay and to Cant too upon the very Canticum Canticorum for you know the Virgin Mary is the great Goddess of Rome as the Good Old Cause is the Diana of Geneva and you have been guilty of more Blasphemy in Devotion to the One than ever I Canted in the service of the Other Your Jesuit Poza in his Elucidarium Deiparae lib. 2. p. 477. hath told the world that excepting the Hypostatical Vnion the Conception of the Virgin was more miraculous than that of Jesus and that the Virgin may be called not only the Mother but the Father of Christ p. 485. he would make us believe that her Body had such a perfection of Beauty and Symmetry that her formation was the work of Forty Ages lib. 3. p. 939. and thus the Heavens and the Earth which at most took but six days in framing must be thought the slight and careless dash of Omnipotence but the Creation of the Virgin Mary must be the only Elaborate work and design of Infinite Wisdom And tho' Paul hath told us that we must all be Changed before we can be fitted for that Celestial State yet Poza excepts the Virgin and tells us her Natural Beauty was so Angelical that she shall suffer no Alteration and that God himself can add no greater Perfection to her at the Resurrection of the dead And that her Stature was as prodigious as her Beauty he proves by this Argument The Virgins Smock which Charles the Great Lodged in the Cathedral of Aquisgran at his return from Constantinople A. D. 810. Was more than Two Ells Long and then making allowance for her Head and considering that Sacred Linnen did not touch the Ground and it is as plain as any demonstration in Euclid that she was wonderous Tall. The Beauty of some particular Parts he draws from the Canticles as that her Eyes were of an Olive-green appears from Canticles 7. 4. Thine Eyes are like the Fish-pools in Heshbon Now because the Text is not clear at first sight therefore it is enlightned by an Ingenious Gloss that the Fish-ponds of Heshbon are Green by reflexion of the Verdant Banks and Trees and then 't is as Evident as your Supremacy from Gen. 1. 16. That her Nose was strong and placed true as a Meridian in the Midst of her Face he Learnedly proves from Cant. 7. 4. Thy Nose is as the Tower of Lebanon which looketh towards Damascus That her Lips were of a pure Vermilion is past dispute from Cant. 4. 3. Thy Lips are like a thred of Scarlet That her Teeth were White and Well-set is put past question from Cant. 4. 2. Thy Teeth are like a stock of Sheep that are even shorn which came up from the washing That her Neck was Long and well shap'd is demonstrated from Cant. 4. 4. Thy Neck is like the Tower of David c. Po. You must know that the Italians Spanish and French are Nations of an Amorous Temper and therefore an extravagant delineation of the Virgins Beauty does much contribute to the devotion of that people and what you think Ridiculous in England is Religious in Italy Ph. And what you think Ridiculous in Italy will pass for Religion in England I understand the English Temper as well as you do the Italian and don't question but My Mode of Canting will prevail as much in London as Yours does at Rome if I can procure Stages Po. I do grant that you are well accomplisht in this charming Science and that your Incantations must be effectual upon the Vulgus but what Other Arts have you to propagate the Good Old Cause Ph. That no power may ever cut off the entail of the Good Old Cause we are resolved to give the Covenant to our Children from Generation to Generation as the dying Laplanders bequeath their Familiars and by this politick method We and our Brethren in Lapland shall perpetuate the Succession of Rebellion and Witchcraft Po. This Policy may make the Cause Immortal but what is the reason we have seen so few Popular Pamphlets of late for tho' the times will not allow you to draw the Sword yet your Covenanting hand is obliged to employ the Pen in defence of the Good Old Cause Ph. I know that Seditious Pamphlets are excellent Hand-granadoes and with these I have oft fired the Tinder of the Town and all the Chaff and Stubble in the Country but now I am haunted with Old Nobs the Bellman the Varlet dogs me at every corner and as soon as ever I give fire he flies upon the Squib with his Extinguisher and this is not all the mischief neither for when he spies the first spark he cries fire fire and the Villain has got such a Speaking Trumpet that his voice is heard from Dan to Beersheba and so the Nation is Allarm'd and my designs defeated This is he that Expounded all the Algebra of Algernon and the Riddles of Russell's Speech Po. Pray what is this Nobs Ph. He is Founder of a New Popish Order called Observators and his business is to be the Kings Spectacle-maker for by the help of his Glasses every Poreblind Tory can plainly read my Plots and Intrigues tho' close set in a Geneva Print Po. I have heard of this pestilent fellow and have reason to believe him as much my Enemy as yours and if he be not silenc'd he will do us more mischief than all the Guns in the Tower I wonder you don't plant him upon Primrose-hill or however methinks your Guinny Company might bring over a Couple of Blacks to accuse him for a Roman Censor and Swear they saw my Nuntio pay him a Pension of a Thousand Guinny's Ph. I knew this would be the most Infallible Method to blast his Reputation and therefore I did accuse him of Popery but could not find one Believer in all the Privy Council But I hope the Northern Stars will take the Covenant again in spight of Gadbury and if ever I come to wear the Law by my side and Magna Charta in my Pocket I 'le mount Old Momus upon the top of the Monument he shall dye like himself and hang with the most Vniversal Observation Po. I am convinc'd that it will be impossible
the Bench for a Million of Crowns for then I had lost all hopes of the Royal Blood and eternally ruined my whole interest in England I c â—nfess my continued Intrigues for Indulgence and all the softer methods of insinuation to propagate my Religion but as for those daring adventures of Treason and Regicide they are All your own and therefore I declare in spight of Satan and Salamanca that I knew no more of a Plot against the Life of the King then the Groaning-board Ph. Alas Sir you never yet had an Act of Oblivion and therefore your Parisian and Irish Massacres your Smithfield Fires and your Gunpowder Treason though acted long since are more fresh in memory than my late Murder of Charles the First and if I Swear you Guilty all the Tongues of Men and Angels can't perswade the people that you are Pope INNOCENT Po. Well I do hope that Time or the Gallows will give you Grace to confess the Cheat in the mean time I must tell you that if you had charged me with a Plot of any Honourable contrivance or plausible Perjury I should have pardoned such a meritorious forgery but to bring me upon the Stage in a Fools-coat and Cap to make my Nobles and Priests to act the parts of Bedlams this was a Sham and Effrontery that must be resented You know that the Court of Rome hath been more famous for Policy than Divinity and I have by finess and artifice ruined more Kings than ever you knew and can it be reconciled to common Reason or Interest that we should trust the Arcana of our Roman Empire and those Sacred endearments of Lives and Fortunes to the Mercy and Management of a Company of Banditi Renegadoes and Lazarillo's whose Iniquity and Indigence must certainly betray us Had you told the people that there was a mighty Spanish Armada seen at Anchor on Salisbury Plaines it had been as probable a Romance as your Forty Thousand Pilgrims from Spain And as for the Murder of Sir E.B.G. It fell out unluckily the laying of the Scene in Somerset-house for it looks a little odly that the Thames gliding by the walls of that Palace the Murderers of that unfortunate Gentleman should not in that Critical juncture have endeavoured an eternal concealment of the Murder especially there being at hand so easie and so safe a conveyance to the Thames where with less weight than a Milstone he might have been sunk 'till Dooms-day but the overseeing this ready advantage and the exposing his Body above ground nigh the passage to an Imperial City look'd like Frenzy beyond all the extravagancies and costacies of Bedlam you might as well have reported that I had cut my own Throat or leapt off the Monument And it is a miracle to me how you could gain a belief of so wonderful a Proceeding Ph. Why Sir the very word Pope is Enchantment and hath a prodigious power of Infatuation upon the people of England For suppose I should Invent a Plot as dark and confused as the first Chaos whose Monstrosities could out-do all the Fables of Talmud and Alcoran Allow me but the Harangues of a Presbyterian One-and-Forty-Parliament to Eccho the noise of a Popish Plot and the People would believe it as great a Truth as the Pharisees Conspiracy against Jesus but to conclude this Sir I spoke the Prologue to the Popish Plot before the Parliament at Westminster And at Oxford the King unhappily spoke the Epilogue and so FINIS and FITS-HARRIS Po. But Brother you know that the Good Old Cause which is our Common Interest amounts to no less than a Supremacy over all the Kings of the Earth and that is so Sweet and Glorious a Sovereignty that I hope you will never give over your designs for That fift Monarchy or Kingdom of Christ as you wisely phrase it Ph. Never suspect it my zeal is too warm and obstinate to be discouraged by a Disappointment and as long as my Numbers can merit the name of Legion or Association so long I will have the grace to persevere and therefore having shed a little blood by a falsifying blow but missing my chief aim in the Popish Plot I still pursued the same design only shifting the Scene from Rome to Geneva And now enter Anthony and the Giant Ferguson with Six Trumpeters attended with Forty brave Sons of Anak Arm'd with Sword and Blunderbus followed by a mighty train tyed together with Green Ribbands Now Sir you know that the Saints have diversity of Gifts and difference in Operation My Presbyterian was for destroying the King after the English fashion by the more generous and Religious procedure of a Civil War or the Popular Authority of a High Court of Justice My Independent Zelots were for Killing the King Alamode de France and like your St. Clement and Raviliac resolved upon the surest and shortest method of Assassination Your Jesuit Mariana and My Junius Brutus have resolved the Case that if a Prince invades our Religious Rights or Civil Properties he is by your Divinity and Mine decreed a Tyrant And then we are agreed on both sides that a Tyrant is a State-Behemoth and to kill such a Beast of Prey is not only Justice but Merit What Sainted our George but the killing of a Dragon and when David slew the Lion and the Bear and cut off the head of the Uncircumcised Philistine he was a Hero but no Assassin Po. I grant that if a Prince affront our humour or Interest we have an ancient privilege to censure him for an Her â—tick or a Tyrant But in this Age I dare not own the Consequence of Assassination not that this Modesty proceeds from any nicety of Conscience but Policy and Interest oblige me to dissemble that Grim Divinity And whatever you pretend I know the Duke hath a greater Endearment for his Brother than he hath for the Pope and I do easily foresee that if the King should fall by the hand of a Papist the Duke would in abhorrence of the Fact declare himself a Protestant nothing would appease his revenging mind but a Massacre of the Papists in England or the Ashes of Rome Indeed if I were again Lord Paramount of Christendom and had Crowns for Styrrups and could mount my horse upon the back of Kings as formerly I have done Or if my Numbers in England were as great as yours I should then no more scruple the hard words of Association or Assassination than you do but in my present Circumstances I can only dance in a Court-Mask with Caress and Complaisance But I must leave You to Act the rougher Scenes of Tragedy Ph. Nay I am satisfied that your present temper is but Politick dissimulation for I am certain as long as you are Pope you must be of my opinion in the matter of Princes and so long I will own you for a Brother But if ever you dwindle into a Bishop of Rome and an Apostolick slavery to Crowns Imperial I shall hate your Episcopacy
not you as much Antichrist as the Turk or the Jew and more than the Devil when you vented that blasphemous saying O quantum nobis profuit haec fabula Christi I confess the Kingdom of Christ was the Title to my Holy War but I never gain'd so much by that Name as you have done alas what were the Spoils and Plunders of three Kingdoms compar'd to the vast Revenues of your Triple Crown Well I don't question but in this Age to see the downfall of Rome And tho' the Grand Visir was the last year unfortunate yet remember that your Peters Cathedral hath a Cupola after the mode of the Turkish Moschs and it may yet follow the Fate of Sancta Sophia Po. If Rome be Mystical Babylon or the chief seat of the Beast as the Hereticks phrase it My comfort is that the Turk and You are the Half-moons and Out-works of Antichrist You must be first batter'd down before the fall of Babylon But I am weary of this raillery let us return to your unfortunate Conspiracy Did Your Martyrs go off with as much Gallantry as mine Those Roman Heroes whom you offer'd up in Sacrifice to your Moloch tho' they were persons of different Education and Tempers yet had so clear an innocence that with dying Vows they disown'd the whole Scene of the Popish Plot The Lord Stafford's Speech look'd like the plain meaning of dying innocence and not like the Artificial composure of any Northern Jesuit Ph. Your Doctrines of Equivocation and Mental Reservation have possest the People with such an inveterate prejudice that the Papists can have no method of Credibility Suppose the Lord Stafford had out-done the Legend of your St. Dennis and after the Axe had given the fatal blow should have leapt upright and taken his Head under his Arm and walk'd in solemn Parade from the Scaffold to the House of Commons and with the Tongue of Men and Angels should have spoken his innocence I could easily have shamm'd the Miracle and perswaded the people it was no more than one of the deceivable works or lying wonders of Antichrist Thess. 2. 2. For I have this advantage that the Populace will believe a Presbyterian as much as Moses and the Prophets but they will not be perswaded that a Papist spake true tho' he rose from the dead Po. But were none of your Martyrs Conf â—ssors Ph. Truly Sir I begin to have a very favourable opinion of Auricular Confession for I see no publick mischief in those private whispers but as for that lowd Confession from Carts and Scaffolds before Guards and Lictors and throngs of Observators this is base Unpolitick and Treacherous but the fatal discovery forced me into a nice dilemma for there was so much honourable Evidence against me that if I had denied the whole matter I must have been suspected for an Atheist and if I had confess 't the whole Plot I must have been Branded for a Fool therefore to avoid the Imputations of Atheisme and Imprudence I advised my Protomartyrs to make such cloudy confessions and mystical denials that the Tories thought there was enough confest to believe the whole conspiracy and my Whigs and Trimmers thought there was so much denied as they saw reason to believe there was no Plot at all But alas Sir though popular delusion be an easie Art yet I find it impossible to put a Sham upon the King or the Blazing Star I can't impose upon the wisdom of the one nor escape the influence of the other Po. But what have you no Crutches for the Good Old Cause to support her in her decrepit Age but will you suffer her to drop and dye Ph. Truly I begin to despond for in the days of Charles the First our designs met such a prosperous and prodigious success that I thought Providence it self had taken the Covenant but now fortune runs counter to all my Old Stratagems as if the Stars were turned Tories and all the Angels Abhorrers When first my Scottish Brethren took Arms and Covenant in defence of Kirk and Conscience and Charles the First marched down with a Potent Army able to have swallowed any thing in Scotland but the Covenant then he was Graciously pleased to make a civil Pacification with my Pious dissemblers and that peace was the first piece of his Scaffold but now when my Field-Conventiclers of Scotland Preached up their Natural Religion of Reb â—llion upon the head of a Drum and for an use of Terror took Sword and Musquet to assert their Champain Divinity presently Charles the Second sends express order to fight them and which is worse he beat them too Charles the First was so confiding that he trusted the Parliament with those Royal trifles Magazines and Militia But Charles the Second like the Politick Philistine hath disarm'd the people of the Lord and would not have one Sword nor Sphere found in all the hands of Israel but as for himself he is so far from being unguarded that White-hall looks more like a Garrison than a Palace and the Tower more formidable than your Castle of St. Angelo and if his Exchequer were as full as his Magazines and his Plate-fleet were proportioned to his Men of War he would affright both Rome and Carthage Monsieur and Mahomet Charles the First did grant us that mighty power to dissolve the King and perpetuate the Parliament but now I am afraid this King will live for ever while Parliaments like Mortal Creatures are exposed to the frailties of Prorogations and Dissolutions and the fainting fits of Trienninal Intervals There was a time when Charles the First was so contemptible that we look't upon him as the meer Signe of the Kings Head and then my Heroick Commons could pass that daring Vote of Non-addresses but the Life and Honour of this King is valued at such a Rate that we are plagued with Addresses from all Quarters and such Addresses too as tend more to make him a Sultan than a Sacrifice for a long time our Gazets were so crowded with County and Corporation-Addresses that there was no room for the Imperial Army or the French Troops nay the Turk and the Dutch were excluded as if there had been no business in the World but Addressing we had nothing but Lost Dogs Straied Horses and Renegado's to bring up the rear of the Tory Addressers In our prosperous days the very Tail of the Commons could whip off the Head of a King but now the hand of the King hath taken off the Head of the Commons thus my fortune is reverst and I fear I shall be forced either to repent or despair and those are both desperate extremities Po. I remember that in our first conference you made your Critical remark upon that Crucifying Lesson which by the course of the English Calendar falls upon the 30th of January and next upon the 29th of May and did conclude upon this unforeseen appointment that Providence had design'd you to act over the same Tragedy again
and scorn your Alliance But what did you mean by that sneakish Anathema in the Council of Constance to reprobate that Heroick Thesis that any Subject whatsoever not only might but was obliged to destroy a Tyrant either by open violence or by any private ambush or artifice Po. This Decree was occasion'd by the Impudence of your Rebel Ancestors the True Protestant Hussites of Bohemia who declared it as an Article of their reforming Divinity that if a Prince were a Criminal he did by his crimes forfeit his Crown and any one might with impunity despoil him of that Authority to which in their opinion he had then no Title Now you must know that the Golden Trade of disposing Crowns and Kingdoms was the Monopoly of Rome and I only claim the Prerogative of Religions Regicide and therefore when your Hussites and Taborites became Interlopers it was my Interest to decree that none should destroy Kings but my self But to speak truth to a Brother there was at that time Three Heads that did pretend to the Triple Crown and the Church of Rome being under that distraction might pass that Canon as a Complement to the Emperour who had the chief influence and management of That Council but I cannot find that Pope Martin the fifth or Eugenius or any of their Roman Successors did ever Ratify that Anathema and therefore it having no Pontifical sanction I have left my self as much power and freedom to destroy and depose Kings as ever I had before the Council of Constance and if ever the Stars be again Popishly-affected you shall see me reassume my Thunders with a Non obstante I grant that we must assert the Papal and Popular Supremacy by maintaining our deposing and Assassinating Divinity for this will be a mighty awe upon Princes and without this we can never propagate our Good Old Cause but the Cavaliering Clergy of the Church of England have cursed arguments against this our Common Principle and in my opinion my Jesuit Mariana has not answer'd them with sufficient satisfaction and I would gladly hear how your Sophistry can respond to those desperate objections but at this time I will only mention their Argument drawn from Antiquity They tell us that the Christians of the first three hundred years had a greater advantage of understanding the Laws and Temper of Christianity than we can pretend to at the distance of sixteen Centuries and though these Christians lived under Emperours who were Pagans and Tyrants too yet they quietly suffer'd all the Invasions upon their Lives Liberties and Properties that a Tyrannick malice and power could contrive or execute and yet in the History of those Ages we Read of the Noble Army of Martyrs but not of One Rebel or Assassin among all the Christian Legions Ph. Do you account this such a formidable Argument Po. Yes indeed in my opinion it looks severely and if you can take it off you deserve to be Superior to the whole order of Jesuits Ph. Well then First I answer that it is very probable it was a Christian Souldier that Murdered Julian in his Persian expedition and that Souldier was the only True-Protestant or Papist in all the Roman Army But if a meer probability have not weight enough then I grant them the opinion of some of their admired ancients that Julian was slain by an Angel now it cannot be fancied that an Evil Angel should smite an Apostate Brother for it could not be the Interest of the Devil to destroy such an eminent Devoto to his Empire And if he were dispatch't by Gabriel or Michael or any other of the Heavenly Host then we have a precedent from Heaven for the killing of Tyrants upon Earth and why should not the Saints be Assassins as well as Angels especially considering that those flaming Spirits are made the patern of our Zeal and Devotion Po. This I confess may be plausible to the Vulgus but the Malignant Divines will unluckily rejoyn that Angels were no Subjects of the Empire under no obligation of Allegiance to the Emperour Julian and that the destroying Angel had a divine Authority or a special warrant for that execution But they will tell the world that every humane Soul is obliged to be Subject to the Secular powers and therefore conclude that the Assassination of Tyrants must be left as the peculiar service of Angels but 't is beyond the Commission of Saints Ph. Well then Grant that Julian fell by a Persian dart and that there is not one instance of Rebellion or Regicide in the first three hundred years what is all this to you and I For I return them their own argument in the Case of Cathedrals and Ceremonies what tho' the Church in her Infant weakness knew no such Glorious or Solemn practises must they therefore be unlawful to the Saints who are arrived to the full heat of blood and bravery They might argue by the same Logick that because Innocent Adam went naked therefore no Saint must wear a Coat of Maile and because Abel knew nothing of the Invention of Guns therefore it is unlawful for the race of Cain to fire a Blunderbus Po. I acknowledge this answer to be fine and popular but it will never silence the Clergy of England those disputers of this world Ph. Sir if you and I can compose such a System of Politick Divinity as to perswade the People that the Saints and the Senate have the Supreme disposing of Princes our business is done by that popular delusion and we may laugh at all the Learning and Arguments of Cambridge and Oxford For we have this advantage that our Proselytes will sooner Read the Alcoran than the Writings of the English Clergy and have no more value for Their Canons than they have for the Votes of a House of Commons But as for the Tory Divines it is as much impossible for us to convince them as it is for them to convert us for they are such blind adorers of the King that they honour him even to Idolatry and wish his Kingdom might be everlasting I dare ingage they should sooner believe the Miracle of the Masse than the momentous mystery of Assassination and might with more ease be tempted to Worship the Eucharist than to Murder the King Po. Well we have spent too much time in this speculative discourse pray proceed to the practical part of this destroying Divinity What success had you when you Acted in your Own Property without the Mask of a Popish Plot Ph. Ah Sir I hate that damn'd cursed French that encircles the Royal Arms I believe it is some Charm or Conjuration for we can't design a little mischief against the King but it will fall upon our own heads my Presbyterian Republicans were agreed upon a General Insurrection and this would as surely have put the Nation into a flame as the last Conflagration My Atheists and Independents had assign'd the Persons the Arms the Time and the Place for
thank you for the caution for I confess I have spoke more affronting words against the King than I dare speak of a Peer Po. But Dukes and Peers apart What hopes have you in a Parliament I know you have been us'd to Worship the Gods of the Valley and if the Numen's of the Lower House deceive you you have nothing to expect but Ruine Ph. It is not long since that I was as much afraid of a Parliament as ever you were of a General Councel for the first discovery of our Conspiracy fill'd the Nation with so much noise and horrour that all my Esquadron Volante of Neuters and Trimmers deserted me and I was forced to live in Chimnies and Grott's and wished my self in Coal-mines and if the King had called a Parliament at That juncture I durst not have appeared in Elections and all my Patriots had such a Panick fear of Carts and Scaffolds that they could not have been perswaded to mount the Chair in that unlucky Crisis but since that storm is so happily blown over I 'm even resolv'd for England again and when the Law of necessity shall oblige the King to Summon a Parliament to cry To your Tents O Israel and if it be in the power of Purse or Perjury I will take such a course that the Blood of the Commons shall be Enquir'd for without giving one Penny to the Crown Po. But do you think the King will ever give you the advantage to sit at Westminster Ph. Alas our Old seat at Westminster is now no great advantage for the True-Protestant part of the City is grown so Tame that they could see their Charter condemned without the Gallantry of a Tumult though the passing that sentence was a greater Judgment than the Plague London has lost her Old brave Cries of Justice Justice no evil Councellors Will you buy any Crown and Bishops Lands The City Trained-hands as the Case stands now would be more ready to Guard the five Members to the Tower than to secure them in the Town My only hope is in another House of One and Forty for Stephens Chappel is as Sacred to me as the Chappel of Loretto is to you It has been Antiently the Shrine of the Good Old Cause and like the Senate-house at Rome it has been Consecrated with the Blood of Caesar Here has been so much Breath exhaled in Popular Harangues that the inner Plaister of the Walls is nothing but Congealed Treason and hence proceeds that Magical power that the very Air of the Old-house has left a Republican Tincture behind it and no Member can escape that Influence but such as are drunk with Elixir Regale I have known several Gentlemen in former times who when they were first chosen Members of Parliament could discourse of nothing but Monarchy and Prerogative but after they had breathed a few months in this Temple of our Diana they returned with as cool and popular a temper as if they had sat in the Stadthouse at Amsterdam But I am much concerned at the decays of this House I am afraid it should presage the declining of the sovereignty of the Commons elsewhere and the ruine of the Good Old Cause and therefore I intend to advise my Representatives to vote the Repair of those dilapidations for fear the walls should drop and Stephen should Stone the Elders But if the Majority of the next house of Commons should be adorers of the Crown and Church I might be ruined by my own precedents for such a House may pack a Tory Committee of Elections and I have taught That Divan in former Times such an Arbitrary way of proceeding that they had got a Trick to Elect and Reprobate whom they pleased without any Appeal from their supreme judgment and so by my own method all my Members would be excluded and not one Saint left in the Sanhedrim but there are so many mischievous consequences of a Cavaliering House of Commons that I dare not fancy the Possibility of such an Assembly Po. Well I see but small hopes of effecting our designs in this Age but pray Study some Arts to keep up the Good Old Cause that it may not sink into its Primitive Nothing but may be preserved in being 'till a more fortunate juncture for as the Good Old Cause can never prosper in England without the Name and Noise of Popery so Popery cannot work without the Fanatick Tools of the Good Old Cause Ph. Never fear I don't question but to continue the Existence of the Good Old Cause as long as you can maintain your Succession to the Triple Crown for I have many Artifices to this purpose Po. Pray let me understand your Arts. Ph. First then in all that Noble Science of Popular Delusion there is not a greater charm than Religious Cant for you know the greatest part of Mankind are most influenced by Passion and Fancy and there are few such Sages as to regard the dull Oracles of Truth and Sobernesses for suppose I should teach my Disciples that the great design of Christianity was to teach the World the serious pursuit of Peace and Holiness and that a holy and peaceable Temper would best serve the quiet of our own Minds the Interest of Society and Government and would be the most Rational Preparation for that Life and Communion of Angels alass Sir such solemn Divinity as this spoken with an Apostolical Gravity would have no more effect upon the Crowd than the Kings Speeches have had sometimes upon the House of Commons but by my Theatrical Arts and Enthusiastick Divinity I can Preach the Throng into Raptures and Extacies and mount their Souls three Stories higher than Pauls and then with One sad Grimace and Lureing Tone make them Stoop in a Moment I can when I please Preach them into Conflagrations of Zeal or Inundations of Tears or howle them into Hurricanes and Storms of Sighs and Groans and all this by a mysterious Screw of the Face and the Eccho's of a Passionate Noise Po. I have heard that you do equal if not excell my Jesuits in this Art of Popular Enchantment pray give me the diversion of a short Essay of this nature Ph. Well then first for the true set of the Face D' you mark the Semicircles of the Eyes the Triangles and Parallelograms of the Mouth and Face Po. Ha ha ha bring your Face to rights again for I shall laugh lowd enough for a discovery But now let 's have a tast of your Canting Ph. Be not troubled in mind to be sad and sorrowful is the sign of an ill-thriving Christian Crying is a Childish trick a Christian out of long Coats would be asham'd on 't Do but wait a while the day is coming when Christ shall play no more at hide and seek with his Saints when all Christs business beyond Sea shall be done When he shall say come Jaylors bring all those my Enemies before me Prelates Malignants Kings Nobles Gentry Po. This Cheat must do I
to inthrone the Good Old Cause without those mighty Engins of Popular Pamphlets and Parliaments and therefore pray proceed in your methods of Propagation for that is the utmost we can hope for in this Age. Ph. Well then I consider that the Cause can never be maintain'd by meer Mechanicks and should we send our Youth to Universities they would be taught Obedience to Statutes and wear off the Natural Abhorrence of white Linnen and Liturgy and thus being disciplin'd in those Seraglio's they would become a kind of Janisaries and be taught to destroy that Religion into which they were Born and this we have found by fatal experiments And therefore to prevent this mischief we have erected our Private Gymnasia and in these Seminaries we Read to our Youth the Politicks and Divinity of Geneva here they are taught the Natural Philosophy and all the Liberal Arts and Sciences of Sedition and Rebellion These Gymnasia are our Spiritual Artillery-Grounds here my Veterane Champions instruct their Young Volunteers in the management of Tongue and Face how to fire a Mouth-granado how to beat all the Points of War upon the Pulpit-drum when to lye in Ambuscade and when to raise their Batteries against the Government how to Vndermine a Throne and Sap the walls of a Cathedral Po. This Essential Policy for neither Popery nor Presbytery can be Propagated without Seminaries and therefore I suppose the design of your Gymnasia was borrowed from Doway and St. Omers which places my Cardinal Bentivoglio ingeniously stiles Military Stations where my Spiritual Souldiery are disciplin'd in the Arts of Holy War and are drawn out from thence to defend the Catholick Cause in England Now you and I may every year send forth our several Detachments from these Spiritual Garrisons and so we may beleaguer the Church of England on Both-sides the only fear is that Lewis should beat up our Quarters in Flanders and Charles should dismantle your Cittadels in England Ph. Besides these Artillery-Companies I have a Flying Squadron of Neutral Clergy quarter'd within the Lines of the Church of England and these by their whispers in the Desk and Noise in the Pulpit do me more service in the Church than all my Doctors in the Synagogue for you know one piece of Ordnance within the Ship whose mouth is directed to the keel if it be well charg'd and fir'd must do more fatal Execution than a thousand shot at two mile distance These men teach their people to clamour against the Canonical Clergy and the Heights of Hierarchy and dispose them for an easie Compliance to the Model of Geneva and therefore upon the first revolution they and their whole Brigades will come over to our Triumphant Banners These men Resemble that Asian Sect which the Turks call the Raphasis who are neither Zealous Musselmen nor devout Christians but according as their humour and Interest move them can Worship either Christ or Mahomet and go indifferently in Pilgrimage to Meccha or Jerusalem Po. These Ecclesiastick Neuters and Lay-trimmers must do you excellent Service and therefore I advise you to Court and admire these men as the Greater Saints and Wiser Subjects for they must be Zealous Loyallists who uphold the Height and Honour of a Government but men of Cold and Trimming Tempers will betray it with Indifferency and Moderation and look upon its Ruine with half a smile What were they who ruin'd my Authority in England in the days of Henry the Eighth but Trimming Papists What were my Gibellines that shaked the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century but Prudential Catholicks And those Bishops in the Councel of Constance and the Basilisks of Basil who usurp't the Prerogative of deposing Popes and Decreed Me Inferior to a General Councel were all Romish Trimmers and therefore why should not the Church of England suffer by Trimmers as well as the Church of Rome Ph. Sir Let me alone to make my advantage of these mens Tempers But to proceed My most Infallible art to continue the Reputation of the Good Old Cause is the Eminency of a Politick Sanctity and Si vis fallere Plebem finge Deos is as good Latin in England as ever it was at Rome Po. Pray Let me know wherein your Sanctity consists Ph. In Sabboths and Sobriety for as for Faith That relates to things not seen and is a Virtue of it self Invisible Obedience to Superiors is meer Human Courtship and Slavery and therefore doth not become the Privilege and Freedom of Saints Meekness Humility and Charity are all but Good Nature But to be Sober and keep a Sabboth are the most Popular signs of Grace and Sanctity Po. This is as gross a Cheat as the Tears and Bleeding of a Romish Image for if Sobriety be the Grand Essential of Religion Mahomet was a diviner Prophet than Jesus for he was so far from Turning Water into Wine that his Alcoran has Turn'd Wine into Water and not only denied his Disciples the whole Firkins but doth not allow them the juyce of one single Grape And if to keep a Sabboth be the Great Character of a Saint the Jew is as much a Christian as you Ph. Alass this is too fine and Metaphysical for the Pia Maters of the Unthinking Crowd and notwithstanding these reasons the Cheat is popular and must prevail a Stanch and demure Assassin will pass for a greater Saint in the opinion of the Vulgus than a Damning Carowsing Cavalier and he who like the Pharisee can spend the whole Sabboth in Synagogues and Long-prayers may Plot against Caesar and Rob Widows Houses for six days after and yet keep the Reputation of a Saint Po. I know that a Reserv'd soberness must command the Peoples Veneration but I most admire how you can Impose upon them that Melancholy Imposture of Sabbatizing Your Turkish Brethren when the Prayers of their Mosques are ended can upon their Sabboth return to their common business without the least charge of Profanation The Jews in Barbary after their devotions of the Synagogue do spend the rest of their Sabboth in the utmost Gaiety and briskest festivity Your Dutch Brethren make no more scruple of Taverns or Tables upon a Sunday than they did in burning the ships at Chattam The whole Catholick Church did never look upon the Sunday as a Jewish Sabboth but a Christian Festival indeed they always took care for the Solemnities of publick Religion but when those Devotions of the day were ended it did never forbid any Innocent Mirth or diversion but thought that Agreeable to so great a fesival Your ancient Canons under King Edgar did enjoyn that upon the Sunday all people should abstain from Trade or Merchandize they thought there was too much busie Care and Uneasiness in those affairs to consist with the chearful diversions of a Festival and it was wisely provided by the Law of Canutus that no Criminal should be put to death upon the Lords day for such Executions of Justice were Acts and Spectacles
the Publick Devotions of the Sunday be duly performed no man can offend by such diversions But tho' you use this argument for Popular seducement yet this is not your Rule of Practice No question but to Pray and Worship God is far more Religious than to Shed Blood but yet you forgot this Divinity at the Battel of Edg-hill and made no scruple of Murder and Rebellion tho' it was upon that day which you call the Sabbath For Subjects to make Prayers and Supplications for Kings and all in Authority and to live a Quiet life in all Godliness and Honesty and to leave it to the Lord of the whole world to influence the minds of Princes and to dispose of their persons and Crowns no question but this is far more Religious than to usurp the Divine Prerogative and set up whom we fancy and pull down what Prince we please but yet you and I don't think our selves obliged to this height of Perfection But how did you resent the September Thanksgiving Ph. Ah! Sir it was to me a more melancholy day than the Parliament-fast in the Popish Plot. Po. The appointing that Thanksgiving upon a Sunday was in my opinion a Politick design of the English Court to cure the Nation of that sullen distemper of Sabbatizing by that cunning Essay of Mirth and Dominical Triumph Ph. I declam'd against those prophane Bonefires as Sacrifices to Moloch and making the Children pass through the fire The Author of the Practice of Piety hath recorded so many remarks of divine Vengeance upon Sabbath-breakers that I did hope those unhallow'd fires would have made some Cities like unto Sodom and Gomorrah and left some Towns in Ashes I did expect that the Gunpowder would have Sabbatized and would not have been so Diabolical as to have flasht into Fire and Brimstone However I thought the Cannons might have prov'd like the fiery Furnace and have destroyed those men who kindled the Flame But those Triumphing Prophanations being not revenged by any fire or Thunderbolts from Heaven I have lost my argument from Providence and the Tories will fancy that the fire and smoak of that day was a kind of Incense and Burnt-offering Po. I am afraid that the English Nation will become so wise and Ingenious as to see through this Cheat and recover their ancient Freedom and Generosity and the want of Puritanick Scruples will be a mighty disadvantage to the Cause Ph. I grant that the Supererrogating Superstition of the Sabbath is the Principal Foundation of Puritanisme but I am secure of this advantage for the Church of England it self does contribute to this delusion for tho' Paul tell us that the Ministration written in Stone is done away yet Moses is read every Sabbath day in the English Churches as well as in the Jewish Synagogues and when the Minister as if he came just from Mount Horeb proclaims with a loud voice Remember thou keepest holy the Sabbath day it is impossible the people should forget to Sabbatize and by this frequent Repetition of the Fourth Commandment the word Sabbath must be continued in its popular vogue and Sunday will be thought Profane and Paganish and hence it is that not only my Disciples but the undiscerning Proselytes of the Church of England do commonly stile the Lords day the Sabbath day and do mistake it for the very Sabbath in the Fourth Commandment Po. I see the Church of England was resolved to have the Reformation according to Law and after the Patern of the Mount but I wonder they are not asham'd to Charge me with the Doctrine of Equivocation when they themselves do every Sunday Equivocate both with God and Man For the people are enjoyn'd in express terms to observe the Jewish Sanction of the Sabbath and to keep Holy the Seventh day and yet all this time the First day of the Week is only Intended and when that Law of the Sabbath is fully pronounc't the people are taught to Pray Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep THIS Law So that the best sence which can be put upon that mistaken Ejaculation is this Lord we pray thee to give us grace to keep the Seventh day but thou knowest we mean the first Ph. My Rabbi's tell me that the Ten Commandments being a Peculiar Sanction to the Jews were never received into any ancient Liturgy of the Greek or Latin Churches but the inserting them into the English Service was a very Fortunate Innovation and I shall improve the advantage for the Church of England is now under an inextricable Dilemma if they continue this Mosaical Sanction as part of their Christian Service it must perpetuate the humor of Judaizing If they should alter or expunge the Laws of Moses it would cause such Popular Outcries that they dare not adventure the consequence It is the opinion of some that the Evangelical Beatitudes were designed to answer the Ten Commandments and therefore like them were delivered from the Mount But yet if the Convocation should place those Beatitudes and the whole Pandect of Christian Laws in the room of the Two Tables it would not amount to popular Satisfaction for the Common people have as much if not more veneration for Moses than they have for Christ for they do not murmur against the Pictures of Moses and Aaron tho' expos'd in their holy places but if these two Jewish Saints were removed and the Pictures of Christ and his Apostles introduced into Churches the people would clamour against the change as rank Popery Po. Well you have abundantly convinc't me that a Judaizing Puritanisme must continue in England as long as the Ten Commandments are continued in the Common-Prayer-Book but have you no other Stratagem to propogate the Good Old Cause Ph. Truly at present I have no more in prospect but only the hopes of a Toleration to have our Religious exercises confin'd to Private Families is like the restraint of Simple Marriage and will never propagate with expedition but a Toleration is a kind of Spiritual Polygamy and if I can once again but espouse the Teeming Crowds we shall Multiply like Jews and bring forth Captains of Fifties and Captains of Hundreds and Captains of Thousands Po. If ever you have an Indulgence you must thank Rome for the favour but you can never expect it upon the account of your own Merit for all your Plots and Associations your Insolencies and Conspiracies are dated from the Last Indulgence and tho' the King might forget that you denied his Father the favour of his own Chaplains yet he can't but remember how you abused his Grace and what where the mischiefs of the Late Toleration and therefore I am afraid you will be deceiv'd in the hopes of a Second Indulgence Ph. To give the King his due he is a Prince of great Humanity and good Nature and his anger being appeas'd by a few bloody Sacrifices I hope he may be persuaded that a freedom of Conscience in matters of Religion