A DIALOGUE Between the POPE AND A PHANATICK Concerning Affairs in ENGLAND By a Hearty Lover of his Prince and Country LONDON Printed in the Year 1680. A Dialogue between the POPE and a PHANATICK POPE Brother well met How do all my Nephews in the North Phanatick Through Mercy and Indulgence we are all in a very prosperous and hopeful condition Pope My Jesuits Franciscans Dominicans Capuchins c. Salute your Religious Orders Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Quakers c. And especially my Societies of Mendicants present their most complying Respects to your new Order of Petitioners I can proceed no further than the first Scene of a Plot but I see Fate will reserve the last Act to be your part My Armada miscarried in Eighty Eight The Powder would not fire upon King James after this I considered that the Wisdom and Piety of Charles the I. would have given too much Lustre to the British Church and have been too great a Glory for the Reformation and therefore I did as much study the Destruction of Charles the First as ever I did the ruin of the Second Phan. I know you did for I remember I was at a Consult with your Nuncio at London in the last Holy War Pope But all my Arts had been ineffectual without your Alliance for I must confess the carrying on of that War was your Merit and your hand had the Reputation to strike that blow which made a Jubilee at Rome Phan. We hate the Italian way of King-Killing we have no Ruffians among the Saints there is more shew of Conscience and Judgment in a High Court of Justice than in Poyson and Pistol Pope So we can but dispatch another Charles 't is indifferent to me whether he falls after the English or the Italian mode Phan. Sir you have not well considered the matter for the present Juncture gives me a great advantage the people are so fully possesst with the horror of the Popish Plot and are so vehemently prejudiced against the Romish Proselytes and Religion that I might dispatch the King with Bullet or Dagger and the Papists in England should die for the Fact and Thames and Tweed would be turned into blood before your Friend at Edinburgh should arrive at St. James's nay though I should be so unfortunate as to Kill the King with a Witness to be sure I should have the common Grace to deny it and then persons of the greatest credit upon Earth would be no Evidence the Multitude would believe they were as false Witnesses as those that accused Jesus nay if a voice from Heaven should give Testimony against me the peole like the Jews would say it Thundred or think it only the cheat of a Speaking-Trumpet most would be persuaded that my Accusation was only a Popish intrigue to cast the Plot upon the Presbyterians Pope Well if you will Assassinate the King there would be so much Value and Merit in the Sacrifice it will be worth the adventure of a Massacre Phan. Nay Sir I confess I am yet most inclined to the Precedent of an High Court of Justice for 't is most honor for the Saints to bind the Kings in Chains and their Nobles with Links of Iron to make them our Prisoners to Cut them off with the Pomp and Solemnity of Publick Justice and to this purpose we are already provided of a President and there is no fear of wanting Lawyers to plead for the Commons and to Arraign the King the Scaffolds stand still at Westminster-Hall and who knows for whom they wait Besides if you remark the hints of Providence or the signs of the times you may observe that Heaven it self intends we should Act over the same things again for we have a Parliament of the same Genius with that of Forty One there is a Charles again at Westminster a William in Canterbury an Earl Thomas in the Tower and the same Crucifying Lesson that happened upon the thirtieth of January falls exactly in Rubrick upon the twenty ninth of May. Pope I wish the event of these fatal suggestions may confirm your Interpretation but the Kings mounting of his Guns and doubling his Guards and bold Proroguing and Dissolving of Parliaments looks as if he had no mind to the Crown of Martyrdom and I am afraid your observation of that Critical Lesson in the English Calendar should have another importance and should portend that Charles tte Second was born to revenge the blood of the First But our Attempts from the South have been so unfortunate that I begin to think that there is in it some propriety of Fate and that this Scottish Line must only be ruined by the Northern Covenanters and besides you may do it with more security for I see a Phanatik may Murther with less noise and greater priviledg than a Jesuit For when we puft out of the world that meer shadow of a Knight Sir E. B. G. his death Alarm'd the Nation and made as great an Earthquake as the fall of Charles the First but you could Assassinate the Primate of an whole Kingdom one of the Chief Ministers of Church and State and this done too with greater Circumstances of Barbarity and yet this Fact was reported with soft whispers and kind palliations Phan. Well after all this by the Doctrine of our Casuists we are no King-Killers for when a Prince devests himself of Royal Power and Prerogative by Concessions and Condescensions or when a mighty Parliament have beaten or dethroned the King then to destroy him is no more Regicide than to Shoot through the sign of the Kings-Head or Stab the Picture of His Majesty Pope Well I will say you out-do the whole world in Politicks if you can bring two Kings to the Bar in one Age. Phan. Alas Your Cardinals Hats are shallow things and your Triple Crown looks like a Fools Cap we have one single Head amongst us that Wit enough to baffle Twelve Caesars a Gentleman well studied in the Philosophy of Alterations and the Heroick vertue of affronting Princes Pope I am glad to hear you have so great a Head I hope you remember that the primary intention of our League is to destroy that Episcopal Church of England that Church which is rude to the Saints and will worship nothing in Heaven but God and nothing upon Earth but the King and his two Idols of Prerogative and Supremacy those Pagan Teraphims to which you and I will never bow 't is the ruin of this Church that I do chiefly intend and if the King falls in the Quarrel he dies by accident Phan. Sir you know I am obliged to this both by Solemn League and Interest and though like you I can dispense with Vows of Baptism and Oaths of Allegiance and such like Complements of State and Religion Yet I make a Conscience of the Covenant and therefore never doubt my Fidelity for I will serve you a s faithfully as your Castle of St. Angelo or the Knights of Malta Pope I have no
reason to question that but I would gladly understand how far matters are advanced and what hopeful prospect you have of success in this grand Affair but first let me know by what Arts you have rendred your selves so Popular for I believe the English have a worse Opinion and a greater abhorrence of me than they have of the Devil for they are so Civil to him as not to torment him before his time no not so lmuch as in Effigie there is none of you would affront him so much as to burn his Sign at the Devil-Tavern but look upon it with a greater veneration than upon the sign of the Cross but the burning of the Pope is an Annual Triumph and Solemnity and the people are only sorry that it is but an Effigies and that the Fire is not unquenchable Phan. My first Art is a Form of Godliness the only Form I value in the world for I find that a dissembled Piety does more abundantly serve our interest than a strict sincerity which is therefore justly called the simplicity of Religion publick Sobriety is an excellent Stratagem and wins upon the vulgar and the Style and Formality of Holiness have done me as much service in England as it does you at Rome and I thingk I may challenge the Title as justly as you I prevail upon the minds of men by just such methods as your Jesuits Converted the Chineses not by strength of Reason or Argument but by Glasses and Clocks Painted Maps and Books well guilded thus I gain upon the people with Spiritual Fancies well sounding words fine Enthusiasms and Allegories those Prismes of Divinity and this will be an infallible Artifice for the common people of England have no more judgment in Theology than the Chinese had in Mathematicks and if the Preacher like the European Clock at Pequin strikes alone and makes a noise without Book whether he sounds true or false it passes for Inspiration and the voice of God one successful Stratagem to betray and confound the Church is this by our sure Patronatus we Post within the Establish'd Church as many Unconforming Ministers as we can with the Popular Title of Sober and Moderate men and your Casuists and mine have taught them Salvoes enough to dispense with Canonical Oaths and Subscriptions and by this Art we have reduced many hundred parish-Parish-Churches into Conventicles whose Service and Assemblies look no more like the Church of England than the Cantons of Swisserland and by this care and caution in presenting we have assured to our selves in every County some of the Clergy to Poll against the Church And you know in a Siege one Enemy within the Walls is worth a Regiment without But we never present any High Conformist except he be well qualified with little Learning and great Immoralities and then the Ignorance and Debauchery of the one doth us as much service as the Nonconformity of the other But my most effectual Artifice to ruin our common Enemy the Church of England is to clamor against her with the loud cries of Popery and though this Church stands upon the Old Foundation of its first Reformation yet my bold Timariot Lewis du-Moulin have made the people believe that she is advanced within one hours sail of Rome and the uneducated Commons of England and the half-witted Gentlemen are so happily easie and credulous that I can impose upon them what I please especially in the fears and jealousies of Popery there is an Antient Law that looks like Nature and Morality land I wish the Parliament would Repeal it and that is That men should bow down and worship God when they come to address to him in their Publick Devotions now if any High Church-man of England when he enters a Cathedral should pay this Homage of Adoration if there be a Candlestick or an Eagle of Brass in the Quire I make the world believe that he worships the Brazen Serpent or if there be at the East end some fine Painted Faces with gilded Wings then I persuade my Proselytes that the bowing that way is the Superstitious Humility or Worshipping of Angels which the Apostle condemns I can make them believe without any further question that the Singing of Hymns and Psalms according to the Cathedral manner was a Popish invention and Pointed by Antichrist and that Christ and his Apostles Sung the Paschal Psalm in the Tune of Hopkins and Sternhold Sir there is such an Omnipotence in your name that you can be no less than the Vicar of the Almighty the meer word of Pope or Popery works Miracles in England if there stands in my way a Monarchical Gentleman of a flourishing Reputation I do but breath upon him and say he is Popishly affected and he is as soon blasted and withered as the Fig-Tree in the Gespel it was that dear word Popery which once before blew up Church and State whipt off the Heads of King and Canterbury nay there is so much magick in it that the very buzze of Popery will Conjure up a Presbyterian Parliament nay there are such wonders in this name that I believe the fears of Popery may be so cunningly managed as at last to bring it in without any jealousie at all and all this time the people believe that you and I are direct Antipodies though we lye in the same Parallel and are equal Enemies to the Divine Right of Kings and Bishops Pope In this consists the strength of all our Strategems and to continue this profitable delusion I request you to continue me the friendship of your Raillery for you are never so kind to me as when you clamor loudest against me for if once our Correspondence be discovered all our Politicks are defeated Phan. I never Paint you without the Devil at your Elbow and then I make you look the worst of the two never fear a Discovery of our Compliance for 't is beyond the reach of Mechanicks and half brained Gentlemen to understand the finesses betwixt you and I indeed the ill-timed motion of our Scottish Brethren might have given the world an unlucky suspicion of our Confederacy for there being a Synchronysm in our Plots and such an agreement in our designs it might have given a vehement presumption of our Compliance if we had not had a good stock of Friends and Confidence But O that Critical and unfortunate Prorogation of Parliament when we took up Arms in Scotland we did not question but our Allies had been safely Intrenched at Westminster but sure that fatal Councel must either be the advice of Lucifer or Landerdale But to proceed another Artifice of ours consists in that Hogan Mogan word of Protestant Religion a name which the people esteem more Sacred than that which the Disciples assumed at Antioch if I do but cry out the Protestant Religion is at stake 't is as great an alarm as firing of Beacons Pope I would gladly know how far you extend that Title of Protestant Religion Phan. Why Sir it is
a Latitudinarian word and so comprehensive that it may take in almost all the world except the Pope and the Devil Pope Will that word reach from Tweed to Bosphorus and will you make the Grand Turk to be a Protestant Phan. I see no reason why he should not be reckoned in our Communion for he disowns your Infallibility and Supremacy and scoffs at your Miracle of the Mass and is as great an Enemy to Images and Idols as any Jew or Protestant in Holland and he is very Orthodox in the Decrees of Predestination the great Doctrine of Protestants and what is more than all this his Priests were no Surplice Lawn Sleeves nor Rochets they neither use the sign of Cross nor place any Rails at the East end of the Mosch and the Mufti is of the same mind with our Presbytery concerning Princes That whatsoever Prince obey not the Law of God he is no true Muscelman or Believer and being become by his filthy Actions an Infidel he is opso facto fallen from his Throne and no further capable of Authority and Government See Paul Rycaunt Turkish History and with his Divinity our Turkish Brethren Strangled Sultan Ibrahim in the same year Forty Eight when we by the same Maxim cut off Charles the First That in which we most disagree is that our Brethren in Turky still retain that old Natural Superstition of Adoration and when they enter their places of Devotion will with low Prostrations worship God and for that Reason because he is Monarch of the whole world but yet this does not so much scandal me because I think they do not worship to the East but I can't approve of their Praying so much and Preaching so little Pope Truly no more do I for their frequenting their Moschs their Praying five times a day their humble Devotions and Adorations preserve in their minds an awful notion of a Deity and a Sovereignty and I wish like you they would Preach twice a day and appoint Lectures twice or thrice a week this would so distract and amuse them with Varieties and Novelties that I believe a good Society of Lecturers would sooner destroy the Turkish Empire than all the Arms of Persia and Christendom or the Mutinies of Janizaries well you have convinced me that the Turks ought to be admitted into the Poll-Book of Protestants and if the Pasha's of Buda and Babylon with all the Beglerbegs Spahee's and Janizaries be in the list of Protestants I must confess you to be the most formidable Body in the world But don't you take in the Greek Church too into your Protestant comprehension Phan. No They are no more true Protestants than the Church of England for they have Bishops and Liturgies Rites and Ceremonies and such kind of Greekery for the mischief is I can't call it Popery in them but they and the reason too are so far off from England that I hope the Argument will not be discerned but to conclude this the Thaumatergick word of Protestant Religion have done our Cause such eminent service that in the next Revolution when we give new Charters to State and Religion we design to expunge that Popish Article of Catholick and put the Protestant Church into the Creed if it shall be thought needful to retain any Creed at all Pope Well I am satisfied you have bravely undermined the Church of England whose Ruins will help to Repair the Walls of Old and New Babylon our Church and yours but pray what approaches have you made upon the State Phan. You must know that the Monarchy and Church of England as they are now Established are but one Work and stand upon the some bottom and therefore if the Mine Springs well both must blow up together but yet I have my peculiar Engins to Assault the Throne as First powerful Libels which have more effect than your Bulls and it will not require so much of the Black Art to render this King odious as it did to sully the Reputation of his Father I have already prepared the people for Rebellion by fears and jealousies of Arbitrary Power if any High-Sheriff appears with Buff and Carbine I tell the people they are a Troop of Spahee's and the Lord Lieutenant is a Pasha and that Charles designs to be a Sultan Pope Methinks it is so lately since your Oliver the First was a Grand a Signior as Amurat the Fourth that that Stratagem should have no force upon this Age for the Cavaliers by a late Experiment have more reason to fear Arbitrary Government from you than from their Hereditary Kings whose Interest it is to secure the Liberty and Property of their Loyal Subject Phan. 'T is true the Saints have a right to an absolute Dominion and those who shall judg Angels may surely condemn Kings and Nobles too and I grant that there shall be no Parliament in the Fifth Monarchy but this Arbitrary Power must not be allowed to the Kings of the Earth but however I find that this State Mormo of Arbitrary Government does still fright the Populacy of England and most of the Cavaliers are such unconsidering Animals that though I lately imprisoned them for the maintaining of Liberty and sequestred them in defence of Property and put many to death by High-Courts of Justice preserve them from Tyranny yet they don't believe I will do so again and seem to dread Arbitrary Power in none but Lawful Kings besides I have a great advantage for the people of England will easily credit a Popish-Plot and are very apt to think the worst of you but they are not so ready to suspect any evil designs from me if I should raise a report that you had by your Conjuring Power of Transubstantiation transformed an Hundred Thousand men into Rooks and Crows and ordered that Flying Army to Rendezvouz at Black-Heath and there to shake off their Plumers and appear in Arms I am confident there are thousands would believe the story but they will not believe I have any design to Kill the King till they see him upon the Scaffold Pope I am satisfied you have Planted your Batteries with great advantage and have made wide Breaches both upon Church and State but you want your five hundred Veterans to enter the Breach and compleat the Conquest Phan. 'T is true if I can but once again Quarter a Parliament at Guild-Hall or Post them at Westminster with the Guard of the City Auxiliaries the business were done for I confess we can do nothing in State or Religion without the power of an Ordinance and I grant you that a Rebellion will not have its due colours or standing force without the Levy and Authority of Parliament but we are secured of a House of Commons of our own Temper for we have baffled the Gentry and Clergy and are become the grand Electors of England for by Polling all Cottages and Alms-Houses the frankest Tenure of England by a little pardonable Perjury and splitting our Free-hold into Atoms for
four and twenty hours we have rendred our selves Masters of Elections and thus by an immortal opposition betwixt King and Parliament we have rendred the Constitution unpracticable and reduced the Government to this Dilemma that either we must have a King without a Parliament which is an English impossibility or else a Parliament without a King and for that you know we have a Precedent and therefore the hopes and advantage lies on our side Pope If you could give these Elect Creatures of yours a fixed being or a Politick immortality all were done but the King perversly retains that Reprobating power of Prorogation and Dissolution and begins to learn how and when to use it Phan. This indeed is the greatest difficulty of our affairs but to master this we must use all imaginable Arts to distress the King for as we cannot have a Parliament without the King so he can have no money without us now to bring him into necessities we will invite our friends in Barbary to infest the Seas and our Protestant Neighbours have lately furnished them with Ammunition for that purpose You must by your Nuncio at Paris prevent the League with France and I do not question but my Friends and Interest to hinder an Alliance with the Dutch But if all these methods should be defeated I have one Stratagem left which must effect our designs and that is the Artifice of Petitioning and though I would not have the Nation agree in one common Form of Prayer to God Almighty yet I will persuade all the Counties of England to combine in one Petition to the King for the Session of a Parliament Now for Subjects to Petition their Prince seems at first sight such a plausible Right and so just a Liberty that it would be thought Tyranny to disgust it and I do not question but to court one Hundred Thousand Hands into a Subscription and thus I have listed a Formidable Army without beating of a Drum and if the Gentleman at white-Hall shall affront our leading Petitioners the whole association will be obliged to take the Field in Defence of Liberty Property and Petitions Pope I acknowledg your proceedings are brave and something hopeful but I think you did commit an error in Politicks by your too bold and open affronts upon the Throne for when you had a Parliament of your own Family you should have sweetly dissembled your designs and wrought the Mine under ground and not given such open defiance to Prerogative there was a time when the King cast himself into the Arms of his Parliament and then you might have Killed him with embraces you should have Worshipped him cloathed him with Purple and Pourted him with flattering Addresses but you should not have shewed him the Crown of Thorns till you had brought him to the Judgment-Hall for now your bare-faced affronteries have rendred him jealous of your designs and may put him upon some desperate Counsels to obviate your contrivances for your Plots against the Government are now more manifest than mine but this I will say if you can Ruin three Kingdoms twice in one Age you deserve the Triple Crown as well as I. Phan. Hold Sir Now use your Omnipotence of Transubstantiation vanish into Air transform your self into a Wafer for sure that is as easie as to change a Wafer into a Man or which is more into a God here comes an Unconverted Cavalier a Worshiper of Kings and Bishops and if he discovers my Company and Conrespondence with you we are undone Pope I see him and he is so far advanced already that he must have observed us and there is no remedy left but to delude him with the wonted Artifice of Railing upon each other and begin as soon and as loud as you can Phan. You Anti-Christ the Great the Spiritual Pasha of Mystical Babylon the great Hocus Pocus of Christendom Son of the Scarlet Whore the Incendiary and Deceiver of the Nations you man of sin and Pandor to the Devil Pope You Apocryphal Spawn of Bel and the Dragon you ill-looking ill-natured Phanatick the shame of Humanity the scandal of Christendom the Plague of Governments you are the Beast and the false Prophet and your Numbers are the Locusts that came out of the bottomless Pit you are the perfection of Impudence Impiety and Hypocrisie Cavalier Very fine in troth Do you think me to be so blind that nothing can restore my sight but a Miracle No you are mistaken I have a long time suspected your compliance but now both mine Eyes and mine Ears have assured me of your Confederacy I know which is the eldest but 't is not easie to determine who is the greatest Knave of you two You Mr. Pope damn me for a Heretick and your Brother Phanatick Blasphemes me for a Papist but though the next Successor to the Crown should come from Rome or Leyden I would never be a Rebel nor should all the Power or Prerogative upon Earth ever oblige me to be a Papist or Presbyterian I am of the same Church and Religion with Polycarpus St. Ignatius St. Gregory Nazianzen and Nyssen St. Basil St. Chrysostom and St. Cyprian Who were Friends to Bishops and Liturgies Decent Rites and Ceremonies in Publick Worship and yet were neither Papal nor Phanatical and I hope it will not be long before all the Princes of Christendom will see it their Interest to be Enemies to you both As for your present Intrigue of Petitioning you have told the people in plausible Cant that it is one of the excellencies of the King of Kings to hear the Prayers of them who are but Dust and Ashes and that the King would but resemble a Deity in a Gracious Receiving and Granting Petitions but like your old Friend that tempted our Saviour you conceal the most material part of the Divinity for sure according to the due restrictions of Religion and Allegiance we are obliged to ask nothing from God or the King but what is essentially Good and Just and agreeable to their declared Will and Pleasure but for men or subjects to confine Providence or Prerogative to the Modes and Measures of their private humors is neither Devotion to God nor good Manners to the King And if Popular Petitions be so just a Right of the Subject I would fain know why we might not as lawfully Petition the King for the Dissolving of this Parliament as you do for the Sitting of it I am sure we have as much Reason and Liberty as you only we have more Manners and Submission and think it not Dutiful in Subjects to impose upon their Sovereign with Impudent and Tumultuous Suggestions By this Method of Petitioning you would render His Majesties Government Precarious in the most literal sense and when he has granted your Petitions it will not be long before you requite his Grace with a Vote of non-Addresses I confess your Factious Conspiracies have rendred our happy Constitution Unpracticable and brought the Government into such a Dilemma that there is no Medium to be fancied betwixt Empire and Common-wealth and the King must either resolve to take up the Imperial Crown or prepare to lay down his Head for he must either suffer the eternal affronts of ill humored Parliaments or by his Supream wisdom contrive some more quiet or safer method of Elections I have seen an Oration made by Mecaenas to one of the Popes Pagan Predecessors Augustus Caesar wherein he advised him to assume the Monarchy but wisely suggested to him that he should not make his sudden passions and single will the Laws and Edicts of his Empire but to provide a Graver Senate that should be his Grand Council in the important affairs of Government a Consulting with whom would add Weight and Solemnity to his Imperial Sanctions but then he added this Politick caution that he should never grant the people that dangerous favour to Elect the Members of this Senate for then says he your Empire will be exposed to Popular Factions and Tumults every Election will ferment the humors of the Populacy and occasion such Convulsions in the State that you will never be secure of any safety at home or Glory abroad and therefore to prevent those fatal mischiefs it was his Counsel to Caesar that he should by the strictest enquiry search in all parts of his Dominions for men of the greatest Wisdom Integrity and Merit who could not be supposed to be Friends either to Tyranny or Anarchy and by his Imperial Authority to constitute these his great Council without any noise or ruffle to his Empire You know I am a Member of the Un-rebelling Church of England and if your amusing prospects of Futurity can suppose such a Monstrosity in Government as a Prince should use his Prerogative to destroy his Peaceable Subjects yet I would rather be ruined by the Diviner hand of a Monarch than be worried by the baser Tyranny of a Phanatick Common wealth Now since you have made Covenants and Associations to Ruin the Government of Church and State we are resolved to unite in the defence of both It is evident enough by your Plots and Petitions that you design another War and seeing nothing can be expected from another Triumphant Phanatick Army but the utter extirpation of the Monarchy and all the Loyal Nobility Clergy and Gentry we do therefore declare that we will speedily surnish our selves with Arms and Ammunition for us and our dependants and upon the first notice of a Rebellion we will repair to the Royal Standard resolving to make a short end of the Controversie and either to die in the Field and not to behold the Second Ruin of Church and State or else by a final Conquest to Purchase to this Nation an everlasting freedom from Phanatick insolence and disturbance and may that hand be held up at the Bar of an High-Court of Justice that will not subscribe this Union and Resolution FINIS