from the establish'd Doctrine of it In the next place he is sensible how nice and tender a thing it is to meddle in a Matter wherein the Memory of so Great a Lady is concern'd Here he is sensible once for all for after this one Civility you hear no more of his Good Manners to the end of the Chapter but the Honour of the Church of England so wholly takes up his thoughts that he forgets the Respect which is due to her Sex her Quality her Memory her Relations and confutes her as coursly as the Parson did Bellarmine He go's on to inform us how hard a Task he has undertaken in answering these Papers wherein such Circumstances are mention'd as cannot fully be clear'd the Parties themselves having been many years dead yet he shall endeavour to keep within due Bounds c. These due Bounds either are or ought to be Respect to the Great Lady and Caution in regard of Circumstances which I hope he will not put upon his Readers for Arguments the Parties being dead so long ago But let the Reader here take notice that in this very Place he is clapping his Cups together and shuffling his Balls from Hand to Hand to lay the Foundation of his Jugling and to prepare the way for all the Tricks which he is to play hereafter For the Parties being dead long since that is the Duchess in the first place not being alive to justifie the several Conferences which she had with the Bishops not they in the second to answer as in the sight of God whether she had such Discourse with them the Field is open for him as he vainly imagines by laying Circumstances of Time and Place together and racking her own Paper till it seemingly speaks against her to render it suspected to his good Friends the Rabble that she has falsified the whole Matter Well we shall see what he builds upon this Foundation Let him speak for himself The way of her Satisfaction was very extraordinary for towards the Conclusion she confesses she was not able nor would she enter into Disputes with any body Commend me to him for a Man of quick dispatch At the first dash he is bringing the two Ends of her Paper together for he says Towards the Conclusion she confesses 'T was well search'd of him however to hunt counter and run to the End of her Discourse for the Beginning of his own He will lose no Advantages I warrant him Press that home Doctor She modestly owns that she was neither able nor willing to enter into Disputes therefore she had no other way to satisfie her self When the whole drift of this Pious and sincere Discourse is to inform her Friends of the Methods by which God Almighty brought her into his Church her Paper being a plain and short History of her Conversion The Answerer is of Opinion there is nothing to be done no satisfaction to be had in Matters of Religion without Dispute that 's his only Receipt his Nostrum for attaining a true belief But Doctors differ in this Point For another Witty Gentleman of his Church desir'd no other Epitaph upon his Tomb than this Here lies the Author of this Sentence Disputandi pruritus scabies Ecclesiae The itch of Disputation is the Scab or Tetter of the Church Now if the Learned avail themselves so little of Dispute that it is as rare as a Prodigie for one of them to convince another what shall become of the Ignorant when they are to deal with those fencers of Divinity Who can hit them in Tierce and Quart at pleasure while they are ignorant how to stand upon their guard And yet such poor People have Souls to save as precious in the sight of God as the grim Logicians Must they be damned unless they can make a regular approach to Heaven in Mood and Figure Is there no entring there without a Sillogism or Ergoteering it with a nego concedo distinguo The best on 't is Our Saviours Disciples were but poor Fishermen and we read but of one of his Apostles who was bred up at the Feet of Gamaliel I would beseech our Answerer to consider whether he has argued upon his own Principles in affirming that none can be satisfied as to the grounds of leaving one Church and going to the other without entring into Dispute Has he not allow'd that every Man is to Interpret the Scripture for himself in reference to his own Salvation With what Face then can he positively say That this Lady who had not only read the Scriptures but found them in her Judgment plainly to decide the great Controversie betwixt Catholics and Protestants might not leave his Church and enter into that of Christ by Interpreting this is my Body in the Litteral and Obvious meaning If from a Catholic she had become a Protestant by expounding those Words in a Figurative Sense he would have applauded her for not discerning the Lords Body and said she was in the right to interpret for her self But she it seems must be an exception to his General Rule and not have that priviledge allow'd her which he dare not deny to any Sectary of the Nonconformists The Phanatics think the Scripture is clear in all Matters of Salvation and if so what need say they of those Spiritual Directours Even the Pillars of the Church by Law establish'd from their own Concessions are found to be but broken Staffs For after all their undertaking to heal a wounded Conscience when the Arrows of the Almighty are stuck into it they leave their Proselytes finally to the Scripture as our Physicians when they have emptied the Pockets of their Patients without curing them send them at last to Tunbridge Waters or the Air of Montpelliers But if Persons be resolv'd before hand what to do says our Answerer there is no such way as to declare they will not enter into Dispute Here he would make us believe that she swallow'd a new Religion without chewing it because she Disputed not I have shew'd already what is the common fate of Disputation But had she no other way of satisfying her Conscience as he immediately infers she had not If he were not obstinately blind or rather had not an intention to blind his Reader he might have observ'd the Methods and Gradations of her change and that tho' she Disputed not yet she Discoursed which is entring into Matter of Dispute with some of the ablest of the English Clergy even with him particularly who was left by the Bishop of Winchester to be her Spiritual Directour by which it plainly appears notwithstanding all the jugglings and glosses of our Answerer that the better part even of his own Prescription was put in practice by her though without effect as to her satisfaction Why then do's he ask so many idle Questions Had she no Divines of the Church of England about her none able and willing to afford her their utmost assistance when she takes care to
therefore wish'd People in stead of floating uncertainly up and down in the Ocean of Disputes to take Port in that one Church which Christ has upon Earth and to which Power was given to govern us in Matters of Faith and a promise of perpetual assistance Which Church he says is vibsily the Roman Catholic The Answerer flatly denies the Roman Catholic to be the one Church of Christ for Reasons ever since St. Cyprians Days condemn'd by all Christians and never minds that he denies two terms the same with a third to be the same between themselves For Church of Christ and Catholic Church are the same both signifying all the particular Churches which believe the Doctrine of Christ. Again Roman Catholic is the same too with Catholic for both signifie likewise all the same Churches with the Roman for one of the number which the Answerer acknowledges she is Catholic says All and who says All says Roman if she be one And who says Roman Catholic says those very All neither more nor less And yet the Answerer can fancy a difference For the rest he gives no direct Answer that I remember to any one Question yet hovers so about it that one must keep his thoughts very attentive not to have them diverted quite another way As for Certainty or Uncertainty they are Matters which he seems not to mind Not but that he talks of a sure Compass and Infallible Rule but he never tells us whether or how a Man shall be sure that he do's indeed steer by that Compass or is guided by that Rule Those great sounds vanish into Conscience at last and that Conscience may be right or wrong for any care he takes as perhaps he thinks it equal whether the one or the other The King desired People should have sure hold and shews them where they may He is only solicitous to keep them from fastning there and leaves them to find another if they can of themselves or be content if they will without any If he have a Pique to the Roman Catholic he may shew them another Catholic Church or if a Church be needless on what they may rest securely without a Church If on Scripture he may shew them how they may safely stake their Souls that they do not mistake it If on Conscience how they may securely trust it Let People be but safe and I ask no more But as there is after all but one way to Heaven the King shews it and he imputes deceit to him for his pains and then sets up for the faithful Friend himself who will neither let them go that way nor shew them that there is any other And thus it stands between them It is for the Reader to consider which of the two gives him better Counsel and where he can find better Security than what His Majesty offers or whether Security be needless One would think is not like to take up much Consideration in our Country whether in a concern of infinite more value than all the Money which troubles so many Lawyers and Scriveners one should deal without looking after Security And yet by whatever charm it happens there needs a great deal of Grace to make People sensible in this Case of what in all others they are but too much their greatest concerns God of his Mercy grant it to all who ask it and to all who by not asking it shew they more need it A DEFENCE OF THE Third Paper I Dare appeal to all unprejudic'd Readers and especially to those who have any sense of Piety whether upon perusal of the Paper written by Her late Highness the Duchess they have not found in it somewhat which touch'd them to the very Soul whether they did not plainly and perfectly discern in it the Spirit of Meekness Devotion and Sincerity which animates the whole Discourse and whether the Reader be not satisfied that she who writ it has open'd her Heart without disguise so as not to leave a Scruple that she was not in earnest I am sure I can say for my own particular that when I read it first in Manuscript I could not but consider it as a Discourse extremely moving plain without Artifice and discovering the Piety of the Soul from which it flow'd Truth has a Language to it self which 't is impossible for Hypocrisie to imitate Dissimulation could never write so warmly nor with so much life What less than the Spirit of Primitive Christianity could have dictated her Words The loss of Friends of worldly Honours and Esteem the Defamation of ill Tongues and the Reproach of the Cross all these though not without the struglings of Flesh and Blood were surmounted by her as if the Saying of our Saviour were always sounding in her Ears What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his Soul I think I have amplified nothing in relation either to this Pious Lady or her Discourse I am sure I need not And now let any unbias'd and indifferent Reader compare the Spirit of the Answerer with hers Do's there not manifestly appear in him a quite different Character Need the Reader be inform'd that he is disingenuous soul-mouth'd and shuffling and that not being able to answer plain Matter of Fact he endeavours to evade it by Suppositions Circumstances and Conjectures like a cunning Barreter of Law who is to manage a sinking Cause the Dishonesty of which he cannot otherwise support than by defaming his Adversary Her only Business is to satisfie her Friends of the inward Workings of her Soul in order to her Conversion and by what Methods she quitted the Religion in which she was educated He on the contrary is not satisfied unless he question the Integrity of her Proceedings and the Truth of her plain Relation even so far as to blast what in him lies her Blessed Memory with the imputation of Forgery and Deceit as if she had given a false Account not only of the Passages in her Soul and the Agonies of a troubl'd Conscience only known to God and to her self but also of the Discourses which she had with others concerning those Disquiets Every where the Lie is to be cast upon her either directly in the Words of the Bishop of Winchester which he 〈◊〉 or indirectly in his own in which his spiteful Deligence is most remarkable In his Answer to the two former Papers there seems to have been some restraint upon the virulence of his Genius though even there he has manifestly past the Bounds of Decency and Respect But so soon as he has got loose from disputing with Crown'd Heads he shews himself in his pure Naturals and is as busie in raking up the Ashes of their next Relations as if they were no more of kin to the Crown than the New Church of England is to the Old Reformation of their Great-Grandfathers But God forbid that I should think the whole Episcopal Clergy of this Nation to be of his Latitudinarian Stamp many of them
as Learn'd as himself are much more Moderate And such I am confident will be as far from abetting his Irreverence to the Royal Family as they are from the jugling Designs of his Faction to draw in the Nonconformists to their Party by assuring them they shall not be prosecuted as indeed upon their Principles they cannot be by them but in the mean time this is to wrest the Favour out of the King's Hands and take the Bestowing it into their own and to reassume to themselves that Headship of the English Church which their Ancestors gave away to King Henry the Eighth And now let any Loyal Subject but consider whether this new way of their Proceeding do's not rather tend to bring the Church of England into the Fanatics than the Fanatics into the Church of England These are the Arts which are common to him and his Fellow-labourers but his own peculiar Talent is that of subtle Calumny and sly Aspersion by which he insinuates into his Readers an ill Opinion of his Adversaries before he comes to Argument and takes away their Good Name rather by Theft than open Robbery He lays a kind of accumulative Dishonesty to their Charge and touches 'em here and there with Circumstances in stead of positive Proofs till at last he leaves a bad Impression of 'em like a Painter who makes Blotches of hard Colouring in several Parts of the Face which he smooths afterwards into a Likeness After this manner he or one of his Brethren in Iniquity has us'd Monsieur de Condom by picking up Stories against him in his Preface which he props up with little Circumstances but seldom so positive that he cannot come off when their Falsity shall be detected In the mean time his Cause go's forward with the Common Reader who prepossest by the Preface is made partial to his Answer The same kind of Artifice with some little variation has been us'd in other of their Books besides this present Libel against the Duchess But the Cloven-foot of this our Answerer appears from underneath the Cassock even in the first step he makes towards his Answer to the present Paper Which he tells us is said to be written by a great Lady How doubtfully he speaks as if there were no certainty of the Author But surely 't is more than barely said for 't is Publish'd by the same Authority which order'd the two other Papers written by His late Majesty to the Press and the Original of it is still remaining in the Hands of the present King Indeed the Bishop of Winchester may seem to have given him some encouragement for this in the Preface to his Treatises where he tells us That Maimbourg the Iesuite recites something which he says was written by the late Duchess and which he afterwards calls the Papers pretended to be written by Her But if that Bishop had liv'd to see what our Answerer has seen Her Paper Printed and Publish'd by His Majesty I cannot think he would have been so incredulous as to have made that doubt It may be allow'd him to suspect a Stranger of Forgery but with what face can this Son of the Church of England suspect the Integrity of his King In the mean time observe what an excellent Voucher he has got of this dead Bishop and what an excellent Argument he has drawn from him Because he would not believe what he did not think she said we must not believe what he know the did say Let our Author therefore come out of his Mists and Ambiguities or give us some better Authority for his unreasonable Doubts For at this rate if it be already suspected whether what she writes be Matter of Fact and indeed whether she writ it at all it may be doubted hereafter whether she chang'd and perhaps whether there were ever such a Woman After he had thus begun That this Paper was said to be written by a Great Lady for the satisfaction of her Friends he shuffles in commodious Words for an Answerer and which afford him Elbow-room For he talks of the Reasons and Motives which she had for her leaving the Communion of the Church of England c. and of the Right which all Readers have to judge of the strength of them Now as Luck will have it none of those Motives and Reasons are to be found in the Paper of her Highness She expresses her self clearly to write for the Satisfaction of her Friends not as to the Reasons she had her self for changing but as to the Censures which she might expect from them for so doing and her whole Paper shews this was only her Design So that against the Law of all Romances he first builds the Enchanted Castle and then sets up to be the Doughty Knight who conquers it It seems he found that a bare Denial which is the proper Answer to Matter of Fact was a dry Business and would make no sport and therefore he would be sure to cut himself our sufficient Work But it is not every Mans Talent to force a Trade for a Customer may chuse whether he will buy or not This Great Person chang'd not lightly nor in haste but after all the Endeavours which could be us'd by a Soul which was true to it self and to its Eternal Interest She was sensible as I before hinted that she should lose her Friends and Credit and what to her Condition at that time was more sharply piercing expose the Catholics of England to the danger of suffering for her sake On these Considerations she makes a plain Relation of all the Passages in her Change and expecting severe Censures from the World took care to satisfie her Friends concerning it As for the Reasons of it they were only betwixt God and her own Soul and the Priest with whom she spoke at last What a wonderful Art has this Gentleman to turn a bare Narrative into Motives and Inducements When he is arriv'd to the Perfection of calling down a Saint from Heaven he may examine her concerning them in the mean time he must be content with the Relation which she has left behind her here on Earth and if he will needs be mistaking her Scruples for her Motives who can help it His Design as he tells us a little after the beginning is to vindicate the Honour of the Church of England so far as it may be thought to suffer by the Paper of her late Highness I might here tell him that he has on Obligation antecedent to the Honour of his Community which is that to God and his own Conscience But the Honour of the Church of England is no farther concern'd in the Paper of her Highness than in relation to the Persons of two or there Prelates and those he leaves at last to shift for themselves as they are able with this melancholy Farewell That God be thanked the Cause of our Church do's not depend upon the singular Opinion of one or two Bishops in it wherein they apparently recede