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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A47819 The character of a papist in masquerade, supported by authority and experience in answer to The character of a popish successor / by Roger L'Estrange. L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704. 1681 (1681) Wing L1215; ESTC R21234 71,116 87

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THE Character OF A PAPIST in MASQUERADE Supported By Authority and Experience In Answer to the CHARACTER OF A POPISH SUCCESSOR By Roger L'Estrange LONDON Printed for H. Brome at the Signe of the Gun in S. Pauls Church-yard 1681. The CHARACTER of a Papist in Masquerade THe Character of a Popish Successor were an excellent Piece in the kinde if it had not too much Sublimate in it For I have heard of some people that with only holding their Noses over it but one quarter of an hour have run stark mad upon 't And when This Fume has once taken the Brain there 's nothing in the world but the Powder of Experience the Remembrance of things past to set a man Right again The Truth of it is the Authour has made the Figure of his Successour too Frightful and enormous Sawcer-ey'd and Cloven ●ooted and when he has painted the Monster as black on the One side as Ink and Words can make him he finishes his Master-Piece with a Paradox on the Other Fol. 4. by the Supposal of a most Excellent Person and yet making him the greater Devil for his Virtues His Fortitude he says makes him only the more Daring in the Cause of Rome his Justice makes it a Point of Conscience to deliver us up to the Pope his Temperance in the Government of his Passions makes him the more close and steady and his Prudence crowns the Work by the assistance it gives him in the Menage of his Policies and Conduct And so he goes on Wbat booss it says he in a Popish Heir to say he 's the Truest Friend the Greatest of Hero s the best of Masters the Justest Judge or the Honestest of Men All meer treacherous Quicksands for a people to repose the least glimpse of Safety in or build the least hopes upon This is fairly push'd I must confess but 't is only a cast of his Rhetorique For every body knows that all Christian Princes thus Qualify'd and under Articles of Treaty and Agreement keep touch even with Infidels nay and Infidels with Christians Before I go any further let me recommend to the Reader one Remarque as a thing worthy of his Attention He cuts all the way upon the Successor as presupposing him to be a Papist and consequently ` Dangerous and Insufferable by reason of That Perswasion And very magisterialy he gives us his own bare word for the dangers of that Perswasion Why does he not rather tell us in express and particular Terms These and These are the Principles of the Church of Rome and then make his Inference from those Principles to the Dangers that attend them and so leave the unbyass'd part of the world to judge of the Congruity and Proportion betwixt such Causes and such Effects For His dilating himself thus at random upon his Character and striking so point-blank at the Rescinding of the Succession makes men apt to imagine that his Pique may be rather to the Person then the Religion It will behove me in this place to inform the Reader that I do not charge him for not producing the dangerous Principles of the Papists as if I thought there were no Instances of that Quality to be given For I am better acquainted with their Ecclesiastical Politiques then so But the true Intent of my Quaere upon that Objection was to shew the Authours Prudence in reserving himself upon those Particulars For if he had said Behold Th●se are the Positions of the Church of Rome and they are not to be endur'd in any Government I should have ask'd him presently How comes it then that you your self under the Colour of Rooting out Popery One way are Planting it Another and Erecting the very same Pestilent Positions that you condemn Insomuch that while you would be thought zealous to Abolish the Name of Popery you are no lesse zealous to Establish the Doctrine of it Whereof at leisure The suddain bolting out of this Phantôme from behinde the Hanging may so far serve a present turn as to startle and surprise the undiscerning Vulgar Yet when upon Second and Recollected thoughts this Mormo shall come to be examin'd and taken to pieces the very multitude themselves that were affrighted at the Apparition will be asham'd of the Imposture The thing that I would say is this that the Truth is somewhat too much Hyperboliz'd in a Declamatory Torrent of Words and Exuberance of Phansy without any one Concluding and Convincing Period If Apollo had been of Counsell with the Authour he would have advis'd him to the Moderating of his Character as he does Olaus Magnus in Boccalini to moderate the Greatness of his Northern Eagles that prey'd upon Elephants as being a very Extraordinary thing for a Bird to trusse an Elephant and fly away with him which is perhaps the more Venial Excess of the two It is one of the greatest Indignities that can be put upon the simplicity of a Just Truth the dawbing of it with Embrodery and Flourish and the over-doing of it If Little Epictetus had been at his Elbow he would have minded him that some things are in our our own Power and others are not so and that the subject matter of his Discourse being wholly out of His Cognizance he might have done well to have left the business of the Succession to the Ordering of Gods Providence This is a Subject I know that whoever touches upon it treads upon Burning Coals and there must be great Caution as well as Innocence to carry a man through this Ordeal For who shall dare to Dispute the danger of a Popish Successor But so far am I from undertaking that Province that I 'le compound the matter with him beforehand and take all his suppositions of Difficulties and Hazzards in the Case for Granted But then I must distinguish betwixt the unhappy circumstance of being under the Allegeance of a Prince of that Perswasion who is actually in the Possession and Exercise of his Power and the remote Possibility only of that Danger and a Possibility too of such a condition as a thousand things may intervene to prevent it As the Contingences of Issue Survivorship c. and at the Worst this dismal apprehension amounts at last but to the Contemplation of a Prince of That Communion in a Parenthesis betwixt a Predecessor and a Successor of the Reformed Religion Not but that I am as much against the Principles and Practises of the Church of Rome wherein the Church of England hath dep●rted from that Communion as any man living that keeps himself within the compass of Christian Charity Humanity and good Manners And so far I shall heartily joyn with the Compiler of the Character by a previous Concession of the Inconveniences as I have said already that may arrive by reason of that Religion But then I must take this Consideration along with me That First there are many Dreadfull Dangers which we cannot avoid but by incurring Greater As the Leaping of a Garret-window when the Fire