The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• To the Earl of S———-, &c. &c.
• Preface.
• The Independent Whig.
• Number I.: A View of the Romish Church, In Her Heads, Theology, Canons, Miracles, and Saints; Taken Chiefly From Her Own Writers and Champions.
• Number II.: An Idea of the French Government. the Spirit of Popery, How Terrible to Protestants.
• Number III.: Further Observations Upon the French Government. the Excellence of Our Own, Confess’d By French Writers.
• Number IV.: Persecution and Cruelty, Marks of Apostasy From Christianity. the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, How Impious and Impossible. the Inconsistency, Impotence, and Absurdity of All Popish Miracles.
• Number V.: The Natural and Dreadful Consequences Attending the Success of the Rebellion.
• Number VI.: The Views of the Pretender Not to Be Disguised. His Defence an Insult.
• Number VII.: The Norman Invasion, How Sanguinary and Fatal to England. the Invader How Faithless and Barbarous to Englishmen.
• Number VIII.: The Curious Speech of a Fugitive Protestant - Popish - Jacobite Priest to Lewis the Well-beloved.
• Number IX.: The Loyalty of Papists Never to Be Trusted By Protestants. Religion and Liberty Inevitable Sacrifices to a Popish Revolution.
• Number X.: Remarks Upon the Appeal of the Pretender (young Or Old) to the People.
• Number XI.: Popery Tried By Christianity and Reason, and Proved an Enemy to Both.
• Number XII.: Warning to Britons, Upon the Present Rebellion Supported By France.
• Number XIII.: The Shocking Antipathy of Popery to Common Sense and Christian Charity.
• Number XIV.: Dialogue Between a Noble Convert and His Late Confessor.
• Number XV.: Continuation of a Dialogue Between a Noble Convert and His Late Confessor.
• Number XVI.: Continuation of a Dialogue Between a Noble Convert and His Late Confessor.
• Number XVII.: Remainder of a Dialogue Between a Noble Convert and His Late Confessor.
• Number XVIII.: King James II. His Disgraceful Reign. His Impotence and Cruelty. He Exposes and Deposes Himself.
• Number XIX.: How Boldly the Popish Clergy Abuse Their Followers, By Teaching Them to Deny With a Curse, the Most Obvious Impieties of Their Church.
• Number XX.: The Same Subject Continued.
• Number XXI.: The Following Quotation Is Taken From One of the Political Discourses Upon Sallust the Roman Historian: It Is the Fourth Section of the Discourse, of the Mutability of Government. the Passage Is Extremely Curious, And, I Think, Seasona
• Number XXII.: The Quaker’ S Advice to the Young Pretender.
• Number XXIII.: The Intimate Resemblance Between the Popish Clergy, and Those of Modern Paganism In the East.
• Number XXIV.: Of the Many Good Sermons Preached and Published Against the Rebellion. a Sermon of Singular Tendency, By an Eminent Hand: the Strange Doctrines Advanced, and the Observable Omissions, In It.
• Number XXV.: Our National Sins No Wise Analogous to Those of the Jews, Nor Meriting Equal Punishment. the Rashness and Danger of Ascertaining and Applying Divine Judgments.
• Number XXVI.: The Free Use of Reason the Best Cure For Bigotry, and the Violence of Enthusiasm.
• Number XXVII.: To What I Have Said Above Upon the Excesses and Unchristian Spirit of the Clergy In the Reign of King Charles I. I Shall Add the Following Observations Upon Their Incredible Canon, Injoining an Oath to an Et Cætera.
• Number XXVIII.: Considerations Upon the Mischievous Tendency of Libels; Chiefly Public Libels.
• Number XXIX.: The Subject of Libels Continued.
• Number XXX.: The Subject of Libels Continued and Concluded.
• Number XXXI.: The Absurdity of Jacobitism, the Impiety of Popery, and the Enthusiasm of Party.
• Number XXXII.: The Letter of Monsieur D’argenson to Mynheer Van Hoey, and That of the Mynheer to the Duke of Newcastle, Paraphrased.

Number XIV.

Dialogue between a Noble Convert and his late Confessor.

Conf.

MY Lord, I am sorry, seriously sorry, for the Danger of your Soul, from your Wavering in the Faith.

Lord.

Father, I doubt I shall increase your Sorrow when I assure you, that I do not waver—I think my Soul safe in my present Faith.

C.

This fatal Change touches my Heart.

L.

I dare say it does—You have lost me, and I have found myself.

C.

My Lord, you have made a sad Change, and you are the chief Loser by it.

L.

One of us is—I have gained my Senses, and you have lost the keeping of them:

C.

That Gain, I fear, will prove your Perdition—Would your Lordship trust to the Guideance of your Senses, rather than to the Guidance of the Church?

L.

You mean to your Guidance; for you Priests call yourselves the CHURCH. Do you, or do any of you, permit your Followers to know any Thing of the Church, or of Religion, but what you tell them?

C.

We tell you what are the Duties of Religion, and teach you how to practise them: Your Senses may deceive you.

L.

Or shew us that you do—An unpardonable Offence and Presumption!

C.

In that very Thing they deceive you, and ruin you, by depriving you of our Guidance.—

L.

And in this very thing you deceive us, by depriving us of the Guidance of our Senses.

C.

Alas! my Lord, they are dangerous Guides? They are Snares, by which Satan leads us into all Error and Peril, with our own Consent and Approbation.

L.

That were dreadful indeed, if it were true!—But, Father, I beg your Pardon, I cannot take your Word; for you are pleading your own Cause. I am maintaining the Use and Clearness of my Senses, in all Duties Moral, Civil, and Religious. My Senses can have no Interest in misleading me; nay, ’tis their Interest to lead me right; for they are part of me, and in acting for me they act for themselves: Neither can they hurt me without hurting themselves.—And if you have any Interest in view, different from that of our Senses, as it is manifest you have; it is likewise manifest, that it cannot be our Interest.

C.

How, my Lord! Are not we your spiritual Guides, engaged in your Interest, your best Interest, the Interest of your Soul?

L.

What! against my Senses?

C.

Yes; I have told your Lordship, that your Senses may prove a Snare, and a false Light.

L.

You have, indeed, often told me so; and I, too long, believed you: But I now plainly perceive that my Senses are my best Preservatives against Snares and false Lights. Suppose my spiritual Director imposes upon me, and carries on Designs against me for his own Advantage (Father, such Things have been!) how am I to detect him, and escape his Frauds? Must I not consult and follow my Senses?

C.

If your Lordship will be making uncharitable Suppositions—

L.

Father, do not force me into a Detail of the Cheats and Combinations, and Usurpations of you Romish Priests—You know I have lately read some of your History.

C.

We are not exempt from human Frailty.

L.

’Tis too soft a Name for such Doings—But, if you are subject to these terrible Frailties (and surely, spiritual Fraud and Villainy are the greatest of all) are you proper Guides to conduct us to Heaven? Or can we be so injurious to God and Religion, as to think you have any Credit there?

C.

My Lord, had not even the blessed Apostles their Infirmities?

L.

Not such as I mentioned—They were the best Teachers, because they were the best of Men. They wrought Miracles publicly, which were therefore never suspected of Forgery—They claimed no Power, but Persuasion. They did not turn the Souls of Men into Commodities of Price, nor Salvation into a Market—They neither sold, nor said, Masses.

C.

Perhaps they might not celebrate public Devotion just in the same Form that we do—But our Forms are still Apostolic, because framed and injoined by the Church—For the Model and Direction of Religion are left by the Apostles to the Church; and therefore whatever the Church does is Apostolic.

L.

However unlike the Apostles it be, it is well for you, that those first and true Followers of Christ are above all Vengeance: And whoever is not, is no Follower of his. What dreadful Examples they might make of you, for your infinite Slander upon them? Did the Apostles convey to you what they had not themselves, nor sought; and what their Master had not, Wealth and worldly Dominion?

C.

My Lord, nothing is perfect at first; no Institution ever was.

L.

How, Father? Could not he, who was perfect, make his own Institution perfect!

C.

It is plain he did not: He left it to his Apostles to improve it, and they to us, their Successors.

L.

Soyou were to complete what they did not, what the Son of God and his chosen Twelve did not?

C.

He left us to explain his Will, and to perform his Ordinances.

L.

As if he could not himself explain what himself revealed and dictated. And as to his Ordinances, as they were the Means of Edification to all, they were left to all alike. The particular Modes of administring them were framed and limited by the Consent of Societies, and the Policy of States.

C.

Can your Lordship possibly think them valid without us?

L.

God forbid that I did not—What a shocking Notion it would convey of the Father of Wisdom, and of Mercies, and of Men, to suppose him to leave the Salvation of Men, whom he has made and redeemed, to the Mercy, and Discretion, and Designs of Monks, passionate and greedy Monks?

C.

What Designs can they have, but to save Men?

L.

Yes; to enslave Men, and to enrich themselves—Have they not, under all the Vows of Poverty, engrossed, and are still engrossing, endless Wealth? Do they not labour to govern the World, which they have renounced? And are these spiritual Men exempt from the Works of the Flesh?

C.

I have owned to your Lordship, that we have human Frailties like other Men.

L.

If you be like other Men, frail and fallible (for the former will for ever imply the latter) how are you better qualified than any others to save all?

C.

Becausewe have a Commission—

L.

From one another, to serve yourselves, by selling the Favours of Heaven: For you do nothing for nothing; and whatever you have, you are still craving for more—Can Men be more abused, or the Almighty more belyed, than to suppose that any Set of Men, especially the most worldly of all Men, the most vain, proud and vindictive, and equally vicious, should be trusted with a Power to save all Men? This would be to make the Almighty their Confederate in a Fraud.

C.

Whatever mean Opinion your Lordship has lately conceived of us, we have his Commission.

L.

Yousay that you have, and never was any Thing more untruly said, even by you. Christ bad the Apostles, “Go and speak to all Nations.” But what are you the better for that? He did not apply himself to you, Father Ambrose, and direct you “to count your Beads, or say Mass, nor order me, Lord—, to pay you for your Pains.”

C.

I hope, my Lord, he hath not left the Christian Flock without Christian Guides.

L.

No, he left them the Bible.

C.

The Bible! Alas, what a Nose of Wax?

L.

You make it so, and pervert it abominably, to warrant all your Impieties, Contradictions, Frands, and Usurpations.

C.

A heavy Charge! What Impieties, my Lord? What Contradictions, Frauds, and Usurpations?

L.

Whatever you assume, without Warrant, is Usurpation. The Scriptures gave you neither Lands, nor Dominions, nor Titles.

C.

Is not the Labourer worthy of his Hire?

L.

No, if he be not hired, and yet would measure his own Wages.—Father, you no longer labour for me, and I shall no longer give you Hire.

C.

Hath not the Protestant Church of England Ministers; and have not these Ministers a stated Livelihood?

L.

Yes, the Law gives it them—The King is, by the Law, supreme Head of the Church; and it is the King that executes the Laws. An ecclesiastical Establishment infers the Necessity of ecclesiastical Revenues.

C.

I believesome of them claim a Right more than merely legal.

L.

I hope but few. They who do so belong to you, rather than to us. If they be in earnest, they are Enthusiasts, and to be pitied: If they be not in earnest, they are Impostors; a worse Character, and undeserving of Pity.

C.

What your Lordship advances is true of Heretics, who can claim no Divine-Mission, and consequently no Divine Succession.

L.

They may claim both as well, and as much as Catholics do. Calling Men Heretics is only calling Names, and shewing Spite or Folly. They are chiefly Madmen or Impostors, who scatter and apply such Names. Perhaps there is not a Man in the World but who is a Heretic to every other Man. Thinking and Imagination have no Standard; they are as various as Taste, Features, and Complexion.

C.

Then you reject the Authority of the Church to settle Faith.

L.

If by the Church you mean the Clergy, I do intirely. With your Church the most profane Extravagancies pass for Faith. What can be more so than the unsizeable Monster of Transubstantiation, which alone contains all Impiety and Imposture, all Assurance and Nonsense?

C.

I shall not enter into any Discussion or Defence of the profound Mystery of Transubstantiation.

L.

I would not have you—It has been often, and lately, well exposed;—but you must not renounce such gainful and flattering Blasphemy, which sets you above God, and makes Men your Slaves, Body and Soul, by frightening them out of their Senses. Men that can make God, may well set up to rule in his stead; may well give away and direct both the upper and nether World, much more this little one that lies between them.

C.

My Lord, this pierces me—

L.

I doubt it does not change you.

C.

My Lord, I own it does not. But surely, if God institutes Priests, he gives them some Power, Power to be useful.

L.

He never gave you any Power; and whereever you have it, you make it only useful to yourselves, and by it destroy Many, and deceive All.—All Men have Power to be useful to one another.

C.

Is your Lordship then against all Priests?

L.

Against all that would enthral and deceive me.

C.

I am glad you allow that some do not.

L.

I mean that our own do not.

C.

My Lord, are they exempt from Error?

L.

No Man is; but if they deceive us, ’tis our own Fault. They are of our own Choice and Establishment. We allow them no Power, but that of Persuasion and the Law of the Land.

C.

Do they not claim the Power of making one another?

L.

we give them that Power, as we suppose them best acquainted with one another.—We even appoint and limit the Manner of applying and exercising it.—

C.

Is there not such a Thing as Absolution amongst you?

L.

Yes, the Priest tells the People, what the Word of God tells both him and them, and what any of us could tell them, if the Law appointed us, “That God pardons and absolves “Sinners who truly repent.” May not any Christian declare as much?

C.

It is a very singular Absolution which Heretics and Laymen can pronounce.

L.

OfHeretics I have spoke already: And as to Laymen, why may they not (if appointed thereunto) read out of a Book, what God has plainly written in his Book, or what any other Book takes out of God’s Book.

C.

Are not the Clergy only so appointed?

L.

TheLaw may appoint any Man;—it even declares what is Scripture; why not declare too, who is to read the Scripture, and to do all the Duties of Religion?

C.

This is discharging all Clergymen at once.

L.

Why so? Whoever does the Offices of Religion, as the Law appoints him, will be a Clergyman in the Eye and Language of the Law. The leaving you, the Romish Clergy, to be Masters in Religion, has made you Masters of Mankind.

C.

So the Law is to take care of your Souls.—

L.

It appoints us Teachers, and leaves us the Bible to teach them and us too. We dread Forcers of Faith, and all who would punish us for not having Theirs.

C.

O my Lord, consider what a Relief Absalution is to a doubting and despairing Soul.

L.

our Absolution is sufficient, and the only one; any other is Imposition and Tyranny. Where God pardons, can you, dare you, condemn? Where God condemns, can you, dare you punish?

C.

We know who are proper Objects of his Mercy, and who of his Wrath.—

L.

What then? Can you obstruct his Wrath or Mercy from reaching such Objects?

C.

We can labour to hasten his Mercy, or to avert his Wrath.

L.

So can I and every Man labour;—but neither you nor I can inform God, or help him by our Instruction.—To the Submissive and Liberal, be they ever such Offenders, your Absolution is ready; and you damn the most Innocent, who refuses to obey and pay. What can be more impudent and profane? There are no such impious Doings amongst Protestants.

C.

My Lord, pray consider——

L.

I do, Father; how tender you are upon this Article?—It is indeed of high Moment to your Craft, to be thought to carry the Fate of human Souls in your own Hands, to damn and save Men, and to manage your Maker;—but, Father, it is dreadful Imposture and Blasphemy; as your Penalties and Severities are dreadful Cruelty.

C.

I do not wonder to find your Lordship, when you had gone so far, going still further, and declaring against Church Discipline too.

L.

Father, if by Church Discipline you mean Punishment for Errors (which are generally involuntary, else Men would not suffer for them) I think it diabolical; and if there be a Hell upon Earth, it is your Inquisition; a lying, bloody, fiery, torturing Tribunal, set up to guard Craft against Conscience, and, under the cheating Name of the Holy Office, fatal to all Truth and Religion.

C.

Perhaps in some Countries it may be carried too far, I wish it were not. There are many Catholie Countries where it never was, nor would be suffered.

L.

True, Father, and you give the Reason—No Thanks to your Religion and your Priest——The true Catholic Spirit is for it every-where. In England its Treachery began to operate, and its Fires to flame, under the Catholic Queen Mary, a Zealot for Popery, and a murdering Demon to her Protestant Subjects. These had set her upon the Throne, and in Requital she burned them. What think you, Father, of her Faith, pledged to Heretics?

C.

They may have forfeited their Right to it——

L.

By being Heretics. A fair Confession! If you had not made it, we know your Meaning. At least I do, who have conversed with you often upon the Subject.

C.

Is the World to be over-run with Heretics, without Restraint or Remedy?

L.

CanFire and Sword remedy or restrain Opinion? Or ought such Remedies ever to be tried? Heretics may be good Subjects to a State, as well as good Christians, and thence merit the Protection of it. Have Catholics always been so?

C.

Yes, to Catholic States.

L.

A good Hint, Father—But often not then. Have not Catholic Priests frequently plagued, sometimes murdered Catholic Princes? And were they not prompted to it by the Heads of the Catholic Church?

C.

Explanations may be offered——

L.

To justify the Church in her greatest Foulness and Enormities. You know she cannot err, and all her Frauds and Massacres are Holy.

C.

My Lord, Times and Circumstances, and the Insolence of Heretics——

L.

Sanctify what never can be defended—The Butchery of Heretics is a just Sacrifice to the offended Catholic Church—What do we deserve, Father, we English Heretics?

C.

I never heard an English Catholic wish you the least Violence; they abhor it.

L.

I know the sensible Lay Catholics do—But what if the Pope should decree our Chastisement (I will not call it by the worst Name) and you Priests, sworn blindly to obey him, and warmed with your own Zeal, should urge the Damnation of disobeying the Pope?

C.

My Lord, I cannot suppose any such Thing.

L.

Father, I will not press you—I know you must either evade the Question, or give an insincere Answer. For the same Reason I shall not perplex you with Questions about the Government, and the present Attempts against it. Only I would beg you constantly to believe, that they will be blasted, and then you will be under no Temptation to promote them.

C.

My Lord, I love Peace, and am in no Plot.

L.

Persist there. Give me leave, however, to tell you what an unfortunate Faith you hold. It flatters you with your own Importance, even to Blasphemy. For, not to meddle with the glaring, bold, and wonderful Lye of Infallibility (an incommunicable Attribute of the Omnipotent and Omnipresent God, never to be found in frail Men) can there be greater Blasphemy than your Doctrine of making your Maker, and that of disposing of Heaven and Hell, and the Souls of Men?

C.

Do not your Clergy assert the real Presence in the Sacrament, after they have blessed the Elements?

L.

They who mean more than the Divine Blessing and Efficacy of that Holy Ordinance upon their Souls, are not Protestants.—Then, Father, your Antichristian Principles of punishing Men for religious Opinions, Principles so destructive of Religion and human Society, make you dreadful, not to say odious, to all Men who follow Reason and the Gospel.

C.

ThePolicy of the Church was devised for the Preservation of the Church; which cannot be done without Power, nor Power be exerted without Penalties.

L.

There is no such Policy in the Gospel, no Church Power, no Civil Penalties.

C.

It was found necessary——

L.

Not by Christ, nor by his Apostles. Was it not Apostasy to relinquish and contradict their Example?

C.

Have not the Protestant Clergy been for wholsome Severities?

L.

Notrue Protestants——Bigots and Apostates, if you please——And such, if there be any such remaining, the civil Power curbs, as it should the Ecclesiastics every where. They are too subject to Zeal without Knowlege. Our present Clergy, especially their Chiefs, are famous for Moderation. This is true Christian Merit. Whatever be the Cause, let them have their due Praise.