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 XV.

Continuation of a Dialogue between a Noble Convert and his late Confessor.

Conf.

MY Lord, Heretics must not pretend to——

Lord.

As much as you do, and as reasonably to do Mischief.——Suppose they were to retaliate upon you, to entertain no Charity; to keep no Faith towards you, and to return your own wholsome Severities upon you; to set up an Inquisition, to imprison and torture, confiscate and burn Catholics, as Catholics do Protestants; and, in short, none of you were suffered to live unmolested amongst them,——with what Face could you complain?

C.

They themselves own, that Salvation is to be had in our Church; we deny it to them. Is not this a Proof that we are the only Orthodox Church?

L.

It is an evident Proof of the contrary. That Church which wants Charity, wants Christianity. Whoever has most Charity is the best Christian. Men had better be without Religion, than Savages for it. The most barbarous Socts, Turks and Tartars, flatter themselves, and damn all others, in the same Stile. The most flaming Enthusiasts, such as took Madness for Religion, have boldly claimed an exclusive Heaven, and wantonly configned all the rest of the World to Hell.

C.

My Lord, we would punish and suppress all such Enthusiasts.

L.

And do yourselves just what they do. This damning Spirit is a Sign that Religion is perverted into Faction, and that they who possess it would frighten Men, in order to enslave them. It is a studied Fraud, to acquire Dominion and Money, and a plain Renouncing of the Spirit of Christ. I wonder bow a Man, who finds himself possessed with such a Spirit, can have Peace of Mind, or expect Favour from God or Man.—But Enthusiasts can reconcile Contradictions. All Uncharitableness tends to Persecution; and ’tis high Assurance in a Man of a persecuting Spirit, to offer to make Converts. If ever any Man could warrant Persecution, the Persecuter warrants it against himself.

C.

My Lord, I have said nothing to provoke you to all this Bitterness against the Catholic Church; I only alleged, that you Protestants gave it the Preference to your own.

L.

No, we do not: We say that yours is a corrupt, idolatrous, and Antichristian Church; but we are not bold enough to confine the Mercies of God, which are infinite; and therefore allow his infinite Mercies to extend even to uncharitable Papists, who are the more to be pitied for their cruel Want of Charity. So that, in allowing Salvation to be had in your Church, we make a Compliment to our own, by owning, that it abounds in Charity.—Father, I have been the longer upon this Head, because I know it to be your great Bait to catch old Women, Children, and the Rabble. Your Argument is shocking to common Sense. The more I think of you and your Church, the gladder I am to have left you. Where has God said, that he will damn any Man for not going to Mass, or for diffenting from any religious Mode, or any clerical Institution?

C.

My Lord, must not the Church be supported with proper Sanctions and Terrors?

L.

You support yours with dreadful ones indeed; but the Church of Christ abhors all such. If you claim any such, he disclaims you. Dungeons, Flames, and Tortures, are no Legacy from him; nor can there be a stronger Proof that any Church is not from God, than that she exercises any Vengeance and Fury in his Name. There cannot be a higher Insult upon the Name of Christ, nor a greater Affront to the Reason of Men, than the alleging a Warrant from that holy, meek, and humble Name, for any sort of Severity, much more for any Cruelty, or even for any Share of Power or Pride.

C.

What thinks your Lordship of the Jewish Church? Did not the Almighty environ her with Authority and Penalties?

L.

Yes; but the Civil Magistrate had the Application of them; and God always speaks to the Priests by Moses, his Representative. Father, how do you like the Example? Besides, every Ceremony, and the whole Jewish Discipline, were precisely described and limited by God himself, and nothing left to the Direction of the Priests, not even their own Garments, nor the Utensils of Sacrifice, nor the Forms at the Altar. Can you shew any such Authority for your endless Grimaces, or for any of your pious Tricks and Postures? Did the wise God indite your motly Mass? Did the God of Mercy frame your Inquisition, or command you to murder or torture your Fellow-Creatures, for Words and Forms, and Opinions, which are for the most part involuntary, and often thought godly, and therefore indispensable? But pray, Father, why do you urge Judaism? Is it not abolished? And do not you burn Jews?

C.

I ownJudaism to be abolished; but I deny that we burn Jews, or any body else.

L.

How! Are not both Jews and Christians burned in Catholic Countries every Day?

C.

It is done by the Civil Power—we wash our Hands of it;—nay, we bear our strongest Testimony against it, and even beseech the Civil Magistrate, in the Bowels of Jesus Christ, not to hurt Life or Limb of Heretics condemned.

L.

Impudent Mockery of God and Man! If the Magistrate did not burn the Heretic, you would soon burn the Magistrate as a Favourer of Heretics. Such an Atheistical Stretch of Hypocrisy is beyond any of the Frauds or Barbarities of Paganism, and new in the Creation till devised by Catholic Priests.

C.

I own the Severity of the Inquisition may be carried too far.

L.

How gently spoken of such an infernal Tribunal?

C.

It is not, perhaps, to be justified in all Points.—But it is always represented worse than it is.

L.

Father, it cannot; the most innocent Man is obnoxious to it; the most pious Man is most obnoxious; all that he hath is seized as soon as he is accused; and his Family, without being accused at all, are left to perish. He is secured in a dismal Dungeon, bereft of all Comfort, surrounded with all Terrors, with the Menaces of the Rack, and continual Alarms from the Gaoler to prepare for it. After lying many Months in this hideous Situation, under dreadful Tumult of Mind, without knowing for what Offence (for no Witnesses appear) he must at last accuse and convict himself: Though he cannot, he must confess unknown Guilt, by the Force of Torture, all his Limbs disjointed, his Bowels burst with a Torrent of Water, poured into him by Force, and all Vent carefully stopp’d; his Back broken, his Feet scorched up to a Scroll; and against Relief from Death, an attending Physician declares how much more he can bear. After several Repetitions of the Rack, always a full Hour at a Time, he must invent Crimes against himself, and then be consigned to perish in Flames, often made slow to prolong the Torture. Neither, for all these his hellish Sufferings, must his nearest Relations, his tender Wife or Infants, venture to bewail him, much less complain for him; unless they have a Mind to undergo the very same. During all this frightful Process, the poor Victim is deafened with the Cry of the Mercies of the Holy Office: For so these bloody Hypocrites call their Slaughter-House.

C.

My Lord, it is still Holy, though it may be stretched too far.

L.

That is indeed strange: How can such a Complication of Avarice, Fraud, and Blood be Holy?

C.

To prevent Souls from going astray by punishing those that do.

L.

Monstrous Position! Who but such who make a Market of Souls can maintain it? Another, and an equal Horror, attends all this Group of Horrors;—the wretched Martyr is continually tempted to damn his Soul, by sacrificing his Conscience to save himself from the Flames.

C.

Can a Man damn his Soul by reconciling himself to the Catholic Church?

L.

Catholic Church! Priestly Cant! It is a Conspiracy against God and Man; such a System of Fraud and Cruelty, as none but the Enemies of God and Man could invent. Could the Devil devise, or inflict any Thing more devilish than the Inquisition?

C.

My Lord, I am against its Excesses; but are there no Terrors, no Restraint to be laid upon Heresy, to secure the Catholic Church from its Ravages?

L.

Truth, and Sense, and Conscience, are Heresy in the Eye of your Church; and a Restraint upon these is Impiety and Tyranny in any Church. The smallest Penalty upon Conscience implies the highest and last Penalty, which must be exerted when smaller Penalties fail;—so naturally do Racks and Flames follow Fines and Gaols.

C.

How is Obstinacy to be conquered?

L.

By Persuasion, or not at all. But what you often call Obstinacy, I call Reason and Piety. With you all steady Protestants are obstinate Heretics;——and you have often kindled your Fires, even here in England, to punish their Obstinacy. Nay, when some of them, terrisied by Flames, have declared themselves Catholics, you have burned them, lest they should relapse. Father, with what Face can you tempt any Protestant into your Church?

C.

Because it is the only true Church.

L.

Then there never was, there never can be, a false Church. The Truth is, the Proselytes you gain (generally the Lowest and the most Ignorant of the People) you gain by downright Falshoods.

C.

That, my Lord, is a very heavy Charge.

L.

The more so for being true, your Conversions, like your Miracles, are done in Corners, and wrought upon none but the Superstitious and Blind.

C.

My Lord, we make Converts by bringing them into new Light.

L.

So say the Mahometans, and so say all Impostors; and so all misled Enthusiasts believe. Transubstantiation, and other lying Wonders, are some of your new Lights. That all Protestants are damned, is another of your new Lights; with other the like Antichristian and damnable Positions.