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 XVII.

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

Conf.

MY Lord, I have blamed its Excesses—Lord.Without naming them.—Father, the Thing itself is an Excess, an infernal Excess. You know the Whole of it as well as I do; but dare not own it, in any of its just Colours, to your English Penitents. You cannot but remember what you told my Bricklayer’s Labourer when he broke his Leg, and you, in the poor Fellow’s Affright and Distress, plied him about his being a Heretic, and insinuated to him, that this was the Cause of so heavy a Judgment upon him.

C.

Perhaps it would have been well for him if he himself had believed so.

L.

Yes; then you would have had him sure. I say you must remember, that when you were haranguing to him upon the matchless Charity and tender Mercies of the Catholic Church, in order to bring him into it, and the poor Man mentioned the Inquisition, of which it seems he had read a good deal more than you cared he should, you cried out, with Hands lifted up; and a heavy Sigh, “O the flagitious Malice of Men!”—Then turning to the poor Man, you added, You see, dear Child, how one fatal Error brings on another, and many. Had you been of the Church, you would have found how grievously the Church is wronged.” You then assured him, that the Inquisition was a Criminal Court, set up chiefly by the State, against apostate Infidel Moors and Jews, who were all public Traitors; but that it never hurt any good Catholic; or, which is the same Thing, any good Christian.

C.

Was there not great Truth in this?

L.

There was great Truth concealed—Was this a Picture of the Inquisition?

C.

I think it was pretry near the Matter.

L.

Not the least Resemblance. Your Authority, with your gracious and devout Manner, stagger’d the weak Fellow, and you might have probably got him over: But my old Steward, Goulding, over-hearing you when you least thought of it, asked you, with a great Zounds, “Are not the Inquisitors all Priests, and the only Masters there; and are not all Protestants burnable by the Laws and constant Practice of the Inquisition?”—A Question which you chose not to answer, but went away, pitying, as you went, the poor passionate Man for cursing so abominably. Goulding replied, “Whoever it is that curses, by—I know who it is that lyes.” You then complained of Persecution, and retired.

C.

Your Lordship is very particular.

L.

I had it from La Trappe, my Valet de Chambre, whom you once attacked, but soon gave over.—He produced you Mons. Daillé and Dr. Tillotson—No wonder the latter is so great an Atheist. I cannot say but I then first began to doubt, next to examine; and whoever does both will soon leave you. A Church of such a lying, cruel, damning, burning Spirit, ought to be the Abhorrence of all Men.

C.

Could you not leave us without becomeing our Enemy?

L.

An Enemy to your System I own I am, without any Prejudices purely personal. All that leave you are in your Opinion certainly damned, tho’ they left you upon the fullest Inquiry and Conviction.

C.

It is possible that they may be too rash, whatever they think.

L.

They can never be too hasty in going over to you, but are always rash in deserting you. Nothing can be more dishonest than this your Conduct; you pretend to convince People by Reason and the Bible, but will you suffer them to be re-convinc’d when they find ever so just Cause from both to leave you?

C.

When they are in the right Way, my Lord, we are willing to keep them there. Are we to be blamed?

L.

Yes, if you would keep them against their Conscience, when you had gained them by appealing to their Conscience. They must then follow you, and obey you, and renounce their Reason, their Conscience, and their Bible. This is ensnaring and enslaving Men, and not converting them.

C.

Their Conscience may mislead them, and often does.

L.

If they mean conscientiously it is sufficient, and God will pardon their involuntary Mistakes. Conversion, not founded upon Conscience and Conviction, is Hypocrisy or Servitude. The Truth is, as you teach an implicit Faith, that is, Religion without Reason; and as Ignorance is confessed to be the Mother of Devotion, that is, of Devotion without Sense, you hold your Followers not by Conviction, which only can make People religious, and keep them so; but by the Force of Superstition, by fairy Menaces, or by temporal Terrors; all which keep them fast in your Chains. Your true Catholics are not Followers of Christ, but Followers of you. He who is not a Christian by Conviction is no Christian; and Conviction implies Reason.

C.

We deny no Man the Use of his Reason.

L.

When he uses it not against you, nor in religious Points. But dare a Spaniard, dare an Italian, dare any Papist whatsoever, reason with you upon Religion, and oppose his Doubts to your Dictates? If any Man dares to do so Abroad the Inquisition waits for him with all its Flames and Rage. If any Man thwarts your Authority and Teners even here, he will have Hell set open to swallow him, and all its Furies let loose upon him.

C.

Are Men always to wander in Uncertainty?

L.

Yes, till they are fixed by Conviction and Conscience.

C.

What if they never fix?

L.

If they never do, no Man can force them; they must be left to God. Better their Minds wander (a Thing that hurts no Man) than be cowed, and their Bodies punished or enslaved.

C.

Is it not a great Blessing to be restrained from foul Error?

L.

No Error is foul if it be harmless; besides, if what would restrain Error, would also restrain Reason and Truth (the genuine End of all your Restraints) I detest the impious Policy. The noblest Notions of God appear atheistical to all Bigots; and all Bigots are Persecutors. Socrates was put to Death for his rational Sentiments of the Deity; nor was he the last. The wisest Men are often sacrificed to what mad Zealots call Holy. It was Capital in Egypt to kill one of their sacred Beasts, a Wolf, a Crocodile, or a Cat.

C.

Do we, my Lord, defend heathen Idolatry and heathen Cruelty?

L.

No, you only imitate them, and exceed them: These Heathens, though mad enough to destroy such, who hurt their ravenous Objects of Worship, were not so mad as to kill or punish Men for refusing to worship them.

C.

My Lord, what wild Beasts do we worship?

L.

You worship worse Objects, Ignatius Loyola, and that most bloody Priest, Dominic, Founder of the Inquisition. What ravenous Beast ever proved such a Pest to Society as Thomas à Becket did to England?

C.

He was indeed passionately zealous for the Church.

L.

For Popery, and for Tyranny in his own Person; a lawless and vindictive Incendiary, who defied the Laws of the Land, and even those of the living God.

C.

Your Lordship is assuredly too just to think him an Atheist.

L.

I think him worse; as no Atheist ever did so much Mischief. Under that Character a Man can never do much, but will rather frighten Men than convert them. But Becket played the Devil by affecting Saintship; and, to the eternal Infamy of your Church, obtained it: The dead Traitor had more Oblations paid him, than our blessed Redeemer and his blessed Mother.

C.

My Lord, this is a wide Field your Lordship is got into, and——

L.

Father, I see that you are tired, and so am I—Let me, however, offer to your Consideration a Passage from the judicious Plutarch: Speaking of human Sacrifices offer’d to Saturn by the Carthaginians, during a Famine, Five hundred at once, Two hundred of them pick’d from the best Families, the rest Voluntiers from amongst the Citizens, he asks, “Whether that People had not acted more wisely, if they had chosen for their Legislator a Critias or Diagoras, both known Atheists, than to have establish’d such a sanguinary Institution?”

C.

What would your Lordship infer from all this to our present Purposes? Not surely, that Catholics are worse than Atheists!———

L.

The Word Catholic hath a solemn, indeed a deceitful Sound, and is very boldly assum’d, to exclude all other Christians from Christ’s Church and from the Benefit of his Death: But it is of a Piece with the devilish Spirit of Popery, which avowedly damns, and, where it can, actually destroys all those of a different Faith.———This, Father, you cannot deny.

C.

We would willingly save all Men.———

L.

And allow none to be saved but yourselves—Those who will not submit to your Terms of Salvation, must be Victims and Fuel to the Inquisition.———

C.

Still, my Lord, this is not Atheism.—

L.

It is human Sacrifice, and worse than Atheism.——Nor can I conceive so wicked, so dreadful a Being, in the whole Compass of Nature, as a Papist heated with Bigotry and Vengeance, and acting up to the Rigor of Popish Principles——Is a Devil worse than an Inquisitor, who is only a Punisher for Religion, or a Persecutor, acting in his highest Sphere?——What a pestilent Ingredient must a zealous Papist be in a Community of Protestants?——His Zeal makes him a busy Seducer; and every Person seduced is, must be, a keen Enemy to the Community. And as the Seducers are many and indefatigable, the Seduced are without Number. Let the Legislature attend to this. Moreover, the Conscience of every Convert to Popery is the Pope’s, and obliges him to hate all who abjure the Pope and the Pope’s Pupil. Yet what tender Usage you all find, Father, under this Government! Dare any Popish State be guilty of the like Tenderness to Protestants?

C.

My Lord, your Lordship will allow—

L.

Father, I will allow nothing to the Temper of you and your Converts.—I know how determined, how ready you all are, and for What. You and they are all warm Zealots. They are mostly as poor as ignorant, and subject to none of those Pauses which retard Men of Fortune and Families, and who have some Sense, in spight of Bigotry.—I know your Ardour and Influence, and the Spirit of your Religion, so well, that I often rejoice and wonder, that I am not hang’d. Ah! Father, had I been advised or frightened by you (for you importunately tried both Ways) where must I have been?

C.

If not here, I hope in Heaven.—

L.

By your Help and that of Mr. Ketch.—After all, as much as I dread Popery, I am not for destroying Papists, though they have always, and every-where, shewn us the Way, and wantonly tempted us to follow them in it.—But I am earnestly for disabling Popery from destroying Protestants; and if some such Scheme is not effectually pursued, I shall think the Parliament in a Lethargy, the Government infatuated, and the Nation desperate.—

Adieu, Father, I shall be glad to see you sometimes.—But no Whispering, no Closeting, no dark Applications to my Family.—I shall heartily endeavour to reclaim those of them whom you have already poison’d.