, our Prayers, Preaching, Pfalms, Saeraments, and finally all our Religious fervices, and Doctrines, which are not confonant with, and agreeable to the Church of Rome? O what pity it is that neither many of w nor any of their unlearned Profelites and Followers can spell out the meaning and true genuine caufe and reafons thereof.

Methinks those Illuminatt, thofe Children of the Light long ere this time, fhould have fpied out the true inducements to this partiality. For there car be none of them certainly fo Ignorant as not to Discover both their barrennefs in works of this Nature, and alfo their wonderful tenderness with which they touch the Perfons of their Priests and treat their Dodrines, when ever they happen to write against them as if they were (as indeed they are) heartily afraid to hurt either. When yet in all their dealings with us, and against the truth by us defended, they whet their Tongues and Pens to the uttermost keennefs, and think the worst they can fay or write against us,is infinitely too mild and gentle for us. Shewing themselves to us as Badgers, who bite with that monftrous vehemence,that they make their teeth to meet before they cease their hold:but unto them they fhew themselves like Hera clitus's Affe, in eating Thistles which he did with all care and caution, for fear of pricking his own Chaps.

Now that the Quakers fhould write fo little against the Doctrines of Popery, and fo tenderly a gainst them, when they are forced to the task, cannot certainly be without a mystery.

Othat they would fpeak out,and let the World know their true fentiments of the Popish and Proteftant Churches? I do hereby Challenge them to declare, which of thefe, they esteem most, or least Orthodox and which of the two Churches in their infallible Judgments are most dangerous to be joyn

ed with, and whofe Doctrines are most agreeable to the Truth, or are most Pernicious and Damnable, They have been no whit sparing in fhewing their inveterate hatred against us and our Church. O let us now know their opinions of them and theirs, when compared with us. And let them (without mincing the matter) let the World plainly know which of us, in their esteem, ought to be preferr'd, and esteemed the purer Church of the two, or most to be avoided. Then fhall we perhaps the better guess at the true reafons of their various Treatments of

us.

But it may be they will reply, that thofe of our Church are daily before their eyes: and our Do arines are publickly Preached in every Parish of the Kingdom: but as for the Papifts, their numbers are fo few, that they feldom meet with them: And it is but here and there, that their Doarines are Preached to the People.

Anfw. This Argument has but little weight in it, as will appear hereafter. For the Papifts are not fo few, as to be invisible, and their Doctrines and Ceremonies have not hid themselves in fuch privacy, but that they have often enough started out of their holes and appeared publickly enough to be known even who, and what they were, had thefe charitable Men thought fit to take notice of them. Befides, if the Quakers had not a more than Ordinary kindness and efteem for Popery, they could never have fo long forborn the Idolatries and Heathenifh Ceremonies of the Papifts. So as not to bait them with the highest Indignation, and moft eminent Zeal, in their unwearyed labours against them. But instead of this, they paß them in a manner quite over; excufing themselves (while they do fo) with the diminutiveness of their numbers,and the priva cy of their retirements: whenas they well enough

know

36.

know their numbers are not despicable, nor their Do trines and Ceremonies invifible. Nor have they been fhy in printing and publickly defending them.

Now is not this then a very hard cafe, that thefe Quakers cannot produce any One Book writ againft the Papifts by half fe extensive against their Doctrines and Practices, nor by half Jo Venomous, and Spiteful against their Perfons, and most vast Revenues. and Endowments, as are daily vented against our Perfons, Doctrines, and Tythes, and Induftriously Spread amongst us? Nor can we but look upon't as hard meafure, that they fhould have fo fmall a portion, fo diminutive a part in thefe Mens raileries, when fo large a fhare is carved out to a continually.

I am fully perfwaded, that had it not been for meer fhame, and fear of a Discovery, the Papists might have fate always fecure from the leaft fcratch of a Learned Quakers Pen, there would not haye been written by them, one line against them. And what they have written, the Papists do in no wife look upon themselves any way obliged to Anfwer; but laugh at the Cheat, and deride the manifeft folly of those who think them to be in earnest against them.

It's true here and there, a poor Illiterate Speaker among them (who wants the skill to know Popery, when he Preaches it, and the defigns of his prime Legders) may now and then give his Tongue (and perhaps his Pen too) too great a Liberty, and bite too clofe against them to have the thanks of his grandees for the fame. Yet these are so tew, and their management fo cold, that all the World may fee that they wear a muzzle, which makes their barkings faint and bitings foarce difcernable.

CHAP.

CHAP. V.

The Quakers good will unto the Papifts is farther demonftrated from their fparing all Popish Countreys, and neglecting to fet up their Meetings among

them.

Hat the want of numbers is not the cause why the Papifts in thefe Kingdoms have efcaped the hot and fiery darts of the Quakers, but the nearnes of their Principles and Doctrines, appears from this, that these Men spend themselves, and time, and pains in Proteftant Countreys only. For if thefe Men are equally Enemies to Papists, and to us and to their Doctrines, as to ours, why then are they not equally industrious in their Contreys as in Ours? Why not in France, Spain, Portugal, the Popish Countreys in Germany? Nay why not in Italy and all other Popifh Kingdoms and Dominions, as well as in ours, and other Proteftant Countrèys, and Plantations? Why do they not raise Hurricanes in their Churches, Cities, and public Meetings, as they have done in Ours? Methinks their Zeal fhould lead them thither, where so much Idolatry is in fashion and fo many Doârines and Practices, are fo juftlylyable to their feverest reprehensions. Why do they not equally enter their (as formerly they fo frequently did Our) Churches, and witnefs against their Abominations? Why do they not fet up their Meetings in their chief Cities and Market Bowns for the Converfion of the Souls of their People? I fay why hear we nothing, or fo little (of this Nature) from thofe Kingdoms; whilft fo many ftorms fall daily upon this poor Ifland, and the Plantations thereunto belonging? Alas! is

there

there not a caufe? That Man must needs have lost one, or more of his Sences that cannot fee and smell it out.

Reader, it is worth our Confideration, that in G. Fox's Journal, among all that great Impofters movements from one Country to another, he could find no ref for the Sole of his Foot in any one Popish Kingdom: But ftill applied himself to fuch only as had departed from the Church of Rome. A plain Evidence, his Commiflion was to divide Proteftants: and them, and them only to Vex with his Peftilential Vifits. Now it he had received a Commiffion from God (as he pretended) and that Commiflion had Extended to all People, without distinction, P pists as well as Proteftants: how durft he then boggle in his Execution thereof amongst Papists, and limit it to the Proteftants only?

Did this fhew him to be a Prophet of the most High, or an Erangelift, or Apostle of Jefus Chrift, as his deluding Followers would have all Men to believe, and Account of him.

し

Our Saviours Commission to his Difciples, was to go to all Nations, Mat. 28. 19, 26. And they did as he commanded them, and that with fuch fuccefs, that their found went into all the Earth, and their Words unto the end of the World, Rom. 10. 18. and all this in a very few years after our Lords Affen tion. And was G. Fox's Commiffion limited to Protestants only? was there none of the Popi Kingdoms, committed to his care? none of those poor Blind People (in any of thofe Countries) a mong that vaft Multitude (which he in his pretended vifion on Pendle Hill faw) thought fit to be Converted by him? Was there, then no regard for, no pity upon fo many Millions of Souls as are among them? For after Fifty years fpace (and upwards) after this his pretended Commiflion, Rome, Vertice, Naples, Paris, Madrid, and almost infinite

дит