Xavier which I Translated the last year out of Pere Bouhours I am apt to flatter my self it met with no unkind reception in the World for as yet I have not seen any public exception made against it Crites As for my self Mr. Bays I seldom troubâ—e my head now with reading any such kind of Histories for a man that has read but one or two Lives of your Saints may almost swear he has read all the rest so uniform a Spirit of lying and so small a variety is there in all of 'em just as under the Reign of Whig and Tory we used to say if you had turned over one Observator you had virtual and in effect read all the following Eugenius Nay Mr. Bays 't is a sad truth that there 's as undiscernable a difference in the Lives of your Saints as in the History of the Seven Champions where killing of Monsters relieving of Ladies and breaking of Enchantments belongs in common to all To oblige you then with the Scheme of such a Life from the Saints Cradle down to his Canonization 't is in short thus He forbears to Suck by a strange kind of instinct on Wednesdays and Fridays but I should have told you before that his Mother must of necessity have some odd Dreams about him before she 's Delivered and afterwards when other Children are making Durt-pyes and snipping Paper you may be sure to find him in the Parlor scoring crosses on the Wall with a little Table in the corner placed Altar-wise and two or three Farthing Candles upon it Then at the University he takes his Learning as fast as Hops and runs over the vast Fields of School-Divinty in a less compass of time than the French Army over-ran Alsace and the Palatinate Bays A very fine piece of drollery this Mr. Eugenius Eugenius When he writes Man Visions and Revelations become as familiar to him as Duns to a young Student at the Temple he 's very frequently disturb'd at his Devotions by the Devil and never fails upon occasion to be even with him to whom at last he appears as terrible as a begging Forreigner that talks only Latin to a Country School-Master He passes through ne're a Village but he Cures more diseases in a day than the Colledge does in a Twelve-Month and so ruins half the Apothecaries for five Mile round him however to make amends he takes care always to go as ragged as a broken Chymist or a Petitioner against the Woollen Act and therefore was never guilty of that damnable Sin of breaking a Taylor or Mercer He never paid a Farthing for Horse-hire in his life time but takes a strange delight in walking up to the knees in dirt and no Meat pleases him so well as that which comes in an Alms-basket Upon occasion he turns his own Chirurgion and lets himself Blood with his Discipline which he carries as certainly about him as a puny pretender to wit does his Common-place Book Bays Why surely the Devil 's in thee Mr. Eugenius wilt thou never have done Eugen. His other diversions and amusements are to Visit such a Shrine or such an Image for he can no more pray without such helps than an Old Fumbler can perform without an Aretine or so to improve his fancy where he finds very strange emotions in himself and then 't is ten to one but he falls into a fit of Preaching and reclaims a thousand people from their vitious courses in a moment Above all he has a fine knack of feeling mens Pulses in the Confessional 〈◊〉 whom he prescribes a tedious Pilgrimage or a large Alms for the health of their Souls he is an exact Payer of Obedience to his Superiors and requires it as severely from his own Disciples tho he employ'd them only to water a dead Tree or to count how often the Sails of a Wind-mill turn in a days time At last Death takes hold of him by way of Revenge for rescuing so many people out of his clutches before and then he acts the Counter-part to Sampsons Story and cures more diseased persons after his decease then he did in his life time His Beads his Crucifix nay his very Tooth-picker begin to trade for themselves and work Miracles and happy 's the man that has got a piece of his Sandal but as big as a Half-Crown for 't is an infallible cure for the Stone and Gout He has more people come in a year to Visit his Shrine than to come to see the Toombs at Westminster or the Lyons in the Tower and more Crutches of all sizes hang about his Tomb than all the Baths in Christendom can boast of In fine to compleat his happiness his trusty Master of Rome for all his faithful Services translates his soul to Heaven his Picture or Image to some stately Chappel built in memory of him and lastly prefers his Name to the Almanack Bays Well Sir have you made an an end of your rambling speech at last I warrant you I shall have a care of you for the future and not give you the like occasion for trespassing upon my patience But prithee tell me dear Mr. Crites for we have hitherto talked nothing to the purpose what is your Opinion of the life of St. Xavier Crites Why truly Mr. Bays I must needs own that 't is writ with more caution than generally such kind of Lives are and as for the Language and the Ornaments of the stile I have nothing to except to them for without any more Ceremony they are extreamly fine both in the Original and in the Translation Bays Nay now you rejoyce the cockles of my heart honest Mr. Crites oh I love dearly to have my pieces commended and all that by a Person of Understanding I'gad I do Mr. Crites 't is the greatest refreshment in the World Prithee dear Rogue let me hugg thee to pieces Come I 'll give thee a Dish of Tea for this Crites But notwithstanding Mr. Bays Bays How Mr. Crites do you attack me in the rear with a But and a Notwithstanding too No mortal breathing can bear it What you are going to kick down the Milk you have given Crites 'T is but your own way Mr. Bays as you may remember in your Verses upon Mr. Oldham where you tell the World that he was a very fine ingenious Gentleman but still did not understand the cadence of the English Tongue Bays Very true Sir but what have you to say to the Notwithstanding Crites Well then Mr. Bays to make friends with you I 'll leave out the Notwithstanding But as I was saying before I don't well apprehend the policy either of Writing or Translating such a Book The design of the History runs upon this Key Here was a Saint that Converted whole Kingdoms to the Christian Religion he raised People from the Dead he Cured all manner of Diseases in short his whole life was nothing but a continued Series of Wonders and Miracles therefore the Doctrines he taught were Infallibly true and
such a sort of Water but only differ in the making it you pour in some Salt and then exorcise the Devil out of both the Creatures before he was ever in them and afterwards ascribe the Lord knows what efficacy to this rare composition but for all that I believe Athenaeus's Holy Water if a man would try it is as good as yours to all intents and purposes and confers a much Grace to such as discreetly use it Durandus and the Doway-Catechism give several Pious Reasons for the Sacerdotal Tonsure Now Herodetus tells us the very same custom was used by the AEgyptian Priests but they as we are informed by him did it not upon the score of Religion but only to keep themselves from being Lousy and no question on 't shaving in that hot Climate where you see the fashion first began was very commendable and as I take it requisite for the Laity as well as the Clergy and this reason I look upon to be ten times more satisfactory and solid than what your Divines give for the Tonsure for it 's the easiest thing in the World to turn that into a Religious Observation which at first was only a Civil Custom and then to give abundance of fine plausible Reasons for the doing of it A man might easily trace the rest of your superstitious practices and tell you whence you had them but that Mr. Bays would require too much time and therefore I shall on purpose pass them by That which vexes me most is to see that the people of your Communion are not content to do these foolish ridiculous things but they must offer such reasons for them as if they were of Divine Institution Let him kiss me with the kiss of his Mouth therefore the Priest must kiss the Altar Thou shalt see my back parts therefore the Priest must turn his back to the people Wash me again therefore the Priest must wash his hands twice Put off thy Shooes for this place is holy Therefore the Bishop at Mass must change his Shooes and Stockings Christ is the Rock and therefore the Altar must be of Stone and therefore say I if such Reasons as these will hold Water two Priests may play a Game at Cards upon the Altar and do no harm at all but edify the Congregation for the Ace may put them in mind of the Unity and the Tray of the Trinity and the Knave of Iudas and so on till they have run through the whole History of the Christian Religion And thus likewise they may play at Sword and Buckler to signifie the perpetual scuffle between the Flesh and the Spirit and what a fine Buckler Faith is and thus instead of Incense they may smoak a Pipe of Tobacco which by the by is less chargeable than Incense and will serve much better to fright the Devil out of Church to denote that sinful man is Dust and Ashes and to represent the Conflagration to them Thus they may play at Blind-mans Buff to show how blind the Sons of Adam are in their Natural State and and thus they may do ten thousand such freaks as these and yet not want very good reasons to support the practice of them because there is nothing in the World too fulsom and gross for superstition to swallow and for ignorance and interest to justifie And now Mr. Bays we have run over all the objections you made against the Church of England and endeavoured to answer them Now if you please to perform the second part of your promise and give us your reasons why you settled in the Romish Communion you 'll extreamly oblige us But first Boy fill us a Dish of Tea apiece Bays Well Gentlemen I shall give you my Reasons tho I must tell you beforehand I expect no other answers to them but Banter and Drollery from persons of your complexion But as I have already been a Confessor for my Religion so if my Destinies require it I am ready to be a Martyr for it as my Brother Poet Prudentius was before me Crites Oh I understand your meaning you have lost your Laureats and Historiographers place whether you abdicated or forfeited it is not now the question Here Boy give Mr. Bays a Dish of Tea and now dear Confessor prithee begin Bays To make short work of it then being well satisfy'd of the truth of the Christian Religion but Crites And was 't thou so little Bays But how can a man believe thee Come if the truth were known I am sure thou hast the Alcoran in the belly of thee nay don't despair dear Confessor Louis le Grand will set the great Turk upon his Leggs again one of these days Bays Nay Sir if you are at that sport I have done Eugen. Why prethee Mr. Bays I took thee for a man of more Philosophy and all that than to be thus disturb'd for so small a matter I thought you had been of Socrates's opinion that all creatures could not affront you Bays I am indeed Sir and thank you heartily for reminding me of him so now I 'll proceed Being as I told you very well satisfied of the truth of the Christian Religion but not so well satisfied that the Church of England was the true Church I cast my eyes round about me and discover'd in the Church of Rome several particulars which no other Communion of Christians in the World cou'd pretend to as Infallibility Unity Uiversality Antiquity and Clemency and therefore here I settled After some conversation and experience I found here to be a Church of so severe a Discipline so examplary a Devotion so admirable an Unity so majestic a Grandeur that I believe I may be pardon'd the expression if I say she has been so far from debauching and corrupting that she has even improv'd the Christian Religion Crites Nay I 'll say that for your Church Mr. Bays she has as good a hand at improving of hints as ever any Church in the World had As for example the Rhetorical Apostrophes and Flourishes of the first Fathers to the Saints she has improved into a solemn Invocation of them Eugen. The idle conjectures of some melancholly persons about a middle place in the fourth Century she has improv'd into a real Purgatory peopled it with inhabitants and by certain refrigerium's so corrected the unwholesomness of the air that it wou'd be now nothing nigh so great a punishment to pass a winter there as any where under the Line Crites The Virgin Mary's salutation she has improved into a Prayer the Real Presence into a Corporal one the civil respect that was formerly given to the Relicks of Martyrs into a Religious Veneration of them Eugen. Primitive Institution left us only two Sacraments which she has since improv'd into seven The first Missionaries of our Religion bequeath'd but twelve Articles to be believ'd by us and she has lately improved them into the jolly number of aff's Buckram-men twenty four Crites St. Paul tells us of one
The Late CONVERTS Exposed OR THE REASONS OF Mr. BAYS's Changing his Religion Considered in a DIALOGUE PART the Second WITH Reflections on the Life of St. Xavier Don Sebastian King of Portugal AS ALSO The Fable of the BAT and the BIRDS Parcite Oves nimiù◠procedere non benè ripae Creditur ipse Aries etiam nunc vellera siccat Virg. Ecl. 3. Rode Caper vitem tamen hinc cum stabis ad aram In tua quod fundi Cornua possit erit Ovid. Fast. Licensed Ianuary 8. 1689. LONDON Printed for Thomas Bennet at the Sign of the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1690. THE Reader may be pleased to observe that most of the following Sheets were written in the Late Reign and then designed to be published But the Author who had promised to make a Sacrifice of Mr. Bays yearly did not think there lay any great obligation upon him to sacrifice himself and an Honest Bookseller to the indignation of Mr. Hills of Pious Memory He has been since prevailed upon at the intreaty of some Friends to alter the Dialogue where he saw convenient and so to Print it For doing which he has not the vanity to imagine the Reader will thank him because it comes out so very unseasonably only he presumes Mr. Bays and Mr. T-ns-n will be sensible of the kindness since it may help to revive a certain remarkable Poem which might otherwise have been forgotten Preface to Mr. Bays I Make bold to dedicate the following Dialogue to your self for who can pretend a better right to the entertainment than he that has furnish'd out the better part of it at his own expence They are your own Arguments only for the present occasion untagg'd and divested of their dearly beloved Rhime and you are too much a Gentleman I know Mr. Bays to quarrel with me for so doing You that have so often disguised the thoughts of other Authors by altering the property and putting them into Metre cannot in Honour or Iustice quarrel with your humble Servant for taking the liberty to turn some of your own Poetry into Prose The truth on 't is such pretty reasonings for their own safety ought no more to visit the World out of the Livery of Verse than a Bully of Alsatia to walk the Streets on any other day but a Sunday 't is a Garb that becomes them so extreamly well that methinks 't is as much pity they should ever be forced to part with it as for an Actress that becomes her Play-house Habit and Charms half the Town by Candle-light to be surprized in her ordinary Dress dans une brillante assemblée And so far Mr. Bays all the World is obliged to justifie you I don't mean for changing your Religion but for defending it with the most plausible arms that can be employed in its Service You know the Criticks of all Ages have fallen very severely upon Lucan for treating a true History in Verse and if that reason hold I think your Divines ought every Mother's Son of them to be condemned for treating a Poetical Subject as I look upon the whole body of your Italian Theology to be in Prose And now Worthy Sir to perform my promise to the World which every honest man is bound to do I here Sacrifice your Hind and Panther once more to the memory of Mr. Quarles and John Bunyan which Oblation I hope will become the more pleasing and acceptable through the merits and intercession of Mr. Sh-dw-ll Mr. S-ttle Mr. N-rris Mr. Cr-ch Mr. D-rfy Dr. Beest-n and all the rest of your fellow Poets in Christendom I must confess Mr. Bays that some years ago I little imagined that I should ever have the opportunity of contesting with you upon this score if your Christian Mercury could have settled long in any communion I durst have sworn the Established Church could have made the justest pretensions to you and as long as so good a pledge as the Religio Laici continued in our hands I flatter'd my self that you durst no more revolt to the other Party than a King of England durst make a descent into France that had pawn'd his Prince of Wales to the Society at Paris But this it seems is an Age of Miracles Who could expect to see the difference made up between the Observator and the late Occurrencer Or that those two everlasting Adversaries who one would have thought like two Parallel lines if they had been drawn out till Doomsday could never have met should lay aside old grudges and write for a Toleration Who could imagine that the Fanaticks who had hitherto oppos'd the Iust Rights of Princes would on the sudden offer Incense to the Dispensing Power and pimp to the Prerogative Or while so many Refugees came daily over to us from France that your Party could have the assurance here to disown the Spirit of Persecution Who could ever hope till the re-converted Mr. Sclater showed them the way that the Jews wou'd take up the Cudgels for Transubstantiation or that those nice humoursome Gentlemen that all along expected to find their Messias under a Royal Character wou'd now be content to acknowledge him disguised in a Wafer Who could believe till the Bishop of Meaux had satisfied the World as to that particular that a Corporal Presence was a received principle of all the Reformed Churches This policy I must needs say it was refined enough and I suppose Mr. Bays your Church-men borrowed it of the Venetians who love dearly to sit idle at home and fight out their battels by Foreigners When you had once proved that the Jews and Protestants belonged to your Communion there was no question to be made but that the Turks and Pagans must fall in of course to uphold your Universality just as whole Provinces and Towns in Flanders used to drop into Grand's Chamber of Dependancies Lastly to compleat our astonishment for the greatest Prodigy is still behind what mortal Man in the three Kingdoms could Dream that Mr. Bays the Poet would renounce the Devil and all his Works would condescend to think of saving his precious Soul and espouse the Catholick Cause that he had so often ridicul'd and banter'd upon the Theatre Far be it from me my most noble Play-wright to speak this with a design to blame you for justifying your Church in Verse for as you may well remember I have commended you for using that conduct No no honest Mr. Bays like Tullie's Fiddler that defined the Soul to be Harmony so you in like manner when you wrote the Hind and Panther ab arte tua non recessisti you never flinch'd from your old Profession and let the ill-natured World say what it will I am still ready to maintain that your above-mentioned immortal piece of Controversie is but the second part to your Essay upon Dramatick Poetry Indeed as Sir Roger L'Estrange in his History of the late times has judiciously observed that Murder is of no Religion so I was in good
make Transubstantiation stand upon as good a bottom as the Trinity and pretend that we had as great reason to believe one as the other what other consequences could it naturally produce but that both Doctrines were to be equally rejected And indeed Mr. Bays I am apt to believe from the conduct and management of your Priests that since they could not introduce their Religion amongst us they thought it the best expedient to set up Atheism For as St. Jerome in his Treatise Contra Vigilantium has somewhere observed and why may not I Mr. Bays palm a Father upâ—n you as well as your party has palmed a thousand upon us A Papist and an Atheist differ like a jealous man and a Cuckold like Alderman and Mayor a little time makes one the other Sow Atheism in one Age and it will infallibly produce Popery in the next for Popery begets Atheism and Atheism begets Popery just as Peace and Poverty beget one another in the Almanack The World is a very melancholly place withâ—ut the diversion of one Religion or another Statesmen or Poets would in a short time trump up some new way of Worship to amuse the people and after their recovery out of Atheism Popery as the grossest Religion would soonest take with Mankind just as when one comes out of a dark Cave or a Dungeon the grossest objects first employ the eye-sight So that in my opinion Mr. Bays your Canon-Law ought as well to have taken care that a Sceptick and a true Catholick should never Marry for fear of committing Incest as it has already provided that those that have stood God-father and God-mother at a Baptism should not joyn to the tune of for better for worse for fear of violating the rules of a spiritual Consanguinity If you say this is uncharitably urged upon you I cannot tell how to help it for if we do not run out into the rankest infidelity we are not to thank your Church for hindring us But now to come more closely to you Mr. Bays I should never have taken this second occasion of reviving your old Transgressions but that you have lately given us the justest provocations in the world to attaque you You tell us in your Preface to Don Sebastian That if ever a man has reason to set a value upon himself 't is when his ungenerous Enemies are taking the advantage of the Times upon him to ruine him in his reputation Now what reputation you have to lose is a mysterie to me or any one else that knows you that little you had has been lost and forfeited many years ago The City and Country Mouse ruined the reputation of the Divine as the Rehearsal ruined the reputation of the Poet so that upon this score Mr. Bays whatever Adversaries shall fall upon you for the future you may as well comfort your self that you have no reputation to lose to them as many a poor Prisoner in Ludgate blesses his condition that he has no money to part with to the present Government You have indeed forefaulted your Lawrel and Historians place that 's all the advantage the times have taken on you and you may well admire the mercifulness of the Government that it has not punished your Panther ribbaldry and desertion for I will not call it Apostasie in a Poet with a severer mortification If you are weary of living without an employment as I see very little probability you have of regaining that you have lost I de e'en counsel you to go over to Spain to get an office in the Inquisition for Mr. Bays if you make no more conscience of killing men elsewhere than you do on the Theatre you are the fittest person in Europe for it But prithee why so severe always upon the Priesthood Mr. Bays What have they merited to pull down your indignation I thought that ridiculing the men of that Character upon the Stage was by this time a Tâ—picas much worn out with you as Love and Honour in the Play or good fulsome flattery in the Dedication But you I find still continue your old humour which we are to date from the year of Hegira the loss of Eaton or since Orders were refused you whatever hangs out either Black or Green Colours is presently your prize and you would by your good will be as mortifying a vexation to the whole Tribe as an unbegetting year a concatenation of Breifs or a voracious Visiter So that I am of opinion you had much better to have written in your Title page Manet altâ mente repostum Judicium Cleri spreâ—aeque injuria Musae Than the Nec Tarda Senectus and all that For tho you are so complaisant to your Reader as to tell him of the Lustre and Masculine Vigour in which it was written of the newnesses of the English of the noble daring in the Figures and that in the roughness of the numbers and cadences he will see somewhat more masterly than in most if not any of your former Tragedies yet me give me leave to tell you Mr. Bays the world thinks otherwise of it because you come duller off with your Clergy in that than the Spanish Fryar They judge of your wit by the smart repartees you pass upon the Priesthood if it fails you there they conclude it goes very hard with you From your usage of the Churchmen they know how your fancy falls and rises as exactly as we know how the air is disposed from the mounting and sinking of the Quicksilver in a Weatherglass If you were to write a thousand new Plays and to change your Religion as often no question Mr. Bays but the last would still be the best and therefore the Town will no more believe you for the future when you commend your Plays than a jealous Citizen when he commends his Wife You say you are growing old and therefore assume to your self the right of talking if we are to guess at your age only by that why then for any thing I know to the contrary you may live as long as Me huselah Mr. Bays for ever since I have heard of your name you have assumed the same liberty To be plain with you honest Mr. Bays you acquired your self a reputation by your Poetry and you have lost it by your Poetry as a certain nameless Author about Town who has exactly calculated the fall of Antichrist got a name by a Somnium Navale and parted with it in a Somnium Theologicum And now Mr. Bays if you please to give me leave I 'le make bold to examine two or three points relating to your Religion in this place because the rules of Dialogue you know tye up a mans hands from making any continued Discourse I shall begin then with your Infallibility because if that were evidently proved it would soon put an end to the Dispute and here I cannot but observe what perplexities your Doctors are in to adjust this affair They prove the infallibility of the Scripture
by the infallibility of the Church and the infallibility of the Church by the infallibility of the Scripture After the same manner as Sir Roger tells us in his above-mentioned History the evidence of the late Popish Plot were at a loss whether to bring Sir Godfrey's murder to the Plot or the Plot to the murder but at last so managed the matter as to make the murder prove the Plot and the Plot the murder But to be serious with you Mr. Bays where is this infallibility of your Church to be found at last Why say you and most of your Divines that live on this side the Alps in Pope and Council as for a Council there 's none sitting at present or if there were I hate as mortally to look after Infallibility in a Crowd as to carry a Letter to Mr. such-a-one living in London without naming the Street and Sign Neither this or that Bishop and so on of the rest make any pretensions to it and tho no individual man in the Assembly claims any right to the Title yet we must in complement to you believe that the Body shares it among them but for my part I can as little endure to hear of Accumulative Infallibility as of Accumulative Treason 'T is very true there 's a promise made somewhere in Scripture to preside over Two or Three that meet upon a Religious Score but the condition of the Obligation is Si in nomine meo convenerint which I presume those people can never pretend to have fulfilled that can decree Articles of Faith with a Non Obstante to a Primitive Institution The Italians that we have reason to suppose understand the question in hand better than any of their Neighbours by having the Infallibility reside amonst them for so long a time utterly dislike this opinion of the Tramontani and make a Council as unnecessary a thing to the Pope as the Parliaments in France are to their All-Mighty Monarch I am so far of their Opinion as to believe that if such a thing as Infallibility is any where to be found it must be lodged in one single person and therefore I am resolved for trying the experiment to go and give him a visit at Rome and here I see as little signs of Infallibillity as in any Princes Court in Christendom unless the errours and irreligion of the place be an argument that he dwells amongst them as we observe in England that people generally talk most Treason near the King's Palace Sometimes indeed I see a Grave Old Gentleman who as they tell me assumes this venerable title carried in procession up and down the City when he saves the poor ignorant people as the old Romans did their Gladiators by holding down a finger and a thumb and this is unless I am mistaken Soloecismum manu facere even according to the letter Sometimes I see him as on a Maunday Thursday with abundance of solemnity and Christian compassion deliver three parts of the Globe into the hands of old Satan by which tenure I suppose he holds his Spiritual Iurisdiction and his Mannor of the Vatican as a certain family in Buckingham-shire Mr. Cambden tells us held their Lands of the King by being obliged to furnish his Royal Bed with fresh straw whenever he came in progress to that side of the Country If I inquire into the History of Infallibility they inform me here that it was very ignorant and very obstinate under the late Pontificate and that the Man of Sin did not understand the Language of the Beast If I trace it farther I find that in the Reign of Pope Innocent the Tenth or rather Donna Olympia it was seated as the French call it en quenouille that in former times it has suffered an Interregnum for forty years that it has fornicated blasphem'd offer'd Sacrifices to Idols deny'd the Immortality of the Soul committed Incest studied Magick tolerated Sodomy dispens'd with Murder and occasion'd most of the Wars and Desolation that have plagued this part of the World for the ten last Centuries To recount all the Impieties that his story stands charged with were as endless a piece of trouble as to reckon up all the Treasons and Rebellions since the Conquest and I believe Mr. Bays you 'll find it as difficult a matter in the end to reconcile what has been mentioned to the Infallible Character he sustains as to reconcile his two incompatible Titles Rex Regum and Servus Servorum to one another One that has either read or heard of these passages wou'd be apt to conclude that as the Romish Religion is only a continuation of Paganism so that Platina's History is but the second part to Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars so I find I must e'en quit my Lodgings and leave Roma la Santa if I have a design to see Infallibility Migrandum est mihi longius vel illi When I have removed out of the City I may perhaps be so happy as to meet the long expected Object for as the same Poet observes Vicinus Novio vel inquilinus Sit quisquis Novium videre non vult The English of which Mr. Bays is this He that has a mind never to trouble his Eye-sight with Infallibillity must take himself a House in Rome and the nearer the Vatican or St. Peters so much the better Two Texts in the Bible a Book which he very scurvily requited afterwards Tu es Petrus and Pasce Oves meas first acquired him this Reputation in a dull barbarous unthinking Age and that soon brought along with it the Temporal Power which he now possesses but it 's no easie matter to determine whether he most scandalously behaves himself on his Secular or Spiritual Administration for he lets his Subjects amidst all their plenty starve in the most fruitful Country in the World and suffers them too for all his pretences to an Unerring Spirit to be over-run with the grossest Ignorance and Superstition If a Socrates or a Plato or a Race of honest Heathens of the same stamp had presided in the Chair I question whether the Christian Religion had received so much injury as it did from the conduct of the Popes unless they had expressed as great a passiâ—n for the Welfare of the Church as they have done all along for the raising of their Nephews and then perhaps most of thâ—se shameful miscarriages had been prevented I can't tell Mr. Bays whether he 's sensible of the kindness but I am sure your Infallibility is obliged for that little Christianity and Learning which is remaining in his Territories to the Reformation or Luther's defection as you call it as a Learned Traveller has observed that the preservation of Spain in this Age is intirely owing to the happy revolt the Hollanders made from it in the last Your Divines I know tell another story but where Interest and Prejudice blind people there 's no sincerity to be expected they magnify and preach up the Papal Infallibility in hopes
are a sort of people that because they have no leisure to examine any Religion take it all upon trust But among the established Churchmen I wou'd have 'em pretend to nothing at all but their two undeniable Talents Ignorance and Impudence And now to our business again Mr. Bays the true reason of imposing Celibacy upon the Clergy was at first an ungovernable zeal void of Conduct and Charity a peremptory Spirit of Pride and above all a wild notion of attaining to an imaginary kind of perfection which is only to be found among the people of Sir More 's creation This Mr. Bays is the true state of the business For tho Pope Siricius as I told you before was so unadvised as to endeavour to prove Celibacy out of the Bible yet others that managed the Cause with more discretion found it was not capable of that kind of protection and therefore instead of so many Texts to defend it gave it a guard du corps of certain well-bred handsome Gentlemen which in the language of that age they called Conveniences However Paphnutius stifled the motion at the Council of Nice and the Synod of Gangra passed an Anathema upon all those that refused to receive the Communion from a married Priest What gives me a farther prejudice to the matter in dispute is the persons who first of all recommended it to the World They were such that in heat of persecution had retired into the Woods to preserve themselves from the fury of their Enemies where they had lived under a great deal of austerity and mortification and indeed the places whither they fled for shelter afforded no very agreeable accommodations Now these Gentlemen when the storm was over and the Church enjoy'd a little Sun-shine were for continuing that Ascetic sort of life which they first practised amongst the Caves and Deserts and tho they had lived so long out of the world wou'd very discreetly impose Laws upon those who had always lived in it From what has been said Mr. Bays upon this score I wou'd not have you conclude that I am an Enemy to Celibacy no one I am sure has more honourable thoughts of that easie unincumbred state than my self yet for all that I am of opinion it ought not to be forced upon a whole body of men without any distinction but that every man should be left to his own discretion to chuse that way of life which seems most agreeable to his own inclination and the sacredness of his character Four or five hundred old men they are conven'd in a Council with those formal solemnities which such great assemblies generally make use of have in my judgment no more authority to prescribe a Continence which they themselves are past a capacity of losing to those of more youthful appetites than the good people that live under the Line have to command us in the North to go naked The only revenge which the younger Clergy cou'd return wou'd be to condemn the use of Spectacles in a full Convention for unchristian and Heretical to order that whosoever cou'd not read a Geneva-Bible at two yards distance and vault over a five-barr'd Gate should forfeit his Mitre and that no one should presume to take Holy Orders who would not oblige himself by a vow never to be guilty of wearing a Beard and who would not renounce both Gout and Palsie as heartily as he did the Devil and all his Works at his Baptism Should such Decrees as these pass for the mortification of the Right Reverend Fathers I suppose they would be only taken for things of raillery and diversion and yet Mr. Bays Celibacy is as much a jest upon humane nature taking it in the gross as what I have just now mentioned I wonder in my heart that when they proceeded so far to refine the Priesthood as to think it possible for all of 'em to live without the other Sex that they had not likewise obliged 'em to go to Stool but once a quarter and that precisely at twelve a Clock and to subsist after the Spiritual manner of the ancient Knights Errant that never as we read of debased themselves with brutal eating and drinking As our Pulses Mr. Bays wou'd not cease beating altho the whole College of Physitians in a Warwick-Lane Meeting should think it fit to lay an interdict upon 'em so I don't question but Nature will continue still to work after her usual manner tho all the Councils in Christendom should lay all their heads together to muzzle her And I fancy it is but small comfort to one of your fat overgrown Friars when he finds he has a huge stock of Love upon his hands to imagine to dispossess himself of it all by reading over Pope Hildebrand's Canon against Sacerdotal erections Indeed if I might have had my will Celibacy should have waited at least another age before it had been publickly enjoyned After Transubstantiation had been made a matter of my Faith I would then have freely consented to have Celibacy established for certainly Mr. Bays I cou'd never think any thing too difficult for that Priest to perform that cou'd make his God at a minutes warning Bays Now I hope Mr. Crites tho you deny me a share in the other virtues you 'l allow me to have a stock of patience sufficient to furnish all the married men and Chymists in the Nation at my own cost and Charges otherwise I am sure I cou'd never have heard out this tedious harangue of yours which is full as troublesome as an Irish Genealogy or to hear one of the City Aldermen tell all the traverses of his Fortune from his Leathern Breeches down to his Scarlet Gown Nay I knew very well before hand what entertainment a Discourse of Chastity must expect to find among you pamper'd Protestants but if you have any more to say upon this occasion Mr. Crites pray let me have it for I promise you my attention Crites Thus Mr. Bays your Celibacy which Presumption and Pride and some few Specious Pretences first introduced into the World was afterwards upon certain Secular Considerations espoused by the Popes till it was at last brought to that perfection in which we now see it Your Western Patriarchs in order to erect that Temporal Monarchy after which they so zealously aspired found it requisite to make the Clergy as much depending upon their See as was possible and likewise to disengage 'em from leaving any natural pledges to the respective Governments where they lived Therefore by virtue of a blind obedience which had for some time been paid to St. Peter's Chair and if that fail'd to produce the effect by virtue of a little thundring language which at that age was as terrible to Kings as the Twelve-penny-Act is now to the Vintners they made a shift to wrest the right of Investitures out of the hands of Princes to put themselves in capacity of gratifying their trusty Agents abroad and for the same reasons of
they say in the Lake of Sodom Feathers sink and Iron swims All the World knows how remarkably Costerus and several other of your Divines have refined upon this point and 't is observable in your Canon Law that so many Acts of Fornication are required to make the Indictment large enough to comprehend a poor Sinner that they 'l excuse not only the immortal Theodora's and Marozia's of former Ages and the Donna Olympia's of this but perhaps all the She-traders since the times of Rahab and Lots Daughters A Woman had need now a days if the Doctrine of your Church be true to live as long as one of the Patriarchs Wives before the Flood to have time enough to work out the painful and laborious Character of a Whore But we Mr. Bays dare not play such tricks with Religion dubb Vices by the Name of Virtues or what is full as bad keep a disputable Virtue at the expence of keeping at the same time an unquestionable Sin whatever interest or advantage may suggest we dare not make such large purliews for outlying Consciences not we Mr. Bays Nobis non licet esse tam disertis Qui legem colimus severiorem Eugen. As my friend very well observes Mr. Bays we don't think it worth the while to maintain a controverted virtue at the expence of maintaining an uncontroverted Sin while you of the Church of Rome have never a Virtue to boast of that is not attended with some Crimnal Inconveniences Thus you maintain your pretended Chastity at the expence of allowing publick Fornication your obedience to your Patriarch at the expence of Sacrificing your obedience to your natural Prince your Monastic Poverty at the expence of Perjury and Hypocrisie your Unity at the expence of an Unchristian Inquisition the Grandeur of your Worship at the expence of Idolatry your pretension to Miracles and Antiquity at the expence of Lying and Forgery your Charity at the expence of Superstition and lastly the Devotion of your People at the expence of Ignorance and the Unpardonable Sacriledge of taking away their Bibles Crites Nay sometimes Mr. Bays matters go worse with you as for example when you perswade People to the utter undoing of their Families to leave all they have to a lazy Herd of Spiritual Gluttons for the saying of their Souls when you perswade young Virgins in defiance of their Parents to run into a Nunnery for the obtaining of Heaven when you perswade Wives to leave their Husbands Husbands to leave their Wives Kings to oppress their Subjects Subjects to depose their Kings for the remission of their sins this is unless I am mistaken making one sin compound and attone for another like a decay'd Tradesman that borrows Money in one place and contracts a fresh Debt to pay off one of a longer standing Eugen. So now Mr. Bays if you think fit we 'll shut our hands of Celibacy for I 'm as weary of it as a Poet is of a discourse of Religion a young Lawyer of Navigation a Citizen of Heraldry or a Courtier of Trade we have dwelt too long upon this point and 't is high time now to proceed to a new one Bays Well Sir if you find it burns your fingers I am content to drop it not but that it is still tenable enough and may be defended on to the end of the Chapter I shall then in the next place consider the divisions of your Church which to confess the truth chiefly prevailed with me to quit your Communion Crites This is very strange Mr. Bays for I think that man that leaves the Church of England upon the score of her divisions and then goes over to the Romish Party is guilty of the same piece of wisdom as he that to avoid an Ague leaves the Hundreds in Essex to go into the most unwholsome part of Kent Eugen. Or one that to avoid being Cuckolded removes his Wife from Cheapside into the Pall-Mall or Covent-Garden But prithee proceed little Bays Bays It were an infinite trouble to reckon up all the Sects and Subdivisions into which the Protestant Religion is split a man had better run the Gantlet through a Genealogy Chapter in the Chronicles or what is worse read over one of Ch-sw-lls Weekly Papers that is stuff'd with the Names of the Scotch Lords than be bound to number them And yet they all pretend to be in the right Quote Scripture to support their Cause and damn one another as heartily as ever Interloper did the East-India Company Out of this passage Let every thing be done decently and in order the Established Church has rais'd the whole frame of her Hierarchy her Ceremonies and her Liturgy as you know in the late blessed times the Fanatics out of Curse ye Meroz rais'd several Regiments of Horse and Foot for the Service of the good Old Cause On the other hand because it is elsewhere written that the Christian Devotion is to be perform'd in Spirit and Truth those Adamites in Religion your Dissenting Brethren have stript her stark naked and divested her of all those deceent ceremonies that she used in the Purest and most Primitive times Crites Very smartly argued by my troth Mr. Bays Bays I wont mention ten thousand other particulars wherein you differ for what I have already taken notice of is sufficient for my purpose Now what relief is there to be had in this critical affair how shall the differences be made up between you Or how shall a man be satisfied which Party is in the right and which in the wrong All of them have Texts of Scripture to alledge for themselves as well as you of the Established Church and if you lead 'em a dance amongst the Fathers and appeal to their decision of the matter why they 'll tell you they mind what the Fathers say no more than the Bullies of the other end of the Town mind one of my Lord Mayors Proclamations for living soberly and keeping the Sabbath Alas those Antiquated Gentlemen of the three first Centuries knew little or nothing of the power of the Gospel one honest Presbyterian Weaver wou'd make no more difficulty of bantering a full dozen of 'em if he met 'em in his way than one of your Iniskilling men does of routing a whole Regiment of Irish Poor blind Prelates they had no more interest in Christ than the Laplanders have in the Guinea Company and as for the hidden mysteries of Grace they are as unfit to be consulted as a Physician in a case of Conscience or one of the Judges of the Kings-Bench about the Longitude of the Sea Thus you see Mr. Crites to what a pretty condition you have brought your selves you first of all began the trade of garbling Fathers and Counils and reserving what made for your own interest and advantage and your Brethren since have totally rejected 'em or if they vouchsafe now and then to cite 'em in the Margin which let me tell you is as extraordinary a condescension as it is
for a new-rais'd Courtier to look upon a poor Country relation 't is to make out some such knotty businesses as these that Temperance is the mother of all Virtues and Drunkenness one of the greatest sins in the World In such an intricate point as this perhaps St. Austin may have the favour done him to be sent for as I knew one of the Herd that quoted this quibble out of him Mane is Gods Adverb and the Devils Verb and another that proved the Suns dancing upon Easter morning out of that remarkable passage in St. Chrysostom Semel-in anno ridet Apollo Not to be tedious upon this occasion your divisions are chiefly owing to the want of an Infallible guide that should determine all controverted cases and to your leaving every man to the liberty of interpreting Scripture by his own fantastic imagination or by the light of that farthing candle within him the private Spirit Crites I must confess Mr. Bays you have now touch'd me in a very tender place for there 's no man breathing that more passionately bewails the Divisions of our Church than my self However it has a very ill grace methinks in the mouth of a Romanist to charge us with such an unhappiness since in the first place you have as many Divisions among your selves as we have notwithstanding the pretences you make to an infallible judge and secondly because we are only to thank your cursed missionaires for introducing and fomenting 'em as is notorious to all the VVorld You want to have your memory refreshed I suppose with the noble contention that engaged one of your orders for half an Age at least about the length of their Cowls which was managed with as much heat and vigour as if the fate of the Christian Religion had wholly depended upon it With the everlasting quarrels between the Franciscans and Dominicans about the Virgin Mary's immaculate Conception which none of your Unerring guides have thought fit yet to determine for fear of disgruntling one of those powerful Fraternites with the late disagreements between the Molinists and Iansenists when the Roman Oracle Pope Alexander the 7th was pleas'd to tell 'em Pray Gentlemen go home in peace and let me perswade you to let this matter fall for I never studied the point and am no Divine and lastly with the modern rise and growth of Quietism that was Educated and refined even in the Vatican Palace under the favour and protection of Infallibility it self and tho it was lately fulminated still makes a considerable Party all over Italy I won't trouble my self with the endless Wars of the Schoolmen but especially with the Skirmishes that happen'd between the Disciples of Scaramouchi Aquinas and Harsequin Scotus two learned Theologues that made use of a Heathen's help to cultivate Christianity and Ploughed the barren Fields of their Controversies with an Ox and Ass that is with an Apostle and Aristotle These instances may serve to convince you Mr. Bays and particularly that last of the Quietists that for all the noise your Infallible Judge makes here among us the Tramontani with his Spiritual Thunder and pretended Vicarship of what little use he is with his own Domesticks who converse with him and see him daily since under his own Nose so Pestilent a Heresie could arise as to Alarm the whole Papacy I am sure as many divisions disturb'd the first Planted Churches as do ours of the Reformation at present when the World was furnished with at least a dozen Infallibilities and I don't question but that the same Spirit of Discord wou'd still continue to plague us tho twelve hundred Infallibillities were Quarter'd all over the Globe to keep their Masters Peace As for what you object to us in the next place the libetty which some fantastical People among us use interpreting the Scripture we are not at all accountable for it since if they pleas'd to take better advice and manage themselves with more modesty they would seldom make use of the private Talent but suffer themselves to be determined by the Councils and Fathers of the three first unquestionable Ages as the Establish'd Church has done We have indeed rejected what you call garbling many spurious Works that passed a great while under the protection of some great Names and this I am sure without any injury or disrespect to the Authors themselves as you know Mr. Bays a man may have a great esteem for your friend Virgil without believing him to be the Writer of the AEtna and the Priapeia and will preserve a respect for the old Testament tho he cannot perswade himself that Bell and the Dragon has any relation to the Canon Now tho I must freely grant you that some seeming inconveniencies may ensue upon the promiscuous use of the Bible especially when it falls into dishonest hands yet we don't think the abuse capable of justifying that Sacrilegious Rapine of taking it away any more than the Civil Government is obliged to lock up all Provisions and Prohibit VVine to secure People from falling into Fevers and other Distempers Bays Pray Mr. Crites before you proceed any farther in this matter will you do me the favour to let me entertain you with part of a discourse which I lately heard at one of our Chappels 't will satisfie you I believe that all people ought not to be made free of the Scripture and that the common reading of it has occasion'd all those disturbances which have ever since invaded the peace of Christendom Crites With all my heart Mr. Bays begin when you will Bays Pray then be attentive As long as the Bible continued in honest St. Ierom's Latin it was capable of doing little or no mischief said this Learned Father but afterwards when it was translated into the vulgar Languages it set all Europe together by the ears which I 'll Illustrate to you said he by this following Simile Eugen. Prithee dear Bays then let us have this Simile for I am the greatest lover of Similes and a Bottle in the Universe Bays A Flint while it lyes in the Fields obscure and unobserved does no manner of injury but when it 's once preferr'd to a Tinder-box why then beloved it begins to show the depravity of its nature for alas How great is the frailty of all Mortal Creatures and what thing is there upon the face of the earth that does not sensibly find the ill effects of keeping bad Company This Flint my Brethren after some little time contracts an acquaintance with a piece of Steel and they two resolve oh wicked resolution not to live in darkness but by the assistance of their Landlord to inflame a certain neighbour of theirs Tinder by Name Even so Mr. Crites Crites Even so Mr. Bays the French when they could keep Spire and Wormes no longer burnt them down to the ground and even so your Church of Rome when it found the Bible wou'd serve its interest no longer either burnt it or what is equally as bad
her Blood begun Crites If it is but about two hundred years since the Incarnation I confess we can't pretend to a longer standing in the World than you have assign'd us Mr. Bays But now I have been told all along that we stand two or three Stories higher in Chronology than you pretend Bays Stand as high as you please I 'm sure you 're not a minute older than the German Reformer Your Ancestors were every man of them believers of Transubstantiation that is in your charitable construction rank Idolaters Now if this Allegation be true pray what becomes of your boasted Succession for how an Idolatrous Church should convey true Orders and elsewhere you don't pretend to have received them is as much a Riddle to me as how a man shou'd translate the Psalms well that Copies them at second hand from Hopkins's Burlesque Eugen. Nay we are not at this time of the day to wonder at the conduct of your Catholick Church to ruine our succession Mr. Bays she takes the same Course that Widdow Black-acre did in the Plain-dealer that wou'd have sworn her self a whore upon record only to disinherit her rebellious Son Ierry Crites I find Mr. Bays you 're a meer Indian in History What did you never hear of the famous contest between Austin and the British Bishops about their subjection to the See of Rome and how fatally it concluded Did you never hear of the Wiclevites at home and of the Waldenses abroad which last Herd of Heretics as Reinerus the Inquisitor tells you some people place as high as the times of St. Silvester and others as high as the very Apostles Bays They may run 'em up to Noah's Flood with all my heart and I assure you upon my word Mr. Crites I 'le never grudge you the honour of citing such worthy instances to prove your antiquity Crites That is not the case Mr. Bays for I never mention'd 'em as tho we were descended in a down-right Line from them as they say the Kings of Scotland are descended from Fergus or as tho the merits of the Reformation depended on 'em But only to let you know that in some part of the World or other there never wanted a generation of men even in the darkest and most barbarous times that opposed your innovations and had the bravery to stem the Tide of the Papal Usurpations This might be made appear in every Century since your Church parted with her Maiden-head to the Man of Sin but because it is not to be done without an endless quotation of Authors which is a sort of vanity that I am not naturally very fond of I shall ee'n refer you to the Historia Papatus for your farther satisfaction Some of your Divines have been so civil to us as to allow us the three first Centuries or at least to acknowledge that all those controverted points wherein you and we differ were not clearly established in the earliest times of Christianity The Church it seems had afterwards fuller revelations of all these depending matters and some Christian Doctrines like China-earth were to be buried under ground for a considerable time before they were fit for a discovery and the practice of mankind Thus Mr. Bays in the opinion of your best Authors who to be sure wou'd never pass such extraordinary complements upon us if they cou'd otherwise help it we have as much Antiquity on our side as we can desire 'T is very true that in succeeding times your Popes served the Christian Religion as Dr. Oats served the Popish-plot they found a large Foundation upon which they raised several superstructures of their own now we only removed and pulled 'em down at the beginning of the Reformation so that we constituted no new Church as some of your Dreaming Scriblers pretend but only restored her to her primitive purity and simplicity Bays Ay ay you have restored her with a witness and you are to thank the Wittemberg-Revolter for setting you upon so pious a performance As for my own part by reading Mr. Walkers Book of Oxford I have entertained such prejudices against him that all the World can never remove 'em And I heartily thank that learned Author for making the following observation That whilst the Turk was attacquing Christianity in the Front at Vienna Luther was at the same invading it in the Rear in Saxony Crites I don't know Mr. Bays whether it is worth your while to take notice of such impertinent remarques for at the same time you oblige us of the Reformation to look a little into History and see whether we cannot make the same returns upon you I have read somewhere or other I am certain that at the very same juncture when Boniface set up for Universal Bishop that Mahomet was establishing his Alcoran in Arabia and to pass by the like occurences in former ages the Brussels Gazette acquainted the world that Count Hains the Player and my Lord S-l-s-b-ry were reconcil'd to the Church of Rome together and every body in the City knows that Moll Meggs and my Lord S-nd-rl-nd were admitted into the Popish Chappel at White-hall on the same day Bays However Mr. Crites I can scarce be perswaded that Luther and the other Bell-weathers of the Reformation were ever design'd by providence to restore the Church to what you call her ancient purity and to retreive her from a long habitual course of Superstition and Idolatry for by that cut-throat name you slander the received usages of the Western Church since they came not attended with the power of Miracles which is the usual badge of the Missionaires of Heaven and for his part Luther had nothing in him to distinguish him from the rest of the World but a peculiar talent of reviling Princes aspersing his Superiors and treating all his Adversaries with insupportable insolence and scurrility Crites As for his Heats and Passions we have no more to say Mr. Bays but that your Infallible Guides have not been without 'em witness he that blasphem'd so heartily for having only lost a Peacock Now I wonder that you should fall so severely upon Luther for the freedom he took with King Henry the 8th for I suppose you had your eye upon him when you tax'd the German just now with the reviling of Princes when there 's scarce a Priest or Scribler of your party throughout the Kingdom that has not assaulted that or any other Princes memory with greater boldness and familiarity who has had the hardiness to mortifie the Churchmen you need not be informed how that Haberdasher of Gerunds and Supines Scioppius the Grammarian used King Iames the First But a little warm raillery in a Protestant I find is an unpaâ—donable sin while the Catholic Cause sanctifies even the vilest ribaldry and ascribes it all to the score of Zeal and Devotion Eugen. But why Mr. Bays should you think the worse of the Reformation for its want of Miracles We don't pretend to have raised a new Church and
you 'l ridicule the regaling one self with the most provoking Meats and the most generous Wines by that name The Poor indeed fast in the literal sense because they can't help it otherwise they might make a shift to relieve nature well enough and with such kind of devout Fasters every Church in the World is sufficiently stock'd and ours amongst the rest for you may find large Herds of 'em every day in the Temple-Walks the Irish Coffee-house or the Piazza's in Covent-Garden Eugen. The truth on 't is Mr. Bays you had done much better to have let this business of fasting and all that alone because amongst Friends be it spoken to charge us with that which you your selves practise with such dexterity of management looks as odd as it wou'd be for a protected Parliament mans man to rail at the priviledges of Alsatia or for one of Pen's Herd to rail at the Five Bishops for not swearing to the present Government or lastly for one of the Heralds at Arms to quarrel with Chaplains and Poets for flattering of Families The other plea about Ceremonies is a thousand times more justifiable and to say the truth is the only proper Objection that a Dramatic Poet can make to the Reformed Religion Bays Well I am glad however that once in my life-time I had the grace to light upon something which is proper as you call it and sutable to the occasion I gad I utterly despair'd of meeting you in so good a humour for hitherto you have us'd me like an Infidel and denied every thing which I propos'd And now Gentlemen let me see how you 'l excuse the Dishabillé of your Church as to the point of Ceremonies You cannot but be sensible how solemn and august the Church of Rome is in her devotion but you I am sure can pretend no such matter Crites Very right Mr. Bays we cannot while the people of your Communion have nothing but Show and Ceremony in their Publick Worship as in the Lives of their Saints they have nothing but sheer Miracle to entertain ' em We have as much Ceremony I 'm sure as decency requires as much as is sufficient to hide the nakedness of Religion and to use any more we think it as great a Solecism as it had been for Adam when he only design'd to cover his Nakedness to have cloath'd himself all over with Leaves like the Green man in the Distillers Coat of Arms. Eugen. 'T is otherwise with you Mr. Bays for you have laid so much Italian Paint upon the Matron that 't is scarce discernable of what complexion she is whether Christian or Pagan We yield to you I confess in the Gayety and Chargeable Dress of Devotion and the reason of it is very plain for it has ever been the Talent of the wicked World to cultivate Superstition with more expence and cost than the Truth it self as you know most of the Limberhams of this end of the Town keep their Misses a great deal finer than their Wives The Religious of the Three First Ages tho it must be acknowledged that out of a Principle of Decency they admitted as much Ceremony as was consistent with the Nature of Christianity yet they never carryed the matter to such extremities as afterwards they were they placed no Sanctity in the observation of them and the ceremonies they retain'd wanted no Theolological Dictionaries or Rationale's to explain them they were obvious to the meanest apprehension and entertained upon solid substantial grounds such as the promotion of piety and the like and not for amusing the ignorance of the people or for advancing the interests of an ambitious Priesthood 'T is indeed very true that every Nation of the World tinctur'd the Christian Religion when it came into their hands more or less with the customs of their own Country This is visible from the conduct of the Graecians who being some of the earliest receivers of Christianity modell'd it in a short time according to their own fancies and inclinations they were a free generous drinking people and accustom'd all along to make much of themselves in their Sacrifices and Libations and so when they made profession of a new Religion which one would have thought might have restrain'd them from sueh extravagancies yet they were resolved to introduce good eating and good drinking into their Churches and so they did till at last their entertainments grew so very scandalous and irregular that they were obliged to lay them aside On the other hand the Italians who had the advantage of recommending their own Scheme of Religion to this part of the Western World by having the Imperial seat in their own Country were naturally inclined to Musick and Painting and all that Pageantry that serves to entertain the senses This sort of divertisement failed not after some time to creep into the Church and as we read the Old Romans used upon some extraordinary occasions to make whole Cities nay Provinces and Countries free of their City so their Successors afterwards out of the same principle of Latitude and Generosity made either all or most of the Old Pagan Ceremonies free of the Christian Religion The Spaniards in their Mosarabic service which still continues in some Churches in Spain made use of Horses and Morris Dancing which as a certain Bishop pleaded for them at the Council of Trent were very significant ceremonies and so without question they were for Horses might be excused out of that Verse in the Psalms where it is said He rides upon the Heavens as it were a Horse And as for Dancing besides that it is sufficiently countenanced from the Levites Dancing before the Ark may very symbolically denote that our souls ought to observe the same agility in the peformance of spiritual Duties as our bodies do in that nimble exercise If the Danes had had the opportunity of prescribing a mode of Worship to the world I make no question but Kettle-Drums had been by this time Iure Divino and used in Churches as well as the Ladies in America keep up the drinking of Chocolate in their Churches a custom which their Priests indulg'd them in long before their conversion and which as Mr. Gage informs us they still continue One that reads in Livie all that foolish superstition that was practis'd in Old Rome and sees the same if not a great deal grosser practis'd in the New would certainly conclude that the Popes had transcrib'd all their Ceremonial out of him so that it had been very well for you Mr. Bays if Gregory the Great could have totally destroy'd that Authors Works as he endeavour'd for then perhaps you had either not practis'd that idle Pageantry which now you do or else you might have passed for the Inventors whereas we now very well know whence you had the Originals In Athenaeus's time the Receipt of making Holy Water was by taking a Fire-brand from the Altar and dipping it into the Water you retain in your Church much
Mediator only that makes continual intercession for us and she has been so civil as to furnish us with above forty thousand Universal Tradition has handed down to us but twenty two books in the Old Testament and she has added the Apocrypha and may in due time if she summons another Council at Trent introduce the Talmud into the Canon Thus Mr. Bays your Catholick Church has improv'd the Christian Religion with a witness made the Porch bigger than the Building it self and renew'd the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes where the voider exceeded the Bill of fare Eugen. Let us now turn the Tables Mr. Bays and see whether your Church continues still in this giving humour it would certainly exhaust the treasure of any Church in the Universe to be always issuing out largesses and never retrenching her expence and therefore it may be worth our while to examine whether the Roman Church that has been guilty of so much profuseness one way has not made as many retrenchments another way to ballance her accounts The Apostles left us the Scriptures in common as a part of our property and inheritance but she for certain prudential considerations has thought to keep them under Lock and Key Crites Primitive Institution left us the Sacrament under both kinds Bibite ex hoc omnes is the word but she has retrench'd us of the Cup. Our Religion allows us a free possession of our Reason and Senses but she obliges us to renounce them The Scriptures only forbid Marriage within the degrees of Consanguinity but she has forbid it within the degrees even of a spiritual Relation Eugen. The Apostles left us at large exempt from the Iewish observations of clean and unclean but she has introduced them again Praestat nubere quam uri says you know who no by no means cries the Hind let the Priests rather commit Incest Sodomy and Adultery than be allow'd the liberty to Marry Thus you see Mr. Bays what the Sea gives in one place it takes away in another and thus your Mother Church of Rome if she gives with the right hand she takes away with the left to make amends for her extraordinary charges just as you see some Gentlemen of this end of the Town discard their Servants and pinch their Families to put themselves in a capacity of keeping a Glass-Coach and a single pair of Horses Bays Well Gentlemen you have both of you run your selves out of breath with this discourse but not a word all this while of Infallibility Crites Oh dear Confessor I am obliged to you for refreshing my memory as to that point for I love Infallibility extreamly I am clearly of thy opinion little Bays that Infallibility if it were any where to be found were worth both Testaments and cast all the Creeds in Christendom into the bargain and now I 'll tell you a Story There was a certain Country Gentleman no matter for his Name or where he lived but he had read the Sadducismus Triumphatus and was so mightily taken with Dr. More 's Notion of a Vehicle that he could not rest till he had bought him a Vehicle call'd in English a Calash so he eat and drank in his Vehicle and slept in his Vehicle and lay with his Wife in his Vehicle and got an Heir Apparent upon her Virtuous body in his Vehicle and Vehicle was his Name a. Baye And what of all this prithee Here 's a Story with all my heart Crites Why as foolish as it is it shall serve for a Vehicle to another story which is of a certain Tooth-drawer of my acquaintance that lived in the Strand Bays The Devil take your Tooth-drrwer for me what have I to do with him I am affraid your story will prove as troublesome to me as a fit of the Tooth-ach Crites A very good jest i'saith I protest dear Rogue thou begin'st to mend upon it Why this same fellow you must understand had made a shift out of some Church-yard or other to pick up some two or three hundred Teeth and hung them on a string before his Shop to perswade the World that he was a man of great business in his Mystery of Tooth-drawing but all would not do no body came nigh him so he was ready to starve and as he has since told me he was brought to those extremities that he resolved one Friday about eight in the morning to draw his own Teeth out and his Wives and his little Daughter Bettys and hang them on a string because there was no occasion for them in his Family he having not a bit of bread in his House to employ them At last says a friend of his to whom he made known his condition to him Iack come down with your Sign and set up a new one with this Inscription Here lives an Operator in Teeth that draws all manner of old Srumps and rotten Gums without any manner of pain most Infallibly and I 'll engage that within this fortnight thou shalt have as much business as thou canst turn thy hands to He followed the advice and wou'd you believe it Mr. Bays got the greatest practice of any Touth-drawer in City or Country In one Week as I was credibly inform'd the last year he drew the Teeth of a hundred and fifty Courtiers besides of half the Court of Aldermen and my Lord Mayor's into the bargain and he has so well batten'd upon his profession that he 's in a fair way now to keep his Vehicle Bays Keep his Vehicle so let him and be hanged an he pleases Why what 's all this to the purpose Crites Oh very much Sir for even so a certain Gentleman at Rome do ye mind me Mr. Bays when he was only Bishop of Rome and nothing else he had scarce Money enough to set his Pot a boyling but when he once got the Tooth-drawer's trick of Writing Here lives Infallibility on his Sign why then he had customers from all parts of the World and in a short time got so much Money from his Clients that he scorns now to trudge it a foot as his Predecessors used to do and keeps a sett of brawny fat Porters to carry him on their Shoulders Bays Nay he that has the patience Mr. Crites to hear you tell a story may defie I think all the plagues on this side Hell as a declaiming Parliamentman a Case-repealing Templar a Quibling Justice of Peace and an University Critick This is all Sir and so farewel Eugen. How Mr. Bays have you so soon forgot your Philosopher Socrates Come I see I must remind you of him once an hour at least or you 'll be apt to renounce his acquaintance Why prithee man he 's only in jest and there 's no harm in what he says therefore let it not to use Mr. Shadwell's expression disturb the serene tranquillity of thy sagacious Soul Bays At your entreaty dear Mr. Eugenius I 'le go on and to let you see what dexterity I use in my Ergotering