The Character OF A TRUE-PROTESTANT Ghostly Father.  
HE is a Jesuit disguised, and differs in nothing but the Superscription of a false Name. His hardened Conscience is a Mint where Equivocations and Lies are coined and they pass among the Brotherhood as current as the most Sterling Money, and are held by them as precious. He is a motly-complexioned Saint; black in his natural hue, but garnished with some innocent additional colours, borrowed, or rather stolen from the Church of England's Purity. He follows her, as Judas did his Master, for the Bag's sake, and for the same Bag he will betray her too. His speaking well of her is just like the flattery of a Parasite, to eat her Bread, and all the while laugh at her in his sleeve. Though none of her Sons, yet he is her most humble Servant, to creep into Preferment, and partake of her Benefices, which he esteems his right by the same rule that licenced the Israelates to rob the Egyptians; and when he has once got into her Bowels he feeds upon her Vitals, and, impatient of the restraint, gnaws his way through into the free air of the Presbyterian Liberty. He conforms out of spite, and therefore revenges himself upon those who made him do it. His plausible sedulity gains him some credit, which he abuses, to disgrace those who kindly gave him it. None makes a fairer show in writing for her publicly; and he besprinkles his Books with as little venom as he is able, that, at a dead pinch, when some considerable job is to be done, he may repair the seeming fault of giving her false smiles, with a real Stab. He can patiently temporize a long time, and stand angling for an opportunity some years, hoping at length to catch her by the gills, and then to pray upon her without mercy. While his bolder Fellow-Journey-men in their scribbles call her Popish, he slily jumbles her with Presbytery, resting well assured that is the most effectual Stratagem, to divide and destroy her: and while he pretends to establish her REFORMATION, he indeed pulls it down, by settling it on a sandy basis.  
His hatred to the Church descends upon the State, which upholds it; and he owes a good turn to both alike. He will endeavour, though it cost him the opinion of Treacherous, to bring the most Loyal Patriot, even his own Master, to the Block, if he presume to touch that Holy of Holies, the Kirk. He is a Scotch Sinon; for all his designs, like the Trojan Wooden Horse, are pretendedly Sacred, and mere Relics of Religion; but when the season is ripe, they are delivered of whole Armies at a litter. He is still siding with the factious, not openly, but sheakingly; thrusting his Nose into every nook, and busily prying into all men's affairs; and he will have to do with a sick or dying man's Interiour, whether he will or no, and thinks 'tis then set right when 'tis tuned to the interest of the Good Old Cause. 'Tis to be feared his inside is True-blue Cargil; and that he dislikes nothing in his Spirit but that which is best in it, the candour and openness; nor that neither but when there wants force to carry it through. However, though he be not bold enough to act Treason, yet he is crafty enough dextrously to second and uph●ld it by shams and palliations. When he once gets an Ascendant over a Soul, he influences it as best suits with the Holy League, and scruples not if she cancels the Government of Grace to seal a compact with the Presbyterian Association. He has his set-forms of words fitted to wrest all Christian Duties to Disallegiance and Irreligion. He calls the Discovering Fellow-Traytors, the betraying of Friends; their Just and Legal Punishment, the shedding of Blood; the most villainous Murders and Massacres for the Cause, well-meant Zeal; the most abominable Conspirators, the forlorn hope of Israel, and Heroic Adventurers for the Godly Party.  
Thus seasoned and confirmed in the principles they had formerly imbibed, 'tis no wonder if they judge it meritorious to die half Negative: this being the only expedient (open force failing) to preserve undiscovered Traitors, to exasperate the Mobile, by making Justice look like Cruelty, to disgrace the King as a Tyrant, and so carry on the Conspiracy more smartly and effectually. His little Popeship gives an easy Absolution to all his Penitents, not by public Bulls, but whispered Inspirations; which instilled with great assurances of Merit in the canting language, and misused Scripture-phrases which they have been inur'd to, makes deep impressions in those otherwise comfortless Souls, that they die Martyrs, and that they offer a holy Sacrifice of their Bodies to God; when alas! (without a special mercy) he is sacrificing their Souls to the Devil, the Ringleader of all Rebels. To the Oath of Allegiance he opposes the Covenant and Association; To the High Crime of arraigning the Justice of the Nation, the keeping up the repute of the Party's. Innocence, and the revenging their death, which 'tis hoped may ensue from such seditious methods. To the giving Glory to God, by a full and sincere Confession, the false satisfaction that they suffer what the Law enjoins, and that no more can be required. If the Penitent be of a noble temper, than he works upon that, and plies him with how mean, and how far from Honour and Gallantry it is to betray others: As if God loved people better for being civil Gentlemen than for being sincere Christians: at least, if he finds him inclined to that false punctilio, he can quickly find a Case to wave all objections, which might hazard to rectify that bias. By ●his means Repentance comes to signify little more than a true sorrow to be hanged, and a submission to the Laws, which they must do whether they will or no. What is more is rendered insignificant, by being mingled with concealments, and couching particular acts of Treason under common Words; or, as Adam blamed Eve, she the Serpent, with laying the fault on others for drawing them in and ensnaring them. By virtue of which doctrine, and such managery of dying persons, the King, who is a mirror of Mercy, is made Cruel, the Judges unjust, the Jury foresworn and partial, the worst of Traitors innocent, their Memory sacred, their Fame untainted, the unthinking Rabble is exasperated and encouraged, the Nation distracted, Jack Presbyter is mounted in his Saddle, riding the many-headed Beast, Sedition becomes culminant, the Good Old Cause triumphant, Treason glorified both here and in Heaven, the Nations Peace and the established Government of Church and State, nay, his Majesty's most precious Life still left in danger; and all this by the most pernicious craft of our Lycaon in Sheep's clothing, that Legion of mischievous Spirits which herd in the Breast of our True-Protestant Ghostly Father.   

LONDON, Printed for Richard Wait. 1683.