A DIALOGUE UPON THE Burning of the Pope AND PRESBYTER, IN EFFIGY AT WESTMINSTER, Novem. 5. 1681.  
LONDON: Printed for Richard Janeway in Queens-head-Alley in Pater-Noster-Row. 1681.   

A DIALOGUE upon the burning of the POPE, etc.  Pope 
JEsu, Maria! What Monster is this! of all the Hobgoblins in Purgatory, certainly there is none like this. Well, in nomine Sancti Petri, I conjure thee to tell me Who or What thou art?  Presb. 
Thou great Apollyon, profound Mystery of iniquity! I am unwilling to tell thee, knowing my Name and Office will be more frightful than my aspect.—  Pope. 
It can never be, what are they?  Presbyt. 
My name is Catholic, and my Office to gain Souls.  Pope. 
O my dear Son! I hug thee— I embrace thee.  Presb. 
Nay not too fast (Holy Father) lest you repent of your favours, and turn your Blessings into Curses.—  Pope. 
I give thee a plenary Pardon— free thee from Purgatory, and pronounce thee Saint and Martyr for thy courage and constancy in the Cause, even at the very Stake.—  Presb. 
You will retract all this, when you understand me aright, and so forfeit your Infallibility before all these Heretics, who have condemned you to that visible Purgatory, from which I fear, you will not be able to deliver yourself, much less me.—  Pope. 
You mistake me, I call not this material Fire, Purgatory, but the flames of another World; where Souls, &c—  Pres. 
And I believe no Purgatory in your sense, hereafter.  Pope. 
How? and yet call yourself Catholic! what do you mean?  Pres. 
I mean not Roman Catholic, but Christian Catholic, or a Reformed Christian, or Protestant. And my Office is to gain Souls, not to Antichrist, but to Jesus Christ; who shed his precious Blood to redeem Souls. And this I do by fervent Prayers, seasonable Admonitions, sincere Preaching of the Gospel in season and out of season, and a due Administration of the Sacraments.  Pope. 
I begin to smell him— and shall find him out by my next Question,— How many Sacraments are there?  Pres. 
Two only instituted by Christ, Baptism, and the Lords Supper.  Pope. 
What then becomes of Marriage, Ordination, Extreme Unction, and the rest?  Pres. 
They are where they were intended, and where I wish they may always remain, at Rome, and among the Roman Catholics, whose Faith is Faction, whose Promises are Equivocations, whose Worship is Idolatry, whose Principles are High-Treason, whose Mercies are Cruelties, whose practices are Stabbing and Poisoning of Kings, whose frame of Government is a Politic Design to bring the necks of Princes and Nobles under their iron Yoke, and whose God is a pretty, little, tiney thing which the Priest first creates with a Charm of four words long, then worships it, and afterwards chaps him up at a bit, and makes no bones of him.— Now your blessing, Lucifer Junior.  Pope. 
Bless thee! All the Curses of Ash-wednesday and of the 69. Psalm light upon thee. And may all the tortures of my Inquisition, and torments of Purgatory, overtake thee in this Life and that to come,— Thou worst of Heretics: The Germane Bull never roared so loud as thou dost.  Presb. 
Yet so loud, that (thanks be to God) he hath spoiled the roaring of your Bulls amongst us.  Pope. 
Not quite tho; There are some amongst you regard them as much as they do an Act of P— And though the rude Multitude make themselves sport with me in puppet, yet I have some true hearts amongst you, who are troubled to see it, and wish an opportunity to revenge it.  Presb. 
All this I can believe without Swearing, being convinced of the truth of it by your Design in your late Piot against our King, his Government and Religion (graciously and seasonably discovered by Divine Providence) which if it had taken effect, the Heretics, by this time, might have gone to pot in England, as fast as they have done in France, Spain, Italy and Germany, (not to mention Ireland) in all which places, since the first rise of the Jesuits, to the year 1580, almost Nine hundred thousand Protestants were put to death. And we believe you are no Changelings.  Pope. 
Nor you neither, for you are the stistest Herestick I ever talked with. Pray of which stamp of Heretics are you? For there are two sorts, Conforming and Nonconforming, or Consenting and Dissenting Heretics.  Presb. 
So then I perceive, neither Barrel is better Herring in your account?  Pope. 
By St. Stafford, not much difference, if any: but answer me, of which sort are you?  Presb. 
Of no sort of Heretics. But if it may do you any good to know it, I am a Nonconforming, or dissenting Protestant.  Pope. 
And the Devilishest one I ever met with. Let me suffer a 1000 years in Purgatory, if I did not think as much by your Garb. Your tipped Cap, long Cloak, and short Jerkin bespeak you as rank an Heretic, as inveterate an Enemy to holy Mother the Church, and to myself the Head of it, as any in the Nation. Let the Curse of my own Bulls light upon me, if I don't believe you are that Heretical Rogue that put out the Protestant Almanacs, wherein you have raked together all the enormities men or Devils can commit, and charged them upon us, to render me and my whole body Ecclesiastical hateful and odious to the world.  Presbyt. 
I don't tell you I writ them: But I tell you to your Teeth I have read them, and find nothing but truth in them.  Pope. 
Truth! burn ye— nothing but truth in all those Packers of Heretical Forgeries? burning is too good for you; And the very Circumstance of time confers too great an Honour upon you; as if you died a Martyr for having an hand in that glorious undertaking of the Powder Plot. Whereas you are a stubborn Heretic and rejoice upon this day, that that Design was detected and frustrated.  Presbyt. 
I do so, and so do all true Protestants, and give thanks to God with our Hearts, who this day Infatuated your Counsels and confounded your Hellish Devices.  Pope. 
I am not able to bear the thoughts of being burnt the same day with this Fellow. I would give a whole years' Revenue by my public Stews, his Execution might be suspended till the 30th of January next, a proper Season for his Suffering.  Presbyt. 
That's well hinted, O Abaddon! I remember it with regret and abhorrency, a day of Blood, of Royal Blood, from the Gild of which all your Holy Water will never be able to Cleanse you. Who fomented the differences in Church and State, that were the Prologue to that Black Tragedy? Who mingled so many Priests and Jesuits in the Army, that fought the Battles against his Majesty of Blessed Memory? Who encircled the Stage, and made the Palace of our Murdered Prince Echo with Shouts and Acclamations at the fall of that Head of Three Kingdoms, and Sung Te Deums when the News arrived at Rome, but you and your Babylonish Crew?— And notwithstanding your boasting against Heretics (as you miscall them) for this you know, and all sincere Protestants believe, that we own the contrivance and management of that Horrid Design to Rome, as much as any before or since.  Pope. 
You provoke me at that rate, that I must pass Sentence against you.  Presbyt. 
And no more than I expected— O glorious Infallibility! to bless and curse the same Person in the same Breath! Fallible Muggleton could do no more.  Pope. 
I was mistaken in you, you seemed to be what you are not.  Presbyt. 
But I am not mistaken in thee,— Thou very Strumbol● and Aetna of all Civil and Ecclesiastical Erruptions, Commotions and Plots.  Pope. 
Nay, I know you Heretics confer the honour of all Evil of this kind upon myself and my faithful Adherents.— 'Tis ten to one but you will say we laid this Plot against you, to have you represented (and in you all your Gang) as Persons more worthy of Flames than Favour?  Presbyt. 
In my Conscience, Beelzebub, thou art a Witch or a Conjurer, you guess so shrewdly. For tho' a Company of inconsiderate Boys appeared on the Stage, yet your Actors stood behind the Curtain, prompting them on, and glorying in it, to see the Scene on that day so altered, as to burn true Protestants in Effigy, instead of Popes and Cardinals. I doubt not but the Grave and Learned Master of some of those Youths, hath since taught them more Wit and better Manners, than to Confront Authority, at or near the very place where so many good Laws have been made to extirpate Popery, and establish the Protestant Religion; and where they lately repealed the Act de Heret. Comb. never intending, I presume, that the burning (no not in Effigy) of true Protestants should come in the room of it.— But who shall correct your Agents? Or call to account that Bell-wether to the Tories, N. T. who in his Scurrilous Pamphlet, approved and made sport with it, calling it a sign of Loyalty? That you may discern how much he is tickled with the Fancy, take the relation of it in his own Words, in his Mercury November the 8th Instant.— Although (saith he) the Scholars of the Society of St. Peter's College, Westminster, have been backward in addressing, yet they thought themselves obliged to give some signal of their Loyalty; wherefore on Saturday last, they having dressed up Jack Presbyter in his proper habit, they set him in a Tub, having in his right hand a Seditious Pamphlet, called Vox Patriae, and in his left a broad Scroll of Parchment, on which was written the Solemn League and Governant: On his Cloak there was pinned another piece of Parchment, upon which was written Ignoramus; and for a Pulpit Cloth there was nailed on the foreside of the Tub the Achievements of Jack Presbyter. In this manner the Effigies was brought in procession from the Bowling Ally to the Deans Yard, where he was set aloft in the middle of the Yard (the Tub being underpropped with Three very high Legs) so when the Loyal Youths had discharged some dozen of Squibs at him, they brought him to the Fire, which was prepared for their purpose, and setting about Ten Faggots more under the Tub, they burned, him down with this Elegy— Magnae nec invidio Tu Presbyter ibis in ignem. At which a great Shout was given, every one expressing Loyalty to His Majesty, and wishing that the real Person whom the Image represented, and all his Followers, had been burnt with it. Believe it, such a public Action, and public Vindication, deserves a public Censure. Take it with all its Circumstances of person, time, place and manner, and I think the Age passed cannot parallel it, and the Age to come will wonder at it, and scarce believe it. I know we have often been represented, drolled, and ridiculed (in the most opprobrious manner and Language) on the Stage. But for a Protestant, a Protestant Divine, well known to be such, by some thousands, both in this and other Kingdoms, to be dressed up in a most ridiculous manner, hung round with Libels, and represented as a Malefactor or Heretic, conjoined with the Pope, (that red Dragon) and sacrificed in the same flames, on the Fifth of November, as if that Plot were as much the Protestants as the Papists, or as if the Pope and he were equally guilty of the same Treasons and Rebellions. And this too, at such a time, when God had so lately detected such an Hellish Design of the Papists (and which, no doubt, they are yet vigorously carrying on) to the ruin of our King, our Religion, and all that is, or can be dear to us. This, I say, was an action heinous, and such as scarce any Instance can be given of the like. Therefore I must first lay it at your door, then at the Boys.  Pope. 
I confess this burning of Poppets is but Boys play.  Presbyt. 
I care not if there were none of it, but the Reason why you dislike it, is because it was first begun against you, the Protestants being provoked by your continual bloody Designs against them. But if it be against Heretics, and to reproach them, 'tis manly and commendable; witness your annual Processions of this nature, and burning of Heretics in show at Rome. In which we have once or twice endeavoured to imitate you, upon your Old Friend Queen Bess' Day. Now the truth is, the one you decry as puerile and childish, but the other you publicly allow and approve.  Pope. 
Yes, and hope to see other-guess Bonfires made for you Heretics, than these, as we have had formerly; such as shall not make sport for Boys, but affright Men.  Presbyt. 
You must stay till our Gracious King (whom God long preserve) is gone off the Stage, and till you have a Prince, and a P— that will re-establish that abolished Act, de Heret. Comb.  Pope. 
Well, we hope the best.  Presbyt. 
And so do we too; that is, that our King may live to the time when Popes shall be no more; till that Armageddon Battle be begun, which shall end in Antichrists Ruin; and till that Fire be kindled (not of your nor the Devils kindling, but Gods) into which shall be cast the Devil, the Beast, (with all that receive his Mark) and the false Prophet, and shall be tormented day and night, for ever and ever. Rev. 20.9, 10.  Pope. 
But why do you say 'tis of God's kindling?  Presbyt. 
For two Reasons. First, That you may not think 'tis Purgatory, a Fiction of your own framing, to deceive the Ignorant, and to replenish your own Coffers. Secondly, because the Holy Ghost (who is truly infallible) saith so in the forementioned Text; and so Antichrist, or the Beast, and all that receive his Mark, shall find it; not an imaginary punishment (like yours) but real and terrible, When your Judgements shall come in one day, Death and mourning, and you shall be burnt with Fire; for strong is the Lord that judgeth you, Rev. 18.8. In which burning while you and your Adherents shall eternally lament your Idolatry and Witchcrafts, your Cheats and Delusions, your Profaneness and Blasphemies, your Fopperies and Fooleries; many of those you now call and condemn for Heretics shall sing Triumphant Hallelujahs to the Lamb in Glory, and partake of that fullness of Joy, and those Rivers of Pleasures, which are at God's Right hand for evermore, Psal. 16.11.   
FINIS.