A LETTER FROM A Protestant of integrity, TO A Principal Peer of the Realm now sitting in Parliament. BY Way of Animadversion on a Letter from a Person of Quality to the same Peer of the Realm. Occasioned by the present debate upon the Penal Laws.  
London, Printed for the Author.   

A LETTER, From a Protestant of Integrity, unto a Principal Peer of the Realm, etc.  
My Lord,  
I Purposed not by my lines to interrupt your pursuit of the important affairs in which you are engaged; had not the unexpected boldness of a wellwisher to the Roman Religion occasioned these.  
Your constancy in, and zeal for the true Religion, (received and professed in these Nations) will be your Lordship's honour, no less than your care and compassion to consciences pretendedly tender, not only differing in circumstances (which love to truth may indulge) but dissenting and diametrically opposite unto the substantials thereof, such as are the Roman Catholics, for whom a pretended Person of quality, hath presumed to become an advocate, beyond what your Lordship's Disposition, his Majesty's Reputation, or our Kingdoms present complexion (in which the restoring Prelacy is suspected, and by some openly averred, to tend to a return to Popery) could dictate to men of any competent prudence.  
My Lord, publicly to observe the Parliaments debates concerning the Penal Laws, is no piece of Policy; but this Gentleman's improvement thereof, seemeth to be little short of folly; suggesting a propensity to alter our established Religion, and that the (now falling) Presbyter hath been and yet is the Papists only opponent and obstruction, in which that party will not a little glory, as conceiving some thing of truth in their observation that our Litturgy and Prelacy, is very consistent with the Mass and Papacy.  
This Advocate representeth his Popish party, by epithets, which cannot but move pity, and in an estate which directeth duty for their relief and restoration if what he suggesteth be found a verity.  
He calls them a poor distressed and deplorable party; 
Pag. 1.  and my Lord, such indeed they do seem to be; but wise men are not without fear, that on liberty to uncase they will appear more considerable, as those who under all our late differing forms, have driven on the Catholics design, De propaganda fide, fomenting our late tumults and commotions, Latet anguis in herbis, their beginning to hiss unto the defaming of our eminent Martyrs, derision of our Religion, and demand of the liberty of their own driving on (in the late pamphlets boldly pressing into the World) displeasure against, and depression of the Presbyterians (who have much more pleadable in their behalf to propose them acceptable, than the present heat of our Revolutions will permit them to produce, or the Peers and restored Prelates of our Realm to ponder) are in my opinion no mean evidences thereof, for it is well known affected poverty, and voluntary affliction is not the least part of this people's piety and devotion.  
As to their Estate he tells us (my Lord) this last hundred years, they have lain under a more bloody and inhuman persecution, than any before was hea●d of among Christians. I must confess present evil seems unparralelled; and passion is a multiplying glass; but Sir, will not any ordinary observer see this advocate doth highly hyperbolise and in a sullen fret like a subtle ●apist, labour to delude by lies?  
My Lord, admitting (what principles of Justice cannot admit) that their legal prosecution, were persecution unjust, is it not monstrous to cry out, it is bloody and inhuman, whilst by known and standing Laws declaring guilt and punishment; and that making many gradations and slows process to the capital crime or shedding of their blood; but the superlative words must appear superlatively false; viz. That they have lain under the most bloody and inhuman persecutions, that ever before was heard of among Christians, for (my Lord) who that ever knew or heard of, the Heathen rage against Christians, Arrians against the Orthodox, can give credit to this clamorous calumny; yea who ever heard of the Popish persecution of Protestants, the Waldenses and Albingenses, the devastation of Merundal and Cabriers; The fiery persecution in the days of Queen Mary, the barbarous Rebellion in Ireland, with many the like doleful Tragedies, acted by the Papists themselves, on no other cause but matter of opinion, and Religion, which they called Heresy, and will not see for number and quality of patients, nature and variety, cruelty and severity of torments, slightness of cause and universality of Execution without Law or regard of age, sex, dignity degree, (cutting down the tree, with the fruit thereof falling in the very act of execution) a persecution much more bloody and inhuman, than what this person of quality complaineth of; who may be boldly challenged to make good his comparison by making his parallel for numbers of sufferers, bloody inhuman sufferings; to square only with the three Marian fiery years, and can choose, but conclude our Advocate judged by the age of his patients, not the kinds or degrees of their sufferings; and sure (my Lord) this Gentleman was wholly a stranger to the clemency of King James, and King Charles the first, Witnessed by the easy compositions of Recusants, and ordinary repreive and release of Priests and Jesuits; and I am sure their reign will strike far into his hundred years complained of; However (my Lord) an Hyperbole may be indulged in an advovate, when it is so notorious as in this case, it cannot but return to the damage of the Client.  
My Lord, I cannot but wonder, whilst toleration of Popery is the thing pretended, that so great a liberty and on such a ground, should be required, and that as a duty, not courtesy, viz. That his Majesty like another Cyrus, may be pleased to procure, that Israel may return and build up their Temple, and that because the building is perpetual where God layeth the foundation, which whole request is (my Lord) grounded on a bold petitio principii for they call themselves Israel, who on good ground have been accounted Sodom and Egypt, they challenge the privilege of Zion, who are obnoxious to the doom of Babylon; and as such, must expect Cyrus his opposition; For the Kings of the earth must hate the Whore. They pretend to be founded by God who make petrum petram, beyond the tenure of the the Gospel, Commission or scope of the Lords intention; when those things are cleared, which they (but all others deny) take for granted; there will be a ground to pray not only a liberty to use their Synagogile, but (as they Phrase it) to build their Temple, and restore their Mass, and (what is doubtless further in their intention) ruin all that descent from them; for (my Lord) it is a Scripture Maxim and an Ecclesiastical axiom, Zions rise is Babylon's ruin.  
What is urged by way of Swada to this desired liberty in the next Paragraph, signifieth very little, until Roman Catholics, are rendered tolerable, by an Abjuration of intolerable principles and practices we shall easily assent to this Advocates Politics, in point of Treason, 
Pag. 2.  and do believe, the Capital crime and punishment in the common Weal, as the chief censure in the Church fall into contempt when made common, by being affixed to every light transgression, and trivial defect; nor will I trouble your Lordship with tracing, or a tedious animadversion of his historical observation of the clemency of Germanius indulgency of Aurelius, or connivance of Theodocius and Gratianus, admitting them as true, his work is to make Papists square with primitive Christians, and maintain his inference, which he is well ware will be found a plain Non sequitur on his premises, it is this a minori ad majus, how much more reasonable will it appear to tolerate our brethren of the Roman Religion, who are undeniably filii Christi, sons of Christ by the mother Church, which we in England use to call the surer side, etc.  
My Lord, whatsoever the premises will allow, I must be bold to say, the inferences is stuffed with fancies, which cannot be admitted, in all the particulars of it; it proceedeth with a plain petitio principii, under controversy, yea, cleared in the negative.  
This Advocate (my Lord) challengeth the freedom of the House, under a filial relation as brethren: He therefore affirmeth with confidence, The Roman Catholics are undeniably Filii Christi: But he dealeth wisely in cleaving to the Bastard pleas, on the Mother's side, lest the very boldness of the claim should provoke the family to whip them out of doors. Yet (my Lord) as undeniable as this Filial relation appeareth to him, it would be considered, whether their Mother hath not played the Harlot, and so they may be found children of Adultery, although living in Wedlock, by our Law (not admitting the child to be rightly fathered) covereth her sin, and their shame.  
Again, it would be considered, whether the Lord Jesus Christ hath not given the Church of Rome a bill of divorce, and branded her as the Mother of Whoredoms, spiritual Sodom, Egypt, and Babylon; from whom all chaste Christians are charged to Separate with detestation, lest they be defiled with her uncleanness: It is more than probable, that on a serious scrutiny, this Advocates impudent claim of the Papists sonship to Christ, may be silenced with, 
Hosea 2.1,2.3.  Plead with your mother, plead with her, she is not my wife, neither am I her husband, etc. I will not have mercy upon her children, for they be the children of Whoredoms; for their mother hath played the Harlot, she that conceived them ●…th done shamefully.  
Again, how came the maternity of the Christian Church to be confined to any place, or peculiar people? Is not the wall of partition between Nations pulled down, and quite removed? When was Rome thus espoused to Christ, that all filii Christi must be Roman Catholics, at least, on the mothers, the surer side? As if none could be members of his Church, without being Provinces to the Roman Empire, and Proselytes to their superstition. Why may not Alexandria, Antioch, Galatia, claim this Prerogative, as well as Rome? We may find Rome conform to Babylon, and called by that name, as her Successor; but that she succeeded to Jerusalem, is a blind bottomless supposition: Yet we grant, the casting out of the Jews, was the bringing in of the Gentiles; let this Contract, necessitating such as heretofore were to Jewdaize, now to Romanize, or to renounce their relation to Jesus Christ, be cleared. This is (my Lord) a most Popish brag, without any bottom, though this Advocate hath the confidence to tell your Lordship, That it is a verity undoubtable (so far as I could find) that that Church was formerly the reverend Mother of Christianism, and the most ancient Lawmaker and Judge heretofore of all Religion.  
You may (my Lord) see what is the toleration desired for Roman Catholics, how high they would build the Pope's Temple, if Cyrus will give them liberty. Rome cannot be, if she may not be the Queen and Mistress of the World, to whom all must bow, as bound to her for their very being. But (my Lord) this Advocate seemeth better read in Roman Legends, than Scripture, or Church Records; otherwise he would have found, 
Isa. 2.3.  the Law should, and did go out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And (my Lord) from this seed do spring the sons of Christ; in this place the Lord himself preached, hither were the Apostles confined, from hence they dispersed themselves through the world, hitherto the Christians appealed as to the Lawmaker and Judge of Religion. Jerusalem is (my Lord) called and known to be the Mother of us all. If our sonship to Christ be cognoscible and determinable by our relation to any special place, as the Mother of Christianism, we are bound (by natural affection) to go on Pilgrimage, and undertake the Holy War, for the Holy Land; or at least, must have recourse to Antioch, where Believers were first called Christians.  
My Lord, I will stand by the Historical demonstration thereof, that Superstition was made the sum of Christianism, and an universal Papacy affected, before Rome's Catholic Motherhood became a mask of sonship unto Christ, and Christianism was found in our Island, before Austin, Rome's proud, bloody, and superstitious Apostle came to plant.  
Lastly, my Lord, admit we Rome's Motherhood; must degenerated children or branches be tolerated? shall not scoffing Ishmael be cast out, and profane Esau lose his birthright, though the one be undeniably the son of Abraham, and the other of Isaac? Is it not our Saviour's rule, Every branch that beareth not fruit, must be cut off? much more, that which beareth wild fruit: Simple symbolical relation to Christ, will not avail to entrance into heaven, nor entertainment in the Church.  
My Lord, these premises being groundless, the inference is easily evaded; and admitting the Christians liberty by the Heathen, Orthodox under the Arrians, Jews among the Venetians, and Moors among the Spaniards; yet it will not follow with any Emphasis, that we should much more tolerate our (degenerate, spurious) brethren of the Roman Religion; and the rather, because their principles, and experienced practices, render them more unsociable than the very worst of these, even destructive to Humane Society.  
This exception (my Lord) is so legible, that it stared this Advocate in the face in the very penning of this Apology: He seemeth to obviate and answer it in his next Paragraph, in which his furious, freting terms do bespeak him thereby pinched to the quick: he therefore stateth it in these angry expressions, It is a most false Proposition, and proceeded doubtless from gall and spleen, that Roman Catholics are altogether consociable, or that they cannot live with us, or any sort of Protestants in one Kingdom and Commonwealth, without jars and tumults: And so in the height of rage he lets fly at the Presbyterians, and saith, This is blown from their mad, turbulent and presumptuous pulpits, whom he pursueth with many invectives, throughout his whole book, as if they only were his Antagonists.  
My Lord, I am not Advocate for the Presbyterians (the chief unhappy declining party among us) yet I cannot (in retired and serious thoughts) but wish the present violence and contempt poured on them, may be found to redound to the honour and good of our King and Kingdom: Whatsoever transcendent power over Kings and States, some ambitious men (clothed with that appellation) might pursue; we cannot deny the generality of that party to have done His Majesty most eminent service, and were they as conformable in their ecclesiastics, as they are sound in their Politics, they would be ranked among the best, most learned, and seriously pious of His Majesty's Subjects: To give them their due (which we say must not be denied to the Devil) I find Crofton himself (who is deemed the most violent of them) in the very book for which he now suffers, so fully and plainly to assert his Majesty's Supremacy, Immunity from all humane condition (as to His Subject's allegiance) and co-action; and so fully square in all his Politics, that I cannot but question the prudence (not to say the justice) of his so long and severe durance. But (my Lord) let these men be what they will, I am sure the Presbyterians lose not, nor doth our Church gain by these and the like raging reproaches, representing them the only Protestants, as if our Prelatical Clergy were (as they are suspected to be) the fast friends to Papacy, and Roman Catholics.  
Sure (my Lord) this person of quality never heard of Cranmer, bancroft's, Hall, Moreton, Usher, Davenant, Downam, and many other Prelates, who were anti-Presbyters, and yet by pen and pulpit pressed, No peace with Rome: It is, Sir, the strength of schism, to suggest and give men cause to suppose, our suppression thereof, is the striking hands with superstition.  
My Lord, when Presbyters are out of play, I hope the Papists shall find the Protestants spirit abide on the Prelates and Clergy of the Church of England, who will not cease from their pulpits and presses to declare, That Papists or Roman Catholics qua tales believing and affirming no faith is to be kept with Heretics (as they account all Protestants:) That the Pope is in all things to be obeyed, as a power absolute and infallible: That the Pope may and can dispense with, and absolve all oaths, civil or religious obligations (the very sinews of humane society:) That he is Christ's Vicar, and as such, hath the universal power of the Kingdoms of the earth, and may give them to whom he will: That the Pope's Excommunication dischargeth all natural and civil relation, and the duties thereof; absolveth the subjects from allegiance to their lawful and natural Prince; warranteth the subject's rebellion, or neighbour's invasion and usurpation: That the Pope may pard●n an impiety pl●…ed, before it be perpetrated; as he did to the Monk which poisoned King John, and the Conspirators in the Gunpowder Treason against King James (all which must be most seriously abjured, without a Popish mental reservation, before this Advocate's security, That the Pope himself shall never be able to withdraw his clients from their allegiance to His sacred Majesty, can he taken, or of force) are altogether insociable, and cannot live with us, or any Protestants, with the safety of humane society, which is more than jars and tumults.  
And if, my Lord, Roman Catholics be found to be brats of Babylon, and children of Antichrist, believing and practising damnable Doctrines, and deceiving, unto the destruction of such as drink their poisons; from whom the Elect of God (having their names written in the Book of Life) are required to departed. They will not fear to affirm, that to give them the least connivance, is no less than damnable (for our Church knoweth no venial sin) and yet acquit themselves from the charge of gall, spleen, madness, turbulence, extravagant heat, indiscreet and hair-brained zeal, and the like epithets framed out by this Supplicant; whose wisdom it had been by softer words, and stronger reasons to convince men's judgements, and persuade the indulgence of his party, in whose behalf he passeth from his passion, to offer something to salve the insolvible objection against their desired liberty.  
His first answer is, my Lord, according to the subtlety of the Man of sin, urged with a double Sophism, referring us for the demonstration of the Papists sociabilty, unto the times and places where and when Popery was predominate; and bauking their barbarous cruelty, witnessed by the bloody and inhuman persecution of those few Martyrs those dark times afforded, he hath the confidence to tell your Lordship, That from the Saxons, to King Edward the sixth, to be a Roman Catholic, was never a bar to loyalty, obedience to civil Government; nor can any deny, but that France, Spain, Italy, the Empire, and Poland, have ever accounted, and do still him, as the best subject, and least dangerous to the civil state, who is best affected to that Religion.  
My Lord, this Advocate dealeth wisely to appeal to those times and places in which the ignorant devotion to S. Peter's Keys, or awful dread of S. Paul's sword, made Prince, themselves most slavish Vassals to the Papacy, to take their Crowns at the Pope's courtesy, and let his holiness kick them off at his will, to dance attendance at the gates of Canusium, or suffer themselves to be whipped at Canterbury, or his Holiness to tread on their Royal necks, and give their Crowns to whom he pleaseth; in which case they durst not but deem the people's affection to that power (to which themselves swore allegiance) to be the best mark of loyalty; the very thoughts to the contrary being an heresy worthy the Pope's curse, and loss of their Crown: But my Lord, one instance of a Prince fully freed from this Tyrannical yoke, would be much more convincing.  
But (my Lord) this Suppliant is sure a stranger to the base and barbarous usage of the Emperor's Henrious the fourth and fifth, Fredericus Barbarossa, and Fredericus secundus, Childericus King of France, our own William Rufus, King John, King Henry the second, and others, with the commotions, perturbations, invasions, usurpations and rebellions against them, and many other Princes, made by and upon a blind obedience of the Roman Catholics, at the command of their holy Father the Pope; or thinks he, the sound here of never reached to England, or would he have Pipinus, Rodulphus, Anselm, Thomas Becket, and the Clergy under Henry the eighth, accounted most sociable men, and loyal subjects, that he can with this confidence affirm, That from the Saxons times, unto King Edward the fixth, to be a Roman Catholic, was the best mark of loyalty: without doubt he hoped, that on the repeal of the Pepal Laws against the Papists, the Statute of the submission of the Clergy will meet with cui index expurgatorius, and that monument of Roman Catholic disloyalty be quite obliterated.  
My Lord, I wonder not so much to observe this person of quality to be mistaken in the state and demeanours of his Roman Catholics in time long passed, and foreign Countries, as that he should aver, That they have not at any time since been discovered, detected and charged with any imperfection, noxious to the civol State and Government of England; 
pag. ●.  or that they did knit themselves on any account of disturbance here.  
Sure (my Lord) this Suppliant supposeth the Yorkshire, Oxfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cornwall, and Devonshire rebellions against King Edward the sixth; the insurrections, rebellions, commotions, plots and conspiracies against Q. Elizabeth; the conspiracy and combination in the Gunpowder plot against King James, the late horrid Irish rebellion against King Charles the first, to have been mere fictions, and false vanities, or not to have been transacted by Roman Catholics, or to have been without disturbance to the Nations, in true allegiance to the King. But (my Lord) so zealous in his Client's cause is this Advocate, that he with confidence proceeds to avouch it, To the eternal glory of that truly noble and honourable party, that not one Roman Catholic of consideration, was in Arms against His Majesty or His Father. Of whom those Armies were constituted, I know not, nor is it a season now to inquire: but this I know, there were many (who were no fools) that have observed (on grounds that I cannot avoid) that the Papists did designedly, as well as eventually appear against, in appearing for his late Majesty, pursuing the plot managed by Cardinal Barbarino and Curenus; and this I am sure of, that they reap little honour by this bravado, who contradicteth himself, avouching here, not one in Arms against the King; and yet in his postscript he tells your Lordship, Sir Arthur Ashton had a commission from the Rebel's party; as (contrary to His Majesty's gracious Act of Oblivion) doth denominate them: he will do well to wind off, by telling your Lordship Sir Arthur was a man of no consideration, otherwise he will appear a right imp of Antichrist, working, by lies: One he tells so loudly in his postscript, that all that ever knew the temper of what he calls that Presbyterian Parliament, must conclude it improbable, yea impossible, that after their discriminating Protestation, they should extremely court the Papists to side with them, with a promise or proffer of the perfect Abolition of the Penal Laws: but wise men silence all debates about the unhappy war. This Advocate feeling his reason fail, forceth it up with rage at the Consistorian party, as if Cathedral men were clearly Rome's children: of that I have said enough verbum sat sapienti. That we have had changes in Religion since Henry the eighth his time, is not denied, though blessed be God it hath been generally thought with some violent interruption (by superstition and schism, two extremes of an happy, hopeful Reformation) for the better. As to his Memento, we shall not deny it, because we desire it, viz. That they that are now in gloria Patri, may be hereafter sicut erat in principio: for if Rome will reurn to its primitive constitution, in Doctrine, Worship, and Discipline; as Peter and Paul, left her, I dare undertake she will renounce her Catholic maternity; and the very contemned Consistorians, will embrace her as a Sister, for that Superiority and superstition which now swelleth her, were not (it is known) at the beginning.  
His caution we accept as good, and do desire to continue and live so with all men in Christian charity, and amity, as to forget that the bonds of religious unity, are set to be strengthened as that the bonds of humane society be not dissolved; in pursuit whereof the duty of separation from the man of sin, and mother of abomination (from which Rome and her Papacy are not acquitted) and the insociable principles and practices, openly expressed and sadly experienced in these Kingdoms, doth stand against his desired liberty, and render ineffectual all the instances of Pharisees and Saducees in Jerusalem, or Zwinglians in Switzerland, or Lutherans and Calvinists in Germany, and the like (whose necessity or policy prompting the same we will not dispute until he hath cleared the parallel, as well on the part of the indulged, as indulgents; and yet England will not degenerate from its ancient glory and virtue, whilst policy (the only plea he maketh for their Spanish inquisition cruelty) doth (as himself confesseth) teach more to keep fast and firm to one Religion, and keep out deversities of Religion, and (my Lord let me humbly add) 
Pag. 7.  of readmitting that which hath been exiled, and Exploded and returneth with principles in consistent to the common security of humane society; My Lord not only nature but also Scripture doth dictate a jus talionis, to Babylon, and direct us to reward her, as she hath rewarded us.  
This Advocate having barricaded the sociability of his Roman catholics; proceedeth to obviate one objection more; which he apprehendeth, and by his own fancy forceth to look big upon him: against which he fighteth with the height of fury, not only against a Consistorian faction, but also the very constitution of the Nation: The objection he thus states, It is not for their Religion, that Priests and their entertainers suffer but plain matter of Treason; unto this in heat of passion he Queries, how it comes to pass, that it should be treason to be a Priest? or Capital for a Gentleman to entertain him? and so raging at renowned Queen Elizabeth, and against the Laws of our Nation, he tells your Lordship that this is not malum in se but quia prohibitum; but no way denyeth or avoideth the objection, but spends this whole paragraph in fretting against the Law, and Lawmaker: in which I desire your Lordship will please to note.  
The arrogancy of this Advocate, whose angry words do bespeak him and his party prompt to blows; (if the time would permit it) he pretendeth to beg for liberty, and yet presumeth to arraign the very Law (desired to be repealed) at the bar of his own private fancy; and chargeth the Law, and Lawmakers, with irrationality and injustice, or at least strange severities; and that because this treason becomes such quia prohibitum; and if legislation did not possess a power, to make a Capital crime of that Act which is not malum in se: was it my Lord malum in se, to pray (in sense of Queen Mary's cruel and persecuting disposition) that the Lord would turn her heart, or take her out of this World, and yet may I not ask this Advocate how it became Treason so to pray; was it not quia prohibitum, my Lord, these Roman Catholics, who without Law or reason can make truth bonum in se, Heresy to be punished with fire, quia est contra, catholicam (viz) Romanam, though not barred by any law cannot brook a Treason quia prohibitum; how many of our Laws will be leveled, and laid aside, if this man's exception may be admitted, and how must legislators give an account of the nature of every act which occasioneth them to give it that name of Treason, yet if this advocate had pleased to consider the Law he might have seen a proditorious appeal, and subjection to, and advancement of a foreign power and potentate, over and opposite to the Sovereign Majesty of this Kingdom in every Roman Popish Priest; and there is the Rati● formalis of the Treason, and makes it such quia malum in se, as well as quia prohibitum. But (my Lord) that which sticks in the stomach of these Romen Catholics is, the power of which their Priests are deprived. He tells your Lordship, The Priests were wont here in England to sit in the chair of Government, and by their Oracles and Decrees, the people of this Land were only wont to he directed both in Chancery, Rolls, and Ecclesiastical Courts. You may see my Lord, to what pitch the Roman Catholics would screw their desired liberty, that the to esse of our Laws may depend on their Priest's Anathema; the places of trust and honour be by them possessed, judgement be by them dispensed, and all civil Offices be at their command, to commend their sociability, by executing the writ de Hereticus comburendis, on the bare say of a Priest, that this man is an Heretic. My Lord, all Lawyers that lay away this liberty, are strange and irrational, and desired to be repealed.  
2. My Lord, the little reason of this Corrector of the reason of our Law, is worth observation: In his blind passion, he supposeth and suggesteth it to be made treason to be a Priest, and manageth all his invectives against the Law, as if it were against the name Priest; which in its general nature, and vulgar acceptation denoteth, cui administrator of holy things between God and his people: And so we know Moses consecrated a Priest. Christ was and is a Priest; our Church call Ministers Priests, and every true Saint is a Priest; and the Law must needs seem unreasonable, that shall make it Treason for a man to be a Priest, in so large a sense as he by an ignoratio Elenchi renders it; but could his heat have admitted him to have cast an eye on the Statute, he would have found the Traitors to have been Jesuits, Seminary Priests, or other Priests, made or ordained out of the Realm, or in the Realm, by any power, authority, or jurisdiction, derived, challenged or pretended from the sea of Rome; And so the Treason to consist not in their being simple Priests, but in their being Roman Priests, subjected to, and advancing a Foreign Power and Authority above their natural Prince: He may, my Lord, on enquiry, find Priests, yea Popish Priests, when converted from the Papacy, have enjoyed the liberty of Subjects, and not been judged Traitors, though he profoundly fancieth the Treason to be in the general appellation; and as such, scolds at the Law as unreasonable, and so runs into the third misdemeanour to be observed; (viz.)  
3. His in●olency, in presuming to reproach the renowned Queen Elizabeth, as illegitimate, and an usurper of the Crown: and so charging these Laws to have been the products of her fears and jealousies against Mary Queen of Scots, whom he determined to have been the just heir of the Crown: all which with a right Roman Catholic spirit, he bottometh on the Pope's declaring her illegitimate: it is indeed true, he doth mention our own Acts of Parliaments, which did declare her such; but, my Lord, his foundation is the Pope's Sentence and Censure; otherwise his argument were the same against Queen Mary, as against Queen Elizabeth, who also was declared illegitimate; and he would have seen Acts of Parliament appropriating the Crown to her, as well as they had sometime taken it from her. My Lord, come not the the Roman Catholics with a very submissive spirit to supplicate their liberty, thus to reproach our Princes and Laws, and so demanding the repeal of Penal Laws against themselves, as a matter due and just: But if, my Lord, that jealousies of Queen Elizabeth as an Usurper, were the only reason and cause of those Statutes, how was it that these laws did not cease with their cause, after King James (right heir according to this Advocate's account) come to the Crown? These laws were not only continued, but renewed and rendered more severe, as the Catholic insociability (manifested by their bloody and barbarous conspiracies against him, whom their Pope could not declare illegitimate) had constrained.  
My Lord, I have made bold to consider the Argumentation of this Advocate, for the toleration of Roman Catholics: The remaining part of his Book is but a Rhetorical swada, in which there are many words and sentences obnoxious to exception: but knowing that your Lordship is more judicious then to be courted by words without weight, I will not trouble your Lordship with any observation of them; but humbly commit the cause to your grand and pious consideration, not doubting but your zeal to the Protestant Religion, the interest of our Nation, honour of our King, and glory of our Church (almost ruined by schismatics, on a suspicion that it would strike hands with Roman Catholics) will prove more fervent, then to be extinguished or abated by the water of these false suggestions, furious expostulations, or fair spoken persuasions; and that your Lordship will never engage yourself, to indulge an interest directly contrary to our Laws, Church, Religion, and Scripture duty: In which confidence I commend your Lordship unto the Grace that is able, and will establish you to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and rest,  
My Lord, Your Lordsships' most devoted humble Servant, C. D. July 8. 1661.  
FINIS.