A LETTER From a Gentleman to his Friend in London, In Confutation of the scurrilous Libel of an Anonymus Blackloist, Against the Reverend and Learned Doctor P. R. upon the occasion of his Latin Epistle of the clergy's Obedience to the Sea Apostolic.  
With an enclosed to the Libeler himself.  Induantur qui detrahunt [illi] pudore, & operiantur sicut diploide confusione suâ, Psalm. 108. 
Printed in the Year, 1660.   

A L●●ter from a Gentleman to his friend in London, in Confutation of the scurrilous Libel of an Anonymus Blackloist, etc.  
SIR,  
THough I cannot choose but thankfully acknowledge the great benefit I receive by that friendly correspondence and good Intelligence you are pleased in your weekly Letters to afford me: which by a prompt endeavour of serving you, it shall be my study to deserve: yet give me leave to chide you a little for your last, since it bore no other mark of Friendship but your Name, which I ever esteemed too sacred to accompany so frothy a Libel, stuffed only with Billingsgate Language, too dearly bought at Six pence for the Poastage, and an hour's reading. But since the Author is ashamed to own this spurious Brat, which for want of known Parents wanders abroad to beg the sometimes mistaken Charity of well-minded persons, I shall take the boldness to send it back to the supposed place of its birth: But lest it might find entertainment beyond its desert, and so steal the Bread due to the Children of the Bride, I have in lieu of a Passport given it this ensuing Character and Animadversion.  

To the Libeler himself.  
AS 'tis the greatest testimony of virtue to please good men, so it is no less an argument of the same to displease the wicked; it being equally a blemish to be praised by them, as to be censured by the other: which moved the worthy Dr. P. R. not only to slight your calumnies, but even made him rejoice to have received them from such, whose Rump-like Anarchichall spirits, kick against all Authority not modelled by themselves, as inconsistent with their Fanatic Notions: And whose evident Apostasy from the Church, makes them odious and detestable to the genuine Sons thereof: and might therefore have driven me and others, friends of the Doctor and Truth, to have passed by this Libel with contempt, as confident it will find the same judgement in England, which it could not have avoided in a Catholic Country, by Tobacconists, if it escape a more noisome burial by piece-meal in a Close-stool, Yet lest it might fall into the hands of some unacquainted with his merits and worth; and because Reproaches confidently urged, leave some dirt behind them; I conceived it my duty to wipe it off: a duty I own to Truth, to my deceived Friends, to the Doctor's Innocency, whose eminent Virtues afford me a large field to wander (and even lose myself) in, in his commendations, did I not fear to offend his modesty, and derogate from his just merits by my humble Pen, as much below his desert, as he is above your detractions.  
But what should move the uncharitable Publisher of this scandalous Pasquil to vent to the World so scurrilous a Pamphlet, whose Author he knew not, nor the man he writes against; but covetousness, which legitimates any gain, though by the hurt of others, yea scarce thinks it gain, unless others be hurt. A notable wise Fellow that could think a Letter worthy the public, whereof he neither knows the Author, whether he be a man who may deserve belief; nor the man he writes against, whether his worth may not have heightened him above all such barkings.  
But whether I should believe him or you, I know not, whom I find like Susanna her witnesses, in several tales; and while your Heads look divers ways, are tied only by the Tails, where in that of your Letter, you say, He knows the hand, which he in full front denies, Non novi hominem. Oedipus solve me this Riddle, Know and know not. But perhaps your Master Blackloe in his new Philosophy hath found a cure for it out of the World in the Moon, to which we recommend him, since he hath troubled this sufficiently: And in particular to the Man thereof, who in all likelihood tired with great employment, may resign his place to him, or at the worse, make him Reader of Divinity there, since all Countries have refused him here.  
'Tis very credible that Dr. P. R. his nearest acquaintance and comrades should so ill befriend him, as to give you Mr. Libeler, such a knowledge of him as you blaze out in your scurrilous Pamphlet. I have the honour to be of his nearest acquaintance, and (be it spoken with the respect I own his person and worth) of his Comrades, and out of mine own knowledge will make bold to give you the Lie, and your very Pamphlet smells of so much baseness and cowardice, that I believe you will cake it patiently. And I shall praise your virtue.  
But much more true, that you never had any commerce with himself, his spirit ever disdaining so inconsiderable a Fellow, by whose company his reputation might suffer in the opinion of men of worth, his nearest acquaintance and Comrades.  
Then you say, your profession hath no relation to the subject of this discourse, I believe so; for you not only seem no Scholar, but even not worthy to look at scholarship, who could so little discern it, where it appeared as fully and gracefully as the matter required. And therefore doubt not but your own confession will easily be believed, viz, That you are neither a Divine, nor learned in any thing: no not so much as in good manners, or the duty of a good Catholic, though you profess yourself a Roman Catholic. Which whether I may take upon your own word, wherein you have faltered so often, and is yet the only testimonial you have, I leave to honest men, and such as have read your Pamphlet to judge: till than I shall be content out of charity to hope, though I cannot find one word in all your Libel can induce me to believe it.  
Though I can easily credit, and you have demonstrated it more fully than your Master's Chrysaspis did the Quadratura Circuli, that you are neither a Divine, nor learned in any thing, only you pretend [and but barely pretend] by common sense [which any one that reads your Pamphlet would swear you had lost] bettered with conversation and reading, to have some knowledge [but that very little] of the ordinary passages of the world, and in such matters as men generally talk of: which whether any Tinker, Cobbler, or sweep-chimney, especially in these times so full of news and business, may not more than pretend to, I wish you out of your common sense bettered with conversation and reading [your Master's Books] to determine.  
You do well not to be of the opinion of those that think him hired: for in that particular, you will be accounted less silly than they who think so, and vent their venom so weakly and groundlessly.  
You do well also not to believe that he is a Prevaricator, for no honest man would believe you. And if those others you speak of, are ashamed to own that belief before any person of honour; I pray you be you ashamed of them also, and of your acquaintance with them. And I wish I could as easily acquit you of a malicious design in your carriage towards him: that you were not the hireling of some Pursuivant, whom by this open discovery of his Name and Person you endeavour to assist: that by the ruin of so worthy and learned an Adversary, you might leave an open field to your baffled and runaway Champion Blackloe.  
Good Sir begin to read his piece once more, and if you cannot for an example, in the first dozen lines or more, show us that palpable lie, or slander, or scolding injustice, or railing reproach, or at least ridiculous impertinency, know what a fellow you are that dares say that there are not three lines in the whole piece without some of this. And how guilty will your Reader find yourself of all this; when you begin so timely.  
You say he deserves not to carry their Books after them. You say right, for we cannot see how having ever made the good use, we know, of the best Books, why he should be condemned to read such naughty Books as your friend's are: but his zeal for our good makes him read them, to discover their venom to us, lest they might infect us. Besides, the bulk of your Masters comes will never (I am sure) oppress his shoulders, whose stomach accustomed to solid Learning will easily digest his Pigge-wiggin Divinity into sippets.  
Here again you do the Pursuivant a pleasure. The party you writ against doth not so much to his worst adversaries: he names but one, and him by two letters only. If he names one or two of his friends at length, as you do him, it is with their consent; I am sure you had not his consent to do so.  
Poor man, though you conceal your name, yet lest it come out at last, why have you no more care of your credit, then to discover so much ignorance, since you profess to have some knowledge in the ordinary passages of the world, as to think that a man cannot leave being a Jesuit without Apostasy. We see even Princes, both Temporal and Spiritual, Prelates, Doctors, Preachers, and other persons of eminency and honour, often do it with the world's esteem, and continuance of mutual charity betwixt them and the Society. But because you think no ignorance can befall your friend Mr. White, from whom you raked this with his other dirt, you were the bolder in shooting your bolt.  
Your own Pamphlet and your friend's Mr. White's gives you the open lie, since with the utmost of your fury and filthy language you cannot fasten the least blemish upon any part of his life, even in the two or three particular passages in matter of fact, wherewith you go about to do it here; he hath so fully and so openly heretofore cleared himself to all your confusions, that I extremely wonder how like unknown Owls out of your Ivie-bushes you dare fly at a person whose life hath been so open and so esteemed by persons of all degrees, both highest and lowest. For the satisfaction of those who know him not, I shall anon take notice of your two or three fabulous calumnies.  
Besides the baldness of your stile all over, I take notice that all your slanderous Epithers and Adverbs, run along barking in couples: as notorious and foul reproaches, basely and unworthily abuseth, frivolous and foolish Lines, lewd and licentious Pen; and so all along. But all this will never by't. No not your often calling him poor wretch, can no more wrong him, then Hugh Peter's (with whom you jump in that Reviling Expression, take heed you jump not home after him) did his sacred Sovereign.  
How simple is your malice here, as if it were a disparagement to teach those Schools which in course both Princes and Prelates, and whosoever was of that Society, taught: And I pray you, who of your best friends did not the like at Douai? Though any man that reads the bald expressions of your Masters, White and Doctor H. H. would never think they had put foot into a Grammar-school, whose Rudiments they are not worthy to read to Boys.  
Your foolish jeering his Majesty's Army, in calling them the brave Blades of the Land, makes it likely, that you are one of those Levelling Coxcombs, who cared not much for that Cause, and so envied those you durst not aspire to follow, and appear with; this worthy person whom you now sharle at, was a constant comfort to the best Catholic Nobility and Gentry, with their Officers and Soldiers, with open hazard of life in such encounters, where you my friend, who dare not now own your name, durst not then show your face: his wounds and imprisonment for that Cause, and in the performance of his noble charity, have gotten him that esteem you will never deserve, without your becoming another creature than you seem to be. And that with such success, that many Honourable persons in their last agony, own their Reconcilement to him: the neglect of which duty, argues in your friends as little charity to the dying, as their Doctrine expresseth to the dead; who instead of such Heroic acts of Fortitude, are sneaking in holes, where they strain all their forces to gain some  woman, whose purse outweighs her wit, to contribute to the maintenance of their Chimerical Chapter.  
Your Ex-Jesuit being cast out, and being a Desertor, shows your nonsense and contradiction; if a Desertor, which implieth freely parting, how cast out, or forced to departed?  
The twang they retain (if you understood what you say) is their especial adhering to the Pope, and zeal against Heresies and profane Novelties, which they were particularly bred to in the Society: which with their indefatigable charity, hath carried them through so many dangers both by sea and land, to the Conversion of millions of Souls in both the Indies; whilst your party in the mean time imitating the incorrigible malice of some of those barbarous people against the Spaniards, refuse Heaven, because you are sure to find Jesuits there: and to that end use all your wiles to pervert those souls, whom they with other Clergy Secular and Regular, have with so great pains gained to God.  
You say the world takes, etc. You mean the senseless world, whereof you are one, and in this also choose rather to run blind after your Master White, then to inform yourself of those who could have told you; and you might clearly have gathered as much out of sundry places of the Epistle itself, which no way agree to the worthy Lord Abbot you name, that the person meant by M. G. is a virtuous and learned Cleargy-man in Monmouthshire. And your apish following of Blackloe in his very mistakes, how simple soever, makes you call the Author Monumetham; which you that talk so much of Grammar and Pedantry, if you read but Manutius' Letters should have known, where you find the names of the places whither the Letters are sent. As for that illustrious worthy Prelate on whom you would needs ground your sillymistake; all your slanders and backbitings will not lessen his affection to this worthy person, and his ever owning his former services, as I and many more can still witness the constancy of this persons professions of zeal for his said Patrons service. And moreover, know my silly friend, that your Informer's too much snott stops their nostrils, and their breath stinks if they are not sensible of the sweet odour still remaining of his exemplar and obliging comportment at Pontoise. The best and greatest there will testify it, as I dare undertake, to the confusion of any that shall dare to appear in this slander. And here I must tell you, you stumble against your will at an honour this deserving person was thought worthy of, which neither your Dr. H. H. nor your Master the Trinobant ever yet obtained, for what I hear, in any foreign parts, to wit, to be entrusted by the King of France, under the great Seal, with the administration and government of a Royal Abbey, with all its dependencies, to wit, above forty Churches; a trust usually judged there too great to continue in the same hands above six months without new Paterts; and in him was continued above two years, in testimony of his prudent and knowing mannagement, that is to say, all the time the Abbey remained in vacancy.  
Then you so tumble and delight yourself in excrements noisome and corrupted members, ill scents and such like perfumes, that I doubt not but your sagacious nose may well befit a Townsow.  
And now my Dr. Dullman, let me once for all take notice, that however you pretend by common sense bettered with conversation and reading to have some knowledge, yet that 'tis very little, and your wit less, which for want of better matter hath forced you to harp so often on the same string, of the Doctors teaching of a Grammar School: from whence it seems you are but lately clapsed; and the marks of your ignorance on your Posteriors have made such a fearful impression on your memory, it scarce retains any other Idea but of that formidable bugbear wherewith it thinks to terrify others: But we manum ferulae subduximus. And therefore let me tell you, for you are not able to judge yourself, that Dr. P. R's knowledge in all Literature both Divine and Humane, is so general, his stile in Verse and Prose so polite and terse, that the truth thereof more forcible than any rack, hath extorted this confession from your Mr. White, a man otherwise sparing in his Praises: who in his Mon. excant. pag. 5. saith. Candid agnosco; nam & scriptum tuum Latinè tersum est, neque verbositatè diffluis; & dignus es cujus stylo excolatur veritas; & vidi aliquando versiculos à te profectos, qui lucem non vererentur.  
Afterwards, like him that would make Windmills on Salisbury Plains, to drain the Fens, you show your Asse's ears in going about, to excuse the Catholic English Clergy from partaking in the guilt of Dr. H. H's Letter, touching the reading of prohibited Books, (a book as destructive of Ecclesiastical, as the Corolarium of his Analysis 〈◊〉 of Civil Authority) I pray you who ever accused them? or once thought them guilty of such a crime, which they equally abhor with your Master's Novelties: You might have saved this breath to cool your pottage. And then loudly bellow, Dr. P. R. was resolved to throw an aspersion on the Clergy; a false slander, and such for which in conscience (if you had any) you own him a reparation: since all along he gives them those Encomiums such venerable Brethren might deserve and expect from the eloquent Pen of an affectionate Brother: 'Tis you and you Masters the trumpeters of Novelties he justly strikes at; from such Wolves like a good Pastor he defends his flock. Was ever Evangelist charged as injurious to the College of the Apostles for blazing out Judas' apostasy? And what manner of Cleargymen your friends are, the Catholic and unextorted testimony of most of the Seculars in England (not to mention Regulars, with whom you have no charity, but with your father Luther cry, Monachus est, ja●●dudum illum valere jussi) in detestation of your Master and his Doctrine, will evidently testify, when it shall be required of them.  
Then you blame him for praising Obedience to the Magistrate in general. A great fault indeed; and such as with you and your Masters (whose seditious Writings against the Supreme Magistrates, Spiritual and Temporal, have made them deservedly odious to all honest men) deserves reprehension and punishment.  
And that out of Cicero too: true indeed: And can your steeled impudence refrain blushing to hear Cicero a Pagan outstrip you and your Masters, pretended Christians and Catholics, in your duties to God and the King. Viri Ninivite surgent in judicio cum generatione ista, & condemnabunt eam. Away for shame, and disgrace not Christianity with your unchristianlike Doctrine and manners.  
For the Doctrinal part of that excellent Epistle of Obedience to the Sea Apostolic, poor scribbler, you reply so little to the purpose to it. that the only thing I allow of in this railing Libel, is your own confession that you are neither a Divine, nor learned in any thing. And you show it here sufficiently. Neither will I so far show myself a Divine, as to forestall what I am confident this worthy Author of that Epistle prepares for your great Master the Trinobant himself, as I dare promise myself to the world's satisfaction. And indeed this foolish piece being stolen from your Mastors' Excantation, deserves not to be taken notice of by itself.  
Only by the way let me advertise you, that if it suffice in answer to the Doctor's Reasons, only to say, as you do pag. 4. You are ashamed to read them, and should be no less ashamed to trouble yourself so far as to answer them in particular. What Idiot, though as yourself not learned in any thing, might not thus solve those Difficulties all the Divines and Philosophers of the world have so long time beaten their brains about in vain. But the less learning the more presumption. None so bold as blind Bayard: This is that compendious way the ignorant Doctor Tolson took to confute the eminent and learned Cardinal Bellarmine. Bellarmine thou liest.  
Then with like confidence and as little reason you say, (and we must believe your ipse dixit, as you do your Masters state's, constats, certum est, etc. but my name is Thomas) that no Law whatsoever did oblige the Subject till it were promulgated. Wherein you discover your ignorance even in our own Parliamentary Laws, which require no promulgation in the several Shires, but are binding when they have thrice passed the Houses, and obtained the King's consent.  
Then you snarl at the Doctor for saying, That the Laws of particular Prelates do not oblige but by Authority from the Pope, as though their Authority were not immediately from Jesus Christ. How then comes the different Authorities of Patriarches, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, & c? were their several Jurisdictions set apart by Jesus Christ himself, without the mediate intervention of his Vicars on earth? But what speak I of Authority to you and your Master White, who contemns all of Pope, Cardinals, Nuncio, his own Bishop, & c? and will only bend the knee to the Baal of his own Fancy.  
Then you say, He raileth (for to call a thief, a thief, with you is railing) at the Provincial Letters, at the Jansenian Sect, which (by instinct no doubt, or so told by your omniscient master, for you know him only by relation) you are pleased to fable he never understood: Happy Calvin! happy Jansenius! happy Blackloe! had they never taught it; and thrice happy world had it never understood it, but left it in Hell, whencethese unhappy Masters have so fatally raked it.  
Next you strive to clear Dr. H. H. from saying these Roman Decrees numquam in Galliis recipi: and that he saith only, they are not always admitted, but sometimes rejected. Very well! and hath lawful Authority never been rejected? Were the Patriarcks, Prophets, and even Jesus Christ our B. Saviour himself always received? were the Apostles and their Successors with their Doctrine and Laws welcome in all places? No, and yet nevertheless binding. Well argued Dr. and Libeler à facto ad jus: And even this sometimes refusal proceeds most commonly not from disobedience to the decree, but the clashing of the Spiritual and Temporal Magistrate in their several pretences to the right of promulgation.  
But now the Fox gins to preach, Lambs look to yourselves, for I must take notice of this unknown libeler's impertinency, who would persuade us that those who maintain obedience to his Holiness his Decrees only in foro conscientiae, and in such matters, as do no way meddle with the State, are worse Subjects than those lurkers of his gang who brought a scandal upon Catholics, by their publishing and maintaining of that detestable book of Obedience and Government, printed in Cromwel's time, to assert his Usurpation against the then dispossessed supreme Governor, our Royal Sovereign, whom God grant long to bless us with his happy reign. It is too well known how these petty Levellers were content to wait on, and brag of their favour with Committee-men, persuading their friends still to a despair of the happiness heaven hath now restored to us. 'Tis well known to nobler persons than this Libeler hath the face to be acquainted with, how the person he rails at, by his wounds, imprisonment, and many years' banishment upon his Majesty's score, gave most constant testimonies of his loyalty, and ever most zealously obliged those he directed, to the like: let both your Master and Doctor take heed the contrary be never laid home to their charge.  
Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes?  
You say the Dr. will be glad his Letter is called Harpya, for you think it was so indeed, because it brought you more light. I fear you take Harpya to signify a Lantern. Look in your Dictionary and think whether it was a Beast or a Bird that hooked in and caught such fools as you into misperswasion. But we are much beholden (you say) to Dr. H. H. for the light and knowledge of what is truly of obligation in points of Religion, and what not, he affords his countrymen shut up in an Island, and thence somewhat ignorant of the proceed of Foreign nations in relation to Rome. Very well! you are pleased with any thing that tends to disobedience to the Sea Apostolic, let it come from Geneva, Amsterdam, yea Hell itself: let it bring with it never so great scandal to Religion, and the professors of it, though it derogate never so much from the honour of the Church, the immaculate Spouse of Christ, and those glorious Saints she hath enroled in the Canon of the Blessed: its welcome, and believed as Gospel. But if some Jesuit write any thing (though never so good) from Rome, or Ex-Jesuit bring it in his pocket: Then faenum habet in coru.  
You are troubled with Monumetham's non-sensicall Arguments, he will trouble you no more, he thinks you not worth the pains. And I too.  
Then you triumph in the condemnation of the Apology for the Casuists. And so do I. As also in that of Jansenisme, the Provincial Letters, and Blacklos' Books, and receive them equally with open arms; why do not you so too? And though you falsely impose the contrary on the Jesuits, and for that pretended disobedience would needs shake hands with them, like Horseleeches that fasten only where the Blood is corrupted: know they scorn you. Nulla societas luci & tenebris.  
I will say nothing of the Dr. you so much extol, I know him not otherwise than by his writings, which are weak and scandalous. This only I know, that when better men than you shall question it, it will be made good, that the Pastor of St. Nicholas warned him to keep out of his Church, rather than infect any of his Penitents with Jansenism, & unwarrantable novelties, which I have from a worthy Divine's own mouth, to whom the Pastor himself told it; and that the Dr. thereupon promising to conform himself, was suffered to continue. Neither did I ever hear that the Dr. came otherwise to St. Nicholas, then as an extern or supernumerary: not as a domestic, either Collegiate or Seminarist, as the person you foam at had the honour to be a long while at St. Sulpice, where his singular exemplarity as well in the labours of that mission, as the most desperate sickness which befell him in the administration of the holy Sacraments to an infected poor creature, was even by the chief of the English Clergy who often visited him, acknowledged and hearty joyed at, as a credit to his nation among strangers. And when his decasions obliged him to retire to the College of Authune, to spend some years in the Canon Law, in order to his Doctorate in that faculty, the said worthy Pastor of St. Sulpice at his departing entreated him, that he would still own himself as a member of their mission; and gave order there should be a Surpless still kept ready for him, when he would please to come, as he did now and then to help them. Now Sir, where lieth all this while the ground of your lie that he was infamously expelled for such public and notorious scandals as you are ashamed to name? I will tell you more than you seem to know, not for your own sake, but because another of your companions (who being of a better tongue and more wit than yourself, though of as undiserect a temper, may be thought rather your Informer then the Author of your Libel) had the face to come with some aspersion in that kind, though far short of the height you raise it to, unto a noble person, who knowing well with what particulars he might soon be confounded, advised him for his own credit's sake to hold his peace. A Lay Gentleman, at this person you would asperse, his refusal to pay him some money, which he had yet no order to give him, by injurious language provoked him to some words of choler, and thereupon also made complaint unto the said Pastor, who for his too hasty crediting the Gentleman's report against his brother, became a day or two after so sorry, that of his own accord, instead of the testimonial commendations he had formerly given him, as the manner was, he would needs bestow new ones, with an inserted clause importing his having been misinformed, and that he not only acknowledged him free from the least blemish in all his comportment, but most worthy of the commendations, he then gave him in writing under his hand. This testimony and more yet upon the same occasion, will be produced when any worth the satisfaction shall require it. And all this was so fare from an expulsion, as your impudence would persuade us, that this person lived not then at St. Sulpice, but went thither only sometimes to help them, as he did still a long time after this, at their earnest request; and being obliged by the Pastor's new civilities, who in testimony of his further affection, made his own brother, being the Lord Chancellor of France his grand Audiencer, procure him the great Seal for his naturalisation gratis, with an intent to obtain for him soon after, as great a Benefice as the limitation of his Patent for naturalisation could admit of. Yea moreover, procured him privileged Faculties for extraordinary extent of Jurisdiction over all that Diocese. As that most illustrious Lord Archbishop of Roven, and Primate of Normandy, did afterwards of his own accord, inviting him thereunto, give him equal faculties to his own Vicar General. To say nothing of the most illustrious Lord Bayny his Holiness his Nuncio, since made Cardinal, his swearing him one of his Assessors to examine the Witnesses and frame the Interrogatories about the validity of the Duke and Duchess of Lorraine their Marriage, wherein I hear he laboured with great applause and satisfaction of the Nuncio. And all this after your pretended notorious slander, and he that will dare own his name (which you do not) to the denial of it, will be proved a notorious liar.  
Now having abundantly cleared my friend, I will not go about to charge yours the Doctor, though your officious over-clawing him puts the world in mind of the reports they have often heard of him. I have heard the person I here vindicate speak civilly enough of your Doctor, neither have I heard him complain that your Dr. had personnally disobliged him; only that his crossing your Doctor's endeavours to recommend Blackloisme to us by such factious Pamphlets, hath hitherto reflected more upon the writings, and but moderately enough upon the writer. Yet because your indiscretion, for which I believe you will have little thanks from your Doctor, obligeth me to it, I must needs tell you, that besides what I have heard, I have seen Letters under another virtuous deserving Church-man's hands, who was all this while at Paris, representing the Doctors managing of those Alms you mention, fare more to his discredit, than you do, both for the manner and the persons they were bestowed upon: yea, warning him of blemishes more openly spoken of, and of a fare worse Nature than any you have endeavoured to asperse my friend with. I will conceal the particulars, until I be called upon to make good what I say. But before I leave your Doctor I must take notice, that you do not so much as offer to clear him of the fickleness and inconstancy he is by my Author charged with, for his subscribing in public to the condemnation of Jansenisme, to the high dissatisfaction of his own party, and then owning that Heresy still in private to regain their good wills: and that in his pitiful Epistle thereupon to the Pastor of St. Nicholas, he so played the John of both sides, that his Epistle and he were commonly hissed at. Perhaps you mean this for one, in this place where you are pleased to play the Encomiastes, saying, Those two learned and famous Epistles. As you do also in the next leaf on his Preliminary Epistles to his Commentary on the New Testament, of which you only saw the first leaves. Surely you are mistaken, it was his Preface (which gave him the surname of Dr. Preface) the Book whereto we have for many years in vain expected; and of which in a Modern Poet's words we may sing, 
A Preface to no Book? a Porch to no House?  
We see the Mountain, but where's the Mouse?   
Dr. P. R's disallowing the Provincial Letters, as being so many infamous Libels condemned by his Holiness, together with the other Treatises in the same Decree, is a testimony of his Obedience to the said Decree, which you and yours will not obey. You call the Doctrine those Libels strike at, Profane and Antichristian; I pray you how Sacred and Christian is that Casuists Doctrine, who teaches you the strain of this your brave Epistle, and to allow of and praise an English Edition of those Libels, bearing in the very Frontispiece an open blasphemy against God's Saints.  
As for Arnauld you know not what you say, nor so much as why you style him Doctor; we have heard that after that his Letter excusing Jansenius and the Jansenists from Heresy, was solemnly condemned in the Sorbon, he was disgracefully cashiered the said Sorbon, and had his title of Doctor taken from him in the Year 1656. the last of January. Do you hear my friend that it was since restored unto him?  
You cavil even at a man's ingenuous confession, that when he writ his Epistle, he had not yet seen your Masters Tabulae Suffragiales. He hath perused them since to my knowledge, and I believe will in due time give your Master a good account of them. In the interim I must give you this account of your great Master the Trinobant, in mine own and those many of my acquaintance their names, who have read his Books, that besides the useless froth we meet with all along, we find his pride and self-conceit now grown to so high a degree of madness, that we wonder yourselves do not perceive it, and bind him.  
But I wonder you should insert among your Master's Praises, that you are sure Dr. P. R. will never understand his Tabulae Suffragiales: where you make that his glory, which is the disgrace of all good men and writers, obscurity. Yet that I may not be wanting either to your or his deserts: give me leave to tell you, you have in this Paragraph summed up all that can be said of him in these few words. He is not to be understood, and he hath extraordinary and exotic opinions. The first being an effect of the later, a fit cloak for such knavery.  
But now you strain higher, even above Ela, saying, Mr. White is so esteemed, not to say admired, by all the world, for his solid and profound learning, and so honoured, where he is known, for his piety: who if now and then he have some extraordinary and exotic opinions, etc. For what learning or piety was he ever honoured by any, but only such whom levity and inconstancy made to run after every wind of new Doctrine? And I am persuaded scarce any Heretic ever had so few followers in so long a time that he hath been venting his Exotic Opinions. But see what opinion the sound members of the Catholic Church have of him. The Pope hath already condemned many of his writings: and the rest are like to follow. His own Bishop hath severely reprehended him. The sacred faculty of Divinity of Douai have censured 22. Propositions of his for Heretical, Erroneous, Dangerous, Temerarious, Impious, Scandalous, and Offensive of pious ears. These are the Eulogiums, this the esteem, admiration, and honour, all that know him have for him; who is scarce known for any thing but his Heresies, scarce named but with regret and horror of his novelties.  
And for the honour done him where he is known, 'tis so little, that he doth not trust himself in any Catholic Country, as France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, yea, England itself, where his Exotic Opinions have bred as great an aversion towards him among moderate Protestants, as they have begot a detestation of him among true Catholics, who are ashamed of him, and grieve that the son of their mother should fight against them.  
But you continue, and say, If he have some extraordinary and Exotic opinions, what is that to P. R.? Why not to him? You would have him see a thief, and run with him; betray Jerusalem to the enemies, upon whose gates he stood sentinel: yea than he had been your white Boy, than he might have obtained an eminent place in your Chapter, and what not? But now that he hath discovered the thief ready to break into the house; repulsed the enemy by discharging his warning-piece, he is a prevaricatour, a miscreant, with many other such titles wherewith your uncharitable new Gospel is stored, and bountifully disposeth of to the obedient sons of the Church.  
You come at length to the pretended Chapter, or capitular government of the English Clergy, the very Epitome of the Rump, Has●erig, in a lesser Volume; And now Sir, we must cry you mercy if we have hitherto thought you a Fool all along: for here you are so wise as to say of the present Chapter. Truly I must confess, I neither know what it is, nor wherein the validity or invalidity of it may consist, and therefore I can say nothing to it. Get but your fellows Blackloists to confess as much, and we shall soon agree, and his cabal with their unwarrantably usurped jurisdiction so serviceable to him for the propagation of his Errors, and of so dangerous consequence as to the invalidity of Faculties and Dispensations, will be soon defeated by this Confession; and in fine, we shall acknowledge our obligations to the party you rail at for this so necessary discovery of your present Chapter's nullity. Yet I would not have you mistake Dr. P. R. as though he were against a Chapter, for I have often heard him wish that there were here a competent number of the best and ablest Cleargymen empowered by lawful authority, with like Jurisdiction to that of Cathedral Chapters in Catholic Countries, whereby the whole Clergy might be governed, whilst there wanted a Bishop, and be by way of Counsel to him, when we have one; whether it were called a Chapter, or by some other fit name: and that he acknowledged some worthy members in this present Chapter, to deserve the said power, however they are now overborne by the more ignorant and violent party of Blackloes Faction. And even to these I find expressly in his Epistle pag. 30. that he is most ready to submit himself and obey them, if his Holiness should think fit to approve of them and confirm them. Where is then that ambition you tax him with, of so poor a thing as to be one of this Chapter, especially in the inconsiderable and pitiful condition it is now in?  
But here again I find you play the fool by your venturing to play the Statesman forsooth, when you say, You leave it to the State to consider, how much it concerns them, not to suffer the Catholics of England to be daily running to Rome for the least businesses that may belong them. The State hath found long since by experience that, of Catholics, they are most assured of their fidelity and loyalty to their Temporal Monarch, who best maintain their Obedience to their Spiritual Head. I have heard that some of your Principles and no others, were complained of for their petty tamperings with the late Usurper, Committees, and Levellers.  
You charge Dr. P. R. with scandalising, as you say, the dead. Were you but half as honest, as your hobnail Northern phrase, in your praising this dead man, you would acknowledge, how sparingly he is spoken of, in the Epistle; where nothing is said of him, no not what was already made known of him, even by a notable stickler of your own gang, and commonly spoken up and down the Town. Only that passage of my Lord of Chalcedon's Letter, forbidding him to own his Sub-deanship any more, and his continuing still to do it, was necessary, the subject requiring it, to be taken notice of: and even this had been published before in Doctor G. L's printed Manifest. But since I understand that some of you seem not yet satisfied, you may perhaps hear more hereafter of that dreadful example Almighty God seemed to warn us by in the circumstances of this man's death, whether for his continued disobedience to his Ordinary, or for his obstinately maintaining and propagating Jansenism and Blackloisme, Almighty God knows.  
You seem next, to know wonders, but that your compassion obligeth you to conceal the particulars. Of the matter you hint at in this place, he hath already fully laid all the shame at your own doors: and now again I must in his name defy you to say the worst you can of him. Even the pretended calumny reached not to any thing done by him, but to idle words spoken of him by a Lay Gentleman, who notwithstanding hath twice under his hand, and will still if need be upon oath, deny all such words as your compassion would charge him with. Now my Simpleton, where are you? the quarrel groweth now between you and that Lay Gentleman: he will show his face, when you dare not show yours.  
As for your idle vapouring of Cudgels and Footmen, since you profess you have some knowledge in the ordinary passages of the world, why have you not yet learned, that there is not such a distance betwixt a Knight and a Gentleman especially such a one as you bark at: But the two you would here set at further variance, might be easily brought yet to a fair atonement by discreeter men than you and your Master.  
Your calumny of Dr. P. R. his going about to deceive a Dutch Merchant in the Quinquempois-street at Paris, is a silly Devil that was never yet raised till now, that your envy hath driven you to these miserable extremities. You say the Knight had no hand in it. I believe so too, and so doth the Doctor, who saith, it is too simple and too ignoble a revenge for such a person to own. Yet I must in a word stop your mouth in this also. The Bill, you have heard something of, was a true Bill of Exchange; the English Merchant who sent it, is now in London, and will avow it. A noble person who appeared in it, and is now also in London, will justify to your betters, that there was no cheat done or intended, but a great work of Justice and Charity. Yea part of that money was afterwards received by another Bill from the same English Merchant, and disposed of as was ordered. There's enough for you my Youngster. Yet I must put you in mind that we know of later years, worse account, or rather none at all, given by some of your pretended Chapter and Blackloists, of far greater sums of money, to the scandal of the Laiety, both Catholics and Protestants.  
But now  
You sing Bellona's Battles, and the man's whose glorious deeds outdid great Tamberlan's. We hear of nothing but army against army, single combats, Don Quixots, Windmills, Soldiers, Captains, Castles in the air, with Thrasonical boasting and bragging, and such like terrible buggan boes, which have frighted the poor Idiot out of his wits, especially since that dreadful apparition of the formidable enchanted Giant Monumetham, Monstrum horrendum, infòrme, ingens, etc.  
descended not doubt of the renowned and very ancient families of the Dorobernian Gogmagog's, and Trinobantian Albii of the East-Saxons: of which race one Thomas the Englishman (the true parallel of Don Quixot, as yourself of Sancho Pancha his Esquire) begat him (as the Cyclops) of some windy phantosme, that supplied the place of brain in his empty Pericranium, where, o the strong force of imagination fertile to its own ruin! in small time it gained such strength, that it is grown terrible to its own parent, whom neither his Golden Shield can defend; nor the Sound of his Trumpet can drive away: nor Fourteen Animadversions joined to Sixty six Excantations dissolve the enchantment. But he lays so furiously about him on the Don and yourself his Esquire, that there is no hope of either of your recoveries, but by the Balsam of Fierebras; more commonly known at the Anticyra's by the name of Hellebore: whither I am resolved to send you both to find your cure. And while the Curate and the Barber are preparing a Cart to carry the Don: I will take charge of you ' Squire Sancho: and when I have made an end with your Libel, send you after.  
And now Sir, you see with what patience I have followed you all along to the end of this your rare piece, where to save both your great Trinobant and your wise Doctor with their adherents their credits, for their not dariug in almost a year and a halfs time, to answer a modest challenge offered them in the name of some of their Oxthodox Brethren of the Clergy, where they might upon friendly terms have received such verbal satisfaction, as might have prevented the scandal of such scurrilous and unchristian writing as you and they use; you bravely out of an Ivy-bush slight your Challenger, who waits for you in open field, and tell him that he never put his nose into a Divinity-School; wherein you outdo your very Masters, who have made such trial of his Divinity, that they believe you lie. And I with others do upon enquiry believe, that he hath many years given extraordinary public testimony of his high abilities therein, in those Divinity-Schools where perhaps your Master's noses would have gone out of joynr, and they have found him still able to oppose their Novelties to their noses. You boast of your Doctor's Learning being known in those famous Schools and Countries where he lives, and I have heard a person of Honour who lived some years at Paris, and was acquainted with the best and learned'st company, wonder that your Doctor was so little known and considered, after so many years spent in the very place where he lives. I will not trouble you here with what I have heard others relate of the esteem the Sorbon Doctors and other Divinity Doctors with whom Dr. P. R. lived in communities and missions, made of his learned resolutions upon several occurrent Controversies and Cases. I know your envy, if I should tell it you, will hardly digest the credit he was in with that Reverend and learned Official of Paris, now Lord Bishop of Toul, ever since in his presence he put the famous Jansenist De St. Boeuf Dr. and Professor of Divinity in Sorbon, at that time under-officiall, to a non plus, in a debate concerning a Dispensation for a Marriage. It will make you burst to hear that the most illustrious and most learned Primate of Normandy was heard often to call this worthy Doctor le tout-scavant, and that some very intelligent Noble persons on this side the water, have often reflected with what facility and clearness he resolved them still in what difficulty soever they asked him. And all this hath no more puffed him with any part of that vanity your great Master is grown mad with, than your scurrility is able to lessen his esteem with those that know him; and for those who know him not, if they believe your Libel, no honest man will desire to know them. Adieu, and learn more wit.  
 
Postscript.  
SIR  
You date your Letter in 1659. whereas your Master's Excantation from whence you borrow your stuff, was not printed before this year 1660. Let me for the better dating of your Letters this next year, recommend unto you Montelion's Almanac, you will find your own Picture in the beginning of it; and at the end amongst the Books newly printed, your Master's Work under the Title of 
Camera locanda in Purgatorio Odilonis.  
Authore Thomas Anglo. A Romance.   
This Almanac is sold at the Prince's Arms in Chancery-Lane.   
Honoured Sir,  
Thus you see how I have anatomised this pitiful Owl, which proves nothing but a heap of Feathers, a mere aery light substance, disowned by the Publisher, scorned by the Stationer, and even a shame to the Author himself, who durst put neither his Name, nor place of his abode, to it. And thus much I thought fit to send open to you, that you may read it and then give it the Libeler, if you discover him: he hath the mark of the Beast, Since, he saith, he is not learned in any thing; he may perhaps prove some ignorant Lay Scribbler, and yourself being a Lay man too, there will be no irregularity in cudgelling him; Yet by doing so you may fail against Charity, which indeed will be the greatest irregularity. And therefore if at the reading hereof he acknowledgeth not the ugliness of his guilt, and repent, you may pray for him, and for.  
SIR, Your humble and faithful Servant, T. R. From Shrewsbury, on the Feast of the immaculate Conception of our B. Lady.  
FINIS.