AN ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET CALLED, The True Protestants Appeal TO THE CITY and COUNTRY. BEING A VINDICATION OF THE Dissenting Protestants In General; And Mr. Sheriff bethel In Particular.  
By a Truer Protestant.  
courageous Friend, Fellow Citizen and Subject;  
I Am glad I have found thee so great an Abhorrer of Popery, but I could have been more glad, hadst thou name some of those many Persons of Quality, thou so boldly mentionest, who had been acquainted with thy Name and Principles, so fully as thy Pen has declared it. If thou art so famous for thy Hatred to the Roman Principles, to Superstition and Innovation, why no Name at the end of thy Pamphlet? And why shouldst thou be afraid to let thy Labours come to a public Test? They creep into the World like the LADY GREY'S APPARITION; MADAM FANSHAW'S TOUCH, and such like forbidden Fruit: they steal out of thy Closet into the Press, and so into the World, flying like Owls through the Dark Corners of the Earth. A shrewd suspicion we have, that thou art not what thou pretendest to be; such as thou art are most to be suspected for King-killing Tenets; and I fancy thou hast got the wit to cry out Whore first. Papists now rail against Papists; crafty are they grown in this Treacherous Age: But we will hope for better things from thee, because thou hast  told us in Print, That many Persons of Quality( though nameless, and not to be found) do know thee to be a TRUE CHURCH OF ENGLAND-KING'S-PROTESTANT. But give me leave to tell thee, That's an ill bide that beshits its own Nest. To lay the burden of Royal Blood wholly upon Dissenting Protestants, is too great a load for them to bear, since the King's Evidences have so fully discovered, that the Papists had a Finger in that pie, and were too highly concerned in shedding that Royal and Innocent Blood. The Parliament striven to Unite the Dissenters, thou to Destroy them; so much are we beholden to one that calls himself a Church of England-Kings-Protestant; whom I imagine to be of person Thompson's Principles.  
Thank you, dear Friend, that at last you are come to aclowledge a PLOT; but I doubt, if the denying it would have done thee any Kindness, we should rather have had it a shame Presbyterian Plot from thee,( as much as thou seemest to hate it) then a real Popish Plot, as Justice GODFREY, Justice pie, Justice ARNOLD, have so sadly experienced it: But I would fain know who they are whom thou reckonest Common-Wealth Protestants; doubtless thou meanest our last Parliament, for they raised the Dust thou speakest of; they were Rigorous to bring the Plotters to Justice, and made Prefaces of Loyalty in all their Addresses; yet what scribbler a month ago durst have taken the freedom to have branded them with such black Reflections as thou hast done.  
I never heard that Presbyterians, Anabaptists, independents, &c. refused to take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy; but rather that they were willing to buckle to any reasonable Command: And I have heard such whom thou labourest to stigmatize with the greatest Guilt, wish well to the King and Kingdom, and pray zealously, and( I believe) hearty for them both.  
And lest thou shouldst say, this was written by a Quaker, an Anabaptist, an Independent, or a Presbyterian; let me tell thee, as I have a Soul to be saved, I am a Church of England-King's-Protestant; which thou pretendedst to be. I reckon myself a Protestant, and so do all that know me; and I am known by many Persons of no inconsiderable Quality.  
I find its thy greatest Grief, to see that there is more Unity like to be amongst the Dissenting Protestants, than ever was heretofore; and I doubt thou art jealous, that if they hold together, such Church of England-King's-Protestants as thou art, when weighed in a true Protestants Scale, will be found too light in thy Profession, and mean Tekel will be thy most proper Motto, for all such Papists in Masquerade.  
Thou sayest, All the Industry imaginable is used to represent such Persons to be the fittest Representatives of the People, who have been in actual Arms against his Majesty and his Royal Father: Nay, as it is credibly reported, one was recommended to a Neighbouring burrow, who was not only of the Council of State, and had abjured Charles Stuart, but had said beyond Sea, at the time of the murder of the late King, That rather than he should want an Executioner, he would come over and do the Office.  
Some are so bold and impudent as to be spatter Mr. Sheriff BETHEL with this Calumny; and they do not stick to say, that he wrote so from beyond the Seas; and why? He is known to be an absolute Enemy to the bloody-minded Papists, a Man of a Sober Life, a Man of great parts, and very Zealous for the King and kingdoms safety, and all such men must expect to have Thanks returned only by such Pens as thine. Find me out one man that is Vigorous and Active for our safety, and if he escapes this Fate, let me be choak't with Godfrey's Cravat. Sir William Waller he is extremely Industrious to preserve the Protestant Religion, and the Peace of the Kingdom, What's he in your Opinion? Without doubt a heretic, a schismatic, an Enemy to the KING, a Disturber of Israels Quiet, a Dissenter, or at best but a Common-Wealth's Protestant. We doubt not but our present Lord Mayor, being eminently Active and Serviceable for a general Good, shall in a little time have the same particular Thanks from such a Protestant Pen as yours is; but alas! such Eagles as these are, do not cast an Eye upon every Rook or Jack-Daw; they mind more lofty things, than such lying Pamphlets; whilst your Tribe is busy like Moths to eat up their Reputation, they are only Solicitous to wrap themselves and us in PEACE here, and in GLORY hereafter.  
FINIS.   

London, Printed for J. B. 1681.