A LETTER TO THE ANSWERER OF THE APOLOGY FOR THE catholics.  
SIR,  
THat those may find their mistake without any more trouble than to red the first lines, who seeing this addressed to the Answerer of the late Apology, will be apt to Imagine it takes up the Cudgels in that quarrel, permit me to begin with declaring, that it means nothing less, and that it has no other relation to the Apology, then as That has occasioned the Answer; of which, since the benefit of the Reader is the design of all who expose their thoughts to be publicly red, Its Author conceived it allowed, because intended, he should make his profit.  
In the next place I shall assure you that, though the design of this be so far from the temper of those, which you wish us not to publish, that 'tis the direct contrary, and aims at uniting, not inflaming parties, yet it should not have been exposed to more Eyes than your own, if I were acquainted with any other means to convey it to you than the Press: for I foresee 'twill unavoidably draw a frankness with it, less peradventure than the occasion requires, yet more than well suits with the public. But since necessity pleads, I hope you will judge favourably, especially where your party has so little of Adversary, that w●●e my good fortu●e favourable to my desires, and I in any capacity to pretend to the honour, I would offer you my friendship with abundance of reality.  
After this, I am sure, true profession, I will hope you will not take amiss the freedom with which I must acquaint you, that the reputation of sincerity, which you challenge to your Religion( Pag. 3.) when you say that We are more sure of your Vows,( or Promises) than you can be of ours, is not so clear as you would have it thought. At least I meet with frequent complaints, which represent your carriage toward us very dis-advantagiously, and affirm there is much dis-proportion betwixt your tongues and hearts, and the logic, which from your fair words would conclude fair meaning, very fallacious. My own thoughts indeed are nothing forward to your prejudice: for not having examined what I have heard, I conceive that to believe ill of another without certain proof; is a certain proof of no great good in ones self. And besides I cannot but think, that a man of Honour is a man of Honour, let his Religion be what it will. And truly, though I think not well enough of yours, to dare venture my Soul in it, yet neither do I think so ill of it, that it raises you nothing above the low pitch of corrupted nature, for in my judgement it gives you advantages beyond all, even Christian communities that I know, except the catholic; whereas Honour is a thing whereof the Heathens themselves have left very notable examples. Notwithstanding I was not sorry to meet with an occasion of making trial, especially such a one, wherein if I succeed as I desire, and find your Religion falsely aspersed, besides the justice I shall do to wronged innocence( which even in an Enemy, if I had one, I should serve with much labour, and much joy) my happy curiosity may possibly prove more beneficial to my Country, than the Wit and labour of many and Wise men: whereas if I miscarry, all the harm is to sit still, and aclowledge my thoughts have been more charitable than reasonable.  
To come then to the business, the substance of your Answer seems to consist in dividing us into two sors, those who wholly intend the common Interests of Christian Religion, and Civil Government; and others, who are Papalin●, Asserters and Promoters of the Popes Usurpations. The first 〈◇〉 there you claim for your Ancestors; allow to be Loyal, and Men of Honour; affirm, They have no cause to fear( Death, indeed, you say, ted by your Adversaries words, but mean, I presume, They have no cause to fear any thing; and that you intend no way to punish Loyal Subjects, and Men of Honour) And lastly, exempt them from all Concern in the Severity of the Laws, By which, say you. ( if others shall ●●●ase to distinguish themselves from the rest, by renouncing their ●●lo●●l Principles) only the disloyal and seditious will be kept weak, that they may be harmless. For the disloyal Principles, which you would have renounced, you put these two: That the Pope has a Power to Depose Kings; And to discharge Subjects from their Allegiance. 'tis only from these Dangers, to which these Principles would expose you, that you desire to be safe; and disown all Anger, more than a necessary Care, that the Treasons( of which you apprehended these have been the source) flow not again from them. And this, contracted into another order, seems to be the substance of what you oppose to the Apologist: the rest being either to dilate some of the Particulars, or otherwise prosecute the Advantages you conceive he gives you, and show that mastery of Wit and Language wherein you excel.  
If you desire my sense of this, I must frankly avow, your Plea is to my judgement very fair: For I cannot deny, but you have reason to be jealous of those Doctrines, and subjection to a foreign Power. I cannot deny, but they have beer maintained, and, which is worse, proceeded upon( I cannot say, in England, but) at least against England. And if they be both dangerous and abetted, who can blame your care and just desires of safety? So that if there be as much sincerity, as reason, in what you say, I must needs profess, I cannot think well of those, who think otherwise than well of it. But this we must now put to trial.  
And First, To perform fully what you require on my part, I do unfeignedly, as in the sight of Almighty God, renounce( if that word be proper for him, who never held them, but however) utterly disclaim and disavow those Doctrines, and in my heart beileve the Pope has not a Power to Depose Kings, or to discharge Subjects from their Allegiance; but contrariwise, That the Doctrines which assert it, are,( as all the Universities of France have declared) False, Erroneous, Contrary to the Word of God, Pernicious, Seditious, and Detestable. And this Sentiment I conceive to be an Inheritance left me by my catholic Ancestors, who have declared in Parliament, That the Crown of England hath been so free at all times, that it hath been in subjection to no Realm, but immediately subject to God, and to none other, in all things touching the regality of the same; and provided by several penalties, that it be not submitted to the Bishop of Rome. I conceive you do not, and indeed cannot well, require more of me; so that having fully performed on my side, it remains that you do so on yours.  
And First, Since you assure me, That, He who is Loyal, and a Man of Honour, has no cause to fear; Now by your Standard I have tried, and approved myself such, let me entreat you, to appear a Man of Honour too. Discharge. if you please, your Pledge, the Word you have publicly pawned, and make me see, I truly have no cause to fear. For I must confess my weakness, and aclowledge, that Goods, and Liberty, and Life( to all which the penalties of some Laws extend) are things which my cowardly nature fears to lose. Not but that I know how much trust a good Subject ought to have in His Majesty's mercy: but I know too, that Laws may be executed without His privity; I know that several Cases are beyond even His Power to remedy; and if yet you think me scrupulous, I beseech you change Cases with me but one moment, while you consider how much the World were altered with you, if the security of Life and Fortune, which you have by Law, were changed into a hope of Mercy in the Execution; and how likely he were to prevail, who, to show yourselves good Subjects, and testify the trust you have in his Majesty, should motion to you the making yourselves liable to these Laws.  
Next, Since upon the Credit of your Word, that only the disloyal and seditious will be kept weak, if others shall distinguish themselves from them, I have distinguished myself in the manner you prescribe; I beseech you inform me, in what my Case is better, than that of the most disloyal and seditious, if any such there be, amongst us. You have indeed one pretty word, when instead of the severity we apprehended from the late heats, you talk of a Discreet execution of the Laws. But alas! what small relief is it to a Patient, that a medicine which gives no ease, was brought him in a silver cup? Justice you know is blind, and though discretion indeed have, or rather be, the power to distinguish, you will not sure continue to persuade us that the same effects will proceed from blindness. If the Letter of the Law lie equally against Loyal me, and my fellow traitor, and all my hopes be reduced to the discretion of a Judge, whose Oath ty's him from making use of it, and obliges him to give sentence according to Law, I see not what fear my Companion can have, from which I can be free.  
Again you desire us to content ourselves, as our fathers have done, with such Priests as are known and protected by the civil power: and this advice you address to all, whether Loyal or other, without distinction. In return, I most earnestly and humbly desire you to commend me to such a one, assuring you I shall receive the favour, not only with much content, as you desire, but with much obligation, and as an ample reward of the honesty, whereof by your counsel I have given testimony; my Ancestors have not informed me they enjoyed any such content; and for my own part I know no other but those at St. James's and Somersethouse, and sure you do not mean to offer me these for Confessors, whom the Law forbids me to apprach by 10 miles. 'tis true I have not heard it has been much executed; but yet to make a bargain flatly contrary to Law, seems too much to affront the respect due to it: And besides who knows how soon it would be, if all catholics should, from all quarters where they are dispersed, come up to live at London, which yet the expedient would oblige them to do, it being to all else wholly useless.  
Lastly, since you profess there is no Anger in your proceedings, but only necessary care and desire of safety; And I have taken away what you assign for the ground of your jealousy, and left you nothing to fear, Let me entreat you those words may signify something. Make it appear you truly have no Anger for those, in whom I have made appear there is no cause for it, and in whom you aclowledge both Loyalty and Honour. For I pled not in behalf of any other. Rather, if there be, as you suppose, Knaves amongst us, I consent they be doubly punished; first for being Knaves, and then for abusing their Religion, and drawing It into the guilty fellowship of their wickedness. But for us, whom yourself distinguish from them, I beseech you let not all the comfort of our honesty be a few tinkling words which chime pleasantly, but when we come to grasp the sense, vanish away, and leave nothing but the empty sound.  
I will hope these Requests, since you have put them into my mouth, will appear reasonable, and that you will take ca●e to effect, what you thought fit, by proposing, to undertake. Give me leave to recommend them, with all the earnestness, with which men use to press honourable, and just, and great concerns, such as I conceive these, both to me, and you too. I might peradventure enlarge into some efficacy, but that I writ to one, to whom a Remembrancer is as much as an Orator, and to mention, the same thing as to pled. Permit me only to mind you of the blemish it is to a man of Honor, not to make good his word, and his word publicly given, and publicly challenged. Permit me to mind you of the injustice there is in treating equally unequal cases, and punishing, with all the diffidence, and all the suspicious fears merited by disloyalty, persons confessedly Loyal. Permit me to beg of you, in your own behalf, you will not give people cause to apprehended your writings have no other aim than to speak handsomely, and make them lose their efficacy on all, but such as will be carried away by smooth language. I shall end with adding to the obligation of your word, a consideration, which alone is, in my judgement, an obligation to all Lovers of their Country; And that is the great good which must necessary flow from the condescendence I desire, For by that means the affections of two parties will be be reconciled into a right intelligence, a mutual love and confidence, and both united into a strength serviceable to our King and Country, when all jealousy and diffidence being taken away, there will be no strife left betwixt us, but who shall show himself the honestest man. I wish with all my heart the late storms were so calmed that this consideration might be slight and trivial; but I fear I shall not be happy enough to see the day, in which it will be of little concern to the public, that those who are hearty honest and faithful be hearty united. And yet who can tell, whether this be all the benefit we may hope from hence? I confess your writing pleasingly flatters me with imaginations I had not before, and I would fain hope the distance between us is not so great as many apprehended. For if a Papist be, as it seems by you it is, a name of faction, not Religion, and imports an a better of usurpations, and one obliged to believe the Doctrines I have disclaimed, I perceive I am no Papist. And if you be true to what you profess, that you agree with us in all that is truly catholic, I for my part have no more to desire of you, and think him unreasonable that has; nor do I know why you should be called a Protestant. The Bias of affections, which unadvisedly draws awry the casts even of the best Gamesters, being once taken off, that fair Field of controversy, which you fairly leave open, may, for ought I know, produce these advantages; which, as all good men have always desired, so few wise men have hitherto hoped. But we must leave the future to Providence, and 'tis time I leave these Considerations to your judgement, and leave them with this request, that you will look upon them as the rest of those reports which go abroad to your disadvantage, which by your procedure in this occasion will appear, or causeless, or justly grounded. You will please then to resolve, what opinion you would that men should have of the sincerity of your Profession; and whether you, who use to reproach our Religion, with holding, that Faith is not to be kept with heretics, will consent to have it believed, 'tis practised in yours, not to value what you say to catholics. In all events, I shall have the satisfaction to have done service to the Innocence( if you please, of Protestants, however) of my fellow catholics, whose Title to Loyalty and Honour, since you aclowledge, I hope you will not be displeased, if one of them pretend to that of  
20. May 1667. Your most humble and faithful Servant, P. M.   

Postscript.  
I Must beg the Justice, not to be mistaken, and be thought, because I do not deny, there are bad Principles amongst us, that I therefore grant it. I can assure you, I know none that own any; whether it be, that men have purchased Wisdom and Wit at the cost of their Progenitors, or that the narrow limits of my Accquaintace extend not to those you mean. So that I hope, by judging of the temper of those who live now, by the distempers of some who lived in the former age, you judge amiss of us. Notwithstanding, as I cannot disprove you, nor say but your intelligence is better than mine, if you know any such, I am no Advocate for them.  
Where I speak doubtingly of your candour, I beseech you understand me of private men; for as for the actions of Princes, they are beyond my humble level. And to deal plainly, as I know nothing which can shadow the famed of those, by whom England has had, and has the happiness to be governed; so if I did, I would not discover my knowledge, believing that their Actions are as their Persons, Sacred, and not to be mentioned, but with Honour.   
FINIS.