JUst and Worthy (with all Commendations to be Recorded to Posterity) are the Endeavors of the Honourable Houses of Parliament, and many other true Patriots, to deliver this, and succeeding Ages, from that unsupportable Yoke of Slavery, which that State-Policy call'd Popery, imposes on all its Devoto's.

I do not at all question but this was the main Design of a Speech lately made by a Noble Peer of the Realm: Yet if I endea­vor to shew that the means which he adviseth are ineffectual to obtain this End, I hope I shall not be accounted a Papist in Masque­rade, or guilty of Scandalum Magnatum, since the Noble Peer hath been pleased to make this Challenge, If any can answer or oppose Reason to what I say, I beg they would do it: Wherefore, to gratifie this Noble Peer's desire, I (in all humility) offer to some of his Propositions, a few modest Answers.

Truly I think the Noble Peer is very unfor­tunate in the President of Henry the 4th, (whom he is pleased to stile a Wise and Mag­nanimous Prince;) and yet in this Reign it was, that Fire and Fagot were first used against Dissentérs in Religion: But however, the Chronicles we (of the meanest Rank) use, do not afford this President. Baker in­deed tells us, That he connived at the Impeach­ment of the Dukes of Aumarle and Exeter, The one was accused for speaking against his Title to the Crown; the other for mur­thering his Father: And he adds the Reason, Because he had professed Enemies enough, and had no mind to make such of them, who (at the least) pretended to be his Friends:

But to grant what the Noble Peer desireth:

Was there ever any Prince since the Con­quest, that hath oftner changed his Ministers of State, than our present Gracious King? And this some men knew to their sorrow, who, when they were at the Helm, thought it very unreasonable that every Month should produce new Statesmen; For by this method before any one could understand the Arcana Imperii, and able to give Counsel, he shall be sent discontented into the Countrey; and the ill consequences of discontented Statesmen, who is ignorant of?

After our Noble Peer hath past a very wit­ty and smart Reflection on the Ladies at Court, he passes to the next Paragraph, where we have these words, We must neither have Popish Wife—nor any new Convert.

What is meant by the first I cannot guess, unless with our New State-Officers, we are to have a New Model of Religion; If by New Converts be understood such, who abominating the Superstition of the Church of Rome, are come over to our Church; I much wonder this Noble Peer, who is esteem­ed a great Patron of the Protestant Religion, should forget what great Influence, Reputa­tion, Honour and Rewards (in this Life) have upon the minds of men, and how hard a thing it is to persuade a man to forsake these, though it was to embrace a true Re­ligion, where by one Party he is disesteemed, disrespected by his Prince; by the other Par­ty be loaded (though falsly) with the Ig­nominies of an Apostate; Schismatick, and what not? Is this the way to gain Converts to the true Protestant Catholick Religion? That is, The Religion of the Church of Eng­land as at present it is Established by Law.