to raise your voice to do away that only pretext for penal ftatutes, in the following liberal teftimony: "I with pleasure do them (the Catholics) the juftice of acknowledging that their general conduct has long deferved the confidence of government for loyalty and fidelity." (1) I have the honour to remain, &c. (1) P. 109. POSTSCRIPT TO LETTER I. [Dr. S. having profeffed to animadvert, in the fupplementary notes to the fecond edition of his work, on "thofe particulars of the Anfwer to it which feemed moft deferving of notice," (p. v. Advertisement to 2d ed.) the reader will conclude that he has, at least, attempted to difprove my account of the origin of the prefent controverfy, by transferring the odium of the first assault from his own fhoulders to mine, and to fhew that I and the Catholics in general have been treated by him with justice and liberality. He will expect to find either a vindication of the strange mode that has been reforted to, of attacking my HISTORY OF WINCHESTER, by a general Philippic upon Popery, or fome kind of apology for fuch conduct. Finally he will presume that the anonymous abuse of me which was taken up up from The Purfuits of Literature, has on the prefent occafion either been juftified or omitted. Not a word, however, of all this occurs in the faid new edition. In the place of it the author gives us the Duke of Portland's Letter in commendation of the French Emigrant Clergy, and a long extract from one of his own fermons concerning the tenets of Catholics, in order to fhew that, by fuppreffing a part of it, I have mifreprefented his meaning. What I quoted from him, amongst other paffages in the same spirit, was to this effect: that the following doctrines "remain fixed on the Catholic church by virtue of her own principles, viz. to propagate religion by perfecution, flaughter and devastation, to confider every crime, even of the blackest kind, fanctified by this end, to offer pardons and indulgences in order to exempt men from moral obligations, and to make them eafy under the violation of them."-These horrid charges our author perfifts in repeating, and thinks he has made ample fatisfaction to the Catholics by allowing in a fubfequent pas fage which I did not quote, " that there is, and always has been a great proportion of benevolent and virtuous Catholics, who abhor the confequences to which the principles of their religion would lead them."-Does Dr. S. then really think that Catholics will accept of this compliment to themselves at the expense of their religion? Will they bear to be told that they are better than their religion teaches them to be, whilst the best of them are conscious that they are infinitely worfe? The prefent controverfy has demonftrated our author's inabi lity to fupport fome of thefe charges. Should he hereafter be able to make out any one of his other accufations, I pledge myself, in the face of the public, to renounce the religion which is implicated in them.] LETTER II. SIR, Ir T being manifeftly your intention to render the religion of your ancestors an object of fufpicion to our government and countrymen, at the present day, as may be gathered from your title page, and still more plainly from the paffage cited below; (1) hence, you place in the front of your attack upon it, your strongest and most popular argument for this purpose, under the following title to your fecond letter: The Supremacy and Infallibility of the Pope, with the Independence of the Church on the Civil Power. Before I proceed to answer your objections on thefe heads, I might require you to prove the fuppofition on which they are grounded, or rather your pofitive affertion that thefe form one of "the prominent topics of my History of Winchester."(2) But, Sir, to follow where you are pleafed to lead me, it is easy to fhew, that from the confused and indistinct view which you poffefs of the fubjects you undertake to treat of, your arguments are shot at random, and that, however they may impofe upon ignorant and fuperficial (1)" I mean...to fhew how unfavourable the opinions, which Mr. M. would recommend, are to Government, to fociety, to our rights and liberties as Englishmen." P. 6. (2) P. 8. ficial readers, they are incapable of making the fmallest impreffion on the minds of theologians and scholars. In fact, you every where confound the Pope's effential spiritual jurifdiction with his accidental temporal power. You jumble together the very diftinct fubjects of the fupremacy, and the infallibility. Nay you are fo ill-informed, or so uncandid, as to charge Catholics with attributing impeccability, or an exemption from human errors and vices, amongst other privileges, to their chief Bishops. Hence you triumph at discovering that fome Pontiffs, in their long fucceffion from St. Peter, during a space of almost 1800 years, have difgraced their facred station. (1) Hence, alfo, your taunting " pity for the task of poor Catholic writers," and particularly of Cardinal Baronius and myself, who, you fay, " are obliged to fupport all that the Councils and Popes have ever faid or done,"(2) and even thofe wars, ufurpations, and crimes which you fo liberally afcribe to them.(3) Your ideas are equally indistinct on the latter, as on the former part of your subject, I mean the independence of the church on the state. You place no boundaries between the power of teaching and baptifing all nations, which Christ communicated to the minifters of his church, a power that is to remain with them till the end of the world, (4) and those temporal privileges and emoluments which they have derived from the piety of Chriftian princes and states. You take no notice of the diverfity that has prevailed, both in the ecclefiaftical and in the civil laws, with B 4 (1) P. 12. (2) P. 25. (3) P. 14. with respect to thefe privileges and emoluments in different ages and countries. and countries. Thus, becaufe I juftified in my History the celebrated primate who defended theclerical privileges, as he found them eftablished in the twelfth century, you affert, that "I wish to fubject Great Britain and Britons to them at the present day."(1) I am forry to give fo unfavourable an account as this of the work of an eminent fcholar upon a profeffional fubject. The chief caufe of this confufion I conceive to be, the defective plan you have followed in ftudying the doctrines of the religion which you treat of. Had you laboured to acquire a knowledge of thefe, from the famous fchoolman St. Thomas Aquinas, whom you boast of being unacquainted with, (2) inftead of his lefs learned and edi fying countrymen, Dante and Petrarch,(3) you would have (1) P. 15. (2) P. 66. (3) P. 15. Dr S. promifes to avoid quotations from infidel and interested hiftorians, and to prefer those which to me muft appear unexceptionable, p. 7. To fhew how well he fulfils this promife I will give a lift of his principal authorities, viz. the poets Dante and Petrarch, both of them remarkable for their irreligion and hatred of the reigning Pontiffs; Giannone, an unprincipled lawyer, who flattered the court of Naples in its attempt to get rid of the feudal tribute of the white palfrey due to that of Rome, by heap. ing up every kind of abuse and calumny against the latter; Machiavelli, whofe very name announces deceit and infidelity; finally, the treacherous Father Paul Sarpi, who profeffed one religion in order to ferve another (fee his life prefixed to The Rights of Sovereigns) and whofe glaring faliehoods, to the number of near 400, have been fo well expofed by Pallavicini, in his genuine History of the Council of Trent. [Dr. S. complains in his 2d edition, p. 18, that I have called Giannone unprincipled and Father Paul treacherous. I have however given my reafons for ufing these appellations, which he has not attempted to refute. With refpect to F. Paul, not only Catholic writers but alfo Proteftants of the firft eminence, fuch as Bishop Burnet in his life of Bedell, Jurieu, Deodati, &c. prove that |