the most common principles of virtue and morality, and these are licensed according to the rule of that church; and for as public as they are, and for all the censures and complaints others have passed upon them, yet they continue without any censure from the chair of Rome; it is a shrewd presumption that they are not unwelcome to that see; though for good manners' sake they have given them no other owning, but a connivance, joined with an extraordinary cherishing of that school which vents them.

Two general doctrines they have, which at two strokes dissolve all the bonds of virtue. The one is, the doctrine of probability; the other, of good intention.

By the first they teach, that if any approved doctor of the church have held an opinion about any practical thing, as probable, any Christian may with a safe conscience follow it, were it never so much condemned by others, and did it appear with the blackest visage: and by this it is that there is scarce a sin which may not be safely hazarded on, since there have been of the approved doctors of that church, who have made a shift, by distinctions, to represent the worst actions, not only as probable, but as really good.

The next doctrine is, of good intention, whereby they teach a man to commit the grossest legerdemain with God and his own conscience imaginable; by which he may act any sin he will, provided he intend not that, but some other good design or motive and any that will read the Provincial Letters, or the Mystery of Jesuitism, and compare their citations with the authors whence they take them, will soon be satisfied of the truth of this.

We have already seen how that church violates the two first Commandments, by her idolatry: whereby, in opposition to the first, she worships saints and angels, with those acts and expressions of adoration only due to God. The second is also palpably violated by their image-worship, and adoring God under sensible and external representations. The third is made void by the pope's pretending to dispense with oaths, and to annul their obligation, as also by their doctrines of equivocation and mental reservations, in all oaths, both assertory and promissory; besides the impious doctrines of some casuists, that justify the profaning of God's sacred name in

Their contempt of the fourth

rash and common swearing. precept is not denied, it being usually among them a day of mercating, dancing, and foolish jollity; many among them teaching, that to hear mass that day doth fully answer the obligation for its observance. Their contempt of the fifth follows, upon the doctrine of the pope's power of deposing princes, and freeing the subjects from their obligation to them; by which they are taught to rebel and resist the ordinance of God. Besides, their casuists allow it as lawful to desire the parent's death, provided it be not out of malice to him, but out of a desire of good to themselves; that they may enjoy their inheritance, or be rid of their trouble. Yea, some of their impious casuists say, that children may lawfully intend the killing of their parents, and may disown them, and marry without their consent.

For the sixth Command, their casuists do generally allow to kill in defence of honour, life, or goods, even though the hazard of losing them be not near and evident, but afar off and uncertain and they teach, that a man is not bound to stay till another smite him; but if he threaten him, or if he offend with his words, or if one know that he hath a design upon his honour, life, or goods, he may, with a good conscience, prevent and kill him. And this they extend to all sorts of persons, both secular and religious; allowing it to sons against their fathers. And they leave it free to them to execute this by whatever means they judge most proper, whether by force or surprise, or by the service of others, if they dare not attempt to kill by their own hands; which they stretch to the case of one who knows another guilty of a crime, and intends to pursue him for it; and they allow the guilty person, if he knew no other way of escape, to kill him who intends his accusation, that he may thereby preserve his life; in order to which, they also allow it lawful to kill the witnesses that may prove

the crime.

As for the seventh Command, modesty cannot name their polluted doctrines about it. They barred the clergy the lawful use of marriage, but did allow them concubinate; and the public licenses given to base houses in the pope's dominions, prove that see a mother of fornications, even in the letter; the religious houses being likewise full of irreligious entanglements

into a course of life, which many times they are not able to bear; but being restrained from the honourable ordinance of God, many of these houses have proved either nests of filthiness, or of secret impurities; which it seems, by the rules of confession, and the questions their confessors put to them, are known to abound among them. And any that have read these will confess, that it defiles a chaste mind to read them; but what must it be to ask them, especially at those of a different sex? Shall I also here mention the frequent dispensing with marriages within degrees forbidden, and their as frequent dissolving of that sacred knot, though (as if they had resolved on a contradiction to all the rules of the gospel) they refuse to dissolve the bond on the account of adultery, which Christ hath made the only ground that can justify the dissolution of it ?

For the eighth Command, those profane casuists have made such shifts for it, that none needs to be guilty of theft; for they teach it to be no sin to take that from another which he made no use of, but may well want; and that in such a case, he who steals, is not obliged to restitution. Others of them teach, that he who stole a great sum is not obliged to the restitution of the whole, but only of so much as may make the theft not notable: but they teach, that small thefts, even though often repeated, are but venial sins, which is an excellent doctrine for warranting servants insensibly to purloin their master's goods. They also teach arts of escaping just debts, beyond all the subtleties of false lawyers; which the Jesuits themselves have often put in practice, and have found out arts for justifying oppressive usury, defrauding of creditors, ruining of commerce, and making havoc of our neighbours' goods without injustice.

For the ninth Command, though it be so contrary to nature, that the worst of men count it a reproach to be charged with falsehood and lying, yet they have favoured it avowedly: for by their doctrines of equivocating and using mental reservations, the greatest falsities in the world may be averred, and sworn without sin; and the value they set on a strict observance of promises, and candour in them, appeared at Constance, where a whole council required Sigismund the emperor to burn John Huss and Jerome of Prague, though he had given

them his safe conduct; for they taught him, that faith was not to be kept to heretics. Another such like trip of one of the popes proved fatal both to Ladislaus, and the kingdom of Hungary, at Varna; where they, breaking the truce they had sworn to the Turk, upon the pope's warrant, were signally punished for their treachery. The doctors of the forementioned school do also teach, that he who hath borne false witness in a matter that may cost another his life, is not bound to retract it, if that retractation may bring great evils upon him. They also propose methods for suborning witnesses, and falsifying of writs and records without any sin; and that all this may be done to defame a person with some horrid imputation, who is led as a witness to prove any thing against one, that thereby he may be cast from witnessing.

And as for the tenth Command, they have struck out all the first motions of the mind to evil from being accounted sins; and by their division of sins into venial and mortal, they make sure enough work of this command, that it shall not be broken mortally. It were an endless work to go and make out all these particulars, of their dissolving the moral law, by clear proofs: but he who desires satisfaction in that, will find it in the Provincial Letters, or the Morals of the Jesuits.

But if we pass from the law to the gospel, we shall find they have made no less bones of it. We are all over the gospel called to be heavenly minded, to despise the world, and to set our affections on things above; and particularly churchmen are taught not to seek the riches, splendour, and vanities of a present world; which was most vigorously enforced by the example of Christ and his holy apostles. But how contrary to this is that religion, whose great design is, the enriching and aggrandizing of the teachers and pastors of it, chiefly of him who pretends to be the supreme and sole pastor! I need not here remind the reader of the trade of indulgences, by which that church rose to its riches and pomp; nor need I tell what a value they set on outward actions of piety; the chief of these being the enriching of churches and abbeys; and how these were commended to the world as the sure means of attaining eternal life. Shall I add to this the visible and gross secularity and grandeur in which the head and other prelates of that church do live; the head of it being in all things a temporal

prince, perpetually busied in intrigues of state, and balancing the princes of Europe, and chiefly of Italy? and what base and simoniacal practices abound in that court? All, who have written of it with any degrees of ingenuity, do acknowledge all things are venal there; money being able to raise the basest and unworthiest to the highest promotions: the cardinals are also named either upon the interests of princes, and chiefly of the two great crowns, or to make the pope's nephews have a greater stroke in the next conclave, or upon some such carnal account. And perhaps, for good manners' sake, a scholar, or a person famous for devotion, may get a red hat; but such are always the least esteemed in the college, all affairs being governed by the pope's nephews, or the protectors of the crowns. And who shall expect that such a company of secular, ignorant, (I mean in matters of religion,) and oftentimes licentious men, should be the great sanhedrim, by whose advice all that belongs to religion must be managed? These must be likewise the electors of the pope, when the see is vacant; whom they choose out of their own number, who is always elected by the prevailing interests of one of the crowns, or by the faction of the former pope's nephews. And what caballings, what bespeaking of suffrages, and what impudent ambitus is commonly practised in the elections of popes, is well enough known; nor can it be denied. Now, what man of common sense can imagine, that a pope thus elected by simoniacal arts and carnal interests, can be Christ's vicar on earth, or have the Holy Ghost always affixed to his chair, that he shall never err in any of his decrees? Truly, he that can believe this, may believe any thing that is gross and absurd. Is not the whole frame and contrivance of that court turned so entirely secular, that not a vestige of the character of a church, or of churchmen, remains? And to this shall I add all the splendour of their apparel, the state of their processions, and the ceremonies of their coronation, and how they wear a triple crown? which being so well known to all who ever were at Rome, need not be descanted on by me. From this I should descend to the cardinals, bishops, and abbots, and shew how secular they are become; all their design being to engross power, and monopolize all riches; which contagion is also derived into the inferior orders of the clergy, who, by the magnifying of their