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AN

ANSWER TO FOOLS;

AND

A WORD TO THE WISE.

ADDRESSED TO

THE REVEREND MARIA DE FLEURY,

JOHN RYLAND, AND CO.

UPRIGHT MEN SHALL BE ASTONISHED AT THIS, AND THE INNOCENT SHALL

STIR UP HIMSELP AGAINST THE HYPOCRITE.

GIVE A PORTION TO SEVEN, AND ALSO TO EIGHT.

JOB Xvii. 8.

ECCLES. xi. 2.

PREFACE.

TO MARIA AND CO.

REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED,

no means.

I HAVE received your Treatise, inti

tuled, 'A Farewell to Mr. Huntington.' And in that I see your last dying speech and confession as a correspondent. Love, violent hot, is soonest cold. Did I solicit your favour, your affections, or any correspondence with you at the first? By You wrote to me once and again. I treated you with some silence, and afterwards with an abrupt answer; not willing to be ravished with a strange woman: till, with an impudent face, you saluted me from the press, and by twopenny pamphlets pursued me in the public streets; till your much fair speech caused me to yield to answer you, and the flattering of your lips forced me into a controversy with you. And now you take a farewell.

Maria has acted as some people do, who condemn a good trade because they have been bankrupt in it. All the time Maria's pamphlets went off, there was no person worthy of an address but the reverend Mr. Huntington, minister of the gospel;

but, now her trade fails, she makes me contemptible, and quite beneath her notice. The candour is now all turned into gall, and the philanthropy into hemlock. However, if she has done with me, I have not done with her. She began, and I am determined to finish; for discovering of a hypocrite is a good work, and I hope not to be weary in welldoing. Therefore I shall examine this piece, and return an answer suitable to the contents; and such an answer as the author's back calls for; "A fool's lips enter into contention, and his back calleth for strokes."

I am,

Rev. and dear MARIA and Co.

Faithfully yours-to discover you,

W. H.

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