es them to "compare the
absurdities of their own religion with the reasonableness of the
reformed:" [49] Against which, as good luck would have it, I have
nothing to object.

[Footnote 49: Page 59.]

Thirdly, he is somewhat rough against his own party, "who having tasted
the sweets of Protestant liberty, can look back so tamely on Popery
coming on them; it looks as if they were bewitched, or that the devil
were in them, to be so negligent. It is not enough that they resolve not
to turn papists themselves: They ought to awaken all about them, even
the most ignorant and stupid, to apprehend their danger, and to exert
themselves with their utmost industry to guard against it, and to resist
it. If after all their endeavours to prevent it, the corruption of the
age, and the art and power of our enemies, prove too hard for us, then,
and not until then, we must submit to the will of God, and be silent,
and prepare ourselves for all the extremity of suffering and of
misery:"[50] with a great deal more of the same strain.

[Footnote 50: Pages 60, 61.]

With due submission to the profound sagacity of this prelate, who can
smell Popery at 500 miles distance, better than fanaticism just under
his nose; I take leave to tell him, that this reproof to his friends,
for want of zeal and clamour against Popery, slavery, and the Pretender,
is what they have not deserved. Are the pamphlets and papers, daily
published by the sublime authors of his party full of any thing else?
Are not the Queen, the ministers, the majority of Lords and Commons,
loudly taxed in print with this charge against them at full length? Is
it not the perpetual echo of every Whig coffeehouse and club? Have they
not quartered Popery and the Pretender upon the peace, and treaty of
commerce; upon the possessing, and quieting, and keeping, and
demolishing of Dunkirk? Have they not clamoured because the Pretender
continued in France, and because he left it? Have they not reported,
that the town swarmed with many thousand papists, when upon search there
were never found so few of that religion in it before? If a clergyman
preaches obedience to the higher powers, is he not immediately traduced
as a papist? Can mortal man do more? To deal plainly, my Lord, your
friends are not strong enough yet to make an insurrection, and it is
unreasonable to expect it from them, until their neighbours are ready.

My Lord, I have a little seriousness at heart upon this point, where
y