our Lordship affects to show so much. When you can prove, that one
single word has ever dropped from any minister of state, in public or
private, in favour of the Pretender, or his cause; when you can make it
appear, that in the course of this administration, since the Queen
thought fit to change her servants, there hath one step been made toward
weakening the Hanover title, or giving the least countenance to any
other whatsoever; then, and not until then, go dry your chaff and
stubble, give fire to the zeal of your faction, and reproach them with
lukewarmness.

Fourthly, the Bishop applies himself to the Tories in general. Taking it
for granted, after his charitable manner, that they are all ready
prepared to introduce Popery, he puts an excuse into their mouths, by
which they would endeavour to justify their change of religion. That
"Popery is not what it was before the Reformation: Things are now much
mended; and further corrections might be expected, if we would enter
into a treaty with them: In particular, they see the error of proceeding
severely with heretics; so that there is no reason to apprehend the
returns of such cruelties as were practised an age and a half ago."[51]

[Footnote 51: Page 62.]

This, he assures us, is a plea offered by the Tories in defence of
themselves, for going about at this juncture to establish the Popish
religion among us: What argument does he bring to prove the fact itself?

"Quibus indiciis, quo teste, probavit?
Nil horum: verbosa et grandis epistola venit" [52]

[Footnote 52: Juvenal, "Sat." x. 70-71. [T. S.]]

Nothing but this tedious Introduction, wherein he supposes it all along
as a thing granted. That there might be a perfect union in the whole
Christian Church, is a blessing which every good man wishes, but no
reasonable man can hope. That the more polite Roman Catholics have in
several places given up some of their superstitious fopperies,
particularly concerning legends, relics, and the like, is what nobody
denies. But the material points in difference between us and them are
universally retained and asserted, in all their controversial writings.
And if his Lordship really thinks that every man who differs from him,
under the name of a Tory in some church and state opinions, is ready to
believe transubstantiation, purgatory, the infallibility of pope or
councils, to worship saints and angels, and the like; I can only pray
God to enlighten his understanding, o