My Lord, I have a little seriousness at heart upon this point, where your 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]
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, or graft in his heart the first principles of charity; a virtue which some people ought not by any means wholly to renounce, "because it covers a multitude of sins."