YOU and your A. B. has publish'd a Reply to my Defence of the Speculum, before I either Printed or Published any such thing. This is not to stay till all the Muster-Roll be call'd over before you answer to your Name, as you say Mr. P. would have had you to have done; but 'tis every whit as absurd, for 'tis to cry I am here, I am here, before ever you be call'd. This is a strange and un­heard of way of proceeding.

You write an Epistle to your A. B. in which you tell him and the World, that I was a Cambridge Scholar, and has chang'd my Black Coat for a Red one; I am sorry you have gotten no better Information from your Enquiries after me at my Lodging, there having been no less than Two Men at one time, and Four at another (whether sent by you or no, I will not say) making Enquiries of me at my Quarters, what I was? whether I had been an Oxford Scholar or no? was I no more than a Souldier? what I did? what I writ? with such like Queries, to which the good people of the House could give them little or no Answer, (as they told me) other than this, that they told some of them I was writing some­thing concerning your Reverence, but they knew not what. Indeed Dr. your Oracles has deceiv'd you, and you have abus'd me by writing such palpable and false untruths of me. For so far off was my thoughts from ever being either a Cambridge Scholar, or wearing a Clergy-Mans Black Coat, that on the contrary, I was a Catholick before I was 19 years of Age, and (God Almighty be prais'd) have remain'd a Ca­tholick ever since, which is now other 19 years; which if I had but time to write into Yorkshire, I could prove by hun­dreds [Page 2]of Witnesses; nor had my Father (being a Calvinst or Presbyterian) ever the least thought of sending me to Cam­bridge, or any other Protestant University, but rather of putting me to an Attorney, or some such like Employ, till I lost his kindness by Embracing the Holy Catholick Faith.

So that you have mist the mark exceedingly, by saying I was, or ever was intended for a Cambridge Scholar, or had a Clergy-Mans Black Coat to change for a Military Red one. This story's just like your Jesuits with yellow Peruick and little Bands, and the sholes of Men that throng'd in with Mr. P. in the Conference, when he has prov'd by 22 or 23 Witnesses, that he brought but one Man with him, and he was neither a Priest, nor came to Dispute, but only to be a Witness of what passed. If you go on at this rate, 'twil be time for Dr. Oates to look about him, you'l darken his lusture quite. What can we expect from the rest of your Pamphlet, (call'd your Considerations on the Speculum Ecclesi­asticum) when you entertain us with such a Whiskerat the first; may we not guess what you have in your shop by what you hang out of the window? If you would have had us given credit to your following Consideration, (as you term it) you should not have begun with so gross an untruth. There­fore what ever we find in your Treatise deliver'd from your own word, without sufficient proof, you must excuse us if we do not, nor cannot believe it.

I had not time to take much notice of your Pamphlet, only this I observ'd that you have found out a ready way to Con­fute the Fathers: That is, either by calling their Works Spurius and suppossititious, making a great shew with the Names of your Authors, but taking care not to Cite the places where any of their words may be found: Or else reckoning the Fathers words no other than Historical Apostro­phes. p. 69. Complements to the Pope, meer Complements. p. 52. meer Rhetorical Flights, Rhetorical Apostrophes, p. 62. presu­ming to tell us, that Orators (meaning the Holy Fathers, for of them you are speaking) seldom contains themselves within the severe bounds of Truths. p. 63. [well said Doctor!] nor have you taken the least notice of the Testimonies of Holy Scripture, why did you not Confute them also?

What I have to say more Dr. is to advise you to wrap up your next of this nature a little closer than you have done this, or those against Mr. P.