I judged it necessary to add a short discourse to prove that the Roman Catholic Church alone has a just title to it, which was no sooner done, but I found myself obliged to vindicate that Church from the imputation of the many gross errors laid to her charge; for it would be a vain attempt to prove her infallible, as long as this popular prejudice subsisted against her. And now I began to find that I had reckoned very short at first, and that the more the work advanced, the faster it grew upon my hands. But, being too far engaged to stop, I was under a necessity of making still more additions, and those of a considerable length, in vindication of the Church of Rome, and to invalidate the testimony of her first and principal accuser; that so her enemies might be more easily disposed to a belief of her infallibility, when they were convinced that she had already continued free from errors for the space of above sixteen hundred years, and that the chief evidence against her was a person of too scandalous a character to be depended upon in any thing of moment, much less in a cause wherein the credit and reputation of such an illustrious body as the Roman Catholic Church has always been, and the salvation of millions of souls, are concerned. If any one asks me why I have singled out Martin Luther rather than any other of the pre tended reformers, I answer that my reason was, not because I thought Luther a worse man than any of the rest, but because he was the ringleader of the schism; and a ringleader ought always to be made an example. For if either Calvin, or Beza, or Zuinglius, or any other had begun, he should have been my man; and, to do them all justice, there is not one amongst them but would have furnished me with sufficient matters of scandal against them. But to return to what I was saying: When I had thus done my best to disarm the capital enemy of the Church of Rome, and proved her title to infallibility to stand good notwithstanding the many impeachments against her, and had also fully answered the distinction between fundamentals and non-fundamentals, I doubted not but it was then time to lay down my pen; which my temper, naturally inclined to peace, would certainly have prompted me to do, had it not been for the fame of a book entitled The Case Stated, &c., which appears now in its fourth edition, and is extolled by many Protestants (I presume not the most learned) as an unanswerable piece. This tempted me, beyond my strength, to add a second part; for which I found matter enough cut out, in the great variety of objections, scattered up and down by the author of it, against the truth which I have undertaken to maintain. And thus it was that I found my papers swelled by degrees into a small volume, and I began to think of letting them appear abroad. But, whilst I was yet wavering and unresolved, Queen Anne died, and a new scene opened. Both town and country swarmed with pamphlets, and all heads were so filled with politics, that I judged there was no room left for thoughts of a more serious nature. This, and the disturbances that have happened since, have partly, I cannot say wholly, been the occasion that they were not printed sooner. For, to deal plainly, a fear I had upon me to offend the government, by publishing a book in favor of the Roman Catholic Church, has, from the very time it has been written, principally retarded its appearance in public. But the ground of my fear was my imagining that Protestants would look upon such an undertaking as dangerous to the church established by law, and a means to promote Popery; and I should have continued in this error, had not the Vindicator, or author of The Case truly Stated, whom I casually met with, disabused me. For, towards the end of his long conversation with the Restater, who complained that Roman Catholics had not the liberty of the press, he tells him, (p. 124,) "he wished heartily that they were let loose to write as they pleased;" and he gives him this reason for it, "because they would do their own business most effectually," viz., by writing in defence of Popery. This coming from a person who, I presume, makes a considerable figure in his church, encouraged me so effectually, that I resolved at last to let it try its fortune in the world. For I have no reason to doubt but that, in the judgment of Protestants, I have done a most acceptable piece of service to the Protestant cause, by writing for Popery; since the Vindicator assures us (and I suppose he speaks the sense of all his brethren, and is too generous to draw me into a snare) that this is the most effectual way to confute it. I hope, indeed, all Roman Catholics will be so favorable to me as to judge I have not prejudiced their cause. And if Protestants, at the same time, read me with the Vindicator's eyes, and are convinced that I have done a real service to the reformed churches, I presume my endeavors will be received kindly amongst them; and I sha!' have the satisfaction, which few authors have, please all sides, viz., Roman Catholics, by having endeavored to defend their Church the best I could, and Protestants, by having most effectually overthrown it. However, if I should be so |