English 3-19-24 то WILLIAM DRAPER, Of A D G COMB, IN THE County of SURREY, Esq; SIR, ITH your permiffion, W1 nour to dedicate the following Letters to You; and fince I am forbid to fay any more, I A 2 must must be content to acknowledge with all gratitude and refpect, to a most kind benefactor, a pueritia, how much I am, SIR, Your most obliged and most humble fervant, W. A [1] LETTER XI. ΤΟ ΤΗΕ Rev. the JESUITS. Paris, Aug. 18, 1656. I Rev. FATHERS, HAVE feen the letters you diftribute about, against thofe I wrote to a friend of mine on the subject of your morality, where one of the principal points of your defence is, that I do not treat your maxims with a becoming gravity. This is what you repeat in all your writings, and carry it so far as to say, "that I turn things facred into ridicule." This reproach, Fathers, is very furprifing, and very unjuft. For where do you find that VOL. II. I turn B I turn things facred into ridicule? You mention in particular "the contract мOHATRA, "and the story of JOHN D'ALBA." But are those what you call holy things? Do you think MOHATRA is of that venerable nature, that it would be blafphemy to speak of it without refpect? And, are father BAUNY's lectures upon thieving, which perfuaded JOHN D'ALBA to put them in practice against yourfelves, of that facred nature that those who laugh at them must be treated as impious? What, Fathers, muft the mere chimeras of your authors pafs for articles of faith? Cannot I ridicule fome paffages of ESCOBAR, or the unchriftian and fantastic decifions of fome of your authors, without being charged with mocking religion? Is it poffible that you can have the affurance to repeat such abfurdities so often as you do? Are you not afraid (whilst you blame me for laughing at your extravagant errors) of giving me fresh occafion to defpife your reproach, and retort it upon yourselves, by demonstrating that I have ridiculed nothing in your writings but what was in itself ridiculous; and so, by laughing at your morals, I have been as far from laughing at things facred, as the doctrine of your cafuifts is from the doctrine of the holy Gospel? There |