There were the same pretences for reformation and loyalty, the same aspersions of the King, and the same grounds of a rebellion.  I know not whether you will take the historian’s word, who says, it was reported, that Poltrot a Huguenot murder’d Francis Duke of Guise, by the instigations of Theodore Beza; or that it was a Huguenot minister, otherwise called a Presbyterian (for our Church abhors so devilish a tenet) who first writ a treatise of the lawfulness of deposing and murdering Kings, of a different persuasion in religion.  But I am able to prove from the doctrine of Calvin, and principles of Buchanan, that they set the people above the magistrate; which, if I mistake not, is your own fundamental; and which carries your loyalty no farther than your liking.  When a vote of the House of Commons goes on your side, you are as ready to observe it, as if it were passed into a law:  but when you are pinch’d with any former, and yet unrepealed, Act of Parliament, you declare that in some cases you will not be obliged by it.  The passage is in the same third part of the No-Protestant Plot; and is too plain to be denied.  The late copy of your intended association you neither wholly justify nor condemn:  but as the Papists, when they are unoppos’d, fly out into all the pageantries of worship, but, in times of war, when they are hard pressed by arguments, lie close intrenched behind the Council of Trent; so, now, when your affairs are in a low condition, you dare not pretend that to be a legal combination; but whensover you are afloat, I doubt not but it will be maintained and justified to purpose.  For indeed there is nothing to defend it but the sword:  ’Tis the proper time to say anything, when men have all things in their power.

In the meantime, you would fain be nibbling at a parallel betwixt this association, and that in the time of Queen Elizabeth.  But there is this small difference betwixt them, that the ends of the one are directly opposite to the other:  one with the Queen’s approbation and conjunction, as head of it; the other, without either the consent or knowledge of the King, against whose authority it is manifestly design’d.  Therefore you do well to have recourse to your last evasion, that it was contriv’d by your enemies, and shuffled into the papers that were seized; which yet you see the nation is not so easy to believe, as your own jury.  But the matter is not difficult, to find twelve men in Newgate, who would acquit a malefactor.

I have one only favour to desire of you at parting; that, when you think of answering this poem, you would employ the same pens against it, who have combated with so much success against Absalom and Achitophel:  for then you may assure yourselves of a clear victory, without the least reply.  Rail at me abundantly; and, not to break a custom, do it without wit.  By this method you will gain a considerable point, which is, wholly to waive the answer of my argument.  Never own the bottom of your principles, for fear