they allow no
living to a Protestant under them--let the scene lie in what part of
the world it will, the argument will come home, and sure it will
afford sufficient ground to suspect. Apparent contradictions must
strike us; neither nature nor reason can digest them. Self-flattery,
and the desire to deceive ourselves, to gratify present appetite, with
all their power, which is great, cannot get the better of such broad
conviction, as some things carry along with them. Will you call these
vain and empty suspicions? Have you been at all times so void of fears
and jealousies, as to justify your being so unreasonably valiant in
having none upon this occasion? Such an extraordinary courage at this
unseasonable time, to say no more, is too dangerous a virtue to be
commended.

If then, for these and a thousand other reasons, there is cause to
suspect, sure your new friends are not to dictate to you, or advise
you. For instance: the Addresses that fly abroad every week, and
murder us with _another to the same_; the first draughts are made by
those who are not very proper to be secretaries to the Protestant
Religion: and it is your part only to write them out fairer again.

Strange! that you, who have been formerly so much against _set
forms_, should now be content the priests should indite for you. The
nature of thanks is an unavoidable consequence of being pleased or
obliged; they grow in the heart, and from thence show themselves
either in looks, speech, writing, or action. No man was ever thankful
because he was bid to be so, but because he had, or thought he had
some reason for it. If then there is cause in this case to pay such
extravagant acknowledgments, they will flow naturally, without taking
such pains to procure them; and it is unkindly done to tire all the
Post-horses with carrying circular letters, to solicit that which
would be done without any trouble or constraint. If it is really in
itself such a favour, what needeth so much pressing men to be
thankful, and with such eager circumstances, that where persuasions
cannot delude, threatenings are employed to fright them into a
compliance? Thanks must be voluntary, not only unconstrained but
unsolicited, else they are either trifles or snares, that either
signify nothing or a great deal more than is intended by those that
give them. If an inference should be made, that whosoever thanketh the
King for his Declaration, is by that engaged to justify it in point of
l