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remark, that he is never to be believed lefs, than when he relates facts, of which he pretends to have been an ocular witness.

Mr. Wesley denies that "John Hufs ever "attempted to make his efcape." He may deny his own journals. Dacher and Reichenthal, two German hiftorians, present at the council, and on whom L'Enfant paffes the higheft encomiums for candour and integrity, relate that John Hufs attempted to make his escape. Here he violated his fafe-conduct, and forced his judges to confine him. L'Enfant exhaufts his wit, to invalidate the relation of thofe, (according to himself,) "unprejudiced "hiftorians." His chief reafons are," the

filence of the acts of the council about "Hufs's flight." To this it is anfwered, that in the acts of a council, the judicial acts done in full council, are alone related; not every incident that happens in a city where it is held. Hence Hufs's imprisonment is not mentioned.' Jerome of Prague's flight is mentioned, because the council fent him a fafe-conduct, and the cause required to be specified. Secondly, he fays that it appears that Hufs was appre

hended on the twenty-eighth of November; "and confequently could not escape in the fol"lowing March." Befides other reafons, it can be answered that the mistake of a date, often owing to the fault of copiers or printers, can

not

not invalidate the truth of a public fact attested by fuch ocular witneffes, as L'Enfant describes the two German hiftorians to have been.

But Mr. Wesley infifts, that "the emperor "Sigifmund granted Hufs a safe-conduct, promiling him impunity, in cafe he was found

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guilty." I explained the nature of fafeConducts, in my Remarks on that gentleman's letters and I infift that fafe-conducts of the kind are never granted. It is enough for fovereigns to extend the mercy of prerogative to criminals, when they are found guilty by their judges; without faying to a rebel, or an incendiary, or to a highwayman: "Go and take

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your trial: never fear: I will grant you your pardon, when you are found guilty, though I am convinced you you are an arrant rogue." They never enter into compacts of the kind with fuch people. A man who is to take his trial, and has enemies in the way, may call for a fafe-conduct to go to the place of trial, and return unmolested, if he is acquitted: and this was the cafe of Hufs. He offered of himself to take his trial, and to fubmit to the fentence, if found guilty. He never upbraided the emperor with his breach of promife, when he was given up to the fecular arm; which he would have done, had the emperor given him fuch an affurance. The Huffites themfelves went, on the

faith of a fafe-conduct, to the council of Bafil, and never alleged breach of faith with John Hufs.

It was, then, in the fixteenth century, when interested men fomented divifions between Catholics and Protestants, that the hand of calumny wrote falfe commentaries on the text of the canon of the council of Conftance; and handed it down as a theme, to religious declaimers, whom the test of ortliodoxy propofed by the very council, will ever ftare in the face.

Here is the teft inferted in a bull pulished with the approbation of a general council, not by the pope in his perfonal capacity, but facro approbante concilio. "Let the perfon fuf

pected be asked, Whether he or she does. "not think that all wilful perjury, committed "upon any occafion whatsoever, for the pre"servation of one's life, or another man's, or, even for the fake of the faith, is a mortal "fin ?"

I have read near upon a thousand religious declamations against popery: not one of the authrors of thofe invectives has candour or honour to produce that teft in favour of Catholics: which fhews the fpirit that actuates them. They fhould, at leaft, imitate the limner who firft painted Pope's Effay on Man, and

contrafted,

contrafted, on the fame canvas, the blooming cheek with the frightful skeleton, linked together in the fame group. No. They will paint the Catholic religion in profile, and fix a Saracen's cheek into the face of the Chriftian. The declaration of a general council, which can afford the leaft occafion for cavil, will be eternally held forth, whilft the decrees of the fame council, liable to no mifconftruction, where fraud and perjury, even for the fake of religion, are condemned, will be overlooked. Bellarmin, Becanus, and thofe other Knoxes and Buchanans of the Catholic religion, whofe works are burned by the hands of the executioner in Catholic countries, are dragged from their fhelves, whilft the decifions of the moft learned univerfities in the world, that condemned the falfe doctrine of thofe incendiaries, are buried in filence. The bee pitches on flowers but the beetle falls upon nuifances.

They will be eternally teafing their hearers and readers with the word beretic, without explaining its sense or acceptation. They will erect it as a kind of ftandard to which all the fanatics of the world will flock to fight the battles of the Lord against Antichrift and in this confederate army, they will confound the archbishop of Cafhel, who fills his fee after a long fucceffion of Proteftant bishops, with John Hufs, who ftarts up on a fudden, flying in the faces of kings and bifhops. They will confound

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found the bishop of Cork, with Theodorus Sartor, ftretching himself naked before a number of prophets and propheteffes, who burn their clothes and run naked through the streets of Amfterdam, denouncing their woes, and foretelling the deftruction of Antichrift. They will put the achbishop of Canterbury on a level with the Patarini, who exclaimed against Popery, and held that no fin could be committed with the lower parts of the body.

In fine, all those monsters that started up from time to time, and whom our magiftrates would doom to the rope or fagot, are made good Proteftants, because they exclaimed against Popery: an enumeration of their fufferings from Papifts, is enlarged upon; and the Proteftant bishop, or the Proteftant king has no mercy to expect from Papifts: for fure they are held in the fame light, by them, with James Nailer, who, after fighting against Papists and Malignants, in Cromwell's army, turned prophet, and rode into Bristol, mounted on an afs, on a Palm Sunday, attended with numbers of women, spreading their aprons before him, and making the air re-echo to loud hofannahs:

Holy, holy, holy; hofannah to James Nailer': "bleffed is James Nailer, who comes in the "name of the Lord !"* Those gentlemen never mention heretics excommunicated by Proteftant

Swell's life of James Nailer.

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