A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures

avowed, and have sealed it with their voluntary oaths, taken upon the holy Evangelists, that all in effect that passed between them and the priests in this wondrous possession and dispossession was nothing else save close packing, cunning juggling, feat falsehood, and cloaked dissimulation. One of the reverend priests, who was himself a principal actor in this holy legerdemain, being examined, has contested with the confession of the other examinees touching the unfolding of this sacred pack. All their several examinations, confessions, and relations—touching the beginning, proceeding, and finishing of this tragicomedy—we have thought meet to publish in print ad verbum Latin: "word for word", that all men may see we have dealt truly and sincerely herein, and that all may likewise see quanta fecit Dominus (according to the saying of that Latin sentence prefixed to the discourse)—how great things the Lord in his mercy does reveal, in the course of time, of that "man of sin," a biblical reference to the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:3) of the mystery of iniquity, and of those reverend juggling priests, his disguised comedians.

Wherein, that every person may appear in his own proper colors—the devil in his, and the devil’s charmers in theirs—that every part may be considered, how well it has been played, and what actor has best deserved the plaudite Latin: "applause" or suspendite Latin: "to be hanged" (a pun on the gallows) for his good action and wit: Venite, et narrabo, come and see it set out in the sacred robes from the holy wardrobe from Rome, their holy attire, their holy relics, their consecrated creatures, their own speech, action, and fashion; and thus it begins.

CHAP. 2.

The political maxim of using and plying time has been so well practiced and employed by his Holiness of Rome and his holy crew that little time has been