After that thou hast finished thy melancholy Declamation against prophane Books and Prints, the Excess of our publick Diversions takes the next Place in the List of deadly Sins. This is exaggerated by an Instance of fifteen or sixteen Advertisements, even in the Holy Season of Lent; and thou goest piously on to mention Idleness, Gaming, _&c._ These are terrible Crimes indeed, Friend. But does not thee think, that there are many others of a deeper Dye, and of which these are only trivial Consequences? Yes, thou knowest there are; thou couldst not forget them, being too glaring to have escaped thy Penetration. Yet, thou hast skipped them over, or taken but very slight Notice of them. For thou hookest in but one Crime more, before thou seemest to finish thy grand Charge, and to begin thy Application. Verily, I could have wished in Charity, that thou hadst left that one Crime out of thy List on this Occasion. The Crime, I mean, is the Mention thou makest of the Increase of Popery. Thou art to remember, Friend, that thou hast supposed the Almighty justy offended at the Number and Heinousness of our National Transgressions, and that thou art giving a List of the Transgressions, that thou thinkest capable of drawing down upon us the special Judgments of the Divine Being. Now, canst thou in Charity, as a Christian, think, that Popery could be numbered amongst these deadly Sins? The Errors of that superstitious Church are many; but God forbid, that we should imagine, that their Errors, in Point of Faith, are such, as to merit these special Marks of the Divine Wrath. Had that been the Case, this Island, and all Europe, must many Centuries ago, have felt the most dreadful Effects of these Calamities. If thou meanest in that Paragraph those, who continue obstinate in Error, in spite of Conviction, and the Dictates of their own Conscience, thou sayest right, and mightst have mentioned all such of every Persuasion in this Island. But, if thou meanest the gross Body of the Catholicks, whom we are bound in Charity to believe to act from Principle and Conviction, (and, indeed, they must be strangely infatuated if they do not;) thou hast verily been exceedingly to blame, to mention them on this Occasion. For remember, that from a Principle common to all Protestants, if they act from rational Conviction, or what appears to them as such, they are as much entitled to the gracious Mercies of a good God, as thee, or I, is; and, consequently, the Increase of their Tenets, however erroneous they may appear to us, cannot, with any Colour of Justice, be reckoned amongst the List of Sins, capable of drawing down special Judgements upon this Land.