We have the evidence of Antony à Wood and that of Traherne's book entitled "Roman Forgeries" to prove that he was an unwearied student of the antiquities of the Church, of its Fathers, Councils, and Doctrines. But the best evidence on this point is to be found in the "Advertisement to the Reader" prefixed to "Roman Forgeries." Herein the author gives us a lively account of a discussion which took place between himself and a Roman Catholic gentleman on the questions in dispute between the two Churches. This passage must be quoted in full, for the story is so vividly told that the reader becomes almost a spectator of the scene: Before I stir further I shall add one passage which befell me in the _Schools_ as I was studying these things, and searching the most old and authentic records in pursuance of them. One evening as I came out of the Bodleian Library, which is the glory of Oxford, and this nation, at the stairs-foot I was saluted by a person that has deserved well of scholars and learning, who being an intimate friend of mine, told me there was a gentleman, his cousin, pointing to a grave person, in the quadrangle, a man that had spent many thousand pounds in promoting Popery, and that he had a desire to speak with me. The gentleman came up to us of his own accord: we agreed, for the greater liberty and privacy, to walk abroad into the New Parks. He was a notable man, of an eloquent tongue, and competent reading, bold, forward, talkative enough; he told me, that the Church of Rome had eleven millions of martyrs, seventeen Oecumenical Councils, above one hundred Provincial Councils, all the Doctors, all the Fathers, Unity, Antiquity, Consent, &c. I desired him to name _one_ of his eleven millions of martyrs, excepting those that died for treason in Queen Elizabeth's and King James his days: for the martyrs of the primitive times, were martyrs of the _Catholic_, but not of the _Roman_ Church: they only being martyrs of the Roman Church, that die for _transubstantiation_, the _Pope's Supremacy_, the doctrine of _Merits_, _Purgatory_, and the like. So many he told me they had, but I could not get him to name one. As for his Councils, Antiquities and Fathers, I asked him what he would say, if I could clearly prove that the Church of Rome was guilty of _forging_ them, so far that they had published _Canons_ in the _Apostles_ names, and invented _Councils_ that never were, forged _letters_ of Fathers, and _Decretal Epistles_, in the name of the first Bishops and Martyrs of Rome, made 5, 6, 700 years after they were dead, to the utter disguising and defacing of antiquity, for the first 480 years next after our Saviour? "Tush, these are nothing but lies," quoth he, "whereby the Protestants endeavour to disgrace the Papists." Sir, answered I, you are a scholar, and have heard of Isidore, Mercator, James Merlin, Peter Crabbe, Laurentius