No faith or credit to be given to Papists being a discourse occasioned by the late conspirators dying in the denyal of their guilt : with particular reflections on the perjury of VVill. Viscount Stafford, both at his tryal, and in his speech on the scaffold in relation to Mr. Stephen Dugdale and Mr. Edward Turbervill / by John Smith Gentleman ...

To the Right Honourable Heneage Finch, Baron of DAVENTRY, Lord High Chancellor of ENGLAND.

THE August Character which your Lordship bore, and the Lofty place which you filled at the T••yal of my Late Lord Stafford, ren∣der it the indisp••nsible duty of your Servant, with the humblest prostration to deposit these Pape••s at your feet. And if ever my Lord Chancellor Finch had a Theater adopted to these Qualifications of Na∣ture and Acquisition which he is indued with. It was then that he was fur∣nished with an Illustrious occasion of displaying and celebrating of them. And the most indelible Records of succeeding times, will transmit to the ad∣miration, as well as instruction of future Ages, with what Wisdom and Justice you acquitted your self, and what Honour to the Envy—of such as may be called to Sit there in the like capacity, you entailed upon that High and Reverable Court. The Speech which accompanied the Sentence pro∣nounced upon the Criminal before you, did at once declare the Courage, as well as the Righteousness of him that spake it. And for any now to doubt of a Popish Conspiracy against the King, the Protestant Religion, and the Government Established by Law in England, is not onely to Arraign the most impartial, as well as the greatest Tribunal under Heaven, but to con∣tradict a person who contrary to a thousand Secular Byasses, proclaimed the Sentiments of his own Soul, in publishing the Sentence of that tremendous Judicature. Onely let me with all becoming humility, suggest to your Lordship the Sensations and Resentments of the Papal Party, namely, That by the Condemnation of this one Conspirator, you have not onely Impeached, but in effect convicted the whole Body of the Romish Faction in England; And for your Lordship henceforth to hope to skrene your self from the effects of their Exasperation and Rage, but by a zealous prosecution of them ac∣cording to the demerit of their Crimes, were not onely to abandon your self to the neglect of your friends, but the Triumph of your Enemies. For a∣mong all the sins which are enrolled for venial by the Roman Church, there is no provision of pardon for him that condemns a Votary to the Triple Crown, or adjudgeth those to the Gibbet, whose obedience to the Infallible Chair obliged them to destroy Heretical Kings and Kingdoms. Nor was it to the diminution of your Glory, that you made your Eloquence, wherewith at other times you have blazoned many great and Noble Subjects, vail in that Oration to the strength and uncontrollableness of Reason. And did not the Formalities of Law require the Attestation and Testimony of Oral Wit∣nesses, the Arguments demonstrative of a Horrid Conspiracy, wherein the Papists are imbarkt and involved,—which enliven that great and solemn Speech, might without the accession of any other Evidence, be sufficient to

ground a Verdict upon of a most execrable Treason against the whole Papal Community in these Kingdoms. The Nation is now instructed upon whom to charge the Burning of London, and that from the mouth of him, the Au∣thority of whose Decrees give for the most part, a terminative and final de∣cision in more dubious cases; only let me subjoyn, that you have hereby kindled those sparks in the hearts of all English men, as well as Londoners, as no∣thing but the shedding the blood of the Authors, and Instruments of that Conflagration by the hand of Justice, will be ever able to quench or ex∣tinguish them. My Lord, that true Christian and Protestant Charity, which taught you to give that Viscount an Interest in your prayers to God for the pardon of those Crimes above, which the Law could not remit here below, and who withall, neither begged, nor put any value upon them, will, I hope, influence your Lordship to forgive the confidence of this Address.

Your Lordships most dutiful and obedient Servant, JOHN SMITH.