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¶ A Reply to a certaine Libell, lately published in Print in the name of the vnited Priests, called A briefe Apologie, sup∣posed to be made by F. Parsons.
CHAP. 1. How the Authour of the Apologie playeth at All hid, with the Reader, and while hee is couered vnder the name of vnited Priestes, he discouereth himselfe to be a Iesuit.
IT might seeme a very friuolous labour, to examine the title of this Apologie, if the Author thereof had not bene more curi∣ous in the like, then there was iust cause, and ouer carelesse also what entrance hee made to this present woorke of his vn∣trueths, and poore shifts, when imperti∣nent discourses doe suffer him to fall into the matter in question, which as at other times, so here in the very title he peruerteth, and possesseth his Reader, that an Eccle∣siasticall Hierarchie erected by his Holines, was impugned by the books against which he writeth, and for his pleasure termeth (although most ignorantly) Libels: their Authors being alwayes ready to iustifie them both before God and the world. And if his Reader might be so much fauoured by him, as that hee might haue his leaue to peruse those bookes, hee would soone perceiue, how falsly this title is set to this Apologie: the bookes intreating one∣ly of the abuses of the authoritie, and of the iust causes of the Priests their forbearance, to subiect themselues to a superior of the Card. Caietans appointing, before any letters came from the