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SIR,

I have received your letter, wherein you seem to be at a loss for a ready and pertinent answer to two capping questions, by which the Papists are wont to puzzle and confound those silly souls, whom they compass sea and land to make proselytes. I know you are well satisfied, that Popery is a grand cheat, upheld by fraud and violence, and has nothing truly rational to recommend it: but yet sometimes a man of honesty and good principles may be at a stand to render a satisfying reason of his belief, and to obviate the cunning craftiness of those, who lie in wait to deceive. I suppose moreover you cannot expect any thing from me, but what has been said before, and what is infinitely better performed in some hundreds of printed books already extant, than any scribbling of mine will ever amount to. But yet since men oftimes make most use of those reasons, which arise in their own minds, by thinking and meditation; I shall, for my own satisfaction, rather than for yours, note down, as briefly and plainly as I can, such answers to those two questions you mention, as shall at present occur to my thoughts; which nevertheless I shall communicate to you, if perhaps they may be worth your acceptance. The first is,