the PROTESTANT INTEREST is ; the best Excufe I can make to Your GRACE, for prefuming to entreat your Patronage of this my weak Endeavour in Support of the PROTESTANT Caufe.

Ever fince our happy Reformation from Popery, Rome has always had her Emiffaries at work to restore in these Nations the Tyranny and Superstitions of the Roman Anti-Chrift; and by the late Enquiry of the House of LORDS into the State of Popery in this Kingdom, it appears that their Infolence is not abat

cd.

Should

Should I here take Occafion to mention Your GRACE's in

defatigable Industry and Affiduity in that most commendable Enquiry; certainly no Man could be more justly accus'd of a needlefs Undertaking, fince I fhould speak no more than what is already known to the whole Nation. Nor fhall I attempt to give a Character of Your GRACE's Perfonal Accomplishments, and Your Singular Generofity and Beneficence. may fuffice for me to say, That I have found particular Effects of Your GRACE's Goodness, and that I fhould not be fo vain. to own this Undertaking pubA 3

It

lickly,

lickly, did it not give Me an Opportunity to declare to the World, that I have the Honour to be,

May it please Your GRACE,

Your most obedient,

and obliged

Humble Servant,

En. Sterne.

THE

PREFACE

TO THE

REA DE R.

To all true Lovers of the Protestant Interest of Ireland.

Countrymen and Friends,

T

HE Station in which I have the Honour to ferve the Houle of LORDS, allowed me to be a. Witness of their Lord hips late En

A 4

quiries

quiries into..the prefent State of Popery in this Kingdom, and of the Dangers which their Lordships apprehend may arife from the Infolence of the Popish Clergy, by the politick and fubtil Methods, which as formerly, fo they now take, in making Apoftates from the Proteftant Faith to the Romish Communion.

Tho' I doubt not but you have been fo well educated as to under

ftand the groffer Tenets of the Apoftatized Roman Church, and look upon them with juft Abhorrence; yet, poffibly, fome of you may not have had Leifure or Opportunity to infpect the Whole of that Mystery of Iniquity, or to know how to anfwer their Emiffaries, when privately they fhall feek to undermine your Faith with fpecious but fallacious Arguments. To give you therefore a full Infight into the Doctrines and Practices of that dangerous Party, that none may be unhappily feduc'd for

want