MENDACIMASTIX OR, A WHIP FOR THE TOLOSAN LYER, Being A Brief ANSWER, TO THE RELATJON OF TWO INƲISIBLE Old Men. Reported to be seen in Tholouze in France: IN A LETTER Sent from a Friend in London, to the French PSEUDOGRAPHIR.

Lying SIR,

I Question not, but this will come safe to your Hands, by the Invisible Post, as well as yours came to mine, by the flying Packet from Tholouze, for it made devlish hast, being Dated from that City, being in Narbonne in the farthest part of France, the 18 of August 1680. and on the 17th it was Printed and Cryed [Page 2] about the Streets, being the next day. Lyers ought to have good Memories, for in framing Lyes, there is required somthing more than h [...]dling Words together, and sweet S [...]r, you have made yours so very Monstrous, that it hath not the sweet Face of a likely Lye, nor the pleasant one of a Rom [...]nce, but looks like its own Father the Devil, the Author of Lyes, your Date at the first dash were enough to Convince any one, that is not of the Col­ledge of Bethlem, of the Monstrosity of the Fiction, and it would be but holding a Candle in a clear Sun-shiny Day, to use Words or Arguments to perswade an [...]; that your whole Full and Exact Relation, is a very Full and Exact Lye, However, since this is a Sc [...]ibling Age, and that perhaps I have as little to doe as you, when you Inven [...]ed it, I shall make some few Remarques on your false Story. Had I been to have advised you, you should have laid the Scene of this Lye, at a greater Distance, either in T [...]rra Incogni [...]a, or Ʋtopia, Atlantis or some of those Regions▪ for Th [...]louze is a little too near, and the Fraud may be too soon di­scovered, perhaps before your next Packet comes▪ which you have promised from Rome, so that it seems you are a Retainer to these Invisible old Apostles, and keep ' [...]m C [...]mpany in their Jour­ney. Apostles! and why Apostles? My thinks you might bet­ter have thought on the Notion of the two Witnesses: Muggle­ton, and his cu [...]sing Companion and fellow Shoo-maker I wou [...]d have passed better with the Fifth Monarchy Men: but i [...] they are Apostles you might have made them about six hu [...]dred years older, and then they might have been taken by the Romanists or St. James and St. John or some of Chris [...]s Ap [...]stles, that had got a a new Resurrection, or else had not been Martyred according to Tradition. Then they came from Damas [...]us a City in Gal [...]ile, I think you are not Skilled in Cosmography, for we never Heard or Read of such a City in Gallily, but in Syria▪ the Seat now of a Turkish Bashaw. But 'tis no matter it seems whence they came, but most likely from Damascus in the Moon, or in Fary-L [...]nd, for they dropt down Invisibly into Tholouse: For says, the Lear­ned [...]amphlet: No person ever saw them to enter into the City: This is the first Truth in the Letter, and I believe it. It had me­thinks been worth your while to have described their Extraordi­nary habit, and you would have us suppose their Cloaths, are as [Page 3] old as themselves, and that I am very apt to Believe too, [...]or no doubt they were created together out of the Nodle of the Wri­ter. Some Taylors, especially the French Taylors here in Lon­don wo [...]ld have been glad to have known this Extraordinary Fa­sh [...]on▪ and it might have made your Pamphlet [...]ell the better▪ but it seems your Fa [...]c [...] was J [...]ded. But why in the Name of Belz [...]bub, dropt they first into [...]holovse? I never heard that City to have been a S [...]dom before, my thinks you might have better d [...]op [...] them into Rome, or in Geneva, in th [...] last if thou ar [...] a Ro­m [...]n▪ in the first if a Fana [...]ick Lyer. But now I have found it out, you would give them a Journy over the Alps to Rome that [...] in London may have a second Intertainment of their Adventures in that place▪ from you their Invisible S [...]cret [...]y▪ observe also that they are very Learned Men, and can dispute in L [...], Gi [...], H [...]brew, and Chalde▪ and since the Jesu [...]tes, cannot convert them, would mak [...] u [...]e of their ordinary way to Confound them with Imprisonment and Chains made of strong and heavy Iron, Spanish I on without doubt. But 'tis well for them they could so easi­ly break them▪ no doubt but they deserve to be made Saints▪ who were before Apostles. God bless us! tenn years and the World is at an end; I would fain know (if you have any Land) what you would take for the Reversion of it after 1690. But we have a Doomsday Sedgwick in our Lunatick times, and need not go to France to know times and Seasons. But 'tis well these invisi­ble Apostles are going to his Holiness, who wants much the Ad­vice of such Antient Saints, since he will not believe the Wri­tings of St. Paul, St. John. St. James and St. Peter; he may be instructed by these of the old and t [...]e Institutions, and that he may make a thorow Reformation of all Superstition and false Doctrine, under which his Holiness Flock lies. I wonder that the French King did not lay hold on them, and set 'um up for Popes in Paris, now he has ordered his Cler [...]y to make no Ap­peal to Rome. But I cannot yet learn, what the Religion of these old I [...]visible Men should be; by their eating [...]read and drinking Water, they should be no P [...]e [...]byteri [...]ns, [...] by their preaching to the People to do Pennance, they should be Roman-Catholicks of the last Edition, or Scotch Master Johns But we have trifled with this ridiculous story too long, and shall now end with a loving advice: That the next Lye you frame to de­lude poor ignorant silly Women, Children and Melanccholly [Page 4] Sots, and Religious Dreamers, may be done with more proba­bility, and that you get a more cunning Mephostophilus to help you, and that you meddle not with Religion, and put lie [...] and abuses upon Professions: or rather, since lying is a sinful though thriving Calling, that you employ the little Wit yo [...] have some other way; for though no man or Woman that has common un­dcrstanding will believe you, yet there are many among the V [...]l­gar, whose Wits are [...] Woolgathering, that think all true they see in print, and can swallow as great a lye as this, and perhaps have imagined as much in their Chymerical Fancies, therefore good lying Friend, if we hear no more of your two invisible Apo­stles, the people will believe very rationally, that they brok [...] their Necks going over the Alps to Rome, and that the Devil car­ried away their Secretary a Pick-Pack to Hell for his gross and foolish Lying.

FINIS.

Printed by D. Mallet. 1680.

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