FIRST EDITION. Inspired by Lucas Jansse’s La Messe trouvée dans l’Escriture (1652), this satire reflects the efforts made by certain Catholic theologians in the seventeenth century to prove a biblical basis for the celebration of Mass. The Pope, when asked by the Cardinal to explain his good spirits, replies that ‘Pope Alexander the 6th: was over-joyed to see that in his days such a noted and an excellent part of the World as is America, was found out; I have far more reason to rejoyce because that in my days things of greater concernment that relate to Heaven and Happiness have been searcht out, and happily discovered; the Holy Mass is found to be hid in a corner of holy Scripture. The Mass in holy Scripture! quoth the Cardinall full of admiration, how can that be?’ And so we are told the story of Father Patrick, a Burgundian priest ministering among the ‘English Hereticks’, who found, in a Louvain translation into French in 1664, that Acts 13, verse 2 speaks of the Apostles ‘saying Mass to the Lord; Although this Translation be in French, it is no less useful to England, for that Nation naturally loves, admires, and embraces whatsoever appears to them in a French garb and countenance let it be never so rediculous’. Patrick is initially feted for this discovery, but ends the book in disgrace. The final sentence is a warning to the reader to ‘take heed of the Hypocrisie and Cunning of the Romish Emissaries’.