I should be glad to know the authority for the following statement in
South's sermon, _Against long Extempore Prayers_, vol. i. p. 251., Tegg's
edition, 1843:
"These two things are certain, and I do particularly recommend them to
your observation: One, that this way of praying by the Spirit, as they
call it, was begun, and first brought into use here in England, in
Queen Elizabeth's days, by a Popish priest and Dominican friar, one
Faithful Commin by name. Who, counterfeiting himself a Protestant, and
a zealot of the highest form, set up this new spiritual way of praying,
with a design to bring the people first to a contempt, and from thence
to an utter hatred and disuse of our Common Prayer; which he still
reviled as only a translation of the mass, thereby to distract men's
minds, and to divide our Church. And this he did with such success,
that we have lived to see the effects of his labours in the utter
subversion of Church and State; which hellish negociation, when this
malicious hypocrite came to Rome to give the Pope an account of, he
received of him, as so notable a service well deserved, besides a
thousand thanks, two thousand ducats for his pains."
Also, who was W. W., the author of "a virulent and insulting pamphlet,
entitled, _A Letter to a Member of Parliament_, printed in the year 1697,
and as like the author himself, W. W., as malice can make it," referred to
in a note by South at the end of his sermon on _The Recompence of the
Reward_, vol. ii. p. 152. Is this pamphlet still in existence?