ABSTRACT
This chapter represents a major contribution to the religious discourse of early modern England. In them, Persons elaborated an impressive version of a national Catholic community based on the faith commitment of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola. The distinguishing feature of Persons's polemical style is restraint. Of all Persons's Protestant opponents, Sir Francis Hastings was perhaps the most ineptly extremist in his anti-Romanist rhetoric. Wild or anarchic vilification, shooting at a venture, can only be destructive, whereas ordered and temperate response may bring the opposing parties to a better understanding. The ease and confidence with which Persons deflects Hastings's allegations and warnings derive much of their strength from the Jesuit reinvigoration of that Catholic tradition. The kind of Christian faith commitment enjoined, for example, in The Christian Directory was immune to the slanders of someone as prejudiced and ignorant as Hastings.
