supererogation above what I needed will somwhat inlighten you to discern the goodnes and necessity of my consequence If the Papist who first brought us the news of Christianity be now becom odious then may all Christianity at length be thought a Romance c. Religion like a hous if a breach be once made and not repaired to former unity will by degrees all moulder away till no one room be left intire 7 ch from page 177. to 188. Your seventh chapter finished in five leafs runs or flies over two or three of my paragraffs at once which make up above fifty pages concerning the obscurity of Nature and Providence All which discours of mine is you say nothing to my purpos but foisted in for a blinde to entertain my readers But Sir those judicious readers you lately left behind you who discern my purpos better than I see you do will tell you that it is so much to my purpos that nothing could be more At least you let all pass without either censure or commendation till you meet happily at length with a word or two of mine let fall in my ninth paragraff called Help about scripture This makes your heart leap it is a common place you know how to sport in and you never meet with that sound but it makes you dance Your chapter then which is written against all my philosophical discours of nature and providence is called scripture vindicated as though I had industriously wrote against scripture And therin you sweetly dilate upon the excellency and goodnes of the word of God as if I had any way diminished it or wrote against it just according to the tone of our late dismal times Lord I am for thy caus Lord I am left alone to plead thy caus Lord against thine enemies But Sir the few words I there speak only incidentally in the end of that my paragraff called Help concerning the surmises that men have about scriptur as they be but a small part of the many which I know to be now vented up and down the land in this our present state of separation one from another so if I had not given som touch of them in that metaphysick abstracted discours of Fiat Lux which proceeds as I have said upon a supposition of our chusing and making religions here in England at pleasur unto endles differences and divisions it had been a maimed and imperfect work and no wayes satisfactory unto those judicious readers unto whom I write though you do not And I cannot but tell you what soever you think of your self you are in truth except you dissemble and mistake on purpos but a weak man to take that as spoken absolutely by me and by way of positive doctrin which I only deliver upon an hypothesis apparent to all the world besides your self You would make a mad commentatour upon Solomons Ecclesiastes I speak upon a supposition of doubting which these times have brought upon us of interpreting accepting rejecting framing forging religions and opinions to our selves and you reply against me words and discourses that presuppose an assent of beleeving If a man beleev he cannot doubt And if he doubt not of the scriptures truth he cannot make exceptions against any of its properties But if any begin to question this or that or other part of doctrin contained in scriptur and delivered by those who first brought it as every one does who swerves from the Church he found himself in then I suppose such a one doubts And being now thereby separated from that body of beleevers to which he before by faith adhered he cannot now left to himself but proceed if he give attendance to the conduct of his own surmising thoughts to more suspicions then I was willing to express But Sir what you say here and so often up and down your book of Papists contempt of scriptur I beseech you will please to abstain from it for the time to com I have conversed with the Roman catholiks of France Flanders and Germany I have read more of their books both histories contemplatives and scholastick divines than I beleev you have ever seen or heard of I have seen the devotion both of common people colledges of sacred priests and religious houses I have communed with all sorts of people and perused their councels And after all this I tell you and out of my love I tell you that their respect to scriptur is real absolute and cordial even to admiration Others may talk of it but they act it and would be ready to stone that man that should diminish holy writ Let us not wrong the innocent The scriptur is theirs and Jesus Christ is theirs who also will plead their caus when he sees time 8 ch from page 188 to 198. In your eight chapter which falls upon my paragraff of Reason you are absolutely in a wood and wonder more then ordinary how that discours of mine concerning reason to be excluded from the imploiment of fraeming articles of religion can any wayes concern Protestants or be a confutation of Protestants As though Fiat Lux were written to any such concernment against Protestants Your head is so full it seems of that controverting faculty for Protestants against Papists that if Popery be but mentioned in a book without an epithet of detestation you conclude presently that the book is written for Popery against Protestants And if every thing therin contained answer not the idea of your brain then it is impertinent with you it is silly it is besides the purpos And this censur you have given still as you have gone along all my whole book hitherto of every part and parcel of it even from my preface to this present paragraff of Reason You cannot see how all that vain flourishing discours of mine concerning diversity of feuds ground of quarrels nullity of title heats and resolution motives to moderation obscurity of God natur and providence or the like should confute Protestancy or any way concern Protestants And therfor it is wholly impertinent Thus the famous Knight when he had once conceived an idea of his own errantry every flock of sheep must be an army and every wind-mill a giant or els it is impertinent to Don Quixot 9 ch from page 198 to 213. Your ninth chapter upon my paragraff of Light and Spirit is wholly spent neglecting all my other discours in solving the Jewish objection which I answer my self And if you have added any thing better than mine I shall be thankful for it as soon as I see it But I fear your vaunting flourishes about scriptur which you love to talk on will not without the help of your Credo and humble resignation solve the argument which that you may the eassier be quit of you never examin but only run on in your usual flourishes about the use and excellency of Gods word I told you in Fiat Lux what the Jew will reply to all such reasonings but you have the pregnant wit
things should ever be at quiet throughout the world that ther should no heresies rise no seditions no wars any where this is a fansy that was never in my head and I wonder how it should drop into my paper But you are a martial man and resolved to bring me in with pikes and guns as the red-coat souldiers did the Cavaliers in the time of our late anarchy to suffer not only for the good they acted but for the ill they never thought of Fift must be that the first reformers were most of them contemptible persons their means indirect and ends sinister Where is it Sir where is it that I meddle with any mens persons or say they are contemptible or their means indirect or ends sinister Where do I say all this Do I speak any word of Reformers of Religion in general as you make me to do But this you adde of your own in a vast universal notion to the end you may bring in the apostles and prophets and kings into the list of persons by me surnamed contemptible and liken my speech who never speak any such thing to the sarcasms of Celsus Lucian Porphiry Julian and other Pagans So likewise in the very beginning of this your second chapter you spend four leaves in a parallel betwixt me and the pagan Celsus wherof ther is not any one member of it true Doth Fiat Lux say you lay the caus of all the troubles disorders tumults wars within the nations of Europe upon the Protestants Doth he charg the Protestants that by their schisms and seditions they make a way for other revolts doth he gather a rapsody of insignificant words doth he insist upon their divisions doth he mannage the argument of the Jews against Christ c. So doth Celsus who is confuted by learned Origen c. Where does Fiat Lux where does he does he does he any such thing Are you not ashamed to talk at this rate I give a hint indeed of the divisions that be amongst us and the frequent argumentations that are made to embroil and pusle one another with our much evil and little appearance of any good in order to unity and peace which is the end of my discours But must I therfor be Celsus Did Celsus do any such thing to such an end It is the end that moralises and specifies the action To diminish Christianity by upbraiding our frailties is paganish to exhort to unity by representing the inconvenience of faction is a Christian and pious work When honest Protestants in the Pulpit speak ten times more full and vehemently against the divisions wars and contentions that be amongst us than ever came into my thoughts must they therfor be every one of them a Celsus a pagan Celsus what stuff is this But it is not only my defamation you aim at your own glory coms in the reer If I be Celsus the pagan Celsus then must you forsooth be Origen that wrote against him honest Origen That is the thing Pray Sir it is but a word let me me advise you by the way that you do not forget your self in your heat and give your wife occasion to fall out with you However you may yet will not she like it perhaps so well that her husband should be Origen My sixt principle must be That our departure from Rome hath been the caus of all our evils This is but the same with the fourth in other words but added for one to make up the number And it is you say every where spread over the face of Fiat Lux. Sir you may say what you pleas to be in his face but I know best what is in the heart and bowels both of Fiat Lux and his Authour And sure I am this never came into my thoughts Our dissentions in faith may well multiply as we see with our eyes they do by our further departur from unity and this may caus much evil But the branches of our too too manifold evils found among the sons of men spread all as Fiat Lux also speaks from that fertil root of our innate concupiscence which by evil customs rises up into a thick bole of vitious inclinations while we study not to impair but rather to augment and nourish it However I must give you leave to number this among my silly principles to the end you may talk more copiously of the disputes and wars and broils that are and have been in several parts of Christendom and fall again into your much affected and often iterated strain So the Pagans judged the Primitive Christians c. And I must still be the Pagan and you the Primitive Christian Seventh is There is no remedy of our evils but by a returning to the Roman Sea This and the principle foregoing had not you warily cloven a hair had been all one and both are equally mine But Sir that may remedy our difference in faith which neither can nor will prevent varieties in philosophy or other worldly judgements nor considering the infinite diversity of mens humours is there any one thing equally prevalent with all men and at all times to the like good effect and if it do certainly help one evil it is not therfor a remedy for all But it seems you have yet a little more mirth and choller to vent and therfor I must permit you to adde this principle for mine that you may smilingly consider how the Romans should cure our evils that cannot prevent disorders differences and sins amongst themselvs I can tell you Sir another remedy of our evils that we suffer about dissentions in Religion besides that If the King and Parliament would pleas to give back all the ecclesiastical livings into the hands of secular gentlemen who out of a blind zeal as you phrase it gave them up aforetime unto the pious uses of spirituall men now no more extant all our controversies and the evils thence ensuing would soon ceas Even you zealous Sir would be then as quiet as a wolf tumbled into a pit-fall Other remedies I could yet acquaint you with more than one or two If you did Sir really and not in words only acknowledge any one superiour governour in the land unto whose power and judgment you would heartily all of you resign the word of that Oracle would solve all doubts and end all your quarrels But you will never do it The very genius of the Reformation is wholly set against it The eight follows That Scriptur on sundry accounts is insufficient to settle us in the truth And in this you flourish and triumph most copiously for fifteen pages together as the champion of the word of God But Sir you speak not one word to the purpos or against me at all if I had delivered any such principle which I never did Gods word is both the sufficient and only necessary means both of our conversion and settlement as well in truth as vertue But Sir the thing you heed not and unto which I only speak
the dignities glory and revenues of their prelates when they could not otherwise get them into their own hands by their lamentable tones in Eloimi raised up the people of the land to further their design This trick of theirs they learned from wolves For these when they spy a waifaring man whom they would devour and yet by a narrow search perceiv him to be too strong for them starting aside upon som hillock there set upon their tails they howl for help And if any will not beleev Fiat Lux that such be the fruits of disputes and controversies and such their nature and genius let them beleev the Authour of Animadversions who as he sayes what he pleases and denies what he lists so to his frequent reproaches villifications and slanders he adjoyns his own Menaces of terrour to make my words good and justify Fiat Lux. You frequently threaten me that if I write again I shall hear more far more than you have said in your Animadversions but I promis you Sir if you write again you shall never hear more from me For now the flies begin to com into my chamber which may haply expect I should heed their flight and hearken to their buzz and I must not leav those greater employments to look upon your Animadversions or any your other books Farewell Given this V. of the Ides of April in the year of our Lord MDCLXIII J. V. C. EPISTOLA AD CROESVM AGAINST Mr. Whitby The occasion of this second Epistle Doctour Pierce had preached a Sermon in the Court upon that text In the beginning it was not so from whence he took occasion to speak of Popery which in this and that and the other particular he said in the beginning was not so and consequently all of it a novelty This sermon was afterwards printed and not a little applauded by those who are taken with such airs Mr. Cressy a Catholik Gentleman the Authours friend then sojourning in London wrote a book called Catholik doctrin no novelties in confutation of that Sermon and went presently away to Paris But after his departure Mr. Whitby set forth a huge bulk of a book against Cressy The Authour in this his epistle gives notice to Mr. Cressy his friend then in France of the contents and tenour of that his adversaries book Epistola ad Croesum against Mr. Whitby SIR IT is now about a year since Dr. Pierce made his pretty featous Sermon in the Court where by vertue of those few words of his text In the beginning it was not so Matth. 19.8 he confuted all Popery in the space of one hour as a meer bundle of novelties The Treatise you left here in the hands of som friends before your departure to Paris to prove against the tenour of the said Sermon That Catholik doctrines are no novelties printed afterward by I know not what good hand gave us here in England after your departur a great deal of good satisfaction This book of yours about a moneth or two after it was extant was seconded by another against Dr. Pierce penned by Jo. Sim. a small but a very quick and lively piece to invalidate his reasons So that Pierce had now two adversaries against him The latter J. S. hears not yet of any reply But your book Sir is lately answered not by Dr. Pierce himself who hath other irons in the fire and meets now with somthing in his own life which in the beginning was not so but by one Mr. Daniel Whitby a young man of a forward spirit and possest as it seems of a fair reformed library who hath undertaken or is willing atleast to undergo the quarrel This book of Whitbyes wherof my antient love and friendship hath here invited me to give you a brief account is a great volum of 512 pages so fruitful is the seed of controversie when it is once sown to increase and multiply A compendium it is I think of his whole library Whether this book of his be made up all by one hand by reason of the unity of the name and diversity of stiles discerned in it is not easy to guess But that Mr. Whitby if he had many coadjutors with him either in his own chamber or abroad should by their mutual consent alone reap the honour of all their labours wherof his own part may haply be the least you need Sir neither grutch nor fear nor envy nor any way dislike The book is of that natur that it more behoovs it should be thought to issue from one young head then many old ones that the insufficiency when it shall appear may be rather attributed to the weaknes of the Author then caus he pleads for Of this Sir I may out of Whitbyes own words in his Epistle Dedicatory and the whole progres of his book assure you that this volume of his is wholly made up of the many several replies of divers Protestant writers who have stretcht their wits to the utmost in this last age to evacuate the Catholik faith and all their grounds autorities and reasons for it not only such as have written here in England which are not a few but those also beyond the seas who are all met friendly here together though never so much differing in their wayes twenty at least or thirty of the chiefest to help to make up Mr. Whitbies book These writers he tells us in his Epistle som of them who they be Hammond Field Salmasius Baron Usher Fern Dally Taylor Crackanthorp Hall Andrews Calixtus Plessis Chamier and Chillingworth But he does not there mention Pareus Blondel Baxter and several others whom in the context of his book he makes as much use of as any of those he there honours with the title of Champions with whose sword and buckler he means to defend himself and knock you down You may easily guess the reason Although indeed even Chamier Plessis and Dally his first and chiefest three wer as great Puritans as Baxter Pareus or Blondel and no less enemies to the English Protestant then Roman Catholik Church And Baxter himself if he will but do so much as dye shall seven year hence if not sooner be put into the next calendar and sit among the Champions of the English Church cited no more then as guilty of faction and heresy but as a Protector and Patron of the truth famous Baxter incomparable Baxter So p. 230. he cites Dr. Reynolds as a great Champion of his Church who was indeed a Champion of the Puritans against it Every non-Papist is a good Protestant especially when he is dead When they fight for their wives and children against catholik traditions and faith then are they all holy zealous champions But they are damned and swerv notoriously from the truth if they may be themselvs beleeved when they contest with one another which ever happens after the first great victory with the common enemy obtained One thing is singular in this book of Whitbies that he frames no answers out of any