schism c. So I speak there And to this you reply that the Church that then was in the Apostles time was indeed true not that Roman Church that now is So so then say I that former true Church must fall then som time or other when did she fall and how did she fall by apostacy heresy or schism Perhaps say you neither way for she might fall by an earthquake Sir we speak not here of any causal or natural downfal or death of mortals by plague famine or earthquake but a moral and voluntary laps in faith What do you speak to me of earthquakes you adde therfor the second time that she might fall by idolatry and so neither by apostacy heresy or schism Good Sir idolatry is a mixt misdemeanour both in faith and manners I speak of the single one of faith And he that falls by idolatry if he keep still some parts of Christianity entire he falls by heresy by apostacy if he keep none At last finding your self pusled in the third place you lay on load She fell say you by apostacy idolatry heresy schisme licentiousnes and prophanenes of life And in this you do not much unlike the drunken youth who being bid to hit his masters finger with his when he perceived he could not do it he ran his whole fist against it But did she fall by apostacy By a partial one say you not a total one Good sir in this division apostasy is set to expres a total relaps in opposition to heresy which is the partial Did she then fall by heresy in adhering to any error in faith contrary to the approved doctrin of the Church Here you smile seriously and tell me that since I take the Roman and catholik Church to be one she could not indeed adhere to any thing but what she did adhere unto Sir I take them indeed to be one but here I speak ad bominem to one that does not take them so And then if indeed the Roman Church had ever swerved in faith as you say she has and be her self but as an other ordinary particular Church as you say she is then might you find some one or other more general Church if any ther were to judg her som Oecumenical councel to condemn her som fathers either greek or latin expresly to write against her as Protestants now do som or other grave solemn autority to censur her or at least som company of beleevers out of whose body she went and from whose faith she fell none of which since you are not able to assign my Query remains unanswered and the Roman still as flourishing a Church as ever she was The fourth assertion frequently say you pleaded by our Authour is that all things as to religion were ever quiet and in peace before the Protestants relinquishment of the Roman Sea This principle you pretend is drawn out of Fiat Lux not becaus it is there but only to open a door for your self to expatiate into som wide general discours about the many wars distractions and factious altercations that hav been aforetime up and down the world in som several ages of Christianity And you therfor say it is frequently pleaded by me becaus indeed I never speak one word of it And it is in truth a fals and fond assertion Though neither you nor I can deny that such as keep unity of faith with that Church can never so long as they hold it fall out upon that account Fift is 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 What and how many are these persons and where did they live But this you adde of your own in a vast universal notion to the end you may bring in the apostles and prophets and som 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 paralel 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 Europ 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 arguments of the Jews against Christ c. so doth Celsus who is confuted by learned Origen c. Where does Fiat Lux where does 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 imbroil 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 advice 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
that a man hath not the wings of an eagle Yet so you deal with me here a great master of arts with a civil logician But that I may go along with you we had not sir our Christianity immediately from the East nor from Joseph of Arimathea as I have already told you we Englishmen had not For as he delivered his Christianity to som Brittons when our land was not called England but Albion or Brittany and the inhabitants were not Englishmen but Brittons or Kimbrians so likewise did that Christianity and the whole news of it quite vanish being sodainly overwhelmed by the ancient deluge of paganisme nor did it ever come from them to us Nay the Brittons themselves had so forgot and lost it that even they also needed a second conversion which they received from Pope Eleutherius And that was the only news of Christianity which prevailed and lasted even amongst the very Brittons which seems to me a great secret of divine providence in planting and governing his Church as if he would have nothing to stand firm and lasting but what was immediately fixed by and seated upon that rock For all other conversions have vanisht and the very seats of the other Apostles failed that all might the better cement in an unity of one head Nay the tables which God wrote with his own hand were broken but the other written by Moses remained that we might learn to give a due respect to him whom God hath set over us as our head and ruler under him and none exalt himself against him I know you will laugh at this my observation but I cannot but tell you what I think To return then to my former discours when I speak good sir of the news of Christianity first brought to this land I mean not that which was first brought upon the earth or soil of this land and spoken to any body then dwelling here but which was delivered to the forefathers of the now present inhabitants who be Saxes or Englishmen And I say that we the now present inhabitants of England off-spring of the English or Saxons had the first news of our Christianity immediately from Rome and from Pope Gregorius the Roman Patriarch by the hands of his missioner Saint Austin And this all men know to be as true as they know that Papists are now becom odious Sith then the categorick assertions are both clear namely that the Papist first brought us the news of Christianity and secondly that the Papist is now become odious amongst us what say you to my consequence that the whole story of Christianity may as well be deemed a Romance as any part of that Christianity we at first received is now judged to be part of a Romance This consequence of mine it behoved a man of those great parts you would be thought to have to heed attentively and yet you never mind it You adde in the close of your discours that many things delivered us at first with the first news of Christianity may be afterwards rejected for the love of Christ and by the commission of Christ But sir what love of Christ dictates what commission of Christ allows you to choos and reject at your own pleasure what heretick was ever so much a fool as not to pretend the love of Christ and commission of Christ for what he did How shall any one know you do it out of any such either love or commission sith those who delivered the articles of faith now rejected pretended equal love of Christ and commission of Christ for the delivery of them as of any other And why may we not at length reject all the rest for love of somthing els when this love of Christ which is now crept out into the very outside of our lips is slipt off thence Do you think men cannot finde a cavil against him as well as his law delivered unto us with the first news of him and as easily dig up the root as cut up the branches Is not the thing already don and many becom atheists upon that account Pray speak to me somthing of reason Did not the Jews by pretens of their love to that immortal God whom their forefathers served reject the whole gospel at once and why may not we possibly as well do it by peece meals Let us leav cavils Grant my supposition which you know you cannot deny then speak to my consequence which I deem most strong and good to infer a conclusion which neither you nor I can grant I tell you plainly and without tergiversation before God and all his holy angels what I should think if I descended unto any conclusion in this affair And it is this either the Papist who holds at this day all those articles of faith which were delivered at the first conversion of this land by S. Austin is unjustly becom odious amongst us or els my honest Parsons throw off your cassocks and resign your benefices and glebe-lands into the hands of your neighbours whose they were aforetime my consequence is irrefragable If any part much more if many parts great substantial parts of religion brought into the land with the first news of Christianity be once rejected as they are now amongst us as Romish or Romancical and that rejection or reformation be permitted then may other parts and all parts if the gap be not stopt be lookt upon at length as points of no better a condition Nay it must needs be so for the same way and means that lopt off som branches will do the like to others and root too A villification of that Church wherein they find themselvs who have a minde to prevaricate upon pretens of Scriptur and power of interpreting it light spirit or reason adjoyned with a personal obstinacy that will not submit will do it roundly and to effect This first brought off the Protestants from the Roman catholick Church this lately separated the Presbyterian from the English Protestant Church the Independent from the Presbyterian the Quaker from the other Independents And this last good man heeds nothing of Christian religion but only the moral part which in deed and truth is but honest paganisme This speech is worthy of all serious consideration And I could wish you would ponder it seriously See if the Quaker deny not as resolutely the regenerating power of baptism as you the efficacy of absolution See if the Presbyterian do not with as much reason evacuate the prelacy of Protestants as they the Papacy See if the Socinian arguments against the Trinity be not as strong as yours against the Eucharist See if the Jew do not with as much plausibility deride Christ as you his Church See if Porphiry Julian and other ancient pagans do not as strongly confute all Christianity as we any part of it He is a fool that having a will and power enough cannot find out as plausible a pretence for the pulling down of churches as we had any for the destroying of monasteries
if a natur of the same kind be not now delegate with a power of exteriour government as at the first ther was then hath not the Church the same head now which she had then Qui habet aures audiendi audiat And here by the way we may take notice what a sincere English Protestant you are who labor so stoutly to evacuate my argument for episcopacy and leav none of your own behind you nor acquaint the world with any although you know far better but would make us beleev notwithstanding those far better reasons for prelacy that Christ himself as he is the immediate and only head of invisible influence so is he likewise the only and immediate head of visible direction and government among us without the interposition of any person delegate in his stead to oversee and rule under him in his Church on earth which is against the tenour both of sacred gospel and S. Pauls epistles and all antiquity and the present ecclesiastick polity of England and is the doctrin not of any English Protestant but of the Presbyterian Independent and Quaker Christ then in your way is immediate head not only of subministration and influence but of exterior derivation also and government to his Church Pray tell me is he such an immediate head to all beleevers or no if he be to all then is no man to be governed in affairs of religion by any other man on the other side if he be not immediate head to all but ministers head the people and Christ heads the ministers this in effect is nothing els but to make every minister a byshop Why do you not plainly say what it is more than manifest you would have All this while you heed no more the laws of the land than constitutions of gospel As for gospel That Lord who had been visible governour and pastour of his flock on earth when he was now to depart hence as all the apostles expected one to be chosen to succeed him in his care so did he notwithstanding his own invisible presence and providence over his flock publikly appoint one And when he taught them that he who were greatest among them should be as the least he did not deny but suppose one greater and taught in one and the same breath both that he was over them and for what he was over them namely to feed not to tyrannise not to domineer abuse and hurt but to direct comfort and conduct his flock in all humility and tendernes as the servant of all their spiritual necessities And if a byshop be otherwise affected it is the fault of his person not his place As for the laws of the land it is there most strongly decreed by the consent and autority of the whole kingdom not only that byshops are over ministers but that the kings majesty is head of byshops also in the line of hierarchy from whose hand they receiv both their place and jurisdiction This was establisht not only by one but several Parliament acts both in the reign of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth So that by the laws of the land ther be two greeces between ministers and Christ which you cut off to the end you may secretly usurp the autority and place of both to the overthrow at once both of gospel and our law too By the laws of our land our series of ecclesiastical government stands thus God Christ King Byshop Ministers People the Presbyterian predicament is this God Christ Minister People So that the ministers head in the Presbyterian predicament touches Christs feet immediately and nothing intervenes You pretend indeed that hereby you do exalt Christ but this is a meer cheat as all men may see with their eyes for Christ is but where he was but the minister indeed is exalted being now set in the Kings place one degree higher then the byshops who by law is under both king and byshops too You will here say to me What is the Papists line of Church government There the Pope must sit next Christ and Kings under his feet Sir I have not time in this short letter to discours this subject as it deserves Nor does it now concern me who have no more here to say than only this that my argument for prelacy howsoever in your words you may disable it is not weakened by you in deeds at all and as far as I can perceiv not understood Yet two things I shall tell you over and above what I need in this affair also First is that Roman catholiks do more truly and cordially acknowledg the respective Christian king of any kingdom to be supream head of his catholik subjects even in affairs of religion than any other whether Independents Presbyterians or even prelate Protestants have if we speak of truth and reality ever done And this I could easily make good both by the laws and practises of all catholik kingdoms upon earth in any age on one side and the opposite practises of all Protestants on the other Second is that for what reason Roman catholiks deny a prince to be head of the Church for the same ought all others as they deny it in deeds so if they would speak sincerely as they think and act to deny it in words also as well as they For catholiks do beleev him to be head of the Church from whom the channel of religion and all direction in it is derived and flows for which reason a spring is said to be head of a river But neither does any King upon earth except he be priest and prophet too ever trouble himself to derive religion as the Pope has ever don neither does either Protestant Presbyterian or Independent either in England or elswhere ever seek for religion from the hands of the King or supplicate unto him when any doubt arises in those affairs as they ought in conscience and honesty to do for a final decision any more than the Roman catholik does So that whatever any of them may say all Protestants do as much deny the thing in their behaviour as catholiks do in words and catholiks do in their behaviour observ as much as Protestants either practise or pretend What is the reason that Roman catholiks in all occurring difficulties of faith both have their recours unto their papal Pastour unto whom kings themselvs for their own ease remit them and acquiesce also to his decision and judgment but only becaus they beleev him to be head of the Church And if Protestants have no such recours nor will not acquiesce to his majesties authority in affairs of religion but proceed to wars and quarrels without end the prince neglected as wholly unconcerned in those resolvs they do as manifestly deny his headship as if they profest none Nay to acknowledg a headship in words and deny it in deeds is but mockery By these two words Sir it may appear that the kings majesty is as much head of the Church to Roman catholiks as to any
Protestants and these no more than they either derive religion or decision of their doubts from the kings chair i th interim it is a shame and general scandal to the whole world that we in England should neither supplicate nor acquiesce in affairs of religion to his judgment whom in words we acknowledg head of the Church but fight and quarrel without end and yet have the confidence to upbraid Roman catholiks with a contrary beleef who although they ever looked upon their papal patriarch as spiritual head and pastour and deriver of their faith unto whom they so submit that he who after his decision remains contumacious forfeits his Christianity yet have they notwithstanding in all ages and kingdoms resigned with a most ready cordial reverence unto all decisions orders and acts of their temporal princes even in spiritual and ecclesiastical affairs as well as civil so far as their laws reached as supreme head and governours of their respective kingdoms And all kings and princes find in a very short space however others may utter hypocritical words of flattery that indeed none but catholik subjects do heed and fear and observ them universally in all whatever their commands being taught by their religion of which they alone give account at times appointed for penance to hearken and obey for conscience sake all higher powers constituted over them for good That catholiks do universally observ their king in all affairs as well ecclesiastick as civil I need not to make it good send you Sir either to the testimonies of civil law and Codex of Justinian or to the other various constitutions of so many several provinces and kingdoms as are and have been in Christendom our own home will suffice to justify it Were not the spiritual courts both court Christian Prerogative court and Chancery all set up in catholik times about matters of religion and affairs of conscience and all mannaged by clerks or clergy men under the king In brief where ever any civil coaction or coactive power intervenes be it in what affair it will all such power and action who ever uses it hath it autoritatively only from the king For neither Pope nor Byshop nor any Priest ought to be a striker as S. Paul teaches nor have they any lands or livings or court or power to compel or punish either in goods or body but what is lent or given by princes and princely men out of their love and respect to Jesus Christ and his holy gospel whose news they first conveighed about the world although a just donation is I should think as good a title as either emption inheritance or conquest if it be irrevocable The king is the only striker in the land ex jure and the sword of the almighty is only in his hand and none can compel or punish either in body or goods but only himself or others by his commission in any whatever affair He can either by his autority and laws blunt the sword of those who have one in their hand whether by pact or nature as have masters over servants and parents over children or put a civil power into the hands of those who otherwise have none as prelates priests and byshops So that although the Pope derive religion and chiefly direct in it yet is the king the only head of all civil coercition as well in Church affairs as any other which his commands and laws do reach unto So that the line of Church government amongst Catholiks since the conversion of kings runs in two streams the one is of direction the other of coercition That of direrection is from Christ to the chief pastour from him to patriarchs then to metropolitans arch-byshops byshops priests and people and in this line is no corporal coaction at all except it be borrowed nor any other power to punish but only by debarring men from sacraments In the other line of corporal power and autority the King is immediately under God the Almighty from whom he receivs the sword to keep and defend the dictates of truth and justice as supreme governour tho himself for direction and faith be subject to the Church from whose hands he received it as well as other people his subjects after the king succeed his princes and governours in order with that portion of power all of them which they have from him their liege sovereign received This in brief of papal Church government which we in England by our canting talk of the Lord Christ to the end we may be all lords and all Christs have utterly subverted Indeed in primitive times the channel of religion for three hundred years ran apart and separate from civil government which in those dayes persecuted it And then the line of Christian government was unmixt None but priests guided defended governed the Church and Christian flock which they did by the power of their faith vertue secret strength and courage in Jesus their Lord invisible Afterward it pleased the God of mercies to move the hearts of emperors and kings of the earth to submit unto a participation of grace unto which they were more easily inclined by the innocence and sanctity of Christian faith especially in that particular of peaceful obedience unto kings and rulers though aliens and pagans and persecutors of religion And now kings being made Christian were looked upon by their subjects with a double reverence more loved more feared more honoured than before Nor could Christian people now tell how to expres that ineffable respect they bore their kings now co-heirs of heaven with them whom before in their very paganisme they were taught by their priests to observ as gods upon earth not for wrath only or fear of punishment but for conscience also and danger of hazarding not onely their temporall contents but their eternal salvation also for their resisting autority though resident in pagans And kings on the other side who aforetime by the counsel of worldly senators enacted laws such as they thought fit for present policy and defended them by the sword of justice wielded under God to the terrour of evil doers and defence of the innocent began now as was incumbent on their duty to use that sword for the protection of Christianity and faith and the better way now chalked out unto them by Christian priests from Jesus the wisdom and Son of God And by the direction of the same holy prelates abbots and other priests who were now admitted with other senators into counsel did they in all places enact special and particular laws answerable to the general rule of faith which they found to be more excellent and perfect than any judgment they had by natural reason hitherto discovered Thus poor Christians who had hitherto but only a head of derivation of counsel and direction which could but only bid them have patience for Christs sake and conform themselvs to his meek passion when they suffered from aliens and when they suffered injury from one another could only debar
the evil doer if he gave not satisfaction from further use of sacraments those Christians I say who could hitherto have no other comfort or assistance in this world under their spiritual pastour than what words of piety could afford had now by the grace of heaven princely protectours royal defenders and head champions under God to vindicate and make good all Christian rights discipline and truths now accepted and established from faith as well as other civil rites and customs dictated aforetime from meer reason equally revengers upon all evil doers indifferently that were found criminal in affairs as well purely Christian as civil still using the advice and direction of their prelates and Christian peers in the framing and establishing of all those laws they were now resolved to maintain So it was don in England so in all places of the Christian world And then the line of Christian government ran mixt which before was single And Christians now had a Joshua to their Aaron who were only led by Moyses before And although Aaron was head of the Church yet Joshua was head and leader prince and captain of all those people who were of that Church The chief byshop is an Aaron and every Christian king a Joshua And as it is a content and support to Aaron to have a Joshua with him to fight Gods battles and keep the people in awe so is it not a little comfort to Joshua to have an Aaron by him with whom he may consult And indeed no kingdom can have a perfect accomplishment without the presence of these two swords civil and spiritual Ecce duo gladij hîc satis est And although Christians even at this day when any heresy or novelty arises have still recours unto the same head of their religion for a decision of the doubt whom they consulted before for as the channel of Christianity is and must be still the same so must the spring-head be the same also yet when the thing is once decided they have none but kings and governours under him to see the direction executed as the only overseers with coactive power to do it And thus you see in brief how the Pope is head of the Church and the King head likewise and both immediately under God but with this difference that the king only governs Christianity established in his own royalty by law the Pope without further law rules and guides all the streams and rivulets of religion where ever it flows He is head of primary direction the king of sovereign execution he of guidance and spiritual autority only the king of civil and natural power invested in his place and dignity from God above to maintain any laws as well purely Christian as civil which himself shall accept establish and promulgate The Pope perswades but the King commands and although the Pope should formally command yet vertually and in effect such a command amounts only to a perswasion and he that obeyes not feels no smart for it except the king be pleased to espous his caus and punish the contumacious which if he justly do then have kings a just autority in those affairs if otherwise then hath the Pope no means of help or defence in this world any more after the conversion of kings than before it and help himself he cannot any other way than only by putting people out of his communion who care not of it The Pope is obeyed for conscience and love only to his religion the King for wrath and conscience too the Pope delivers the rule but in general only and blunt on one side the king particularises and gives it an edg the Popes headship is exercised in Ought and Should be the Kings is Will and shall be the Pope secludes the contumacious from heaven which he that beleevs not feels not the King over and above that cuts off malefactors from the face of the earth too and they shall be made by feeling to beleev it And these two defend and secure one another and keep both Christians and their faith inviolate And while Christians themselvs do both tenderly love their Pape and chief pastour and spring-head of their religion which is beleeved beyond him to flow invisibly from God the great ocean of truth and withall do honor fear and observ their King and princely governour who only bears the sword of justice and not in vain to take revenge upon all those whom the love of religion and spiritual sword of their pastour will not keep in awe they do their duty as they ought and shall find happines therein I must make haste and can say no more at present to this busines which as I have told you is somwhat besides my purpos Only one thing I must needs tell you before I pass on Although a king is in a good and proper sence stiled head as well of Church as State within his own dominions yet head of the Church absolutely is so proper to the Roman Patriarch that no man upon earth besides himself hath ever so much as pretended to it and that for six reasons First becaus head of the Church absolutely intimates an universal right over the guidance of religion not in one kingdom only but all where ever that religion is And the king of France for example neither did nor can pretend to be head of the Church of England much less of Hungary Spain Africk Italy Greece Asia c. Yet such a head there must needs be to the end the Church may be one mystick and spiritual body at unity in it self And that head must be unlimited to time and place as the Church it self is ever permanent and universally spread nor must the government alter as governments of particular kingdoms do Secondly head of the Church absolutely involves a primacy both of conveighing and interpreting faith and all princes in Europ received their faith at first from priests who sent for that end from their spiritual superior converted their kingdoms but they never gave faith either to them or their pastour Thirdly he that is head of the Church absolutely must be of the same connatural condition with the whole hierarchy to confirm baptise ordain preach attone the almighty by sacrifice impose hands segregate men from their worldly state unto his own spiritual one and in a special manner to exercise those priestly functions unto which he segregates them Fourthly head of the Church absolutely is to be indifferent unto kingdoms and all sorts of government as the religion also is and keep it like it self in all places unaltered in its nature however in its general dictates it may concur to the direction and good of all people and governments And therfor he cannot be confined to one place or government but must be as it were separate and in a condition indifferent to all as a general byshop whose sole care is to heed those eradiations of faith spread up and down the world may be and is when princes heed but
I have heard many grave protestant divines ingeniously acknowledg that divine comfort and sanctity of life requisite to salvation which religion aims at may with more perfection and less inconvenience be attained by the customs of the Roman Church than that of ours For religion is not to sit pierching upon the lips but to be got by heart it consists not in reading but doing and in this not in that lives the substance of it which is soon and easily conveighed Christ our Lord drew a compendium of all divine truths into two words which his great apostle again abridged into one And if the several gospels for every day in the year which are or may be in the hands of all catholiks the chiefest particles of divine epistles books of sacred history and meditation upon all the mysteries of salvation and spiritual treatises for all occasions and uses which be numberles amongst catholiks adjoyned to the many several rites of examination of conscience daily and continual practis of prayer and fasting and an orderly commemoration of the things God hath wrought for us throughout the year which all by law are tied to observ and do observ them may not give a sufficient acquaintance of what concerns our salvation and promote them enough towards it I am to seek what it is that can or what further good it may do to read the letter of Saint Pauls epistles to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherein questions and cases and theological discourses are treated that vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know And I pray you tell me ingenuously and without heat what more of good could accrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof I will be bold to say that nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to know or practis than by the conceived substance of Gods will to me and my own duty towards him or what is ther now here in England when the letter of scriptur is set open to every mans eye any more either of peace or charity piety or justice than in former catholik times when the substance of Gods word and will was given people in short and the observance of their duty prolixly prest upon them What did they do in those ancient catholik times they flockt every day in the week to their Churches which stood continually open there to pray and meditate and renew their good purposes they sung psalms hymns and canticles all over the land both day and night they built all our churches that we have at this day remaining amongst us and as many more which we have razed and pulled down they founded our universities established our laws set out tythes and glebe-land for their clergy built hospitals erected corporations in a word did all the good things we found don for our good in this our native kingdom But now Quid agitur in Anglia Consulitur de religione The former Christians practised and we dispute they had a religion we are still seeking one they exercised themselvs in good works by the guidance of their holy catholik faith which leads to them all these works we by our faith evacuate as menstruous rags they had the substance of true religion in their hearts we the text in our lips they had nothing to do but to conform their lives to Gods will all our endeavour is to apply Gods word to our own factions Sir mistake me not The question between us is not whether the people are to have Gods word or no but whether that word consist in the letter left to the peoples disposal or in the substance urgently imposed upon people for their practis And this becaus you understand not but mistake the whole busines all your talk in this your eighteenth chapter vades into nothing Where Fiat lux sayes in that forenamed paragraff that the Pentateuch or hagiography was never by any High-priest among the Jews put into a vulgar tongue nor the Gospell or Liturgy out of greek in the Eastern part of the Christian Church or latin in the Western You slight this discours of mine becaus hebrew greek and latin was say you vulgar tongues themselvs I know this well enough But when and how long ago were they so not for som thousand years to my knowledge And was the Bible Psalms or Christian Liturgy then put into vulgar tongues when those they were first writ in ceased to be vulgar This you should have spoke to if you had meant to say any thing or gain-say me Nor is it to purpos to tell me that S. Jerom translated the Bible into Dalmatian I know well enough it has been so translated by some special persons into Gothish Armenian Ethiopian and other particular dialects But did the Church either of the Hebrews or Christians either greek or latin ever deliver it so translated to the generality of people or use it in their service or command it so to be don as a thing of general concernment and necessity So far is it from that that they would never permit it This I said and I first said it before you spoke and your meer gain-say without further reason or probability of proof cannot dispossess me Syrian you would prov not to be any known language in Palestin becaus the common people understood it not as appears in the book of Kings where Rabshakeh general of the host of Sennacherib when he defied King Hezekiah under the walls of Jerusalem was intreated by the Hebrew princes to speak Syriack and not the Jews language to fright the poor people But Sir you are mistaken for that tongue the princes perswaded Rabshakeh to speak was the Assyrian his own language which was learned by the gentry of Palestin as we in England learn french which although by abbreviation it be called Syriack yet it differed as much from the Jews language which was spoke by Christ and his apostles wherof Eli Eli lama sabacthani is part and was ever since that time called syrian or syriack as french differs from english And if you would read attentively you may suspect by the very words of the text that the Jews language even then was not Hebrew For it had been a shorter and plainer expression and more answerable to their custom so to call it if it had been so than by a paraphrase to name it the Jews language which if then it was called Syrian as afterwards it was then had the princes reason to call it rather the Jews language then Syrian becaus that and the Assyrian differed more in natur then appellation though som difference doubtles ther was in the very word and name although translatours have not heeded to deliver it Shibbolet and Sibbolet may differ more in signification than sound nor is Brittish and Brutish so near in nature as they are in name And who knows not that Syria and Assyria were several kingdoms As likewise were the languages Dr. Cousins now byshop of Durham lately
livelihood lives and all that is dear unto us and yet we are still but where we were before we began nay ten times farther off from any reconcilement unity or satisfaction then before And such success have all wars ever had where the alarm was given in the Pulpit But why must it tend to Popery Becaus Fiat Lux is bold to say that Popery in its own likenes is not so ugly as we imagin it Lord what a strange thing is this that either Fiat Lux or any els should presume to say that we in England or other Nations may be carried by the reports of som interested men to think wors of a thing then it may deserv especially considering that we com all to Church to hear Gods Word and there meet with a man who in the first opening of his lips cryes Hearken my Beloved to the word of the Lord and so having with that airy hony-comb sweetned the edges of our ears pours into them afterward what poison of his own conceived interests he pleases all which we his dearly beloved let down greedily into our hearts as that precious word of the Lord which he at first proclaimed By which fallacies we have been in the time of these our late wars so far inveigled I speak to men now alive who all know I speak true that it became then a most dangerous thing yea treason it self to say God save the King who was by this our Pulpit rhetorick made as odious then throughout the Land as Popery what ever it be ever was or can be And are not neighbours thus abused daily almost in every thing where is that man who hath not by such like means been one time or other induced to think amiss even of his most innocent and dearest friends till himself by trial found the contrary O but God forbid you will say that ever we should com by trial to know what Popery is Sir may it be far from us so long as heaven pleases But i' th interim what harm can it be to us to mitigate our passions which if there be no mistake are prejudicial notwithstanding to our own peace and if a mistake there should be are double injurious and desperately sinful before God and man Oh but mistake there can be none Sir let me tell you roundly By your own Book of Animadversions I do as clearly see as ever I beheld Sun in the Firmament that you do not your self understand what Popery is even no more then the poorest meanest peasant in the Parish But who is able to make this good and clear unto you no body Sir so long as you are in passion in a calm of indifferency your very self Nor could I without that serenity have been ever able to discern it But yet there is one thing more which will hinder your acknowledgment although you should com to know it It is their interest to justify themselvs and yours to condemn them Had not you with your threats so much frighted me from any thought of writing any more I could I think my self who am in your judgement one of the greatest ingrams in the Land make it yet appear that the present Popish Religion if to pleas you they will give me leav to call it so is not only less ugly then we conceive it but far more innocent and amiable then I have made it And if ther were not so much as one Catholik or Romanist or Papist upon earth yet so far am I from any interest herin that in that judgment I would notwithstanding dy alone Nor had I set before my eyes any other end in that my Fiat of moderation against which you write your hot Animadversions then the peace and welfar of my Countrey which under the pretended shadow of Popery inflamed by the alarms of Vicars and their Wives for whom we fight as it were pro aris focis hates and mischiefs strikes and destroyes one another without end And yet which is a strange thing whilst every one conceits himself to fight for Purity of Gospel against Popery they fight all for Popery against Purity of Gospel And this you cannot deny if you will but aver what in your Book of Animadversions you do your self so frequently assert that what good soever the Papists or Roman Catholiks either do or have amongst them they have and do the same as Christians and not as Papists and that Popery is it self nothing els but pride interest ambition tyranny worldly respects thirst of blood affectation of Dominion c. As on the other side grace charity and peace is I am sure the pure quintessence of Gospel and the very extract of true Religion Either then I had reason to tell you that you understand not what Popery is or if you do you must needs acknowledge that those who here in England betwixt the years of 1640. and 1660. with guns and daggers as you often phrase it with field rhetorick and pulpit cannon subverted all before them even Church and State too let them call themselvs Puritans Independents Presbyterians or what they pleas were all of them by this your own rule as arch Papists as ever trode upon the earth Nor is it of concernment so they have the reality of the thing whence they may borrow their name whether some man upon earth be their Pope or whether the Devil be himself their ghostly father And I fear Sir give me leave to express my fears I do very deeply fear that you wer your self some part of that dismal tempest which in the last years of our woful Anarchy overbore all before it not only Church and State but reason right honesty all true Religion and even good natur too The very flashings of your pen move me to this thought The whole physiognomy of your Book speaks the hot and fiery spirit of the Authour First you cannot abide to hear of moderation it is with you most wicked hypocritical and devillish especially as it coms from me And for this one thing Fiat Lux suffers more from you then for all the contents of the Book put together My reason is your passion my moderation inflames your wrath and you are therfor stark wild becaus I utter so much of sobriety Secondly your so frequent talking of sword and blood fire and faggot guns and daggers do more then show you have not yet let go those hot and furious imaginations And in a phrensy you upbraid your adversary with that which succeeded not as you would have had it in your self Thirdly your prophetick assurance so often inculcated that if you could but once com to whisper me in the ear I would plainly acknowledg either that I understand not myself what I say or if I do beleev it not givs a fair character of those fanatick times wherin ignorance and hypocrisy prevailed over worth and truth wherof if your self wer any part it is no wonder you should think that I or any man els should either speak he
or to those that use them whether Protestants or Papists which he can no more do than he can pull a star out of the firmament I say Sir again and mark I pray you what I say If you should chance to evince that the reasons brought by Fiat Lux either for the doctrin or practises of Papists or others be either not probable or untrue yet is your labour all in vain except you be able to demonstrate likewise that they are not probable to Fiat Lux or to Papists and others who use those reasons which you can no more do then any thing that is absolutely impossible By this time Sir you may discern how hard it is to deal with Fiat Lux and impossible to confute him sith he speaks nothing but what is as clearly true and evident as what we see at mid-day Nor do I in this any way exalt the ability of the Authour whom you are pleased so much and frequently to disable A Tomfool may say that which all the wise men in the world cannot gain-say as he did who said the Sun was above half an hour high at noon It was Fiat Lux his fortune rather then chois to utter words which will no sooner be read than acknowledged And it was your misfortune Sir to employ your greater talents in refuding evident truths perhaps for no other reason but becaus they issued from the pen of a man who is not so great a friend to faction as you could wish And although you proceed very harsh and furiously yet am I verily perswaded you now discern though too late for your credit that you had all this while according to our English proverb good Mr. Doctor a wrong sow by the ear Thus far in general Now briefly to give you som account in particular You spend four Chapters and a hundred and eighteen pages which is the fourth part of your Book before you com to the first line and paragraff of mine The applaus and honour of this world c And it is not unwittily done For being to be led as you heavily complain out of your ordinary road of controversies by the wilde chase of Fiat Lux it behoved you to draw som general common places of your own for your self to walk in and exercise your rhetorick and anger before you pursue a bird that flies not you say in any usual tract Preface from page 1 to page 19 Your preface wherein you speak of my subtilty and your own pretence affords me nothing but the beginning of your mistake which will run quite through your book 1 Chap. from page 19. to 29. Your first Chapter beats me about the pate for saying that I conceal my method with a terrible syllogistical dilemma He that useth no method say you cannot conceal it and if he hath concealed it he hath used one But I must pass by store of such doughty stuff being only fit for the young Oxford Schollar who being com home to take air would prove before his father and mother that two eggs were three Then going on you deny that Protestants ever opposed the merit of good works which at first I wondered at seeing the sound of it has rung so often in mine own ears and so many hundred books written in this last age so apparently witnes it in all places till I found afterwards in my thorow perusal of your book that you neither heed what you say or how much you deny At last giving a distinction of the intrinsick acceptability of our works the easlier to silence me you say as I say 2 Chap. from page 29. to 110. Your second chapter collects out of Fiat Lux as you say ten general conclusions spread all over like veins and arteries in the body of that my book And this you do that you may make your self a campus Martius to sport in without confinement to my method But you name not any page of my book where those principles may all or any of them be found and you do wisely for in the sens those words do either naturally make out or in which you understand them of all the whole ten I can hardly own any one The first of my principles must be this That we received the Gospel first from Rome We that is we English first received it thence But against this you reply That we received it not first from Rome but by Joseph of Arimathea from Palestin as Fiat Lux himself acknowledges Sir if Fiat Lux say both these things he cannot mean in your contradictory fals sens but in his own true one We that is we Englishmen the now actual inhabitants of this Land and progeny of the Saxons received first our Gospel and Christendom from Rome though the Brittans that inhabited this Land before differing as much from us as Antipodes had some of them been Christened long before us And yet the Christendom that prevailed and lasted among the Brittans even they also as well as we had it from Rome too mark this likewise But you reply Though persons from Rome did first plant Christianity among the Saxons was it the Popes Religion they taught did the Pope first finde it out or did they Baptise in the name of the Pope Good Sir it was the Popes Religion not invented but profest by him and from him derived unto us by his missioners You adde Did not the Gospel come to Rome as well as to us for it was not first preached there Sir properly speaking it came not so to Rome as it came to us For one of the twelve fountains nay two of the thirteen and those the largest and greatest was transferred to Rome which they watered with their blood we had never any such standing fountain of our Christian Religion here but only a stream derived to us from thence My second assertion must be From whom we first received our Religion with them we must still abide This principle as it is never delivered by Fiat Lux though you put it upon me so is it in the latitude it carries and wherin you understand it absolutely fals never thought of by me and indeed impossible for how can we abide with them in any truth who may perhaps not abide in it themselvs Great part of Flanders was first converted by Englishmen and yet are they not obliged either by Fiat Lux or any lux whatsoever to accompany the English in our now present wayes My third is The Roman Religion is still the same This indeed though I do no where formally express it yet I suppose it becaus I know it hath been demonstratively proved a hundred times over You deny it has been proved why do you not then disprove it becaus you decline say you all common places very good so do I let us com then to proper ones You fall then upon my Queries in the end of my book The Roman was once a true flourishing Church and if she ever fell she must fall either by apostacy heresy or
sojourneying in Paris when he understood of a grecian byshops arrival there did with some other english gentlemen in his company give him a visit and afterwards with the same or like company went frequently to see him The articles of our English Church were translated into greek and shown him Many questions were asked him about the service of the grecian Church praying for the dead invocation of Saints real presence confession c. Dr. Cousins can tell himself what answer he received from that venerable grave prelate Cyrillus arch-bishop of Trapesond for that was his name and title In brief he owned not those articles as any way consonant to the faith of the Greeks who beleeved and had ever practised the contrary He also told them distinctly and openly that Mass or Liturgy was and had ever been the great work of their Christianity all over the greek Church that confession of sins to a priest praying for the dead invocation of saints and such like points wherein we in England differ from papists wer all great parts of their religion and their constant practis Finally he let them know that all the Liturgies both those of S. Basil S. Chrysostom S. Gregory Nazianzen were ever kept in the learned greek differing from the vulgar language And withal showed his own greek book of Liturgy which he used himself at the altar Dr. Cousins did himself see him officiate with his lay brother a monk of S. Basil belonging to S. Catherins monastery in mount Sina ministring to him at the altar and found both by his words and practis that in all those and other essential parts and observances of Christianity the Greeks agreed perfectly with the Roman Church This testimony Sir of a venerable arch-byshop to such a worthy person as Dr. Cousins might I should think suffice to justify my words and make you beleev with me that Christian Liturgies have ever been used as Fiat lux speaks in a learned language distinct from the vulgar But we need not go far from home for a testimony When was the Bible or Service-book seen here in England for a thousand years space in any other language but Latin before Edward the sixt dayes except haply the Psalter which the Saxons and almost all people have ever had in their own tongue being a chief part of Christians devotion or in Brittish or Welch before the byshop of S. Asaph his translation You mightily insult over me in your 336 page for saying that the bible was kept by the Hebrews in an ark or tabernacle not touched by the people but brought out at times to the priest that he might instruct the people out of it Here say you the authour of Fiat lux betrayes his gross ignorance and somthing more for the ark was placed in sanctum sanctorum and not entered but by the priest only once a year wheras the people were weekly instructed But Sir do I speak there of any sanctum sanctorum or of any ark in that place was ther or could ther be no more arks but one If you had been only in these latter dayes in any synagogue or convention of Jews you might have seen even now how the bible is kept still with them in an ark or tabernacle in imitation of their forefathers when they have now no sanctum sanctorum amongst them You may also discern how according to their custom they cringe and prostrate at the bringing out of the Bible which is the only solemn adoration left amongst them and that there be more arks than that in sanctum sanctorum If I had called it a box or chest or cuphoard you had let it pass But I used that word as more sacred 19 ch from page 365 to 386. I discerned in your ninteenth chapter which is upon my paragraff of Communion in one kind a somwhat more then ordinary swelling choller which moved me to look over that my paragraff afresh And I found my fault ther is in it so much of Christian reason and sobriety that if I had since the time I first wrote it swerved from my former judgment of the probability I conceived to be in that Roman practis of communicating in one kind I had there met with enough to convert my self And therfor wondered no more that you should load me so heavily with your wonted imputations of fraud ignorance blasphemy and the like I ever perceiv you to be then most of all passionate when you meet with most convincing reasons When the exorcist is most innocent his patient they say then frets and foams and curses most 20 ch from page 386 to 402. Ther is in your twentieth chapter which prosecutes my paragraff of Saints or Hero's one word of yours that requires my notice I say in that my paragraff that the pagans derided the ancient Christians for three of their usages First for eating their own God Secondly for kneeling to their priests genitals Thirdly for worshipping an asses head This last you except against and impute my story to my own simplicity and ignorance if not to somthing wors for that imputation say you was not laid upon Christians at all but only upon Jews as may be seen in Josephus But Sir you may know that in odiosis the primitive Christians were ever numbred among the Jews and what evil report lay upon these was charged also upon them though sometimes upon another ground And although Josephus may excuse the Jews and not the Christians yet a long while after his time if not even then also that slander was generally all over the pagan world charged upon Christians also as may be read in Tertullian and other ancient writers yea and very probably by the very Jews themselvs who bitterly hated them cast off from themselvs upon the poor Christians on another account which I specified in Fiat lux And through the whole Roman empire did the sound of this scandal ring up and down for som ages together Insomuch that Tertullian himself conceited that as the Christian religion was derived from the Jews so likewise that the imputation of the asses head first put upon the Jews might from them be derived upon Christian religion And the same Tertullian in his Apologetick addes these words The calumnies saith he invented to cry down our religion grew to such excess of impiety that not long ago in this very city a pictur of our God was shown by a certain infamous person with the ears of an asse and a hoof on one of his feet clothed with a gown and a book in his hand with this inscription This is Onochoetes the God of Christians And he addes that the Christians in the city as they were much offended with the impiety so did they not a little wonder at the strange uncouth name the villain had put upon their lord and master Onochoetes forsooth he must be called Onochoetes And are not you Sir a strange man to tell me p. 393. that what I speak of this business is notoriously
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 leav 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 rhetorical strain So the Pagans judged the Primitive Christians c. Seventh is There is no remedy of our evils but by a returnal 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 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 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 onely speak is this If the scripture be in two hands for example of the Protestant Church in England and of the Puritan who with that scriptur rose up and rebelled against her can the scriptur alone of it sels decide the busines how shall it do it has it ever don it or can that written word now solitary and in private hands so settle any in a way that neither himself nor present adherents nor future generations shall question it or with as much probability dissent from it either totally or in part as himself first set it This sir is the case unto which you do neither here nor in all your whole book speak one word And what you speak otherwis of the scripturs excellency I allow it for good What is not against me is with me Ninth The Pope is a good man and seeks nothing but our good This also I no where aver For I never saw him nor have any such acquaintance with him as to know whether he be a good man or no though in charity I do not use to iudg hardly of any body Much less could I say that he whom I know to have a general solicitude for all Churches seeks nothing but our good Sir if I had pondred my words in Fiat lux no better than you heed yours in your Animadversions upon it they might even go together both of them to lap pepper and spices or som other yet more vile emploiment Tenth that the devotion of Catholiks far transcends that of Protestants But sir I never made in Fiat lux any comparison between their devotions nor can I say how much the one is or how little the other But you are the maddest Commentatour I have ever seen you first make the Text and then Animadversions upon it Here at length you conclude your chapter and would say you your book also if you had none to deal with but ingenious and judicious readers It seems what follows is for readers neither judicious nor ingenious And becaus I knew you took me for one of those I went on in my view Indeed had I not undertaken to give you an account of your whole book I could have been well content to stop here with ingenious and judicious readers and look no further Doubtles in this affair good wits will jump You would write no more had you none but judicious readers and these will read no more becaus they are judicious But I poor ass must jogge on 3 ch from page 110 to 119. Your third chapter concerns my preface which in part you allow and partly dislike And I am equally content with both 4. or 5 ch from page 119 to 148. Your fourth chapter by mistake of press is named Fift and so I must here call it It begins my book and takes up five of my paragraffs at once You have loitered long about the gate like a trifling idlesbee and mean now it seems when you com to my own words to go nimbly over them as of lesser concernment then your own forestalled conceits which you have hitherto made sport with You first set up a maypole and then danced about it and now at length half tired and almost out of breath you come home to me My first paragraff about Diversity of feuds you do not much except against But I see you do not affect the schoolmen haply for the same reason the French love not Talbot having been used in their infancy to be frighted with that name However you think I have good reason to make honourable mention of them becaus they were say you the hammerers and forgers of Popery Alas sir I see that anger spoils your memory for in the twelfth and thirteenth chapter of that very book of your Animadversions you make Popery to be hammered and forged not a few hundreds of years before any schoolmen were extant You check me also for saying that reformation of religion is pretended by emulous Plebeians as though say you Hezekiah Josiah and other good Kings and Princes also of our own were emulous plebeians But sir when I say in Fiat lux p. 20. what glory the emulous plebeian sees given to higher spirits c. I only speak of the times of vulgar insurrection against autority as all men see except your self who will not My second paragraff of the Ground of quarrels you like well and explicate it with a text to help me out I could not haply tell how to cite James the fourth chapter the first and second vers of that chapter without your help However it is kindnes though it be but cours as sir Thomas Moor told his maid when she kist him as he was going to execution and so I take it My third paragraff about nullity of title would you think every period of it confute my self But that saying of S. Paul An à vobis verbum Dei processit an ad vos solos pervenit which I make use of to stop the mouth of all vitilitigatours in religion was cited by me you think in an unhappy hour becaus say you ther is is not any one single text of scriptur more
fatal to papal pretensions And why so Sir becaus the Gospel you say came to Rome as well as it came to us here in England To this Sir I have already told you that it came not to us as it came to Rome and now I tell you again that it came to us from Rome and not to Rome from us And therfor is that text fatal to us not to them It may open their mouths but I am sure it stops ours Heats and resolutions the subject of my fourth paragraff which your self will not countenance you will not permit me to dislike You may talk against them but I may not But I may be excused for I knew not then such a man of art as your self would speak of that he understood better then I do The motives of moderation in my sixt paragraff you laugh at and I will not stop your merriment But in all this say you Fiat lux hath a secret design which your eagle-sighted eye has discovered And in vain is the net spread before the eyes of a thing that hath a wing And I must know that the authour of Animadversions is that thing that hath a wing 6 ch from page 1 48 to 177. Your sixt chapter which meets just with my sixt paragraff of the obscurity of God in the beginning where you declare the sufficient knowledg we have of God by divine revelation whereunto by our humble beleef we have subscribed our consent is right and good but not at all against me who there treat a case of metaphysical concernment which you apprehend not It is no wonder then you should so much dislike all that my plea of uncertainty not only before any teacher appear but after too whiles you take the teacher and his words as they walk hand in hand actually linkt together with our beleef in him which actual beleef my supposition suspends and separates to the end I may consider whether any such teacher can appear so accomplisht as to move us who live in this present age and coin religion anew to a beleef invariable so that through your too much haste you utterly mistake all my whole discours and speak nothing at all to the case I treat of I speak wholly there as in other parts of Fiat lux upon a supposition of the condition the generality of people are now actually in here in England where every one lets himself loose at pleasure to frame opinions and religions of themselvs And so cannot be thought to speak of a settled beleef but only of settling one or one to be settled which there and elswhere in that book I indeavour to show impossible to be so fixedly stated by any private man but that himself and others may rationally doubt it And that therfor our only way is to beleev and not dispute to submit to the old way we have formerly received and not to surmise a new This is the very substance scope and purpos not only of that paragraff but of my whole book which you do as utterly swerv from as ever any blinded man put to thrash a cock misplaced his blow Perhaps it is hard for you to conceiv your self in a state you are not actually in at present and if you cannot do this you will be absolutely unfit to deal with such hypothetick discourses as I see indeed you are Bellarmins little catechise had been a fitter book for you to write Animadversions upon than my Fiat lux There is good positive doctrin signed hic nunc and specified to your inclination and capacity I meddle not with any I deliver no positive doctrin at all I never descend to any particular conclusion or thesis of faith I defend no opinion but only this That every opinion is defensible and yet none impregnable Do you not blush sir to see your own gross mistake God is my witnes when I finde you misled by your own errour so furiously to tax me with ignorance fraud blasphemy atheisme I cannot but pitty you And generally you talk at random as well in this chapter as others Let me give some little hint of it in particular Where I in my foresaid paragraff say that differences of faith in its branches are apt to infer a suspition in its very root and consequently atheisme To this you reply that That discours of mine is all rotten that Christian religion it self might thus be questioned that it is the argument of the pagan Celsus that such contests have ever been that Protestants are resolved that Catholiks turn atheists as well as others that our religion is the same yesterday and to day that our evils are from our selves c. Doth this talk concern or plead to my assertion I know all this as well as you but that it is nothing to the purpos that I know and it seems you do not Though all this you say be true yet still it remains notwithstanding as true and certain as it was before and that is certain enough That difference of faith in its branches are apt to inferre a suspicion in its very root and consequently atheism You have but beaten the air So likewise unto all that discours of mine If the Papist or Roman Catholik who first brought us the news of our Christianity be now becom so odious then may likewise the whole story of our Christianity be at length thought a Romance You speak with the like extravagancy and mind not my hypothetick at all to speak directly to my inference as it became a man of art to do But neglecting my consequence which in that discours is principally and solely intended you seem to deny my supposition which if my discours had been drawn into a syllogisme would have been the minor part of it And it consists of two categories first that the Papist is now becom odious second that the Papist delivered us the first news of Christianity The first of these you little heed the second you deny That the Papist say you or Roman catholik sirst brought Christ and his Christianity into this land is most untrue I wonder c. And your reason is becaus if any Romans came hither they were not Papists and indeed our Christianity came from the East namely by Joseph of Arimathea c. And this is all you say to my hypothetick or conditional ratiocination as if I had said nothing at all but that one absolute category which being delivered before I now onely suppose You use to call me a civil logician but I fear a natural one as you are will hardly be able to justify this motion of yours as artificial A conditional hath a verity of its own so far differing from the supposed category that this being fals that may yet be true For example if I should say thus A man who hath wings as an eagle or if a man had wings as an eagle he might fly in the air as well as another bird And such an assertion is not to be confuted by proving
justify their action And the absolute dominion of the whole earth and all that is in it being inseperably in the hands of God made that by Gods express command to be truly now and justly the Hebrews right which by an inferiour and subordinate title such as is in the hand of creatures belonged to the Egyptians before So that the Hebrews in taking those goods with them did not steal nor did God command them to steal when he bad them carry those goods of the Egyptians with them for that upon that very command of God they now ceased to be the Egyptians any more But this can no wayes be applied to the busines of Images nor could God command the Hebrews to make any images if he had absolutely forbidden to have any at all made For this concerns not any affair between neighbour and neighbour wherof the supreme Lord hath absolute dominion but the service only and adoration due from man to his maker which God being essentially good and immutably true cannot alter or dispens with Nor doth it stand with his natur and deity to chang dispens or vary the first table of his law concerning himself as he may the second which concerns neighbours for want of that dominion over himself which he hath over any creature to give or take away its right to preserv or destroy it as himself pleases God may disable my neighbours right and inable me to take to my self that which before was his but he cannot command me to commit idolatry or dishonour himself If he should deny himself he would not be God From hence it must needs follow that if it be the sens and mind of the almighty that to set up any images in Churches be derogatory to his glory then could not God possibly command any to be ther set up For these two precepts Thou shalt set up images and Thou shalt set up none are not only contradictory in terms of the law proposed enounced and promulgated but infer also in God himself that contradiction opposition and self-denial which is inconsisting with such an unchangeable veracity God may possibly allow me either to curs or spoil my neighbour or in a case exprest not to help him but he should deny himself which the deity cannot do if either he should command me to blaspheme himself or the honour due to him either to refuse it him or give it to another When therfor one and the same God so often forbids his people to make to themselvs any images and yet in the same divine law commands them to set up Cherubims in his own temple it cannot being a concernment of his worship be otherwayes meant than that they should make no sculptures or figurs but what himself commands and which may assuredly represent persons dear to himself as Fiat lux interprets it And if an image in it self be opposite to Gods glory as Anticatholiks think then could not God possibly command the making or setting up of any in his holy temple or place of divine worship But you go on Fiat lux sayes God forbad forreign images such as Moloch Dagon and Astaroth but he commanded his own But Fiat lux is deceived in this as well as other things for God forbad any likenesses of himself and he gives the reason becaus saith he in Horeb ye saw no similitude of me Sir you may know and consider that the statues and graven images of the heathens towards whose land Israel then in the wilderness was journeying to enter and take possession were ever made by the pagans to represent God and not any devils although they were deluded in it And therfor were they called the gods of the mountains the gods of the valleys the gods of Accaron Moab c. Ther was therfor good reason that the Hebrews who should be cautioned from such snares should be forbidden to make to themselvs any similitude or likenes of God What figur or similitude the true God had allowed his people that let them hold and use until the fulnes of time should com when the figur of his substance the splendour of his glory and only image of his natur should appear And now good Sir since God has been pleased to show us his face pray give Christians leav to use and keep and honour it If you be otherwise minded and take pleasur in defacing his figurs I think they have good reason on their sides who honour them You proceed It is a pretty fansy in Fiat lux to say we have as well a precept Thou shalt make graven images as we have Thou shalt not I wonder where Fiat lux finds that precept sith all ancients have it and all translations read it Thou shalt not What is that It they have what is that It they read Do you think that Fiat lux reads one and the same text both Thou shalt and Thou shalt not Moses his making and the command given him to make Cherubims is a rule good enough to Fiat lux that som images may be made and set up in Churches as also is that precept Thou shalt not make to thy self any images another rule to show him that some images we are not to make to our selvs on our own heads in imitation of pagans No less whimsical is that relation Fiat lux sayes an image hath to som one prototype for example to S. Peter rather then to Simon Magus for ther can be no relation but what the imagination either of the framer of spectatour makes Sir speaking as I do of a formal representation or relation and not of the efficient caus of it I cannot but wonder at this your illogical assertion Is the pictur made by the spectators imagination to represent this or that thing or the imagination rather guided to it by the pictur By this rule of yours the image of Caesar did not my imagination help it would no more represent a man than a mous I know the imagination can for want of real picturs make fantastical ones to it self in the clouds walls ayr or fire c. But when she hath real ones made her either by art or natur she cannot make them to be otherways then they are nor think or say except she will abuse her self to derision that a cat is a dog or an ox a hare Nor does it help you at all that ther may be mistakes for we treat not here of the errours but natures of things And you will not I hope maintain that ther is no real heat any where but what the imaginanation makes becaus the good poor man of Norway sent out of his own countrey upon an errand stood warming his fingers there at a hedg of red roses 18 ch from page 325 to 365. Your eighteenth chapter which is upon my paragraff of Tongues or Latin service hath som colour of plausibility But becaus you neither do nor will understand the customs of that Church which you are eager to oppose all your words are but wind