their own particular kingdoms and care not how religion goes in another any more then their wealth or polility Thus the sun-beams though they fall upon several soils diversly affected yet they keep their own nature unaltered by vertue of one general fountain-head of light which is indifferent to every kingdom and dispenses distributes and keeps the raies unaltered Fiftly the ends and wayes of religion are quite of another nature from all worldly businesses and therfor require a particular superintendent set apart for them as indeed they ever have had since the time of religions first master who â—s he did educate his in order to a life eternal in a government apart being himself a man distinct from Cesar so used he to speak of religious duties as separate and differing from others Reddite saith he quae Caesaris sunt Caesari quae Dei Deo In very truth the Church and Christianity as it is a thing accidental to all worldly states so is it superinduced upon them as an influence of another rank and order unto a particular end of future bliss whereas all states do of themselvs aim no further than the peace and happines of this life And so for the particular end and means answerable therunto which religion uses it will require a particular and speciall overseer Thus Aristotle though he conceited the celestial orbs to be contiguous and so all rapt together in a motion from East to West yet becaus they had special motions of their own he therfor allowed them particular Intelligences to guide those motions So we see in ordinary affairs a man that hath severall wayes and ends is guided by several directours in this by a lawyer in that by a physitian by a gardener by a tradesman c. Sixtly becaus head of the Church absolutely must be one that succeds in his chair whom Jesus the master left and appointed personally to feed his flock No king upon earth ever pretended to sit in that Fishermans chair or to succeed him in it which the Pope to my knowledg for sixteen hundred years hath both challenged as his right and actually possest And Catholiks are all so fixt in this judgment that they can no more disbeleev it than they can ceas to beleev in Jesus Christ 11 ch from page 228. to 246. Your eleventh chapter falls directly upon my fifteenth paragraff of Scriptur And therfor I may here expect you should insult over me to the purpos But Sir I told you before and now tell you again that I know no other rule to Christians either for faith or manners no other hope no other comfort but what scriptur and holy gospel affords But this is not any part of the debate now in hand however you would perswade the world to think so When four or five men of several judgements collected from the very scriptur you and I talk of rise up one against another with one and the same scriptur in their hands with such equal pretence of light power and reason that no one will either yield to another or remain himself in the same faith but run endles divisions without contronl does scriptur prevent this evil does it has it can it remedy it can any one man make a religion by the autority of scriptur alone which neither himself nor any other upon the same grounds he framed it shall rationally doubt of This is our case and only this which you do not so much as take notice of to the end you may with a more plausible rhetorick insult over me as a contemner of Gods word Nor do you heed any particle of my discours in this paragraff but according to your manner collect principles to the number of seven out of it you say which I do not know to be so much as hinted in it that as you did before so you may now again play with your own bauble and refute your self And they are in a manner the very same you sported with before in your second chapter 1 from the Romans we received the gospel 2 what is spoken in scriptur of the Church belongs to the Roman 3 the Roman every way the same it was c. of all which I do not remember that I have in that my paragraff so much as any word Sir either speak to my discours as you finde it or els hold your peace As if then you had overheard me aforehand to give you this deserved check at the close of your chapter you bring in som few words of mine with a short answer of your own annext to the skirts of it which I here set down as you place them your self No man can say speaks Fiat lux what ill popery ever did in the world till Henry the eights dayes when it was first rejected Strange say you in your Animadversions when it did all the evils that ever were in the Christian world With the Roman catholiks unity ever dwelt Never Protestants know their neighbour catholiks not their religion They know both Protestants are beholding to Catholiks for their benefices books pulpits gospel For som not all The Pope was once beleeved general pastour over all Prove it The scriptur and gospel we had from the Pope Not at all You cannot beleev the scriptur but upon the autority of the Church We can and do You count them who brought the scriptur as lyars No otherwis The gospel separated from the Church can prove nothing Yes it self This short work you make with me And to all that serious discours of mine concerning scriptur which takes up sixteen pages in Fiat lux we have got now in reply thereunto this your Laconick confutation Strang. Never Know both Som not all Prove it Not at all Can and do No otherwis Yes it self 12 ch from page 246 to 262. Your twelfth chapter meets with my history of Religion as a flint with steel only to strike fire For not heeding my story which is serious temperate and sober you tell another of your own fraught with defamations and wrath against all ages and people and yet speak as confidently as calm truth could do First you say that Joseph of Arimathea was in England but he taught the same religion that is in England now But what religion is that Sir Then you tell us that the story of Fugatius and Damian missioners of Pope Eleutherius you do suspect for many reasons But becaus you assign none I am therfor moved to think they may be all reduced to one which is that you will not acknowledge any good thing ever to have come from Rome Then say you succeeded times af luxury sloth pride ambition scandalous riots and corruption both of faith and manners over all the Christian world both princes priests prelates and people Not a grain of vertue or any goodnes we must think in so many christian kingdoms and ages Then did Goths and Vandals and other pagans overflow the Christian world Either to punish we may beleev or teach them how to
knows not what or beleev not what himself speaks It was the proper badg of those times when after the alarm sounded in the Pulpit that our people therupon went forth in troops to battle neither did the peasant understand nor the man in black beleev although the sound rung generally in their ears that it was the sword of the Lord and of Gideon which they brandisht against the loyal band their foes Fourthly your pert assertion so often occurring in your Book that ther is neither reason truth nor honesty in my words is but the overflowing of that former intemperat zeal and the more frequent it occurs the less approbation it will find Fiftly your sharp and frequent menaces that if I write or speak again I shall hear more finde more feel more more to my smart more then I imagin more then I would rellishes too much of that insulting humour our poor bleeding Land then groaned under the many years of our anarchical confusion Sixtly the absence of your name in the frontispiece of your book which I have never before observed in all my life of any Protestant writer that hath ever in my time set forth a book here in England against Popery givs no small suspicion that the Authour of our Animadversions is no such Protestant as he would be thought to be Lastly that I may omit other special reasons your other general trick of charging me then most of all with fraud ignorance and wickednes when in your own heart you find me most clear from any such blemish thereby to put a vail upon your own caus which would otherways be disparaged makes me smell a fox a notorious one sic notus Vlysses This has been too often acted here in England to be soon forgotten The better the cause the lowder still was the cry against those who stood for it that the blustering nois of calumnies might drown all report of their innocence And by all this I cannot Sir but suspect that if the description of Popery your Animadversions gives us be right you are a Papist your self a great one and no true Protestant But as it is so let it be Thus much I only tell you that you may see I am neither neglective of your book nor idle but have perused and read it over And although what for the threats of your Animadversions and what for the reasons of my own Fiat Lux I may not enter into controversies yet I hope I may let you know that I have seen your work And that you may the better credit me I will give you a short account of it first in general then in particular All the whole design of Fiat Lux you do utterly mistake throughout all your book of Animadversions so that you conceiv that to be a Controversy which is none that to be absolutely asserted which is but hypothetically discoursed that to be only for one side which is indifferently for all although I speak most for them that are most spoken against and am in very deed absolutely against all speaking quarrelling disputing about Religion If you will but have patience to hear my purpose and design which to all men not interested and blinded with a prejudice is clear enough relucent in the whole context of Fiat Lux what I say will easily appear to your self Fiat Lux sayes one thing and supposes it another thing he desires and aims at that he dislikes this commends We are at this day at variance about Religion this Fiat Lux supposes but it were better to have peace this he aims at and desires And both these things are intermingled up and down in my Book according to that small faculty that God hath given me though not according to the usual method of Books now adayes Here Sir in few words you have the whole summe of Fiat Lux. And I hope you will grant that that to be the scope of my book which I made it for That we are now at varience is most clear and certain by me supposed and not to be denied And that it were better to have peace is as absolutely expedient as the other is evidently true These then being things both of them which no man can resist either by denying the one or disliking the other I thought them better intermingled than set apart and with more reason to be supposed then industriously proved Yet to superinduce a disposition unto peace my only work was to demonstrate an uselesnes an endlesnes an unprofitablenes of quarrels which I laboured quite through my book beginning it with an intimation of our quarrels which S. Paul calls the fruits and works of the flesh and ending it with a commendation of charity which is the great fruit and blessing of Gods holy Spirit Now the easier to perswade my Countreymen to a belief both of the one and the other first is insinuated in Fiat Lux both the ill grounds and worst effects of feuds then is the plea of parties specified their probabilities acknowledged and lastly an impossibility of ever bringing our debates to a conclusion either by light or spirit reason or scriptur texts so long as we stand separated from any superiour judicative power unto which all parties will submit is I think with a strong probability if not demonstrative evidence concluded And therfor is it thought by Fiat Lux to be more rational and Christian like to leav these endles groundles and ruinous contentions and resign our selvs to humility and peace This is the design and whole summ of my book And although I speak up and down here for Papists ther for Protestants elswhere for Presbyterians or Independents commonly out of the very discourses they make for themselvs yet do I not defend either their wayes or their arguments Nor do I teach any doctrin at all or hold there any opinion but only giv to understand in that one little book what is largely discoursed in a hundred That all parties do make out to themselves such a probability which as it stands joyned with the actours resolution and separated from any superiour visible power to which they will submit can never be subdued And hath not long experience proved this as true as any thing els What is ther in Fiat Lux that can be denied Is it not evident that we are now at variance and too long indeed have been Is it not also clear that peace charity and neighbourhood is better than variance dissention and wars do not parties strongly plead for themselvs so far perswaded each one that he is in the right that he will not yield that truth is with any but himself Is not all this evident I am sure it is and all England will witnes it And if any one should be able to evince that any reasonings made in Fiat Lux either for Papists Protestants or others be not certain or perhaps not probable yet he does nothing except he be able to prove likewise that they are not probable to Fiat Lux
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
Ther be books lately set forth and by more then one author which do as powerfully dissipate the conceit we once had of hell as any ever did elude Purgatory Did we not lately find out texts and reasonings against our King and monarchy as many as we found out long ago against Pope and popery Gods providence and our souls immortality if any list to deny he may have more abundant argumentations every where occurring than any other piece of popery now rejected ever felt If one text of scriptur be by a trope of rhetorick made to speak a sens contrary to what was believed in catholick times in any one point cannot another text by some such slight be forced to frustrate another And thus when all articles are at last by such tricks of wit cashiered can ther be wanting several appearing incongruities contradictions tautologies improbabilities to disable all holy writ at once And cannot the Jew afford us at last arguments enough to dissipate at length the very name of Christ out of the world which after the whole extirpation of his law will but float on mens lips like an empty shadow till it quite vanish These things fir are not only true but clear and evident And nothing is wanting to justify them but a serious consideration These few words sir which I have bestowed upon you by way of supererogation above what I needed will somwhat enlighten you to discern the goodness and necessity of my consequence If the Papist who first brought us thâ—â— news of Christianity be now becom odious theâ— may all Christianity at length be thought a Romance c. Religion like a hous if a breach he 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 of flies over no less than four 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 purpose but foisted in for a blinde to entertain my readers But sir those judicious readers you lately left behind you that 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 too 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 goodness of the word of God as if I had any way diminished it or positively 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 paxagraff called Help concerning the surmises that men may have about scripture 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 choosing 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 whatsoever you think of your self you are in truth but a weak man except you dissemble and mistake on purpos 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 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 questions 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 than 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 scripture 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 framing 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 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
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
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-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