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
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
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
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
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
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