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
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
fals nay and that I know it is fals and that I cannot produce one authentick testimony no not one of any such thing But this is but your ordinary confidence 21 ch from page 402 to 416. I must not mervail that my following paragraff called Dirge is so wantonly plaid upon in your one and twentieth chapter You think of no body after they are dead nor does it at all concern you whether they be in hell or heaven or som third place or not at all But Sir were not all the ancient monuments of the foundations of our churches colledges and chappels in England now destroyed you would finde your self with that wretched opinion of yours absolutely incapable to enter upon any benefice cure or employment in this land But the times are changed and you have nothing now to do but to eat drink and preach for to morrow you shall dye 22 ch from page 416 to 435 In your two and twentieth chapter which is of the Pope you do but only repeat my words and not understand and deny and laugh 23 ch from page 435 to Finis Your last chapter is upon my paragraff of Popery wherein I set down eleven other parcels of catholik profession all of them innocent unblamable and sacred You onely bite at the first of them and having it seems enough filled your self with that your wearied bones go to rest With Mas comedido the title of my last paragraff you meddle not at all It is doubtless to you who understand not the English word Messach another Gnostick Paldabaoth But I would you had Mas comedido by heart You cannot but mervail that I have taken so little notice all this while of your onely one strong and potent Argument you stout Achilles that meets me in every paragraff and period and beats me back into the walls of Troy Wberever I am whatsoever I say your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is upon me All the discours of my whole one and thirty paragraffs is by it fell'd to the ground miserably bruised and battered with that one and the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I hope you will have me excused I have not leisur I am not willing I want ability to answer it or give you any corresponding satisfaction The like to our Authour for flourishing empty words and cunning sleights of subtilty hath been seldom c. Here our Authour falls into a great misadventure c. Here our Authour discovers not only his gross ignorance but somthing more c Our Authour beleeves not a word of all this nor can c. We finde our Authour never to fail so palpably and grosly as when c. Our Authour speaks notoriously fals nor hath he c. Our Authours history philosophy and reason all alike c. Our Authour speaks boldly though he know it is not so but. c. Our Authour if I could com to speak to him would not own any of this c. Never any such cunning dissembling hypocrite as our Authour c. It is no mervail our Authour should still fail both in philosophy antiquity c. who hath not c. In these and such like arguments which occur almost as oft as the pages of your book you rout Our Authour utterly I am in all this not able to say bough to a goose Although I be not conscious of any either fraud in my breast or fault in my book or lye in either yet in all such talk you must and will and shall have both the first and last word too Another argument of yours exprest in twenty places of your Animadversions by which you would dissipate at once great part of Fiat lux into the air does as finely cant as this does coursly defy The religion say you that is now profest in England is that and only that which was first in ancient times received here c. This you speak and the more confidently do you speak it the less significant you know your words be and yet sounding well enough for your design What do you mean I pray you Sir by that religion that is now profest in England Why do you not specify it Speak it in down-right language Is it Popery that has been peaceably profest in the land for almost a thousand years and did all the good things we now finde in it as yet profest by som No this you will deny Is it prelate-protestancy that for threescore years opprest popery here This if you had said you had praised that too much which your self approves not Is it Presbytery that warred the last twenty years and utterly destroyed the foresaid Protestancy In saying this you had to your own danger disabled the English Protestant Church now to the great heart-burning of the Presbyterians establisht again by law Is it Independency that for six or seven years curbed the Presbyterian here in Tectour Olivers time and had almost past an Act for the abolishing of the three P.P.P. Papish Protestant and Presbyterian Is it Quakery that is now far enough spread and openly profest by many and judges the Papist stark naught the Protestant half rotten the Presbyterian quarter addle and other Independents imperfect Is it som general abstracted religion that is common to them all Then Popery as well as any other may be justly stiled the religion here first received For that common notion in whatever you shall say it consists so it be positive as it ought to be will be found first and principally in the Papists faith But this you have not thought good your self to expres that you may seem to expres somthing that may be thought good to your self and ill to me But you must deal candidly with me I am an old ox that hath fixed his foot firmly and am not to be out-braved either with your canting words or passionate execrations I had told you Sir of all your tricks from page to page in particular if nothing had been required at my hands to write but only my own reply but being if I should do so obliged to set down your talk too I think it not worth either my charge or labour to reflect upon you such your voluminous impertinencies And I have I assure you taken notice of all in your book that may seem to have any appearance of reason in it though really ther be none at all against me and is not either manifestly untrue or absolutely improper This is all And now good Sir I could wish you had given me the first letter of your name that I might have known how to salute you I have been told of late that the Authour of the Animadversions upon Fiat lux is one Doctour O N a Protestant against Popery which you found down a Presbyterian against Protestancy which you threw down an Independent against Presbyterianry which you kept down But whether you be Doctour O N or to turn your inside outwards you be N O doctour since I cannot be assured it shall be all one to me