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
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
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
from my preface to this present paragraff of Reason You cannot see how all that vain flourishing discours of mine concerning diversity of feuds ground of quarrels nullity of title heats and resolution motives to moderation obscurity of God natur and providence or the like should confute Protestancy or any way concern Protestants And therfor it is wholly impertinent Thus the famous Knight when he had once conceived an idea of his own errantry every flock of sheep must be an army and every wind-mill a giant or els it is impertinent to Don Quixot 9 ch from page 198 to 213. Your ninth chapter upon my paragraff of Light and Spirit is wholly spent neglecting all my other discours in solving the Jewish objection which I answer my self And if you have added any thing better than mine I shall be thankful for it as soon as I see it But I fear your vaunting flourishes about scriptur which you love to talk on will not without the help of your credo and humble resignation solve the argument which that you may the easlier be quit of you never examin but only run on in your usual flourishes about the use and excellency of Gods word I told you in Fiat lux what the Jew will reply to all such reasonings but you have the pregnant wit not to heed any thing that may hinder your flourishes But sir if you were kept up in a chamber with a learned Jew without bread water and fire till you had satisfied him in that objection I am still well enough assured for all your aery vaunts that if you do not make use of your Credo which here you contemn you might there stay till hunger and cold had made an end of you But I beleev you love not such dry blows however you may be delighted with pen encounters at a distance where after your suppositum has been well inspired with the warm spirits blown hither out of the fortunate islands you may cavil revile and threaten at your pleasure and knock down the shadow of your adversary which your own spirits have raised up and presented to you in your chamber 10 ch from page 213 to 228. Your tenth chapter runs over two of my paragraffs which speak the plea of Independents Presbyterians and Protestants That you esteem idle the other sensles the last insufficient And to make this last good you endeavour to disable both what I have set down to make against the prelate Protestant and also what I have said for him I said in Fiat lux that it made not a little against our Protestants that after the prelate Protestancy was settled in England they were forced for their own preservation against Puritans to take up som of those principles again which former Protestants had cast down for Popish as is the autority of a visible Church efficacy of ordination difference between clergy and laiety c. Here first you deny that those principles are popish But sir ther be som Jews even at this day who will deny any such man as Pontius Pilate to have ever been in Jury I have other things to do than to fill volums with useles texts which here I might easily do out of the books both of the first reformers and catholik divines and councels Then secondly you challenge me to prove that those principles were ever denied by our prelate Protestants And this you do wittily and like your self You therfor bid me prove that those principles were ever denied by our prelate Protestants becaus I say that our prelate Protestants here in England as soon as they became such took up again those forenamed principles which Protestants their forefathers both here in England and beyond the seas before our prelacy was set up had still rejected When I say then that our prelate Protestant affirmed and asserted those principles which former Protestants denied you bid me prove that our prelate Protestant ever denied them Thus you contradict what I say is pleaded against our prelate Protestant And again you do as stiffly gain-say what I plead for him my self You laugh at me even with head and shoulders and tell me that the prelate-Protestant has far better arguments for themselvs than either mine is or any I can bring nor do they need the help of such a weak logician as my self in this their caus Sir give me leav to tell you here once for all that I thought it sufficient for my design to set down either for Papist or Protestant when occasion required such reasons as appeared plausible to my self and to say all for them that can be said was neither the work of my small ability nor any purpose of my design And it is enough to me that I know no better But let us see what my argument is and how you crush it The Church say I must have a byshop or otherwise she will not have such a visible head as she had at first c. This that you may evacuate you tell me that the Church hath still the same head she had which is Christ who is present with his Church by his Spirit and laws and is man God still as much as ever he was and ever the same will be and if I would have any other visible byshop to be that head then it seems I would not have the same head and so would have the same and yet not the same Thus you speak But sir I cannot in any reason be thought to speak otherwise if we would use true Logick of the identity of the head than I do of the identity of the body of the Church This body is not numerically the same for the men of the first age are long ago gone out of the world and another generation com who yet are a body of Christians of the same kind becaus they adhere to the same principles of faith And as the body is of the same kinde though not numerically the same so do I require that since Jesus Christ as man the head immediate of other beleeving men is departed hence to the glory of his Father that the Church should still have a head of the same kind as visibly now present as she had in the beginning or els say I she cannot be completely the same body or a body of the same kind completely visible as she was But this she hath not this she is not except she have a visible byshop as she had in the beginning present with her guiding and ruling under God Christ our Lord is indeed still man-God but his man-hood is now separate nor is he visibly now present as man which immediately headed his beleevers under God on whose influence that natur depended His God-head is still the same in all things not only in it self but in order also to his Church as it was before equally invisible and in the like manner beleeved but the natur delegate under God and once ruling visibly amongst us by words and examples is now utterly withdrawn And
if a natur of the same kind be not now delegate with a power of exteriour government as at the first ther was then hath not the Church the same head now which she had then Qui habet aures audiendi audiat And here by the way we may take notice what a sincere English Protestant you are who labor so stoutly to evacuate my argument for episcopacy and leav none of your own behind you nor acquaint the world with any although you know far better but would make us beleev notwithstanding those far better reasons for prelacy that Christ himself as he is the immediate and only head of invisible influence so is he likewise the only and immediate head of visible direction and government among us without the interposition of any person delegate in his stead to oversee and rule under him in his Church on earth which is against the tenour both of sacred gospel and S. Pauls epistles and all antiquity and the present ecclesiastick polity of England and is the doctrin not of any English Protestant but of the Presbyterian Independent and Quaker Christ then in your way is immediate head not only of subministration and influence but of exterior derivation also and government to his Church Pray tell me is he such an immediate head to all beleevers or no if he be to all then is no man to be governed in affairs of religion by any other man on the other side if he be not immediate head to all but ministers head the people and Christ heads the ministers this in effect is nothing els but to make every minister a byshop Why do you not plainly say what it is more than manifest you would have All this while you heed no more the laws of the land than constitutions of gospel As for gospel That Lord who had been visible governour and pastour of his flock on earth when he was now to depart hence as all the apostles expected one to be chosen to succeed him in his care so did he notwithstanding his own invisible presence and providence over his flock publikly appoint one And when he taught them that he who were greatest among them should be as the least he did not deny but suppose one greater and taught in one and the same breath both that he was over them and for what he was over them namely to feed not to tyrannise not to domineer abuse and hurt but to direct comfort and conduct his flock in all humility and tendernes as the servant of all their spiritual necessities And if a byshop be otherwise affected it is the fault of his person not his place As for the laws of the land it is there most strongly decreed by the consent and autority of the whole kingdom not only that byshops are over ministers but that the kings majesty is head of byshops also in the line of hierarchy from whose hand they receiv both their place and jurisdiction This was establisht not only by one but several Parliament acts both in the reign of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth So that by the laws of the land ther be two greeces between ministers and Christ which you cut off to the end you may secretly usurp the autority and place of both to the overthrow at once both of gospel and our law too By the laws of our land our series of ecclesiastical government stands thus God Christ King Byshop Ministers People the Presbyterian predicament is this God Christ Minister People So that the ministers head in the Presbyterian predicament touches Christs feet immediately and nothing intervenes You pretend indeed that hereby you do exalt Christ but this is a meer cheat as all men may see with their eyes for Christ is but where he was but the minister indeed is exalted being now set in the Kings place one degree higher then the byshops who by law is under both king and byshops too You will here say to me What is the Papists line of Church government There the Pope must sit next Christ and Kings under his feet Sir I have not time in this short letter to discours this subject as it deserves Nor does it now concern me who have no more here to say than only this that my argument for prelacy howsoever in your words you may disable it is not weakened by you in deeds at all and as far as I can perceiv not understood Yet two things I shall tell you over and above what I need in this affair also First is that Roman catholiks do more truly and cordially acknowledg the respective Christian king of any kingdom to be supream head of his catholik subjects even in affairs of religion than any other whether Independents Presbyterians or even prelate Protestants have if we speak of truth and reality ever done And this I could easily make good both by the laws and practises of all catholik kingdoms upon earth in any age on one side and the opposite practises of all Protestants on the other Second is that for what reason Roman catholiks deny a prince to be head of the Church for the same ought all others as they deny it in deeds so if they would speak sincerely as they think and act to deny it in words also as well as they For catholiks do beleev him to be head of the Church from whom the channel of religion and all direction in it is derived and flows for which reason a spring is said to be head of a river But neither does any King upon earth except he be priest and prophet too ever trouble himself to derive religion as the Pope has ever don neither does either Protestant Presbyterian or Independent either in England or elswhere ever seek for religion from the hands of the King or supplicate unto him when any doubt arises in those affairs as they ought in conscience and honesty to do for a final decision any more than the Roman catholik does So that whatever any of them may say all Protestants do as much deny the thing in their behaviour as catholiks do in words and catholiks do in their behaviour observ as much as Protestants either practise or pretend What is the reason that Roman catholiks in all occurring difficulties of faith both have their recours unto their papal Pastour unto whom kings themselvs for their own ease remit them and acquiesce also to his decision and judgment but only becaus they beleev him to be head of the Church And if Protestants have no such recours nor will not acquiesce to his majesties authority in affairs of religion but proceed to wars and quarrels without end the prince neglected as wholly unconcerned in those resolvs they do as manifestly deny his headship as if they profest none Nay to acknowledg a headship in words and deny it in deeds is but mockery By these two words Sir it may appear that the kings majesty is as much head of the Church to Roman catholiks as to any
justify their action And the absolute dominion of the whole earth and all that is in it being inseperably in the hands of God made that by Gods express command to be truly now and justly the Hebrews right which by an inferiour and subordinate title such as is in the hand of creatures belonged to the Egyptians before So that the Hebrews in taking those goods with them did not steal nor did God command them to steal when he bad them carry those goods of the Egyptians with them for that upon that very command of God they now ceased to be the Egyptians any more But this can no wayes be applied to the busines of Images nor could God command the Hebrews to make any images if he had absolutely forbidden to have any at all made For this concerns not any affair between neighbour and neighbour wherof the supreme Lord hath absolute dominion but the service only and adoration due from man to his maker which God being essentially good and immutably true cannot alter or dispens with Nor doth it stand with his natur and deity to chang dispens or vary the first table of his law concerning himself as he may the second which concerns neighbours for want of that dominion over himself which he hath over any creature to give or take away its right to preserv or destroy it as himself pleases God may disable my neighbours right and inable me to take to my self that which before was his but he cannot command me to commit idolatry or dishonour himself If he should deny himself he would not be God From hence it must needs follow that if it be the sens and mind of the almighty that to set up any images in Churches be derogatory to his glory then could not God possibly command any to be ther set up For these two precepts Thou shalt set up images and Thou shalt set up none are not only contradictory in terms of the law proposed enounced and promulgated but infer also in God himself that contradiction opposition and self-denial which is inconsisting with such an unchangeable veracity God may possibly allow me either to curs or spoil my neighbour or in a case exprest not to help him but he should deny himself which the deity cannot do if either he should command me to blaspheme himself or the honour due to him either to refuse it him or give it to another When therfor one and the same God so often forbids his people to make to themselvs any images and yet in the same divine law commands them to set up Cherubims in his own temple it cannot being a concernment of his worship be otherwayes meant than that they should make no sculptures or figurs but what himself commands and which may assuredly represent persons dear to himself as Fiat lux interprets it And if an image in it self be opposite to Gods glory as Anticatholiks think then could not God possibly command the making or setting up of any in his holy temple or place of divine worship But you go on Fiat lux sayes God forbad forreign images such as Moloch Dagon and Astaroth but he commanded his own But Fiat lux is deceived in this as well as other things for God forbad any likenesses of himself and he gives the reason becaus saith he in Horeb ye saw no similitude of me Sir you may know and consider that the statues and graven images of the heathens towards whose land Israel then in the wilderness was journeying to enter and take possession were ever made by the pagans to represent God and not any devils although they were deluded in it And therfor were they called the gods of the mountains the gods of the valleys the gods of Accaron Moab c. Ther was therfor good reason that the Hebrews who should be cautioned from such snares should be forbidden to make to themselvs any similitude or likenes of God What figur or similitude the true God had allowed his people that let them hold and use until the fulnes of time should com when the figur of his substance the splendour of his glory and only image of his natur should appear And now good Sir since God has been pleased to show us his face pray give Christians leav to use and keep and honour it If you be otherwise minded and take pleasur in defacing his figurs I think they have good reason on their sides who honour them You proceed It is a pretty fansy in Fiat lux to say we have as well a precept Thou shalt make graven images as we have Thou shalt not I wonder where Fiat lux finds that precept sith all ancients have it and all translations read it Thou shalt not What is that It they have what is that It they read Do you think that Fiat lux reads one and the same text both Thou shalt and Thou shalt not Moses his making and the command given him to make Cherubims is a rule good enough to Fiat lux that som images may be made and set up in Churches as also is that precept Thou shalt not make to thy self any images another rule to show him that some images we are not to make to our selvs on our own heads in imitation of pagans No less whimsical is that relation Fiat lux sayes an image hath to som one prototype for example to S. Peter rather then to Simon Magus for ther can be no relation but what the imagination either of the framer of spectatour makes Sir speaking as I do of a formal representation or relation and not of the efficient caus of it I cannot but wonder at this your illogical assertion Is the pictur made by the spectators imagination to represent this or that thing or the imagination rather guided to it by the pictur By this rule of yours the image of Caesar did not my imagination help it would no more represent a man than a mous I know the imagination can for want of real picturs make fantastical ones to it self in the clouds walls ayr or fire c. But when she hath real ones made her either by art or natur she cannot make them to be otherways then they are nor think or say except she will abuse her self to derision that a cat is a dog or an ox a hare Nor does it help you at all that ther may be mistakes for we treat not here of the errours but natures of things And you will not I hope maintain that ther is no real heat any where but what the imaginanation makes becaus the good poor man of Norway sent out of his own countrey upon an errand stood warming his fingers there at a hedg of red roses 18 ch from page 325 to 365. Your eighteenth chapter which is upon my paragraff of Tongues or Latin service hath som colour of plausibility But becaus you neither do nor will understand the customs of that Church which you are eager to oppose all your words are but wind
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-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