The apology of the Church of England, and an epistle to one Seignior Scipio…

2. NOW certainly there can nothing of more weight be said against Religion, then that it is new. We know not how this has come to pass, but from the beginning of the World, thus it hath ever been; for whensoever God hath discovered and restored to Mankind the light of his Truth, tho it is not only of the utmost Antiquity, but older than time it self, and eternal; yet it ever seems to wicked men, who hate it, to be new and of no Antiquity. That impious and bloody man Haman, that he might bring the Jews into disfavour, thus accused them to Ass•erus: Thou, O King, ¹hast here in thy Dominions, a certain People scattered abroad, which observeth new Laws, but is stubborn and rebellious against thy Laws. St. Paul also, when he began first to preach the Gospel to the Athenians, ⟨p. 84⟩was said to be a Setter forth of strange Gods, ²that is of a new Religion; and accordingly thus they bespeak him, May we know what this new Doctrine whereof thou speakest is? And Celsus, ³when he wrote expressly against Christ and his Gospel, that he might expose it to the scorn of men, under the pretence of its Novelty, writes thus, What (saith he) has God after so many Ages, now at last bethought himself? Eusebius also is our Author, that from the beginning, the Christian Religion was in derision, styled [Greek or Hebrew], the new and strange Religion; and so our Adversaries condemn all our Doctrines as new and strange; but then they desire that all their own, without exception, should be reputed most ancient; just as the Magicians and Conjurers, whose business is with the infernal Spirits, that their abominable Art may be thought the more sublime and divine, as being derived from great Patrons and Inventors, and of a very ancient Original, do commonly say, that they have their Books and all their Rites and secret Mysteries from Athanasius, Cyprian, Moses, Abel and Adam, and from the Arch-Angel Raphael. So our Enemies, that their Religion too, which they have not long since patched up for themselves, may with the more •ase be recommended to ignorant men, and those that rarely consider what themselves or others do, pretend that it came down to them (just such as now it is) from St. Augustin, St. Hierom, St. Chrysostom and St. Ambrose, from the Apostles and Christ, for they very well know, that there is nothing more popular, and of greater