Animadversions on a treatise entitled Fiat lux, or, A guide in differences of religion,…Animadversions on a treatise intituled Fiat lux, or, A guide in differences of religion,…

But he further specifies his meaning in an enumeration of Doctrines that were preached by the first Planters of the Gospel, in and unto the extirpation of Gentilism. If, saith he, the Institution of Monasteries, to the praise and service of God, day and night, be thought as it hath been now these many years a Superstitious folly; If Christian Priests and Sacrifices be things of high Idolatry; If the seven Sacraments be deemed vain, most of them; If it suffice to Salvation, only to Believe, whatever life we lead; If there be no value, or merit, in Good Works; If God's Laws ⟨p. 171⟩be impossible to be kept; If Christ be not our Law-maker and Director of doing well, as well as Redeemer from ill; If there be no Sacramental Tribunal for our Reconciliation ordained from by Christ on the Earth; If the real Body of our Lord be not bequeathed unto his Spouse in his last Will and Testament; If there be not under Christ a general Head of the Church, who is chief Priest and Pastor of all Christians upon Earth under God, whose Vicegerent he is in Spiritual Affairs; all which things are now held forth by us, manifestly against the Doctrine of the first Preachers of Christianity in this Land; then I say, Paganism was unjustly displaced by these Doctrines, and Atheism must needs succeed; for if Christ deceived us, upon whom shall we rely; and if they that brought us the first news of Christ, brought along with it so many grand lies, why may not the very story of Christ be thought a Romance?

I could wish there had been a little more clearness and ingenuity in this annumeration; the mixing of what he takes to be Truths, with some Negatives that he condemns in the same Series, breeds some confusion in the Discourse: ⟨p. 172⟩And I am also compelled to complain of want of candour and ingenuity in his representation of the Protestant Doctrine in every particular, wherein he takes occasion to mention it: Let us then separate the things that have no place of their own in this Argument, than what is ambiguously proposed: after which, what remains may be distinctly considered.