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,…

A matter, I confess, so much the more admirable, because, as I suppose it, in the way mentioned, to have bin his singular lot and good hap; so it was utterly impossible, that for five hundred, I may say a thousand years after Christ, any man should on these motives be turned to any Religion, most of them being not in those days in rerum natura. A way of handling Religion he hath fixed on, which, as, I suppose, he ⟨p. 8⟩will himself acknowledge, that the first Planters of it were ignorant of; so I will promise him, that if he can for a thousand years after they began their work, instance in any one Book of an approved Catholic Author, written with the same design that this is, he shall have one Proselyte to his Profession; which is more, I suppose, then otherwise he will obtain by his learned labour. That this is no other, but to persuade men, that they can find no certainty or establishment for their Faith in Scripture, but must for it devolve themselves solely on the Authority of the Pope, will afterwards be made to appear, nor will himself deny it. But it may be, it is unreasonable, that when men are eagerly engaged in the pursuit of their Interest, we should think from former Presidents, or general Rules of Sobriety, with that reverence which is due to the things of the great and holy God, to impose upon them the way and manner of their progress. The event and end aimed at, is that which we are to respect; the management of their business in reference to this world and ⟨p. 9⟩that which is to come, is their own concernment. No man, I suppose, who hath any acquaintance with the things he treats about, can abstain from smiling, to observe how dexterously he turns and winds himself in his Cloak, (which is not every ones work to dance in) how he gilds over the more comely parts of his Amasia, with brave suppositions, presumptions, and stories of things past and present, where he has been in his days; covering her deformities with a perpetual silence; ever and anon bespattering the first Reformation and Reformers in his passage. Yea, their contentment must needs proceed to an high degree of complacence, in whom compassion for the woeful state of them whom so able a man judgeth like to be inveigled by such flourishes and pretences, doth not excite to other affections.

A matter, I confess, so much the more admirable, because, as I suppose it, in the way mentioned, to have bin his singular lot and good hap; so it was utterly impossible, that for five hundred, I may say a thousand years after Christ, any man should on these motives be turned to any Religion, most of them being not in those days in rerum natura. A way of handling Religion he hath fixed on, which, as, I suppose, he