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,…

The next thing undertaken by our Author, is the ingress of Protestancy into England, and its progress there. The old story of the love of King Henry the Eighth to Ann Bullen, with the divorce of Queen Katharine, told over and over long ago by men of the same principle and design with himself, is that which he chooseth to flourish withal. I shall say no more to the story, but that English-men were not wont to believe the whispers of an unknown Fryer, or two, before the open redoubled Protestation of one of the most famous Kings that ever swayed the Sceptre of this Land, before the union of the Crowns of England and Scotland. These men, whatever they pretend, show what reverence they have to our present Sovereign▪ by their unworthy defamation of his Royal Predecessors. But let men ⟨p. 270⟩suppose the worst they please of that great Heroic Person: What are his miscarriages unto Protestant Religion; for neither was he the Head, Leader, or Author of that Religion; nor did he ever receive it, profess it, or embrace it; but, caused men to be burned to death, for its profession. Should […], by way of Retaliation, return unto our Author, the lives and practices; of some, of many, not of the great, or leading men of his Church, but of the Popes themselves, the Head, sum, and, in a manner, whole of their Religion, at least so far that without him) they will not acknowledge any, he knows well enough what double measure, shaken together, pressed down, and running over, may be returned unto him. A work this would be, I confess, no way pleasing unto my self▪ for who can delight in raking into such a sink of Filth, as the lives of many of them have been; yet because he seems to talk with a confidence of willingness to revive the memory of such ulcers of Christianity, if he proceed in the course he hath begun, it will be necessary to mind him of not boxing up his ⟨p. 271⟩eyes when he looks towards his own home. That Poisonings, Adulteries, Incests, Conjurations, Perjuries, Atheism, have been no strangers to that See; if he knows not, he shall be acquainted from stories, that he hath no colour to except against. For the present, I shall only mind him, and his friends, of the Comedian's advice; Dehinc ut quiescunt, porro m•neo, & desinant Maledicere, malefactae ne noscant su•.