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,…

His method he speaks unto, pag. 13. My method, saith he, I do purposely conceal, to keep therein a more handsome decorum: for he that goes about to part a fighting fray, cannot observe a method, […] must turn himself this way and that ⟨p. 21⟩as occasion offers; be it a corporal or mental Duel. So did good Sc. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, which of all his other Epistles as it hath most of solidity, so it hath least of method in the context; the reason is, &c. These are handsome words, of a man that seems to have good thoughts of himself and his skill, in parting frays. But yet I see not how they hang well together, as to any congruity of their sense and meaning. Surely, he that useth no method, nor can use any, cannot conceal his method; no, though he purpose so to do. No man's purpose to hide, will enable him to hide that which is not. If he hath concealed his method, he hath used one: if he hath used none, he hath not concealed it: for, that which is wanting cannot be numbered. Nor hath he by this, or any other means, kept any handsome decorum: not having once spoken the sense, or according to the Principles of him whom he undertakes to personate: which is such an observance of a decorum as a man shall not lightly meet with. Nor hath he discovered any mind so to part a fray, as that the Contenders might hereafter live ⟨p. 22⟩quietly one by another; his business being avowedly to persuade as many as he can to a conjunction in one Party, for the destruction of all the rest. And what ever he saith of not using a method, the method of his Discourse, with the good words it is set off withal, is the whole of his Interest in it: He pretends indeed, to pass through loca nullius an•• Trita solo; yet setting aside his management of the Advantages given him by the late miserable Tumults in these Nations; and the Provision he has made for the Entertainment of his Reade•, are Worts boiled an hundred times over, as he knows well enough.

His method he speaks unto, pag. 13. My method, saith he, I do purposely conceal, to keep therein a more handsom decorum: for he that goes about to part a fighting fray, cannot observe a method, 〈…〉 must turn himself this way and that ⟨p. 21⟩