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,…

Heathen Pleas. General Principles.

WE have done with his Method, or manner of proceeding; our next view shall be of those general Principles, and Suppositions, which animate the paraenetical part of his work, and whereon it is solely founded. And here I would entreat him not to be offended, if in the entrance of this Discourse, I make bold to mind him, that the most, if not all, of his Pleas, have been long since insisted on by a very learned man, in a case not much unlike this which we have in hand; and were also long since answered by one as learned as he, or as any the world saw in the age wherein he lived, or it may be since, to this day, though he died now 1400 years ago. The person I intend is Celsus the Philosopher, who objected the very same things, upon the same general grounds, ⟨p. 30⟩and ordered his Objections in the same manner, against the Christians of old, as our Author doth against the Protestants: And the Answer of Origen to his eight books, will save any man the labour of answering this one, who knows how to make application of general Rules and Principles, unto particular Cases that may be regulated by them. Doth our Author lay the cause of all the Troubles, Disorders, Tumults, Wars, wherewith the Nations of Europe, have been for some season, and are still, in some places, infested, on the Protestants? So doth Celsus charge all the Evils, and Commotions, Plagues, and Famines, wherewith mankind, in those days, was much wasted, upon the Christians. Doth our Author charge the Protestants, that by their breaking off from Rome, with Schisms and Seditions they made way for others, on the same principles to break off seditiously from themselves? So did Celsus charge the Jews and Christians; telling the Jews, that by their Seditious departure from the common Worship and Religion of the World, they made way for the Christians, ⟨p. 31⟩a branch of themselves, to […] them and their worship in like manner, and to set up for themselves: And following on his Objection he applies it to the Christians, that they departing from the Jews, had broached Principles for others to improve into a departure from them; which is the sum of most that is pleaded with any fair pretence, by our Author, against Protestants.