A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

1. Because you are not the only Judge of what I have written, nor indeed any competent Judge of it at all, I shall not concern my self in the Censure which your Interest compels you to pass upon it. It is left unto the thoughts of those who are more impartial. 2. Setting aside your Instance pitched on ad invidiam only, with some equivocal expressions, as must needs be thought, [Greek or Hebrew], very artificially to be put into the state of a Question, and that which you deny is this, that where any persons or Churches are at variance or difference about any thing concerning Religion or the worship of God, the Scripture is not sufficient for the Umpirage of that Difference, so that they may be reconciled and centre in the Profession ⟨p. 101⟩of the same Truth. I wish you would now tell me, what discrepancy there is between the Assertion which I ascribed unto you, and that which your self here avow. I suppose they are in substance the same, and as such will be owned by every one that understands any thing of the matters about which we treat. And this is so spoken unto in the Animadversions, that you have no mind to undertake the examination of it; but labour to divert the discourse, unto that which may appear something else, but indeed is not so. 3. For your Distinction between Protestants and Puritans in England, I know not well what to make of it. I know no Puritans in England that are not Protestants, though all the Protestants in England do not absolutely agree in every punctilio relating to Religion, nor in all things relating unto the outward worship of God, no more than did the Churches in the Apostles days, or than your Catholics do. You give us then a Distinction like that which a man may give between the Church of Rome, and the Jesuits or Dominicans; or the Sons of St. Benet, or of St Francis of Assize. A Distinction or Distribution of the Genus into the Genus and one Species comprehended under it; as if you should have said that Animal is either Animal or Homo. 4. Though I had rather therefore that you had placed your Instance between the Church of Rome and Protestants, yet because any instance of Persons that have different Apprehensions about things belonging to the worship of God, will suffice us as to the present purpose, I shall let it pass.

1. Because you are not the only Judge of what I have written, nor indeed any competent Judge of it at all, I shall not concern my self in the Censure which your Interest compells you to pass upon it. It is left unto the thoughts of those who are more impartial. 2. Setting aside your Instance pitched on ad invidiam only, with some aequivocall expressions, as must needs be thought, , very artificially to be put into the state of a Question, and that which you deny is this, that where any persons or Churches are at variance or difference about any thing concerning Religion or the worship of God, the Scripture is not sufficient for the Vmpirage of that Difference, so that they may be reconciled and center in the Profession