A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

1. You have no one Principle that you more pertinaciously adhere unto, nor which yields you greater advantage with weak unstable souls, than that whereby you confine all Christianity within the bounds ⟨p. 117⟩of your own Communion, The Roman Church and the Catholic are with you, one and the same. No Privilege of the Gospel you suppose, belongs unto any soul in the world, who lives not in your Communion, and in professed subjection unto the Pope. Union with Christ, saving Faith here, with salvation hereafter, belongs to no other, no not one. This is the moderation of your Church, whereunto your outward actings have for the most part been suited. Indeed, by this one Principle, you are utterly incapacitated to exercise any of that moderation towards those that dissent from you which the Gospel requires. You cannot love them as the Disciples of Christ, nor act towards them from any such Principles. It is possible for you to show moderation towards them as men; but to show any moderation towards them, as those partakers of the same precious faith with you, that is impossible for you to do. Yet this is that which we are enquiring after: not the moderation that may be amongst men as men, but that which ought to be amongst Christians as Christians: This is Gospel moderation, the other is common unto us with Turks, Jews, and Pagans, and not at all of our present disquisition. And I wish that this were found amongst you as proceeding from the Principles of Reason, with ingenuity and goodness of nature, more than it is. For that which proceedeth from, and is regulated by Interest, is Hypocritical, and not thank-worthy: As occasion offers it self, it will turn and change, as we have found it to do in most Kingdoms of Europe. Apparent then it is, that this fundamental Principle of your Profession, Subesse Romano Pontifici, &c. that it is of indispensable necessity unto Salvation unto every Soul to be subject unto the Pope of Rome, doth utterly incapacitate you for ⟨p. 118⟩that moderation towards any that are not of you, which Christ requires in his Disciples towards one another; seeing you judg none to be so, but your selves.

1. You have no one Principle that you more pertinaciously adhere unto, nor which yeelds you greater advantage with weak unstable souls, than that whereby you confine all Christianity within the bounds ⟨p. 117⟩