A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

The next thing proposed as a Good to be aimed at, is Unity in Faith and settlement, or infallible assurance therein. This is a Good desirable for its self; whereas the moderation treated of, is only a medium of relief against other evils, until this may be attained. And therefore though it be, upon supposition of our Differences, earnestly to be endeavoured after, yet it is not to be rested in, as though the utmost of our Duty consisted in it, and we had no prospect beyond it. It is a Catholic Unity in Faith, which all Christians are to aim at, and so both you and we profess to do; only we differ both about the Nature of it, and the proper means of attaining it. For the Nature of it, you conceive it to consist in the explicit or implicit belief of all things and Doctrines determined on, taught, and proposed by ⟨p. 122⟩your Church be believed, and nothing else, (with faith supernatural) but what is so taught and proposed. But this description of the Unity of Faith, we can by no means admit of. 1. Because it is Novel; it hath no footstep in any writings of the Apostles, nor of the first Fathers or Writers of the Church, nor in the practice of the Disciples of Christ for many Ages. That the Determination of the Roman Church, and its proposal of things or Articles to be believed should be the adequate Rule of Faith unto all Believers, is a matter as foreign unto all Antiquity, as that the Prophesies of Montanus should be so. 2. Because it makes the Unity of Faith after the full and last Revelation of the Will of God, flux, alterable, and unstable, liable to increase and decrease; whereas it is uniform, constant, always the same in all Ages, times, and places, since the finishing of the Canon of the Scriptures. For we know, and all the world knows, that your Church hath determined many things lately, some [Greek or Hebrew], as it were but yesterday, to be believed, which its self had never before determined, and so hath increased the Rule of Faith, moved its Centre, and extended its Circumference: and what she may further determine and propose to morrow, no man knows; and your duty it is to be ready to believe whatever she shall so propose; whereby you cannot certainly know unto your dying day whether you do believe all that may belong to the Unity of Faith, or no. Nay 3.

THe next thing proposed as a Good to be aymed at, is Vnity in Faith and settlement, or infallible assurance therein. This is a Good desireable for its self; whereas the moderation treated of, is only a medium of relief against other evils, untill this may be attained. And therefore though it be, upon supposition of our Differences, earnestly to be endeavoured after, yet it is not to be rested in, as though the utmost of our Duty consisted in it, and we had no prospect beyond it. It is a Catholick Vnity in Faith, which all Christians are to aym at, and so both you and wee profess to doe; only wee differ both about the Nature of it, and the proper means of attaining it. For the Nature of it, you conceive it to consist in the explicit or implicit belief of all things and Doctrines determined on, taught, and proposed by