A53737:180
A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux
A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux wherein the principles of the Roman church, as to moderation, unity and truth are examined and sundry important controversies concerning the rule of faith, papal supremacy, the mass, images, &c. discussed / by John Owen.
London: printed for Ph. Stephens, 1664
A Vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat Lux. › Chapter 7
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Some of you, I say deny the first part of this Assertion; so doth Andradius Defens. Concil. Trident. ⟨p. 134⟩Lib. 3. Neque enim, saith he, in ipsis Libris quibus Sacra Mysteria conscripta sunt, quicquam inest Divinitatis, quod nos ad Credendum qua illis continentur, religione aliqua constring at; Neither is there in the Books themselves, wherein the holy Mysteries are written, any thing of Divinity, that should constrain us by virtue of any religious respect thereunto, to believe the things that are contained in them. Hence Cocleus, Lib. 2. de Authoritate Eccles. & Script. gathers up a many instances out of the Book of the Scripture, which he declares to be altogether incredible, were it not for the Authority of the Church I need not mention any more of your Leaders, concurring with them; you know who is of the same mind with them, if the Author of Fiat Lux be not unknown to you. Your resolving Universal Tradition into the Authority of your present Church, to which end there is a Book written not long since by a Jesuit under the name of Vincentius Severinus, is no less notorious. Some of you, I confess, are more modest, and otherwise minded, as to both parts of our Assertion. See Malderus Episcop. Antwerp. de Object. Fidei, qu. 1. Vaselius Groningen. de Potestat. Eccles. & Epist. ad Jacob. Hock. Alliacens. in Lib. 1. Sentent. Artic. 3. Gerson Exam. dos. part. 2. Consid. 1. Tom. 1. sol. 105. and in twenty other places. But when you come to deal with Protestants, and consider well the Tendency of this Assertion, you use I confess an hundred rergiversations, and are most unwilling to come to the acknowledgement of it; and rather then suffer from it, deny it downright; and that with Scurrilous reflections, and Comparisons, likening it, as to any characters of Gods truth and Holiness upon it, unto Livy's Story, yea Aesops Fables, or a Piece of Poetry. And when you have done so, you apply your selves ⟨p. 135⟩to the canvasing of Stories in the Old Testament, and to find out appearing Contradictions, and tell us of the uncertainty of the Authors of some particular Books; that the whole is of its self a dead letter which can prove nothing at all; enquiring, Who told us that the Penmen of it were divinely inspired, seeing they testify no such things of themselves and if they should, yet others may do, and have done so, who notwithstanding were not so inspired;
Some of you, I say deny the first part of this Assertion; so doth Andradius Defens. Concil. Trident.