A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

Dei autem Sermo ipse sibi test is est, quia necesseest ut quicquid incorrupta verityas loquitur, incorruptum sit testimonium veritatis: All other sayings stand in need of Arguments and witnesses to confirm them, the Word of God is witness to its self; For, whatever the Truth incorrupted speaks, must of necessity be an incorrupt Testimony of Truth, And although some of them allowed the Testimony of the Church as a motive unto believing the Gospel or things preached from it, yet as to the belief of the Scripture with faith Divine and Supernatural to be the Word of God, they required but these two things; 1. That Self-Evidence in the Scripture its self which is needful for an indemonstrable Principle; from which, and by which, all other things are to be demonstrated: And that Self-Evidence Clemens puts in the place of all Demonstrations. 2. The Efficacy of the Spirit in the heart, to enable it to give a saving assent unto the Truth proposed unto it: Thus Austin in his Confessions ⟨p. 144⟩Lib. 6. cap. 5. Persuasisti mihi, ô Domine Deus, non eos qui crederent libris tuis quos tanta in omnibus ferè Gentibus authoritate fundasti esse culpandos; sed eos qui non crederent, new audiendesesse, siqui mihi forte dicerent, Unde scis, illos libres unius veracissimi Dei Spirituesse, humano generi ministratos; idipsum enim maximè credendum erat. O Lord God, thou hast persuaded me, that not they who believe thy Books which with so great Authority thou hast settled almost in all Nations, were to be blamed; but those who believe them not, and that I should not hearken unto any of them who might chance to say unto me, Whence dost thou know those Books to be given out unto mankind from the Spirit of the only True GOD; for that is the thing which principally was to be believed. In which words, the holy man hath given us full direction what to say when you come upon us with that Question which some used it seems in his days. A great Testimony of the Antiquity of your Principles. Add hereunto what he writes in the 11th Book and 3d Chapter of the same Treatise, and we have the sum of the Resolution and Principle of his Faith: Audiam, saith he, & intelligam, quomodo fecisti Coelam & terram: Scripsit hoc Moses, scripsit & abiit, transivit hinc ad Te. Neque enim nunc ante me est:

Dei autem Sermo ipse sibi test is est, quia necesseest ut quicquid incorrupta verityas loquitur, incorruptum sit testimonium veritatis: All other sayings stand in need of Arguments and witnesses to confirm them, the Word of God is witness to its self; For, whatever the Truth incorrupted speaks, must of necessity be an incorrupt Testimony of Truth, And although some of them allowed the Testimony of the Church as a motive unto believing the Gospell or things preached from it, yet as to the belief of the Scripiure with faith Divine and Supernaturall to be the Word of God, they required but these two things; 1. That Self-Evidence in the Scripture its self which is needfull for an indemonstrable Principle; from which, and by which, all other things are to be demonstrated: And that Self-Evidence Clemens puts in the place of all Demonstrations. 2. The Efficacy of the Spirit in the heart, to enable it to give a saving assent unto the Truth proposed unto it: Thus Austin in his Confessions