A53737:198
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.
The Devil of old, being not able to give out certain Answers unto them that came to enquire about their Concernments at his Oracles, put them off a long time with dubious, enigmatical, unintelligible Sophisms. But when once the world had by experience, study, and observation, improved its self into a Wisdom beyond the pitch of its first rudeness, men began generally to despise what they saw could not be certainly understood. This made the Devil pluck in his horns, as not finding it for the interest of his kingdom to expose himself to be scoffed at by them, with whose follies and fanatical credulity in esteeming highly of that which could not be understood, he had for many generations sported himself. And do they not blasphemously expose the Oracles of the true, holy, and living God, to no less contempt, who for their own sinister ends would frighten men from them with the ugly scare-crow of obscurity, or their not being intelligible unto every man by the use of means, so far as he is concerned to know them, and the mind of God in them. And herein also Protestants ⟨p. 155⟩stand as firmly as the fundamentals of Christianity will bear them.
The Devil of old, being not able to give out certain Answers unto them that came to onquire about their Concernments at his Oracles, put them off a long time with dubious, aenigmaticall, unintelligible Sophisms. But when once the world had by experience, study, and observation, improved its self into a Wisdome beyond the pitch of its first rudeness, men began generally to despise what they saw could not be certainly understood. This made the Devil pluck in his horns, as not finding it for the interest of his kingdome to expose himself to be scoffed at by them, with whose follies and fanaticall credulity in esteeming highly of that which could not be understood, he had for many generations sported himself. And do they not blasphemously expose the Oracles of the true, holy, and living God, to no less contempt, who for their own sinister ends would frighten men from them with the ugly scare-crow of obscurity, or their not being intelligible unto every man by the use of means, so far as he is concerned to know them, and the mind of God in them. And herein also Protestants ⟨p. 155⟩stand as firmly as the fundamentals of Christianity will bear them.