A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

CHAP. 12.

False Suppositions, causing false and absurd consequences. Whence we had the Gospel in England, and by whose means. What is our Duty in reference unto them by whom we receive the Gospel.

Pag. 36. You insist upon somewhat in particular that looks towards your purpose, which shall therefore be discussed; for I shall not willingly miss any opportunity that you will afford me, of examining what ever you have to tender in the behalf of your dying Cause. You mind me therefore of my answer unto that discourse of yours; If the Papist or Roman Catholic who first brought us the news of Christianity, be now become so odious; then may likewise the whole story of Christianity be thought a Romance. You speak with the like extravagancy, and mind not my Hypotheticks at all, to speak directly to my inference as it became a man of Art to do: but neglecting my Consequence, which in that Discourse is principally and solely intended; you seem to deny my Supposition: which if my Discourse had been drawn into a Syllogism, would have been the Minor of it. And it consists of two Categories; First, That the Papist is now become odious. Secondly, That the Papist delivered us the first news of Christianity. The first of these you little heed: the second you deny. That the Papist say you, or Roman Catholic first brought Christ and his Christianity into this Land, is most untrue: I wonder, &c. And your reason is, because if any Romans came hither, they were not Papists, and indeed our Christianity came from the East. And this is all you say to my Hypothetic, or conditional ⟨p. 316⟩ratiocination, as if I had said nothing at all, but that one absolute Category, which being delivered before, I now only suppose. You use to call me a Civil Logician; but I fear a natural one as you are, will hardly be able to justify this notion of yours as artificial. A Conditional hath a verity of its own, so far differing from the supposed Category, that this being false, that may yet be true. For example, if I should say thus, A man who hath wings as an Eagle, or if a man had wings of an Eagle, he might fly in the air as well as another Bird; and such an Assertion is not to be confuted by proving that a man hath not the wings of an Eagle.