A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

yet when they come to experience themselves its power & efficacy, they believe it for its own sake, as those did also in our Lord Jesus Christ upon his own account; when this is done, they will be enabled to distinguish, as the Prophet speaks, between a dream and a prophecy, between chaff and wheat, between error and Truth. And thus if we should grant that the first News of Christianity was brought into England by Papists, yet it doth not at all follow, that if we reject Popery, we must also reject the Gospel or esteem it a Romance. For if we should have received Popery, we should have received it only upon the credit and Authority of them that brought it: but the Truth of Christianity we should have received on the Authority of the Gospel, which was brought unto us: So that our entertainment of Popery and Christianity standing not on the same bottom or foot of account, we might well reject the one, and retain the ⟨p. 321⟩other. But this consideration as to us, is needless; they were not Papists which brought Christianity first into this Land. Wherefore well knowing that the whole strength of their reasoning depends on the supposition that they were so, you proceed to confirm it in your manner, that is, by saying it over again. But we will hear you speaking your own words.

We had not our Christianity immediately from the East, nor from Joseph of Arimathea, we Englishmen had not. For as he delivered his Christianity unto some Britons, when our Land was not called England but Albion or Brittany, and the inhabitants were not Englishmen but Britons or Kimbrians, so likewise did that Christianity, and the whole news of it quite vanish, being suddenly overwhelmed by the entient deluge of Paganism; nor did it ever come from them to us: nay the Britons themselves had so forgot and lost it, that they also needed a second Conversion, which they received from Pope Eleutherius: And that was the only news of Christianity which prevailed and lasted even amongst the very Britons, which seems to me a great secret of Divine Providence in planting and governing his Church, as if he would have nothing to stand firm and lasting, but what was immediately fixed by, and seated upon that Rock: for all other conversions have variety, and the very seats of the other Apostles failed, that all might the better cement in the unity of one head: Nay the Tables which God wrote with his own hand were broken, but the other written by Moses remained; that we might learn to give a due respect unto him, whom God hath set over us as our Head and Ruler under him, and none exalt himself against him. I know you will laugh at this my Observation: but I cannot but tell you what I think.