A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

that I will laugh at your Observation, that the Tables written by Gods own hand were broken, but those written by Moses remained, that we may learn to give a due respect to him whom God hath set over us. But you do not well to say so; I do not laugh at your observation, but I really pity you that make it. Pray Sir, what were those Tables that were written by Moses, when those written by God were broken? Such mistakes as these you ever and anon fall into, and I fear for want of being conversant in Holy Writ, which it seems your Principles prompt you unto a neglect of. Sir, the Tables prepared by Moses were no less written with the finger of God, then those were which he first prepared himself: Exod. 24. 28. Deut. 10. 1, 2, 4. And if you had laid a good ground for your notion, that the Tables prepared by God were broken, and those hewed by Moses preserved: and would have only added what you ought to have done, that there was nothing in the Tables delivered unto the people by Moses, but what was written by the finger of God, I should have commended both it, and the inference you make from it. As it is built by you on the sand, it would fall with its own weight, were it no heavier then a feather. But you lay great stress I suppose on that which follows: namely, that the Britons being expelled by the Saxons, the Saxons first received their Christianity from Rome. You may remember what hath been ⟨p. 326⟩told you already in answer to this Case, about Romes being left without inhabitants by Totilas. Besides if we that are now Inhabitants of England must be thought to have first received the Gospel then when it was first preached unto our own Progenitors in a direct line ascending, this will be found a matter so dubious and uncertain, as not possibly to be a thing of any concernment in Christian Religion; and moreover will exempt most of the chief families of England from your enclosure, seeing one way or other they derive themselves from the Ancient Britons. Such pitiful trifles are you forced to make use of, to give countenance unto your cause. But let it be granted that Christianity was first communicated unto the Saxons from Rome in the days of Pope Gregory, which yet indeed is not true neither:

that I will laugh at your Observation, that the Tables written by Gods own hand were broken, but those written by Moses remained, that we may learn to give a due respect to him whom God hath set over us. But you do not well to say so; I do not laugh at your observation, but I really pitty you that make it. Pray Sir, what were those Tables that were written by Moses, when those written by God were broken? Such mistakes as these you ever and anon fall into, and I fear for want of being conversant in Holy Writ, which it seems your Principles prompt you unto a neglect of. Sir, the Tables prepared by Moses were no less written with the finger of God, then those were which he first prepared himself: Exod. 24. 28.