A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

But whatever you can prove or cannot prove, you have made it very easy for any man to prove, that you have very little regard unto truth and sobriety in what you aver, so that you may acquit your self from that which presseth you, and which according to the rules of them you cannot stand before. You tell us in the entrance of this discourse, that you said, that Prelate Protestants for their own preservation took up some of those Principles again which former Protestants had cast down for Popish. And here expressly, that you said not that they took up the Principles which themselves had cast down, but only those which other before them had so dealt withal. Now pray take a view of your own words, whereby ⟨p. 373⟩you express your self in this matter. Chap. 3. S. 14. p. 189. ed. 2. Are they not these? The Prelate Protestant to defend himself against them (the Presbyterians and Independents) is forced to make use of those very Principles, which himself afore time (not other Protestants but himself) when he (not others) first contended against Popery, destroyed. So that upon him falls most heavily even like Thunder and Lightning from Heaven, utterly to kill and cut him a sunder, that great Oracle delivered by St. Paul, If I build up again the things, I (not another) formerly destroyed, I make my self a prevaricator, an Impostor, a Reprobate. What think you of these words? do you charge the Prelate Protestant with building up what others had pulled down, or what he had destroyed himself? Is your Rule out of St. Paul applicable unto him upon any other account, but that he himself was both the builder and destroyer? Sir, such miscarriages as these Protestants know to be mortal sins; and if without contrition for them you have celebrated any Sacrament of your Church, it cannot be avoided but that you have brought a great inconvenience on some of your Disciples. Besides suppose you had spoken as you now feign your self to have done, I desire to know who they are whom you intend when you say our Prelate Protestants so soon as they became such, as though they were first Protestants at large and destroyed those Principles, which afterwards they built up when they became Prelate Protestants; seeing all men know that our Reformation was begun by Prelates themselves, and such as never disclaimed the Principles by you instanced in.

But whatever you can prove or cannot prove, you have made it very easie for any man to prove, that you have very little regard unto truth and sobriety in what you aver, so that you may acquit your self from that which presseth you, and which according to the rules of them you cannot stand before. You tell us in the entrance of this discourse, that you said, that Prelate Protestants for their own preservation took up some of those Principles again which former Protestants had cast down for Popish. And here expresly, that you said not that they took up the Principles which themselves had cast down, but only those which other before them had so dealt withall. Now pray take a view of your own words, whereby