A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

You proceed and say, that I tell you that the story of Fugatius and Damianus Missioners of Pope Eleutherius, is suspected by me for many reasons, and reply, because you assign none, I am therefore moved to think they may be all reduced unto one, which is that you will not acknowledge any good thing ever to have come from Rome. But see what it is for a man to give himself up unto vain surmises. You know full well, that I plead, that you are no way concerned in what was done at Rome in the days of Eleutherius, who was neither Pope nor Papist, nor knew any thing of that which we reject as Popery, so that I had no reason to disclaim or deny any good thing that was then done at Rome, or by any from thence. Besides, I can assure you, that to this day I would willingly own, embrace, and rejoice in any good that is, or may be done there; may I be truly and impartially informed of it; and should be glad to hear of more then unprejudiced men have been able of late Ages to inform us of. I am far from making an enclosure of all goodness unto any party of men in the world, and far from judging or condemning all, of any party, or supposing that no good thing can be done by them or proceed from them. Such conceits are apt to flow from the high towering thoughts of Infallibility and supremacy, and the confining of Christianity to some certain company of men, in some parts of the world, which I am a stranger unto, I know no ⟨p. 427⟩party among Christians that is in all things to be admired, nor any that is in all things to be condemned; and can perfectly free you, if you are capable of satisfaction, from all fears of my dislike of any thing, because it came, or comes from Rome. For to me it is all one, from whence Truth and Virtue come. They shall be welcome for their own sakes. But you seem to be guided in these and the like surmises by your own humour, Principles and way of managing things in Religion; a Lesbian Rule, which will suffer you to depart from the Paths of Truth and Charity, no oftener then you have a mind so to do. To deliver you from your mistake in this particular, I shall now give you some of those reasons, which beget in me a suspicion concerning the Truth of that story about Fagatius and Damianus, as it is commonly told, only intimating the heads of them with all possible brevity.

You proceed and say, that I tell you that the story of Fugatius and Damianus Missioners of Pope Eleutherius, is suspected by me for many reasons, and reply, because you assign none, I am therefore moved to think they may be all reduced unto one, which is that you will not acknowledge any good thing ever to have come from Rome. But see what it is for a man to give himself up unto vain surmizes. You know full well, that I plead, that you are no way concerned in what was done at Rome in the dayes of Eleutherius, who was neither Pope nor Papist, nor knew any thing of that which we reject as Popery, so that I had no reason to disclaim or deny any good thing that was then done at Rome, or by any from thence. Besides, I can assure you, that to this day I would willingly own, embrace, and rejoyce in any good that is, or may be done there; may I be truly and impartially informed of it; and should be glad to hear of more then unprejudiced men have been able of late Ages to inform us of. I am far from making an enclosure of all goodness unto any party of men in the world, and far from judging or condemning all, of any party, or supposing that no good thing can be done by them or proceed from them. Such conceits are apt to flow from the high towring thoughts of Infallibility and supremacy, and the confining of Christianity to some certain company of men, in some parts of the world, which I am a stranger unto, I know no