A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

And what if we had received from you, or by your means, the Religion that is now professed at Rome, I mean the whole of it; yet we might have received that with it, namely the Bible, which would have made it our duty, to examine, try, and reject any thing in it, for which we saw from thence just cause ⟨p. 43⟩so to do; unless we should be condemned for that, for which the Bereans are so highly commended. So that neither is your Position true, nor if it were so would it at all advantage your pretensions.

I add also, Did not the Gospel come from another place to Rome, as well as to us, or, was it first preached there? This you have culled out, as supposing your self able to say something unto it; and what is it? Properly speaking, it came not so to Rome, as it came to us: for one of the twelve fountains, nay two of the thirteen, and those the largest and greatest, were transferred to Rome, which they watered with their blood. We had never any such standing fountain of our Christian Religion here, but only a stream derived unto us from thence. It is the hard hap it seems of England, to claim any privilege or reputation, that may stand in the way of some mens designs. No Apostle, nor Apostolical Person, must be allowed to preach the Gospel unto us, lest we should perk up into competition with Rome. But though Rome it seems must always be excepted, yet I hope you do not in general conclude our condition beneath that of any place, where the Gospel at first was preached, by one or two Apostles, so as to cry, Properly speaking, it came not to us at all. What think you of Jerusalem, where Christ himself and his twelve Apostles all of them preached the Gospel? Or what think you of Capernaum, that was lifted up to Heaven, in the privilege of the means of light granted for a while unto them? Do you think our condition worse than theirs? The two fountains you mention, were opened at Antioch in Syria, as well as at other places, before they conveyed one drop of their treasures to Rome; which whether one of them ever did by his personal presence, ⟨p. 44⟩is very questionable. And by this Rule of yours, though England may not, yet every place where St Peter and St Paul preached the Gospel, may contend with Rome as to this privilege. And what will you then get by your triumphing over us? Non vides id manticae quòd à tergo est: When men are intent upon a supposed advantage, they oftentimes overlook real inconveniences that lye ready to seize upon them, as it befalls you more than once. Besides there is nothing in the world more obscure, than by whom, or by what means the Gospel was first preached at Rome: By St Paul it is certain it was not: for before ever he came thither, there was a great number converted to the faith, as appears from his Epistle, written about the fourteenth year of Claudius, and the fifty third of Christ. Nor yet by Peter;