A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

But that you may not complain any more, I shall make some addition of the proofs you require by way of supererogation, when we have considered your vindication of your former Arguments, for the confirmation of this Assertion, wherewith you closed your Discourse in your Fiat Lux. This you thus propose again, The Roman was once a true flourishing Church, and if she ever fell, she must fall either by Apostasy, Heresy, or Schism. So you now mince the matter; in your Fiat it was a most pure flourishing and Mother Church; and you know there are many that yet acknowledge her a true Church, as a thief is a true man; who will ⟨p. 50⟩not acknowledge her to be a pure Church, much less most pure. God be merciful to poor worms, this boasting doth not become us; it is not unlike hers who cried, Is it as a Queen and shall see no sorrow; I wish you begin to be sensible and ashamed of it: But yet I fear it is otherwise; for whereas in your Fiat you had proclaimed your Roman Church and Party, to be absolutely innocent and unblameable, you tell us pag. 10. of your Epistle, that you can make it appear that it is far more innocent and amiable than you have made it; more than absolutely innocent it seems, a note so high that it sounds harshly. And whereas we shall manifest your Church to have lost her native beauty, we know that no painting of her, which is all you can do, will render her truly amiable unto a spiritual eye: She hath too often defiled her self, to pretend now to be lovely. But to this you say I reply, The Church that then was in the Apostles time was indeed true, not the Roman Church that now is; and add, So, so, then I say that former true Church must fall sometime or other, when did she fall, and how did the shall by Apostasy, Heresy, or Schism. Sir, you very lamely represent my Answer, that you might seem to say something unto it, when indeed you say nothing at all. I discover unto you the equivocation you use in that expression, the Church of Rome, and show you that the thing now so called by you, had neither being nor name, neither essence nor affection in the days of old; its very being is but the terminus as quem, of a Churches fall.

But that you may not complain any more, I shall make some addition of the proofs you require by way of supererrogation, when we have considered your vindication of your former Arguments, for the confirmation of this Assertion, wherewith you closed your Discourse in your Fiat Lux. This you thus propose again, The Roman was once a true flourishing Church, and if she ever fell, she must fall either by Apostasie, Heresie, or Schisme. So you now mince the matter; in your Fiat it was a most pure flourishing and Mother Church; and you know there are many that yet acknowledge her a true Church, as a theif is a true man; who will