A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

not by Idolatry as formerly, but by corruption of life, unbelief, and rejecting the Word of God for superstitious traditions, until it became a den of Thieves. You see then there are other ways of a Churches falling from its pristine purity, than those by you insisted on. And if you shall enquire how it may fall, you must exclude nothing out of your enquiry, whereby it may do so, and whereby some Churches have done so. And if you will have my thoughts in this matter, they are, that the beginning of the fall of your Church and many others, lay in unbelief, corruption of life, conformity to the world, and other sins that were found in the most of its members. And it is a fancy to dream of the purity of a Church, in respect of its outward order, when the power and life of godliness is lost in its members; and a wicked device to suppose a Church may not be separated from Christ by unbelief, whilst it abides in an external profession of the doctrine of faith. Such a Church though it may have a name to live, yet indeed is dead, and dead things are unclean. We speak of its purity and acceptation thereon in the sight of God; neither will men dead in trespasses and sins, be terrible unto ⟨p. 54⟩any, as an Army with banners, unless they are like those in Lucilius, who, Ut pueri infants credunt signa omnia ahena Vivere & esse homines; sic isti omnia ficta Vera putant; credunt signis cor inesse ahenis. as Lactantius reports him. But you say. If they fall by Idolatry and yet keep any parts of Christianity, they fall by Heresy. But why so? would you had thought it incumbent on you to give a reason of what you say. Are Idolatry and Heresy the same? Tertullian who of all the old Ecclesiastical Writers most enlargeth the bounds of Idolatry, defines it to be omnis circa omne Idolum famulatus & servitus; Any worship or service performed in reference to, or about any Idol. I do not remember that ever I met with your definition of Idolatry in any Author whatever. Bellarmine seems to place it in Creaturum aeque colere ac Deum to worship the creature as much or equally with the Creator: which description of it, though it be vain and groundless, for his aeque is neither in the Scripture nor any approved Author of old required to the constituting of the worship of any creature Idolatrous, yet is not this Heresy neither, but that which differs from it toto genere.

not by Idolatry as formerly, but by corruption of life, unbelief, and rejecting the Word of God for superstitious traditions, untill it became a den of Thieves. You see then there are other wayes of a Churches falling from its pristine purity, than those by you insisted on. And if you shall enquire how it may fall, you must exclude nothing out of your enquiry, whereby it may do so, and whereby some Churches have done so. And if you will have my thoughts in this matter, they are, that the beginning of the fall of your Church and many others, lay in unbelief, corruption of life, conformity to the world, and other sins that were found in the most of its members. And it is a fancy to dream of the purity of a Church, in respect of its outward order, when the power and life of godliness is lost in its members; and a wicked device to suppose a Church may not be separated from Christ by unbelief, whilest it abides in an externall profession of the doctrine of faith. Such a Church though it may have a name to live, yet indeed is dead, and dead things are unclean. We speak of its purity and acceptation thereon in the sight of God; neither will men dead in trespasses and sins, be terrible unto