As I before observed, he that shall but cursorily run through this discourse will quickly find that these false suppositions, ungrounded
4i ANIMADVEESIONS ON A TREATISE
presumptions, and unwarrantable pretensions, are things which are disposed of to be the foundations, nerves, and sinews of all the rhetoric that it is covered and m'ought withal, and that the bare drawing of them out leaves all the remaining flourishes m a more scattered condition than the Sibyl's leaves, which no man can gather up and put together, to make up any significancy at all as to the design in hand. I might, then, well spare all farther labour, and here put a period to my progress; and indeed would do so, were I secure I had none to deal with but ingenuous and judicious readers, that have some tolerable acquaintance at least with the estate of religion of old and at present in Europe, and with the concernment of their own souls in these things. But that no j)retence may be left unto an}^ that we avoided any thing material in our author, having passed through his discourse unto the end of it, I shall once more return to the beginning, and pass through its severals, leaving behind, in the way, such animadversions as are any way needful to rescue such as have not a mind to be deceived, from the snares and cobwebs of his oratory.
CHAPTER III.
]\Iotive, matter, and method of our author's book.
What remains of our author's preface is spent in the pursuit of an easy task, in all the branches of it. To condemn the late mis- carriages in these nations, to decry divisions in religion, with their pernicious consequences, to commend my Lord Chancellor's speech, are things that have little difficulty in them, to exercise the skill of a man pretending so highly as our author doth. He may secure himself that he will find no opposition about these things from any man in his right wits. No other man, certainly, can be so forsaken of religion and humanity as not to deplore the woful undertakings, and more woful issues, of sundry things whereunto the concernments of religion have been pleaded to give countenance. T1ie rancour also of men, and wrath against one another on the same accounts, with the fmits which they bring forth all the world over, are doubtless a burden to the minds of all that love truth and peace. To prevent a returnal to the former, and remove or at least allay the latter, how excellently the speech of that great counsellor, and the things pro- posed in it, are suited, all sober and ingenuous men must needs ac- knowledge. Had this, then, been the whole design of this preface, I had given this book many an amen before I had come to the end.
ENTITLED FIAT LUX. 45
But our author having wholly another mark in his eye, another busi- ness in hand, I should have thought it a little uncivil in him to make my Lord Chancellor's speech seemingly subservient to that which he never intended, never aimed at, which no word or expression in it leads unto, but that I find him afterward so dealing with the words of God himself. His real work in this compass of words is to set up a blind, or give a false alann, to arrest and stay his unwary reader, whilst he prepares him for an entertainment which he thought not of. The pretence he fiourisheth over, both in the preface and sundry other parts of his discourse, is the hatefulness of our animosities in and about religion, their dismal effects, with the necessity and excellency of moderation in things of that nature; the real work in hand is a persuasive unto Popery, and unto that end (not of moderation or forbearance) are all his arguments directed. Should a man go to him and say, "Sir, I have read your learned book, and find that heats and contests about differences in religion are things full of evil, and such as tend unto farther misery; I am therefore resolved quietly to per- sist in the way of Protestancy wherein I am, without ever attempt- ing the least violence against others for their dissent from me, but only with meekness and quietness defend the truth which I profess;" — I presume he will not judge his design half accomplished towards such a man, if at all. Nay, I dare say, with some confidence, that in reference to such a one, he would say to himself, " Operam et oleum perdidi." And therefore doth he Avisely tell us, p. 12, that hh matter is perceived by the prefixed general contents of his chaj)ters. His de- sign, which he calls his method, he confesseth that he doth purposely conceal; but the truth is, it is easily discoverable, there being few pages in the book that do not display it.
The reader, then, must understand that the plain English of all his commendations of moderation, and all his exhortations to a re- linquishment of those false lights and principles which have led men to a disturbance of the public peace, and ensuing calamities, is, that Popery is the only rehgion in the world, and that centring therein is the only means to put an end to our differences, heats, and troubles. Unless this be granted, it will be very hard to find one grain of sin- cerity in the whole discourse ; and if it be, no less difiicult to find so much of truth. So that, whatever may be esteemed suitable to the fancies of any of them whom our author courts in his address, those who know any thing of the holiness of God and the gospel, of that reverence which is due to Christ and his word, and wherewith all the concernments ol religion ought to be managed, will scarcely judge that that blessed Fountain of light and truth will immix his pure beams and blessings with such crafty, v/orldly, sophistical devices, or such frothy ebullitions of wit and fancy, as this discourse is stuffed