ENTITLED FIAT LUX. 81
aud where it is found contradictory of it, her authority is of no value at all, it being annexed unto her attendance on that rule. But it may be replied, that " the cluuxh in the days of the apostles was not yet settled, nor made firm enough to bear the weight that now may be laid upon it, as our author affirms, p. 1 4.9 ; so that now the great resolve of all doubts must be immediately upon the authority of the present church : after that was once well cleared, the fathers of old pleaded that only in this case, and removed the objections of the Jews by that alone." I am persuaded, though our author be a great admirer of the present church, he is not such a stranger to an- tiquity as to believe any such thing. Is the authority of the church pleaded by Justin Martyr, in that famous dispute with Trypho the Jew, wherein these very ol^ections instanced by our author are tho- roughly canvassed ? Doth he not throughout his whole disputation prove out of the Scriptures, and them alone, that Jesus was the Christ, and his doctrine agTeeable unto them ? Is any such thing pleaded by Origen, Tertullian, Chrysostom, or any one that had to deal with the Jews? Do they not wholly persist in the way traced for them by Paul, Peter, and Apollos, mightily convincing the Jews out of Scripture? Let him consult their answers; he will not find them such poor, empty, jejune discourses as that he supposes they might make use of, p. 148; and to the proofs whereof, by texts of Scripture, he says the rabbis could answer by another interpretation of them. He will find another spirit breathing in their writings, another effi- cacy in their arguments, and other evidence in their testimonies, than it seems he is acquainted with, and such as all the rabbis in the world are not able to withstand. And I know full well that these insinuations, that Christians are not able justifiably to convince, con- fute, and stop the mouths of Jews from the Scripture, would have been abhorred as the highest piece of blasphemy by the whole ancient church of Christ; and it is meet it should be so still by all Christians.
Is there no way left to deny pretences of light and spirit but by proclaiming, to the great scandal of Christianity, that we cannot answer the exceptions of Jews unto the person and doctrine of our Saviom- out of the Scriptures? And hath Eome need of these bold saUies against the vitals of religion? Is she no other way capable of a defence? Better she perished ten thousand times than that any such reproach shoidd be justly cast on the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel. But whatever our author thinks of himself, I have very good ground to conjecture that he hath very little acquaintance with Judaical an- tiquity, learning, or arguments, nor very much with the Scripture; and may possibly deserve on that account some excuse, if he thought those exceptions insoluble which more learned men than himself know how to answer and remove without any considerable trouble.
VOL. XIV. " 6
82 ANIMADVERSIONS ON A TREATISE
This difficulty was fixed on by our author, that upon it there might be stated a certain retreat and assured way of establishment against all of the like nature. This he assigns to be the authority of the present church ; Protestants, the Scripture, — wherein, as to the in- stance chosen out as most pressing, we have the concurrent suffrage of Christ, his apostles, and all the ancient Christians : so that we need not any farther to consider the pretended pleas of light and spirit which he hath made use of, as the orator desired his dialogist would have insisted on the stories of Cerberus and Cocytus, that he might have showed his skill and activity in their confutation. For what he beos in the way, as to the constitution of St Peter and his successors in. the rule of the church, as he produceth no other proof for it but that doughty one, that it must needs be so; so, if it were granted him, he may easily perceive, by the instance of the Judaical church, that himself thought good to insist upon, that it will not avail him in his plea against the final resolution of our faith into the Scripture, as its senses are proposed by the ministry of the church, and ration- ally conceived or understood.
CHAPTER IX.
Protestant Pleas.
His sect, xiii., p. 155, entitled, ''Independent and Presbyterians' Pleas," is a merry one. The whole design of it seems to be, to make himself and others sport with the miscarriages of men in and about religion. Whether it be a good work or no, that day that is coming will discover. The Independents he divides into two parts, — Quakers and Anabaptists. Quakers he begins withal, and longer insists upon ; being, as he saith, well read in their books, and acquainted with their persons. Some commendation he gives them, so far as it may serve to the disparagement of others, and then falls into a fit of quaking, so expressly imitating them in their discourses, that I fear he will confirm some in their surmises, that such as he both set them on work and afterward assisted them in it. For my part, having un- dertaken only the defence of Protestancy and Protestants, I am alto- gether unconcerned in the entertainment he hath provided for his readers in this personating of a Quaker; which he hath better done, and kept a better decorum in, than in his personating of a Protest- ant,— a thmg, in the beginning of his discourse, he pretended unto. The Anabaptists, as far as I can perceive, he had not meddled with, unless it had been to get an advantage of venting his petty answer