ENTITLED FIAT LUX, 87
cljiircli among themselves, as bishops after them have also, yet this doth not denominate the government of the church aristocratical, no more than the equality of the lords in parliament can denominate the government of this kingdom to be so. The denomination of any rule is from him or them in whom the sovereignty doth reside, not from any subordinate rulers. So is the rule of the church mon- archical. The subversion of this episcopacy, we acknowledge, subverts the whole polity of the church, and so all her laws and rule ; with the guilt whereof Protestants charge the Eomanists. He adds, " It will not suffice to say that the church is still under its head, Christ, who, being in heaven, hath his spiritual influences over it." It will not indeed ; but yet we suppose that his presence with it by his Spirit and laws will suffice ? Why should it not ? " Because the true church of Christ must have the very same liead she had at first, or else she cannot be the same body." Very good, and so she hath; the very same Christ that was crucified for her, and not another. " But that head was man-God, personally present in both his natures here on earth." But is he not, I pray, the same man-God still ? the same Christ, though the manner of his presence be altered ? This is strange, that, being the same as he was, and being present still, one circumstance of the manner of his presence should hinder him from being the same head. I cannot understand the logic, reason, nor policy of this inference. Suppose we should on these trifling instances exclude Jesus Christ, " who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," from being the same head of his church as he was, will the pope supply his room ? Is he the same head that Christ was ? Is he God-man bodily present? or what would you have us to conclude? " A visible head or bishop if the church hath not now over her, as at first she had, she is not the same she was; and, consequently, in the way to ruin." This, too, much alters the question : at first it was, tha,t she must have the same head she had at first, or she is not the same ; now, that she must have another head that is not the same, or she is not the same, for the pope is not Jesus Christ. These arguings hang together like a rope of sand ; and what is built on this foundation (which, indeed, is so weak that I am ashamed farther to contend with it) will of its own accord fall to the ground.
CHAPTER X.
Scripture, and new principles.
The next paragraph, p. 182, is a naughty one. A business it is spent in and about that I have now often advised our author to
88 ANIMADVERSIONS ON A TREATISE
meddle with no more. If he will not for the future take advice^ I cannot help it; I have showed my good-will towards him. It is his debasing of the Scripture and its authority which I intend. This, with the intcrtexture of some other gentle suppositions, is the subject of this and the following section. And, because I will not tire myself and reader in tracing what seems of concernment in this discourse, backward and forward, up and down, as it is by him dispersed and disposed to his best advantage in dealing with unwafy men, I shall draw out the principles of it ; that he may know them wherever he meets them, though never so much masked and disguised, or never so lightly touched on; and also what judgment to pass upon them. Their foundation being so taken away, these sections, if I mistake not, Avill sink of themselves.
Some of these principles are coincident with those general ones insisted on in the entrance of our discourse; others of them are pe- culiar to the design of these paragraphs. The first I shall only point unto, the latter briefly discuss: —
1. It is sujjposed, in the whole discourse of these sections, that from the Roman church, so stated as now it is, or from the pope, we here in England fixst received the gospel, which is the Romanists' own religion, and theirs, by donation from them, whom they have here pleased to accommodate with it. This animates the whole, and is, besides, the special life of almost every sentence. A lifeless life ! for that there is not a syllable of truth in it hath been declared before ; nor, were it so that by the ministry of the Roman church of old the faith was first planted in these nations, would that one inch promote our author's pretensions, unless he could prove that they did not afterward lose, or corrupt at least, that which they communicated unto us; which he knows to be the thing in question, and not to be granted upon request, though made in never so handsome words. To say, then, " The gospel is the Romanists' own religion, from them you had it ; you contend about that which is none of your own ; hear them whose it is, from whom you had it, who have the precedency before you," is but to set up scarecrows to fright fools and children. Men who have any understanding of things past know that all this bluster and noise comes from emptiness of any solid matter or sub- stance to be vised in the case.