' ENTITLED FIAT LUX. 165
many of them, present themselves to the thoughts of men, and a tre- mor comes over their hearts to hear men open their mouths with such blasphemies as to affirm that the Lord Christ did as much manifest his divinity and power in such beasts as in his own person. Yea, that he is " more miraculous in him than he was in himself." What proof, sir, is there of this? where is the Scripture, where the anti- quity, where the reason for it? We tell you truly, we cannot believe such monstrous figments upon their bare affirmation. Yea, but this is not all: "Christ is beholding to him for all the faith of his deity that is in the world." Why so ? " Why, by the ' only authority of his place and person he defended it.' " When? " When it was opposed by the Arians," and he called his Council of Nice, where he con- demned them. Who would not be sick of such trifles? Is it pos- sible that any man in his right wits should talk at such a rate? Consult the writings of those days, of Alexander of Alexandria, of Athanasius, Gregory, Basil, Chrysostom, Austin, whom not ? — go over the volumes of the councils of those days: if he can once find the authority of the pope of Rome and his person pleaded as the pillar of the faith of Christ's deity, or as any argument for the proof of it, let him triumph in his discovery. Vain man, that dares to make these flourishes, when he knows how those ancient Christian heroes of those days mightily proved the deity of Christ from the Scrip- tures, and confounded their adversaries with their testimonies, both in their councils, disputes, and writings, which remain to this day! Was not the Scripture accounted and pleaded by them all as the bulwark of this truth ? And did not some of them, — Athanasius for instance, — do and suffer for the maintaining of it more than all the bishops of Rome in those days or since? And what a trifling is it to tell us of the pope's council at Nice ! — as though we did not know who called that council, who presided in it, who bare the weight of the business of it, of whom none were popes, nor any sent by popes; nay, as if we did not know that there was then no such pope in the world as he about whom we contend. Indeed, it is not candid and ingenuous for a man to talk of these things in this manner. The like must be said of the first six councils mentioned by him ; in some of which the power of the bishop of Rome was expressly limited, as in that of Nice and that of Chalcedon, and in the others. Though he was ready enough to pretend to more, yet he had no more power than the bishops of other cities that had a mind to be called patriarchs. We do not then, as yet, see an}'- reason to change our former thoughts of the pope for any thing here offered by the author; and we cannot but be far enough from taking up his, if they be those which he hath in this discourse expressed, they being all of them erroneous, the most of them blasphemous.
1G6 ANIMADVERSIONS ON A TREATISE
But yet, if we are not pleased with what he is, we may be pleased with what he docs, being so excellent a well-accomplished person as he is ; for he is one that was " never known to let fall a word of pas- sion." That, for casting off his authority, [he] should procure thou- sands to be slain and burned, without stirring up any "engine of revenge," — these are somewhat strange stories. Our author grievously complains of uncivil carriage toward the pope in England, in all sorts, — men, women, and children. For my part, I justify no revil- ing accusation in any, against any whatever ; but yet I must tell him, that if he thinks to reclaim men from their hard thoughts of him (that is, not of the person of this or that pope, but of the office as by them managed), it must not be by telling him he is a fine accom- plished gentleman, — that he is "a prince, a stranger, a great way off, whom it is uncivil and unmannerly to speak so hardly of;" — but labour to show that it is not his principle to impose upon the con- sciences of men his apprehensions in the things of God; that he is not the great proclaimer of many false opinions, heresies, and super- stitions, and that with a pretence of an authority to make them receive them whether they will or no; that he hath not caused many of their forefathers to be burned to death for not submitting to his dictates, nor would do so to them had he them once absolutely in his power; that he hath never given away this kingdom to strangers, and cursed the lawful princes of it ; that he pleads not a sovereignty over them and their governors, inconsistent with the laws of God and the land : " Haec cedo, ut admoveam templis, et farre litabo." ^ For whilst the greatest part of men amongst us do look upon him as the Antichrist foretold in the Scripture, guilty of the blood of innumer- able martyrs and witnesses of the truth of Christ ; others, who think not so hardly of him, yet confess he is so like him, that, by the marks given of Antichrist, he is the likeliest person on the earth to be ap- prehended on suspicion ; — all of thorn think that if he could get them into his power, which he endeavours continually, he would bum them to ashes; and that, in the meantime, he is the corrupt fountain and spring of all the false worship, superstition, and idolatry wherewith the faces of many churches are defiled. To suppose he can persuade them to any better respect of him than they have, l>y telling them how " fine a gallant gentleman" he is, and what a great way off from them, and the like stories, is to suppose that he is to deal with fools and children. For my own part, I approve no man's cursing or reviling of him ; let that work be left to himself alone for me. I