PREFACE TO THE REPLY CONSIDERED. 189
the world is of, nor will be, do what you can. But the insufficiency of your principles and arguments to accomplish your design hath been in part already evinced, and shall, God willing, in our progress bo farther made manifest. This is the sum of what appears in tlie first part of your prefatory discourse concerning my mistake of your design; which, how little it hath tended unto your advantage, I hope you begin to understand.
Your next labour consists in a pacific, charitable inquiry after the ai.ithor of the " Animadversions," with an endeavour, by I know not how many reasons, to confirm your surmise that he is a person that had an interest in the late troubles in the nation, or, as you phrase it, was " a part of that dismal tempest which overbore all before it, not only church and state, but reason, right, honesty, all true religion, and even good nature too." See what despair of managing an un- dertaking which cannot be well deserted will drive men unto ! Are you not sensible that you cry,
-^ " Vos 0 milii raancs
Este boni, quoniam superis aversa volimtas '" Virg. jFuVl. xii. 646.
or like the Jews, who, when they were convinced of their errors and wickedness by om- Saviour, began to call him "Samaritan" and "devil," and to take up stones to cast at him ? or as Crescens the Cynic dealt with Justin Martyr, whom because he could not answer, after he had engaged in a dispute with him, he laboured to bring him into susj)icion with the emperor and senate of Rome as a person dangerous to the commonwealth ? And so also the Arians dealt with Athan- asius. It were easy to manifest that the spring of all this discourse of yours is smart, and not loyalty, and that it proceeds from a sense of your own disappointment, and not zeal for the welfare of others ; but how little it is to your purpose I shall show you anon, and could quickly render it as little to your advantage. For what if I should surmise that you were one of the friars that stirred up the Irish to their rebellion and unparalleled murders? Assure yourself I can quickly give as many and as probable reasons for my so doing as you have given, or can give, for your conjecture about the author of the " Animadversions" on your " Fiat Lux." You little think how much it concerns him to look to himself who undertakes to accuse another; and how easy it were to make you repent your accusation, as much as ever Crassus did his accusing of Carbo. But I was in good hope you would have left such reflections as are capable of so easy a retortion upon yourself, especially being irregular and no way subservient unto your design, and being warned beforehand so to do. Who could imagine that a man of so much piety and morti- fication, as in your " Fiat" you profess yourself to be, should have so little regard unto common honesty and civility? which are shrewdly
190 A. VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
iutrencTied upon by such uncharitable surmises. I suppose you know that the apostle reckons I'xowiac, -Trovripag, whereof you have under- taken the management of one, amongst the things that are contrary to the doctrine that is according unto godliness; otherwise suspicion is in your own power, nor can any man hinder you from surmising what you please. This he knew in Plautus Avho cried, — " Xe admittam culpam ego meo sum promus pectori,
Suspicio est in pectore alieno sita.
Nam nunc ego te si surripuisse suspicer,
Jovi corouam de capite e Capitolio,
Quod in culmine astat summo, si non id feceris,
Atque id tanien milii lubeat suspicarier,
Qui tu id pi'ohibere me potes ne suspicer?" Plaut. Trin. i. 1
And I know that, concerning all your dispute and arguings in these pages, you may say what Lucian doth about his "true story:" iyd(pu roii/uv Tspi &v ixyit" ilhov, iir]r sTaDov, iJ,r]ri 'xap' ciXXuv iiru&oij.YiV — "You write about the things which you have neither seen nor suffered, heard nor much inquired after," Luc. Ver. Hist. i. 4. Such is the force of faction, and sweetness of revenge in carnal minds To deliver you, if it may be, from the like miscarriages for the future, let me inform 3'ou that the author of the " Animadversions" is a person who never had a hand in, nor gave consent unto, the raising of any war in these nations, nor unto any political alteration in them, — no, not to any one that was amono'st us durinsf our revolutions; but he acknoAvledgeth that he lived and acted under them the things wherein he thought his duty consisted, and challengeth all men to charge him with domg the least personal injury unto any, professing himself ready to give satis- ftxction to any one that can justly claim it. Therefore, as unto the public affairs in this nation, he is amongst them who bless God and the king for the act of oblivion ; and that because he supposeth that all the inhabitants of the kingdom which lived in it when his ma- jesty was driven out of it have cause so to do: which some priests and friars have, and that in reference unto such actings as he would scorn, for the saving of his life, to give the least countenance unto; among whom it is not unlikely that you might be one, — which yet he will not aver, nor give reasons to prove it, because he doth not know it so to be. But you have sundry reasons to justify yourself in your charge, and they are as well worthy our consideration as any thing else you have written in your epistle; and shall therefore not be ne- glected. The first of them you thus express, p. 1 2, " You cannot abide to hear of moderation ; it is with you most wicked, hypocritical, and devilish, especially as it comes from me; for this one thing ' Fiat Lux' suffers more from you than for all the contents of the book put together. My reason is your passion; my moderation inflames your wrath : and you are therefore stark wild because I