MERIT OF GOOD WORKS. 199
they are, yet neither we nor they could be contented to liave our ministers ignorant, so that they might be in veneration for that office's sake which they are no way able to discharge. And as to what you affirm concerning England, and our usage here, in the close -of your discourse, it is so utterly devoid of tmth and honesty, that I can- not but wonder at your open regard lessness of them. Should you have written these things in Spain or Italy (where you have made pictures of Catholics put in bears' skins and torn with dogs in Eng- land, Eccles. Ang. Troph.) concerning England, and the ma,nners of the inhabitants thereof, you might have hoped to have met with some so partially addicted unto your faction and interest as to sup- pose there were some colour of truth in what you aver ; but to write these things here amongst us, in the face of the sun, where every one that casts an eye upon them will detest your confidence, and laugh at your folly, is a course of proceeding not easy to be paralleled.
I shall not insist on the particulars, there being not one word of truth in the whole, but leave you to the discipline of your own
thoughts, —
" Occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum." — Juy. xiii. 196.
And so I have done with your prefatory discourse, wherein you have made it appear with what reverence of God and love to the truth you are conversant in the great concernments of the souls of men. What, in particular, you except against in the " Animadversions," I shall now proceed to the consideration of.
CHAPTER II.
Vindication of the first chapter of the " Animadversions" — The method of " Fiat Liix" — Romanists' doctrine of the merit of good worlcs.
In your exceptions to the first chapter of the " Animadversions," p. 20, I wish I could find any thing agreeable unto truth, according unto your own principles. It was ever granted that •roXAa -xj/suSoiz-a/ doidol- but always to fail and feign at pleasure was never allowed so much as to poets. Men may oftentimes utter many things untrue, wherein yet some principles, which they are persuaded to be agree- able unto truth, or some more general mistakes, from whence their particular assertions proceed, may countenance their consciences from a sense of guilt, and some way shield their reputation from the sharp- ness of censure; but willingly and often for a man practically to offend in this kind, when his mind and understanding is not imposed
200 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
wpon by any previous mistakes, is a miscarriage which I do not yet perceive that the subtilest of your casuists have found out an excuse for. Two exceptions you lay against this chapter, — in the first whereof, by not speaking the whole truth, you render the whole un- truth ; and, in the latter, you plainly affirm that which your eyes told you to be otherwise. First, you say, I proposed a dilemma unto you for saying you had concealed your method ; when what I spake unto you was upon your saying, first that you had used no method, and after- ward that you had concealed your method; as you also in your next words here confess. Now, both these being impossible, and severally spoken by you, only to serve a present turn, your sorry merriment about the scholar and his eggs will not free yourself from being very ridiculous. Certainly this using no method, and yet at the same time concealing your method, is part of that civil logic you have learned, no man knows where. You had far better hide your weak- nesses under a universal silence, as you do to the most of them, than expose them afresh unto public contempt, trimmed up with froth and trifles. But this is but one of the least of your -escapes. You proceed to downright work in your following words : " Going on, you deny " (say you) " that Protestants ever opposed the merit of good works: which at first I wondered at, seeing the sound of it hath rung so often in my own ears, and so many hundred books written in this last age so apparently witness it in all places, till I found afterward, in my thorough perusal of your book, that you neither heed what you say nor how much you deny; at last, giving a distinction of the intrinsic acceptability of our works, the easier to silence me, you say as I sa}^" Could any man, not acquainted with you, ever imagine but that I had denied that ever Protestants opposed the merit of good works? You positively affirm I did so; you pretend to transcribe my own words; you wonder why I should say so; you produce testimony to disprove what I say : and yet all this while you know well enough that I never said so. Have a little more care, if not of your conscience, yet of your reputation; for, seriously, if you proceed in this manner, you will lose the common privilege of being believed when you speak truth. Your words in your ''Fiat Lux," p. 15, second edition, are, that " Our ministers cull out various texts" (out of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans) " against the Christian doctrine of good works and their merit:" wherein you plainly distinguish between the Christian doc- trine of good works and their merit; as well you may. I tell you, pp. 25, 26/ that no Protestant ever opposed the Christian doctrine of good works. Here you repeat my words, as you pretend, and say that I deny " that any Protestant ever opposed the merit of good works;" and fall into a feigned wonderment at me for saying that which you knew well enough I never said : for merit is not the Chris- ' Sec pp. 13, 14 of the present vulume.