DID THE GOSPEL COME TO BRITAIN FROM ROME? 205
evenly unto it; and to take you off from that vain confidence which this proud opinion of the merit of works is apt to ingenerate in you : whose first inventors, I fear, did not sufficiently consider with whom they had to do ; before whom sinners appearing m their OAvn strength and righteousness will one day cry, " Who amongst us shall dwell with devouring fire? who amongst us shall inhabit with everlasting burnings?" nor the purity, perfection, and severity of his fiery law, judging, condemning, cursing every sinner for every sin, without the least intimation of mercy or compassion. If you would but seriously consider how impossible it is for any man to know all his secret sins, or to make compensation to God for the least of them that he doth know, and that the very best of his works come short of that uni- versal perfection which is required in them, so that he dares not put the issue of his eternal condition upon any one of them singly, though all the rest of his life should be put into everlasting oblivion ; and withal would diligently inquire into the end of God in giving his Son to die for sinners, with the m3^stery of his love and grace therein, the nature of the new covenant, the importance of the promises thereof, the weight that is laid in Scripture on the righteousness and hlood of Christ, with the redemption that is purchased thereby ; or to the whole work of our salvation, and the peremptory exclusion of the merit of our works by Paul from our justification before God ; — I am persuaded you would find another manner of rest and peace unto your soul than all your own works, and your other pretended sup- plements of them, or reliefs against their defects, are able to supply you withal. And this I hope you will not be offended at, that I have thus occasionally minded you o£
CHAPTER III.
A defence of the second chapter of the '• Animadversions" — Principles of " Fiat Lvix" re-examined — Of our receiving the gospel from Rome — Our aliode with them from whom we received it.
In the same page you proceed to the consideration of my second chapter, and therein of the principles which I gathered out of your " Fiat Lux," and which I affirmed to run through and to animate your whole discourse, and to be the foundation on which your super- structure is built. Concerning them all you say, p. 21, " That in the sense the words do either naturally make out, or in which I understand them, of all the whole you can hardly own any one." Pray, sir, remeixiber that I never pretended to set down yonr ivords,
206 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
but to express your sense in my own. And if I do not make it appear that there is no one of the principles mentioned which yon have not, in the sense by me declared, affirmed and asserted, I will be contented to be thought to have done you some wrong, and my- self much more, for want of attending unto that rule of truth which I am compelled so often to desire you to give up yourself unto the conduct of
The first principle imputed unto your " Fiat Lux" is, " that we received the gospel first from Rome." To Avhich you say, " We, that is, we Englishmen, received it first from thence." Well, then, this is one principle of the ten; this you own, and seek to defend. If you do so in reference unto any other, what will become of your " hardly one that you can own?" You have already one foot over the limits which you have newly prescribed yourself, and we shall find you utterly forsaking of them by-and-by. For the present you proceed unto the defence of this principle, and say, " But against this you reply that we received it not first from Rome, but by Joseph of Arimathea from Palestine ; as ' Fiat Lux ' himself acknowledgeth. Sir, if ' Fiat Lux' say both these things, he cannot mean them in your false, contradictory sense, but in his own true one. We, that is we Englishmen, the now actual inhabitants of this land, and ]3rogeny of the Saxons, received first our gospel and Christendom from Rome, though the Britons that inhabited the land before, differing as much from us as antipodes, had some of them been christened long l)efore us; and yet the Christendom that prevailed and lasted among the Britons, even they also, as well as we, had it from Rome too. Mark this likewise." This matter must be called over again afterward ; and therefoi'e I shall here be the more brief upon it. In my first answer, I showed you not only that your position was not true, but also, that on supposition it were so, it would not in, the least advance your intention. Here you acknowledge that the Britons at first received not the gospel from Rome, but reply two things: — First, " That belongs not unto us Englishmen or Saxons." To which I shall now only say, that if, because the Britons have been conquered, we, who are now the inhabitants of Britain, may not be thought to have received the gospel from them from whom the Britons at first received it, seeing it was never utterly extinct in Britain from its first plantation, then much less can the present inhabitants of the city of Rome, which hath been conquered oftener than Britain, be thought to have received the gospel from them by whom it was first delivered unto the old Romans : for though I confess that the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles made great havoc of the ancient Britons in some parts of this island, yet was it not comparable unto that which was made at Rome; which at length Totilas, after it had been taken and sacked