SCHOOLMEN FORGERS OF POPERY. 323
cedure being Intended for the satisfaction of yourself and such others as have imbibed the prejudices which you endeavour to forestall your minds withal, and thereby have given no small impeachment unto your judgment and ingenuity.
CHAPTER XL
Judicious readers — Schoolmen the forgers of Popery — Nature of the discourse in
" Fiat Lux."
Your ensuing discourses are such as might well be passed by, as containing nothing serious or worth a review. " An passim sequerer corvum ?"
Ludicrous similitudes, with trifling exceptions to some words in the " Animadversions," cut off from that coherence wherein they are placed, are the chief ingredients of it. With these you aim, with your wonted success, to make sport: —
" Vcnite in ignem
Pleni ruris ct inficetiarum Annales Volusi."
I wish we had agxeed beforehand,
" Ut faceres tu quod velles; nee non ego possem, Indulgcre mihi,"
that I might have been freed from the consideration of such trifles: as the case stands, I shall make my passage through them with what speed I can.
First, You except against the close of the consideration of your principles, namely, " That I would do so to my book also, if I had none to deal with but ingenuous and judicious readers;" and tell me, " that it seems what follows is for readers neither judicious nor ingenuous." But why so, I pray? That which is written for the information of them who want either judgment or ingenuity, may be also -written for their use who have both. Neither did I speak abso- lutely of them that were ingenuous and judicious, but added also, that they were such as had an acquaintance with the state of reli- gion of old and at this day in Europe, with the concernment of their own souls in these things. With such as these, I supposed then, and do still, that a discovery of the sophistry of your discourse, and the falseness of the principles you proceeded on, was sufficient to give them satisfaction as to the usefulness of the whole, without a parti- cular ventilating of the flourishes that you made upon your sandy
S24< A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
foundations. But because I know there were some that might, by the commendation of your friends, light upon your discourse, that either, being prepossessed by prejudices, might want the ingenuity to examine particularly your assertions and inferences, or, through uu- acquaintedness with the stories of some things that you referred unto, might be disenabled to make a right judgment of what you averred, I was willing to take some farther pains also for your satisfaction; and Avhat was herein done or spoken amiss, as yet I cannot discern. But I am persuaded that if you had not supposed that you had some of little judgment and less ingenuity to give satisfaction unto, you Avould never have pleased yourself with the writing of such empty trifles in a business wherein you pretend so great a concernment.
Page 31. You observe that I say, " The schoolmen were the ham- merers and forgers of Popery;" and add, "Alas, sir, I see that anger spoils your memory: for in the- 11th and 12th chapters you make Popery to be hammered and forged not a few hundreds of years be- fore any schoolmen were extant; and therefore tell me that I hate the schoolmen as the Frenchmen do Talbot, for having been frightened with them formerly, —
' Sed risu inepto res ineptior nulla est.' "
I confess the language of your schoolmen is so corrupt and bar- barous,— many of the things they sweat about so vain, curious, un- profitable,— their way of handling things, and expressing the notions of their minds, so perplexed, dark, obscure, and oftentimes unintelli- gible,— divers of their assertions and suppositions so horrid and mon- strous,— the whole system of their pretended divinity so alien and foreign unto the mystery of the gospel, — that I know no great reason that any man hath much to deliglit in them. These things have made them the sport and scorn of the learn edest men that ever lived in the communion of your own church. What one said of old of others may be well ajoplied unto them: —
" Statum lacessunt omnipotentis Dei
Calumniosis litibus. I'idem minutis dissecant ambagibus
Ut quisque est lingua ncquior. Solvunt ligantque qua3stionuiu viucula
Per Syllogismos plectilcs."
Indeed, to see them come forth harnessed with syllogisms and so- phisms; attended with ohs and sols; speaking part the language of the Jews, and part the language of Ashdod ; fighting and contending among themselves as if they had sprung from the teetli of Cadmus' serpent; subjecting all the properties, decrees, and actions of the holy God to their profane babblings, — might perhaps beget some fear
SCHOOLMEN FORGERS OF POPERY. 825
in the minds of men not nuicli guilty of want of constancy, as the sight of the harpies did of old to ^neas and his companions, of whom they gave that account, —
" Ti'istius hand illis monstrura, nee s^vioi' iiUa Pestis et ira Deum St_ygiis sese extulit undis. Yidimus, et subita gelidus formidine sanguis Dirigiiit; cecidere aniiui." Virg. ^En. iii. 214, 2-59.
But the truth is, there is no real cause of fear of them: they are not like to do mischief to any, unless they are resolved aforehand to give up their faith in the things of God to the authority of this or that philosopher, and forego all solid, rational consideration of tilings, to betake themselves to sophistical canting, and the winding up of sub- tilty into plain nonsense, — which oftentimes befalls the best of them ; whence Melchior Canus, one of yourselves, says of some of your learned disputes, " Puderet me dicere non intelligere, si ipsi intelli- gerent qui tractarunt;" — " I should be ashamed to say I did not un- derstand them, but that they understood not themselves." Others may be entangled by them, who, if they cannot untie your knots, may break your webs, especially when they find the conclusions, as oftentimes they are, directly contrary to Scripture, right reason, and natural sense itself For they are the genuine offspring of the old sophisters whom Lucian talks of in his " Menippus,"' or Ngxyo/^ai/- Tiia, and tells us that, in hearing the disputations. To 'xavTuv Bsivuv droTurarov, on ffs^/ ruv svavrturdruv sKaffTog avruv XsyuVj (!<p6dpa vixuvrag xal ■Tri&avoug Xoyoug S'TropiZ^sro, cuars /jb'/}TS rw ^sp/Mjv to avro 'TTpdy/JM X'syovri, /M/jTS rip '^v^pov, dvrrKiyiiv lyji^^ 'A.a.i ravra, sidora Crc^wj wj oux dv Tors 3s^/xo'i/ ri iiri -/.ai -^uyjov h ravrui ypovM' — " That," saitll he, " which seemed the most absurd of all was, that when they disputed of things absolutely contrary, they yet Ijrought invincible and persuasive rea- sons to prove what they said ; so that I durst not speak a word against him that affirmed hot and cold to be the same, although I knew well enough that the same thing could not be hot and cold at the same time." And therefore he tells us, that in hearing of them he did, like a man half asleep, sometimes nod one way and sometimes an- other ; which is certainly the deportment of the generality of them who are conversant in the wrangles of your schoolmen. But what- ever I said of them or your church is perfectly consistent with itself and the truth. I grant that before the schoolmen set forth in the world, many unsound opinions were broached in, and many supersti- tious pi'actices admitted into your church, and a great pretence raised unto a superintendency over other churches; which were parts of that mass out of which your Popery is formed : but before the schoolmen took it in hand, it was " rudis indigestaque moles," — a heap, not a house. As Rabbi Juda Hakkadosh gathered the passant traditions