S2S A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
hardly be able to justify this notion of yours as artificial. A condi- tional hath a verity of its own, so far differing from the supposed category, that this being false, that may yet be true. For example, if I should say thus, ' A man who hath wings as an eagle, or if a man had the wings of an eagle, he might fly in the air as well as another bird;' and such an assertion is not to be confuted by proving that a man hath not the wings of an eao-le."
The sul)stance of this whole discourse is no more but this, That because the inference upon a supposition may be a consequence logically true, though the supposition be false or feigned, therefore the consequent, or thing inferred, also is really true, and a man must fly in the air, as you say, " like another bird." But, sir, though every consequence be true logically, — that is, lawfully inferred from its premises, be they true or false, and so must in disputation be allowed, — yet, where the consequent is the thing in question, to sup- pose that if the consequence be lawfully educed from the premises, that it also must be true, is a fond surmise. And therefore they know " qui nondum asre laventur," that the way to disappoint the conclusion of an hypothetic syllogism is to disprove the category in- cluded in the supposition, when reduced into an assumption from whence it is to be inferred. For instance, if the thing in question be, Whether a man can fly in the air, as you say, " like another bird," and to prove it, you should say, " If he has wings he can do so ; " the way, I think, to stop your progress is to deny that he hath wings ; and if you should continue to wrangle that your inference is good, " If he hath wings he may fly like another bird," you would but make yourself ridiculous. But if you may be allowed to make false and absurd suppositions, and must have them taken for granted, you are very much to blame if you infer not conclusions unto your own pur- pose. And this in general is your constant way of dealing. Unless we will allow you to suppose yourselves to be the church, and that all the excellent things which are spoken of the church belong unto you alone, with the like groundless presumptions, you are instantly mute, as if there had appeared unto you
" Harpocratcs cligito qui significat St." '
But if, in the case in agitation between us, I should permit you with- out control to make what suppositions you please, and to make inferences from tiiem which must be admitted for truth because logically following upon your suppositions, what man of art I miglit have appeared imto you I know not; I fear with others I should scarcely have preserved the reputation of common sense or under-
' God of silence ; commonly represented with liis finger on Lis moutli, as if Imshing to silence, and .saying " St."— Ej).
V/IIENCE THE GOSPEL CAME TO ENGLAND. 329
standino-. And I must acknowledge unto you that I am ignorant of tliat logic which teacheth men to suffer their adversaries to proceed and infer upon absurdities and false suppositions, to oppose the truth which they maintain. And yet I know well enough what Aristotle hath taught us concerning rh Xaf/^Qdvuv rh sv dpy^ji, xai to dvairiov ue a'lTiov Tidhaf in which part of his logic you seem to have been most conversant.
But let us once again ccmsider your ratiocination as here you endeavour to reinforce it. Your supposition, you say, " includes these two categories, — first. That the Papists are become odious unto us; secondly. That the Papists delivered us the first news of Christianity." Well, both these propositions I deny. Papists are not become odious unto us, though we love not their Popery; Papists did not bring us the first news of Christianity. This I have proved unto you already, and shall yet do it farther Will you now be angry and talk of logic, because I grant not the consec[uent of these false pretensions to be true ? as if every syllogism must of necessity be true materially which is so in form. But yet farther to discover your mistake, I was so willing to hear you out unto the utmost of what you had to say, that in the " Animadversions," after the discovery of the falsity of the assertions that it arose from, I suffered your supposition to pass, and showed you the weakness of your inference upon it. And the reason of my so doing was this, that because though the Papists brought not the gospel first into England, yet I do not judge it impossible but that they may be the means of communicating it unto some other place or people ; and I Avould be loath to grant that they who receive it from them must either always embrace their Popery or renounce the gospel. I confess a great entanglement would be put on the thoughts and minds of such persons by the principle of the infalli- hility of them that sent your teachers ; whereinto it may be also they would labour to resolve your belief. But yet if withal you shall communicate unto them the gospel itself, as the great repository of the mysteries of that religion wherein you instruct them, there is a sufficient foundation laid for their reception of Christianity and the rejection of your Popery; for when once the gospel hath evidenced itself unto their consciences that it is from God, as it will do if it be received unto any benefit or advantage at all, they will or may easily discern that those who brought it unto them w^ere themselves in many things deceived in their apprehensions of the mind of God therein revealed, especially as to your pretence of the infallibility of any man or men, any farther than his conceptions agree with what is revealed in that gospel which they have received, and now for its own sake believe to be from God. And once to imagine that when the Scripture is received b)^ faith, and hath brought the soul into