844 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
use of against our relinquishment of the opinions and practices of the church of Rome, because we or our forefathers were at any time members thereof, or hved in its communion. But you would have this the special privilege of your church alone. Any other church a man may leave, yea, all other churches besides: he may relinquish the principles wherein he hath been instructed : yea, it is his duty to renounce their communion. Only your church of Rome is wholly sacred; a man that hath once been a member of it must be so for ever; and he that questions any thing taught therein may, on the same grounds, question all the articles of faith in the Christian reli- gion. And who gave you leave to suppose the only thing in question between us, and to use it as a medium to educe your conclusion from? Is it your business to take care,
" Bullatis ut tibi nugis
Pagina turgescat, dare poudus idonea fumo?" Pers. v. 19.
We know the condition of your Roman church to be no other than that of other chiu'ches, if it be not worse than that of any of them. And, therefore, on what terms and reasons soever a man may relin- quish the opinions and renounce the communion of any other church, upon the same may he renounce the communion and relinquish the opinions of yours; and if there be no reasons sufficiently cogent so to deal with any church whatever, I pray on what grounds do you proceed to persuade others to such a course, that they may join with you ?
'• Dicisque facisque qiiod ipse
Non sard esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes." Pers. iii. 117.
To disentangle you out of this labyrinth whereinto you have cast yourself, I shall desire you to observe, that if the Lord Christ by his word be the supreme revealer of all divine truth, and the church (that is, any church whatever) be only the ministerial proposer of it, under and from him, being to be regulated in all its propositions by his revelation ; if it shall chance to propose that for truth which is not by him revealed, — as it may do, seeing it hath no security of being- preserved from such failures, but only in its attendance unto that rule, which it may neglect or corrupt, — a man in such a case cannot discharge his duty to the supreme revealer without dissenting from the ministe7'ial prop)oser. Nay, if it be a truth which is proi^osed, and a man dissent from it because he is not convinced that it is re- vealed, he is in no danger to be induced to question other propositions which he knows to be so revealed, his faith being built upon and resolved into that revelation alone. All that remains of your dis- course lies with its whole weight on this presumption : Because some men may either wilfully prevaricate from the truth, or be mistaken
WHENCE THE GOSPEL CAME TO ENGLAND. 345
in their apprehensions of it, and so dissent from a church that teach- eth the truth, and wherein she so teacheth it, without cause ; therefore no man may or ought to rehnquish the errors of a church, which he is really and truly convinced by Scrijoture, and solid reason suitable thereunto, so to be; — an inference so wild and so destructive of all assurance in every thing that is knowable in the world, that I wonder how your interest could induce you to give any countenance unto it! for if no man can certainly and infallibly know any thing, by any way or means, wherein some or other are ignorantly or wilfully mis- taken, we must bid adieu for ever to the certain knowledge of any thing in this world. And how slightly soever you are pleased to speak of Scripture, light. Spirit, and reason, they are the proper names of the ways and helps that God hath graciously given to the sons of men to come to the knowledge of himself. And if the Scripture, by the assistance of the Spirit of God, and the light in it communicated unto men by him, be not sufficient to lead them, in the use and im- provement of their reason, unto the saving knowledge of the will of God, and that assurance therein which may be a firm foundation of acceptable obedience unto him, they must be content to go without it, for other ways and means of it there are none. But this is your manner of dealmg with us. All other churches must be slighted and relinquished, the means appointed and sanctified by God himself to brinsf us unto the knowledge of and settlement in the truth must be rejected, that all men may be brought to a fanatical, unreasonable resignation of their faith to you and your church. If this be not done, men may with as good reason renounce truth as error, and after they have rejected one error, be inclined to cast off all that truth for the sake whereof that error was rejected by them! And I know not what other inconveniences and mischiefs will follow. It must needs be well for you that you are,
" Gallinffi filius alhce ;"
seeing all others are,