What you mention of your own diligence and achievements, what you have done, where you have been, what you have seen and dis- coursed, I shall not trouble you about. It may be, as to your soul's health,
■ " Tutior, poteras esse domi."
But yet, for all the report that you are pleased to make of yourself, it is not hard to discern that you and I
" Nee pondera rerum
Nee momenta sum us."
S50 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
And notwithstanding your writings, it would have been very difficult for any man to have guessed at your great reading, had you not satis- fied us by this your own information of it. It may be, if you had spared some of the time which you have spent in the reading of your Catholic books unto the study of the Scripture, it had not been unto your disadvantage. In the meantime, there is an hyperbole in your confidence a little too evident; for it is possible that I may, and true that I have seen more of your authors in half an hour than you can read, I think, in a hundred years; unless you intend always to give no other account of your reading than you have done in your " Fiat" and " Epistola." But we are weary of this ^e/'/auroXoy/a, —
" Quin tn alium quseras quoi centones farcias." — Plaut. Epist. iii. 4, 18.
But to pass by this boasting; there are two parts of your discourse, — the one concerning the faith, the other expressing the charity of the Roman Catholics. The first contains what respect you would be thought to have for the Scripture; the latter, what you really have for all other Christians besides yourselves. As to the former, you tell me that I speak of the " Papists' contempt of the Scripture," and desire me to abstain from it for the time to come. Whether I have used that expression anywhere of contempt of the Scripture, well I know not. But whereas I look upon you as raj friend, — at least, for the good advice I have frequently given you, I have deserved that you should be so, — and therefore shall not deny you any thing that I can reasonably grant; and whereas I cannot readily comjDly with you in your present request, as to the alteration of my mind in refer- ence unto the respect that Papists bear unto the Scriptures, I esteem myself obliged to give you some account of the reasons why I per- sist in my former thoughts : which I hope, as is usual in such cases, you will be pleased to take in friendly part. For besides, sir, that you back your request with nothing but some over-confident asseve- rations, subscribed with " Teste meipso," I have many reasons, taken from the practice and doctrine of your church, that strongly induce me to abide in my former persuasion; as, — 1. You know that in these and the neighbouring nations, Papists have publicly burned the Scriptures, and destroyed more copies of them than ever Antiochus Epiphanes did of the Jewish law. And if you should go about to prove unto me that Protestants have no great regard to the sacred images tliat have been worshipped, because in these and the neigh- bouring nations they brake and burned a great number of them, I should not readily know what to answer you; nor can I entertain any such confidence of your abilities as to expect from you a satis- factory answer unto my instance of the very same nature, manifesting what respect Papists bear unto the Scriptures. 2, You know that
FAITH AND CHARITY OF ROMAN CATHOLICS. S51
tliey have imprisoned and burned sundry persons for keeping the Scriptures in their houses, or some parts of them, and reading- them for their instruction and comfort. Nor is this any great sign of re- spect unto them; no more than it is of men's respect to treason or murder, because they hang them up who are guilty of them. And, 3. Your church proliihiteth the reading of them unto laymen, unless, in some special cases, some few of them be licensed by you so to do; and you study and sweat for arguments to prove the reading of them needless and dangerous, putting them, as translated, into the catalogue of books prohibited. Now, this is the very mark and stamp that your church sets upon those books which she disapproves, and discountenanceth as pernicious to the faithful. 4. Your council of Trent hath decreed that your unwritten traditions are to be received with the same faith and veneration as the Scriptures, constituting them to be one part of the word of God, and the Scriptures another : than which nothing could be spoken more in contempt of it or in re2:)roach unto it; for I must assure you Protestants think you can- not possibly contract a greater guilt, by any contempt of the Scripture, than you do by reducing it into order with your unwritten traditions. 5. You have added books, not only written with a human and fallible spirit, but farced with actual mistakes and falsehoods, unto the canon of the Scripture, giving just occasion unto them who receive it from you only to question the authority of the whole. And, 6. You teach the authority of the Scripture, at least in respect of us (which is all it hath, for authority is Jx rm 'rrphg ri, and must regard some in relation unto whom it doth consist), depends on the authority of your church; — the readiest way in the world to bring it into contempt with them that know what your church is, and what it hath been. And, 7. You plead that it is very obscure and unintelligible of itself, and that in things of the greatest moment and of most indispensable necessity unto salvation; whereby you render it perfectly useless, ac- cording to the old rule, " Quod non potest intelligi, debet negligi," — it is fit " that should be neglected which cannot be understood." And, 8. There is a book lately written l)y one of your party, after you have been frequently warned and told of these things, entitled " Fiat Lnx,"' giving countenance unto many other hard reflections upon it; as hath been manifested in the " Animadversions" written on that book. 9. Your great masters in their writings have spoken very contemptuously of it ; whereof I shall give you a few instances. The council of Trent, which is properly yours, determines, as I told you, that their traditions are to be received and venerated, "pari pietatis affectu et reverentia,". — "with an equal affection of piety and reverence," — as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament ; which is a setting up of the altar of Damascus with that of God himself in