360 A. VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX,
course in telling the Jews of the authority of your church, and your " credo " thereupon ; which cannot be supposed to have any existence " in rerum natura/' unless it be first supposed that their church was failed, wliich supposal that it was not is the sole foundation of their objection. What end you can propose herein, but to expose yourself and your profession unto their scorn and contempt, I know not. Sir, the Lord Christ confirmed himself to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world by the miracles which he Avrought; and the doctrine which he taught was testified to be divine by signs and express words from heaven. He proved it also by the testimonies out of the law and prophets; all which was confirmed by his resurrection from the dead. This coining of the promised Messiah, the work that he was to perform, and the characteristical rsy.fLTipia of him, in application unto the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the apostles and evangelists proved out of the Scripture, to the conviction and conversion of thousands of the Jews, and the confusion of the rest. And if you know not that the ancient fathers, and learned men of succeeding ages, have undeniably proved against the Jews, out of the Scripture of the Old Testament, and by the testimony thereof, that the promised Messiah was to be God and man in one person; that he was to come at the time of the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh ; that the work which he was to perform was the very same and no other than what was wrought and accomplished by him, with all the other important concernments of his person and office, — so that they have nothing left to countenance them in their obstinacy but mere senseless trifles ; — you are exceedingly unmeet to make use of their objections, or the condition of the controversy between them and Christians. For what you add in reference unto myself, I shall need only to mind you that the question is not about any personal ability of mine to satisfy a Jew, — which, whatever it be, when I have a mind to increase it, for somewhat that I know of, and which I have learned out of their writings, I will not come imto you for assistance, — but concerning the sufficiency of that jDrinciple for the confronting of Judaical objections, taken from the authority of their church ; which I have formerly proved unto you that our Lord Jesus Christ and his 'apostles made use of unto that purpose. And I will not say that it was from the 'pregnancy of your wit, that, whatever heed you took luito the stating of the case between you and Protestants in the " Animadversions," parallel unto that between the Jews and the apostles (seeing a very little wit will suffice to direct a man to let that alone which he finds too heavy for him to remove out of his way), you speak not one word unto it: yet I will say that it is a thing of that kind whereof there are frequent instances in your whole discourse; and for what reason is not very difficult for any man to conjecture.
CHRIST THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. SGI
CHAPTER XV.
Picas of Prelate Protestants — Christ the only supreme and absolute heail of the
church.
Page 49. You take a view of the 10th chapter of the "Anim- adversions," opposed unto the 13th and 14th paragraphs of your " Fiat Lux/' wherein you pretend to set forth the various pleas of those that are at difierence amongst us in matters of rehgion. These you there distribute into Independents, Presbyterians, and Protestants. Here, omitting the consideration of the two former, you aj^ply yourself unto what was spoken about " Prelate Protestants," as you call them. " You endeavour," say you, " to disable both what I have set down to make against the prelate Protestant, and also what I have said for him. I said in ' Fiat Lux/ that it made not a little against our Protestants, that after the prelate Protestancy was settled in England, they were forced, for then- own preservation against the Puritans, to take up some of those principles again which former Protestants had cast down for popish; as is the authority of the visible church, efficacy of ordination, difference between clergy and laity. Here, first, you deny that these principles are popish ; but, sir, there are some Jews, even at this day, who will deny any such man as Pontius Pilate to have ever been in Jewry. I have other things to do than to fill volumes with useless texts, which here I might easily do out of the books both of the first reformers, and Catholic divines and councils."
What acquaintance you have with the Jews we have in part seen already, and shall have occasion hereafter to examine a little farther. In the meantime, you may be pleased to take notice that men who know what they say are not easily affrighted from it by a show of such niormoes, as he in the comedian was from his own house by his sen-ant's pretence that it was haunted by sprites, when there were none in it but his own debauched companions. I denied those opinions to be popish, and shoidd do so still, were I accused for so doing before a Roman judge as corrupt and wicked as Pontius Pilate; for I can prove them to be more ancient than any part of Popery, in the sense explained in the " Animadversions," and admitted ge- nerally by Protestants. We never esteem every thing popish that Papists hold or believe. Some things in your profession belong unto your Christianity ; some things to your Popery. And I am per- suaded you do not think this proposition, " Jesus Christ is the Son of God," to be heretical, because those whom you account heretics do profess and believe it. Prove the principles you mention to be in-