S62 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
vented by yourselves, Avithout any foundation in the Scripture or constant suffrage of the ancient churches, and you prove them to be popish, to be your own. If you cannot do so, though Papists profess them, yet they may be Christian. This is spoken as to the principles themselves, not unto your explanation of them, which in sundry par- ticulars is popish, which was never owned by prelate Protestants. You proceed : " You challenge me to prove that these principles were ever denied by our prelate Protestants; and this you do wittily and like yourself. You therefore bid me prove that those principles were ever denied by our prelate Protestants, becavise I say that our prelate Protestants here in England, as soon as they became such, took up again those forenamed principles, which Protestants, their forefathers, both here in England and beyond seas, before our prelacy was set up, had still rejected. When I say, then, that our prelate Protestants affirmed and asserted those principles which former Protestants denied, you bid me prove that our prelate Protestants ever denied them.'' But whatever you can prove or cannot prove, you have made it very easy for any man to prove that you have very little regard unto trutli and sobriety in what you aver, so that you may acquit yourself from that which presseth you, and which, according to the rules of them, you cannot stand before. You tell us, in the entrance of this discourse, that you said " that prelate Protestants, for their own preservation, took up some of those principles again which for- mer Protestants had cast down for popish;" and here expressly, that you " said not that they took up the principles which themselves had cast down, but only those which other before them had so dealt withal." Now, pray take a view of your own words, whereby you express your- self in this matter, chap. iii. sect. 3 4, p. 189, second edition. Are they not these : " The prelate Protestant, to defend himself against them" (the Presbyterians and Independents), " is forced to make use of those very principles which himself aforetime" (not other Protest- ants but himself), "when he" (not others) "first contended against Popery, destroyed. So that upon him falls most heavily, even like thunder and lightning from heaven, utterly to kill and cut him asunder, that great oracle delivered by St Paul, ' If I build up again the things I'" (not another) " ' formerly destroyed, I make myself a prevaricator, an impostor, a reprobate?' " What think you of these words? Do you charge the prelate Protestant with building up what others had pulled down, or what he had destroyed himself? Is your rule out of St Paul applicable unto him upon any other account but that he himself was both the builder and dest7'oy&)^? Sir, such mis- carriages as these Protestants know to be mortal sins ; and if, without contrition for them, you have celebrated any sacrament of your church, it cannot be avoided but that you have brought a great inconvenience
CHRIST THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. 363
on some of your disciples. Besides, suppose you had spoken as you now feign yourself to have done, I deske to know who they are whom you intend when you say, " Our prelate Protestants, so soon as they became such ;" as though they were first Protestants at large, and de- stroyed those principles which afterward they built up when they became prelate Protestants; seeing all men know that our reforma- tion was begun by prelates themselves, and such as never disclaimed the principles by you mstanced in.
But you tell me, " I do not only reject what you object against prelate Protestants, but also what you allege in their behalf." I do so indeed, — though I laugh not at you or it, as you pretend, — and so must any man do, who, pleading for Protestancy, hath not a mind openly to prevaricate; for your plea for them is such as, if admitted, would not only overthrow your prelacy, which you pretend to assert, but also destroy your Protestancy, which you will not deny but that you seek to oppose. Nay, it is no other but what was contradicted in the very council of Trent by the Spanish prelates, as that which they conceived to have been an engine contrived for the ruin of epis- copacy under a pretence of establishing it, and which, instead of asserting them to be bishops in the church, would have rendered them all curates to the pope. You would have us believe that Christ hath appointed one episcopal monarch in his church, with plenitude of power, to represent his own person, which is the pope ; and from him all other bishops to derive their power, being substituted by him, and unto him, unto their Avork. And must not this needs be an ac- ceptable defensative or plea unto prelate Protestants; which, if it be admitted, they can be no longer supposed to be made overseers of their flocks by the Holy Ghost, but by the pope, which forfeits their prelacy; and, besides, asserts his supremacy, which destroys their Protestancy ?
Upon this occasion you proceed to touch upon somewhat of great importance concerning the head of the church, wherein you know a great part of the difference between yourself and those whom you oppose to consist. In your passage you mention the use of true logic; but I fear we shall find that in your discourse " laudatur et alget." I should have been glad to have found you making what use you were able of that which you commend. It would, I suppose, have directed you to have stated plainly and clearly what it is that you assert, and what it is that you oppose, and to have given your arguments catasceuastical of the one, and anasceuasticaV of the other. But either you knew not that way of procedure, or you con-