Animadversions on Fiat Lux, Chapter 1
CHAP. I.
Our Author's Preface. And his Method.
IT is not any Disputation, or Rational debate about Differences in Religion that our Author intends; nor, until towards the close of his Treatise, doth he at all fix directly on any thing in Controversie between Romanists and Protestants. In the former parts of his Discourse, his Design is sometimes covered, alwayes carryed on in the way of a Rhetorical Declamation; so, that it is not possible, and is altogether needless to trace all the particular passages and expressions as they lye scattered up and down in his Discourse, which he judgeth of advantage unto him in the mannagement of the work he has undertaken. Some Suppositions there are which lye at the bottom of his whole Superstructure, quickning the Oratory and Rhetorical, part of it, (undoubtedly it's best,) which he chose rather to take for granted, then to take upon himself the trouble to prove. These being drawn forth and removed, what ever he hath built upon them, with all that paint and flourish wherewith it is adorned, will of it self fall to the ground. I shall then first briefly discuss what he offers as to the method of his procedure, and then take this for my own; Namely, I shall draw out and examin the Fundamental Principles of his Oration, upon whose tryal the whole must stand or fall, and then pass through the severals of the whole Treatise, with such Animadversions, as what remaineth of it, may seem to require.
His method he speaks unto, pag. 13. My method, saith he, I do purposely conceal, to keep therein a more handsom decorum: for he that goes about to part a fighting fray, cannot observe a method, … must turn himself this way and that as occasion offers; be it a corporal or mental Duel. So did good Sc. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, which of all his other Epistles as it hath most of solidity, so it hath least of method in the context; the reason is, &c. These are handsom words, of a man that seems to have good thoughts of himself and his skill, in parting frays. But yet I see not how they hang well together, as to any congruity of their sense and meaning. Surely, he that useth no method, nor can use any, cannot conceal his method; no, though he purpose so to do. No man's purpose to hide, will enable him to hide that which is not. If he hath concealed his method, he hath used one: if he hath used none, he hath not concealed it: for, that which is wanting cannot be numbered. Nor hath he by this, or any other means, kept any handsom decorum: not having once spoken the sense, or according to the Principles of him whom he undertakes to personate: which is such an observance of a decorum as a man shall not lightly meet with. Nor hath he discovered any mind so to part a fray, as that the Contenders might hereafter live quietly one by another; his business being avowedly to perswade as many as he can to a conjunction in one Party, for the destruction of all the rest. And what ever he saith of not using a method, the method of his Discourse, with the good words it is set off withall, is the whole of his Interest in it: He pretends indeed, to pass through loca nullius an… Trita solo; yet setting aside his mannagement of the Advantages given him by the late miserable Tumults in these Nations; and the Provision he has made for the Entertainment of his Reade…, are Worts boyled an hundred times over, as he knows well enough. And, for the method which he would have us believe not to be, and yet to be concealed, it is rather foreign then foreign rather a crafty various distribution of entising words, and plausible pretences to enveagle and delude men unlearned and unstable, then any decent contexture of, or fair progress in, a Rational Discourse, or Regular Disposition of nervous Topicks, to convince or perswade the minds of men, who have their eyes in their heads. I shall therefore little trouble my self further about it, but only discover it as occasion shall require; for, the Discovery of Sophistry is its proper Confutation.
However the course he steers is the same that good St. Paul used in his Epistle to the Romans, which hath, as he tells us, most of solidity and least of method of all his Epistles; I confess, I knew not before, that his Church had determined which of St. Paul's Epistles had most of solidity, which least. For I have such good thoughts of him, that, I suppose, he would not do it of his own head: nor do I know, that he is appointed Umpire to determin upon the Writings that came all of them by Inspiration from God, which is most solid. This therefore must needs be the sense of his Church, which he may be acquainted with, twenty wayes that I know not of. And here his Protestant vizor which by and by he will utterly cast off, fell off from him, I presume at unawares. That he be no more so entrapped, I wish he would take notice against the next time he hath occasion to personate a Protestant; that although for method purely adventitious and belonging to the external manner of writing, Protestants may affirm, that one Epistle is more methodical then another, according to those Rules of method, which our selves, or other Worms of the Earth like to our selves, have invented; yet, for their solidity, which concerns the Matter of them, and Efficacy, for Conviction, they affirm them all equal. Nor is he more happy in what he intimates of the immethodicalness of that Epistle to the Romans: For, as it is acknowledged by all good Expositors, that the Apostle useth a most clear distinct and exact method in that Epistle, whence most Theological Systems are composed by the Rule of it; so our Authour himself assigneth such a design unto him, and the use of such wayes and means in the prosecution of it, as argues a diligent observation of a method. I confess, he is deceived in the occasion and intention of the Epistle, by following some few late Roman Expositors, neglecting the Analysis given of it by the Antients: but we may pass that by; because I find his aim in mentioning a false scope and design, was not to acquaint us with his mistake, but to take an advantage to fall upon our Ministers; and I think, a little too early, for one so careful to keep an handsom decorum, for culling out of this Epistle Texts against the Christian Doctrine of good Works done in Christ, by his special Grace, out of obedience to his command, with a promise of everlasting reward and intrinsick acceptability thence accrewing. Thus we see still
Incoeptis gravibus plerun que & magna professis
Purpureus latè qui splendeat unus & alter
Assuitur pan…us; —
Sed nunc nonerat his locus.
Use of Disputing, has cast him at the very entrance of his Discourse, upon, as he supposeth, a particular Controversie between Protestants and Roman-Catholicks, quite besides his design and purpose; But instead of obtaining any advantage, by this transgression of his own Rule, he is faln upon a new misadventure; and, that so much the greater because it evidently discovers somewhat in him besides mistake. I am sure, I have heard as many of our Ministers Preach as he, and read as many of their Books as he, yet I can testifie, that I never heard or read them opposing the Christian doctrin of good works. Often I have heard and found them pressing a universal Obedience to the whole Law of God teaching men to abound in good works, pressing the indispensable necessity of them from the commands of Law and Gospel, encouraging men unto them by the blessed promises of Acceptance and Reward in Christ, declaring them to be the way of mens coming to the Kingdom of Heaven; affirming, that all that believe are created in Christ Jesus unto good works, and for men to neglect, to despise them, is wilfully to neglect their own Salvation: But, opposing the Christian Doctrine of Good Works; and that with sayings …ulled out of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, I never heard, I never read any Protestant Minister. There is but one expression in that Declaration of the Doctrine of Good Works, which, he saith, Protestants oppose used by himself, that they do not own; and, that is their intrinsick acceptability: which I fear he doth not very well understand himself. If he mean by it, that there is in good works an intrinsical worth and value, from their exact answerableness to the Law, and proportion to the Reward, so as on rules of Justice to deserve and merit it; he speaks daggers, and doth not himself believe what he sayes, it being contradictious; for he lays their acceptability on the account of the promise. If he intend, that God having graciously promised to accept and receive them in Christ, they become thereupon acceptable and rewardable; this, Protestant Ministers teach dayly. Against the former Explication of their acceptability, in reference to the Justice of God, on their own account, and the Justification of their persons that perform them, for them; I have often heard them speaking, but never with any Authority, or force of Argument, comparable to that used by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, to the same purpose. But this tale of Protestants opposing the Christian Doctrine of Good Works, hath been so often told by the Romanists, that I am perswaded, some of them begin to believe it; however it be not only false, but from all circumstances, very incredible: and finding our Author hugely addicted to approve any thing that passeth for current in his Party, I will not charge him with a studyed fraud; in the finding it so advantagious to his cause, he took hold of a very remote occasion to work an early prejudice in the minds of his Readers, against them and their Doctrine whom he designeth to oppose. When he writes next, I hope he will mind the account we have all to make of what we do write, and say, and be better advised, than to give countenance to such groundless Slanders.