Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n
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A41550
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Serious advice to a preservative against the blasphemous heresie of Socinianism by J.G.G.
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Gailhard, J. (Jean)
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1695
(1695)
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Wing G128; ESTC R25093
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29,852
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44
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Serious Advice TO A PRESERVATIVE Against the Blasphemous Heresie OF SOCINIANISM Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee I hate them with a perfect Hatred I count them mine Enemies Psal 139.21 22. By J. G. G. LONDON Printed for Geo. Grafton and are to be Sold by Ric. Baldwin at the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-lane 1695. Serious Advice to a Preservative against the Blasphemous Heresie of Socinianism NOW more than ever there is cause to say the last Days and Times foretold by the Apostles * 2 Tim. 3.1 2 3 4 5. St. Paul and ‖ 1 John 2.18 St. John are come upon us For not only Iniquity in Practise doth abound every where and the Man and Manner of Sin is daily more and more discovered But also Perverseness in Judgment in no less than Heresie and Blasphemy walks bare-faced with those who are so far delivered up to Satan as to deny the Lord of Glory For abominable Socinianism which is a Sink of the Cerinthians Ebionites Sabellians Samosatenians Photinians Arrians Semi-Arrians Anti-Trinitarians Pelagians and of several other Hereticks doth now proudly appear and in Effect defie Christian Religion and attempts to overthrow the Foundation of the Gospel not in one but several parts thereof It is for me a Matter of Wonderful Grief to see the Boldness and Impudence of that Abominable Heresie as it were Triumphantly to come in of one side and the Silence and Sluggishness of those that should oppose it on the other * Jer. 9.1 O that my Head were Waters and mine Eyes a Fountain of Tears that I might Weep day and night for the Guilt which is thereby contracted upon the Nation My Purpose is for the present by the Grace of God only to give in my Evidence in the Case and that as briefly and plainly as I can to condescend to the meanest Capacity But if by Providence I be further engaged in the Matter I shall grudge neither Time nor Pains upon so Just so Necessary and so Glorious an Account as to bear Record for the Fundamental Truth of Christian Religion Laelius Socinus the Uncle and Faustus Socinus his Nephew both of Siena in Italy soon after the Death of Detestable Servetus did the first conceive and the second bring forth their Damnable Opinions which amongst the rest are these They deny the most Holy and Adorable Trinity Christ's Divinity his being Coeternal in Time if we may use that word with the Father Coessential in Nature and Coequal in Power they will not own he hath given the Father Satisfaction for our Sins but only obtained for us by our Faith and Obedience to satisfie for our selves They say he died for our Good but not in our Place he died for himself not for his Sins but for the Mortality and Infirmity of our Nature which he had assumed he became not our High Priest till after his Ascension into Heaven How Man before his Fall was Naturally Mortal and had no Original Righteousness that in us there is no Original Sin as it imports a Deformity of Nature The Holy Ghost they admit not to be God no more than Christ whose Incarnation they affirm to be against Reason and without Proofs of Scripture With Pelagians they are against Providence and Matters of Grace All these and others abominable Errors which destroy the whole Foundation and Work of our Salvation are to be found in the Books of Socinus Crellius Ostorodius c. How far will Men go when once they are fallen into and engaged in an evil way When God hath left them in the Blindness and Darkness of their Understanding and given them up to the Imaginations and Counsels of their evil Hearts to the Temptations of Satan and to their own Natural Corruption We see it in the case of that Wicked Arrius who within a short time from the Year 323 till 336 drew a great part of the World after him and in the other of that great Impostor Mahomet who agreed with Arrius against the Deity of the Lord Jesus wherein he is followed by Socinians That Man thorough a Judgment of God * 2 Thess 2.11 sending a strong Delusion that Men should believe a Lye by the means of a Foolish Book of a Nonsensical Alcoran of pretended Trances and Raptures when he was in his Fit of the Falling-sickness and of the Cheat of a Pidgeon picking as it had been taught some Grains out of his Ear as if the Angel Gabriel under that shape had then been Suggesting his Religion and Doctrine to him with some Allowance to the Pleasures of the Flesh in this World and Promises of the like in the next by these means and the Trick of his Tomb at Mecca hath drawn a great part of the World after him In order to settle their Impious Principles Socinians go about two things First To overthrow the Ground of our Faith and Religion with their attempting to undermine Holy Scriptures which are the Foundation and Rule of it To bring it about They affirm the Old Testament to be needless for Christians as for the Books of the New they allow not the Authors thereof to have been Inspired by the Spirit of God positively against what is said 2 Tim. 3.16 and therein they would have some places to contradict others grant this and you take away the Infallibility and Truth of Scripture and if it be yielded of one Text why not of many more If so What will become of Christian Religion grounded upon the Gospel For if we must believe St. Paul who * Gal. 1.11 12. Certifies it is not after Man for he neither received it of Man neither was he taught it but by Revelation of Jesus Christ The second thing Socinians do to promote their Blasphemies is To make Natural Reason the Principle of Religion for they give all to Reason as if it was Infallible and could not be imposed upon and nothing to the Authority and Consent of the Church nor of Scripture it self according to this Rule of theirs That no Interpretation of Holy Scripture is to be admitted except it doth agree with Natural Reason and to the Evident Experience of outward Senses Instead of the Traditions which Papists bring in they would have their own Reason without the Influences of the Spirit of God to be the genuine and proper Interpreter of God's Holy Word So take away the Rule and you bring in Disorder and Confusion We know and own how Faith doth not destroy Reason rather it doth Refine and Purifie it so God forbid we should exclude Reason from Religion for 't is Subservient to it Reason indeed hath something of Religion for by the Light of Nature in things of the World and Course of Providence one may be convinced how there is a Being of Beings a first Cause of all and a God whose Power and Wisdom appeareth in the Works and Order of Nature which as * Psal