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A58493
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Remarks on The life of Mr. Milton, as publish'd by J.T. with a character of the author and his party : in a letter to a member of Parliament.
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R. E.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing R933; ESTC R13741
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33,766
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88
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and that the Liturgies and Canons c. father'd upon some of the Apostles are rejected by many But to question the Divine Authority of any of those Books of the Old and New Testament that by Christians in General are received as Canonical has a dangerous Tendency And we have the more Reason to suspect J. T 's Words because of the Heterodox Opinions he hath already publish'd That another of the Party did sometime ago write a Book call'd The Oracles of Reason with a design to ridicule Revelation and that it is certainly the Interest of the Socinians to do so because they are not able to withstand the irresistible 〈◊〉 Force of those Arguments which are brought against them from the Old and New Testament But in the mean time what Occasion was there for J. T. in his Account of Mr. Milton's Life to advance such Propositions or to trouble the World with his own silly Thoughts and malicious Reflections Mr. Milton's Name is indeed sufficient to procure some Regard to the Text but I don't know any Reason why the World should have the least Esteem for J. T 's Comment We have seen enough of the Vomit that J. T. hath disgorged from his foul stomach against Religion and the Ordinance of the Ministry and shall in the next place take notice of another design he has upon our Morals and that is about the Affair of Marriage and Divorce p. 55. c. where he gives an account of Mr. Milton's Opinion concerning Divorce occasioned by his Wifes refusing to come to him when sent for c. as mentioned before I shall not now enter upon the dispute at large that point being handled by many Authors and of late in a Book call'd Concubinage and Poligamy disprov'd in Answer to Butler's Defence of Concubinage But this is evident that if other Causes be assign'd for Divorce than Adultery and wilful Desertion which are the only two Cases we find mentioned in the N. Testament it will be attended with horrid consequences and especially if the Party be allow'd to be judge in their own Case as J. T. represents Mr. Milton to have been in his and in defence of his Practice to have laid down this Position viz. That Indisposition Unfitness or contrary Humours proceeding from any unchangeable Cause in Nature hindring and always likewise to hinder the main ends and benefits of Conjugal Society that is to say Peace and Delight are greater Reasons of Divorce than Adultery or Natural â—…rigidity provided there be a mutual Consent for Separation Whether J. T. represents Mr. Milton's Argument fairly or not I know not but any one may see that admitting those Causes to be sufficient there 's this great defect in the Position viz. That there 's no mention of having the Allowance of the Church and Civil Magistrate nor indeed of so much as asking it which if neglected in such a Case would quickly fill the Kingdom with Fornication Adultery and a Spurious Issue Many things might be objected against the Position it self as that it is contrary to Scripture which assigns a Meet help and the Propagating of a Godly Seed as the chief ends of Marriage Gen. 2. 18. 1. 2. 8. Mal. 2. 15. whereas Peace and Delight might have been had without it the Man could not have fallen into Strife when there was no other Human Creature for him to disagree with and he had the Perfections of God and himself and all the Beauties of the Creation to delight in without the Woman But this is the mischief on 't when Men will become Wise above what is written they do but discover their own Folly and Weakness Then again for Indisposition to be a cause of Divorce is Unreasonable as well as Unchristian It is unreasonable for at that rate Sickly and Indispos'd Persons must be expos'd to unavoidable Calamities and the hazard oâ—… being neglected by all others when abandon'd by so near a Relation It is an addition unto or rather an overwhelming them with Grief must expose their Children to Contempt and occasion fatal Discord in Families betwixt Children of different Mothers and Fathers and their Relations and by consequence is inconsistent with that Peace and Profit which J. T. says are the main ends of Conjugal Society It would be Unchristian as contrary to our Saviours Rule of doing as we would be done by and of making any other Cause of Divorce but Adultery and Desertion It would be as Unnatural as for a sound part of the Body to neglect a wounded Limb seeing the Scripture tells us that a Man and his Wife become one Flesh. Contrary Humours is yet less tolerable for in that Case either of the Parties when they had a mind to change would be sure to be cross humour'd on purpose Then as to unchangeable Causes in Nature hindring the ends of Conjugal Society they are sooner pretended than determin'd and not always easie to be discover'd As to the Mutual Consent I have already said that it is not enough without the Approbation of the Church and Civil Magistrate and besides it may be obtain'd by force from the Injur'd Party who may be rendred so uneasie that they will chuse rather to Consent than to live in perpetual vexation and danger These are some obvious Objections which occur to me immediately upon reading what J. T. calls Mr. Milton's grand Position as to his own I think them unworthy of a Reply or any further Remark than that he had nothing to do to mix his own Impertinent Jargon with Mr. Milton's Life but it is Natural for one who does all he can to sap the Foundations of Christianity to be a Patron of Immorality He knows how grateful a Doctrine it is to Libertines which he lays down of himself p. 56. That the Marriage Covenant may be undone when the Persons find things otherwise than they promise themselves and that it is Tyranny to punish their so doing The Sparks of the Town will no doubt congratulate his happy Invention for such a plausible way of changing Wives into Misses for at this rate when any distaste arises betwixt them and their Wives there 's no more to do but for both Parties to draw Stakes as he words it and leave Matters as they were before If this be the Purity of the Socinian Doctrine we may rationally conclude it never came down from Heaven Another and which I suppose is his main design is to promote the Cause of a Commonwealth but remember it was objected against the late King James's Regulation that he imployed mean and unfit Persons in the Design and therefore it was generally concluded it would not succeed I am far from thinking that J. T. is imployed by the bulk of the Commonwealth Party whatever he may be by a few but this I think I may venture to say That his Management and Concern will add no Reputation to their Cause If the advancement of Socinianism and Immorality and an unlimited Toleration to Heresies of all
Gentilis and Servetus differed from one another in pretence at least as Calvin acquaints us in his Theological Tracts Gentilis taking special caâ—…e to clear himself as much as he could from the Suspicion of being a Favourer either of Arius or Servetus yet both of 'em held the Deity to be divided into three Essences We have heard before how Socinus and others differ'd about the Worshiping of Christ to which may be added that though they affect to be thought the great Masters of Reason and the Advocates of it they will not allow Reason to be sufficient in it self to discover that there is a God and yet they reject the Doctrine of the Trinity because they cannot comprehend it in their Reason The ascribing of Infinite Perfections to our Saviour who at the same time they will have to be a meer Creature and Przipcovius calling him God in a proper sense and by Nature and yet saying he was but a meer Man till after his Resurrection are as ridiculous Contradictions as any that are chargeable upon the Popish Doctrine of Transubstantiation George Blandatra differ'd so far from the rest of the Socinians and feigued an Agreement with the Calvinists so artfully that Calvin was much censured by the Reformed in Poland for charging him with Heresie and yet the Italian Church at Geneva complain'd of Blandatra at last for using fraudulent Methods to Poison the Vulgar People with his Opinions and at the same time the more effectually to propagate his Errors pretended a zeal for the Truth and subscrib'd the Confessions of the Calvinists while his intimate Companion was Alciatus who upbraided the Calvinists with Worshiping three Devils meaning the Three Persons which he said were worse than all the Popish Idols Calv. Ep. 257. Then as to our English Socinians they dont adhere to Biddle's Confession and Catechism no more than the Foreign Socinians do to that of Racovia which in the several Editions of it has had divers Important Alterations Socinus wrote a Treatise to prove that it was the Duty of every good Man to separate from the Assemblies of the Polish Protestants as from Persons too Impious to be Communicated with and to join themselves to the more holy Assemblies of those falsly and undeservedly as he said call'd Arrians Yet our English Socinians can Communicate with all sorts and profess they join sincerely in Communion with the Church of England but Independantly on any Faction and that they place not Religion in Worshiping God by themselves as appears by their Books called the Trinitarian Scheme Considered and some Thoughts upon Dr. Stil Vindication c. And at the same time while they pretend to entertain Communion with the Church of England they oppose the very First of her Articles about the Trinity Some of them again profess sincerely to believe that God is truly Omniscient and forseeth all Events how Contingent soever they may be to us as in the Consideration on the Explication of the Trinity p. 32. Others of 'em again think that it is more dishonourable to God to be the Author of all the Sin and Wickedness that ever was or ever will be in the World which they falsly charge as the necessary consequence of his Prescience than to deny his Fore-knowledge as may be seen in The Desence of the Reasonableness of Christianity against Mr. Edwards p. 18. compared with The Considerations on the Explication of the Trinity pag. 32. Biddles Confession p. 21. 22. Argues strenuously for the Personallity of the Holy Ghost but the Brief History of the Unitarians Sect. 1. p. 7. denys it and says he is only call'd so by the same Figure of Speech that describes Charity as a Person Thus it is evident that they cannot agree among themselves tho' like Herod and Pilate they agree in destroying the Foundations of Christianity The last thing I shall take notice of is that their Principles have a direct Tendency to Introduce Atheism or at least Paganism This was observ'd of them of Old by Bisterfield in his Dispute against Crellius De Uno Deo Lib. 1. Sect. 2. Cap. 18. And will be evident if we consider 1. That the Author of Answer to the Lord Bishop of Worcester's Sermon p. 5. Ridicules the Eternity of God thus That to say a Person or Thing was from its self implies this Contradiction That it was before it was and adds I am sorry an Eternal God must be a Contradiction It 's true that herein he Contradicts Socinus Crellius and others in their Institution of the Christian Religion where they say God hath from himself a Divine Empire over us and that his Nature and whatever else is proper to the Supreme God he receiv'd from himself but then we see that ouâ—… â—…glish Socinians are worse than they 〈◊〉 have made further advances towards Atheism for if God be not Eternal and from himself he must be Finite and owe his Being to another which makes him no God at all 2. If in the next place it be observ'd That Crellius Smalcius and Socinus deny God's Immensity Circumscribe his Essence within the Heav'ns deny his Omnipresence the Infinity of his Essence his Prescience and Omniscience as may be seen in Socin Frag. Catech. Tom. 1. p. 685. Smalcius his Answer to Fran. David Tom. 2. p. 735. Socinus his Theological Praelections c. 11. p. 549. which is in effect to Ungod him to give up the Cause to Atheists to overturn all Reveal'd Religion the Divine Authority of the Scriptures and to deny the Spirit of Prophecy in contradiction to common Sense as may be prov'd from these two Instances the 1st is that of the Jews whom we see every day with our Eyes to be a despicable hated Vagabond People according to what our Saviour foretold would befall them the other particulars of which as the Destruction of Jerusalem c. are exactly confirm'd to us by Josephus a Jew and other Historians Enemies to the Christian Name And the 2d is that of the Roman Antichrist the Seat of whose Dominion and the Nature of it was so exactly foretold above 1600 Years ago as it is now obvious to our Senses Then again they pretend to believe a Trinity but cannot agree what it is Ruarus Przipcovius John Biddle and his Followers say there are Three Persons Socinus Sclichtingtius Crellius and the greatest part say there are but Two The Holy Ghost is according to them One of the Three but not a Person nor God nor a Creature They own that is a thing truly Divine and Eternal but yet not God as may be seen in Sclichtingius against Meisner p. 694. And Ostorodius in his Controversie with Tradelius says It is neither God nor a Creature as Graâ—…erus informs us Pol. Sacr. p. 635. Then let any Man judge whether their Scheme be not full of Mysteries and Contradictions can there be any Medium betwixt a Created and an Uncreated Being Can the Holy Ghost be Eternal and Divine and yet not God Can