Dean thinks fit to deal with me I am not ashamed of any Part of what I said My Argument then stood thus As indeed all Controversies amongst Protestants are most unseasonable in such a Juncture wherein under God nothing but an Union of Counsels and joining Hands and Hearts can preserve the Reformation and scarce any thing more credit and justify it than an Union in Doctrinals so above all other Controversies none can well be thought of worse tim'd than this Of which ill timing it I gave a very particular Proof too warm it seems for him to touch upon and therefore he slipp'd it away between his Fingers as if it had not been But how answers he my Argument First he disjoints it then answers to what Parts of it he pleases and to those Parts in what Order he pleases And finally never considers the Parts as connected and together adding Strength to the main Conclusion Indeed such dealing as this with some Scorn interlaced is his usual way of confuting What he says worth notice I shall reflect upon The first Member of my Argument he thinks fit to ampliate and will say a little more that they i. e. all Controversies amongst Protestants which was the Subject of my Proposition are always unseasonable for there is no Juncture seasonable to broach Heresies and oppose Truth But may there be no Controversies especially amongst Protestants which broach not Heresies The Denial of the Trinity duly stated I allow to be Heresy But we in the first Member of the Argument speak of all Controversies amongst Protestants Now do all Dissensions amongst Protestants arise to Heresy on one side or other God forbid Again in times of publick Peace may there not be very seasonably amicable Conferences and Arguings between those who dissent from one another in order to clearing Difficulties and so to brotherly Accord Even those Treaties are certainly some kind of Controversies though some Men may be very unfit for them and therefore have little Kindness for them and those I stand to it ought to be held in due Season But at present I did not think even these kind of Arguings seasonable but would have them also suspended and was of Opinion that as things stand all Protestants suffering each other to worship God in his own way according to the Conscience of each should join against a common Enemy What I said may be Truth and advisable and as far as I yet see is so What Mr. Dean adds is not true and his Proof of it is very insufficient to say no worse For he would prove all Controversies to be always unseasonable because some are so I will not tell him that even Heresies may be and daily are in University-Disputations and like Theological Exercises strongly argued for and Truth opposed not only for exercising and ripening Scholars but that all the Strength Heresies have may be detected and enervated and the weaker Side of Truth secured so that thus also all Controversies asserting Heresy and opposing Truth are not always unseasonable So great a Disputant as Mr. Dean ought not to have advanced so universal a Proposition without more Caution As to his defending Fundamental Truths I have already spoken However seasonable the defending them may always be I say in a word the changing of them can be never so Next he repeats two other Members of my Argument and begins with carping at the last thus Is the Vnion in Doctrinals ever the greater that Socinians boldly and publickly affront the Faith of the Church and no body appears to defend it I answer that I am not for any Affronts in what Cause soever for I seldom see they do good but most of all am I against Affronts to the publick Faith of the Church The Socinians I am informed were silent some while upon my Paper till others blew the Coals afresh It is utterly against my Mind and grieves my Soul if they do affront the establish'd Church and 't is more than I know God forbid I should excuse them for it I would have them and all Men to be peaceable meek and humble But in case of such Affronts the Church God be blessed has better Ways to vindicate the Faith and her own Honour than the Fancies and new Notions of private Doctors who consult her not but run perfectly upon their own Heads and advance their own Principles being busy and intermeddling in every Controversy that is moved I boldly aver less would be said against the Truth did not such Persons appearing for it by their pretended Defences of it and by the haughty Stile and Manner of penning them give new Matter to the Adversary Those daily fresh Provocations and the Effects of them are what I did in part and must still insist upon as one main Reason for my Suit for Forbearance But will the World think that we are all of one Mind because there is §. 22. disputing but on one side Then they will think us all Socinians c. I answer Let us go on in Conformity to our Church-Doctrine and especially in an holy humble peaceable obliging Conversation and touching our Judgment in Doctrinals the World will sooner credit our Practice and the Articles or Confession the Liturgy Catechism Homilies Constitutions and such publick Acts of our Church than twenty little Vindications of private Doctors And as for the Pamphlets of some obscure and anonymous Persons I still say again 't is Opposition for the main that gives them Celebrity and Life Heresies have from Age to Age still been transmitted to Posterity by sundry Consutations they have received Had we had only the Holy Scripture and our Creed with a few practical and devotional Books delivered down to us we should have been united in a plain Faith in Charity and Holiness built thereupon and the very Names as well as the Errors of the antient Hereticks had been long since buried and unknown Whereas every Age now by what has been writ against Heresies know how to refine and new vamp them What further are in my poor Opinion the meetest Ways to provide against Socinianism as well as all the other isms or dissenting Parties I shall speak perhaps anon In the mean time I must not let pass a very signal Favour of Mr. Dean's to render me if he could obnoxious to the Government in making me privy to a very dangerous Secret or great Truth fit for all Governments to Pag. 23. consider truly their Majesties Chaplain in ordinary ought to admonish the Government of their Oversights a Truth he says which I have unwarily confess'd and he is in the right of it for I thought not of it nay I neither before knew nor do I now believe it to be generally a Truth that every Schism in the Church is a new Party and Faction in the State which are always troublesom to Government when it wants their Help This may be true of every vast or multitudinous Schism when the Number infected come to
the Church-Catechism has taught thereof out of the Creed to be sufficient to any Christian Practice which can be superstructed hereon Yet I must not thus conclude what I have to say for my Justification in my Reflection on the Master of the Sentences the learned Dean being so well versed in the School-men has certainly heard of a certain Censure or Caution to some Texts of the Masters in these Words Magister non tenetur And what is that in plain English but that on these Subjects the Master has writ so as that his very Scholars or Partizans are ashamed of him and not able with all their Subtilties to defend him One of the first Articles as I take it to which this Note is put is Charitas quâ diligimus Deum proximum est Spiritus sanctus Or Charitas quae est amor Dei proximi non est aliquia Creatura that is Charity whereby we love God and our Neighbour is no created being but the Holy Ghost This would afford admirable Consequents But to let them pass untouch'd being that the Assertion it self so intimately concerns the Holy Ghost as to pronounce in some measure touching his very Quiddity as I may so speak and being that the Holy Ghost is the third Person in the Trinity this must necessarily be acknowledged to be a very considerable Point in the Controversy of the Trinity And then neither have all the Papists been very Orthodox in the Disputes about As to the Orthodoxy of all the Papists in Point of the Trinity I would ask Mr. Dean if he never heard any thing of a Design some had of getting in or adding the Blessed Virgin to the Trinity and what a Trinity they would in such Case have made of it Or how Orthodox that Party was in their Conceptions either of the Deity or of that Trinity c. the Trinity as Mr. Dean says Apol. p. 23. for the Master himself advanced herein a gross heretical Proposition nor was the melancholy Stander-by unacquainted with the Master when he only with a light Touch censured what the Master had troubled the World with on this Controversy For my own part I would be unwilling to be put upon it to defend what yet the Master asserts and after his way endeavours to prove in another Place touching the Holy Ghost that saith he the Holy Ghost is an Act of Love so I render Dilectionem or the Love of Spiritum sanctum Dilectionem esse sive amorem Patris Filii quo scilicet Pater diligit Filium Filius Patrem Dist 10. F. the Father and of the Son namely wherewith the Father loveth the Son and the Son the Father Notwithstanding that that Distinction has no such Stricture that I have observed set upon it by the Scholastick Censors and notwithstanding too that Mr. Dean has more amply explicated and espoused it Vind. p. 130 c. The Father saith the Dean is original Mind and Wisdom The Son the Word and Wisdom of the Father that is the reflex Knowledg of himself which is the perfect Image of his own Wisdom and the Holy Ghost that Divine Love which the Father and Son have for each other These he calls three substantial Acts in God so distinct as that they can never be the same But whose will consider what Idea our Minds frame of Self-reflection and Love the Latin Term is Dilectio will rather stile these immanent Actions how permanent soever they may be supposed Now that an Action though immanent can be a living intelligent Substance an infinite eternal Mind is what I would be loth to be bound to the Proof of But says the Dean why did you not accuse the Fathers and Councils for the Master took most of what he has out of them Suppose that I had so much Reverence for the Fathers and Councils as to be willing their Names should not be blemish'd am I to be chastised for that He and all the World know I could not read the Master's Book but I must read therein the Names and oftentimes the Places of the Fathers whence he took most of what he says I could not therefore be ignorant that many of these things are to be found in the Fathers But I was desirous I say that their venerable Names should shine as bright as may be and that the rather for that this Rummager has after a sort weeded their Writings and very often taken only the worst things out of them The Father out of whom he has injudiciously amass'd together the most he has of the Trinity complains those his Books of the Trinity were almost ravish'd out of his Hands before he could amend or finish Aug. Retract lib. 2. cap. 15. them as he would have done and that he intended not to have published them but to have spoken what he thought of this Argument in another Work When therefore I find St. Austin produced proving the Son the Beginning a Principle or Original Principium the Word is and that not only in respect of the Creatures but even of the Holy Ghost from such a Testimony of Scripture as this is They said unto him Who art thou and he answered Even the same that I said unto you from the Beginning which the vulgar Latin and St. Austin as well as some other Fathers corruptly read The Beginning who also speak to you I let St. Austin pass who in effect did as good as ask Pardon for his Mistake or misapplying this Text and I tax him who taking no Notice of the Father's excusing his imperfect Work alledgeth even the most culpable Passages in it for legitimate Proofs Libellus Male cum recitas incipit esse tuus He by this Means makes the Fathers Over-sights his and is justly to be blamed for them But as to his Faithfulness in dealing with the Fathers hear what a great Man says His Books of the Sentences says Mornaeus he has made up out of Pieces of the Fathers here and there culled out and put together in a certain Order which Fathers he by changing omitting adding Words at pleasure has forced to serve his Plot and bowed to the corrupt Divinity of his Age. And however Orthodox any who affect Dispute and endless Speculation may judg him in the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation Bellarmine himself after Recital of his Works adds this Account on him out of Matthew Paris That he was accused of Heresy in the Matter of the Incarnation and condemn'd at Paris nineteen Years after his Death Then as to the Point of the Trinity the Case wherein I taxed him L. Danaeus a Geneva Divine and no Socinian avows and proves that in every Part of his Disputation In quâlibet hujus Disputationis parte negligentia dolo malo aequiparatur Censura ad Dist 35. lib. 1. hereon his Fraud and Negligence are equal And whosoever will spend a few Hours in perusing the said Danaeus's Prolegomena to his Commentary on the first Book of
THE ANTAPOLOGY OF THE Melancholy Stander-by In Answer To the DEAN of St. Paul's late Book falsly stiled An Apology for Writing against the Socinians c. Disputandi Pruritus est Scabies Ecclesiae Errare possum Haereticus esse nolo Printed in the Year MDCXCIII ADVERTISEMENT THE following Answer was writ for the main Body of it some time ago at the Author's Home in great Disadvantage as will appear by divers Passages in it Since he wrote it he has had Occasion to come abroad and though in his way he has met with divers Books which at home he wanted yet some very needful ones he could not come by or in travelling had not leisure to search If therefore in certain Instances Authorities be wanting and in others not particularly or exactly enough cited he hopes the Reader will pardon what is more his present Infelicity than Fault Had not the Usage he has found with the pretended Apologist been unsufferably bad he had born it in Silence And he hopes he has here vindicated himself without Gall though with much Imperfection CONTENTS of the several Sections § 1. THE Dean of St. Paul ' s calumnious Way of apologizing no Argument of his Skill in School-Divinity 2. The true State of the Matter of Fact between Dr. Sherlock and the melancholy Stander-by 3. A further Explication of the same together with some Account of the Doctrine of the Trinity and where the melancholy Stander-by would have Divines stop both as to Faith and as to Peace Dr. Sherlock stopped not here 4. A Descent to Particulars injuriously charged on me by the Dean of St. Paul ' s and an Account of his Arts in perverting my Sense 5. What I meant by the Latitude wherein I would have Faith left and what by Simplicity 6. A Defence of the Reflection I made on the Master of the Sentences and the School-Doctors as to their Disputes and Decisions in the Doctrine of the Trinity 7. My Apology as to the Idleness and Unskilfulness in the School-Doctors charged upon me by Mr. Dean 8. A Vindication of what I avouched touching the Judgment of the first Reformers as to the School-Divinity and School-terms in our Prayers The Judgment of later Divines as to this second Point 9. An Answer to Mr. Dean's Objection touching my Plea for sticking to Scripture-Language 10. It seems not possible by any Words so to fix the Sense of all controverted Places of Scripture but that Hereticks may have Evasions Yet this is no Prejudice to the Vse of Scripture-Terms and Language 11. A Defence of the Latitude I plead for and by the by of the Negative Belief 12. An Answer to Mr. Dean's Objection of one Faith 13. A Reassertion of my Reasons for forbearing new Discourses on this Subject by some Account of the Advantage Dr. Sherlock ' s Book of the Trinity has given the Socinians and Papists 14. A Reassertion of my other Reason by the late Writings that the Improvements pretended to be made in Explication of this Doctrine have only imbroiled and exposed it Of Geometrical Attempts this way 15. My Defence for settling the usual Doctrine of the Trinity upon the Decrees of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Councils Of some Niceties in the Athanasian Creed 16. An Answer to the Imputation of Hobbeism and Mr. Dean proved to contradict himself 17. An Answer to a Particular or two forcibly brought in by the Apologist and as would seem merely to inodiate me 18. My Assertion that some present Writings in this Controversy have given Advantages to Atheists vindicated 19. A Vindication of my self from Theism A Profession of my Belief of the Trinity and Incarnation and of the whole revealed Christian Religion My Sense of Scorners 20. A Reassertion of the Danger of disputing Fundamentals The Dean changes them instead of defending them which the Author hopes other present Writers will not 21. A Vindication of my last Argument touching the present Unseasonableness of publick disputing this Controversy 22. An Answer to the Dean's Objection that if we dispute not the World will think us all Socinians and to an Insinuation of his for rendring me obnoxious to the Government 23. An Account of what I meant by fiâ— Time and Place for taking the Socinian Controversies into Consideration and a Vindication of what I proposed in the mean time 24. An Answer to some Questions which Mr. Dean puts to me and particularly as to admitting Socinians to some kind of Communion Some Points by him unduly stated and imputed to the Socinians 25. A Reassertion of my Sense touching the Acts of Parliament in Favour of Dissenters and an Answer to some Reproaches 26. A Reassertion of what I asserted done as to Reformation in King Edward the VIth's Time without a Convocation 27. An Answer to his good Will for reforming me out of the Church His false Charge on me touching Dr. Wallis noted and his Discession from the Doctrine of the Church râ—asserted His Hypothesis justifies Nestorianism 28. An Answer to his conclusory Aspersions and an Animadversion upon his Promise of desending his Vindication of the Trinity The ANTAPOLOGY of the Melancholy Stander-by In Answer to the Dean of St. Paul ' s late Book falsly stiled An Apology for writing against the Socinians SOME Men have such a peculiar Talent at Insolence and ill §. 1. Language that it is difficult for a modest Person or one who would observe the common Rules of good Manners to give them a meet Answer In the Rank of such Writers I am sorry I must place the late Apologist I could have wished upon many Accounts that in the Reflections he has been pleased to make on my Paper he had for his own sake as well as mine used more Temper Reproach and Scorn is an easy way of confuting And 't is not without Difficulty that humane Nature forbears rendring an angry or disdainful Reply to haughty and ill-natur'd Answers In such case Calcare fastum majori fastu seems to too many a Point of Justice but I shall not esteem it so desiring to pardon such Practice in others rather than in my self Composing therefore my Mind and quitting as near as I am able all Passion and Self-love over-looking the Contempt and many of the Indignities and false Imputations yea and some at least seemingly malicious Insinuations to those in Authority which he has thought fit to print against me I shall return nothing but the Words of Truth and Soberness without Cavil or even Contradiction any further than Justice requires Only because an accused Person cannot ordinarily make his Defence unless he be admitted as well to discover and complain of the Wrong done him as to deny and disprove and being that the fairest Laws of Dispute allow as occasion offers to retort upon the Adversary his own Objections these things I must demand to be lawful for me which Liberty being granted me I shall endeavour without warm Water to wipe off the Dirt that Mr. Dean has cast upon me
was Poison under the â—n Epistol ad Damas Tom. 2. Honey and boggled at it St. Austin acknowledges he understood not the Difference the Greeks designed between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in our present Language between Essence and Subsistence But because says he according to our Custom of Speech Essence and Substance are all one â—e Trinitat â—b 5. in fine â—apitis 8 cap. 9. therefore we dare not say one Essence three Substances but one Essence or Substance and three Persons So that when they laid aside Hypostasis they introduced a Term equivalent and perhaps more ambiguous namely Persona and then said there were three Persons in one Essence Yet at the same time St. Austin acknowledgeth the Use of this Term improper and that it was Necessity drove them to it they used this Word for â—agna prorsus â—opia humaâ—â— laborat â—â—quium Dictum est tamen tres personae non ut illud diceretur sed ne taceretur Non enim rei â—â—bilis eminentia hoc vocabulo explicare valet Cap. 9. want of a better The Father saith he and the Son and the Holy Ghost are truly three But when it is demanded three what humane Speech is defective notwithstanding we have said three Persons not that strictly we mean or intend to say this but lest we should be silent and say nothing for the Transcendency of the ineffable Matter cannot be express'd by this Word And again more fully in his seventh Book proving the Father Son and Holy Ghost to be one because the Father is Wisdom the Son Wisdom and the Holy Ghost Wisdom and in God to be wise is the same as to be and to be the same as to be God Therefore says he for expressing what is inexpressible that we may speak in some measure what we cannot speak out the Itaque loquendi causâ de ineffabilibus ut fari aliquo modo possemus quod effari nullo modo possumus dictum est à nostris Graecis una Essentia tres Substantiae a Latinis autem una Essentia tres Personae Et ut intelligatur in aenigmate quod dicitur placuit ita dici ut aliquid diceretur Ut quaereretur quid tria sunt quid tres conferimus nos ad inveniendum aliquid speciale vel generale nomen quo complectamus haec tria neque occurrit animo quia excedit supereminentia divinitatis usitati eloquii facultatem Cap. 3 4. Grecian Christians have said one Essence three Substances that is Subsistences and the Latins one Essence three Persons And that what we say may be understood at least in a Riddle we thought it good thus it should be said that something might be said When it is required what these three are we apply our selves to find out some special or general Name whereby we may comprize all the three nor does there any occur to our Thoughts because the Transcendency of the Divinity exceeds the Faculty of usual Speech He goes on to the Effect following If we take these three Abraham and Isaac and Jacob we can find somewhat common which they all have and say they are three Men but touching Father Son and Holy Ghost we cannot say they are three Fathers or three Sons nor indeed three Gods what therefore are the three Three Persons By all which it is plain they used this word Persons not because it was proper but because the Speculation was run so fine that they knew not what else or what less improper to say And let this suffice in my present Penury of Books as to the Fathers who of old either first introduced or by their Use first authorized in divinis this Term three Persons or a Trinity of Persons As to the Sense of the School-Doctors touching the word Persona in this Controversy I must speak chiefly out of my Memory having besides the Master of the Sentences and some imperfect pieces of others only St. Thomas's Sum at hand in which Work he is somewhat brief on this Term Yet even therein when he concludes it convenient that the Name Person be used touching God he does it with this Limitation that it be Conveniens est ut hoc nomen persona de Deo dicitur non tamen eodem modo quo dicitur de Creaturis not used or which is the same understood after the same manner as it is of the Creatures But I do avow it and will be bound to produce Testimonies enough as soon as I can come at Books that it is both his Doctrine and the common Doctrine of his Followers that the word Person when used touching God and the Creatures is not taken in the same equal or univocal Sense but only by way of Proportion and as to the manner Persona de Deo Creaturis non dici univoce sed analogice of signifying and Imposition of the Name it first and more properly agrees to the Creatures As to Protestant Divines also for the Reasons above touched I must be sparing in their Numbers but I am sure the Systematists ordinarily assign either four or five Differences in the Use of the Word when attributed to God and to the Creature And I find by me in my Notes this Passage which I long since transcribed out of Zanchy a judicious and learned Calvinist In the Creatures one Person is not only Una Persona creata ex contextu precedente supplenda ab altera non tam distincta quam etiam disjuncta est at proinde diversae sunt inter se substantiae licet unius naturae In Deo una Persona ab altera distincta quidem est sed disjuncta esse non porest c. De tribus Elohim Parte 2da lib. 1. c. 3. distinct from the other but disjoined and separate so that the Substances are divers though the Nature one But in God one Person is indeed distinct from the other but cannot be disjoined and therefore the Divine Persons are not only of the same Nature for so are humane Persons but of the same Essence Nay they so subsist in the same Essence that they are indeed nothing else but that Essence Somewhat very near this the Doctor to do him Justice more than once or twice expresly says in his Book I mean in his Vindication of the Holy Trinity viz. p. 47 67 104 c. that they are distinct not separate but then he in effect unsays all again much oftner and that both by his Definition of a Person in divinis and in those other Passages of his produced by me in my Paper p. 14. and by many other Passages which I might transcribe from him For my own part I am not able to excuse him from contradicting himself over and over most plainly in the Space of a dozen Lines in one of the Pages now cited viz. 67. of his Vindication for first he acknowledges These three Divine Persons are not separate Minds as created Spirits
are but only distinct each Person has a Self-consciousness of his own and knows and feels it self if I may so speak as distinct from the other Divine Persons The Father has a Self-consciousness of his own whereby he knows and feels himself to be the Father and not the Son nor Holy Ghost And the Son in like manner feels himself to be the Son and not the Father nor the Holy Ghost And the Holy Ghost feels himself to be the Holy Ghost and not the Father nor the Son as James feels himself to be James and not Peter nor John I say then if the Father hath a Self-consciousness of his own whereby he knows and feels himself to be the Father and not the Son nor the Holy Ghost as James feels himself to be James and not Peter c. then both is he separate from the Son and Holy Ghost and his Self-consciousness also separate from the Self-consciousness of each the other And again if the Father Son and Spirit feel himself to be himself and not the other as James feels himself to be James and not Peter nor John then must each feel himself separate from the other For 't is manifest to me that in knowing and feeling my self not to be Peter nor James I know and feel my self separate severed or several from them Nay it is by knowing and feeling my self separate that I know and feel my self distinct If therefore the Father knows and feels himself distinct from the Son and from the Holy Ghost as we Men know our selves distinct from one another he then must know and feel himself separate also unavoidably or else he does not know and feel himself distinct as we do He must therefore upon this Hypothesis be separate as well as distinct from the other Besides three infinite Minds as he there and p. 50. and so onwards most frequently and familiarly stiles the three Persons and one infinite Mind that is three sames and not three sames are to me an unavoidable Contradiction But it had been at least no Contradiction to have said one infinite Mind or a Substance may have three manners of Subsisting or three several Relations which was the old way of speaking and which if it had been kept to the melancholy Stander-by had forborn his Suit That ancient Notion of a Divine Person is more consistent and much less obnoxious though how far satisfactory it may be to all Men he disputes not however he does account it to be the common Orthodox Doctrine now many hundred Years received And here he would have our Divines to stop as a common Boundary for Peace and his Reason is because here our Articles which were as is said in the very Title of them agreed upon for the avoiding of Diversities of Opinions and for the establishing Consent touching Religion do stop expressing only or stating to us the Doctrine of three Persons in the Terms wherein from old Times it has been delivered down and therefore in all Likelihood designing only the old Sense This is but more clearly and explicitely what the Suit for Forbearance desired of Dr. Sherlock and other present Writers in this Controversy Wherefore upon the whole how just in this Case the Imputation of a disguised Heretick of a Man spiteful against the Cause and Persons who maintain it a Wolf in Sheeps clothing and like Characters fastned upon the Author of it are God will judg if the World do not Had I either disputed against the old Notion or assigned any new one or ventured at new and dangerous Explications as some have done Mr. Dean had had some Colour for thus treating me But sith I have not I must tax this Language also as downright Calumny But to come off from this querulous Parenthesis Dr. Sherlock would not or did not stop here as is apparent by what I have transcribed actually out of his Book however he tells the World I did not read it In which Imputation I will frankly acknowledg every tittle of Truth there is namely I had not when I writ read his Book all over for it was taken out of my Lodging without my Knowledg or Consent before I had done with it and perhaps the Doctor has no Reason to complain of that Mischance But I had looked over all and carefully read a great part taken Notes out of it as will appear by my Adversaria of that Month yea indeed transcribed much more than I alledged And I alledged not as the Dean to the end he might shuffle off a distinct Answer to me and the Vindication of his Novelties is pleased to stile them broken Passages out of Pag. 30. his Book but intire Definitions and Propositions which contained the Substance of this Hypothesis as he stiles it And I do affirm the Doctor in what I so cited p. 14 15. of my Paper has gone most plainly beyond and contrary to the Doctrine both of the Fathers Schools and Protestant Divines And in his Apology he seems to have gone beyond himself For he at least four times calls our Lord Jesus a God incarnate p. 4 26 27 31. Now if the Son be a God incarnate then the Father is a God not incarnate And the same ought to be said according to this way of speaking of the Holy Ghost Nay it is actually said by him in these Words This Confession proves the Holy Ghost a God Vind. p. 190. lin ult I say then if there be a God and a God and a God unavoidably there must be three Gods And this is the very Absurdity the Socinians would reduce their Adversaries to Therefore the Doctor so defends the Mystery of the Trinity or so confutes Heresy as to run into the very same Absurdity to which his Adversaries would reduce him which I hope we may say without Offence is most unreasonable most dangerous and at present most unseasonable the thing charged by the Melancholy Stander-by This the Doctor might have evaded had he been content to have taken up with the old Acceptation or Definition of a Person in divinis or to have spoken with Scripture Jesus Christ is God manifest in the Flesh or if that must not suffice as is usual God incarnate But the adding an individuating Particle a to the Name of that common Essence God and then predicating that Name so determined touching the three Persons as it reduces the Subjects touching which it is predicated into the Rank of common Individuals so it leaves the Essence when taken without that individuating Particle in the Rank of a common Species And so contrary to the constant Doctrine even of the Schools God shall be predicated of the Father Son and Holy Ghost as a Species of Individuals as Man is of Abraham Isaac and Jacob whom all acknowledg to have been three Men and as much must the Father Son and Holy Ghost be three Gods Which if it be not most grievous Heresy and particularly the Heresy of * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Power to enact the Conditions of it and make Articles of Faith But in Controversies the Church may declare her Sense and we are bound so far peaceably to submit and accept it as not to contradict or teach contrary under Penalty of her Censures And this I would be content to conceive the whole of what our Church requires as to those things which are meerly her Determinations For in truth it is to no purpose for her to require such Approbation and Consent which whether paid or no she can never come to have Knowledg of which sort is Belief and inward Approbation To exact this may breed Hypocrisy it cannot be a Seed of Charity and true Christian Concord And thus as to that Latitude Simplicity and negative Belief which have so much offended the Apologist though I am well satisfied that had I imbraced his Definitions and Hypotheses he would have allowed me as great a Latitude in deceding from the Churches Doctrine as he has taken himself And now passing by many Favours so I call divers scornful Expressions §. 13. by the way which Mr. Dean is pleased to bestow upon me I come next to profess that notwithstanding any thing which he hath said to the contrary I am clearly of the Mind still that it is Opposition chiefly which keeps many Heterodox Opinions and Pamphlets alive But it is better such Pamphlets should be in an hundred Hands with an Pag. 10. Answer than in sive without one Not to tell him he takes Care by the rate he receives for every Sheet he publishes that such Pieces of his as the Vindication of the Trinity shall not be in the Hands of one Person in an hundred I am sure at least on a certain time I could not spare Money to buy it I will only say 't is hard to determine which more subverts the Orthodox Doctrine the Adversaries Impugnations or his Vindication I have heard that the wicked Vanninus so writ in Proof of the Being of a God as to increase the Suspition of Atheists that there was none And I do avow that Dr. Sherlock has so vindicated the Trinity that he has to his Power made the Unity asserted by the Fathers utterly impossible and run into the very Absurdity whereto the Adversaries would reduce us For if his Definitions and Hypotheses be true there must unavoidably be three Gods as has been shewn and there may be as well three thousand or as many as Varro says the Romans ever had No these three are one says Mr. Dean one by mutual Consciousness I answer besides that this amounts to no more than to an Unity of Accord which as has been said is not the Unity that the Church and Fathers ever held and which we have seen the Council of Sardis avowed to be the Catholick Faith ever taught received and delivered down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Substance or an Unity of Substance besides this I say three thousand Minds or Spirits may be as well conceived mutually conscious as three and so we may defend Polytheism or maintain all the Gods of the Heathen to have been but one Indeed I never read any Christian Writer to go so near in express Terms asserting a Plurality of Gods ad the Dean of St. Pauls has done a God and a God and a God as has been shewn And if this kind of speaking be not direct or full enough what is wanting in express Terms is abundantly made up in his Hypothesis which unavoidably infers three Gods and those no more or otherwise one than even an infinite Number could there be such a Number of Minds might be one which two Points though I was content to stile only the Absurdities to which our Adversaries would reduce us yet I know what Names other People would have given them could they have been found in any Writings of mine Further it is to be considered Dr. Sherlock's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity an august and glorious Title vastly raising the Expectation of all who read or hear it came out with the Solemnity of a Publick I had almost said Canonical Licence in its Front affixed thereto by an Ecclesiastical Reverend Person authorized by Law for such Purpose So did his Apology also This at first Sight represents the Doctrine contained in them not as the Sentiments of a private Doctor but as Doctrine approved by our Church for there are at least three Doctors of the Church to avouch for it And some will say If it be thus authorized by the Chaplains are not certain other much greater Persons concerned for it What Advantage now may the Enemy take every way thence Plainly forasmuch as other Doctors and Bishops of the Church cannot but disapprove and disclaim this Explication or Notion of the three Persons or of the Trinity and only of such an Unity as there asserted it will and must be said we are neither agreed amongst our selves as to Trinity nor Unity Shall therefore the melancholy Stander by be thought an Enemy to the Church for desiring such Writings as these may be forborn Again Mr. Dean tells us that Dr. Wallis when he called the three Persons Pag. 9. three Somewhats thereby only meant that the true Notion of a Person he did not know And hereto by the way Mr. Dean according to his wonted Ingenuity or Care subjoins I commended this No Sir that which I commended was what I wish had been to be found in you Dr. Wallis's Orthodoxy in the Acceptation of the word Persons in divinis set down by me in the Doctor 's own Words for something analogous to Persons and not signifying just the same But to commend Dr. Wallis or any one who worships three Persons for saying he does not know what a Person is is so far from me that I say Mr. Dean in imputing the Saying to Dr. Wallis and the commending it to me has wronged us both egregiously the Doctor in exposing him and Multitudes in him as liable to this unavoidable Consequence that they worship they know not what and me in telling the World I commend them that do so I delight not to search further into much less to exaggerate the Advantages Dr. Sherlock's Books on this Subject have given our Adversaries of all kinds By these Touches it is plain more may be assigned But as to those two above-named Particulars which I only stiled Absurdities the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or original Grounds of all the rest having now shewn them expresly enough I must mind Mr. Dean of his Promise that he will correct them and it may be a fit Subject for some of those few short Treatises which he has told us he will publish on this Argument as he has leisure whether he correct them thankfully or no I value not much provided Pag. 11. he sincerely or expresly recant them which in case of Errors he has said he will not blush to do However I will not blush to press
again what he endeavours to expose §. 14. my Desires to all to let this Controversy rest as it was above thirteen hundred Years ago determined by two general Councils And my Reason stands unshaken as far as I can see by the Dean or any else The Improvements which have since been attempted upon it have more embroil'd it than explain'd it and bring us down many times into grosser and more phantastical Conceptions of the Deity than become us As to what the Schools and Dr. Sherlock have done I have already spoke my Sense I could have shewn that Dr. Walls was only the English Author for three Somewhats and have cited a certain Father for tria quaedam but I had rather Mr. Dean should tell the World how ignorant I am of the Fathers than that their Esteem should be lessened by any thing produced by me that may seem to reflect on them Only because the World as if weary of metaphysical Improvements in this and like Subjects begins now to be fond of or expect even in Christian Mysteries some Wonders from Physicks or Mathematicks I shall give an Account of something more copious in this kind than what as far as I know our learned Professor here at home has as yet published There is a Book intituled Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres imprinted at Amsterdam 1685. wherein I find an Account of an Essay called a Memorial Memoire communicated by M. and writ to shew the Habitude or Resemblance Rapport of the three Dimensions of a Body to the three Persons of the Deity in which after a short Preface of the different Natures of a thinking and extense Substance there is drawn a Parallel between La Trinite in one Column and Laquantite in another amounting to no fewer than twenty three Particulars And after somewhat said of the Use of these Parallels wherein he utterly denies the false Idea's as he terms them of the School-men he adds seven more parallel Instances between the Objections Hereticks make against the Trinity and such as may be made against the triple Dimensions of Bodies Then follow ten Axioms out of the Religio rationalis Andreae Vissovatii an Author of whom I can find no Account amongst those Books which I have to consult placed also Column-wise the Trinity on one Side and extense Substance on the other He ends with a Promise if this Essay take of a Parallel between the Incarnation and the sensible World on all which I will only say Real and Physical Quantity exists only in Bodies Mathematical Quantity merely in the Mind or Thoughts of the Artist Now how highly Christianity is likely to be advanced by such Speculations as these what real and what rare spiritual Conceptions and Demonstrations at this rate we shall in some time come to have touching God I leave all considering Men to judg and in the mean while again desire all to stop at the afore-mentioned safe Boundaries of Faith and Peace I must now proceed with Mr. Dean rebuking me as surely intending §. 15. this for no more than a Jest that I would have the Doctrine of the Trinity left upon its old bottom of Authority And here he demands would I myself Pag. 12. believe such absurd Doctrines as some represent the Trinity in Vnity to be meerly upon Church-Authority for his Part he declares he would not And for my part I who adhere to Scripture and plead for such strict Adhesion am press'd with none of these Absurdities or absurd Doctrines but if he will not accept such Terms or Forms of speaking as Homoousion or Consubstantial Conglorified and the like from Councils and Fathers he must which would be a great Fault in me even let them alone I do not know whence else he can or must receive them nor who else coined them and desire him to inform me Perhaps he will say what the great Father in this Controversy did before him these syllabical Words are not indeed in Scripture but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Sense is I answer So I believe the Father-thought and so I believe thought the Generality of the Nicene Fathers for by Mr. Dean's Favour they pretended rather to determine this Point out of Scripture than to deliver any traditionary Sense thereof and agreeable to this Pretence was the placing the Holy Records in the midst of the Council yea admitting what we judg good Consequents out of Scripture to be of the same Truth with Scripture so think I but so do not others think nor will I pretend my self able nor do I see any notwithstanding their mighty Boasts able to convince them Demonstrate to the World this to be the Sense of Scripture and the Controversy is at an end Till that be done if we will be fair we must own this to be the State of our Evidence We have for the Orthodox Side Scripture interpreted by the Tradition of the Church this at length resolves it self mainly into Church-Authority For the traditionary Sense which determines Scripture to signify this not that is of such Authority and therefore is the Dogme thence concluded such also Wherefore I see no Reason to recal that honest Acknowledgment of mine conceived indeed in Terms a little larger After all Authority must define this Controversy Yet haply it might not be amiss to desire my Words may be strictly attended I said indefinitely Authority for I know not whether it can be said single Ecclesiastical Authority did ever effectually define it that is appease the Controversy nor will it I fear ever be able There was some other concurrent Power of which I forbear to speak interposed to temperate the Factious in a certain Council as well as to recommend its Decrees and so must there be amongst us for the ending this Controversy Let but the Forms of Worship which some Mens Consciences cannot bear be made easy that we may unite in the Service of God and 't is no matter how severe the Laws be against any who shall write or speak more in the Controversy I cannot tell but Mr. Dean may have private Reasons which induce him rather to abide by the Arguments or Sentiments of some Fathers than the Authority of the Councils by me insisted on I have not pretended to much Skill in Fathers and Councils and no where imperiously to justify my Pretences within the Space of two or three Pages rattle out over and over the same six or seven Fathers in a Breath without producing a Word out of any of them which some Men may interpret a Pretence to Skill in them but no good Mark whence to discover it However because the Judgment and Authority of Councils is so little in his Esteem and the learned and subtile Disputations of a certain Person in the Nicene Pag. 13. Council of so great Force with him I will take leave notwithstanding my being so little vers'd in these Authors to tell him that though I have â—â—â—ue and profound a Veneration for the
am so far from espousing the Conversation much less Friendship of any such as that I say with the great Apostle If any Man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha And as for my own part I from my Heart receive every Tittle of the revealed Christian Religion particularly as to those two Magnalia the Trinity and Incarnation Touching the former I have once and again declared my Judgment and Faith and touching the latter this being the meetest Place wherein to profess my Faith of it I do profess sincerely to believe my Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God the Word who was in the Beginning and who was with God and was and is God blessed for ever to have been in fulness of Time made of a Woman and so to have become Flesh or truly taken upon him Flesh and Blood to have been in the World as we are in the World subject to all Infirmities Sin only excepted and that as such having by himself purged our Sins he is sat down on the right Hand of the Majesty on high and as he lives for ever to make Intercession for us so he shall come to judg the World at the last Day Thus do I from my Heart adore and preach him and shall do I trust to my dying Hour I know indeed and have Converse with some who are not in all these Particulars of my Mind yet neither are they licentious Wits nor do they ridicule and scorn this Faith nor do I see how any sober Men dare ridicule it But some vertuous Rationalists having perhaps faln upon bad Books and by that Means lying under strong Prepossessions they misinterpret these Passages of Holy Scripture which I have reported and others like and endeavour to evade their Evidence when applied to that Sense to which we of the Church of England alledg them Now I do not think Stiffness and an immoderate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a winding up the State of each Question still higher and higher and then disputing scornfully and defending all in new Methods or by new Hypotheses to be the way to reclaim these Men but what I conceive to be most serviceable I shall before I have done speak out and submit As to Men that ridicule and scoff at any thing in Religion yea though it be erroneous as long as it is consistent with Holiness and Charity has a fair Claim to Scripture and seems deducible thence I think such Scoffers highly prophane and both these and all such who treat those that are not of their Opinions with Scorn and Haughtiness I judg them to be next door to David's Scorners Psal 1. namely in the highest Class of the Wicked and very near being incorrigible which is all I will say as to this Imputation of my having entertained a Friendship with such Men. Mr. Dean goes on and says I have found out such a Reason to prove §. 20. Pag. 20. the present Danger of disputing the Controversy of the Holy Trinity as he believes was never dream'd of and that is that it is one of the Fundamentals of Christian Religion Now to litigate touching a Fundamental is to turn it into Controversy c. Here I must again complain of soul dealing my Words were The Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity in whose Names we and all Christians are or ought to have been baptized is esteemed as it is if duly stated one of the Fundamentals of Christian Religion It is apparent I did affirm the Doctrine of the Trinity a Fundamental with this Restriction if duly stated He charges it upon me as affirm'd simply and at large I deny it to be a Fundamental or so much a Truth as Dr. Sherlock states it in his Vindication of it viz. that there is a Trinity of infinite Minds c. though with Reverence I acknowledg and believe it to be both a Truth and a Fundamental as the Scripture states it Now for Men to take the Name of a fundamental and revered Truth the Holy Trinity and affix it to a novel and gross Pack of Errors and to go on to dispute for those Errors under the sacred Title of a Fundamental of the Catholick and Apostolick Faith which was plainly enough my Sense this I say and stand to it is of dreadful Danger and may prove of as mischievous Consequence as most Practices assignable For in case the Adversary disprove and expose that Error it is not with the Generality of People the Error that suffers but that great Truth the sacred Name whereof was abused And whereas he demands Is it dangerous to preserve and defend Foundations when Hereticks unsettle them I answer he has truly done neither neither secured nor defended them but very surely has he done a third thing he has to his Power changed them Wherefore to all that dreadful aggravative Discourse which takes up a whole Page and an half spent to render me ridiculous and my Assertion Pag. 20 21. extravagant as if according to what I urge Men might not argue against Atheism I will give no other Answer than that I pray God to forgive him the making this Parallel and grant unto him hereafter better to employ his Time and Parts than in such open and unartificial Exaggerations In the next Page follows a Piece of News which I am truly to thank him for touching a Treatise in the Press from our excellent Primate Pag. 22. Now though this Intimation was intended against the Design of my Paper as an Argument from Authority and the Authority too of such a Person whom should I offer to except against I should most justly expose my Judgment if no more yet so welcome is the Tidings he tells me that here also I forgive both this his ill Intent and the sly Scoff with which he concludes that Paragraph not doubting but when I see that Piece I shall find in it both plain and perspicuous Scripture-Notions clear Reason and genuine Antiquity Besides I must tell the Apologist I look upon his Grace both by his publick Station and personal Qualifications far otherwise capacitated to write on this Subject than a private Doctor such as I suppose Mr. Dean was when he writ what he stiled the Vindication of the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity I now come to what he has to say against my last Argument for a temporary §. 21. Forbearance of these Disputes which he thus reports that I say All Controversies are now unseasonable in such a Juncture wherein nothing but an Vnity of Counsels and joining Hands and Hearts can preserve the Reformation and scarce any thing more credit it than an Vnion in Doctrinals This Report of my Argument is according to his wonted Candour and Veracity But my Argument by his Favour stood not so in my Paper it was more carefully express'd had more Parts and those pressing closer I desire it may be considered I was to say as much as I could in a little and however Mr.
Act and where I borrowed his Book of the Trinity before I wrote touching either And I must take the Liberty to say that as I read both so it appears not in the least by any thing I have writ that I was ignorant in either But no Dissenters have any Benefit by that Act who do not renounce Socinianism By your good Favour Sir this is too roundly and boldly said Is there no Favour to Dissenters but that of allowing them publick Assemblies What do you think of a tacit Connivance if not at their stay at home yet allowing them quietly to come to our Congregations and joining therewith as far as they are able What of a kind of vetuit inquiri I declare I would not consent that the Socinians should have the Liberty some other N. Cs. have to teach publickly all their Opinions in separate Congregations for I would have most or all of the Controversies betwixt them and us silenced and therefore I said very much if not full enough was done already in their Favour and that the Authority which passed that Act could relax more if necessary And I hope that Authority namely King and Parliament will in time relax what more is necessary for such an Vnion as is possible In the mean while neither did I nor had I the occasion which is now given me to speak what God be blessed was before relaxed by other Acts perhaps not with any great liking of some Men notwithstanding I had those Relaxations even then in mine Eye and I can truly say they came into the Consideration which moved me to say what I did on this Point There was such a thing as a Writ de Haeretico comburendo which I have heard some Persons learned in the Law say did lie even at Common Law and I am sure the Canonists tell us prevailed by Custom throughout Christendom And we know one Michael Servetus in whose Writings Grotius could never find what some charged upon him was burnt even at Geneva by no Papists in the prevailing Virtue of that Custom I will not speak on what Pretences This Writ is now as I have heard taken away and so it may be hoped the Custom here in a fair way to be abolished by express Statute whereby possibly some Men may think a very considerable Benefit no less than Security of Lives and Estates may redound to them in case some such of their Friends as Mr. Dean were in the Place they affect As to those odious Terms with which he hath interlaced his next Paragraph His beloved Socinians We may see what a hearty good Will he has to the Cause This is such a scandalous Representation of the Bishops of England which in due time when the Dean of St. Paul's comes to be one of them they may resent These are more of the Favours for his Liberality wherein I may come to be beholden to him in that Day when the Reproaches and Calumnies which Men have sustained for the sake of Christ or which is much like the same for Peace amongst Christian People with a Design of Holiness shall add to the Weight of their Glory But I must after another sort answer to that heavy Charge which follows §. 26. Pag. 29. of my tempting the Bishops to dispute the Bounds of their Authority and that through my Ignorance both of ancient and later Histories or Practice The thing I had said was this That to the authorizing every Alteration which should be made in our Liturgy or Canons I did not judg the Concurrence of such a lower House of Convocation as is now customary to be necessary And that if this Course had been observed in K. Edward the Sixth's time we had had no reformed Liturgy perhaps no Reformation at all And for Proof that the Synods for such Affairs were of old made up of Bishops and fewer Doctors I had appealed to the Practice of the Primitive and truly Catholick Church This is in Mr. Dean's Language without any Provocation a setting up the Authority of Bishops against the lower House a threatning unruly Presbyters and that through my understanding no better the Practice of the Primitive Church than I do K. Edward the VIth's Reformation To draw my Answer into as short a Compass as I can waving to that Purpose his usual Exaggerations as apparently undue waving also the known Diminutions of Episcopal Power the Source and Original thereof due to Rome and Sectaries and the Mischief which Religion and the Church sustain thereby I will speak only to what I perceive pinches him most the Reformation first made of our Liturgy and publick Worship in King Edward the IVth's Days which though I did not say or suppose to be made by the Body of the Bishops in opposition to the Presbyters as he falsly charges upon me for as I have no such Word so I better understand the History yet I did and I do say it was made without a lower House of Convocation and by whom I shall speak particularly enough before I have done Now the Evidence on which I ground all I say is such publick Remains and Histories of those Days and Affairs as are commonly to be had such are King Edward's Injunctions Order of Communion-Service c. First printed A. D. 1547. collected and with other things reprinted soon upon his late Majesty K. Charles II. his happy Restoration with a Preface of Dr. Sparrow's to the Collection but the Collection not made by Dr. Sparrow himself as he himself when Bishop of Exeter told me for had he had the over-ruling it he said he would have put in more Materials but by such who consulted their own present Profit such are too Fox ' s Acts and Monuments Part 2. Book 9. Sir John Hayward ' s Life and Reign of K. Edward the Sixth Dr. Heylin ' s History of the Reformation and Dr. Burnet ' s now Bishop of Salisbury more lately If Mr. Dean has had any Access to any Archives or more authentick Records than those by which these Historians were guided he would have done well to have published them In the mean while I with others am content in this Matter to admit for Truth what these concurrently have delivered To our Point then That blessed Prince K. Edward VI. began his Reign January 28 1546 7 and if we will take together all that was done towards the Reformation of Religion in the first nine Months of his Reign Sir John Hayward of whose Veracity I find no Reason to doubt has thus drawn up the Sum Soon after the Beginning of the young Life and Reign of Edw. VI. pag. 45 46. King's Reign certain Injunctions were set forth for removing Images out of Churches which had been highly not only esteemed but honoured before and for abolishing or altering some other antient Observations in the Church Hereupon Commissioners were dispatched into all Parts of the Realm to see those Injunctions to be executed with those divers Preachers were sent
to imitate §. 24. my Saviour and answer one captious Question with another 1st He asks Whether I will allow them whom I grant to be in Possession of the Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation to keep Possession of it to teach explain and confirm it to their People And I will ask him Whether he never saw certain Royal Injunctions assigning fit Subjects for Sermons Some in Queen Elizabeth's Time and others since ordinarily transmitted to the Clergy by the Primate of the Kingdom that Preachers shall in their Sermons purely and sincerely declare unto their Hearers the Word of God and in the same exhort them to good Works to Works of Faith as Mercy and Charity that they shall forbear difficult and controversial Points Now although this of the Trinity be not that I remember mentioned yet I am sure there is the same Reason of it as of those that are And by his Favour I will ask him further whether it be not fit to obey such Injunctions or whether the Doctrine of the Trinity be not as difficult and remote from the common Peoples Understanding as is the Doctrine of Predestination and God's Decrees Notwithstanding this I yield In the Name of God let Ministers at due Season as on Trinity-Sunday and the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord preach to their People as they judg it most edifying the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation only let them do it plainly easily purely and sincerely according to Scripture and not with Innovations of their own His 2d Particular I expected would have been a Question also as he promised but he had either forgot his Promise or changed his Mind and so he puts the Case categorically thus I hope says Mr. Dean he that is the melancholy Stander-by does not propose this Negative Belief as he calls it as a Term of Communion that though we know them to deny the Trinity and Incarnation yet if they will agree not publickly to oppose and contradict this Faith we shall receive them to our Communion Now though he has not proposed this in form of a Question yet I will answer it with a very short one Why not At least as far forth as we know that is as they profess they can in Conscience join with us Nay has not Mr. Dean done it or would he not in the Case I shall now put namely Suppose him or me to be in the Pulpit beginning our Prayer before Sermon either as some do with the Collect Prevent us O Lord c. or with some Form or Conceptions of our own in which notwithstanding is nothing of Controversy intermix'd and to subjoin to our own Prayer that of our Lord's Suppose in like manner after Sermon we should use either that Collect Grant we beseech thee c. or some Prayer of our own and then give the Blessing to the whole Congregation promiscuously Admit now that in the Beginning of our very first Prayer we should have seen a Person whom we know to be a good Liver and professing the common Christianity in other Points but so unhappy as that he cannot be convinced of the Doctrine of three Persons in the Godhead as it is ordinarily taught or of the Incarnation of the second Person though he does from his Heart believe and confess Jesus Christ to be the Son of God and hold all other the Articles of the Apostles Creed would or should either Mr. Dean or I in such case stop as soon as we saw that Person in the Congregation and bid him go out refusing he should join with us in those Prayers or receive his Share in that Blessing to both which he heartily says Amen that is Shall I not admit him to Communion as far as I know he does consent and desire to communicate with me and other Orthodox Christian People I know the Story of St. John the Evangelist and Cerinthus but Cerinthus was anotherguise Heretick than such Person as in the Character supposed I might animadvert as I pass that in pag. 27. Mr. Dean imputes sundry Points very iniquitously stated to the Socinians which yet they hold not as he states them I am not concerned to defend the Socinian Errors but as I love Truth and Peace I cannot forbear observing that he here wrongs them First as to what he speaks of the Object of Christian Worship if he as some in the World had had personal dealing with the Generality of his Parishioners as to Matters of Conscience he would say that the Ignorance of many Church-People and so the Errors of their Conceptions both touching God and touching the three Persons in the Godhead much more alter as to them the Object of the Christian Worship than do the Errors of the Socinians Again whereas he says the Socinians deny that the Son of God offered himself a Sacrifice to expiate our Sins I do so far depend upon my Memory as to avow they affirm our Lord Jesus to have been Victimam verè expiatoriam a Sacrifice truly expiatory they are the Words of the Author of the short Exposition of the Apostles Creed whether Slicktingius as I rather think or Crellius I cannot now tell having not seen my Book divers Years Nor do they deny the Love of God to Mankind in giving his only Son to be our Prophet and Saviour and Redeemer too nor his Intercession as their High Priest in virtue of his Blood shed as an Atonement for our Sins They differ from us perhaps in explaining the Nature of Expiation and Satisfaction but both an Expiation and a Satisfaction they allow Some Men write against them without understanding them But I forbear further intermeddling in these kinds of Injuries though to use Mr. Dean's Words it were easy to enlarge on this Argument I am not writing a Defence Pag. 28. of the Socinians only I am vindicating a peaceable Design in a Man that is none but loves Godliness Vertue and good Works where-ever he meets with them and who may chance sooner to perswade many Socinians to be silent by making it apparent he would not wrong them however odious others make them by unjust Charges than will those be able who try their Skill and strain their Veracity in fierce and haughty Disputes against them Men may have Wit enough if they have Justice done them to understand when it is fit to be quiet who will scarce sit down silent under publick Calumnies In the next Place Mr. Dean falls upon me for saying very much is done §. 25. namely for present Union by the late Act in Favour of Dissenters and taxes me here again according to his wonted Civility with pretending to give Account of Acts of Parliament as I do of other Books without seeing them A strange kind of Incredulity touching my Reading has possess'd this Gentleman Must I not be believed to have read Books except I produce Witnesses that heard or saw me read them I can produce Witnesses now in London where I bought this