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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49107	An answer to a Socinian treatise, call'd The naked Gospel, which was decreed by the University of Oxford, in convocation, August 19, Anno Dom. 1690 to be publickly burnt, as containing divers heretical propositions with a postscript, in answer to what is added by Dr. Bury, in the edition just published / by Thomas Long ...	Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.	1691 (1691)	Wing L2958; ESTC R9878	172,486	179

Imprimatur March 30 1691. Z. Isham R. P. D. Hen. Episc Lond. à Sacris AN ANSWER TO A Socinian Treatise CALL'D The Naked Gospel WHICH WAS Decreed by the University of Oxford in Convocation August 19 Anno Dom. 1690. to be Publickly Burnt as containing divers Heretical Propositions WITH A POSTSCRIPT in Answer to what is added by Dr. Bury in the Edition just Published By THOMAS LONG B. D. One of the Prebendaries of St. Peter's Exon Contra rationem nemo Sobrius contra Scripturam nemo Christianus contra Ecclesiam nemo pacificus senserit August de Trinitate l. 4. c. 6. Sanctius reverentius visum est de actis Deorum credere quam Scire Tacitus London Printed by Freeman Collins and are to be Sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1691. TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD JONATHAN By Divine Permission Lord Bishop of EXON I May justly fear that in the Dedication of these Exercitations I have done as some inconsiderate Persons who seek to excuse a less by committing of a greater Offence It was I confess a great Presumption that I prefixt your Lordship's Name to a Hasty Scrible against the Crime of Persecution charged on the Church of England and now I presume upon your Lordship's Patience and Patronage in a Case of greater Importance it is not a Scandalum Magnatum nor any of the Plea's of a Temporal Crown but a Crime Laesae Majestatis an Overt Attempt to overthrow the Crown and Kingdom of our Blessed Saviour as if he also were a King de Facto and not de Jure which I now lay before your Lordship it is the Crown and Dignity of him in whose Person and Due Worship and Honour our common Salvation is wrapt up The Sanction of our Law viz. de Heretico comburendo was I confess too severe but if there be not some Powerful Restraint laid on such Damnable Heresies as deny the LORD that bought them the Sons of Belial will not forbear to deny him on Earth with a Non Obstante to our Saviour's threatning Him will I deny before my Father which is in heaven The Ecclesiastical Laws are but as Bruta Fulmina to such as wilfully Excommunicate themselves and unless the Temporal Power supply the Defects of the Spiritual we are like to run into a worse Confusion than hitherto we have this sort of Men being as great Enemies to the one as to the other Ruarus who incurred a Banishment for his Socinianism though as modest as any of them in a Tract of Magistracy printed with his Epistles p. 461. says The times may be such and if we consider the state of all Ages and Nations they have been and still are such that it is more hard for a Christian to discharge the Office of a Magistrate especially of a Supreme than for a rich Man to enter into the kingdom of heaven They are for an Independent Ministry no Friends to either of our Lord's Institutions the Sacraments of Infant Baptism and the Eucharist and though while they are under the Power of the Civil Magistrate they plead for an enlarged Charity yet if at any time they get the Sword to hang at their sides their Cruelty will be much more extensive This I speak the more positively because First Their Principles lead them to it for if the Papists with whom we agree in the chiefest Articles of Religion be such implacable Enemies as to design the utter Extirpation of our Church how much more will the Socinians who condemn us as Polytheists and Idolators for worshipping those whom they account meer Creatures execute their Fury on us But 2ly their Practices have abundantly declared their Inveterate Malice for when one Arian Presbyter had drawn Constantius to be of his Opinion I tremble to relate what Havock was made in the Church and before that time under Dioclesian having gotten the Donatists and other Hereticks to strengthen their Party they committed more Outrages on the Catholicks than Dioclesian himself though that was the fluctus Decumanus the most impetuous Wave that overflowed the Church I shall give a brief Account from a Witness above all Exceptions Vincent Lirinensis Ch. 6. Contr. Her with whom St. Augustine agrees in his Discourses against the Arians Vol. 7. and Socrates l. 2. c. 10. l. 4. c. 13. and Sozomen l. 3. c. 6. the words of Vincentius are these Cùm prophana ipsa Arrianorum Novitas velut quaedam bellona aut furia Capto prius omnium Imperatore cuncta deinde Palatii culmina legibus novis subjugasset nequaquam deinceps destitit Universa Miserere atque vexare privata publica sacra prophanaque omnia nullum boni veri genere descrimen sed quoscunque collibuisset tanquam deloco superiore percutere tunc temeratae conjuges depopulatae viduae prophanatae Virgines monasteria demolita desturbate clerici verberati Levitae acti in exilium sacerdotes oppleta sanctis ergastula carceres Metalla quorum pars Maxima interdictis urbibus protrusi atque extorres inter deserta spleluncas feras saxa nuditate fame siti affecti contrite tabe facti sunt Atque haec omnia nunquid ullam aliam ob causam nisi utique dum pro caelesti dogmate humanae superstitiones introducuntur dum bene fundata antiquitas scelesta novitate subruitur dum superiorum instituta violantur dum rescinduntur scita patrum dum convelluntur definita Majorum dum sese intra sacratae atque incorruptae veritatis castissimos limites prophanae ac novellae curiositatis libido non continet This one Testimony of so good an Author is enough to make us abhor the Authors of the Arian and much more of the Socinian Heresie which is more Impious and guilty of the greater Blasphemy the more sacrilegious Novelty and of such intollerable Pride and Contempt of all Mankind but themselves even while they are under severe Laws that I believe if their Power were equal it would be as well for our Temporal as Spiritual Condition to live under the Roman as the Racovian Harrows The Statute 29 Car. 2. which abrogated that De Heretico Comburendo declares That it doth not take away or abridge any Iurisdiction of Protestant Archbishops Bishops or other Iudges of his Majesty's Ecclesiastical Courts in Causes of Atheism Blasphemy Heresie Schism or other Damnable Doctrines or Opinions but they may proceed to punish the same according to the Ecclesiastical Laws by Excommunication Deprivation Degradation and other Ecclesiastical Censures not extending to Death So as before the Act the Learned Judge Hales in the beginning of his Plea's of the Crown gives an Account of the manner of Conviction of Hereticks which he says is First By the Common Law Whereof he gives some Instances Secondly By Archbishops and Bishops in a General Synod Thirdly By the Bishop in his Diocess The Common Law he says inflicts no Forfeiture neither indeed doth the Ecclesiastical if the Criminal abjure his Opinions being pro salute Animae but if he

to the Holy Scriptures and the Catholick Faith received and inviolably preserved by all Orthodox Christians in all the World in all Ages from the beginning of the Church to this present time and as repugnant to the Decrees of Councils especially that of Nice the most Solemn of all that are extant and most worthy of our Faith and Acceptation And lastly as contrary to the Writings of the Fathers especially of St. Athanasius whole Faith and Patience in Defence of the Cause of Christ was great beyond Example will be memorably celebrated wheresoever the Gospel shall be preached II. Moreover We injoyn under the Penalty of the Law all Students not to read the said infamous Libel or any of that kind which do re-call as from Hell those anciently condemn'd Heresies commanding and firmly enjoyning all and every the Praelectors Tutors Catechists and others to whom the Institution of Accademical Youth is intrusted that they diligently instruct and establish those that are committed to their Charge in that chief and necessary Article of our Faith upon which as on a Foundation all the rest do depend by which we are taught to believe and profess That there is One Living and True God and in the Unity of this Nature there are Three Persons of the same Essence Power and Eternity Father Son and Holy Ghost III. We Decree the above-named Infamous Libel to be Burnt by an Infamous Hand in the Area of our Schools The Propositions referr'd to in the Decree Pref. That Mahomet profest all the Articles of the Christian Faith Whether Mahomet or Christian Doctors have more corrupted the Gospel is not so plain by the light of Scripture as it is by that of Experience that the later gave occasion encouragement and advantage to the former For when by nice and hot Disputes especially concerning the Second and Third Persons of the Trinity the minds of the whole People had been long confounded and by the then late Establishment of Image-Worship the Scandal was encreased so that to vulgar Understandings the Doctrine of the Trinity appeared no less guilty of Polytheism then that of Image-Worship did of Idolatry Then was there a tempting Opportunity offered to the Impostor and he laid hold on it to set up himself for a Reformer of such Corruptions as were both too gross to be justified and too visible to be denyed Cap. 7. pag. 40. The great Question concerning the Godhead of Christ is 1. Impertinent to our Lords design 2. Fruitless to the Contemplators own purpose 3. Dangerous Cap. 8. pag. 46. Two Evangelists trace our Lord's Genealogy but as they derive it not from his real but supposed Father so do they take two several ways not to satisfie but to amuse us What is this but to admonish us against Curiosity The Pedigree of his Flesh might easily have been either cleared or unmentioned Had the Evangelists been wholly silent concerning it we had less wondred but that they should profess to instruct us yet doubly disappoint us first by deriving it from a wrong Father and then by distracting us between two ways What is this but to verify the Prophets description Who shall declare his Generation And what doth this so careful Concealment of his Generation according to the Humane Nature signify more plainly than a warning against searching after his Eternal Generation of his Divinity If it were needless and therefore left impossible to prove him derived from David which was one of his most revealed Characters how can it be otherwise to understand that Generation of his which must needs be so much the more above our Understanding as the Nature of God is above our own Pag. 48. And might not a Heathen at this rate justify Polytheism provided his Gods disagreed not among themselves The Schoolmen therefore will not stand to this State of the Question but distinguish between Person and suppositum rationale which yet they cannot so do as to satisfy themselves and therefore shelter themselves in their impregnable Fort Mystery and thence thunder upon the Adversaries both of this and of another no less beloved Mystery For they make this their Cock argument for Transubstantiation That since the Scripture is no less express for the One than the Other and the Contradictions no less gross in the One than in the Other therefore we must embrace the one as well as the other To this Objection of the Romanists and to others of the Unitarians we have found an Answer That we must not infer from our Own Nature to God's for that Ours is finite and God's is infinite Three Persons among Us are Three Men because they agree in one Common Nature but the Divine Nature is not a Common One but a Singular and therefore Three Persons do not make Three Gods If you understand not this you must not wonder or at least you must not Gainsay it for it is a Mystery which Reason may not pretend to fathom Pag. 51. Thus have we pointed and only pointed at some of the many intangling Questions which puzzeled and divided the subtilest Wits of seveal Ages and were at last decided by no other Evidence but of Imperial and Papal Authority sufficient to silence Disputes but not stablish Truth And who is he that is not discouraged from giving a confident Assent to what is this way obtruded upon his Belief Cap. 9. pag. 53. I. There is danger of Blasphemy in examining the Silly Question as he calls it concerning the Eternity of the Godhead of Christ This is a second danger That we have no firm ground to go upon Pag. 54. The only advantage of the Catholicks is long Possession and that after Sentence They have indeed so handled Matters as to hide much and varnish all yet even so we may pick out enough to justify an Appeal by observing how that Possession was first obtained then continued and at last setled The Sentence which first determined the Controversy in the Council of Nice was not by the Merit of the Cause but Interest of the Parties Pag. 56. This long and mischeivous Controversy was at last setled by Theodosius who having received his Instructions and Baptism from a Consubstantialist required all his Subjects to conform to that Religion which Peter the Prince of the Apostles from the beginning had delivered to the Romans and which at that time Damasus Bishop of Rome and Peter Bishop of Alexandria held and that Church only should be esteemed Catholick which worshipped the Divine Trinity with equal Honour and those which held the other should be called Hereticks made infamous and punished This therefore we may call setling the Controversy because thenceforth all succeeding Emperors and Bishops wrote after this Copy and both the Parties have ever worn these Titles which the Emperor by his Imperial Power as the unquestionable Fountain of Honor was pleased to bestow upon them Behold now the Ground upon which one of our Fundamental Articles of Faith is Built behold the Justice of that Plea