appear Heretical that is unless the Persecuted should fall into the Humour of appealing to all impartial and unprejudic'd Persons whether the Writings of the Nominalist Unitarians be not as obnoxious as theirs and altogether as much at the mercy of an Interpreter And perhaps there be that think the World has been troubled too much by them both and that neither ought to be forgiven unless they first forgive one another and I am strangely deceiv'd if I cannot name the Instances which duly consider'd recommend to them both so much Humanity The Nominalists are safe from the Unitarians not only by the Unitarian Principle which disavows Persecution but also because of their Paucity nor can their Abilities make them formidable for as a great Man notes their Adversaries are their Superiors both in Wit and Learning and the Unitarians ought to be safe from the Nominalists not only because the Doctrine of them both is one and the same tho their Language sometimes varies but also for those many cogent Reasons which are to be met with in the Essay above cited and in the Letters for Toleration which I presume will have their influence on both Nominalists and Realists as many of them as are men of Vertue true Piety and Christian Moderation but as for such furious Inquisitors as Mr. Edwards and Mr. Peter Brown I reckon they are so very passionate that they are utterly incapable of attending to sober Reasoning from plain Christian Principles therefore I will tell them a Story which perhaps they may have read in their younger days and that it may not be thrown away upon them I will be at the pains of application Pyrrhus Prince of Epirus an ambitious Politick Captain made use of one Cyneas a sensible witty Man in the conduct of his weightiest Affairs This Person one day accosted his warlike Master after this manner The Romans Sir against whom we are arming are a hardy valiant People but if the Gods should prosper us how shall we use our Victory Why said Pyrrhus when we have beaten the Romans we shall presently be Masters of all Italy And how shall we govern our selves then Sir Then Sir why then Sicily holds out her Arms to receive us a fruitful Island a noble and an easy purchase Very probable and what shall the possession of Sicily put an end to the War O Friend says Pyrrhus we must not throw away the Opportunities which the Gods put into our hands We are next bound for Lybia and then Carthage proud populous and wealthy is ours and by that glorious Conquest we shall become powerful enough to subdue all Greece The subtle Cyneas still plied him with the Question What are we for next At last Pyrrhus replied Then we 'll live at Ease spend our days in Wine and Mirth and nothing shall employ our Thoughts but the ways to vary and heighten our Pleasures When Cyneas had brought his unwary Master to this point he turn'd short upon him and ask'd What hinders us now from living at Ease without dispossessing others of their Rights and hazarding our own Fortunes Instead of running all these Risques we may even now sit down and sing O be Joyful Now to my Application Mr. Edwards and Mr. Brown furious Dealers in Polemic Squabble ambitious both to spread their Empire wide over Conscience were one day in Consult how to remove the Obstacles that stood in their way The methods they agreed on were to restrain the Press for fear they should lose by disputing to censure what they do not understand for fear there should be Heresy in 't to set up an Inquisition to jail the suspected of Faith erroneous and burn the avow'd Dissenter Their first Process they determin'd to direct against a handful of Men of late known by the Name of Unitarians in contradistinction to some Ecclesiasticks professing to believe and worship three distinct Infinite Minds Dr. Christian Eubulus was their Chancellor whom they requir'd to prosecute the aforesaid poor Men with the utmost Rigour This Christian Eubulus represented to them that the Unitarians held no private Doctrines different from what were taught by our most Orthodox Prelates that they were Men of some Learning untainted Probity and good Sense but if it was irrevocably decreed that they were to be utterly rooted out he humbly desir'd to know whom he was to fall upon next Why said Mr. Edw. and Mr. Br. when we have once dispatch'd these malepert Unitarians we shall become formidable to all the Bawlers against Priestcraft who now despise us and need not be afraid to attacque the Quakers of whom the largest Division the Foxonians who are the ruling Party are meer Deists they are a numerous and politick People the Scripture is to them a dead Letter the Rule of their Faith is the Light within them that is meer natural Reason and they have an odd way with them instead of guarding their own Doctrines they attacque ours so 't is absolutely necessary to ruine this Sect It may be done by Fines Imprisonment Death if need be or merciful Banishment What matter if the State lose by it better be without them and their Effects than plagu'd with their Heresy Christian Eubulus seem'd to acquiesce but desir'd to know of his Masters whether they should have any more need of him O Dear Friend replied they when God has blessed our Zeal so far for his Service we must not give over so there are two Sticks so they call themselves Presbyterians and Independents crooked Sticks both who cudgel one another when we let them alone but not enough to the purpose these Sticks must be burnt both burnt for they will not bend to decent Discipline and by that time we have consum'd them to Ashes all the little crawling Sectaries will fall down and worship as many infinite distinct Minds or Essences as we please or one such infinite Mind in Language that signifies Three Christian Eubulus was again at his Question and when all the World conforms What then Then Man replied the bold Duumviri why then we 'll live like true Christians none of our Communion shall be suffer'd to indulge himself in Prophaness and Immorality we 'll show Mercy and do Works of Charity we 'll diligently preach the holy Doctrines of the Gospel and honestly practise them our selves so that the Church shall become a Heaven upon Earth When Christian Eubulus had brought his zealous Masters to this point he put them the hard Question of all Why can't we live like true Christians now Why cannot we now discourage the Prophaness and Immorality of the Members of our Communion What hinders us now from being fervent in Prayer diligent in preaching the Gospel and exemplary in our Lives and Conversations When one is got into Stories especially by the Parlour Fire in a Winter Evening there 's no end of them but if the Reader will forgive me I will punish him but with one more and it shall be as short as he could wish Barclay in his Icon Animorum tells us of a Father and his two Sons who excommunicated the whole World and confin'd the Church within the narrow Pale of their own three Elect Persons within a few days the hopeful Boys excommunicated the old Man and not long after they excommunicated one another Suppose now the Church of England should convert or confound the Unitarians the Quakers the Presbyterians the Independents and every little Philadelphian Society nay and Popish Recusants also tho that 's a swinging Supposition is all like to be Peace at home within her own Body no such matter the Quinquarticular Controversy will set 'em together by the ears among themselves Mr. Gailhard and the Growth of Error have already declar'd open War against all Churchmen of the Arminian Perswasion for want of a Bone the Theory of the Earth will make a bustle among them and for ought I know the Royal Society may make some Discovery in Nature that may be Heresy in Religion but to mention no more the Unitarian Controversy it self shall live among them as vigorous as ever Dr. Sherlock will never forgive Dr. South nor Dr. South Dr. Sherlock the Nominalists will never leave till they have run down the Tritheists the Tritheists with their last Breath will revile the Nominalists for Sabellians and Socinians so that in short if the Church will have no War without her Pale she must have one within wherefore I would advise every one to make living like a good Christian his Business now and never be troubled at the Disputes which are stirring of which there 's like to be no end let the present Disputants that have the worst on 't by reason of their inferiour Numbers be run down hang'd or burnt or not I conclude with one word of Advice to the Unitarians i. e. that they would give over the Dispute I know they are Men of Conscience and have within the Bounds of Moderation been zealous for the Truth but that will not suffer tho they are silent the Learned and Excellent Bishops of Worcester and Sarum Dr. South and others are able and forward enough to defend it against all the heathenish Opposition of the Tritheistick Tribe FINIS
THE Grounds and Occasions OF THE CONTROVERSY Concerning the Vnity of God c. THE METHODS by which it has been managed AND The MEANS to compose it By a Divine of the Church of England LONDON Printed and sold by E. Whitlock near Stationers-Hall MDCXCVIII THE Grounds and Occasions OF THE CONTROVERSY CONCERNING The Vnity of God c. THE eminently Learned Wise and Good Bishop of Down and Connor Jeremy Taylor having affirm'd and prov'd from express clear and full Attestations of Scripture from the Reasonableness of the thing from the Testimonies of Fathers and later Schoolmen that all the Articles of the Christian Faith are plainly set down in Scripture did not yet scruple to acknowledg That there were still in Scripture innumerable Places containing in them great Mysteries but then those Mysteries he thought were so involv'd with Clouds and Darkness so cover'd with Allegories and Garments of Rhetorick that God may seem to have left them as Trials of our Industry as Arguments of our Imperfections Incentives to our Longings after the clearest Revelations of Eternity and as Occasions and Opportunities of Mutual Charity and Toleration That the Mysterious Passages of Scripture are Trials ever like to find Work for our Industry and convincing Arguments of our Imperfections is evident from the little satisfaction which the many various attempted Interpretations have given and I question not but this Reflection may incline devouter Minds ardently to long for the brighter Revelations of Eternity but how few are they who make the obscure Mysteries of Scripture Occasions and Opportunities of Mutual Charity and Toleration In truth it is but reasonable to judg that the All-wise God design'd them for this good end but the general Event which has accidentally follow'd through the Indisposition of unwise and ill-natur'd Men is that they are made Occasions of venting bitter hatred and wreaking zealous Malice one upon another Could Religious Controversies be manag'd without intemperate Heat breach of Friendship and good Neighbourhood the advantages issuing thence might perhaps be more and greater than could be easily esteem'd and numbred we should certainly reap Fruits worthy our Industry and Study either by improvements of our Knowledg or sense of our Ignorance we should happily teach or at least civilly use one another but if we are forsaken of common Prudence as well as Christian Charity we shall turn all our Disputes about Religion and when we are forbid them every thing else into the Instruments of barbarous Cruelty and thereby create a greater mischief to the Body Politick whereof we are all Members than a wise Conqueror would compel us to suffer or a fair Enemy wish It is out of an honest desire of being serviceable not to demonstrate what is the certain true sense of a Mysterious Article I would sooner promise to solve all the puzling Phaenomena in Nature or fix the time for the Downfal of the Turk and Conversion of the Jews but to prevent the mischievous Consequences of various Interpretations that I am going to consider I. What has rais'd the Disputes at present agitated among us II. What has inflam'd them to that dangerous Excess which in time 't is fear'd may disturb the publick Quiet III. What 's the proper way to remedy the Mischiefs which have happen'd and to prevent farther It is to me evident that the original of our present Disputes can be referr'd to no one Cause many Persons Ecclesiasticks and others diversly mov'd have ingag'd in them There is one sort of Men who have been sometimes distinguish'd by the Name of Vnitarians and by angry Adversaries reproachfully call'd Socinians but to deal justly on all sides who ought to be numbred with the Orthodox because they not only embrace the Doctrines of the Church of England but also are contented to use her School-terms which they once thought and do still think not so fit to express her sound Doctrines These Persons as to me seems probable have engag'd in our Religious Controversies 1. Out of an aversion from taking things upon trust This Motive must be allow'd to be reasonable and just because he that gives up his Faith to human Authority is beholden to his good Fortune whenever the Opinions which fall to his lot have any thing of truth or usefulness in them and as often as they happen to be illgrounded and noxious he deserves all the evil Consequences which he suffers by them for if he had made use of his Reason before he gave his Assent there was at least a probability that he might have known better and guided himself more safely The Bereans are commended in Scripture who would not take things upon trust no not from the Mouth of an Apostle which is enough to justify without farther arguing all them who are concern'd in Religious Controversies mov'd thereunto by an aversion from taking things upon trust If I were writing to do service to these Orthodox Unitarians for that must be granted to be their Character now they have explain'd themselves and taken off the jealousy which the Church had conceiv'd of them if I were writing purposely to do them service I might here expatiate in liberal Praises due to that noble Disposition of Mind which takes nothing upon trust We are beholden to it for all the great Improvements of Knowledg which serve the Necessities and Comforts of Life and not only so but methinks we owe to it our very Christian Orthodoxy it self for an easy implicit Believer will never stand with his Supream be it Alcoran or what it will which he is required to subscribe but the wary Examiner who searches the Scripture that he may see whether things are as the Church teaches no sooner perceives the truth of her Articles but he holds unmoveably stedfast to them and unfeignedly venerates his holy Mother But this is not my business now Therefore 2. Another Motive which I am perswaded has influenc'd these Orthodox Unitarians to enter into Religious Controversy is an honest desire to be serviceable to the Church and useful to well-dispos'd less-knowing Christians by instructing and informing them Whether these Persons are Ecclesiasticks or Laymen it matters not much for I suppose it will be granted that it is lawful for one Man to inform and instruct his Friend Neighbour or Countryman either in private Discourse or publick Print tho he be not a Minister of the Gospel or perhaps not Episcopally ordain'd 3. I will not say but that these Unitarians may have been thrust upon Controversy by a forward zeal to defend the Mysterious Doctrines of the Church against the Heathenish Interpretations of some eminent unwary Tritheists Zeal in defence of Doctrines which are certainly true or at least unfeignedly believ'd to be so and against Errors really pernicious or generally suspected as such by good Men if it spend its force only to establish the former and to refute the latter abstaining from all Illegal Injurious and Unchristian Treatment of erroneous Persons may pass for a vertuous
Design of Sacred Writers c. what is the true and proper signification of the Words which we read what sense arises from them Contradictions to natural Reason cannot be the true sense of the words Difficulties may such is the Doctrine of the Resurrection if we submit our Judgments in any case but this where we are sure of a Divine Revelation and where we are sure of the sense of the sacred Penman's words we pay an excessive Reverence to the Authority of Men but I believe that those Gentlemen who profess to submit their Judgments to the Church have no other aim but to court the Church her favour or cheat her inspection with a Complement There 's no avoiding such a thought as this when the solemn and publick Judgment and Declaration of a Vice-chancellor and Heads of one of our Universities condemning the Doctrine of three infinite distinct Minds and Substances in the Trinity as False Impious and Heretical contrary to the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and of the Church of England is made a Jest of and rejected with bold contemptuous and angry Railery All that the Church of England requires of us is I humbly conceive such a Reverence and Esteem as I first describ'd a wise Submission a Reverence join'd with Honesty and a good Understanding a Submission according as may be gather'd from the 20th of her 39 Articles because she does not as she ought not ordain any thing contrary to God's Word written because she expounds Scripture one place consonant to another because she is a faithful Keeper of Holy Writ decrees nothing against the same and besides the same enforces nothing as necessary to Salvation The Church does not pretend to Infallibility the most eminent Sons shall I say or Fathers of the Church look upon her Articles as Forms in a comprehensive Latitude drawn up for Peace sake and very conscious are they that the Church of the last Age was Calvinist the Church of the present Age Arminian and all the while it was Church of England but when bold Opiniators shall not be content to keep themselves within the accountable bounds of prudential Latitude but start odd Notions not at all distinguishable from Heathenish Polytheism then they who dispute against them enter into Religious Controversy mov'd thereunto by a very just Motive But perhaps it may be urg'd that the Polytheists did not begin the Quarrel Well suppose it what will they gain by that Plea if still their Doctrine is no other than Polytheism And what if it should appear that the Unitarians gave the first occasion of Dispute this will create no Prejudice against them in the Minds of considering Men for as far as I can perceive they took Exceptions not against the Articles but the Scholastical Terms of the Church and drove at nothing farther than that those difficult Propositions which are called Mysteries might be express'd as far as the Subject would admit in words plain and intelligible and when that could not be in the very Phrase of Scripture The Unitarians if I take them right cannot yet submit their Judgment so as not to prefer Scripture-Phrase before Scholastick Terms tho they are such lovers of Peace that it has been again and again declar'd that when nothing is meant by all those Terms of Art which is contrary to Reason or not consonant to Scripture they will not contentiously decline the use of them They have said as much in some of their Prints and I should not do them justice if I did not take notice of it They are also ready to pay due reverence to the Church because of her great Candour and Moderation in not exacting from good Christians a submission of Judgment as to the use of Religious Rites and Ceremonies something more hardly once she treated them but now God be thanked she is come to a true Christian Temper so that I reckon the Toleration which Parliamentary Authority has indulg'd is enjoy'd by conscientious Separatists with the consent of the Church for it were uncharitable to suspect that she is not the same now as a while ago in the time of her danger And therefore I think that those warmer Zealots who entertain their Auditories with Invectives against the Toleration do not only slight the Authority of King and Parliament but also bring a Scandal upon the Church It is but just to believe that the Church is pleas'd with the Toleration for this other reason because she gets more by that than ever she did by violence for it is visible that our Parochial Churches are fuller now than when we compell'd Men to come in But enough of this tho it is not altogether out of the way for this also tends to declare on what accounts a reverential esteem is due to the Church and on what respects the vindication of her Honour is a just Motive of entring into Religious Controversy but a blind submission of Judgment to all that the Church already has decreed or may decree hereafter is a sensless slavish Stupidity An implicit Faith in all her Articles is more than she does require a taking up always with the first obvious literal Grammatical Sense is more than the most and the most learned Deacons Priests and Bishops themselves do 2. The Persons of whom I have been speaking were prompted as may be gather'd from their Prints to enter into Religious Controversy by an indignation against all Innovations in Religion As specious a look as this Motive has it must be very well circumstanc'd before it can be allow'd for a just and reasonable one for it happens many times that the Innovation is but surmis'd and suspected and perhaps there would not be half the Differences which there are in the Church if words which have not all of them determinate and distinct Ideas if terms of Art and equivocal Phrases were expounded and sixt by exact and plain Definitions Foreign Protestants are apt to suspect that the Church of England favours the Doctrine of Transubstantiation because she expresses her self by that ambiguous Phrase Real Presence they are afraid lest Real Presence should signify Corporeal Presence But when the Church avows that she does not use the word Real in that sense but means only a Spiritual Presence apprehended and enjoy'd by Faith the occasion of dispute is remov'd and all that can be said against the Church is that her Language is not so proper as her Faith is pure Therefore that celebrated Hugonot Jurieu was more angry than the Cause deserv'd when he join'd Transubstantiation and Real Presence together and call'd 'em both Monsters which harsh Censure cannot be return'd upon his Accomplishment of Prophecies for that 's an ingenious learned pretty thing the Events of History have an agreeable resemblance to the Apocalyptick Emblems to which he applies them but for all that I believe there 's not one word of truth in his interpretative Accomplishment By the Form of Absolution in the Visitation of the Sick one might
Author from whom I beg leave to dissent will obligingly grant me That the Explainer whom he would save from Heresy understands as he explains I am sure he 's a Knave if he does not and speculative Heresy is an innocent thing in comparison with practical Knavery To declare publickly that an Article may be rightly believ'd which is not rightly understood if an Unitarian or any Friend of theirs had done it without question he had been plentifully reproach'd Mr. J. E. B. D. would not have miss'd the occasion but have enrich'd his last Rhapsody of railing with Exclamations argumentative as well as ill-natur'd How an Article rightly believ'd tho not rightly understood To see what senseless shifts these pretenders to Reason take up with to save their Heterodoxes from the imputation of Heresy and themselves from the peril of the Stake What Idea can there be had of so self-contradicting a Proposition Indeed to such a sharp Reproof as this I don't see what could have been reply'd by any Unitarian of them all or by Mr. Lock or Mr. Toland either as much Friends as they are tho neither side knows it to the Unitarians But then those Gentlemen are not capable of such an elevated Thought it is not possible for any one to rise so high but a vast-read profound Scholar who does not judg concerning the Truth of a Proposition by the Agreement or Disagreement of the Ideas contain'd in it but by a sort of Reason which what it is and how it operates no Conception can be had nor Account given But whatever Mr. J. E. would have done had this contradictory Notion been started by an Unitarian I shall deal gently with it observing only that for whose sake soever it was made publick it will save all that Assent and Consent to an Article as it lies in the Words of the Church of what Denomination soever they are and how plainly contradictory soever their Explanations it will save all alike all or none But the Unitarians want not this Plea to defend their Cause for they profess to believe the Article of the Trinity nay and what is more they explain that Article to the very same Sense as do the Nominalists for Peace sake submitting even to the Scholastick Terms which they cannot like so well as the very Phrase of Scripture Now I cannot imagine how these Unitarians so very orthodox and so exactly conformable to the Church can be left alone in the lurch for Hereticks unless it be prov'd that as one Man may be right in the Belief of an Article tho he be wrong in the Explication so another may be right in the Explication of an Article tho he be mistaken in the Belief of it But after all these things which may be righteously pleaded in behalf of the Unitarians it must not be denied but that their Adversaries had a just Motive to enter into religious Controversy while they suspected them of labouring to undermine the Christian Religion only their Adversaries were to blame that they did not more calmly and leisurely examine the Meaning of those Passages whatsoever they were at which they took Offence I purpose to offer something now to clear all Suspicions that the Nominalists may chance to entertain of the Unitarians as for the Realists no Accommodation can ever be between them and true Christians great Men out of the abundance of their Charity may forgive the Tritheism of those Heathenish Writers but by all their Wit and Learning they can never make Three infinite Minds to be but One God nevertheless I am content that they be forgiven only I would not have so much Charity wasted to forgive them that there be no Equity left for sincerer Christians In order to clear the Suspicions which the Nominalists may chance to entertain of the Unitarians that so there may be no Simultates between them no evil Grudgings no base Language no unchristian Reviling I shall consider 1. What manner of Persons those are who of late have been distinguish'd by the Name of Unitarian 2. What is the Tendency of their Doctrines And this I propound to do not by way of Answer to all the false and foul Imputations which are vomited up by Mr. Burgess Mr. Edwards or that over-bold Poetaster who makes so bold with the Almighty as to subscribe himself God's most humble most faithful and devoted Servant but I suppose that that Gentleman will excuse himself and say all the World may know he did but complement but in hopes to satisfy those fairer Disputants such as Dr. Pain and Mr. Norris whom by their Christian Candor and Equity one may with more Reason conclude heartily to believe the holy Religion which they profess Yet it will not be proper to speak to the first Head until I have premis'd a word to inform the Reader of what standing these Unitarians are When the Papists ask the Protestants Where was your Church before Luther the Protestants by way of Reply pretend to find Christians through all Ages tho of divers Denominations who are recorded to have held the same Opinions with them in like manner the Opinions which are at this day charg'd upon the Unitarians may be trac'd up from Age to Age to the very next times to the Apostles and by their early Asserters were vouch'd as truly Christian and Apostolical and in several Ages a great majority of Christian Professors holding the same they then went for Orthodox But our Church of England bearing a great Reverence for Antiquity is very zealous for the Retention of some old Philosophical Terms yet as nice and careful in explaining the same according to Scripture and Reason tho at the same time she in the Persons of her most Orthodox Sons is reproach'd by a few backsliding Tritheistick Realists as if she agreed with those antient Hereticks said to be the Founders and Predecessors of the Unitarians The Unitarians themselves I mean the English of late so call'd think it an Injury to be term'd Ebionites Alogians Arians Photinians c. or indeed any thing but Christians but when they are reproach'd by those Names of distinction they cannot forbear noting that the very Apostles Creed has lain under the Suspicion of Arianism Photinianism c. God knows how justly for we have some Orthodox Doctrines which if they are contained in that Creed are yet so covertly contain'd there that it is not every ordinary Reasoner that can espy them and by a long Train of just Consequences deduce them and bring them into light By the Apostles Creed however and by the Holy Scriptures the Unitarians are always willing to be tried and mean not to make a Peace-disturbing Schism from the Church of England at least not as long as the chief Doctors of the Church profess That by none of her Homilies Creeds or Canons they mean any such thing as a Tritheistick Trinity a Trinity with three distinct infinite Minds The present Term of Reproach with which some Men for want of