Infinite Punishment of all Mankind no nor of one Man 4. But if it were admitted that one Man was so dignified by the Inhabitation of God in him as to be an Equivalent for all Men admitting also that the three days Temporal Death of such a Man amounts to as much as the Deaths Temporal and Spiritual and the Eternal Damnation of all Mankind What will follow hereupon It will follow that God is obliged in Equity to release all Mankind from all the three Deaths Temporal Spiritual and Eternal else He hath received an Equivalent on behalf of Mankind without discharging those for whom He received it which is contrary to Equity nay to Justice For in Equity an Equivalent ought to discharge the Person whether he be Offender or Debtor but if the Equivalent be not only tendred but accepted also on behalf of the Debtor or Offender the Offender hath Wrong done him if he is not immediately discharged of his Punishment and the Debtor of his Debt But do Trinitarians pretend or dare they that God doth discharge Mankind from the three Deaths on the Oblation and Sacrifice of himself made by the Lord Christ on their behalf By no means they own we are not at all discharged from Death Temporal but in some part from Death Spiritual and only a few Persons from Death Eternal It follows that the Sufferings and Death of our Saviour were not in deed an Equivalent to the three Deaths of Mankind 5. To add now no more The Unitarian Doctrine is consistent nay is the very same with what the Scriptures every-where say namely that Almighty God of his Grace the Riches and Abundance of his Grace and Love has pardoned Offenders for Christ's sake on the Conditions on their part of Faith Repentance and Newness of Life But the Trinitarian Doctrine which saith the Punishment laid on the Lord Christ was truly equivalent to the Punishment due to all Mankind doth deprive God our Maker and Father of the Glory of his Pardoning Grace and Mercy Nay it saith in effect that we are not beholden to God our Father on that account It saith he hath been harsh nay hath been apparently unjust in that he hath received more than an Equivalent for our discharge from the three Deaths and yet he hath not wholly releas'd any and but very few are at all released I will only add Whereas Trinitarians call the Sufferings of the Lord Christ a Punishment and will have that Punishment to be equivalent to the Infinite Punishment due they say to Mankind for Sin Original and Actual and whereas they call this Doctrine the Doctrine of the SATISFACTION by the Lord Christ they have mistaken in the Name as well as in the Thing 'T is the Unitarians who in proper speaking hold that the Lord Christ made Satisfaction to God for Sin not Trinitarians We say that the Sufferings of the Lord Christ not being equivalent in the exact Scales of Justice for what all Mankind have deserved yet God was satisfied with them that is was graciously pleased to accept them as an Intercession on our behalf and this is the proper Notion of a Satisfaction But Trinitarians in saying the Sufferings of Christ were equivalent to the Demerit of our Sins were a full Payment to the Justice of God for them do not hold a Satisfaction but a Reparation or Plenary Amends The more elegant Latinists call Confession Deprecation and such like imperfect and partial Reparations and Payments by the Name of Satisfactions Of the Incarnation BEcause no other but a Person of Infinite Merit and Dignity could satisfy the Divine Justice for Adam's Transgression therefore the second Person of the Blessed Trinity called the Son offered himself to undergo the Equivalent to that Punishment or threefold Death which belonged to Adam and his Descendents and this Offer was accepted by the other two Persons of the Trinity It was agreed that the Son should become incarnate in an Human Nature should be Whole and All united to a Finite Man even the Man Christ Jesus and be one Person with him By this means the Man Christ Jesus became of that unspeakable Merit and Dignity that one drop of his Blood was an Equivalent to the Eternal Punishment of all Mankind in Hell-Fire and his Holiness and the Merit thereof was infinitely more than enough for himself it was meritorious of Heaven for never so many Sinners The Son was so incarnate in a particular Human Nature as to be personally thereto united in the very Womb of the Virgin Mary so that Mary as General Councils of the Orthodox have rightly defined was not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mother of Christ but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of God This Incarnation of the Son in the Man Christ Jesus begets also such a Communication of Idioms that is of Properties and Attributes between the Divinity and the Humanity of the Lord Christ that we must say on the one hand God was born God suffered God died as we must say also on the other hand the Man Christ Jesus is Eternal Omnipotent Omnipresent Creator of Heaven and Earth As all Learned Divines acknowledg and Cardinal Bellarmine in particular has largely proved from Fathers and Councils of the Orthodox Bellar. de Christo l. 3. c. 9. The Notes The Doctrine of the Incarnation claims the place of all the Trinitarian Doctrines even of the Trinity it self in regard of its Seniority For while our Opposers were only Homo-ousians that is believed and professed only two Eternal and Consubstantial Persons not having yet dreamt that the Holy Spirit is God in the days of the first Nicene Council even then they held the Incarnation of the second of those Persons Neither does this Doctrine come behind any of their Doctrines either in the Number or the Rarity and Strangeness of its Wonders and Mysteries but of these three are more remarkable than the rest I will make a short Reflection on each of them The first Wonder is that an Infinite Person is whole and all incarnate in a Finite Nature Which amounts to this That Infinite is less than Finite for else how should Infinite be incarnate that is cased in the Finite But make the greatest Allowances possible yet the Infinite which is whole and all incarnate in the Finite can at most but be commensurate to the Finite that is but equal to it Now these are two such Paradoxes that till our Opposers can separate them from their Doctrine of the Incarnation they will never perswade that Doctrine to any who make use of their Reason and Consideration The second great Mystery or Wonder of this Doctrine is that the particular Human Nature in which a Person of the Trinity vouchsafed to be incarnate became thereby of Infinite Dignity and Merit for 't was an Equivalent for an Infinite number of Men and for the Infinite Punishment due to them and yet still remained and continued a meer and bare Human Nature Which is to say a
THE Trinitarian Scheme OF RELIGION CONCERNING Almighty God And MANKIND Considered both before and after the pretended Fall With NOTES thereupon which Notes contain also the Vnitarian Scheme London Printed in the Year 1692. The Trinitarian Scheme of Religion concerning Almighty God and Mankind considered both before and after the pretended Fall with Notes thereupon which Notes contain also the Vnitarian Scheme Of the Blessed Trinity THERE are Three Divine Persons an Almighty Father an Almighty Son an Almighty Spirit distinct from both who are jointly Creators of all other both Persons and Things They are so many distinct Minds and Spirits indued each of them with his own Proper and Personal Understanding Will and Power of Action Each of them is an absolutely Perfect and All-sufficient Being and singly and by himself a God Yet all of them together are but one God The Notes There is a most Holy most Wise most Good and Almighty Person who is over all from everlasting to everlasting the Maker of the Universe the Fountain of Good to all other Beings every where present Who with respect to the Creation of the World and his Adoption of all Good Men is pleased to permit himself to be called the Father But with respect to his Soveraign Dominion and Power above all He is usually designed by the Name or Word GOD. There neither is nor can be more than one such Person Because He is All-sufficient for himself and for whatsoever He shall please to make He had thereby within himself a most Determining and Certain Cause why he should neither beget nor make another or others equal to Himself but only Subordinate and Dependent Beings for Objects and Exercises of his Goodness More such Persons or Beings as Himself He knew must be as needless and useless as himself is absolutely and indispensably necessary For if He is truly All-sufficient they must for that reason be altogether superfluous both to him and to his Creatures Nor can we suppose more than one such Person without supposing an Infinity of them For whatsoever either Rational Motive or Natural and Necessary Cause may be feigned why the Universal Father should beget or make another or others equal to Himself the same whether Motive or Cause must also dispose that other or those other Persons to beget or make their Equal or Equals and so onwards till there were an Infinity of Divine Persons The Nature therefore of the thing demonstratively shows that a stop is necessarily made at one Divine that is one Infinite and All-sufficient Person Of the Eternity of the Trinity AS to the Duration Eternity or Life of the Blessed Trinity the Trinity possesses Eternal Life all at once To all other Beings Time is a Flux or Succession that of it which was now is not and that which now is shall immediately give place to what is coming It was once true of all other Beings but the Trinity that they were are and shall be but to the Trinity there is neither past nor to come but whole Time or all Eternity is now To the Trinity from everlasting to everlasting is but one undivided Instant or Moment for the Trinity is we may not say it was or it shall be The Notes This Divinity is wholly borrowed from the Platonists from whom the Modern Doctrines of the Trinity and of the Mystical Properties and Attributes thereof have been learned by those who among themselves go by the Names of Orthodox and Catholick The Trinity or God say they possesses Eternal Life all at once He is we may not say He was or He shall be In direct opposition to this whimsical Paradox St. John has defined God to be Him which WAS which IS and which SHALL BE or is to come Rev. 1.4 We say therefore 't is one of the Divine Perfections not an Imperfection that God IS WAS and SHALL BE. He hath carried and shall carry all Perfections into all the Successions and Periods of Time when He WAS he was no less perfect than now that he IS nor is He now less perfect than he shall be when he SHALL BE. They tell us we must not say God WAS that is to please them we must turn Atheists by saying he WAS NOT for of necessity we must say one of the two either that He was or that He was not there being no middle between these two no more than there is between He is and He is not Of the Omnipresence and Infinity of the Trinity NOR are we to conceive of the Infinity Immensity or Omnipresence of the Trinity after a vulgar manner For tho the Trinity is truly Infinite and Omnipresent yet 't is whole and all in any the least Point of Space The Trinity has no Extension and yet it comprehends all Distances The Trinity is three such Persons as that each of them reaches over and through all the the World and yet all Three are laxly and largely accommodated on the Point of a Needle Not only so but the right Faith is the Trinity is no where and yet 't is every-where The Notes This is another Article of the new Platonick Divinity God or the Trinity say they is whole and all in the least point of Space and tho he is no where yet he is every-where We say on the contrary with St. Austin what is no where is nothing therefore to speak as they do of God is in words to affirm him and in sense to deny him That God is every-where we are ready to demonstrate to them from the Order and Conservation of his Works and from the Effects of his Providence and from an hundred Passages of Holy Scripture That he is no where is incumbent on them to prove which we are sure they can do by no Reason nor by any Authority but that of their Masters the Platonists Every-where and no-where are contradictory Terms therefore if God is every-where it must needs be false that he is no-where else we cannot distinguish between Affirming and Denying that is between express Contradictions Of the Simplicity of the Trinity THere is no less Mystery in the other Properties and Attributes of the Trinity For God is one most simple uncompounded Being yet He consists or is made up of Three really distinct Minds Beings or Spirits so really distinct and diverse that one of them is not the other nay one is the Father another his Son the third a Spirit as distinct from both as they are from each other The Notes There is no Mystery at all in any of the Properties or Attributes of God They are no less clear in themselves than they are evidently deduced from the Excellence of his Works and the Methods of his Providence The Mystery never lies in the Attribute or Property but in the Addition made to it by fanciful Men. As to that vulgar Aphorism that God is a most simple and uncompounded Being from whence they have hammered the Property or Attribute of God's Simplicity as they affect to speak
't is not only not true but self-contradictory in the sense they use it For how is God most simple and uncompounded if he consists or is made up which is the very English of the word compounded of distinct Beings and divers and several Persons none of which is the other They may with the same Exactness of Grammar and Propriety of Speech say a Common-Council or a Common-Hall is one most simple uncompounded Being one is no more ridiculous than the other for the Propriety of Speech and Exactness of Truth is as verily lost in three as in three hundred or three thousand What is in God is God FOR the other Properties 't is the Orthodox and true Belief that whatsoever is in God is God Not only the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God but whatsoever else is in God by way of Immanence that also is God So the Justice of God is God the Power of God is God the Wisdom of God is God and so too is the Goodness of God Yet we make not hereby so many several Gods because these and all other Properties of God are not only the same with him but the same also with one another The Justice for instance of God differs not really from his Power and Mercy and his Power and Mercy differ not or are not really distinguish'd from his Wisdom but are verily and identically the same with it their distinction is only in our Conceit The Notes See here another brace of Mysteries whatsoever is in God is God and the Divine Properties or Attributes differ not but are the same with one another The Reader may perhaps suspect that when they speak after this wild fashion they have some secret and reserved meaning contrary to the usual Import of the Words or a learned Sense contrary to the vulgar Signification of the Terms but 't is not so they mean as they speak and whole Volumes are written in Defence of these Follies But let us consider what they say Whatsoever is in God is God the Justice for instance of God is God and so also the other Properties and Attributes As who should say every Property of a Being or Nature is that very Being or Nature of which 't is only a Property This is more monstrous than to say a Part is the Whole that very Whole of which 't is only a Part. For a Property being somewhat less than an Integrating Part because it may be away or at least be dormant and unactive without destruction of the Specifick Nature or of the Person an Integrating Part cannot therefore 't is more absurd to say a Property or Attribute is that very Being or Nature to which it belongs than to say an Integrating Part is the Whole Thus Body and Soul are Integrating Parts of Man take away one of them and he is no longer a Man but a naked Spirit and Risibility is an acknowledg'd Property of the Human Nature and yet it may be dormant or wholly away and the Human Nature not be destroyed but remain But they add the Properties or Attributes of God are the same with one another they differ only in our Conceit But why do they not tell us too that God pardons Sinners by his Justice and punishes them by his Mercy that he made the World by his Eternity and will judg it by his Immensity For if Mercy and Justice if Wisdom and Power if Eternity and Omnipresence are the same and differ only in our Conceit then the Effects of any one of these Properties are not to be appropriated to that Attribute or Property but must be equally and indifferently ascribed to all or to any of the rest Thus unlucky are our Opposers both at dividing and compounding they divide what is most intimately the same and they compound unite and identify what are and ever must be diverse and different That Unity of God or that God is one which should have been as carefully guarded as the very Belief of a God they have divided by introducing a Trinity of three equally All-mighty and All-sufficient Persons And the Properties of the Divine Nature to whose Distinction and Variety we must heedfully attend if we will have any adequate Notion of God or right Understanding of his Works and Providences these they confound by affirming they are the same But let us go on to what remains What we are to understand by the Son and Holy Ghost GOD is one substantial and most simple Act yet we say also God is two substantial and really distinct Acts. The two substantial and immanent Acts in God are Vnderstanding and Will For God most perfectly understands himself and also willeth that is loveth himself in the most perfect manner But whatsoever understandeth doth understand by conceiving an Image of the thing understood Therefore God as hath been said understanding himself from all Eternity conceived within himself from all Eternity a most perfect Image of himself Which Image thus conceived and as it were generated or begotten by him is called the Son And this Image being in God and a perfect Image of God and Eternal is God no less than the Father by whom it was conceived or generated in the manner aforesaid namely by his understanding or apprehending himself and his own Perfections But God also willeth and that is another of the substantial immanent Acts that concur to the essentiating the Trinity He willeth or loveth himself and the most perfect Image of himself and the Image willeth or loveth him This Mutual Love of the Father and the Image or Son is what is named the Holy Ghost So that what things in Men are Faculties Actions and Properties in God we must understand them to be Persons and Spirits Which is also farther both cleared and proved by this Observation The second Person or Son is the Understanding or Wisdom of God not Original Wisdom or Understanding for that is the Father but a reflex Wisdom that is the Wisdom which resulteth from the Father's understanding himself and his own Perfections The Holy Spirit as hath been said is the mutual willing Love and Power of Original Wisdom and of the Reflex Wisdom The Notes This they pretend is that Mystery hid from Ages and Generations but now made manifest to the Disciples of Athanasius There is no Parallel for it in all either History or Nature but the Mysteries of the Egyptians For as the Egyptians were at prodigious Cost in making and setting up a great number of Images in and about their Temples by which Hieroglyphicks or sacred Images they pretended to teach Men the Secrets of Natural Philosophy and the Precepts of Morality but when they were ask'd to explain the meaning of these Hieroglyphicks they gave a very mean and trifling Sense or a Sense very absurd and false So after Trinitarians have long amused their Disciples with Terms as Mystical as the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks such as Trinity Eternal Generation Eternal Procession three
of all sorts and of every Order of Men from the damning Imputation of Adam's Transgression to them to this end it was ne-necessary that a full Reparation should be first made to the Blessed Trinity for that Transgression of Adam and that a Punishment equivalent to the Punishment or threefold Death which Adam had drawn on himself and on his Posterity should be undergone by some Person or Persons in the stead and place of Adam and his Descendents It is true there is no such Vindictive Justice in God that He could not by his Mercy forgive this Transgression or any other but in the case before us God is to be considered as a Righteous Governour who would not suffer his Law to be despised and violated without a full Satisfaction to his Honour and Justice by the Offenders or some other on behalf of the Offenders For this reason it was that 't was necessary to find out a Person or Persons who should undergo the threefold Death for Mankind or other ways make an Equivalent to the Justice of God The Person undergoing the Punishment or the Equivalent must be a Righteous Person else he would need one to satisfy for himself Nay he must be a Person of Infinite both Merit and Dignity else he could not merit Heaven for so many nor could his Sufferings be accepted instead of so many as were obnoxious and obliged to undergo the threefold Death The Expedient therefore at length resolved on by the Blessed Trinity for the Redemption of Mankind was this That a Righteous Person of Infinite Dignity and Merit should be substituted to the Punishment deserved by Sinners in the room stead and place of Sinners This was judged more agreeable to the Majesty of God as Governour of the World than either to forgive to Adam his Transgression and to his Descendents God's Imputation of it to them or than to inflict on him or them any less Punishment as suppose some Temporal Calamity than the threefold Death Which thing God might have done either by his Mercy as a Maker and Father or by his Authority and Prerogative as a Soveraign and Governour 'T is true there is a wonderful depth of Mystery never to be fathom'd by Human Understanding in this manner of proceeding And Human Wisdom would without doubt have chose either to forgive the Sin or to abate somewhat of the Punishment rather than have substituted in the room of the Wicked and Worthless a Person infinitely Righteous and Worthy even tho such Person should be supposed to have offered himself to the Punishment But my Thoughts are not your Thoughts neither are your Ways my Ways saith the Lord. Isa 55.8 The Notes In their Doctrine of Original Sin our Opposers feign that Almighty God imputes the one Sin of one Man to all Men and concludes them thereupon under the threesold Death or three Deaths but in this Doctrine of the Satisfaction they tell us of a contrary Prodigy that he imputes all the Sins of all Men to one Man and what is yet a greater Monster says on him alone a Punishment equivalent to the three Deaths Temporal Spiritual and Eternal of all Mankind We might call this the Trinitarians Fetch-back if it were not that the Interpretation they give of this Doctrine is contrary to the Doctrine it self One would think if we might judg of their meaning by what they say that the Doctrine of the Satisfaction made a compleat Amends for the Doctrine of Original Sin that is that the supposed Satisfaction by Christ did as it were fetch-back the Damage and Losses occasioned they say by the Sin of Adam But 't is not so for tho they say the Redeemer was able to suffer and did actually suffer an Equivalent to the three Deaths of all Mankind yet say they farther neither his Merit nor his Sufferings do any good but only to a few that is to the Elect. As to the Vnitarians they most thankfully and devoutly own profess and publish that the Lord Christ underwent the greatest of Labours and Sufferings for poor wretched Apostate Mankind He made himself an Oblation an Expiatory Sacrifice on the Altar of the Gross for our Sins to reconcile us to God and in some respects God to us But we say that his Labours and Sufferings on our behalf were not as Trinitarians teach designed as a Punishment laid on him in our stead because Punishment is the Evil of Suffering inflicted for the Evil of doing and the Lord Christ having done no Sin as the Holy Scriptures expresly teach 1 Pet. 2. â—3 it necessarily follows that what he underwent were purely Labours and Sufferings not Punishment And for those Sufferings we say further it has pleased God by way of Recompence highly to exalt him and give him a Name above every Name Phil. 2.9 Nor was the Oblation or Sacrifice which the Lord Christ made of himself on our behalf an Oblation made as our Opposers contend to the Justice of God or by way of full Reparation to God's Justice but as all other Sacrifices formerly were an Oblation or Application to the Mercy of God For this Doctrine of ours we judg the following Reasons to be such Proofs as must needs be allowed by every one that considers them freely and impartially 1. One Man could not possibly be judged an Equivalent for such an immense number of Sinners as were all of them obliged to be as righteous as he and because they were not so were liable to Punishment therefore it was not to the Justice of God that the Lord Christ offered himself for those Sinners as an Equivalent but to God's Mercy by way of humble suit 2. If one Man can be conceived to be an Equivalent for all Men yet if the Sufferings or as our Opposers speak the Punishment he underwent was not equivalent to the Punishment due to them then it must not be said he tendred himself to the Justice of God but only to his Mercy on behalf of the Offenders and instead of their Punishment The Punishment as well as the Person suffering must be equivalent else Justice will refuse it but Goodness or Mercy may admit of it But now who sees not that the Temporal Sufferings and three days Death of the Lord Christ were far from being equivalent to the Death Temporal Spiritual and Eternal of so much as one Man 3. Uniratians will never detract from the Dignity of our Saviour's Person they acknowledg with the Scriptures that God was with him nay God by his Spirit was in him But if they could also add as Trinitarians do that the Humanity of Christ was one Person with God yet seeing only the Humanity could suffer or die and seeing no Union of a Man with God can exalt Humanity to be Divinity or make that to be Infinite which of its own nature is Finite therefore the Temporal Sufferings and three days Death of a meer Human Nature cannot be equivalent to the Death Temporal Spiritual and Eternal which is an
meer Human Nature continuing and abiding a bare and meer Human Nature is a Divine Nature For in affirming it hath Infinite Dignity and Merit how much soever they may say in words 't is a bare and meer Human Nature they have in sense affirmed 't is a Divine Nature For what is Divine but as much as to say of Infinite Dignity and Infinite Excellence or Merit The third Wonder is That by Virtue of the Incarnation of a Divine Person in an Human Nature the Divine Person or God must be said to have been born in Time to have suffered and died and on the contrary the Humanity or Man Christ Jesus must be said to have been from all Eternity to be Omnipotent Omnipresent Creator of all things and whatsoever else is said of God But that our Opposers may not complain that they are misrepresented I must own this is only the fore part of the Prodigy the other end or hinder part is of a contrary Nature For tho you must say God was born God suffered God died yet saith their Doctrine farther you are not really to think God can be born in Time can suffer or can die and on the other hand you must say the Man Christ Jesus was from all Eternity created the World is Omnipresent and Omnipotent but you are not so to think The reason is because the Communication of the Properties of the Divinity to the Humanity and of the Humanity to the Divinity is not real but only nominal or in words Now Unitarians being but plain Fellows and having Country Consciences like not this juggling that we must say one thing and must think or mean another Yet because we ought to yield to hard things for Peace sake if our Opposers are content that we may do so also in the other Articles that is if they are content that we only say as is said in those Articles and may declare at the same time that we think the contrary and if Trinitarians will also so do in those Articles we will comply with them in this third Wonder or Mystery of the Incarnation And this is the only Composition that can possibly be agreed to in these Controversies without renouncing our Christianity our reasonable Faculties and our Senses Of Grace IT is true the Lord Christ God and Man in one Person paid down a more than sufficient Ransom for the Actual Deliverance of a thousand Worlds from the Imputation of Adam's Sin and the Consequences of that Imputation even the three Deaths yet the Ransom was not accepted for all but only for the Elect nor yet was it accepted for Deliverance from the whole Punishment but only from part of it For no Man is thereby delivered from such a share of Spiritual Death as to be able to do a good Action or think a good Thought without an immediate and particular Assistance or GRACE of God's Spirit beginning continuing and perfecting such good Action or Thought in him and by him As hath been often defined and concluded in the Councils of the Orthodox in opposition to the Heresy of Pelagius revived by Vnitarians and Arminians The Notes After they have tried their Skill in misrepresenting and deforming the true Idea we ought to have of God and of his Perfections and Attributes our Opposers proceed to calumniate Human Nature the Image of God and will have it to be the Image of the Devil They tell us we come into the World so depraved in all our Faculties and Powers that we cannot do any good Action no nor think a good Thought without a particular and extraordinary Grace of God beginning continuing and perfecting such good Action or Thought in us and by us In sober sadness is this the Character of that sort of Creature of whom the Apostle saith be is made in the similitude of God James 3.9 Or is it the very Description of the Devil himself if at least it be not a Calumny even of him Will God own such a Creature as his Similitude as has a natural Impotence to all that is holy and good and a violent and perpetual Biass to Evil only and to every kind of Evil Yes they say our Likeness to God consists not in a Capacity to Holiness or ought that good is but in the Dominion we have over some Creatures in this lower World But by this account of our Likeness to God he that is most of all unlike to God is much more the Similitude and Image of God than Man is the Dominion and Power of Satan is incomparably greater and larger than Man's is therefore in their Hypothesis he is more the Similitude of God than Man is But as absurd as these things are I will not now insist on them but content my self to acquaint the Reader with some of the principal Reasons of the Vnitarians why they hold that Man is a free Agent as capable of doing Good as Evil nay more capable of the former because he has more reason for it than of the latter not the Slave to only one of the Contraries but at absolute liberty towards both 1. Our Blushes and Remorses for having acted at any time otherways than we ought are Testimonies and Witnesses of our certain and internal Consciousness that we could have done as Religion and Duty require of us that is could have forbore that Evil and have done the contrary Good 2. Deliberation and Consultation what and how we are to act argue also not only that we are free but that we are sensible we are so 3. We experience that our Piety and Vertue are our own Work by the Difficulty we feel and the slow Progress we are able to make in attaining those Habits and in subduing the contrary Habits 4. If Men are good not by a spontaneous Choice or Power of their own but only by an extraordinary and immediate Aid no tolerable reason can be given why we should not always be acted to Good or why we are but partially and imperfectly Good Is it credible that God should do his own Work in us after a desultory inconstant and impersect manner 5. What Piety or Vertue is it or how can God love or esteem any Person whether Him or Her for that well-doing or that abstinence from Evil which was not their own Choice Will or Discretion but the Work and Effect solely of God's Grace acting by them or in them 6. That every good Thought and Action is not an Inspiration or the Gift or Grace of God is confirmed by this that God doth sometimes disallow and forbid some good Intentions and Actions of his Servants Thus 't was a good Thought and Intention in David that he would build an House for the Lord a Temple for God's publick Worship and Service 't was so good a Thought and Purpose that it was rewarded with a Promise from God that God would build David 's House i. e. would establish and confirm his Family on the Throne of Judah and Israel But as good a