thought the Articles of that Creed are affirmed I have examined some of his principal References and can say of 'em they are either Perversions or downright Falsifications of what the Authors referred to did intend Dr. Wallis whose dishonest Quotations out of the Socinians have been detested by every body is hardly more blamable in that kind than Mr. Edwards saving that the Doctor being as one rightly tells him somewhat more than a Socinian did but foul his own Nest by his Forgeries but we cannot certainly say what is the opinion of Mr. Edwards in the great Article in question among us But come we to the Creed which he says is ours as I promis'd I will answer to every Article of it sincerely and directly I. I believe concerning the Scriptures that there are Errors Mistakes and Contradictions in some places of it That the Authority of some whole books of it is questionable yea that the whole Bible has been tamper'd with and may be suspected to be corrupted That there are Errors Mistakes and Contradictions in the H. Bible was never said by any person pretending to be a Christian if by the Bible you mean the Bible as it came out of the hands of the inspired Authors of it As on the other side that there are Errors Mistakes or Contradictions in the vulgar Copies of the Bible used by the Church of Rome for instance or the English Church was never questioned by any learned Man of whatsoever Sect or way and least of all can Mr. Edwards question it He has published a book concerning the Excellence and Perfection of H. Scripture in which book he finds great fault with our English Bible He saith in the Title of his 13th chapter It is faulty and defective in many places of the Old and New Testaments and I offer all along in this chapter particular Emendations in order to render it more exact and compleat As to the Hebrew and Greek copies of the Bible 't is well known some are more perfect and some less They differ very much for in the Old Testament the Hebrew Critics have noted 800 various readings in the New there are many more Mr. Gregory of Oxford so much esteemed and even venerated for his admirable Learning says hereupon and says it cum Licentiâ Superiorum There is no book in the World that has suffer'd so much by the hand of Time as the Bible Pref. p. 4. He judged and judged truly that tho' the first Authors of the Bible were Divinely Instructed Men yet the Copiers Printers and Publishers in following Ages were all of them Fallible Men and some of them ill-designing Men. He knew that all the Church Historians and Critics have confessed or rather have warned us that some copies of the Bible have been very much vitiated by the hands as well of the Orthodox as of Heretics and that 't is matter of great difficulty at this distance of time from the Apostolic Age to assertain the true reading of H. Scripture in all places of it Yet we do not say hereupon as Mr. Edwards charges us that the Bible much less the whole Bible is corrupted For as to the faulty readings in the common Bibles of some Churches and in some Manuscript Copies the Providence of God has so watched over this sacred Book that we know what by information of the antient Church-Historians and the writings of the Fathers what by the early Translations of the Bible into Greek Latin and Syriac and the concurrent Testimony of the more antient Manuscript copies both who they were that introduced the corrupt readings and what is the true Reading in all Texts of weight and consequence In short as to this matter we agree with the Critics of other Sects and Denominations that tho' ill Men have often attempted they could never effect the corruption of H. Scripture the antient Manuscripts the first Translations the Fathers and Historians of the Church are sufficient directors concerning the authentic and genuine Reading of doubtful places of H. Scripture Farther whereas Mr. Edwards would intimate that we reject divers Books of H. Scripture On the contrary we receive into our Canon all those Books of Scripture that are received or owned by the Church of England and we reject the Books rejected by the Church of England We know well that some Books and parts of Books reckoned to be wrote by the Apostles or Apostolical Men were questioned nay were refused by some of the Antients but we concur with the opinion of the present Catholic Church concerning them for the reasons given by the Catholic Church and which I mention in the Reply to my Lord the Bp. of Chichester If Mr. Edwards would have truly represented the opinion of the Socinians concerning the Scriptures he knew where to find it and so expressed as would have satisfied every body He knows that in the Brief Notes on the Creed of Athanasius they have declared what is their sense in very unexceptionable words The Holy Scriptures say they are a divine an infallible and compleat Rule both of Faith and Manners Br. Notes p. 1. The Church neither requires nor desires that they should say more II. I believe concerning God That he is not a Spirit properly speaking but a sort of Body such as Air or Aether is That he is not immense infinite or every where present but confined to certain places That he hath no knowledg of such future Events as depend on the Free Will of Man and That it is impossible such things should be foreseen by him That there is a Succession in God's eternal duration as well as in time which is the measure of the duration that belong to finite Beings That Almighty God is Incorporeal Omnipresent and Omniscient has not only been confessed but proved by the Unitarians of this Nation in divers of their late Prints As to the other that all Duration that of God as well as of Creatures consists in a Succession is affirmed by some Learned Men of all Perswasions and Ways as well as by the Unitarians It should seem Mr. Edwards holds that God possesses eternal Lite all at once that to God Eternity is one standing permanent Moment St. John is of another mind for he describes the duration of God by a Succession by was is and is to come Grace be to you and Peace says he from him which is was and is to come Rev. 1.4 'T is undeniable by any but affected Wranglers that here the duration of God his continuance in being is distinguished by the threefold Succession was is and shall be which is common to all Beings Eternal life possessed all at once is one of the monstrous Paradoxes which our Opposers maintain for all that I can see meerly from a spirit of contradiction for it has no manner of ground either in Reason or Holy Scripture I desire to know of 'em how the duration of God is the less perfect because 't is said to consist in a Succession
or what is the same to be distinguished by was is and shall be seeing 't is confessed on all hands that he carrieth all Perfections into every Succession of his Duration But is it not a Scandal that some Unitarians of foreign Parts have denied the Spirituality or Incorporeity of God his Omnipresence and Omniscience saying and contending for it that he is a Body with such Configuration of Parts as Men have consequently that he is in Heaven inspecting indeed and governing all things but by the ministry of the several Orders of Angels and that he doth not foresee contingent Events but only such Events as are necessarily not arbitrarily produced by their Causes Doubtless but no more a scandal to the Unitarians than to their Opposers for they are Errors which some of the Fathers even the most antient learned and pious of 'em have defended as Truths Nay it should seem they were some time the prevaling Opinions in some places namely when the Anthropomorphite Doctrine was so zealously espoused that the Hermits and Cenobites would not indure their Bishops if they but suspected 'em of Origen's Doctrine that God is a Spirit without Parts or Passions And in denying the Spirituality and Omnipresence of God they must needs be understood not to believe his certain and absolute Prescience of contingent Events About the year 400 when almost every body concerned themselves in condemning and departing as far as possible from the opinions of Origen the Anthropomorphite Doctrine and its consequences were the Standard Orthodoxy of many places and were Heresy no where Even St. John Chrysostom at Constantinople hardly defended the Fratres Longi from the Prosecutions of Theophilus Archbishop and Patriarch of Alexandria who was a profest Anthropomorphite and had expelled the Fratres Longi for adhering to Origen's Doctrine of the Spirituality and Omnipresence of God But as I said we not only dislike but utterly reject the dangerous Doctrine That God hath a Body is like to Man toge-with its consequences That he is neither Omnipresent nor Omniscient It may as well be said he is not at all nay this latter tho the Anthropornorphites see it not seems to be implied and included in the former But we condemn not the Schechina or glorious Appearance of God in Heaven which many Learned Men hold nor the spiritual Body of Christ III. I believe farther concerning God That there is no distinction of Persons or Subsistences in God And that the Son and Holy Ghost are not God The former of them being only a Man the latter no other than the Power or Operation of God That there was nothing of Merit in what Christ did or suffered and that therefore he could not make satisfaction for the Sins of the World But Mr. Edwards too much mistakes The question is not at all concerning three Persons or three Subsistences in God but whether there are three infinite Subsistences three eternal Minds and Spirits We deny the latter with the whole Catholick Church against the Tritheists We never questioned the former Persons or Subsistences but only as Persons are used or taken for Spirits Minds and Beings I shall explain this matter however more fully in my Answer to the Bishops of Worcester Sarum and Chichester annexed to this Agreement or any one may see what is our sense in the Judgment of a disinterested Person concerning the Controversy between Dr. S th and Dr. Sherlock By a Divine of the Church of England What that Author makes to be the Doctrine of the Nominals and of the Church concerning the Blessed Trinity the Divinity of our Saviour and the Satisfaction is and ever was the belief of the Unitarians as well as of the Catholick Church But we say the Lord Christ is only a Man and the Holy Spirit only the Power of God No we say our Lord Christ is God and Man He is Man in respect of his reasonable Soul and human Body God in respect of God in him Or more scholastically in respect of the Hypostatical or Personal Union of the Humanity of Christ with the Divinity By which the Catholick Church means and we mean the Divinity was not only occasionally assisting to but was and is always in Christ illuminating conducting and actuating him More than this is the Heresy of Entyches and less we never held tho we confess that careless and less accurate Expressions may have been used by both Parties of which neither ought to take advantage against the other when it appears there is no heterodox Intention That by the Spirit of God is sometimes meant in Holy Scripture the Power of God cannot be denied but concerning the Three Divine Persons we believe as the Catholick Church believes That they are relative Subsistences internal Relations of the Deity to it self Or as the Schools after St. Austin explain this Original unbegotten Wisdom or Mind reflex or begotten Wisdom called in Holy Scripture the Logos and the eternal spiration of Divine Love But do you not say There was no Merit in what Christ did or suffered and that he could riot make satisfaction for our Sins He may for our parts be Anathema that teaches or believes that Doctrine We believe that the Lord Christ by what he did and what he suffered was by the gracious acceptance of God a true and perfect Propitiation for Sinners that repent and turn to the good ways IV. In the next Article he makes us to believe a great many things as that The first Man was not created in a state of Vprightness As if it were possible that men in their right senses should think the first Man was created a Sinner That By his Fall Adam did not lose Righteousness and Holiness which are part of the Image of God As who should say that by being a Sinner he did not sin or become unlike to God That Adam's Posterity have received no hurt nor stain by his Apostacy As if you should say that neither his bad Example nor the Curse that made the Earth so much less fruitful was any hurt and that the Rebellion of an Ancestor no not against God is not any blot in his Family I shall grow quite out of conceit with these Unitarians if they say many more such weak things But in very deed I imagine Mr. Edwards had a mind to have charged 'em more home when he does we shall consider what to answer I am of opinion that in this part of the Article he was somewhat ashamed of his own Doctrine and that he feared to make himself and Party ridiculous by a clear and distinct Representation of their opinion That Mankind notwithstanding Adam's fall have by nature an ability to desire and embrace all spiritual Good and to avoid all that is sinful or vitious They are bold Britains What embrace all the Gospel-precepts by mere nature when 't is not possible so much as to know divers of them but by Revelation Divine And can they avoid too all that is vitious at all times
only by nature In good truth they are better and stronger by nature than I ever hope to be in this Life by the superadded Grace of God But here again he did not strike home he intended more than he durst say and he durst not say it lest we should ask him whether he believes the just contrary That There is no need of the Spirit to repent to believe or to obey the Gospel and perform religious Acts. 'T is a serious point We answer with St. Paul the Spirit HELPETH our Infirmities Rom. 8.26 But we judg for all that the Holy Scripture gives no occasion to any to turn Enthusiasts and to resolve the whole duty we owe and must perform to God and to our Neighbor into preternatural Impulses as if we were Machines and not men or Puppets moved by invisible Wires not Men that act by their own Reason and Choice That Men are righteous before God not by the merit of Christ but by their own good works We answer with all but Antinomians and the more rigid Calvinists the Merit of Christ is not reckoned to us without Faith and good Works of our own But I am not certain that the Calvinists or the Antinomists would not assent to that Proposition or not allow it to be orthodox I incline to think those People have no real difference with the Church nor the Church with them but that they mistake one anothers meaning V. Another branch of our Creed according to Mr. Edwards runs thus I believe concerning a future State That the Souls of the Deceased have no knowledg or perception of any thing they are not sensible of any Rewards or Pains and that their very Nature is absorpt That at death the Soul as well as Body sleeps was an error of some of the most ancient Fathers as well as of some Unitarians But neither of 'em said as Mr. Edwards pretends that in death the very Nature of the Soul is absorpt which is to say extinct they both of them held that there is a Resurrection of the Soul as well as Body But why dos Mr. Edwards impute that opinion to us when he has read for he quotes the book in the first Part of the Considerations on the Explications of the Trinity what is our sense of that matter The words at p. 33. are these This Error was common to Socinus and some of the Fathers The Learned Mr. Du Pinn in his Abridgment of the Fathers has noted that Justin Martyr Irenaeus Minutius Faelix and Arnobius were in this Sentiment There was no reason to object this to Socinus as if it were a peculiar opinion of his much less to the English Unitarians who never defended it nor that I know of do any of 'em hold it VI. He says next I believe we shall not rise with the same Bodies but that another Matter or Substance shall be substituted in their place I see most of our Opposers have affected to mistake our meaning concerning the resurrection of the Body We hold nothing that is singular in the case we differ not from the Catholick Church about it We say with St. Paul 1 Cor. 15.35 How are the dead raised and with what Bodies do they come Thou sowest not the body that shall be The Body that is raised is not in all respects the same that was committed to the earth in divers perhaps in the most it is We rise not Infants or decrepit old Men or lame or deaf or any way distorted tho' many so lived and so died Nay as to the Passions resulting from the present complexion of the body and therefore to be reckon'd the Modifications and as it were parts of the body we rise not with them it is not the same Body in respect of those Passions that it here lived For instance some are by complexion very cowardly or pensive or choleric or jealous the Body that shall be will not be such It will be conformed to the likeness of the glorious Body of our Lord Christ that is be freed from all both external and internal Imperfections Farthermore our present body Physicians and Philosophers say is in a continual Flux all the parts of it internal as well as external continually decay and are continually also renewed They decay by the Perspiration that is continually caused by the internal heat and are continually renewed by the Nourishment taken in and converted into Blood Spirits Flesh and Bones 'T is said by the Learned in these matters that no man's body is the very same as to the matter and substance of it this present year that it was the last year and will be the next year 'T is wholly new by the nourishment of the present year We say therefore there shall be a Resurrection of the Body and as some of the Antient Creeds spoke of the same Body as truly and as properly as N.N. is the same Man this year that he was one or seven or twenty years ago If Mr. Edwards requires us to say more he exacts more than the Church believes For by the Resurrection of the same Body the Church intends only that 't is as truly the same as a Man notwithstanding the Flux of his parts is now the same N. N. or J. B. that he was seven or ten years past Yet not altogether the same because inconceivably better That is without any external or internal Deformities or Weaknesses VII I believe that at the Day of Judgment Men shall not be required to give an account of their Actions the most flagitious Sinners shall not be examined concerning any thing of their past Life Only they shall be punished and their Punishment is this to utterly cease or perish for ever The unquenchable Fire is nothing but Annihilation I do not know that the Scriptures or the Catholic Church do require any to believe that Sinners shall be examined concerning their past Life at the day of the general Judgment To what purpose I pray doth the All-knowing Judg need to be informed concerning the particulars of their Guiâ—â—â— If every person is to be severally exâ—â—â—â—ed concerning the particulars of his â—â—ansacted Life the Day of Judgment will extend it self to many Millions of Ages more and farther than the whole duration of the World from its beginning to its consummation It should seem Mr. Edwards thinks that because the Scriptures speak of the great Judgment by God in the language of Men and of Human Judicatures such as Trumpets the Throne of the Judg a formal Sentence the Pleadings of the Guilty the Answers of the Judg that therefore in very deed we are to expect such a Scene at the Judgment by God as at a common Assize I conceive on the contrary that all such expressions and words wherever they are found in Scripture are not intended as real Descriptions but as Comparisons or Resemblances by which the capacities of the Vulgar may he assisted and their affections wrought upon All that is intended by such expressions is
only this that every one shall be so recompensed at the Resurrection as is worthy of the holy Judg and compassionate Father of the World But we hold he saith that the Punishment of the Wicked is only Extinction Their life shall be destroyed for ever by the unquenchable Fire into which they are cast Which opinion that it may look ridiculous he words for us thus the unquenchable Fire is nothing but Annihilation What the Scriptures have said concerning the Punishment of the Wicked after the Resurrection is not so clear but that the opinions of Learned Men Fathers and Moderns have been very different about it Some of which number is Origen the most considerable of the Ante-nicens held that not only wicked Men but the very Devils will repent and reform under the Punishments they endure that therefore they will be pardoned be admitted to a new trial of their Behaviour and may attain to Blessedness These say that Man being a reasonable is therefore a docile or teachable Creature and it not looking probable that the Wisdom of God will lose any part of his Creation but will bring it to the Perfection and upon that to the Blessedness of which 't is capable therefore what by Instructions what by Punishments and Encouragements God will reclame the Bad will perfect and confirm the Good and so in the long-run of things be acclamed the Saviour of all Others among whom have been some it may be the most of the Forein Vnitarians have thought that the Righteous are rewarded with an everlasting Life of Blessedness and the impenitent Wicked punisht by that unquenchable Fire that will wholly destroy their being They believe this is the reason why the Punishment by Hell-Fire is called Eternal Death in Holy Scripture But the more current opinion among all denominations of Christians is that the Punishment of the Impenitent in Hell-fire is called Death not because it utterly destroys the life of the Sufferer but because 't is a continual and endless dying The extreme pains of Hell may well be called an everlasting dying or an eternal Death tho' the Sufferer is never extinct I do not find any thing in the Books of the English Vnitarians concerning these opinions they may hold as variously concerning them as the Christians of other denominations But if I may answer for them by what I judg of them by conversation with them I would say we approve the doctrine delivered by Arch-bishop J. Tillotson in a Sermon before her late Majesty of happy memory March 7.1689 on Matth. 25.46 which Sermon was printed by their Majesties special Command VIII I believe as to Christianity it self every thing in it is to be submitted to the dictates of Human Reason and that there are no Doctrines in it that are mysterious Neither of these was ever said by any Vnitarian and all our Prints more especially those in the English Tongue are express that there are many things as well in Religion as Nature that are far above the capacity of human Reason to declare or understand the manner of 'em or how they should be what we either see or are infallibly taught they are We never pretended that the Human Reason is the measure of Truth as Mr. Edwards and Mr. Norris charge us so that what our reason does not comprehend we will not believe on any other evidence whatsoever We never said it or thought it we reject no Doctrines but such as are contrary to Reason and of that I speak fully in the answer to Mr. De Luzancy hereto annexed IX As to Divine Worship I believe it may be given to another besides God to Christ who is but a Creature But we have disavowed nothing more in all our Prints than giving Divine Worship to any but only God that 't is a marvel to me that Mr. Edwards should impute to us such a doctrine we have scarce any English Print where we do not expresly oppose it Nor do we reckon of the Lord Christ as but a Creature I have said before he is God and Man The Divinity did so inhabit in the Humanity of Christ doth so exert in it the most glorious effects of Omnipotence and Omniscience that if others have been called God because they represented God Christ is to be so called because he exhibits God X. I believe Prayer was not required under the Old Testament The Lords-day is a ceremonious Observance abolished by the Gospel There is no spiritual Blessing conferred in the use of the Sacraments Baptism is an useless Rite and the Baptism of Children altogether vain There is no distinct function or office of Ministers in the Christian Church the very Lord's Supper it self may be administred by a private person I think Mr. Edwards is in the right against those if any such there were who deny'd that Prayer was a duty or precept of the Old Testament and the Law when he says It is included in the general precepts of fearing serving worshipping God But he is as much out in the next Article that some have said the Lords-day is abolished by the Gospel for it was never said by any He meant I suppose that the Seventh-day or Sabbath is abolisht and I take it to be the doctrine of the Catholic Church that the Seventh-day-Sabbath was ceremonial and is abolisht It may better however be said that the Sabbath is transferred from the seventh to the first day than that 't is absolutely abolisht or taken away In short the English Vnitarians hold no private opinion about either the Sabbath or Lord's day but as well in principle as practice concur with the Catholic Church It is too loosly said That there is no spiritual Blessing conferr'd in the use of the Sacraments For there is no ordinance of God but the serious and devout performance of it draws a blessing on the doer For all that many exceed in ascribing to the Sacraments certain Powers and Energies without competent warrant from the Word of God I do not know that Baptism is any thing more than a federal Rite by which we are initiated into the Christian Religion or the Holy Supper any thing more than a commemoration of the Sacrifice of Christ offering himself to God as an atonement for repenting sinners I know not to what purpose so many superstitious Books are written to teach people how to prepare themselves for the Memorial Supper when an honest Intention and a reverent Performance are sufficient both preparations and qualifications for and in all Gospel-Ordinances The Apostle says He that eateth that Bread unworthily or unworthily drinketh of that Cup is guilty of the blood of Christ nay eateth and drinketh Judgment to himself But he also warns them what he means by unworthy partaking namely their not tarrying for one another and withal eating and drinking with so little regard to God or Men that some of them made themselves drunk with the Sacramental Wine while others could not so much as tast of it Briefly their