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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52608	Considerations on the explications of the doctrine of the Trinity by Dr. Wallis, Dr. Sherlock, Dr. S-th, Dr. Cudworth, and Mr. Hooker as also on the account given by those that say the Trinity is an unconceivable and inexplicable mystery / written to a person of quality.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.; Wallis, John, 1616-1703.; Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1693 (1693)	Wing N1505B; ESTC R32239	45,913	35

first Commandment Thou shalt have no other God but Me he speaks to all Men to the illiterate to the sincere and even to Children as well as to those who are practised in the Arts of deceiving and being deceived by a Disguise of Words and by captious Forms of speaking If his meaning therefore was there is an Almighty Father who is God he hath an Almighty Son who also is a God and besides these there is an Almighty Spirit distinct from the other two and a God no less than either of them if I say this was his meaning would he have couched it in such words as these There is none other God but one or in these There is one God and there is none other but He or would he have said Thou shalt have none other God but ME Could the Wisdom of God it self find no other words but these which are so directly contrary to such a meaning by which to express himself and that too to those who were utterly uncapable of apprehending such a Sense in them These are the words which God spake upon Mount Sinai with Thunders that shook the Earth and Heavens I am the Lord thy God thou shalt have no other God but ME. They tell us his meaning was there are three Almighty All-knowing and Most good Persons each of them singly and by himself God and all of them jointly Creators of all things Now who would have thought it that this should be the meaning of no other God but ME Without doubt the Texts and the meaning are as far from one another as any the most contradictory Propositions can be and till they can remove this first Commandment out of the way it will be impossible for Men of Sense to be of the Trinitarian Perswasion I mean if they be also sincere if they suffer not themselves to be blinded by the Interests or awed by the vain Terrors of the present false World Our Opposers themselves grant that when the Israelites first heard this Commandment they understood it and could then no otherways understand it as the Unitarians now do namely thus Thou shalt never own any other Person as God but only Me who now speak to thee God Almighty suffered this Sense of his Words to pass current for upwards of 1500 Years But then say they he sent our Saviour and his Apostles to give another Sense of them nay a contrary Sense The Apostles and our Saviour had it in Charge to tell us that no other God but Me was as much as to say God the Father and God his Son and God the Holy Ghost three Divine Persons each of them Almighty each of them All-knowing and most Good and each of them God But I verily think had the Apostles indeed pretended this to be the Interpretation of the first Commandment they would not have found a single Person who would have believed or received them For these good Men had not nor desired Penal Laws Prisons Confiscations Deprivations Exclusions from the common Privileges of the Society by which to awe Mens Minds to profess and even to believe that black is white and white is black It would have been told them by all their Hearers that the Sense of Words is unalterable and that even the greatest Miracles cannot authorize an Interpretation evidently contrary to the Text. If the Speaker had been only a Man yet the Sense of his Words when actually spoken can never be changed by any Authority whatsoever If Heaven and Earth were miraculously destroyed to confirm an Interpretation that disagrees with the Natural and Grammatical Sense of the Words it will for all that ever remain a false Interpretation Cardinal Bellarmine is extreamly puzled with this Difficulty he saw plainly that the first Commandment and other Texts of the Law is conceived in such words that the Israelites could not think there were three Divine Persons but only one Divine Person But the Reason saith he of this was because the Israelites having lived long in a Nation where they owned and worshipp'd many Gods if they had been told of three Divine-Persons or of God the Father God his Son and God the Holy Ghost they would most certainly have apprehended them to be three Gods This saith the Cardinal is the Reason why the Doctrine of the Trinity was reserved to the Times of the New Testament Bellarm. de Christo l. 2. c. 6. Notandum est Deum in vetteri Testamento noluisse proponere Mysterium Triuitatis expresse quia Judaei incapaces erant quia recens exierant de Egypto ubi colebantur multi Dii intraturi erant in terram Chanaan ubi etiam multi babebantur Dii ne videlicet putarent sibi tres Deos proponi colendos● voluisse tamen Deum adumbrare hoc Mysterium ut cum in Novo Testamento praedicaretur non videretur omnino Novum q. d. The Doctrine of the Trinity was not propounded expresly to the Jews in the Old Testament they were uncapable of it because coming out of Egypt where many Gods were worshipped and entering into Canaan where also many Gods were acknowledged the Jews would have thought that three Gods had been propounded to them to be worshipped Nevertheless it was hinted or shadowed to them lest when it came to be preached in the New Testament it should seem altogether a new thing In reading the Works of this Cardinal I have often had this Thought That provided his Works were but bulky and learned he never cared what other Property they wanted no one can deny that his five Books against the Unitarians intituled by him De Christo are the most learned of any that have been written against us but they have no Wit and are throughout most injudicious What can be more unthought or silly for instance than this vain Elusion God speaks to the Jews saith he as if he were but one Person because they living among People who acknowledged many Gods would have mistaken three Divine Persons to be three Gods How came it to be more safe or seasonable or less liable to Misinterpretation to instruct Christians in the Belief of three Divine Persons than it would have been to teach the same Belief to the Jews The Jews saith the Cardinal would have mistaken they would have thought the Trinity an Almighty Father an Almighty Son and an Almighty Spirit to be three Almighties and three Gods so this Mystery was not preached to them What a Narrowness of Thought and Consideration is implied in this Answer for was not the whole Christian Church taken from among such Nations who all worshipped and owned many Gods The Reason alledged by the Cardinal if it were good for any thing must also have prevented the Revelation of that pretended Mystery to any of the Christian Nations and Churches I might also ask the Cardinal why he hath so much better Thoughts of Athanasius than of Moses and the Prophets Athanasius knew how to compose a Trinitarian Creed in the most express and particular

for the perusal of this most learned and judicious Letter which I return you and I congratulate the worthy Author whom the Divine Wisdom has made an Instrument for the vindicating of his glorious and incommunicable Attribute of Unity which he has in several Tracts even demonstrated not only by clear and express Scriptures and obvious Reason but also now at length from the Confessions of the Trinitarians themselves the Infringers of it For whilst each one condemns the several Explications of the rest as either inconsistent with the Unity or the Trinity they do all in their turns bear Witness to the Unitarians that their Opposition to the Trinitarian Doctrine is well-grounded and reasonable and consequently their Doctrine of the Unity the Truth of God For if each one of their Explications does either introduce the Worship of three Gods or the Heresy of Sabellianism as they call it the turning the Son and Holy Ghost into Names and Operations without any real Distinction of Persons or Things answering those distinct Names as it plainly appears they do then it undeniably follows there is no such Trinity as they imagine but a Numerical Unity of Person and Essence in God as the Unitarians hold and as some Trinitarians contend in their Opposition one to another It remains then that the Trinitarian Worshippers especially the common People do seriously and in the Fear of the one most High God consider what Notions Conceptions or Idea's they have of an Infinite and Almighty Holy Ghost distinct from the Almighty Father and Producer of them For they cannot possibly escape the Condemnation of one of the highest Crimes even the Worship of three Infinite Real Gods or two Imaginary Ones or two Names without Notions that is they know not what as this Author expresses it Condemnation I say not only by the Unitarians who worship the Father only as God in the highest and strictest Sense of that Term but also by all the Trinitarians that hold not the same Opinion or have not the same Notion I know the Times of Ignorance God winketh at as well now as before the preaching of the Gospel but after he has made his Unity manifest and vindicated it from the Scholastick Subtilties and absurd Distinctions that have been invented to hide the Truth he then commands all Men to whom this Evidence comes to repent Inconsideration or Negligence will not now excuse Men must not say or think as they commonly do this Point is too high for me to determine for they have already determined it whilst they profess to believe in and to worship three equal ones a Father a Son and a Spirit Neither can they alledg the Universality of the Trinitarian Faith For besides as this Author observes the worshipping of many Gods was formerly and is now far more universal we see that this Opinion and Worship which soever it be is condemned by at least four to one of those that go under that common Name of Trinitarians The rise of these divers and contrary Explications has been this as is observed by the Author in that which now obtains that Learned Men looking narrowly into former Explications have found them inconsistent with the Oneness of God and therefore have devised somewhat either more obscure that would hide the Contradiction or somewhat more consistent with the Unity tho it destroyed the Trinity or more consistent with the Trinity tho it destroys the Unity as Dr. Sherlock has done And perhaps others like him may devise other Hypotheses taking it for granted from the Prejudices of early Education and customary thinking that the Trinity is a Fundamental of Christianity But we see here they labour in vain to reconcile manifest Contradictions and in believing the Son and Holy Spirit to be equally God with the Father they offend against express Scriptures and clear Reason upon the account of their own Reasonings upon obscure Texts and therein transgress the plain Principles both of Natural Light and Revelation which require 1. That nothing be held for Truth contrary to evident and Fundamental Truth And 2. That obscure Passages are to be interpreted by clear Passages and the Current of Scripture and not otherwise The Jews walking contrary to these Principles was the cause of rejecting Christ and Christianity and it is indeed the ground of all Error whatever In vain do Men press a great many Texts that have even in the Opinion of Learned Trinitarians another meaning to prove that the Son and Holy Ghost are God till they can reconcile that Inference to plain Scripture and evident Reason In vain does the Author of The Snare broken who could not overcome the Prejudices of his Education and Converse perswade Men to lay aside their Philosophy and wholly to betake themselves to a Scriptural Consideration of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which I understand they must take the words of Scripture without understanding them or reconciling them to other Scriptures or even the Current of Scripture or common Reason Do they think that Scripture is to be interpreted contrary to it self Or that Divine Wisdom has made the Belief of Contradictions necessary to Salvation It seems strange that Christians should be very zealous in the Punctilio's of the Worship of God Ceremonies of Posture Gesture or Apparel Forms of Addresses to God the wording of Faith to an Iota and yet go on in the Worship of one God the Father and of two distinct from him God as perfectly as he and in which their Worship terminates equally with him They can love God the Father with all their Hearts and Strengths and two Persons distinct from him with the same All they can give all to one and all to another and all to a third and never question the Possibility of it as if there were a Trinity in Unity in every Man that his own Heart were three Hearts to be bestowed all and entirely upon each of three Objects and yet be but one Heart still But whither am I carried This Author needs none of my Notes or Illustrations and indeed both he and all others that have labour'd in this Controversy may surcease their Pains henceforth and leave what they have already said to the Judgment and Conscience of all considerate and sincere Men. I am Sir yours c.

the first Inventors of it were Peter Lombard and the Schoolmen so it hath no other publick Authority but that of the Fourth Lateran Council held in the Year 1215. He saith 't is a gross piece of Nonsense that it falleth not under Human Conception neither saith he can it be in Nature This is the Judgment which this great Philosopher and Divine maketh of the Explication propounded and defended in Dr. S th's Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock And in very deed Dr. S th's Explication can fitly and properly be called by no other Name but an absurd Socinianism or Socinianism turn'd into Ridicule as we shall see when we come to consider it in particular Mr. Hooker the celebrated Author of the Ecclesiastical Polity giveth yet another Explication of the Trinity he descibeth it to be the Divine Essence distinguished by three Internal and Relative Properties this Explication differs as much from Dr. Wallis as any of the rest for Dr. Wallis's three Persons are all of them External Denominations or Predications But these Differences Sir among our Opposers will appear to you most clearly without my needing to point at them in the Accounts I am about to give of their several Explications of their Trinity and the Observations I shall make on them Therefore I pass on to the Explication given us by Dr. Sherlock Of the Explication by Dr. W. Sherlock FOR Memory and Method's sake and because the Division is so just we may distinguish the Accounts or Explications of the Trinity contrived by our Opposers after this manner There is first the Trinity according to Tully or the Ciceronian Trinity which maketh the three Divine Persons to be nothing else but three Conceptions of God or God conceived of as the Creator the Redeemer and Sanctifier of his Creatures Dr. Wallis after many others hath propounded and asserted this Trinity in his Letters and his Sermons to the Patris conscripti at Oxford He found in Tully Sustineo unus tres Personas of which he mistaketh the meaning to be I being but one Man yet AM three Persons saith the Doctor hereupon Why may not God be three Persons as well as one Man was three Persons The next is the Cartesian Trinity or the Trinity according to Des Cartes which maketh three Divine Persons and three Infinite Minds Spirits and Beings to be but one God because they are mutually and internally and universally conscious to each others Thoughts Mr. Des Cartes had made this Inventum to be the first Principle and Discovery in Philosophy Cogito ergo sum I think therefore I am and he will have the very Nature of a Mind or Spirit to consist in this that 't is a thinking Being Therefore says Dr. Sherlock three Persons can be no otherways one God but by Unity of Thought or what will amount to as much as internal and perfect Consciousness to one anothers Thoughts Any one may see that Dr. Sherlock's Mutual Consciousness by which he pretends to explain his Trinity in Unity was by him borrowed from the Meditations and Principles of Monsieur Des Cartes his System was hinted to him by that unhappy Philosopher who hath razed as much as in him lay the only Foundation of Religion by resolving so absurdly as well as impiously the Original of the World and of all Things not into the Contrivance and Power of an Almighty and All-wise Mind but into the Natural Tendencies of Bodies or as he calls them the Laws of Motion The Third is the Trinity of Plato or the Platonick Trinity maintained by Dr. Cudworth in his Intellectual System This Trinity is of three Divine Co-eternal Persons whereof the second and third are subordinate or inferior to the first in Dignity Power and all other Qualities except only Duration Yet they are but one God saith he because they are not three Principles but only one the Essence of the Father being the Root and Fountain of the Son and Spirit and because the three Persons are gathered together under one Head even the Father This saith Dr. Cudworth is the Trinity of Plato and the genuine Platonists and is the only true Trinity all other Trinitarians besides the Platonists are but Nominal Trinitarians and the Trinities they hold are not Trinities of subsisting Persons but either of Names and Denominations only or of partial and inadequate Conceptions The fourth is the Trinity according to Aristotle or the Aristotelian or Peripatetick Trinity which saith the Divine Persons are one God because they have the same Numerical Substance or one and the self-same Substance in Number and tho each of the three Persons is Almighty All-knowing and most Good yet 't is by one individual and self-same Power Knowledge and Goodness in Number This may be called also the Reformed Trinity and the Trinity of the Schools because the Divines of the middle Ages reformed the Tritheistick and Platonick Trinity of the Fathers into this Sabellian Jargonry as Dr. Cudworth often and deservedly calleth it This is the Trinity intended by Dr. S th in his Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock especially at chap. 8. The Author or first Contriver of it was Peter Lombard Master of the Sentences and Bishop of Paris who died in the Year 1164. It never had any other Publick Authority saith Dr. Cudworth but that of the fourth Lateran Council which is reckoned by the Papists among the General Councils and was convened in the Year 1215. He might have added that the Doctrine of P. Lombard was disliked and opposed by divers Learned Men and censured by Alexander the Third and other Popes till Pope Innocent the Third declared it to be Orthodox It may be not unprobably said that an Unitarian was the true Parent of it for 't is said that Peter Lombard took his four Books of Sentences for so much as concerneth the Trinity out of a Book of P. Abelardus concerning the same To this Trinity of Aristotle and the Schools we must reckon the Trinity of Properties which we shall see hereafter is so variously explained as to make even divers sorts of Trinities yet I refer all the Property-Trinities to this fourth Distinction of Trinities the Trinity according to Aristotle because they are all grounded on the abstracted or Metaphysical and Logical Notions of that Philosopher nor can they be understood without some Knowledge of his Philosophy We must add to all these the Trinity of the Mobile or the Trinity held by the common People and by those ignorant or lazy Doctors who in Compliance with their Laziness or their Ignorance tell you in short that the Trinity is an unconceivable and therefore an inexplicable Mystery and that those are as much in fault who presume to explain it as those who oppose it I have propounded to my self to discourse briefly on all these Trinities I have begun with the Trinity of Marcus Tullius Cicero or if he pleases of Dr. Wallis I have said of it as much as is necessary the next is the Trinity according to the

Schools deform the sincere and easy Notion of the Unity of God as 't is held by the Socinians and Sabellians by transforming it into a Fantastick Trinity of Nominal Persons or of Persons who are Persons only in Name not in Truth and Reality therefore Dr. Cudworth saith farther that this Trinity is Jargonry in Philosophy a Trinity that falls not under Human Conception and which cannot be in Nature Intellect System p. 605. Elsewhere he scruples not to name it the Philosophy of Gotham These are the just Characters which that great Philosopher and Divine gives of the Scholastick Trinity of Dr. S th he giveth his Reasons up and down in the Intellectual System but 't is not necessary for me to report them when every one may see them in the Author himself and besides they are too Philosophical to be put into a Discourse which I design for the Use of the less learned as well as of the learned I have done with Dr. S th's Explication for this time If he is angry with me for the Reflections I have made thereupon I protest 't is without just Cause I have used no disrespectful Language I have acknowledged and do acknowledg the Worth of the Man and all other Perfections in his Book but only this one that it maintains an unjustifiable Explication The Method or Structure of his Book is Natural Elegant and Judicious the Words Expression or Phrase is proper forcible clean and well chose it hath very many agreeable Turns of Wit which render it pleasant to an ingenious Reader As this Author hath a great deal of Wit so he hath known how to govern it in this respect that he is witty without Buffoonry This is a Conduct not very usual in those that have much Wit commonly they know not how to manage it and among other unjudicious Neglects they forget the Where and When and other such like Circumstances they are so taken with their Talent as to be always using it because they know not that everlasting fooling is true and meer fooling But I wish that Dr. S th in exercising his Wit had remembred the who which he hath utterly forgotten and that was utterly an oversight and a very great one He cannot excuse himself by pleading the many Contradictions in Dr. Sherlock's Book a candid Man would not impute them to the Author but to the extream Obscurity of the Subject when the Subject it self is contradictory there will be many Contradictions committed in defending it I doubt not that Dr. Sherlock will find many Contradictions in Dr. S-th's second Chapter Having done to Dr. S th this Right he ought not to be out of Humour that I as a Socinian have attacked his Explication as I have some other Learned Men I mean no Disrespect thereby to him or them I acknowledg their Personal Merit but cannot give up to them so sacred a Truth as the Unity of God or consent that it be disguised and deformed Of the Explication by Mr. Hooker Author of the Ecclesiastical Polity MR. Hooker tho he was none of the Fathers of the Catholick Church is not of less Authority in the particular Church of England than any one of the Fathers is and it must be confest he was not only a very good but a very learned and discerning Man But it is observed of him that in speaking of the Trinity he speaks somewhat incorrectly this was a Doctrine which he took for granted there was no Dispute in his time about it so he hath delivered himself not with his usual Precaution and Judgment He saith That the Substance of God with this Property to be of none doth make the Person of the the Father The very self-same Substance in Number with this Property to be of the Father maketh the Person of the Son The same Substance having added to it the Property of proceeding from the other two maketh the Person of the Holy Ghost So that in every Person there is implied both the Substance of God which is one and also that Property which causeth the same Person really and truly to differ from the other two I must observe in the first place hereupon that Mr. Hooker in this matter hath not spoken over critically and correctly nay hardly Orthodoxly I mean as Orthodoxy goes among the Learned of his own Parry He saith that the Substance of God with these Properties to be of none to be of the Father and to proceed from the other two make the Persons of the Father Son and Spirit now to be of none to be of the Father and to proceed from both are but other Words for this Sense to beget to be begotten and to proceed But that Father of Modern Orthodoxy Peter Lombard whom we have already twice mentioned denies that these before-mentioned are Properties in the Substance of God or that they can belong to it he saith Essentia Divina non est genera●● nec genera●● nec procedens i. e. the Substance of God neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds 'T is impossible to make this consist with Mr. Hooker who expresly ascribeth those Properties to the Divine Substance or Essence and saith that being in the Divine Substance they make it to be three Persons What shall we do here Shall we say Reverend Hooker has mistaken and missed his Sons who are all the Church of England into an Error concerning the Trinity Hath he ascribed to the Divine Essence Properties which he calleth Persons that are not in it To give up Hooker is to dishonour the Church of England it self to part with Father Hooker is to endanger the very Surplice and even the Cross in Baptism nay that Book of Books the Common-Prayer If Mr. Hooker could err about the Trinity What will the Fanaticks and Trimmers say Will they not be apt to pretend too he may have erred in his profound Dissertations and Discourses for the Rites and Discipline of the Church I am afraid for all that we must keep close to Peter Lombard Master of the Sentences and of the Modern Divinity he hath been espoused by all the Popes since Innocent the Third by the Lateran Council which was General and by the tacit Approbation of the whole Church ever since I doubt it is not much more passible that Mr. Hooker saith that the Properties to be of none to be of the Father and to proceed do together with the Substance of God make the Persons of the Father Son and Spirit It is not true that those are the Properties which make the Persons he might say that they make the Persons to be Father Son and Spirit or to have that threefold Relation among themselves but they do not make the three Persons to be Persons or thus they do not make as he speaks the Persons To be of none maketh the Father but I deny that it maketh as Mr. Hooker affirms the Person of the Father the Character or Property which maketh the Person of the Father is quite another

Socinians by some of the most Learned Interpreters and Criticks of his own Party as indeed no Proof of the Trinity the Incarnation or the Divinity of the Son or Spirit What avails it for a Man to talk of the great number of Texts which he can alledg when the ablest Persons of his own Party do in the mean time ow● the Unsufficiency of every one of them in particular If he thinks he has cause to deny that the Socinians have this great Advantage on their side whenever he shall do it publickly I will bear the Reproach if I do not justify what I have said by Citation of particular Authors of the first Note and Rank among our Opposers 3. Our Opposers urge that there are and the Soci●●●●s themselves believe a great many Mys●●●●●s in Nature of which no Human Reason can give an Account nay Reason objects against them and professedly contradicts them as that a pure Spirit can move a Body In which it meets no Resistance that Bodies or Matter consist of indiuisible Parts and such like Well suppose the Socinians should grant these or other unaccountable Mysteries which not only are not comprehended but are contradicted by Reason What then Why then they are very inconsiderate to deny as they do the Trinity and Incarnation on this account that 't is contrary to Reason or implies Contradictions and Absurdities But our Opposers should have thought better of this Objection before they laid so great a Weight on it even the Weight of their whole Cause For tho we should grant that we believe some Mysteries of Nature or Art against which Reason objects and many ways contradicts them yet is this no Plea for the Trinity or the Incarnation For if we believe Natural or Artificial Mysteries 't is because we plainly see that so the thing is we see or we feel or have some other undeniable Proof of the thing some such Proof as no rational Man will or can resist Doth any Man believe Misteries or wonderful Tales contrary to his Reason and the Reason of all other Men without a most manifest and uncontestable Proof of them without some such Proof or Proofs as undeniably evince the thing so to be But will our Opposers pretend they have any such Proofs for the Incarnation or Trinity such manifest such evident such uncontestable Proofs that no sober Man or no reasonable Man can except against them or refuse to admit of them I do not think they will pretend to it if it be but for this only Reason because the Socinians are confest to be a Rational and Learned Party Are those Evidence or Proofs uncontestable which are rejected not without some Scorn by some of the learnedest and most unsuspected of their own Party Are they uncontestable that not only may be interpreted to another Sense but also are either otherways read in the best Copies of the Hebrew and Greek or may be otherways translated from those Languages and all this by confession of the more ingenious of our Opposers themselves Briefly we say Mysteries there are and it may be such Mysteries as are even contradicted by Reason that is are in some respects Contradictions to our present short-sighted and frail Reason but when we believe there are some such Mysteries it is because they appear to our Senses or are proved to us by some such either Reason or Authority as no reasonable Man much less any Number of such Men does or can deny to be uncontestable And otherways all the unwarrantable Nonsense in the World may be imposed on us under the Pretence and Cloak of Mystery But now the Doctrine of the Trinity hath not only no uncontestable Proofs but the Pretences for it are so feeble that none of them can be named but is not only rejected but despised by some of the learnedest of our Opposers themselves They would perswade us to acknowledg a Mistery full of Contradictions to the clearest Reason and to indisputable Texts of Holy Scripture and supported in the mean time only by some Texts that may be interpreted to a Rational Sense that is to a Sense that hath nothing contrary either to Reason or to the unquestionable Parts or Texts of the Holy Scripture For Peace sake we would do so if it were some light matter that they urged on us but when the Question is about one or more Gods one or more Divine Persons we judg it adviseable not to be too facile in admitting such dangerous Mysteries Mysteries that would destroy the Allegiance and Homage that we all owe to the one true God I have done Sir with the Explications of our Opposers You see what they are Dr. S th's Explication is only an absurd Socinianism or Unitarianism disguised in a Metaphysical and Logical Cant. Dr. Wallis his Explication is an ingenious Sabellianism and in very deed differs from Unitarianism no more than Dr. S th's that is to say only in the wording Dr. Sherlock's is such a flat Tritheism that all the Learned of his own Party confess it to be so and Dr. S th hath written a very accurate Book to prove it so Dr. Cudworth's is a moderate Arianism the Ariani molles ascribed as much to the Son as this Doctor doth and he denies as much to the Son as they did even an Equality of Power and Authority with the Father Mr. Hooker's is a Trinity not of Persons but of Contradictions and he hath advanced such a Son as of necessity destroys his Father What the Mystical Divines teach cannot be called an Explication they deny all Explications we must say therefore 't is Samaritanism for what our Saviour says of the Samaritans by way of Reproof and Blame that these Gentlemen profess concerning themselves that they worship they know not what These Sir are the Doctrines that we oppose I shall leave it with you whether it be without cause Before I conclude I beg your Leave to say two words to Mr. Basset who hath answer'd or thinks he has answered to the Brief History of the Unitarians and to Dr. Fulwood and Dr. Edwards Men of Dignity in the Church but who have not thought it below them to use the very vilest Language and the basest and most ungrounded Scandals that their Malice to our Persons and their Ignorance of the Points in question between us and the Church could suggest to them These two Doctors tell their Readers that the Unitarians deny the Omniscience of God or that he fore-knoweth contingent Events that they deny his Omnipresence making him to be present in all Places only by his Knowledg and his Power that they ascribe the same degree of Power and Knowledg and pay the self-same Worship to the Lord Christ whom they affirm to be a meer Man which they ascribe or pay to Almighty God and hereby say these Doctors they are guilty of an Idolatry that is equally evident and abominable They pretend to prove this Charge out of the Writings of Socinus Smalcius and some others