Primitive Church or any one of the Inferiour Clergy with the Allowance of his Bishop did ever undertake to perform the Public Worship of Almighty God without the Use of the Lord's Prayer I do most confidently Aver That the want of the Practical Understanding of the Lord's Prayer is the chief Cause of all the Sins and Errours in the Christian World Wherefore I earnestly beseech all those that have Named the Name of Christ to joyn with me in the daily Contemplation of the Divine Sence of these Words deliver'd unto us by our Blessed SAVIOUR as a Compleat Directory for All Our Desires OUr Father which art in Heaven Hastowed be Thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy Will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this Day our Daily Bread And forgive us our Trespasses as we forgive them that Trespass against us And lead us not into Temptation but deliver us from Evil. For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen A Vindication of the LITURGY of the Church of England THE Author of these Reflections most stedfastly resolves by the Help of Almighty GOD to embrace Truth and to reject Error wheresoever he finds it He desires That the Friends of R. B. would take these Reflections into their deepest consideration with the same candour and benevolence to all Mankind with which he communicates them to the World I am glad to find these words pag. 233 234. I would not be understood as if I intended the putting away of all set Times and Places to Worship God forbid I should think of such an Opinion Nay we are none of those that forsake the Assembly of our selves together but have even set Times and Places in which we carefully meet together to wait upon God and worship him These words following in the same Page require our Animadversion But the Limitation we condemn is That whereas the Spirit of God should be the immediate Actor moreover Perswader and Influencer of Man in the particular Acts of Worship when the Saints are met together this Spirit is limited in its Operations by setting up a particular Man or Men to preach and pray in Man's Will and all the rest are excluded from so much as believing that they are to wait for God's Spirit to move them in such things and so they neglecting that which should quicken them in themselves and not waiting to feel the pure Breathings of God's Spirit so as to obey them are led meerly to depend upon the Preacher and hear what he will say Answ. I shall undertake by God's assistance to vindicate the Use of the Liturgy of the Church of England the principal parts whereof are the Lord's Prayer and the Holy Psalms I say the Psalms for they are to be us'd in our Religious Assemblies as the Means or Instruments to lift up our Hearts unto God I would here avoid all Disputes concerning the Ordination of Ministers In our Assemblies the People bear a part with the Minister or Preacher in using their Voice in worshiping Almighty God The Spirit cannot be limited in its Operations by any thing that is taught or practised according to any Order of the Church of England We are taught not to Pray in Man's Will but according to the Will of GOD which is our Sanctification We are taught to wait for God's Spirit to move us to the performance of any thing He would have us to do but we are taught also to believe that God's Spirit is always ready to assist the Sincere those who desire above all things to do His Will to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth in Saying or Hearing the Words of our Liturgy in the Congregation The very moment that any Soul truly devout waits for or expects the assistance of the Spirit of Christ to help her to perform any known Duty towards GOD or towards Man she never fails to receive it Concerning the Psalms I shall speak hereafter It is the Duty of all Christians at all times and in all places to retain in their Hearts the Habit Ground or Principle of all those Holy Desires which are exprest in the Lord's Prayer this 't is to pray continually When the words of this Prayer are recited in the Congregation it is impossible but those who have the Habit of those Holy Desires in their Hearts should worship God in Spirit and in Truth viz. in the act or exercise of those Desires by the inspiration of the Divine Spirit whose operation never ceases but when Man in his own Will or Self-love doth suppress or totally extinguish such Holy Desires or Aspirations I am very sorry to see so ingenious and learned a person as R. B. err so grosly about the Lord's Prayer in which he shews himself tainted with that Impurity of Mind for which Dr. Owen has been so often corrected p. 245. We know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us c. Rom. 8. 26. But says R. B. If this Prayer had been such a prescribed Form of Prayer to the Church that had not been true neither had they been ignorant what to pray nor should they have needed the help of the Spirit to teach them p. 245. To this I answer That it is impossible that any man should actually know as they ought to know the sence or meaning of any word in the Lord's Prayer but by an actual Influence of the Divine Spirit upon his Heart and Mind I must therefore proclaim to all the World That it was the Spirit of Error which suggested these words to R. B. If this Prayer had been such a prescribed Prayer to the Church that had not been true neither had they been ignorant what to pray nor should they have needed the help of the Spirit to teach them By what I have already said it appears that if by these words our Adversaries c. p. 264. he means all those who worship God according to the English Liturgy he 's very Uncharitable Our Adversaries says he whose Religion is all for the most part out-side and such whose Acts are the meer product of Man's natural Will and Abilities as they can preach so they can pray when they please and therefore have their set particular Prayers Answ. We acknowledge that we can never pray as we ought but by the assistance of the Spirit of God but his Assistance is always ready for us If at any time we fail of it we our selves are the cause we have it not As to set particular Prayers we own no Prayer but the Lord's Prayer further than the sense of it is implied in some part of that Compleat Body of Vocal Prayer that Divine Summary or Breviary of the Expressions of all holy Desires p. 266. Because this outward Prayer depends upon the inward as that which must follow it and cannot be acceptably perform'd but as attended with a superadded Influence and Motion of the Spirit Therefore
I know you have good Nature enough to pardon this hasty Scrible from SIR Your most humble Servant RO. SHARROCK July 21. 1662. In Obitum DOCTISSIMI Viri FIDELISSIMI AMICI THOMAe PIERCE S. T. P. Decani Sarisburiensis SAnctus Amor Mihi Te cum tot conjunxerit Annos Tu certe nec jam Morte Revulsus eris Morte mori vostra videor Doctissimi Amici Hac ratione etiam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1691. GReat Good and Just could I but rate c. Montross Iustitia Bonitate ingens Si quantus in imo Corde Mihi Dolor est Si Qualia Fata ferebas Aequo Animo possem Factis ostendere Flerem Quae Totum Obruerent Lachrymarum Flumina Mundum Sed cum suppetias poscat Vox Sanguinis Alta Non quas ARGI Oculi sed quas praestare BRIAREI Vis Manuum poterit Cantus Tuba clara Sonabit Funebres Titulos Defuncti Sangâ—â—â—e Scribam A Letter to the Author of a Book Entituled An Enquiry into the Constitution Discipline Unity and Worship of the Primitive Church Reverende Domine QUis quis es Erudite Vir Mihi certè videris esse Rerum in Ecclesiâ Novandarum Avidus Nos Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Inimicum esse judicamus istius modi hominem qui cum Professus sit semetipsum esse Ecclesiae Anglicanae Filium hominibus Anglicanis Persuadere Velit ut animum inducant Credere non adeo esse Necessarium Orationis Dominicae Usum ut eum existimat Ecclesia Anglicana Si tu Mecum non Consentias in omnibus quae in hac Dissertatiuncula exaravi Te rogo per istum quem in Proefatione Tuâ Professus es Candorem ut mittas mihi aliquam à Te Scriptam Oppositionem Ex Collisione Adversantium Sententiarum Veritas clariùs Eluscesoet Vale. Reverende Domine DIssertatiunculam quam mihi misisti perlegi ac in toto meo Libro me contra Patres quos citâsti aliquid soripsisse non memini sed è contrario ad probandum Dominicae Orationis usum eosdem Patres aut saltem aliquos eorum in testes adduxisse Non sum Domine Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Inimicus Perfectioni Orationis Dominicae assentior nec aliter rerum in Ecclesiâ Novandarum avidus nisi ut Lites Nostrae componantur Ecclesiae nostrae Divisae unitas tandem reddatur Hoc quidem nitar Deum Pacis semper invocabo ut det Pacem in diebus nostris ut caeptis Amorem Unitatem quaerentium Benedicat Vale. Nov. 4th 1692. Honoured SIR I Thank you for your Letter in which you shew so great Candour and Civility That I hope your Design is not so ill as I feared it was tho I am very averse from several of your Assertions particularly that concerning the LORD'S PRAYER viz. that the Primitive Church did not always use it in their Solemn Worship To which I Answer That it cannot be prov'd That any Bishop of the Primitive Church or any one of the Inferiour Clergy with the Allowance of his Bishop did ever undertake to perform the Publick Worship of Almighty God without the Use of the LORD'S PRAYER Some of the greatest Enemies of the Church of Christ in this Kingdom are those Men who pretend to be True Ministers of the Gospel without true ORDINATION and in their Congregations never use the LORD'S PRAYER I shall here recite some of my own Words that have been published in two several Papers It is most evident that those Men are guilty of Abominable Iniquity who endeavour to seduce any People from the Communion of the CHURCH of ENGLAND in which the Fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion are so clearly and fully exprest and those most important Expressions so frequently repeated That Persons of the lowest Intellectuals who do not Rebel against the Light in frequenting our Religious Assemblies may more easily attain to the Knowledge of All Things that are necessary to their Salvation than by Hearing or Reading the best Sermons that have been or shall be preached by any of the Nonconformists to the End of the World which Assertion is as Evident as it is That any Illiterate Persons may more easily meditate on Truths plainly exprest and frequently suggested to their Remembrance than Collect the same Truths out of divers large Discourses if they were therein implyed So that it can hardly be imagin'd how any Man can be in any thing more serviceable to the Destroyer of Souls than by Teaching People to dispise Our CATECHISM and COMMON PRAYER SIR If you sincerely desire the Peace of the Church I beseech you by the Meekness and Gentleness of our Lord Iesus Christ That you would deeply consider what I have here written in Conscience of my Duty at all Times and in all places to love the Truth and Peace Your faithful Servant E. E. Nov. 26th 1692. SIR I Shall not give you the trouble of any Preface to what I shall write in Vindication of this most important Truth That the Primitive Church in the Publick Worship of Almighty God did always use a Liturgy or Form of Sacred Words namely the LORD'S PRAYER the PSALMS and the GLORIA PATRI You say That Origen prescribing a methed of Prayer speaks not a Word of the LORD'S PRAYER De Oratione Sect. 22. I Answer That in the former part of his Treatise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He speaks very much of the LORD'S PRAYER and plainly shews That 't was us'd by all Christians in their Religious Assemblies I Pray SIR bestow your second THOUGHTS upon these Words Page 66. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 132 133. He plainly shews That in what he speaks of the LORD'S PRAYER he would be understood to have Respect in a Special Manner to the PUPLICK WORSHIP 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 4. Contra Celsam Edit Spenc. pag. 178. He speaks expresly of COMMON PRAYERS in which he certainly implies the LORD'S PRAYER of which he discourses so largely in his Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How great Regard the Primitive Christians had to the Gloria Patri is manifest by that Holy Aspiration of Polycarpus which you cite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And by those Words of Origen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Page 135. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You say As to these prescribed FORMS there is not the the least mention of them in any of the Primitive Writings nor the least Word nor Syllable tending thereunto that I can find which is a most unaccountable Silence if ever such there were but rather some Expressions intimating the contrary as that famous controverted place of Iustin. Martyr who describing the manner of the PRAYER before the Celebration of the LORD'S SUPPER says That the Bishop sent up Prayers and Praises to God with his utmost Ability 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apol. 2. that is That he pray'd with the best of his Abllities Invention Expression Judgment and the like Answ. This famous place of Iustin
cannot we prefix set times to pray outwardly so as to lay a necessity to speak words at such and such times whether we feel this Heavenly Influence and Assistance or no for that we judge were a tempting of God and a coming before him without due preparation To this I answer That whatever feeling we have or have not in the Sensitive Powers or Faculties of our Souls if our Heart our Will or Spiritual Appetite be rightly affected towards God our Prayers will most certainly be acceptable unto Him And His Holy Spirit is always ready to assist every man that believeth in Iesus so to order and dispose his own Spirit that it may comply with the Will of God in all things It cannot be a Tempting of God to depend upon him for his gracious Assistance to do his Will And it is his Will that in our Religious Assemblies we should use Words in Prayer When ye pray say Our Father c. Luk. 11. 2. p. 268. To desire a man to fall to Prayer e're the Spirit in some measure less or more move him thereunto is to desire a man to see before he open his Eyes That is an irreverent Expression To fall to Prayer but most certainly it is our Duty to call upon all men who profess Christianity to observe the Times of the Public Worship of Almighty God and to testifie to them that if they will sincerely trust in God for Christ's sake to assist them by his holy Spirit they shall never fail of his gracious Assistance He will help their Infirmities and enable them to cry Abba Father Rom. 8. 15 26. P. 275. As for the formal customary way of Singing it hath in Scripture no foundation nor any ground in true Christianity yea besides c. Answ. If by the formal customary way of Singing he mean that way of Singing Psalms in Metre or the reading of them in prose which the Church of England is accustomed unto It is a gross Errour to say there is no foundation for it in the Scripture Have we not received a Precept from our Blessed Lord by his Apostle to sing and make melody in our Hearts to the Lord And can there be any better means to do this than what the Apostle prescribes in these words Speaking to your selves in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs Can there be any better Psalms c. than those which were most certainly and unquestionably compos'd by Divine Inspiration Yea says he besides all the Abuses incident to Prayer and Preaching it hath this more peculiar That oftentimes great and horrid Lyes are said in the sight of God for all manner of wicked prophane People take upon them to personate the Experiences and Conditions of blessed David which are not only false as to them but also as to some of more Sobriety who utter them forth as where they will Sing sometimes Psal. 22. 14. My heart is like wax it is melted in the midst of my bowels Ver. 15. My strength is dryed up like a potsheard and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws and thou hast brought me into the dust of death And Psal. 6. 6. I am weary with my groaning all the night make I my bed to swim I water my couch with my tears And many more which those that speak know to be false as to them To this I answer That all the Prayers of wicked prophane People that is of those who persist in their Wickedness whatever words they use in Prayer are an abomination to the Lord. What then Must they be forbid to pray No surely But in Praying they must cease to be wicked And indeed it is impossible that any wicked man should cease to be wicked before he begins to pray Prayer has always that Priority to ceasing to be wicked which Logicians call Priority of Nature Before any man can be justly esteemed to be a Member of any Christian Assembly or Congregation he must profess that he believes the Holy Scriptures were written by Divine Inspiration and consequently that they contain nothing but Truth And also that he resolves by the help of God to take the Truth therein contained to be the Rule of his Life and Conversation If he be Sincere in this Profession and God only can judge whether he be so or no unless he violate his Profession by some notorious contrary Practice then most certainly he has in his Heart those Holy Desires which are exprest in the Lord's Prayer And as for the Psalms I pray God to make all the Adversaries of the Church of England duly sensible of this most important Truth That though indeed there are many Passages in them which none of us can apply to himself as to the Particularity of his own Person yet there is not one Passage in the whole Book but what every true Christian may and ought to apply to himself upon account of the Communion of Saints of the relation He has to the Head and to every Member of the Holy Catholick Church which is in Heaven or in Earth So that every Expression in the Book of Psalms every sincere Christian so far as it is intelligible unto him may use as the Means to stir him up to Sing and make Melody in his Heart to the Lord to form such Thoughts and Affections as shall be most acceptable to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly every Man that is confirm'd to the Image of the Son of God who was all his days here upon Earth A man of Sorrows and acquainted with Grief I say every Sincere Christian does most certainly pour out his Soul before the Lord in such Affections as are here exprest in the words of the Psalmist My heart is like wax it is melted in the midst of my bowels c. I am highly delighted with many Passages in Robert Barclay's Apology particularly with this p. 370. It is plain that men that are taken with Love whether it be of a Woman or any other thing if it hath taken a deep place in the Heart and possess the Mind it will be hard for the man so in Love to drive out of his Mind the person or thing so loved Yea in his eating drinking and sleeping his Mind will always have a tendency that way and in Business or Recreations however intent he be in it there will but a very short time be permitted to pass but the Mind will let some Ejaculations forth towards its Beloved And albeit such a one must be conversant in those things that the Care of this Body and such-like things call for yet will he avoid as Death it self to do those things that may offend the Party so beloved or cross his Design in obtaining the thing so earnestly desired tho' there may be some small use in them The great Design which is chiefly in his Eye will so balance him that he will easily look over and dispense with such petty Necessities rather than endanger the loss of the greater by them Now That
I have demonstrated in my Latin Papers against Iansenius and Calvin whose Followers I hope will for the future be the more enclin'd to relinquish those wretched Opinions seeing them in the company of so many Hellish Conceits of that most horrid Monster the Father of the Leviathan By his saying That Men can have no Passion nor Appetite to any thing of which Appetite God's Will is not the Cause Chap. 21. he plainly gives the greatest Encouragement to the Workers of Iniquity to entertain a favourable conceit of the grossest Enormities of their wicked Lives Chap. 34. He talks perfectly like one in Bethlehem Apparitions quoth he though no real Substances but Accidents of the Brain yet when God raiseth them supernaturally to signifie his Will they are not unproperly term'd God's Messengers that is to say his Angels What does he think of the Angel we read of 2 Kin. 19. 35. And it came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand and when they arose early in the morning behold they were all dead corps This was a pretty stout Accident of the Brain that could slay in one night 185000 Men. No doubt there was an Angel an Evil one in the Brain of T. H. without such an Assistant he could hardly have hammer'd out so many Diabolical Imaginations Near the Conclusion of this Chapter he has a Lucid Interval But says he the many places of the New Testament and our Saviour's own words and in such Texts wherein is no suspicion of corruption of the Scripture have extorted from my feeble Reason an Acknowledgment and Belief that there be also Angels substantial and permanent I pray Reader observe these words Have extorted from my feeble Reason see how he discovers his Cross Humour and Averseness from a due compliance with the Judgment of the Church of God He reproaches his Reason for falling under the power of a Great Truth which he had such a mind to oppose By these words in the same Chapter Where by the Spirit of God is meant God himself he provides a Sophistical Evasion for himself and his Disciples in case he or they shall be charged with the Macedonian Heresie That young Students may not be impos'd on by persons more likely to deceive them than T. H. by their perverse Interpretations of Texts of Scripture wherein there is express mention of the Spirit of God I shall most earnestly beseech them to peruse these Books of the admirable Saint Basil viz. Adversus Eunomium Lib. de Spiritu Sancto And I desire that in all their Discourses concerning the Nature and Operation of the Holy Ghost they would be ever mindful of those words with which he concludes his third Book against Eunomius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. As for that wicked stuff which he delivers Chap. 42. in a pretended defence of his cursed Assertion That we ought to deny our Saviour before Men if we be commanded by our Lawful Prince it has such a smell of Brimstone that I abhor to recite it or say a word to any one that undertakes to vindicate him herein But the Lord rebuke thee His calumniating of the Holy Martyrs makes their Wounds as it were to bleed afresh and this will make his Memory to look horrid and ghastly to Posterity To his wicked Paradoxes concerning the word Church and Power Ecclesiastical I shall oppose these words of the most Learned and Pious Mr. Herbert Thorndike in his Review of his Discourse of the Right of the Church in a Christian state p. 40. Seeing that the Church is a Society Community Corporation or Spiritual Common-wealth subsisting by the immediate Revelation and Appointment of God without dependance upon those Christian States wherein it is harbour'd as to the Right by which it subsisteth and the matter wherein it communicateth it followeth of necessity that it is endowed with Rights correspondent to those wherein the Soveraignty of States consisteth The Power of the Sword is the Principal of Rights into which the rest are resolv'd when they are enforc'd to have recourse unto it for the execution of that which becomes requisite to make them available And the Church hath the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God which is used two manner of ways as the Sword is either to subdue Strangers or to cut off Malefactors Chap. 34. T. H. has these Mad Expressions Substance and Body signifie the same thing and therefore Substance incorporeal are words which when they are joyned together destroy one another as if a Man should say an incorporeal Body But Chap. 25. he has a Lucid Interval To worship God says he as inanimating or inhabiting such an Image or Place that is to say an Infinite Substance in a Finite Place is Idolatry Here he acknowledges that God is a Substance Infinite and consequently Incorporeal This Acknowledgment the force of so great a Truth to use his own words extorted from his feeble Reason Haec est summa delicti nolentium recognoscere quem ignorare non possunt Tert. Apol. Chap. 46. He puts Hell and Purgatory together as if the Existence of one were no more credible than of the other What is all the Legend says he of Fictitious Miracles in the Lives of the Saints and all the Histories of Apparitions and Ghosts alledg'd by the Doctors of the Church of Rome to make good their Doctrine of Hell and Purgatory the power of Exorcism and other Doctrines which have no warrant neither in Reason nor Scripture In the 44th Chapter he has provided a comfortable state for the Reprobate after the Resurrection instead of that state of ineffable Torments which all true Christians acknowledge to be signified by the Torments of Hell The Reprobate says he shall be in the estate that Adam and his Posterity were in after the Sin committed The Wicked says he in the same Chapter being left in the estate they were in after Adam's Sin may at the Resurrection live as they did Marry and give in Marriage and have gross and corruptible Bodies as all Mankind now have and consequently may engender perpetually after the Resurrection as they did before Are not these pleasant Conceits for that sort of Men who would fain have the Fear of Hell removed out of the way whilst they turn every one to his course as the Horse rusheth into the Battel But the fear of Death and Hell they shall never be able to shake off let them do what they can Haeret lateri lethalis arundo And now I doubt not but the ingenuous Reader will concurr with me in the Indignation I conceive against the most intolerable Impudence of a late Writer who pretends to set forth an History of the Life of T. H. He tells us we are all mistaken the Black-Moor is exceeding White Controversias quidem The logicas says he p. 167. maximè aversatus est Quicquid autem ad
So prayeth for you and for all Men as he desires that all Sincere Christians should pray for him Your faithful Servant in the love of the Truth Edmund Elys Tho' I grant that the Truth of those Seven Propositions may be known without external Revelation yet I assert That 't is Ten thousand times more casie to come to that Knowledge by the Revelation which Almighty God has given us in the Holy Scriptures than without it And therefore we ought to give continual Thanks to the God of Truth for vouchsafing to us so great a Blessing The Seventh Proposition is this That when we err from the Rules of our Duty we ought to repent and trust in God's Mercy for Pardon What it is to Repent no Man shall ever practically or effectually understand unless he be taught of GOD And 't is Ten thousand times more likely that such a Man will be taught of God who with an honest Heart reads or hears the Holy Scriptures than he who is altogether ignorant of them or who having read them will not believe that they were written by Divine Inspiration To Repent is to cease to live unto our selves and to live unto Him that dy'd for us and arose again of which Repentance we become capable only by the Death of Christ whom the Holy Scriptures call the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World The Apostle says expresly 2 Cor. 5. 15. That he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him that died for them and rose again In the Ninth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews are these words If the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered up himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the livingood From this Concession of the Deists That God is infinitely just and insinitely merciful I infer That His Hatred to Sin and his Love to Sinners are both Infinite I suppose they will grant that He is Infinite in Goodness in Wisdom in Power and in all Perfection From hence I infer That in His Infinite Wisdom he hath-contriv'd some way by his Infinite Power to make a demonstration to Sinners of his Infinite Love Benevolence or Communicativeness of the True Good even to them so far as they are capable of it But it implies a contradiction that they should be capable of or in a power to receive the True Good or Intellectual Satisfaction but only by Repentance or turning of their Will or Intellectual Appetite to God as to its principal or ultimate Object It implies a contradiction to say That Infinite Wisdom could contrive a better way than this to bring Sinners to Repentance viz. to demonstrate to them that tho' the Hatred which the great and good God has to every Sin is Infinite nevertheless his Love to every Sinner capable of Repentance is also Infinite And this demonstration of the Infinite Justice and Infinite Mercy and Goodness of God those that believe the Gospel clearly perceive in the sacrifice of the Death of Christ. Whatsoever we find in the Holy Scriptures concerning the Death of Christ and the Benefits which we receiue thereby is most perfectly agreeable to all those notions of the Divine Justice and Mercy which are suggested unto us by the Innate Idea of God to the contemplation whereof I earnestly exhort all those Men who call themselves Deists beseeching Almighty God the Father of Mercies and God of all Consolation to lift up the light of his countenance upon them to give them the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. I declare to all the World that I have not such Indignation to these Open Enemies as I have to such Traytors to the Church of Christ as the Author of that most execrable Pamphlet entituled The Naked Gospel I shall here impart to the candid Reader some of my Reflections on that Infamous Scribler tho' it has been already sufficiently confuted I consider that Saying of the Wise Man Prov. 10. 19. In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin And therefore I would rather chuse to be blamed by my best Friends for using so few words in any Theological Controversie than be ever guilty of publishing of any one Assertion especially concerning the Doctrin of the holy blessed and glorious Trinity which I should not be able to vindicate against a more subtile Sophister than Socinus himself A strange Confidence it is in this Anti-trinitarian to scoff at us for saying That the Doctrin of the Trinity is a Mystery Does not the holy Apostle say expresly 1 Tim. 3. 16. Without controversie great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the Flesh c. Is not the Nature of God incomprehensible to any Finite Understanding And shall any Man undertake to determine how GOD could be made Man how the Creator could assume a Created Nature But that Christ is GOD and Man is a Truth as certain and unquestionable as it is that these Texts of Scripture were written by Divine Inspiration Iohn 1. 1 2 3. Col. 1. 16 17. Acts 20. 28. I shall here recite some of the words of this Antitrinitarian whom surely we may most justly call Anti-christian P. 48. To this Objection of the Romanists and to others of the Unitarians we have found an Answer That we must not infer from our own Nature to God's for that ours is Finite and Gods is Infinite Three Persons among Us are three Men because they agree in one common nature but the Divine Nature is not a common one but a singular and therefore three Persons do not make three Gods If you understand not this you must not wonder at least you must not gainsay it for it is a Mystery which Reason may not presume to fathom Is there any thing more reasonable than to conceive that in God the One Infinite Essence there may be a certain Trinity which cannot in any wise appertain to any Three Persons of a Finite Nature Can there ever be a more impious Absurdity than this to deny the Truth of that which the Almighty and Incomprehensible GOD Father Son and Holy Ghost in whose Name we are baptised has reveal'd unto us concerning Himself because we cannot find any thing perfectly like it even amongst the best of his Creatures To say That we ought not to believe any thing but what our Reason can fathom or comprehend is in effect to say We ought not to believe there is a God it being Essential to the Deity to be infinitely beyond the comprehension of our Reason P. 40. The great Question concerning the Godhead of Christ is impertinent to our Lord's Design 2. Fruitless to the Contemplator's own purpose 3. Dangerous P. 53. There is danger of Blasphemy in examining the silly Question concerning