restore the Belief of the Vnity of GOD which at that time was extirpated among the Eastern Christians by the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation They will have it that Mahomet meant not his Religion should be esteemed a new Religion but only the Restitution of the true Intent of the Christian Religion They affirm moreover that the Mahometan learned Men call themselves the true Disciples of the Messias or Christ intimated thereby that Christians are Apostates from the most essential Parts of the Doctrine of the Messias such as the Unity of GOD and that he is to be worshipp'd without Images or Pictures in Spirit and in Truth But whatsoever the Design of Mahomet was 't is certain Mahometism has prevailed over greater Numbers and more Nations than at this Day profess Christianity Nay it has worn Christianity out of great part of Europe most of Asia and all Roman Africa not by Force and the Sword for the Mahometans grant Liberty of Religion to all the conquered Provinces of Christians but by that one Truth in the Alchoran the Unity of GOD. The Naturalness of their Belief of the Unity of God and the unreconcilable Inconsistence of the Trinity with that Belief make it impossible ever to reconcile the Mahometans whether Turks Moors or Persians to Christianity This is that by which both they and the Jews are perpetually and without Hope of regaining them alienated from us that they suppose the Trinity to be the Doctrine of all Christians and from thence conclude that modern Christianity is no better nor other than a sort of Paganism and Heathenism The Nations also who are yet Pagans reject Christianity for the sake of the corrupt Doctrines against which we are arguing Of this there has been a calamitous Instance in the Tartars This warlike People who have made themselves so terrible by their Cavalry to the great Kingdoms of Poland and Muscovy and even to Germany it self were lost to Christianity by Occasion of the Doctrines of the Trinity c. In the Year 1246 Pope Innocent IV sent an Ambassage to Bati Cham of Tartary inviting him to the Christian Religion Bati received the Ambassage civilly but when he heard from the Religious sent to instruct him what were the chief Points of the Christian Faith the Trinity the Incarnation the Transubstantiation c. He thank'd the Pope for his Kindness and promised to make no Incursions into the Christian Countries for five Years next insuing but withal declared himself not satisfied with the Christian Religion as represented to him Immediately after the Saracens sent a like Ambassage to Bati recommending to him saith the Historian Mahometis sectam tanquà m plausibiliorem i. e. The more plausible Sect of Mahomet And these prevailed Bati and the whole Nation of the Tartars submitting to Mahometism in which they continue to this Day and are both the Shield and Sword of that way of acknowledging and worshipping GOD. L. Surius Comment rerum in Orbe Gest These Sir are the Damages sustained by Christianity by occasion of these Doctrines I believe by that time you have well considered them you will conclude these Doctrines will never repair half the Wastes they have already made in our Holy Religion and that they are honest Men who are jealous of and desirous to inquire very strictly into the Grounds of such Paradoxical Perswasions as have already given such deep Wounds to our common Cause of Christianity I will conclude Sir for this time with only telling you that the Reasons I have given might all of them have been much amplified and illustrated and some of them greatly exaggerated But that is a Design hardly practicable in a Letter the Brevity of a Letter even constrained me to lay before you what I had to say in few Words and in a plain and sincere Discourse without the Arts or Pomp of Rhetorick Nor am I offended at it for our Cause needs not those Helps Till our Opposers can extinguish Reason and common Sense in Men while there are any left who are not wholly Priest-ridden who have not abandoned the Conduct and Guidance of Reason and natural Knowledg for that of a Confessor that is to say a Divine Light for an Ignis fatuâ—â—s or Will-a-wisp So long I think we need not be very sollicitous whether our Discourses or Writings concerning these Doctrines be altogether so laboured and artificial as our Opposers must take Care that theirs are SIR I am your most Obliged and Assured FINIS
of the Father or that he or the Holy Ghost are GOD. It saith no higher thing of them than it saith of the Holy Catholick Church I believe in the Holy Ghost I believe in the Holy Catholick Church for so all know this Creed is read in the Original Greek and by all the Fathers Is it now Sir conceivable that these Doctrines should be as Trinitarians pretend a Tradition constantly preserved when their own Criticks reject the Works of those first Fathers as certainly spurious or forged that speak any what directly or explicitly of the Trinity and other depending Points and Questions and when besides their common and only Creed is undeniably Socinian I deny not Sir that the Fathers of the first 300 Years whose Writings have been suffered to come down to Posterity began to corrupt the true Doctrine concerning the Person of our Saviour making him to be much greater than he was From about the Year 150 some of them were got into the Opinions that were afterwards called Arianism or the Arian Trinity But this I affirm and all the Criticks among the Trinitarians do own it that those Fathers spoke not of the Trinity and of the Points and Questions thereon depending as the Church now doth they so held a kind of Trinity as not to destroy the Unity of GOD or that only the Father is truly and properly GOD. But this was a Digression I proceed to our fifth Reason against these Doctrines They have been partly the direct and necessary Causes partly the unhappy Occasions of divers scandalous and hurtful Errors and Heresies particularly of those which compose the gross Body of Popery 'T is well observed by some that one Absurdity or Error being introduced 't is always the Ground and Occasion of many more This Aphorism was never more sadly verified than in the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation For no sooner were these Doctrines by the Countenance of sanguinary and arbitrary Edicts of the Bizantine Emperours become the more general and current Belief of the Churches but there immediarely broke in after them that Swarm of absurd and heretical Doctrines which have no less than subverted the true and primitive Christianity 1. The first-born of the Trinity was the Supremacy of the Pope A few Bishops not a fifth Part of the Bishops of the Catholick Church having presumed in the Council of Nice Anno 325 to determine for the whole Catholick Church so great a Point as this that there is more than one Divine and Eternal Person they sent the new Creed and Acts of that Council to the Churches and Bishops who had not been present at it to be by them subscribed Hereupon the Bishops of Asia assembling themselves in about 30 provincial Councils rejected the Word Consubstantial or of the same Substance with the Father in which the whole Mystery of Trinitarianism and the Stress of the Nicene Creed does lie they would by no means admit of this Word So faith Marcus Ephesin the most Learned of the Greeks Concil Florent Sess 5. The Bishops of Germany and of Belgium now the Low-Countries and of Gaul now France and of the three Provinces of Great Britain would not receive the Creed of Nice giving this Reason that the Word Consubstantial is unscriptural So saith St. Hilary that great Adversary of the Arians and other Unitarians towards the beginning of his Book de Synod The Bishops of Africa seem not so much as to have taken into their Archives or Registries the Acts Canons or Creed of Nice For in the Year 418 in a Contest between them and the Bishop of Rome they sent to Constantinople and Alexandria for Copies of the Acts of the Nicene Council Concil Carthag 6. Anno 418. The Nicene Council being thus refused and despised by all the considerable Nations professing Christianity the Nicene Faction of Bishops began to consult of a way how to settle their beloved Doctrine by political Arts and at length they resolved upon this Expedient Anno 347 having got on their side the Emperor Constans and finding that the Bishops and Church of Rome were thorowly in their Interests they assembled in Council at Sardica and there made those famous Canons on which all learned Men know the Authority and Supremacy of the Bishops of Rome is wholly grounded and which those Bishops have ever since exercised They designed by these Canons to secure the Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks of the Nicene Party now called Trinitarians in their Bishopricks and other Church-Dignities and to eject from time to time all Vnitarians But these Politicians were quite out in hoping for such an Effect they were so far from governing the Catholick Church by those Canons that they served to no other purpose but the inslaving the Makers of them and their Successors to the Popes of Rome But for a fuller Account Sir of this Sardican Council or rather Conventicle I refer you to the Acts of Athanasius lately published in which the History of these Betrayers of the Catholick Church is fully related 2. In the Year 431 it was concluded and determined by the Trinitarian Faction assembled in Council at Ephesus that GOD the Son was truly and properly incarnate in the Womb of the Virgin Mary and was born of her so that Mary was not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of Christ but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of God This blasphemons and contradictory Conclusion being once made immediately they fell to worshipping and praying to her If GOD the Son is to be worshipp'd and invovated shall we turn our Backs on the Mother of God Shall not she be able to help us at least by way of Intercession to whom the Angel said Thou art highly honoured of GOD and who was as it were Wife to GOD the Father and in very Deed Mother to GOD the Son Father Simon in the 3d Chapter of the Critical History of the Religions of the East saith It is chiefly since the Birth of Nestorianism that is since the Council of Ephesus that so much respect hath been shown to the Virgin Mary He means she was not so much worshipp'd and invocated till that Council had determined against Nestorius that she is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mother of GOD. But Father Simon will never be able to show that Holy Mary was at all worshipp'd or prayed unto till the Ephesin Council had decreed that she is to be deem'd the Mother of GOD. I do challenge him or any for him to produce any Testimony of the Ancients for the Worship and Invocation of Mary that is so ancient as the Ephesin Council This Father should therefore have dealt as ingenuously and freely in this Case as is his manner in most others or should have said nothing at all of this matter but have chose some other Instance to confirm what he had to say He should have owned what he knows to be the Truth that as the Doctrine of the Incarnation produced this impious and sensless Conclusion that
Mary is the Mother of GOD so that Conclusion was the Cause of the idololatrical Worship and Invocation of her by the far greater part of Christians even by all Catholicks so called and by the whole Eastern Church 3. After Mary was worshipp'd and prayed to it soon became the Custom to pray also to the Apostles and Martyrs and afterwards to other Saints and reputed Saints For if Mary who confessedly was but a Woman and a Saint though she was Mother of GOD can help us by her Intercession Why may not others who were perhaps as great Saints as she 4. The Practice of worshipping Holy Mary and other Saints had been but a little while received in the Churches but it occasioned the Worship of their Images and Pictures For if the Saints are to be worshipp'd then so too are their Images and Pictures with a relative Worship that is for the sake of those whom they represent and so that the Worship ultimately terminates not in the Image but in the Saint Even as the Royal Chair or Throne is worshipp'd for the King's sake though he be absent 5. The Question about the Worship of Images was long contested in the Church Those that stood for that Worship thought it a very heinous Disrespect to our Saviour that no Honour should be shown to his Picture or Image no more than if it were the Image or Picture of an Heathen God And this was a very common Argument and Allegation against the Opposers of Image-Worship In answer to this the Fathers of the 7th General Council anno 754 said There is but one Image or Representation of the Lord Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bread given to us in the Sacrament This Council consisted of 380 Fathers But the contrary Party at length prevailed and it was concluded both for the having and worshipping of Images and by way of Support thereto that the Sacrament is not the Sign Image or Representation of Christ but true and very Christ the Bread and Wine after the Words of the Consecration though they agree not which are the Words of Consecration being turned into the the real Body and Blood of Christ 'T is true the Greeks used not the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Transubstantiation till within this 300 Years but they used equivalent words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such like If any Wonder that such absurd and contradictory Doctrines as the Transubstantiation and the real Presence met with so little Opposition in the Greek and Latin Churches such an one may make these two Reflections First that those Churches were led as it were by the Hand to those Doctrines by certain Consequences from the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation thus There is a Trinity of Divine Persons one of these was incarnate in the Womb of the Virgin she is thereupon the Mother of GOD if the Son of GOD is undoubtedly to be worshipp'd then so too is the Mother of GOD if Holy Mary then others who were as much Saints as she if Christ and the Saints then for their Sakes their Images also which are Signs of them But Christ hath appointed the Sacramental Elements as the only Signs of his Body This is a Difficulty indeed Therefore to defend Image-Worship we will say the Sacrament is not the Sign but the very Body of Christ GOD-MAN Secondly it may be farther considered that these Churches having already swallowed so many palpable Contradictions to Reason Scripture and first Antiquity in the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation they now stuck at nothing It became now the Note and Mark of an Heretick to talk of Absurdities and Contradictions in any Doctrine whatsoever and the Character of a Catholick or Orthodox Person if one had no regard at all to such things but only to help forward the Humour and Current of Superstition that is to believe incredible Tales about the Saints and monstrous Opinions concerning GOD and the Sacraments of the Church 6. That the Holy Scriptures are not a a compleat Rule not sufficient to direct our Faith and Practice without the Aid and Help of the Churches Tradition all know is one of the Errors of the Roman Catholicks and which they could never yet be perswaded to give up Ask them what ground they have for such an Opinion They answer as one Man 'T is notorious and undeniable that the principal Articles of the Christian Faith the Trinity and Incarnation cannot be proved by only Scripture They profess openly and ingenuously that the Vnitarians have certainly beaten all their Opposers at those two Weapons mere Scripture and Reason 7. Another Birth of the Trinitarian Doctrines is the Papal Indulgences with all that Merchandize of Souls that has followed upon them First and by way of Foundation it is supposed that the Lord Christ is GOD as well as Man and that he being GOD incarnate in our Nature his Righteousness and Sufferings must needs be of infinite Value Next it is held that the Sufferings of Christ who is GOD-MAN and of the Saints are the Treasure which he hath given to the Church which Treasure is to be dispensed by his Vicar even the Pope or Bishop of Rome The Dispensations of this Treasure to particular Persons by the Pope himself or those who are by him authorized are called Indulgences and have been bought at mighty Rates by those who thought they had need of them either for themselves or their dead Friends 8. The last of their Paradoxes which I shall now mention and which is common to all Trinitarians and is by their own Confession a necessary Consequence of the Incarnation is their Doctrine of the Satisfaction The Holy Scriptures say Almighty God of his Grace and Goodness doth pardon our Sins on the Conditions of Faith and Repentance on our Parts The Scriptures are so express in ascribing our Pardon and Deliverance from Hell and Damnation to the Mercy and Grace of GOD forgiving us that Trinitarians dare not directly deny it so to be but then because they pretend that GOD was incarnate and suffered in our stead they are forced to this Conclusion That God hath freely pardoned and yet was infinitely overpaid for all our Transgressions and Sins That of his mere Grace the Abundance and Riches of his Grace he will pardon and save the Penitent because he hath received for them a Price of Redemption able to redeem as many Worlds as he is pleased to pardon or save particular Sinners These are the Branches growing upon the Trinitarian Stock these the Fruits of that Tree But such as the Fruits or Consequences of these Doctrines have been such also was their Original and Extraction as we shall see in the next which is our sixth Reason or Exception against them They are of Paganick or Heathen Descent and Original and were introduced into the Church by the Platonick Philosophers when they came over to Christianity One of our Disputes with the Trinitarians is concerning the Original of these Doctrines from