A VINDICATION OF THE UNITARIANS Against a Late Reverend Author On the TRINITY ENTRANCE SIR I Dare not call you Adversary indeed I rather believe we may be Friends for tho' there may be a mistake between us yet I hope we both agree in a sincere love and search for Truth and in what we differ therefore I shall rather seek to melt you with gentleness than to subdue you with opposition Page 150. you tell us When we are ready you hope to hear from us again and you see you have your desire you seem to have a sincere good will to Truth your self and therefore you will be the less surpriz'd to see it in others for when you have given so bold a Challenge to all Unitarians you must expect that we have but little respect for the Honour and Glory of God if we do not answer you 'T is true I come to dispute you and am no Socinian and as an Arrian my Hypothesis distorts your Argument a little but as we are both joyn'd in one Common Cause and you attempt to deface the Truth of both so you must think we expect you provide your self to give us both satisfactions for tho' you conquer either of us your Work 's but half done You must excuse me therefore if I mind not your Socinian Quarrels but leaving them to themselves divert your Argument a little and bring in a third Hypothesis you shall see I will deal fairly with you state the Matter truly and proceed sincerely and clearly whether you shall think your self obliged to Reply to me or not upon it is not my care if I can but rescue the Honour of God and his Unity by it I am satisfied METHOD It cannot be expected therefore but that I have alter'd your Method but yet you shall see withal that I have justly collected all your scattered Reasons together and dealt faithfully with you and tho' the change of the Hypothesis necessitated this yet in lieu of it I shall present you with a Method both shorter and clearer to recompence it 'T is plain large Volumes destroy the Edge of Reasoning and the Vigour of Sence is lost in the multitude of Words I have chosen therefore rather to be short and sinewy than tedious and loose if the Foundation Reasoning be bad Corollaries fall of course and therefore my chief care shall be whether your leading and ground-work Principles be strong and to the purpose or not I thank God I do not see my Cause so weak as to fly to Colours or that I should use undue Arts for a shelter and therefore if I have omitted any thing material I protest before the Almighty it has not been wilful and if I have any where reprov'd you as God is my witness 'thas been where Truth has necessitated and forc'd me and if I have wrong'd you I as heartily beg your Pardon In short I have endeavour'd with the most serious Respect and the greatest Christian Charity and Meekness to shew you where you have err'd Indeed I have not spar'd to advise and reprove you where I ought but if I have run that liberty into an extream or been faulty in any thing 'thas been my frailty and not my guilt All that I know farther to add in this place is That perhaps you may wonder how I came to answer you so soon but not to offend you Sir the Reason is obvious though Fallacies are difficult and to be studied yet Truth is natural and they are easily answer'd ADVICE 1. Boasting But before I proceed further I see a necessity Sir to advise you of two Faults Boasting and Uncharitableness not that I can blame you over-much neither nor may be acquit myself of their guilts but I see a necessity to level these two Mountains in you least by the Ignorant these Fortresses of Imagination may be taken for those of Reality First for Boasting In your Preface Sir you say You have said too much for us to answer And it may be so but if you have not we shall seek for Truth and not to compare our selves with you So p. 69 you call our Reason Carnal And pag. 73 you tell us We puzzle and confound our selves with gross and corporeal Idea's of Essence and Substance when indeed if such upbraiding Expressions were allowable we might more justly reflect them upon the Eternal Generation you pretend to So you conclude your Book pag. 271. you say It looks like a Judgment upon us that while we talk of nothing less than the severest Reason we impose upon our selves or hope to impose upon the World by the most childish Sophistry and Nonsence and so pag. 272 your last words are You will not envy us the Satisfaction of such Harangues they being you say all the Comfort we have but you are pretty confident we shall never le able to reason to any purpose in this Cause again And what Sir is not this Insolence Pray Sir what is it you mean by these Triumphs Is it that you think to storm and brave us out of our Cause or that you are sure you only are in the right or that if you had the worst Cause you could defend it well Sir my Charity shall speak the best for you that you are sure you only are in the right but if you are has not Modesty more Charms to recommend you by than Insolence Excuse me Sir I dislike not your Zeal in your Preface to stick to your Faith I rather wish it more common for were it Truth had scarce been such a Stranger among us nor do I question your Ingenuity and in Charity I hope you are sincere too but these are Expressions that your Zeal has beguil'd you to that want a Christian Modesty and tho' such a Confidence with a little more Humanity might become an Apostle yet how well they do a meaner Christian I leave to your self to judge in cooler thoughts 2. Uncharitableness The second thing I have to charge you with is Uncharitableness that because we differ in Judgment from you in this Speculation you not only treat us like Dogs and deny us all hopes of Salvation but withal you manage your Arguments for Truth accordingly and give us not so much as free Reasoning Thus you not only abound with Reflections on us as in your Preface you say of us We are eminent for nothing but Blasphemy and Nonsence And pag. 9. you reflect It becomes the Wit and Vnderstanding of an Heretick But pag. 24 you write more freely of us and tell us You hope the Disputes of Hereticks against the Catholick Faith shall not be be called Controversies in the Churches of God. Now if thus in the very beginning of your Book you shew we ought to be condemn'd before we are heard to what purpose does your Infallibility hold a Controversie with us but I hope this is before you are aware indeed in a Papist these Expressions might be natural enough but Protestants methinks should be more ingenious
than to take Errours and Hercsies for granted Consider Sir Churches have err'd and may err yea in Matters of Faith too if so who is to be blam'd he that by Reasoning seeks for Liberty or he that unjustly with-holds it thro' Imposition Did we seek to impose our Hypothesis's on the World we were as much to be blam'd as you but if we only set up ours to confute the Uncharitableness of yours wherein do we trespass You say we are Hereticks and have no Understanding And whence come you to judge thus freely of us and not we of you So you say we blaspheme but pray is not your Charge precarious and if retorted falls it not as heavy on your self If we err indeed we blaspheme the Son and Holy Ghost which we hope we do not but if you err do not you both blaspheme and commit Idolatry in worshipping them as coequal to the Father But Sir we desire to have a Charity for your Misconstructions and will give it you where possible if so pray at least return our love you see we stoop to make the first offer charge us not therefore that we are only eminent for Blasphemy and Nonsence for surely you may add in the other scale that we have a courageable good will to Truth are some of us perverse or do some of us revile and what are such Men wanting quite on your side REFLECTIONS If therefore you leave us but room to advise you as much as the Great Moses left Jethro let us beg you for Christ's sake to cut off all these Offences remember 't is not Generous much less Christianly to discountenance a weaker Brother But what you believe not me yet at least believe my Truths for surely Christ's own Argument will hold you Can you expect Peace in Christ's Church whilst you thus allarum and startle Mens Consciences by so great and grievous Impositions Or what do you expect Men should have no Conscience or Resentment for Truth If you do not do not fetter them thus you know 't is no Argument of Errour to be singular nay I am sure you know very well that Truth is rarely popular but rather suppressed and stifled through Mens Lusts Let us learn therefore to let Natural Religion lead our Revelation else the Curse of the Holy Ghost will fall upon us and tho' we have eyes we shall not be able to see nor were we Turks should we be capable of being converted indeed when we are bewitch'd to the fury of a prepossess'd Zeal will not all Men say we rather bafle than love or scearch for Truth when we argue Excuse me Sir that I am thus free with you which I should not have been had it not been in Justice to my Cause but I durst not let these prepossessions ensnare my Reader and yet not that I think so heinously of you for them neither for many that have wrote much worse then your self on the Subject have been more confident and I could wish myself as well as you out of harms way of Error indeed could I have had a fair Hearing without I had been very easily otherwise satisfied PRECOGNITA I shall now only present you with a few Precognita to state duly the true Idea of the Controversie between the Trinitarians and the Arrians and I shall then proceed to a particular Answer and I hope you shall see too to your satisfaction and without the least needless Cavil or Objection whatever The Trinitarian believes That there is One God but that he Exists in Three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost and that these Three Persons are co-equal and co-eternal and by a Joynt Power created the Heavens and Earth Men and Angels and all things else that any way exist They believe this Trin-unity even now continues to Rule the World by a Joynt Providence but that for Orders-sake they have distributed their Dominions into several and subordinate Personal Offices thus they make the Father alone to personate the True God the Son to become Incarnate to redeem us to his Mercy and the Holy Ghost under the Son to assist us through Grace in his Trials The Arrian believes That there is but One God and that he Exists but in One Person that the Son and Holy Ghost are neither co-equal nor coeternal with him that he first made the Son and through him fram'd the Holy Ghost and Angels that some of the Angels falling with Lucifer He through the Son and by the Holy Ghost fram'd this World and Man within it They believe there is no co-equal Trinity to Rule the World through a Joint Providence but that their Dominions are subordinate and adequate to their Powers thus that the Father alone is the True God that the Son became Incarnate to satisfie God's Justice to redeem his Creation and to destroy the Devils Malice in Adam that the Son has deputed the Holy Ghost to assist us through his Grace in our Trials By this Sir I hope I have given you a fair Breviate of the two Hypothesis's I shall only beg your Patience whilst I add two or three Principles to illustrate the Controversie and then after a few Reflections on them I shall desist my Precognita and proceed PRINCIPLES 1. Nothing is more manifest than that the Jews in the Idea of their First Commandment conceiv'd but One Person to be in their One God. 2. Could the Jews or Judas have charg'd Christ with pretending himself to be the Supream God which the Gospel tells us the False Witnesses principally labour'd after they would not only have made their Acclamation We have no King but Caesar and their Inscription on his Cross Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews John 19. but they would have added No God no False God too 3. Lastly 'T was near 300 Years after Christ e're Tradition and Scripture-Interpretation were so much as urg'd to explain and bring forth a Trinity My Reflections upon these Principles shall be only Two and they are as follows First That the Doctrine of the Trinity has alter'd the first and greatest Commandment as it were by chance and whereas the Goodness of God in such a Case would certainly allow us a solemn Repeal the Athanasian Creed is so far from such Mercy that it makes this very catch poenal of Salvation and that very Trinity that without doubt received their Honour jointly before can now be admitted on no pretence to receive it otherwise than severally Secondly You see hereby this Great Mystery is not purposely requir'd but accidentally enforc'd so that whether this inscrutable Mystery and incomprehensible Hypothesis be a Divine Truth or not yet at least this is plain the means of knowing it are Humane and consequently the whole Mystery itsself disputable and left to the Understanding of Man to examine Now whether the little grounds Men pretend to for the support of this Mystery be sufficient or not is what I have undertaken to disprove in answer to you by this following Treatise
and every little Creature and is not there a difference between a Mediator appointed by God and one set up meerly by the whimsie of Man If these are not good Reasons for our giving to Christ Honour as a Mediatour I know not what are I am sure they are better than to make God stoop to such a petty Honour as to be absurdly Mediator to himself But you have a further Argument pag. 205 from 2 Phil. 9. 10 11. That at the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow and that every tongue shall confess But what that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father And who shall deny you this Honour Not I no I will grant it you in confusion to your own Hypothesis for 't is such a Lord and not a God that I would have you think him to be Now that we might the better understand what Honour is due to the Son the Scripture hath expresly called it and appointed it to be Mediation but yet not so as that we should pray to him for our Mediation no more than we are to pray to him for any thing else Nor ought any other Worship to be paid him unless personally present and then as the only Son of God and Lord of the World he requires it and such Worship is what is given him Heb. 1. 6. where the following verses 7 8 9. plainly shew it not to be intended of the Supream Worship but as is mentioned Rev. 5. 9 10 11 12 13. because God for his excellency and worthiness has appointed him that Honour Lastly To account 2 Cor. 13. 14. for a a Supream Adoration were to make Gen. 48. 16. so too and as for the Worship of the Holy Ghost as you your self can as good as confess pag. 194 there is no mention made of it in the whole Scriptures so that you may see on what a rotten Foundation your Faith stands and indeed were not the Truth I write for now near as clear as the Sun at Noon I should not be so zealous for it Mediatory Kingdom I proceed now to write of Christ's Mediatory Kingdom and here I cannot but observe how the Trinitarian Hypothesis distorts the whole frame of Truth makes God a Mediator to himself and a Coequal take as an Honour an underling Office whereas Christ in the Arrian Idea as the great Son of God is fit to be our Mediator between God and his Handiwork and may be deservedly honour'd with the Title that he alone can prevail with God for mercy for us And here I cannot but let you see Sir with what false colours you would magnifie this Office to make it rational for a Coequal to accept of it thus pag. 159 you make it nothing That God exalted him to it And so pag. 163 That he was forc'd first to suffer for it and then receive it as a Gift whereas indeed if he were a Coequal it were both servile and degrading to him even to accept it tho' on any Terms and tho' with a Reward So pag. 173. I cannot but admire to see how you glorious out this Kingdom how you would fain seem to make it command the Father when alas Sir you know your self all the Power of this Kingdom is but an humble Intercession p. 179. Indeed your Argument p. 176 and 243. That no One but a God can administer it is somewhat forcible against the Socinians but can be of no force for you against the Arrians But why do I use more words That all Power in Heaven and Earth were given him after his death Mat. 28. 18. If a God coequal before were Nonsence and as a Creature-God your self says he cannot exercise it so that Prophecies should cease as they did while he was Incarnate John 7. 39 16. 7. 13 14 15. were absurd otherwise indeed you might as justly frame a Mediatory Kingdom to interpret that great Text of the Holy Ghost John 16. 13 14 15 as build such a groundless one as this for Christ Of the Three Persons together Having premised thus much in general of the Son and indeed on whom almost depends the whole hinge of the Controversie I shall now proceed to shew you how the whole Three Persons are treated when they are named together in Scripture that you may see even there our Hypothesis prevails also Know then that in such places the Father is represented as our God distinct and solely the Son our Lord distinct and wholly and the Holy Ghost only as our aiding Spirit or Comforter Eph. 4. 4 5 6. 1 Cor. 8. 5 6. So in the Revelations likewise St. John makes the Son and Holy Ghost but as Attendants on the Throne of the Father Rev. 5. 7. 8 9 c. whilst he only sits on the Throne and the greatest Honour even of the Son is that he has redeem'd us and so is become worthy to open the Book But yet as I have formerly shewn you as the Father impowers the Holy Ghost through the Son in all Acts of Grace so are their Records One 1 John 5. 7. And yet not but that this Record receives a stile agreeable to the Excellency of the Person giving it where 't is distinguish'd thus in the Father 't is call'd Operation the Son Administration and in the Holy Ghost Gifts 1 Cor. 12. 4 5 6. And the manner of Gift in the Father is called Love in the Son Grace and the Holy Ghost Fellowship 2 Cor. 13. 14. Rom. 15. 16. So likewise as all Three being engaged in our Salvation they are put in as Articles to our Apostles Creed but yet with subordinate Titles as God Lord and Holy to shew their distinction and inferiority so that your Argument you see Sir that their being there makes them Coequal and God is very weak pag. 197. for by the same Reason you might make every body or the Catholick Church God likewise Hence likewise the ancient Doxology before it was alter'd was Glory be to the Father through the Son and by the Holy Ghost see Sparks on the Liturgy which shew'd plainly their Subordination Indeed since upon the prevailing of the Doctrine of the Trinity it has been alter'd But with what Scripture-Authority Now I hope you see plainly But I shall not dissent from you that the Socinians absurdly baptize in the Name of the Holy Ghost if there were none and they do worse than those Disciples who never heard of him for they acknowledg'd him when they did which these even now do not But what are not they our Brethren And are we not bound to have a Charity for their Errour And who shall condemn them in it that they are wilfully blind However to return This makes not but that we are baptiz'd in their Names as our Spiritual Governours Mat. 28. 19. for so even the Scripture plainly express themselves 1 Cor. 12. 13 27 10. 2. where we are told That we are baptiz'd by one Spirit into one body which is Christ that is into the Church by