and National Synods We have her Mind in her publick Confessions of Faith She is so far from espousing any sort of explication that she ever thought that that great Mystery could not be explain'd The Church suffers Men to write concerning these matters St. Austin has given several considerable reasons for it in his Books on this very Subject and in that de utilit credend The opposing of Heresy the improvement of Piety the study of the Holy Scriptures of which this makes so considerable a part are the principal But to think that the Church will stand by all the Opinions of private Writers and own their errours and mistakes is a prodigious inadvertency What Church in the World can be safe if made to answer for all the Authors of her Communion What becomes then of the objection It is all overthrown in this one word The Church has nothing to do with those explications which the Socinians fansie they have so much expos'd And as for the explications themselves I believe that if the Judicious Hooker and the Learned Cudworth were alive you durst not so much as name them The rest are Men of great abilities who can arm in their defence no better Pens than their own Socin But do you put Bishops and eminent Bishops too in the rank of private Persons Who can best speak the sence of the Church but those who are call'd by the Fathers the Husbands of their Churches the Keepers of the Canons and the Successors of the Apostles Some seem to be Tritheists and others seem to be Sabellians Orthod Truly you have us'd the Bishops in your Writings as if they had been no more than private Persons the reflections on their Lordships having been so sharp and so many His Grace the late Arch-Bishop whom by your own confession you ought to have reverenc'd was not free from your aspersions My Lord of Glocester has had his share In the latest answer to my Lord of Sarum you forget the large Encomiums given him before The Bishop of Worcester for whom the Learned World has so just a value met in the answer to his late Book with the same way of Entertainment But laying all this aside and answering your meaning A Bishop with all the respect due to the Sacred Dignity is still a private Doctor Nor can the Church be favourable to his explications if they are contrary to her Doctrine But what of all this Our Bishops are all Orthodox Socin I do not know what you mean by Orthodox There is no Orthodoxy but Truth They who teach Three Gods cannot be Orthodox and this is done by the Real Trinitarians The Socinians believe and adore but one and this is done by the Nominals The greatest part of the Church goes I confess that way and therefore it is Orthodox because Socinian In short we may talk till Doom's day and never be the Wiser The question at last must be this are you a Real or a Nominal Trinitarian If a Real then we shall never be reconcil'd If a Nominal then we are certainly agreed Orthod What I have said already seems to me to be satisfactory But since you are not contented with it let us examine the several parts of your distinction What is the meaning of Real Trinitarians But let me beg of you to answer plainly and directly Socin I will answer in the very words of the Author of the Discourse concerning them He says pag. 7. The Realists are denominated from their believing Three distinct Divine Spirits or Minds who are so many Real subsisting Persons Again p. 19. They are every day Challeng'd and impeach'd of Tritheism And again p. 25. Themselves do sometimes almost openly and explicitely own and profess their Tritheism Their doctrine of the Trinity manifestly implies Three Gods Orthod What is the meaning of Nominal Trinitarians Socin They are they who maintain a Trinity which Consists only in the several Names Offices Relations and Modes of Existence of the Divine Nature This was first taught by Noëtus and Sabellius embrac'd afterwards by the assertors of the Homoousios and receiv'd by the Schools and Divinity Chairs ever since This is the substance of what he says of the Nominals in the first part of the Discourse Orthod And this you make the Foundation of that difference which you imagine to be in the Church and has of late fill'd up all your Prints Socin Yes indeed and with a great deal of Reason You are all afraid of the distinction It is of your side so notorious a giving up of the Cause that we have parted with all our Old Arguments and retrench'd our selves there as in a place from whence we cannot be driven Orthod Then pray set your heart at rest and suffer your selves to be forc'd from it For I presume positively to averr that there is no such thing in nature as these Trinitarians of your own making You pretended already to a God of your own making You wish'd for a Scripture of your own making To make a Trinity too is a little too hard I say then and pray forgive the sharpness of the words that all this is a mistake a slander and a calumny upon the Church Socin How much must you abate of your assurance when I shew you in several late Writings that the Three Persons of the Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds Spirits and Substances I appeal to your self whether this is not manifest Tritheism For what is God but an Infinite Mind Spirit or Substance Orthod I have told you already and tell you again that such expressions are wholly unknown to the Church and therefore cannot with any candor be fastn'd upon it Oblige me so far as to shew me a Church in the World this day or formerly which uses them or else be pleas'd to own that you are guilty of a great deal of disingenuity But though such a denial is sufficient because it is of a thing which you cannot and dare not undertake to prove yet it will be much clearer if you give your self the trouble to consider that such a notion in the Christian Church is impossible and has not the least ground or appearance of truth You are acquainted with the Sacred Writings of the New Testament and no doubt have inform'd your self of the Confessions of Faith of the Ancient Councils the assertions of the generality of the Fathers the doctrine of the Schoolmen the sense of the Greek and Latin Church even since the fatal separation and in the division of so many Kingdoms from the last in these two Ages you know perfectly all the Articles which the Famous Societies of Protestants have declar'd to be the points of their belief This suppos'd I lay before you these plain and easy but Substantial Observations First That the Church of God has always asserted the Vnity of the Divine Nature as the Foundation of all Religion It has been its great and distinguishing Character You will tell me that the Philosophers did so
scrutiny of human Reasonings Do all these Vnities transcend the capacity of Human Nature Are they above the reach of an inquisitive Philosopher or a profound Divine Socin I confess that you startle me and I begin to have no great opinion of the first part of the distinction I see you are no Tritheists but then you must of course fall into Nominalism or Sabellianism and that is as bad I am afraid that part of the charge will stick cruelly against you Orthod The notion of Nominal Trinitarians is if possible more extravagant than the other Can you think in good earnest that the Ancient or modern Church if such an expression may be us'd for the Church is always the same Can you think I say that the Church in the first and in these last Ages oppos'd Sabellianism with so much Zeal and Vigor that is that very impiety which you fasten on her and condemn'd it with so unanimous a consent and yet would make it the foundation of her Faith The vast labours of the Fathers and of all the Doctors who succeeded them aim'd at this to assert a Real distinction of Persons against Sabellius and their Consubstantiality Coequality and Coeternity against Arrius And you come resolutely to tell us that for all that the Church is Sabellian and teaches Sabellianism How heartily would you laugh at a Man who should come to tell you that he has attentively read all the Socinian Prints and finds at last that they believe the Holy Trinity and the Divinity of our Saviour Socin Had they said so much for these two Articles as you have for Sabellianism in all your Books I protest I could not laugh at it Orthod Let us see then what is Sabellianism and if found in the Church I promise to give up the cause But if not I expect that you will have the justice to own that to charge us with it is a crying unsincerity We cannot have the sense of Sabellius better than from Dionysius of Alexandria the other Dionysius of Rome Athanasius St. Basil Nazianzen Ruffinus c. You will Learn from them that Sabellius own'd the Divine Nature but confounded the Hypostases or Persons and maintain'd one only Person or Hypostasis the Father And that when they objected to him the different operations of the Son and Holy Spirit he answer'd that they were only denominations of the Father resulting from his several appearances or offices to us If you mistrust this account take what the Author of the discourse says pag. 16. In a word says he the Noëtians and Sabellians held that God is but one subsisting Person yet that with respect to things without him he may be call'd as the modern Nominals now speak three Relative Persons The one subsisting Person of God sustains the three names of Father Son and Spirit which being the Relations of God towards things without him he is so many Relative Persons in a Classical Critical sense Now I will do more for you than you can expect I will not confine you to our English Authors But I dare you to produce any one Man in the Church of God who ever understood those matters and spoke at this rate But if you do not as I am positive that you cannot what becomes of your distinction and with what face can it be us'd any more Socin I will not go out of the Kingdom no not out of London for it Dr. South shall be the Man You will not deny that he understands the sense of the Church He says himself animadvers ch 8. pa. 242. And this I affirm to be the current doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools concerning the Persons of the Blessed Trinity and the constantly receiv'd account given by them of a Divine Person so far as they pretend to explain what such a Person is Pag. 240. He tells you That the commonly receiv'd Doctrine of the Schools concerning the Blessed Trinity is this That the Christian Faith has laid this sure foundation that there is but one God That there is no positive real Being strictly and properly so call'd in God but what is God That there can be no composition in the Deity with any such positive real Being distinct from the Deity it self And yet that the Church finding in Scripture mention of Three to whom distinctly the Godhead does belong has by warrant of the same Scripture Heb. 1.3 express'd these Three by the names of Persons and stated their Personalities upon three distinct Modes of Subsistence alloted to one and the same Godhead and these also distinguish'd by three distinct Relations Then pag. 241. To explain these modes of Subsistence and these Relations he tells you That they are neither substance nor accident That they are not a Being but only the affection of a Being and that they add no entity to it such as are dependance mutability presence absence c. And that they have no Existence of their own after a separation or division from the things or beings to which they do belong Having thus in general explain'd what a mode is he applys it pag. 242. And says that the Personalities by which the Deity stands Diversify'd into three distinct Persons are call'd and accounted Modes .... That every Person is properly the Godhead as subsisting with and under such a certain Mode or Relation Now put all this together and see whether this is not the very Doctrine of Sabellius Did not Sabellius say that God is one even the Father acting under several Names sustaining several Relations by which he sometimes is the Father and sometimes the Son What does Dr. South say more He must be very clear sighted who can perceive any difference between these two Hypotheses Orthod There is as much difference as between affirming and denying between Light and Darkness Sabellius admits only one Person in the Divine Nature Dr. South Three When Sabellius by the great evidence of Scripture is forc'd to own Three Persons and confess the Relations He will have them to be Persons only in a Classical Critical sence having no other but a Metaphorical being He confounds the Persons and makes the Son and the Holy Spirit to be the Father Dr. South affirms them to be Persons in a Real Sence by an Eternal Communication of the Divine Nature and so really distinct that the Son cannot be the Father or the Holy Spirit Father or Son or the Father Son or Holy Spirit Sabellius makes the Relations to be wholly extrinsecal as he sustains the Three Names of Father Son and Spirit which being the Relations of God towards things without him he is so many Relative Persons Dr. South affirms pag. 242. the Relations to be Intrinsecal founded upon those Internal Acts by which one Person produces another or proceeds from another He tells you that God may sustain an extrinsecal Relation founded upon some external act issuing from him as Creation Preservation c. Which adds to the Deity only an extrinsecal denomination as
such a craz'd foundation as this is to give up common sence without a tolerable cause for it Whereas indeed there can be no cause so great as may induce us to part with it 'T is to admit and defend contradictions and that in a capital Article of Religion when we need not 'T is to Sacrifice the clearest and most important dictates of Reason not to any necessity but to our secular interests or wantonness And has not the Author of the Letter of Resolution told you plainly that you have given up all your places of strength Orthod There is in what you have said Declamation and Argument To introduce and believe Monstrosities on such a craz'd foundation To give up common Sense without a tolerable cause for it To admit and defend contradictions and that in a Capital Article To sacrifice the clearest and most important Dictates of Reason to our secular interests or wantonness All this is Declamation That sort of Imbellishments are very rude and severe As if Conscience were all of the Socinian and none of the Church's side I know how you would exclaim if we talk'd to you at this rate The rest seems to be Argument But in this I must confess that I admire at your vehemency as vou call it when there is not a single word of Truth in the Allegation Forgive me if I say that it is false that those Texts are clogg'd with abundance of uncertainties The Form of our Baptism in the name of the Holy and Blessed Trinity is clear Genuine Authentick and so far from being clogg'd with uncertainties that all the Fathers all the Schoolmen all the Modern Interpreters have acknowledg'd it I wonder what you mean by the ablest Criticks of the Trinitarian Perswasion This is perpetually in your Writings But you are very careful not to name any of them and I commend you for it I would beg it as a favour of you that in your next Print you would name some of these ablest Criticks and shew us what uncertainties they have found those Texts charg'd with I am satisfy'd that if it had not been for Hugo Grotius and one or two more whom you have sadly misrepresented your cause must have starv'd for want of such Authorities as these It is false again that the substantial Text which we alledge to prove the Divinity of the Son and Holy Spirit were read at any time otherwise than they are now You say that some of them were not read at all till 5 or 600 years after the decease of the Apostles This has as little Truth as the rest There is but one and no more which you have pretended to dispute and that is 1 Joh. 5.7 and you cannot but know that it has been cited by St. Cyprian and is in the famous Edition of the Bishop of Oxford whom Father Simons though of another communion calls deservedly the Learned Bishop of Oxford It was in that of Pamclius It is to be found in the Catalogue of the Texts cited by the Great Athanasius and Printed in the latest Edition of that Father It had been us'd before by Tertullian against Praxeas And both St. Ambrose and St. Hierom complain'd that the Arrians had ras'd this Text out of all the Copies which they could come at The last part of the verse and these Three are One not being capable of the petit novel interpretation of their agreeing in one but being look'd upon by the Ancients who were more sincere in their disputes than we are as a direct proof of the consubstantiality of the Divine Persons You say that there is none of them but what is more fairly capable of a sense consistent with the Unity of God as is taught by the Vnitarians and Nominals I have convinc'd you already that there is no such thing in the Catholick Church as Nominal Trinitarians and the exception is needless since we maintain with all Christians that the Trinity of Persons is no contradiction to the Unity of the Divine Nature Socin But supposing your Texts to be true they are still contested Texts They are not so clear as to be capable but of one sense You give them one and I give them another Perhaps they may admit of a third Thus you build demonstrations on things really very uncertain Then you thunder in our Ears Scripture Scripture whereas at the bottom you say nothing by using Texts capable of different senses I commend you for resolving this great controversy into the Authority of the Sacred Writings but then as it has been said to Mr. Luzancy pag 42. The Revelation for it ought to be most clear so clear that a fair and ingenuous Reasoner will not contest the positiveness and evidence of the Revelation You understand a Text your way and I do it mine and so there is an end of your Method Orthod You will not name us those ablest Criticks of whom you speak so much in your Writings You keep them in the dark as the Deus in Machina of the old Heathens that their sudden appearing may the more surprize But I fear you are one of them you come at once to impeach the Christian World and tell this present age and those that are past that the Texts us'd by them may be true but they are contested and so worth nothing Is the contesting then of a Text enough to have it rejected Is my sense oppos'd to the sense universally receiv'd by the Church of God enough to turn that sense out of Doors Whither will this wild way of arguing hurry a Man Do you perceive the consequences of such a Principle By this an Atheist a Deist or any Heretick-in the World is secure It is but giving another sense to a proposition than what it naturally has And when you argue with never so much clearness from Authority he will tell you there is no proposition in the World but what is capable of several senses What you say may be true But it is contested and I contest it This is your sense of the thing but it is not mine Socin You both mistake and misrepresent me I have no such thoughts By contestation I mean such an opposition as is well grounded It is not enough to say 't is not my sense but I must have substantial Reasons to say so I demand as I have told you already a Text so clear that a sair and an ingenuous Reasoner will not contest the positiveness of the Revelation Orthod That is you demand no Text at all For whosoever will contradict it will think himself a fair Reasoner Do not all the Socinians believe that they are the fairest Reasoners in the World Are they not cry'd up by their party for Men of mighty Reason Your self are perswaded that you are a fair and ingenuous Reasoner Those silly Criticisms which you have obtruded upon all the Texts of Scripture are look'd upon by you as great efforts of Reason So that this can be no rule at all but is a
shameful begging of the Question Every Contester will call himself a fair Reasoner Socin What! Is there no such thing then as fair reasoning Is there not in Men an equitable disposition to judge of and assent to the Truth Orthod Yes certainly but you have it not There are vast many Texts produc'd to assert the Divinity of the Son and Holy Spirit For we do not only alledge one or two solitary places of Scripture But we maintain also this to be the Foundation of Christianity and taught in the Scriptures Plainly Frequently Irrefragably Which is the way to reason fairly in this case First It is to see the sense which offers it self in the Texts which we produce Give me leave to bring in an instance or two Rom. 9.5 St. Paul speaking of Christ says that he is over all God blessed for ever The natural sence of the proposition is that he is truly God Over all and Blessed for ever being the Notion which we have of an Eternal Being You cannot without an incredible violence make any other sense of that proposition The same is Phil. 2.6 Who being in the Form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God That which the proposition naturally offers is that Christ is God None but a King can say that he thinks it not robbery to be equal with a King None but he who is God can pretend an equality with God Secondly I must see whether that sence which offers it self so naturally to me has the same effect on other People It is a mighty confirmation to me that I take a proposition right when the wise the good the inquisitive part of Mankind takes it as I do Now our Texts have not only the advantage of a natural evidence but they have also another and that is the consent of the Christian Church The Church of God has spoke as we speak understood as we understand believ'd as we believe It is the Voice of the Sacred Councils in their Decisions of the Fathers in their Writings of the Universities in their Chairs and of all Christians in their Praises Prayers and Adorations You own'd it to me and you said that it was the sence of the Socinians that the Scripture is an Infallible Divine and Compleat rule of Faith and Manners But it can never be so if there is not an universal sence in those propositions in which the Faith is deliver'd For to whom is it a rule even to all Christians And how can Christians follow this rule if there is not a common sence in which they may be united But what is that sence but that which appears to the Church in the propositions and become the sence of the Church A sence of so much the more weight and Authority because no Scripture is of private interpretation This with all Men who pretend to any acquaintance in those Matters is fair and ingenuous Reasoning Socin I thank'd you once for an Argument in the behalf of Transuastantiation and now I do it for Tradition The denial of it is a Protestant Principle Orthod You are so press'd by the evidence of what I offer'd that because you cannot answer you would endeavour to divert it Know then by the way that Protestants deny and that on very good grounds Tradition to be the last and supreme judge of Controversies But maintain Tradition and particularly so Universal and uncontested as it is in this particular to be the â—â—â—test humane evidence in the World The unanimous consent of the Church in a point of Faith is not to be oppos'd by any sober Christian But to return Let us see what is your fair and ingenuous way of reasoning You are so far from the method propos'd by me that you reject the natural sence of the Texts Some you must give me leave to say it you have openly falsify'd As for instance Rom. 9.5 You will not have it God Blessed but God be blessed for ever against the Faith of all Copies against the Authority of all Writers Some you have loaded with little Criticisms as Phil. 2.6 Upon others you have trumpt new unnatural and incoherent explications as Joh. 1.1 And followed Dreams of Yesterday unknown to the Church of God or to any one Writer in it Others you have eluded with poor Allegories as Col. 1.16 In a word there is scarce a part of Scripture but what you have put to the Rack and then you come to tell us of fair and ingenuous reasonings of your elaborate Prints to prove the Unity of God which no Christian ever deny'd The Trinity of the Divine Persons appears so visibly in the Sacred Writings that if you design to deal as a fair or ingenuous reasoner you must either embrace the doctrine or reject their Authority Socin I will do neither I am perswaded of the truth of the one but not at all of the other Observe what the ingenious Author of the Answer to Mr. Luzancy has said to him pag. 44 45 46. I will put it in as few words as I can and yet I hope without losing any thing of the force of the Argument You charge that upon the Scripture which is no Scripture at all and you oblige us to believe as the word of God that which is no word of God but only your inferences from it You draw conclusions those conclusions you rest in and though they are no Articles of Faith because only the work of your reason yet you propose them as Faith to us I would fain ask whether your reason is more infallible than ours Or whether you have a privilege which we have not of making inferences The Trinity is no doctrine of Scripture but only an inference from it May not I have the Liberty either to make a contrary inference to yours or to review your deductions to judge the consistency or contradiction of these inferences I honour the Scripture but I am not oblig'd to receive your Argumentations These are not indeed his words but I am sure it is his sence Get out of this as well as you can Orth. But pray what is all this to the purpose I â—an assent due to a plain and express proposition an inference Or if you will call it an inference is it not the natural result of that plain proposition And must not whosoever has any share of understanding give the same assent to it which I do What are all our perceptions but inferences and all our talk and conversation but conclusions The Plow-Man does it as much as the Philosopher and there are propositions of that evidence that if offer'd to all Mankind all Mankind will agree in them The question is not here between your Reason and mine Nor do I pretend to more infallibility than you in reasoning But I say that Reason is so much the same in you and me that a plain and express proposition being offer'd us you and I must equally assent to it If you do not you wrong Reason and are unjust to
it I confess that when that which is propos'd is obscure intricate and capable of several sences the conclusions may be different and I cannot without injustice deny that you should examine the consistency or contradiction of my deductions But I maintain that most of the propositions by which our Holy Faith is establish'd are of such plainness that no equitable Man can fix any other sence upon them than what they offer themselves That I may not give you any occasion of mistaking me for your Friends are admirable at this and if they can but lay hold on it they presently expatiate and lose the question I mean no more than as to the existence of the Revelation that is that there is such a thing reveal'd though not as to the manner of the thing the HOW it is in it self Not to multiply instances take the places already cited Rom. 9.5 Whose are the Fathers and of whom as concerning the Flesh CHRIST came who is over all God blessed for ever What is that which the proposition offers That CHRIST is a Man descended from the Fathers and that he is God over all God blessed for ever It is a plain and as plain a proposition as can be But when I go further and say Then there are two Natures in Christ Jesus for as a Man he cannot be God and as God he cannot be Man He is Man because concerning the Flesh he came from the Father He is God because the Apostle says he is over all God blessed for ever I confess that this is an Inference but it is an inference which results so plainly and so fully from the Nature of the proposition that it is as clear and as undeniable as the proposition it self Again Phil. 2.6 Who being in the Form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God There is a plain proposition that CHRIST is equal with God and the inference is of the same nature and clearness as the proposition Therefore he must be God For none but God can be equal with God 1 Cor. 2.10 The Spirit searches all things even the deep things of God The Spirit knows all that God is his Nature his Perfections even those depths unfathomable to any created Being You will not quarrel with the proposition and can you quarrel with the inference which in effect is the same with the proposition and that is that he is God since none but God perfectly knows himself Pray what inference is there in Act. 5.3 4. when Peter in his Apostolical Zeal asks Ananias why Satan has fill'd his Heart to lye to the Holy Ghost Thou hast not ly'd unto Men but unto God If the Holy Ghost is not God how could he lye unto God You see the inference is drawn by St. Peter himself and lies in the very Heart of the Proposition How unreasonable is this noise about inferences will appear if you take notice of the beginning of St. John's Gospel Is Verse the 14th an Inference The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his Glory the Glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father full of Grace and Truth Are the 1 2 3. Verses an Inference The Word was with God The Word was God The same was in the beginning with God All things were made by Him and without Him there was not any thing made that was made Is Joh. 20.28 an Inference And Thomas answer'd and said unto him my Lord and my God! Let us deal candidly if you call the Incarnation and the Union of the two Natures in CHRIST JESVS an Inference Is it not the plainest result of the plainest Propositions that ever were in the World Socin You are launch'd into a vast Sea of Discourse Orthod Oblige me so far as to suffer me to insist somewhat longer on this and I will repay your Patience with a serious attention to what you have to say to it Read 1 Joh. 5.7 There are Three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these Three are One. When we talk of a Trinity of Persons consistent with the Unity of the Divine Nature is it an Inference or is it not Is not the Trinity of Persons and the Unity of the God head clearly express'd in the Proposition You have made such a wonder at the word Trinity and been so rude as to call Trinity in Unity Jargon Contradiction Nonsence How can you reconcile all this with this noble Passage Is not this a Trinity in Unity not by way of Inference but by a full and plain Assertion But why should I be so earnest to prove this against the Socinians when they themselves cannot deny it For if our Doctrine consists in nothing but inferences and conclusions which we draw as we please What has made them so earnest to dispute these very texts and with poor and little Criticisms to endeavour to elude their force If these Texts had not star'd them in the face with an incontestable evidence what should make them so indefatigable in granting and denying adding Comma's changing or putting in particles as if Truth wanted such mean helps It short there are two sorts of inferences the one near and immediate such as I have given you some instances of which naturally flow from the thing propos'd and are of equal clearness with it The other remote and not appearing so easily at first but wanting the help of further inquiries and deductions Concerning the first I may challenge your Reason of error I may safely and truly say you offer violence to Reason I may appeal to all Mankind in the case But for the other I must not so freely affirm it nor say that my Reason is more infallible than yours When I am oblig'd to run through a long course of deductions I may mistake as much as you do The Church never pretended to any inferences but of the first kind If the Scripture proposes a Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead If it represents these Persons incommunicably distinct from one another Their Consubstantiality Coequality Coeternity is a natural and a necessary consequence If it teaches me that CHRIST is God and Man the Union of the two Natures in one adorable Person is an inference of the same sort If there is a Father from ever and a Son from ever and if a Spirit proceeds from ever Eternal Generation and Eternal Procession are necessary deductions from those great truths and in a manner the same with the truths themselves I tell you once more you must either admit our doctrine or reject the Holy Scriptures Socin I confess that what you have said is well put together and has a very good face But still I am far from being satisfy'd There is nothing can make me believe a contradiction Let it be found in Sacred or humane Writings it is still a contradiction A contradiction is that to which all the World cannot reconcile me You say Revelation and a