about the Holiness and Rnighteousness of God cannot but profess to believe that there is no Justification to be had in the sight of God wâ—â—o it a perfect Righteousness and to the end they may the more easily quiet an awakenâ—d Conscience without the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness they either hold that the Law of Works is Abolished and a New Law Erceled A New a mere easie Law so siamâ—d and squar'd to their corrupt Natures as to make their Defective Obedience a perfect Gospel Righteousness fully answering the New Rule they have invented Or affirm That their Faith though it falls short of the Law is nevertheless counted by God for a compleat Performance of it as a late Author supposed to deny the Divinity of Jesus Christ hath expressed it in his Reasonableness of Christianity who saith The Law of Works is that Law which requires Perfect Obedience without any Remission or Abatement The Language of this Law is Do this and Live Transgress and Die. P. 20. Those that Obey are Righteous those that in any part Disobey are Unrighteous and must not expect Life the Reward of Righteousness But by the Law of Faith Faith is allowed to supply the Defect of full Obedience and so the Believers are admitted to Life and Immortality as if they were Righteous P. 22. The Moral Law which is every where the same the Eternal Rule of Right obliges Christians and all Men every where and is to all Men the standing Law of Works But Christian Believers have the Privilege to be under the Law of Faith too which is that Law whereby God justifieth a Man for Believing though by his Works he be not Just or Righteous i. e. though he come short of Perfect Obedience to the Law of Works God alone does or can justifie or make just those who by their Works are not so which he doth by counting their Faith for Righteousness i. e. for a compleat Performance of the Law So far this Learned Author who in Opposition to the former that destroys the Old and invents a New Law so framed as to turn our Defective into a Perfect Obedience doth first by Reasons Invincible Establish the Law of Works in all its Parts and then adds a New Law unto it and God's Gracious Esteeming our Faith as fully answering the Law of Works and so stretcheth our Defective Faith to the utmost length of Perfect Obedience As the one brings down the Law to our Imperfection the other raises our Imperfection to the same height with the Law But so long as the Law of Works remains in its Strength there can be no New Rule brought down to make Sin cease to be Sin or turn a Defecrive into a Perfect Obedience And so long as the All-knowing God Judges of things as they are Imperfect Faith can never pass at his Tribunal for a Compleat Performance of the Law there must be then a Perfect Righteousness fully answering the Law of Works or no Justification And it 's more easie as well as more conform to Holy Scripture to believe That the Righteousness of Christ which consists in a full Performance of the Law of Works is given to all that have Faith and by Donation is really made theirs and being really theirs may be justly esteem'd to be theirs and they justified by it But these Men if not mistaking yet surely misrepresenting the old Doctrine as covered with innumerable Absurdities do not only drive their Admirers off from Examining it but so sill their Minds with Prejudices against it as to make them willing to take up with any thing rather than with the Truth especially in a Case so pleasing because somewhat of their own is made their Justifying Righteousness CHAP. III. The deceitful Methods used by Hereticks a cause of Error more generally proposed The approaches of Socinus and his Followers towards the Orthodox The real difference there is between them in Fundamentals A Reflection on these Methods Arminians take the same course c. SECT I. The deceitful methods used by Hereticks more generally proposed Their rise in the Apostles days The deceitful Methods used by some Men of great Learning is another Cause of the growth of Error THERE being some Foundation-Truths so fully clearly and distinctly reveal'd in Holy Writ as to command the Assent of the Church Vniversally in all Ages excepting that in which the Christ an World became Arian they who have been their chief Opposers have retained the Words and Phrases by which those Truths have been transmitted down unto us and introduced their particular Opinions by an Heterodox sense they have fixed on them And when suspected that they might the more effectually conceal their Errors have subscribed sound Catechisms and Confessions whereby they have had the fairer opportunity to instil their Dogmata into the minds of Youth and other less studied Persons and under the Notion of being firm Adherers to the common Faith have engaged them to a closure with the unsoundest Parts of their Heretical Scheme In the Apostles days they who err'd from the Faith attempted by good words and fair speeches to seduce the simple Rom. 16.18 And Irenaeus who lived near that time Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans describing the Hereticks of that Age Digres de 〈◊〉 â—heol Helmstad Râ—g Syn◠〈◊〉 pag. â—88 as Calevius observes tells us that they speak like unto the Orthodox This was the way Arius after he was driven from Alexandria for his Heresie took to be restored to the Emperour's favour tho' he retained his Error yet subscribed a found confession of Faith as 't is reported by Socrates in his Ecclesiastical History Lib. l. c. 25 c. Pelagius when conven'd before a Provincial Synod at iâ—iospolis in Pelaestine at which Fourteen Bishops were present but not his Accusers August â—eâ—ract lib. 2 〈◊〉 47. 〈◊〉 ad 〈…〉 doth concur with the Orthodox in condemning his own Opinions but as Vossius out of St. Austin observes he dâ—d it very deceitfully Pelagianamsententiam pectore quidem ficto sed tamen Catholicos judices timens Pelagius ipse damnavit And as the same Possius adds Hierom. Epist 79. St. Hierom calls this Synod a miserable one because tho' they err'd not in Doctrines yet not discerning the falshood of the man they â—rrâ—d in the Judgment they past on him who being better known at Rome could not conceal his Treacherous Endeavours but was soon detected by the Bishops of that place Vâ—ss Hest Pelar lib. 1. Cap. 41. Hareâ—ici imitantur Catholicos fâ—eut simiae imitantur homineâ— Cyâ—â—â—ian ad Jubajanum This being the common practice of Hereticks St. Cyprian compares them to Apes saying they imitate the Orthodox as Apes do Men. Now this having been a very successful as well as a most pernicious Articice in constant practice amongst the Ancients the Socinian and Armintan Leaders whose Reputation hath been and is still so great that the respect multitudes have for them in regard to
am I hereby instructed to believe and hope that though the Saints shall never know the Almighty to Perfection yet shall they be raised to a clearer and more distinct knowledge of those now unconceiveable as well as ineffable Glories And when I read in the Writings of some Men who in Reasoning about other things are strong and nervous yet weak and feeble in their arguings against the profound Mysteries of Christ's Gospel I cannot but clearly perceive a Truth in those words of the Apostle the Natural Man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are Foolishness unto him 1 Cor. 2.14 neither can he know them because they are Spiritually discerned for which reason these Men are rather to be pityed than envyed prayed for than Reviled that 2 Tim. 2.25 if 't would please the Lord they might come to the acknowledgment of the Truth and see how great their Folly was in making their Confin'd Understandings the measure of all Knowledge which undoubtedly is done by them that reject all things as Absurd and False which are above or beyond their Reason But the Deist adds 'T was once to serve a Turn against the Papists that our Church held all Doctrines necessary to save Souls were plainly Revealed in Scripture How could you say plainly revealed unless you understood the Revelation And why to serve a Turn and that once 't was so as if we had now forsaken our Principles and profess'd to believe unintelligible Revelations whereas 't is our constant Judgment that the Doctrines necessary to Salvation are not dark and obscure but Clear Evident and Perspicuous that what is not clearly delivered in the Scripture is not of indispensible Necessity to be Known and Believed and Consistently assert that the Mysteries our Adversaries reject are clearly revealed The Revelation is very Plain Clear and Open though the things Reveal'd are Mysterious Inscrutable and past finding out And yet these Mysterious Points are in themselves Great Glorious True and Evident and only because our Understandings are Finite Weak and Feeble are we unable to comprehend them This Truth is by a Learned Divine thus Illustrated We can see other things by the Light of the Sun better than we can see the Sun it self not because the Sun is less visible and discernable in it self but because our Visive Faculty is too weak to bear its Resplendent Light The Deists mistake therefore into which the Socinian hath led him is complicated and lyeth in a Confounding the Revelation with the thing Revealed and in a Perswasion that because the Mystery is past out Knowing to Perfection therefore not in it self Evident Clear or Knowable And if not to be fully known by vain Mortals it cannot he thinks be true but must be False Absurd and Irrational And thus according to the Scripture-Revelation being Puff'd up in his fleshly Mind Col. 2 1â— intrudes into those things which he hath not seen and contrary to the Apostolical Prohibition thinks of himself more highly than he ought to think Rom. 12.3 is resolved to penetrate into the Secrets of the Almighty to make his own mistaken fanciful and narrow Understanding the Measure Rule and Standard of Truth and like a Man who is so weak as to imagine his visive Faculty able to bear the Resplendent Light of the Sun looks on it till his Eyes are so Dazled that he cannot rightly judge of Colours even to the Presuming Deist and Ami-Trinitariants who think they can look into the Deep things of God and Comprehend the Divine Perfections are overcome by the Glory of Divine Mysteries their Minds darkened and they plunged into the Depths of Error and thus in a Measure 't is with others that have Erred from the Truth CHAP. II. Radicated Prejudices against Gospel Doctrines the Cause of Error This seen in the Opposition Man makes to Christ's Righteousness for Justification II. ANother thing that occasions Error is a Radicated prejudice against Gospel Doctrines as their Tendency is to Exalt God Depress man and engage him to Acts of greatest self-denyal The Holy Ghost having with much clearness shown the insufficiency of Mans best Righteousness for Justification and his inability to think a good Thought or do the least good Work and that the Righteousness of Christ who is God-Man can alone justify a believing Sinner and the Omnipotent Spirit alone enable us to believe these Doctrines though they are a display of the manifold Wisdom of God of the Glory of his Holiness Justice and Mercy and an illustrious Evincement of the satisfaction and Merit of the Death and obedience of Christ God-Man as also of the Powerful Operation of the third Person in the Blessed Trinity yet because they lay us low discovering the Imperfection Insufficiency and Vanity of our own Endeavours they reject these Truths exposing them as if hereby a Door had been open'd to let in all manner of Vice and Licentiousness and rather than they will submit themselves to the Righteousness of God or be owing to the power of the Holy Ghost they 'll venture first to publish that the believing in God the Son and in God the Holy Ghost is not necessary to Salvation and at length go on to deny the Personality both of Son and Spirit As Adam on the Fall instead of seeking unto God leaned to his own understanding and strength so it hath been ever since the way of his Off-spring In the Old Testament instances of Mens Glorying in their own Power and performances are innumerable and the Apostle Paul assures us in the New that this was the way of his Kindred the Jews And ever since those days it hath been the general method of Hereticks to trust in their own Righteousness and despise others This they found to be a Notion as plausible as it was to their Corrupt Minds agreeable and because the Orthodox who pressed a Holy Life and Conversation as necessary to Salvation could not put their own Obedience into the place and room of Christ's it hath been the common practice of the Erroneous to reproach them as Enemies to Holyness and Mortification as tho' they held that we might live as lewdly as we listed and die as we lived yet in the end obtain Salvation through the Death and Righteousness of Christ And as this was the burden of their Writings in like manner 't was the care of the most Eminent Heresiarchs to give an agreeable Exemple by which means Multitudes of the weaker but more zealous sort were ensnared to embrace their Errors And tho at this time the Professors of Arminian and Secinian Errors have in this respect degenerated and thereby have lost the advantage of this pretence yet Socinus and after him Slichtingius with many others valued themselves upon the Holiness of them of their way which they assign'd to the hower and Influence of their Principles However these Gentlemen not being able intirely to crase those Idea's which at first were implanted in their Souls
he had been a Sinner from which 't will not follow that therefore Christ made Satisfaction for us or endured the same Punishment that was due to us We all acknowledge that on him who knew no Sin the Punishment that was due unto Sinners was inflicted but not the same Punishment nor what was Equivalent unto it was or could be laid on him wherefore what we have said concerning laying the Punishments due for our Sins on Christ By Punishments we mean Afflictions which signifies no more than what was carefully delivered a Page or two before Smalc ubi sup p. 226. Slicht Annot. in 2 Cor. 5.21 Crell Respons ad Grot. de satisf c. 4. Apol. Pol. Equit. p. 13.14 Przipcov Cogit in â—oc when he desires it may be Remarked That when they speak of Christ's being Punished for our Sins they mean only that he was Afflicted The same is affirmed both by Slichtingius and Crellius Again they own no other Imputation of Righteousness besides that of our Faith for saith the Polonian Knight in his Apology The Scriptures makes no mention of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness but simply of a Righteousness imputed unto us by God through Christ which is when God doth of his Grace and Mercy raise our Faith in Christ a living Faith working by Love so high that by it we who are guilty of most gross Sins may be esteemed Just and Righteous which is also called the Righteousness of God not ours because it 's given us freely and not for any Merit in us Now as they do thus set the Imputation of an Inherent Righteousness of our own in the stead of Christ so notwithstanding their many Pretences about ascribing Conversion to the Power of the Spirit they mean nothing less Ruarus in his Epistle to Peuschelius Ruar ad Joan. Peuschel Epist 9. doth very fully express the Socinian Sence Conversion which lyeth in a Reformation of the Vnderstanding approving the Gospel and of the Will resolved to Obey or actually observing it is caused immediately by that Conception we have in the Mind concerning God and Christ and the things appertaining to Religion and by such Arguments as move the Vnderstanding to approve and the Will to obey the Gospel This Conception is begotten in the Mind either by hearing the Word Preached or Reading it whence it is that the Word whether by Voice or Writing expressed is a kind of Remote Cause of Conversion yet such as ought necessarily to go before and if diligently heard or Read is ordinarily sufficient to begin it in all excepting some dull Persons whose Minds are too much under the influence of wicked Opinions and Wills distorted by a long custom in Sin I say that the Word is sufficient to begin our Conversion for I do not deny but that after we have rightly used our Natural Faculties the Help of the Divine Spirit is given for the encreasing the Strength is in us to the compleating and finishing of our Conversion which yet we could not know how to use to so Holy an End unless we had been first moved by God and excited by his Word Hence it doth appear that it is God who works in us both to Will and to iâ—o the first when invited by a putting us in mind of the Gospel the other when by the moving of his Spirit he strengthens us yet so that there is still Room left for the being excited to Vertue by the Proposals of Rewards and deterr'd from Vice by the threatning of Punishments To which I add That if any will have it that this Knowledge in our Mind which precedes our Assent be rather a part of our Conversion than a Cause I will not content with him only then the Word of God Preached or Read must not be esteemed the Mediate but immediate Cause of our Conversion Thus far Ruarus who makes it very manifest that the Socinian Notion touching the Power of the Spirit to Convert lyeth in ascribing the great turn from Darkness unto Light and from the Power of Satan to God unto the Hearing or Reading of the Word without any special Help of God's Spirit There being then so great a Difference between the Orthodox Expressions used by the Socinians and the corrupt Sense foâ—sâ—ed in under their Covert we need not wonder at Ruarus his asserting that the Papists amongst all other Sects have most Reason to be kind unto the Socinian for how Orthodox soever they would seem to be they embrace the most corrupt and hurtful parts of the Popish Religion I will clear this Assertion by giving you Ruarus his own Words which are amongst the Reasons given by him to show why the Papists ought not to be so very angry with the Vnitarians whom they call Socinians or Arians Another Reason saith he is Ruar because in the chief Articles of the Christian Faith they agree with the Church of Rome more than any other Sect whatsoever namely in the Doctrine of Predestination â—lection and Conditional Reprobation the Vniversality of God's Grace and Fruits of Christ's Death of free Will and its Interest in the Conversion of Man to the Faith of Justification which is made effectual by Charity of the Necessity of Good Works which they urge more vehemently than any other Church of the Possibility of keeping all God's Commands of the Difference between the Old and New Testament preferring the New before the Old with respect to the Promises and Precepts of the Difference between Venial and deadly Sins It is also manifest That how Orthodox soever Przipeovius would have his afflicted Innocence esteemed and though he differs from Socinus about the Divinity of Christ affirming him to be God truly in a proper Sence and by Nature Yet he is as far from the Truths he would be thought to embrace as any of that Gang. For in that very place where he opposes them who ascribe to Jesus Christ Divine Attributes and yet deny his Divine Nature to expose the Ridiculousness of this Notion he tells his Readers that it 's as Absurd as the Doctrine received by the Orthodox about Distinction of Persons in the same Essence And although he speaks of Christ's being God truly in a proper Sence yet denies him to be Co-eternal and Co equal with the Father and makes him to be but a Subordinate God Przipcov Hypera p. c. 4. not properly God and Man at the same but at distinct Seasons first Man then God Nor doth he hold that the Holy Ghost is a Person distinct from the Father and is of the same Opinion with the Socinians about Satisfaction giving the same Interpretation of those Texts that speak of Christ's being made Sin and giving himself a full Price that Wolzogenius Crellius and Slichtingius have done before him as may be seen in his Cogitations on the New Testament What Socinus and his Followers have herein done it 's very probable they learned from their chief Leader Bernhardinus Ochine who Writing more Academicorum did not
to Think Will or Do any good thing 3. It is the continued Assistance and help of the Holy Spirit according unto which the Holy Ghost does excite and stir up the Regenerate unto Good by infusing into them Spiritual and Heavenly Thoughts inspiring them with good Desires and enabling them actually to Will that which is good yea more according to this Grace the Spirit doth Will and work with the Man that what he Wills he may be enabled to Perfect After this manner I ascribe unto Grace the Beginning Continuation and Consummation of all Good even so far that a Regenerate Man without this Preventing Exciting Continued and Co-operating Grace can never think will or do any good nor resist the feeblest Temptation to Evil. How then can I be said to be injurious to the Grace of God or attribute too much to free Will The Controversie is not about the Actions or Operations ascribed to Grace I am for as much as any Man whatsoever but it is only about the Mode or Manner of its Oprations whether it be by an Irresistible Force or not Here indeed I do with the Holy Scriptures hold that many resist the Holy Ghost and reject the offer'd Grace And in his Letter to Hypolitus à Collibus Concerning Grace and free Will according to the Scriptures and consent of the Orthodox I do declare That Free Will without Grace can neither begin nor perfect any true Spiritual good Work and least any think I do as Pelagius did play with the Word Grace I mean that Grace which is the Grace of Christ and belongs to Regeneration which I hold to be simply and absolutely necessary for the inlightning the Understanding regulating the Affections and inclining the Will to what is good that infuses saving Light into the Mind inspires the Affections with Holy Desires and boweth down the Will to act according to that saving Light and these good Desires This Grace Prevents Begins Accompanies and Follows It stirreth up helps and works that we may Will and that we may not Will in vain Co-operates with us It secures us from Temptations Assists and helps us against them upholding us against the Flesh the World and the Devil In the Conflict it gives us the Victory and if at any time we are overcome and fall in the Temptation this Grace recovers us establishes and gives new Strength making us more watchful It begins the Work of Salvation promoves perfects and consummates it The mind of a Carnal Man is I confess dark'ned his Assections vile and inordinate his Will disorderly yea he is dead in Sin and that Preacher is most highly esteemed by me who attributes most to Grace if so be that whilst he is extolling Grace he doth neither Impeach God's Justice nor take from Man Free Will to what is Evil What any Man can desire more I know not About the Justification of a Man in the sight of God Jacoh Armin Decla sentent p. 127. I am not sensible saith he that I either teach or hold any thing but what is Vnanimously received by the Reformed Protestant Churches and most exactly agrees with their Sense There hath been I know a Controversie in this particular between Piscator and the French Churches as whether the Obedience or Righteousness of Christ which is imputed to Believers and in which the 'r Righteousness before God doth consist be only Christ's Passive Obedience as Piscator affirmed Or whether it be also his Active which all his Life he rendred to the Law of God and that Holiness in which he was conceiv'd as the Gallick Churches hold But I never interested my self in it And how oddly soever he expressed himself in this place he would still be thought a good Calvinist Armin. Decla ubi sup For saith he whatever I have in this Point delivered I differ not so much from Calvin but that I am ready with my own Hand to subscribe what he hath on this Subject in the third Book of his Institutes In his Disputations Armin. Disput Thes 48. Sect. 5. he is more particular speaking distinctly of the several Causes of Justification Of the Meritorious and Material thus That Christ by his Obedience and Righteousness is the Meritorious Cause of Justification who may therefore be deservedly called the Procatartick Cause The same Christ in his Obedience and Righteousness is also the Material Cause of our Justification that is as God gives to us Christ for Righteousness and imputes his Obedience and Rignteousness unto us in respect to this double Cause namely the Meritorious and Material we are said to be constituted Just or Righteous by Christ's Obedience In this place Arminius you see doth distinguish between the Meritorious and Material Cause of Justification the One being Extrinsick belonging to the Efficient the other Intrinsick or made the Matter of our Justification The first is Christ by his Obedience the other is Christ for Righteousness Christ Given and his Righteousness Imputed He was too Learned to confound the Material and Intrinsick with the Meritorious which is an External and Efficient Cause asserting that as Christ is the Meritorious Cause so he as an Efficient justifieth us by his Righteousness As he is the Material he is given by God for Righteousness and his Righteousness is imputed to us for Justification His Thoughts touching the Instrumental Formal Cause he expresses in these Words Faith is the Instrumental Cause Armin. ubi sup Sect. 7 8. or Action by which we apprehend Christ and his Righteousness offered unto us by God according to the Order and Promise of the Gospel where it is said That whoever Believes shall be Justified and Saved The Form of Justification is the gracious Estimation of God whereby he imputes the Righteousness of Christ unto us and imputes Faith for Righteousness that is God doth forgive unto us who believe our Sins for the sake of Christ apprehended by Faith and esteems us as Righteous in him which Estimation hath annexed unto it the Adoption of Sons and a Collation of Right to the Inheritance of Eternal Life And among the Corollaries deduced from what he had asserted in his Disputation he is positive That it is impossible for Faith and Works to Concurr to Justification that Christ did not Merit that we be justified by the Dignity and Merit of Faith much less that we be justified by the Merit of Works But the Merit of Christ is opposed to Justification by Works and Faith opposed to Merit These Appeals to the Catechism and Confession and the consent of the Reformed Protestants his recommending Calvin's Commentaries and Institutes to his Pupils and these and such other Passages make it clear That Arminius would fain be thought an Orthodox Calvinist which was also the desire and endeavour of his endeared Companions and Followers even of Vytenbogart Borrius Poppius Grievenchovius Arnoldus Corvinus and Episcopius at their Conference A. D. 1611. with Ruardus Plancius Becius Fraxinus Bogardus and Festus Homnius at the
Doctrine They in like manner send us to the Calvinists with an Assurance we shall find a great Part of Socinianism in their Writings Episcopius I Presume doth in the Opinion of these Gentlemen Understand what the Remonstrants held as well as any man who notwithstanding the High Thoughts He had of the Socinians doth positively Aver that there is a most Exact Agreement betwixt them and the Calvinisis Having Cap. 2. saith he in his Podecherus Ineptians sufficiently Cleared the Remonstrants from the Calumny of being Socinian I will Retort upon them and show that with much more Appearance of Argument we can fasten on the Contra-Remonstrants the Charge of Socinianism even in those Points which are Proper and Peculiar to Socinus and are Deservedly called Socinian This Episcopius tho' probably enough touching the Trinity an Arian and in other Points a Professed Remonstrant will yet by no means Allow a PROFESSED Agreement between the Remonstrants and Socinians How then can we Hope to find in Their writings a Formula or Summary of Socinian Doctrines That there is too great an Allyance between the Remonstrants and the Socinians that the Doctrines of the Former are too near akin to what are held by the Latter and Praeparatory unto them I have cleared But Chap. 3. Sect. 6. c. that in ALL other Points excepting the Trinity the Remonstants PROFESSEDLY Agree with the Socinians is too Notorious a Mistake for the Socinian Historian to Impose upon us However they go on to Assure us they sincerely Believeâ— That GOD is truly Omniscient Consider on the Explic of the Trin. p. 32. That he Foreseeth all Events how Contingent soever they may be to us But are they all of this mind No Others of 'em Ask Def. Reason of Christianity against Mr. Edwardâ— p. 18. Which is more Dishonourable to God to be the Author of all the Sin and Wickedness that ever was or ever will be in the World or to Deny his Fore-knowledge of the Certainty of that which is not Certain 2. They Believe the Real Omnipresence of God That He is Present in his Essence or Person in all Places And not only by his Power Knowledge or Ministers There are others of them who Deny such an Immensity of God which makes him to be ESSENTIALLY and wholly in every Point of Space because such IMMENSITY would take away all Distinction between God and the Creature And as the Examiner of Edwards affirmes has indeed an ATHEISTICAL TANG for the greater part of Atheists hold the Universe to be God Another of 'em saith To Know whether there is an Immensity of ESSENCE or Operation these are Metaphysicks out of my Reach Some Tho. upon Dr. S. Vindic. p. 14. and are no Helps to the Setling my Confidence and Trust in God Therefore it is that Revelation doth not speak Precisely of this These Passages do not only show how much our English Socinians Disser from each other in matters of most Importance But some of them as well as Forreign Socinians Deny Gods Omniscience and Immensity One can't be some of 'em suggest without making God the Author of Sin And the other hath an Atheistical Tang. Why then are they so Angry with the Learned Dr. Edwards for charging them with the Denyal of those Essential Perfections of the Divine Nature 'T is also affirmed by the English Socinians 3. That the Holy Ghost is a Person How could the Holy Spirit search all things Biddles Confes of Faith p. 21 22. even the Depths of God 1 Cor. 2. How make Intercession for the Saints with Greans Vnutterable Rom. 8 How could He say to the Christians at Antioch Seperate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have Called them Acts 13.2 If these things and sundry more which may be alledged out of Scripture do not Evince the Holy Spirit to be a Person what can In Opposition hereunto they say Brief Hest Sect. 1. p. 7. That Rom. 8. God's Spirit or Inspiration being Designed to be a continual Director and Guide to the Faithful is spoken of in these and some other Texts as a Person by the same Figure of speech that Charity is Described as a Person c. The Holy Spirit you see is and is not a Person with them 4. They Generally not only Grant Brief Hist Sect. 3. p. 38. but Earnestly Contend that Christ is to be Worshipped and Prayed to because God hath say they by his inhabiting word or Power given to the Lord Christ a Faculty of Knowing all things and an Ability to Relieve all our Wants In Opposition hereunto 't is said Ans to Mith. p. 50. There are no Acts of Worship ever Requir'd to to be Paid to Christ but such as may be Paid to a Civil Power to a Person in High Dignity and Office or to Prophets or Holy Men or to such as are actually Possessed of the Heavenly Beatitudes They are I confess Answer to Milb p. 49. so Ingenuous as to Acknowledge That the Question about the Invocation of Christ has very much Divided them and if I take 'em Right the English Socinians generally fall in with the Notions of Francisous Davidis and Christianus Franken in Opposition to George Blandraâ—â— and Faustus Socinus who were followed by the Forreign Vnitarians as they call themselves and notwithstanding the specious Pretences to Liberty of Conscience Brief Hist Let. 4. p. 48. which they Reckon the Peculiar Principle of the Socinians and Remonstrants the prevailing Party severely Persecuted their Brethren They in Transylvania would not suffer any to come into any Places in the Ministry unless they obliged themselves under their Hands not to speak against Worshiping Jesus Christ They in Poland more Rigid â—xcommuniâ—ating and Deposing from the Ministry such as held Christ might not be Worshiped with Divine Worship This Persecution had some what of Extraordinaty Cruelty in it as it was against men who differ'd so very little from them For the Persecutors did not affirm that they were always bound to Invocate and Worship Christ but that it might Lawfully be done Nos non teneri Invocare Christum sed tantum Jure omnino Posse saith Socinus again and again Ay so often that he thought himself Obliged in a Praemonition to what he Wrote against Francisous Davidis to Explain himself which he did briefly by declaring that there were Two Cases in which to omit the Worshiping of Christ is a Sin The first when they joyn with them in Worship who call on the Name of Christ The second When the Spirit doth move them to do it not to call on Christ in these Two Cases is a Sin These few Intimations make it Plain that aâ—tho ' they give us no Formula nor Catechism in which we may find a particular Account of what it is they Believe yet in those few things they Profess to Own they can't Agree about the Nature of God whether Omniscient and Immense About the Holy Ghost whether