THE Trinitarian Scheme OF RELIGION CONCERNING Almighty God And MANKIND Considered both before and after the pretended Fall With NOTES thereupon which Notes contain also the Vnitarian Scheme London Printed in the Year 1692. The Trinitarian Scheme of Religion concerning Almighty God and Mankind considered both before and after the pretended Fall with Notes thereupon which Notes contain also the Vnitarian Scheme Of the Blessed Trinity THERE are Three Divine Persons an Almighty Father an Almighty Son an Almighty Spirit distinct from both who are jointly Creators of all other both Persons and Things They are so many distinct Minds and Spirits indued each of them with his own Proper and Personal Understanding Will and Power of Action Each of them is an absolutely Perfect and All-sufficient Being and singly and by himself a God Yet all of them together are but one God The Notes There is a most Holy most Wise most Good and Almighty Person who is over all from everlasting to everlasting the Maker of the Universe the Fountain of Good to all other Beings every where present Who with respect to the Creation of the World and his Adoption of all Good Men is pleased to permit himself to be called the Father But with respect to his Soveraign Dominion and Power above all He is usually designed by the Name or Word GOD. There neither is nor can be more than one such Person Because He is All-sufficient for himself and for whatsoever He shall please to make He had thereby within himself a most Determining and Certain Cause why he should neither beget nor make another or others equal to Himself but only Subordinate and Dependent Beings for Objects and Exercises of his Goodness More such Persons or Beings as Himself He knew must be as needless and useless as himself is absolutely and indispensably necessary For if He is truly All-sufficient they must for that reason be altogether superfluous both to him and to his Creatures Nor can we suppose more than one such Person without supposing an Infinity of them For whatsoever either Rational Motive or Natural and Necessary Cause may be feigned why the Universal Father should beget or make another or others equal to Himself the same whether Motive or Cause must also dispose that other or those other Persons to beget or make their Equal or Equals and so onwards till there were an Infinity of Divine Persons The Nature therefore of the thing demonstratively shows that a stop is necessarily made at one Divine that is one Infinite and All-sufficient Person Of the Eternity of the Trinity AS to the Duration Eternity or Life of the Blessed Trinity the Trinity possesses Eternal Life all at once To all other Beings Time is a Flux or Succession that of it which was now is not and that which now is shall immediately give place to what is coming It was once true of all other Beings but the Trinity that they were are and shall be but to the Trinity there is neither past nor to come but whole Time or all Eternity is now To the Trinity from everlasting to everlasting is but one undivided Instant or Moment for the Trinity is we may not say it was or it shall be The Notes This Divinity is wholly borrowed from the Platonists from whom the Modern Doctrines of the Trinity and of the Mystical Properties and Attributes thereof have been learned by those who among themselves go by the Names of Orthodox and Catholick The Trinity or God say they possesses Eternal Life all at once He is we may not say He was or He shall be In direct opposition to this whimsical Paradox St. John has defined God to be Him which WAS which IS and which SHALL BE or is to come Rev. 1.4 We say therefore 't is one of the Divine Perfections not an Imperfection that God IS WAS and SHALL BE. He hath carried and shall carry all Perfections into all the Successions and Periods of Time when He WAS he was no less perfect than now that he IS nor is He now less perfect than he shall be when he SHALL BE. They tell us we must not say God WAS that is to please them we must turn Atheists by saying he WAS NOT for of necessity we must say one of the two either that He was or that He was not there being no middle between these two no more than there is between He is and He is not Of the Omnipresence and Infinity of the Trinity NOR are we to conceive of the Infinity Immensity or Omnipresence of the Trinity after a vulgar manner For tho the Trinity is truly Infinite and Omnipresent yet 't is whole and all in any the least Point of Space The Trinity has no Extension and yet it comprehends all Distances The Trinity is three such Persons as that each of them reaches over and through all the the World and yet all Three are laxly and largely accommodated on the Point of a Needle Not only so but the right Faith is the Trinity is no where and yet 't is every-where The Notes This is another Article of the new Platonick Divinity God or the Trinity say they is whole and all in the least point of Space and tho he is no where yet he is every-where We say on the contrary with St. Austin what is no where is nothing therefore to speak as they do of God is in words to affirm him and in sense to deny him That God is every-where we are ready to demonstrate to them from the Order and Conservation of his Works and from the Effects of his Providence and from an hundred Passages of Holy Scripture That he is no where is incumbent on them to prove which we are sure they can do by no Reason nor by any Authority but that of their Masters the Platonists Every-where and no-where are contradictory Terms therefore if God is every-where it must needs be false that he is no-where else we cannot distinguish between Affirming and Denying that is between express Contradictions Of the Simplicity of the Trinity THere is no less Mystery in the other Properties and Attributes of the Trinity For God is one most simple uncompounded Being yet He consists or is made up of Three really distinct Minds Beings or Spirits so really distinct and diverse that one of them is not the other nay one is the Father another his Son the third a Spirit as distinct from both as they are from each other The Notes There is no Mystery at all in any of the Properties or Attributes of God They are no less clear in themselves than they are evidently deduced from the Excellence of his Works and the Methods of his Providence The Mystery never lies in the Attribute or Property but in the Addition made to it by fanciful Men. As to that vulgar Aphorism that God is a most simple and uncompounded Being from whence they have hammered the Property or Attribute of God's Simplicity as they affect to speak
Infinite Persons and but one God Ask them How can these things be and what do you mean They answer our meaning only is God understands himself and willeth that is esteems and loves himself This is a very mean and despicable Sense to be couched in such mysterious and surprising Terms Why do they affect to speak fantastically when they might speak soberly and plainly But we would easily forgive them the Folly of their Mysteries if their Hieroglyphick Language were not as false and contradictory as 't is vain and trifling For after they have told us that by Son and Spirit they mean nothing but God's Knowledg and Love of himself that the Eternal Generation so much talk'd of is only God's conceiving understanding or apprehending his own Perfections and the Procession which we are so carefully to distinguish from the Eternal Generation is only the Love which proceeds from God towards himself after I say they have thus unriddled their Mystery and of a Mystery made it a very vulgar and ordinary piece of Knowledg how absurd and monstrous is it to tell us that this Reflex Knowledg which God hath of himself and his Love or Esteem of himself are Persons and Spirits really distinct from him One while the Second and Third Persons so called are only God's knowing himself and loving himself that is they are only two Acts of his Vnderstanding and Will At the next turn these two Acts God's Apprehending himself and Esteeming himself are metamorphosed into Two several Spirits and Persons whereof one you must call the Son and the other the Holy Ghost Of one you must say on pain of Damnation He was Conceived Generated or Begotten of the other you must believe and say under the same Penalty He proceeded I say now this is Egyptian all over 't is the very Genius and Spirit of the old Mystical Hieroglyphicks that is to say partly Foolish and partly False And to prove it I need go no farther than the Understandings and Consciences of all Reasonable Men or even of every Individual Man who hath not as much given up his Reason to Mother Church as the Good Man who would not believe his Eyes against his Dear Wife had given up to her his Senses To tell Men that to apprehend one's self is a Person and to love one's self is another Person and Spirit is in effect to ridicule Religion and to scare from it all Men of free Sense I know not why the prophane Wit was esteemed an Atheist for his saying God by his Almighty Power can turn a Tree into a Syllogism more than such may be justly suspected of Atheism who say an Action of the Divine Vnderstanding is an Infinite and Almighty Person whom under pain of Damnation we must call the Son of God And again an Action of the Divine Will is another such Person and him we must name the Holy Ghost For the Wit only turned a Substance into a Thought and Trinitarians turn Thoughts into Substances and Persons Did they alledg for these Mysteries but the least colour of Reason or Revelation we would hold our Tongues but to be obliged to believe such things without any pretence of Revelation and contrary to all Reason and common Sense this I think is what we owe to no sort of Men of what colour soever they dye their Coats For my part I never think of these whether Dotages or Impostures without such an Inclination as I very hardly resist of applying to our Athanasian Doctors what Cato said of the Roman Augures and Aurispices I wonder says Cato that an Augur or Aruspex can meet another of the same Profession without their Laughing in one another's Faces He knew their pretended Learning and Discipline was the Religion establish'd by Law warranted by Custom and Prescription and authorized by the Consent of Nations For all that 't was a Cheat so gross and palpable that he could not but admire that the Augurs were such stark Fools or such perfect Knaves that meeting they could carry a grave Look upon one another Of the Creation IN the Fulness of Time the before-described Trinity Created the World and all things therein Yet we are not to imagine that the Three Divine Persons divided the Work among them each of them taking a Part. Nor could every one of them Create the same things because a thing can be created but once But according to that Oeconomy as Divines speak that is the Domestick Order or Houshold-Government that is between the Three Persons it must be said and held that the Father is most properly the Creator the Son the Redeemer and the Spirit the Sanctifier of all Persons and Things So that when we say the Trinity Created Heaven and Earth and all Things this is thereby intended The Father Created all things by the Son through the Holy Ghost The Notes The Father created all things by the Son through the Holy Ghost I wish the Sages of the Party had thought fit plainly to tell us what they mean by such an odd way of expressing themselves But they have long since let the World know that all their care is to get Words and for Meaning they never think of it But the Father it seems is the Creator nay 't is he that is properly the Creator but then 't is by the Son and through the Holy Ghost That is to say the Father is not the Creator much less is He properly the Creator but the Son and Holy Ghost and these two are jointly Creators For if the Father created the World by the Son and through the Holy Ghost then the Father himself had no immediate Efficiency or Hand in the Work but only the Son and Holy Ghost these were the true Creators of the World and of all things And besides that the old Difficulty returns namely that the Son and Spirit divided the Work between them each taking his part or the same things must be created twice I know not how better to explain their Notion of the Father's being most properly the Creator than by saying he was just so according to them the Creator of the World as King Charles I. built the Royal Soveraign or was the Builder of the Royal Soveraign For we say that King built the Royal Soveraign by the Master-Builder through the Ship-Carpenter that is he built it not he only ordered it to be built the Master-Shipwright or Master-Builder and the Ship-Carpenters were the Builders But if this be so we are strangely misled by the Apostles Creed which instructs us to say that the Almighty Father is the Creator of Heaven and Earth and is wholly silent of the great Mystery that it was by the Son and through the Holy Ghost And the Scriptures do yet worse impose on us by an unheard-of Solecism and Impropriety while they speak of these two or three pretended creating Persons by the singular Pronouns I HE THOV HIM which in no Language are used but only of one singular and particular
a Reprieve of about Eighty Years Our Opposers can show no Context of Holy Scripture in which their threefold Death for this Sin is contained or in which the Posterity of Adam are said to have his Sin imputed to them and that they are punish'd for it The only Offer they make is from Romans Chap. 5. the Apostle there at v. 19. saith As by one Man's Disobedience many are made Sinners so by the Obedience of one shall many be made Righteous By one Man's Disobedience say they that is by God's Imputation of one Man's Disobedience to them even Adam's in Paradise so many have been made Sinners How much more dexterously and agreeably to the Justice and Wisdom of God Pelagius and the Vnitarians By one Man's Disobedience that is saith Pelagius not as Austin has newly fancied by God's Imputation but by our Imitation of one Man's Disobedience so many have been made Sinners and on the other hand by the Obedience of one that is by Imitation not by Imputation of one Man's Obedience even the Lord Christ's many shall be made Righteous Trinitarians make the same Blunder at ver 18. As by the Offence of one Judgment came upon all Men to Condemnation even so by the Righteousness of one the free Gift came or shall come upon all Men to Justification and Life Here again they see not that by the Offence of one Man and again by the Righteousness of one Man are not as much as to say by the Imputation of one Man's Offence and of one Man's Righteousness but by Imitation of one Man's Righteousness and of another Man's Offence Justification and Condemnation have come upon all Men. We die for imitating the Disobedience of Adam and we shall be justified and saved for and by imitating the Righteousness of the Lord Christ And thus it is that St. Paul himself explains himself in this very Chapter v. 12. As by one Man Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin so also Death hath passed upon all Men for that or because all have sinned He saith not as Trinitarians do because Adam sinned but because all have sinned therefore Death hath passed on all that is all of us have deserved the Death we must undergo or have undergone by our own Sins But they say Infants die and what Sin have they unless you allow the Imputation of Adam's Sin to all his Descendents But why do they not consider too that Beasts die is Adam's Sin Imputed also to them They ought therefore to know that Holy Paul in that Context is speaking only of Adult and Grown Persons as for Infants Beasts and such like that have not Sin because they have not Vnderstanding of Good and Evil of Moral and Immoral such die because they have Mortal Bodies liable to Diseases and Accidents From which Accidents and Diseases to deliver and rescue them it does not please God to Interpose by an Extraordinary and Miraculous Power For which sort of Providence towards them divers Probable Reasons might be given but being not Necessary or Proper to be here inserted I omit them Of Partial Redemption THE Transgression of Adam in Paradise or his eating the Forbidden Fruit was in Him Actual Sin in his Descendents 'tis called Original Sin but the Effects of it are the same in Both namely the before-mentioned three-fold Death or three Deaths Death Temporal which is the separation of the Soul from the Body and all temporal Calamities and Evils Death Spiritual which is the Corruption of the Faculties that we are averse to all Good and inclined to all Evil. Death Eternal which is the everlasting Suffering of Body and Soul in Hell-fire These Deaths are the Consequences and Desert of Adam's Sin to himself as the Actual Offender to us as his Sin is Imputed to us by the Justice of God But the Mercy of God and his Wisdom have found out a most Gracious and Glorious Expedient by which to deliver Mankind though not from Temporal Death yet in part from Spiritual Death and wholly and altogether from Death Eternal But before we speak more particularly of the Expedient 't is necessary to caution Learners that they fall not into this Error that God designed the Benefit of the Expedient for All Men and Women For when we say Mankind or all Men have been Redeemed from the before-mentioned Deaths our meaning is that the Elect or as that most consider'd and weigh'd 17th Article of the English Church speaks Those whom God hath chosen out of Mankind are as that Article farther says brought to everlasting Salvation as Vessels of Honour These are called according to God's purpose in due Season his Spirit working in them And they through Grace obey that Calling These Elect are a definite certain and unalterable Number that can neither be increased nor diminished as is Expresly and in words declared by the Suffrage of the Divines of Great Britain at the Synod of Dort Suffrage p. 9. It is saith the same Suffrage at p. 43. for the Elect that Christ died that He might Effectually obtain for them and Infallibly bestow on them both Remission of Sins and Salvation If the Unskilful ask here How this Doctrine agreeth with those Declarations of Holy Scripture so often repeated which seem to say that Christ died for the Sins of the World or for All Men The Divines above said answer at p. 47. Here it is that the secret Decree of Election sheweth it self inasmuch as the Price was indeed payed for All yet is not Beneficial to All because All have not the Gist of fulfilling the Condition of the Covenant They mean All have not Saving Grace given to them whereby to Believe and to Obey the Gospel They rightly add at p. 55. We no where meet in Scripture any Promise by which God hath bound himself to impart his Grace to All and every One Farthermore the same excellent Suffrage teaches at p. 27. that 't is a Supposition without any good ground that all Infants are saved It saith that those Infants who are saved are saved by virtue of their Election which respecteth not the Age of Persons but only looketh upon the common heap of Fallen Mankind out of which it chooseth And concerning such Choosing or Election it teaches at p. 34. that Grace doth find some whom it Adopteth out of the most Wicked and at their last End while Many who seem less Guilty have no part in this Gift Therefore when All are said to be Redeemed or when 't is said Christ died for All or such like Expressions are used this is to be understood of All sorts or orders of Men and Women He died for High and Low for Old Men and Infants for Youth and Middle-age for Rich and Poor for Wise and Unwise for all these sorts for some particular Persons of all these for such of all these sorts as are Elected And those whoever they be who extend any farther than this the Redemption purchased by Christ are Arminians But
Arminianism is only a Limb of Socinianism as a Map of a Province or Kingdom is but a Limb of a Quarter-map or of a Map of the whole World For Arminians have borrowed all they have both Doctrine and Argument from the Socinians or Vnitarians And for that reason it must be farther said that Such as extend the Redemption by Christ beyond what is above declared are so farforth Socinianiz'd have departed from the Articles of the English Church and from the Suffrage of the British Divines at Dort The Notes They tell us that God so Imputed the single Transgression of one Man to all Men as to make all Men thereupon obnoxious to the Three Deaths Temporal Spiritual and Eternal but that soon Repenting him of this Rigour he took up a Contrary Resolution even to Redeem all Men. Well do they hold of that Mind For if they do 't is no very Hurtful Tragi-comedy because however Unjustly all Men were Condemned yet if they are all Pardoned they have been more Scared than Hurt But the Matter it seems is otherways for when God resolves to Redeem all Men the meaning is he intends to Redeem Some and farther in Electing or Choosing those Some his Election oft-times is from the most wicked and those also at their last End or when they have sinned as long as they can In a word of those Few whom God is pleased to Redeem from that Ruine which his Imputation of Adam's Sin to them brought on them he chooses They say the least Worthy for Objects of the Highest Mercy and exercises the uttermost Unjustice and Cruelty on those that are Better or however not so bad Let us consider these two Notable pieces of Orthodox Doctrine 1. God hath Elected to Salvation and has Redeemed only Some of those Many who were undone by his Imputation of another Man's Transgression to them Now though Vnitarians deny there was any need of a Redeemer to rescue us from Adam's Transgression or the Punishment thereof because neither could that Transgression be Imputed to us nor could we be justly Punish'd for it yet on other accounts we own there was need of a Redeemer As to reconcile the World to the one True God from whom they were departed by an Universal Idolatry and to reconcile God to the World for that and Other Actual Sins and divers other Reasons But we say also that whatsoever was done or suffer'd by Christ the Redeemer or Saviour was equally done for all Men and Women none excepted We deny not that Holy Scripture speaketh of the Elect but we say it means not thereby some few certain Persons chosen out of the rest of Mankind to Eternal Life while all others are doomed to Damnation or lest in an incapacity of Salvation But the Elect are all Such as turn to God all such are by him Elected that is chosen and designed for Salvation and he would have all Men and Women to be of that number if they are not it proceeds from their own Negligence or Wilfulness not from Adam much less from God This is most clearly the Doctrine taught in Holy Scripture even that the Redemption by Christ is intended for All John 6.51 The Bread which I give saith our Saviour is my Flesh which I give for the Life of the WORLD The beloved Disciple saith the Lord Christ was a Propitiation for our Sins and not for ours only but for the Sins of the WHOLE World 1 John 2.2 St. Paul to the Romans saith By the righteousness of one even the Lord Christ the free Gist is come upon ALL Men to Justification of Life Rom. 5.18 The Author to the Hebrews saith By the Grace of God Jesus Christ hath tasted death for EVERY Man Heb. 2.9 Or if they want a Text wherein the very word Imputed is found St. Paul saith God by Christ reconciled the WORLD to himself not Imputing their Transgressions to them 2 Cor. 5.29 To tell us Here as our Opposers do that the WORLD the WHOLE World ALL Men EVERY Man are only some Men and those also a very Few what is it but to give us a Flat denial of Scripture instead of an Interpretation thereof And I will Here leave it with the unprejudic'd Considerer whether these Texts do not sufficiently prove this part of the Damnable Socinian Heresy But they say farther 2. In choosing or electing out of the heap of fallen Mankind God's Election or Choice is sometimes from among the most wicked and those also at their last end or after they have sinned as long as they can The next thing that we may expect from some Men is that they will write a Panegyrick in Praise of the Devil If they had said that the Election for which they contend is made by the Devil or falls upon Persons by chance of the Dice it had been credible that Redemption and Salvation is the chance of the most wicked and at their last end But to say People are elected to Salvation and that by God and yet that they are the most wicked and at their last end who are elected and saved is not said without such manifest Impiety that I will not now stand to dispute against it but leave it with every sincere Lover of God to judg betwixt us and our Opposers But this one thing I will observe that when they were loading their Maker with such scandalous Imputations they should have so contrived their Calumnies as to be self-consistent and not contradictory to one another as they are in this Article For of what worse or worst Men and Women elected to Salvation do they dream when themselves have before assured us that the Imputation of Adam's Sin to us makes All averse to all Good and inclined to all Evil Of such Persons there is neither worse nor worst but all are bad alike so bad that Satan himself neither is nor can be worse If we all have such an Inclination to Evil only and to every kind of Evil as is neither restrained nor corrected but by an extraordinary and particular Grace of God it unavoidably follows that all are bad alike and that 't is a Contradiction to say the worst or the most wicked are chosen to be Subjects of the Grace of Redemption and of a Pre-eternal Election 'T is no manner of Evasion here to say that the Restraining Grace which God bestows more or less on every Person even on the Reprobate hath several degrees and from hence it comes to pass that some are not so bad as the rest For seeing 't is not their own Choice or Act but merely the Momentary Grace blown into them that restrains any from any sort of Wickedness it can no more be said of such that one is better or less bad than another than a chained Lion can be said to be tamer or less fierce than a Lion who is loose and at full liberty Of the Satisfaction WHen the Divine Wisdom and Goodness had determined to redeem all Men that is some
meer Human Nature continuing and abiding a bare and meer Human Nature is a Divine Nature For in affirming it hath Infinite Dignity and Merit how much soever they may say in words 't is a bare and meer Human Nature they have in sense affirmed 't is a Divine Nature For what is Divine but as much as to say of Infinite Dignity and Infinite Excellence or Merit The third Wonder is That by Virtue of the Incarnation of a Divine Person in an Human Nature the Divine Person or God must be said to have been born in Time to have suffered and died and on the contrary the Humanity or Man Christ Jesus must be said to have been from all Eternity to be Omnipotent Omnipresent Creator of all things and whatsoever else is said of God But that our Opposers may not complain that they are misrepresented I must own this is only the fore part of the Prodigy the other end or hinder part is of a contrary Nature For tho you must say God was born God suffered God died yet saith their Doctrine farther you are not really to think God can be born in Time can suffer or can die and on the other hand you must say the Man Christ Jesus was from all Eternity created the World is Omnipresent and Omnipotent but you are not so to think The reason is because the Communication of the Properties of the Divinity to the Humanity and of the Humanity to the Divinity is not real but only nominal or in words Now Unitarians being but plain Fellows and having Country Consciences like not this juggling that we must say one thing and must think or mean another Yet because we ought to yield to hard things for Peace sake if our Opposers are content that we may do so also in the other Articles that is if they are content that we only say as is said in those Articles and may declare at the same time that we think the contrary and if Trinitarians will also so do in those Articles we will comply with them in this third Wonder or Mystery of the Incarnation And this is the only Composition that can possibly be agreed to in these Controversies without renouncing our Christianity our reasonable Faculties and our Senses Of Grace IT is true the Lord Christ God and Man in one Person paid down a more than sufficient Ransom for the Actual Deliverance of a thousand Worlds from the Imputation of Adam's Sin and the Consequences of that Imputation even the three Deaths yet the Ransom was not accepted for all but only for the Elect nor yet was it accepted for Deliverance from the whole Punishment but only from part of it For no Man is thereby delivered from such a share of Spiritual Death as to be able to do a good Action or think a good Thought without an immediate and particular Assistance or GRACE of God's Spirit beginning continuing and perfecting such good Action or Thought in him and by him As hath been often defined and concluded in the Councils of the Orthodox in opposition to the Heresy of Pelagius revived by Vnitarians and Arminians The Notes After they have tried their Skill in misrepresenting and deforming the true Idea we ought to have of God and of his Perfections and Attributes our Opposers proceed to calumniate Human Nature the Image of God and will have it to be the Image of the Devil They tell us we come into the World so depraved in all our Faculties and Powers that we cannot do any good Action no nor think a good Thought without a particular and extraordinary Grace of God beginning continuing and perfecting such good Action or Thought in us and by us In sober sadness is this the Character of that sort of Creature of whom the Apostle saith be is made in the similitude of God James 3.9 Or is it the very Description of the Devil himself if at least it be not a Calumny even of him Will God own such a Creature as his Similitude as has a natural Impotence to all that is holy and good and a violent and perpetual Biass to Evil only and to every kind of Evil Yes they say our Likeness to God consists not in a Capacity to Holiness or ought that good is but in the Dominion we have over some Creatures in this lower World But by this account of our Likeness to God he that is most of all unlike to God is much more the Similitude and Image of God than Man is the Dominion and Power of Satan is incomparably greater and larger than Man's is therefore in their Hypothesis he is more the Similitude of God than Man is But as absurd as these things are I will not now insist on them but content my self to acquaint the Reader with some of the principal Reasons of the Vnitarians why they hold that Man is a free Agent as capable of doing Good as Evil nay more capable of the former because he has more reason for it than of the latter not the Slave to only one of the Contraries but at absolute liberty towards both 1. Our Blushes and Remorses for having acted at any time otherways than we ought are Testimonies and Witnesses of our certain and internal Consciousness that we could have done as Religion and Duty require of us that is could have forbore that Evil and have done the contrary Good 2. Deliberation and Consultation what and how we are to act argue also not only that we are free but that we are sensible we are so 3. We experience that our Piety and Vertue are our own Work by the Difficulty we feel and the slow Progress we are able to make in attaining those Habits and in subduing the contrary Habits 4. If Men are good not by a spontaneous Choice or Power of their own but only by an extraordinary and immediate Aid no tolerable reason can be given why we should not always be acted to Good or why we are but partially and imperfectly Good Is it credible that God should do his own Work in us after a desultory inconstant and impersect manner 5. What Piety or Vertue is it or how can God love or esteem any Person whether Him or Her for that well-doing or that abstinence from Evil which was not their own Choice Will or Discretion but the Work and Effect solely of God's Grace acting by them or in them 6. That every good Thought and Action is not an Inspiration or the Gift or Grace of God is confirmed by this that God doth sometimes disallow and forbid some good Intentions and Actions of his Servants Thus 't was a good Thought and Intention in David that he would build an House for the Lord a Temple for God's publick Worship and Service 't was so good a Thought and Purpose that it was rewarded with a Promise from God that God would build David 's House i. e. would establish and confirm his Family on the Throne of Judah and Israel But as good a
him and the English Reader to the Paraphrase of the late Learned and Pious Dr. Claget Our Opposers delight in marvelous Doctrines therefore as they pretend that Faith and Newness of Life are effected by God in us by Means so unsutable to the Qualities produced and to the Nature of our Souls as Water Bread and Wine so they assure us farther that the written Word and Word preach'd have no Efficacy toward begetting those Effects but 't is say they the inward Word which sometimes to some and in some measure accompanying the Word written or preach'd first convinces and then reclaims Sinners For my part I would gladly know what kind of thing an inward Word is I had thought all Words had been outward Words and that otherways they could not have been called Words But be that as it will Unitarians are well satisfied that the outward Word as our Opposers are pleased to Nickname the Holy Scriptures and the Word preach'd is sufficient and effectual by the Reasons it suggesteth and the Rewards and Penalties it proposeth to convince and reform our Reasonable Natures and that otherways they were not Reasonable but Brutish Natures This is not ours but the Doctrine of Holy Scripture and that in as express and clear Terms as can be devised First as to the Efficacy of the written Word 2 Tim. 3.15 Thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto Salvation Then for the Word taught after St. Paul had said Rom. 10.14 How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher He makes this Conclusion at ver 17. So then Faith cometh by Hearing And is it not indeed a very strange Paradox of these Gentlemen that the Wisdom of God should make use of a Means that produceth they say no Effect If the outward Word produceth no Effect in him that hears or reads we might as well have been bid to tell twenty in order to the getting Faith and subduing our Lusts as to hear and meditate of God's Word And if that be indeed the case 't is very surprizing that God should expostulate after such an angry manner with lazy and negligent Pastors and should so heartily rouze up others as 't is undeniable he doth Isa 56.10 They are dumb Dogs that cannot bark sleeping lying down loving to slumber Isa 58.1 Cry aloud spare not lift up thy Voice like a Trumpet shew my People their Transgressions and the House of Israel their Sins 1 Cor. 9.16 Necessity is laid upon me and wo unto me if I preach not the Gospel What needed any thing of all this if the outward Word is nothing and 't is only the inward Word which is not in the least tied to the other that only can and does produce the desired Effect About interpreting Holy Scripture IF it be asked how it comes to pass that we differ so widely from the Hereticks about the Doctrines specified in the foregoing Paragraphs while both we and they pretend Holy Scripture to be our Rule and the sole Judg of Controversies and Questions about Religion The Answer is at hand even this That Hereticks being Men of some Wit and Learning and withal carnal are hereupon puffed up are too proud to submit themselves to God's Revelation but only as bowed and subdued to their Reason But 't is all Mens Duty in a Clash between Revelation and Reason whether real or only seeming to submit Reason to Revelation and not subject Divine Revelation to Human Reason 'T is unpardonable Boldness in any to dislike the express words or evident sense of Holy Scripture because our Reason cannot fathom the depths of that Divine Book If I would believe the Doctrine there set down were it not for the Contradiction made to it by Human Reason I am not a Christian otherways than in Name if I do not receive such Doctrine with an implicit Faith without seeking to elude or to correct it by Reason And it is upon this Hinge that all our Controversies with these Hereticks do turn whether we are to follow the express words and obvious natural sense of Holy Scripture or whether we are to interpret Scripture by Reason so as to fly to a Figurative Sense or even to a Catachrestical i. e. somewhat harsh Construction or Interpretation rather than admit any Doctrine that is contrary to Reason The Notes Unitarians think that a real Clash between Revelation and Reason is an absurd Supposition but if we must put that impossible case we think 't is clear that Human Reason must needs be subjected to Divine Revelation But where the Clash is only seeming that is where there are ways of reconciling them as by so interpreting the Revelation as to make it agree with Reason we think 't is as absurd to oppose as Trinitarians do these two Lights to one another we think in that case we ought to use the Expedient of Interpretation If the Interpretation must be made either by a Figurative Sense or by somewhat Catachrestical harsh Construction yet 't is always better to strain Words than Things and there are particular Reasons why we ought so to do in interpreting Holy Scripture and all Interpreters of all Perswasions do it with Approbation of All. Yet this is a thing on which I will not here insist tho it deserveth great Consideration because this is not as Trinitarians pretend our Case or Quarrel with them or the Hinge on which these Controversies turn For we utterly deny that the express Words or the obvious natural Sense of Holy Scripture are on the Trinitarian side we never fly in these Controversies to a Catachrestical or harsh sense no nor have at any time need of a Figurative Sense as hath been sufficiently shown in the brief History of the Vnitarians Trinitarians indeed are forced to those Expedients I do not call them Shifts because 't is plain they must be sometimes allowed not only in interpreting Holy Scripture but in all other Writers and Writings But seeing themselves are forced to use very often those ways of interpreting especially in interpreting the Gospel of St. John and the most part of St. Paul's Epistles they have no right to object such kind of interpreting to Unitarians if indeed we had occasion for it The CONCLVSION THese things have not been said God is Witness to challenge much less to affront other Sects and Denominations of Christians and least of all the Church of England From which Church the Unitarians have not separated as other Dissenters for small and inconsiderable Causes have done We place not Religion in worshipping God by our selves or after a particular Form or Manner but in a right Faith and a just and charitable Conversation We approve of known Forms of praising and praying to God as also in administring Baptism the Lord's-Supper Marriage and the other Religious Offices we like well of the Discipline of the Church by Bishops and Parochial Ministers we have an Esteem for the eminent Learning and exemplary Piety of the Conforming Clergy For these Reasons we communicate with that Church as far as we can and contribute our Interest to favour her against all others who would take the Chair We would not therefore be understood to be Enemies to the Church or as seeking to undermine her Our whole Pretence is this to reform our FAITH by the Rule of Holy Scripture in consistence with evident REASON And the design of this Pretence or Endeavour of ours next to approving our own Souls to God our Judg is to vindicate the common Christianity from the Insults of Atheists or other profane Persons to take from such all just Exception against the most holy and wise Body of Laws that the World ever had or can have even the Christian Religion By making it appear to be a most rational and consistent System as well in the Credenda the Things to be believed as in the Agâ—â—â—a or Things to be done We think this 〈◊〉 such a Design as ought not to be entertaâ—â—â—â— with those Jealousies and aspersed 〈◊〉 those Calumnies and Clamours that are every day raised against us both by the Pulpit and Prâ—ss We hope that the Reasons of our Dissent from the Church in these Doctrines being once known and well considered and the Honesty of our Design in publishing them apparent our Fellow-Christians will less regret our Difference with them about these Questions and will at length acknowledg that however we are mistaken yet we are well-meaning Brethren Thou Father who governest in the Kingdoms of the Children of Men continue to us All the Means of rightly knowing Thee and of living up to the Precepts of the Gospel that we may All at length receive of thee the Inheritance incorruptible undefiled that fades not away reserved in Heaven for us FINIS