SOME Men have such a peculiar Talent at Insolence and ill §. 1. Language, that it is difficult for a modest Person, or one who would observe the common Rules of good Manners, to give them a meet Answer. In the Rank of such Writers I am sor­ry I must place the late Apologist. I could have wished, upon many Ac­counts, that in the Reflections he has been pleased to make on my Paper, he had, for his own sake as well as mine, used more Temper. Reproach and Scorn is an easy way of confuting: And 'tis not without Difficulty that humane Nature forbears rendring an angry or disdainful Reply to haughty and ill-natur'd Answers. In such case, Calcare fastum majori fastu, seems to too many a Point of Justice; but I shall not esteem it so, desiring to pardon such Practice in others, rather than in my self. Com­posing therefore my Mind, and quitting, as near as I am able, all Passi­on and Self-love, over-looking the Contempt, and many of the Indigni­ties and false Imputations, yea and some (at least seemingly) malicious Insinuations to those in Authority, which he has thought fit to print a­gainst me, I shall return nothing but the Words of Truth and Soberness, without Cavil, or even Contradiction, any further than Justice requires: Only because an accused Person cannot ordinarily make his Defence, un­less he be admitted as well to discover and complain of the Wrong done him, as to deny and disprove; and being that the fairest Laws of Dispute allow, as occasion offers, to retort upon the Adversary his own Objecti­ons; these things I must demand to be lawful for me: which Liberty being granted me, I shall endeavour, without warm Water, to wipe off the Dirt that Mr. Dean has cast upon me.

Whereas therefore he is pleased to charge me with want of School-Divinity, (touching which I shall say more anon) I who have no great [Page 2] Confidence or Opinion of my own Learning in any kind, but am an Ad­mirer of all kinds of useful Learning, where-ever I find it, would have been glad to have had occasion for Admiration at his Skill in the more useful Part of the Divinity of the Schools, I mean in their Morals; which had his Reverence better read, or better remembred, he would not have defended his fine new Notions with Calumny. The Angelical Doctor, and the several Commentators on his Text, would have taught him bet­ter [ Non licitum esse calumniose se defendere] 2dâ 2dae qu. 69. a 2. The Dean's way of dealing with me, enforces me so particularly to cite the Place, lest hereafter again he should take occasion to tell the World, as so often he does in other Cases, with equal Truth and Modesty, that I have not read the Author.

With a Plea of this Nature (I mean calumnious) it is that he begins what he calls his Apology for writing against the Socinians, excusing himself for his long Silence (more truly the Impossibility of the thing) in not vindicating his late Vindication. His Excuse is a Pretence of a long and patient Expectation what the learned Writers of some Controversies at present would bring forth; and the learned Writers he will have to be the Character given by me of the Socinians. How far he is sincere in this Pre­tence of Patience, I will not venture so much as to guess; but his own Conscience tells him, and God, who is not mocked, knows. As to his pretending that by the late learned Writers of Controversies I mean the So­cinians; not to expose him for this as an Excuse doubly wanting Art, (first in the Choice of it, then in the putting it off with no better a Gloss) it lies grosly open, and whosoever runs and reads may see the Prevaricati­on: I take it as a wilful Mistake, and in a word, a down-right Calumny. I prove it a Mistake by solemnly protesting I meant no such thing: and surely to this my Protestation, Belief cannot be denied; for could a Man have so little Sense as to desire the Socinians not to write against them­selves? And I prove it a wilful Mistake by his own Text; for after he has said twice, ( pag. 1. lin. 2. & p. 2. l. 4.) that I meant the Socinians by those Terms, he as in the same Breath ( p. 2. l. 10.) complains, himself and Dr. Wallis to be more immediately concerned in this Suit for For­bearance. This last he spoke true, and knew it to be so: Therefore the other is a wilful Mistake, or what I will not name. And again, he cites and repeats, p. 24. a different Character I gave the Socinians, whom I represented not as learned; and as far as I know any of them, I have found them rather to affect the Reputation of Religious Simplicity than Learning. Now though I acknowledg Dr. Sherlock and Dr. Wallis (I should for all Reasons, except that of Preferments, have said Dr. Wallis and Dr. Sherlock) to be learned Writers: Yet God forbid I should insinu­ate [Page 3] to the World touching them, (what one of them has done touching me) that they are Socinians. Further, if he had had any Thoughts that hereby I meant the Socinians, why does he tax me ( p. 18.) for not tel­ling the Socinians what Injuries they do by their writing in this Contro­versy. If this Term be interpreted equally to belong to both Sides, I have told one as much as the other of the Mischief they do. This then, because it is said falsly (and contrary to his own Sense) against me: And further (as far as I can perceive) with a Design to render me odious, or to confute my Paper by drawing its Author under Reproach, as an Ex­toller and Applauder of Socinians; I challenge as a Calumny, and say it is such a Defence as shews no Skill in School-Divinity, nor in the fair Laws of Disputation.

By this Beginning it may easily be guessed what Candour and Sincerity I am treated with in the Progress, Body, and even Conclusion of his Apo­logy. Waving therefore many Instances of like Disingenuity, I shall, as a fit Preparatory to all Particulars, present here the main State of the Cause betwixt us.

The Author of the Suit for Forbearance had desired that the Disputes §. 2. touching the Controversies of the Holy Trinity, might be at present let alone till fit Time and Place. What he meant by fit Time and Place, he will shew anon: And to perswade to this he had said, This particular Controversy is of all others at present most unreasonable, most dangerous, and most unseasonable. And as he took the Name of the melancholy Stander-by, merely to insinuate a peaceable Temper, so he endeavoured to write as a Peace-maker; and to that purpose would appear under the fittest Qualification of such, namely, as a Person violent on neither side: notwithstanding he conceives, in what he wrote, there is much more Tenderness shewn, and more said in favour of the establish'd Church, of which he all along in his Discourse professes himself (what he really and cordially is) a Member, than the most uncharitable Logick can force from any thing he has said, or desired, in reference to the Socinians.

And where is the Mischief of all this? Is it Treason in Divinity, or is it Heresy, to move for Peace, at least for a Truce, till both Parties are calmed, and may calmly treat? This was most plainly all that that Au­thor designed or moved for: And he is so far from repenting his Motion, notwithstanding the Treatment he has received, that he now renews it, and thinks in Conscience he ought so to do; he beseeches, as upon his Knees, that Protestants agreeing in the common Rule of a holy Life, (the sure way to Heaven) and keeping to the Holy Scripture, and the common Creed, usually called the Apostles, as the Summary of Faith contained in Scripture, would give over making Hereticks of one another: That those [Page 4] who have private Opinions of their own, different from what is common­ly accounted and called Orthodox, would keep their Singularities to themselves; ( Hast thou Faith? have it to thy self:) that if any have so little Temper as to contend for private Opinions, others at present would either for the sake of Peace and Holiness, wink at the Errors and impo­tent Spirits of such Men, or at least not exaggerate, at this Juncture of Time, any Points in Difference amongst us. He declares himself, not to be without Hopes that Posterity may, in no long Time, find some Ex­pedients for uniting Protestants; though it be true many things must first be done preliminary hereto. If he be mistaken in these his Sentiments, prove him so, and then call him imprudent, weak, shallow in his Judg­ment, Counsels, and Opinion of things, unfit to say any thing by way of publick Advice, and what else of that Nature you please. This, in such case, would be a just and modest Reprehension of him, and what I am sure the Man will meekly take. But to make him black and odious by all Arts, and to talk of reforming him out of the Church for his peaceable Desires and Well-meaning, is imperious beyond Measure, and what another would call Tyrannical, (nor will he name what Spirit it bespeaks) especially when the great Argument, or Foundation of all, against what he has said, is no better than a Petitio Principii, or taking for granted the prime Matter in question, namely, that the Doctrine of the Trinity as Dr. Sherlock has stated, and does defend it, is a Funda­mental of the Christian Faith. This the Dean in his Apology has not offered one Word to prove; but quitting his Adversaries, and shutting both Eyes and Ears against all that has been said against his Novelties on this Subject, violently falls upon exposing the peaceable Man, which was indeed much the easier Project; but whether either Christian or Honoura­ble, the World will judg.

The melancholy Stander-by had asserted in his 7th Page, the Doctrine of the Trinity, as duly stated, to be one of the Fundamentals of Christian Religion. And it is most plain, by what he propounds as the Medium of Peace, that the stating it according to Scripture, and in Scripture-Lan­guage, he esteems the most due stating it: the Dean likes not this, says it is a Proposal of old Hereticks, and not only would have the Philosophical Terms, now a long time usual in this Point, received for Peace-sake, but as Fundamental in Faith: Nay, and not content herewith, he gives new Definitions of, or affixes new Notions to these Terms, and would have all pass upon us still under the Colour of Fundamentals. The melancholy Stander-by (to speak the whole Truth) neither could nor can admit ei­ther of these, namely, either that Philosophical Terms, never used by Scripture, and besides of various Use or uncertain Signification, should [Page 5] be made Fundamentals of Faith; or that the Doctor's new Explication of them should pass at all; and his Reasons may perhaps appear anon. But in what he writ he express'd not this his Dissent, so as to contest ei­ther of these Points: Only as he would not enter into the Controversy himself, so he desired (chiefly by reason of the Mischief he thought he saw arising from thence) it might be at present forborn by all; and he is still as willing as ever to decline engaging on either Point, only in his own Defence, against what the Dean has endeavoured to load him with; he must now say, that if any should join Issue with the Dean upon the first Article of the Nicene Creed, I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD, &c. which is a Fundamental, and the true Catholick and Apostolick Faith: It will soon appear that Dr. Sherlock has in his Book contradicted, and to his Power overthrown that Faith, as much as ever Johannes Philoponus, or Joachim the So the Text of the Decretal stiles him. Florentine Abbot, [or as others, the Abbot of Floria or Flency] the two greatest and most antient Leaders of the Tritheists ordi­narily assigned, ever did: for according to the best Accounts of them, neither of these expresly maintained more Gods than one, nay they ex­presly disclaimed such Assertion; only they so taught the Nature and Di­stinction of three Persons, as that their Doctrine inferred three Gods: from which Charge the Invention of mutual Consciousness will never clear Dr. Sherlock' s Definition of a Person in the Godhead; for such Consci­ousness, whatever he says to the contrary, can infer only an Ʋnity of Ac­cord, not of Substance and Nature; whereas it is an Unity of Substance and Nature that the Council and Fathers have held: but these things re­quire more Words than the present Design admits.

To make the Sum of my Sentiments (or what I would be at) plainer. §. 3. The holy Scripture states the Trinity under the Notion of Three bearing witness in Heaven, (for I have much more to say for that exagitated Text than to allow it wanting in any Copies on any other Reason but their Im­perfection) and affirms these three one; but how they are one it deter­mines not: And Faith being a Belief of the Witness of God, and Bap­tism a Seal or Badg of Faith; when we are baptized, we are baptized [...], into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as own­ing and assenting to, or professing and vowing to acquiesce in their Wit­ness touching all the whole Will of God, and Method of Salvation pub­lished in the Gospel. This is Scripture, and here the melancholy Stander­by would stop as to Faith in this Point of the Trinity. To the Incarna­tion there is yet no occasion to speak.

The Fathers in the Council of Nice did not (as far as ever I could per­ceive by any genuine Monuments of theirs) vote the Term three Persons, the Incarnation of the Son of God, or his Divinity, (though made Man) [Page 6] was the Controversy before them, rather than the Trinity; and the great Product of that Council was the word ( Homoousion) in Assertion of the Son's being of the same Substance with the Father: But the Greek Fathers of that Age did soon use the word [...], (which in this Case is most aptly rendred Subsistence) and contend for three [...], or Subsistences. Now as to the common Definition of [...] ( in divinis) that is, to my best Memory, pretended to be taken out of Justin Martyr, by Da­mascen, a Father of much latter Age: I said to my best Memory; for my Condition is such at present, and has been such upward of four Years, that I am without the Use of the best part of my Books, and now near 150 English Miles distant from a Library: Yet I thank God I am Master of Justin and Damascen more ways than one, (be it spoken without Af­front to Dr. Sherlock in case of my having read other Books) I had read them near two and thirty Years ago. But to return to the Definition spoken of, as now I take it out of my old (perhaps too imperfect) Notes, runs thus: ‘In the Holy Trinity an Hypostasis is an unbegun (or if the [...] Damas­ [...]en. Dialectic. cap. ult. Word may be pardoned, a beginningless) manner of the eternal Ex­istence of each [that is of Father, Son and Holy Ghost.]’ So that ac­cording to this Author, it superadds nothing to the Divine Essence, which is one and common to all the three, save a bare manner of Existence or Subsistence. Only by the way I must note, as to the Authority of that Piece in the Works of Justin Martyr, whence this Definition comes, namely, the Expositio rectae fidei; it is sufficiently proved by Scultetus, Rivet and others, to be none of Justin's genuine Works.

The Latin Fathers which came soon upon the Heels of the Council, and of the Greek Fathers above spoken of, suspected this Word Hyposta­sis, (and St. Jerome particularly) contended there was Poison under the [...]n Epistol. ad Damas. Tom. 2. Honey, and boggled at it. St. Austin acknowledges he understood not the Difference the Greeks designed between [...] and [...], (that is in our present Language, between Essence and Subsistence) But because, says he, according to our Custom of Speech, Essence and Substance are all one, [...]e Trinitat. [...]b. 5. in fine [...]apitis 8, & cap. 9. therefore we dare not say one Essence three Substances, but one Essence or Substance, and three Persons. So that when they laid aside Hypostasis, they introduced a Term equivalent, and perhaps more ambiguous, name­ly, Persona; and then said there were three Persons in one Essence: Yet at the same time St. Austin acknowledgeth the Use of this Term impro­per, and that it was Necessity drove them to it; they used this Word for [...]agna prorsus [...]opia huma­ [...] laborat [...]quium. Dictum est tamen tres personae, non ut illud diceretur, sed ne taceretur. Non enim rei [...]bilis eminentia hoc vocabulo explicare valet. Cap. 9. want of a better: The Father, saith he, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are truly three: But when it is demanded, three what? humane [Page 7] Speech is defective; notwithstanding we have said three Persons, not that strictly we mean or intend to say this, but lest we should be silent, and say nothing; for the Transcendency of the ineffable Matter cannot be express'd by this Word. And again more fully in his seventh Book, proving the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to be one, because the Father is Wisdom, the Son Wisdom, and the Holy Ghost Wisdom; and in God to be wise, is the same as to be, and to be the same, as to be God: Therefore, says he, for expressing what is inexpressible, that we may speak in some measure, what we cannot speak out, the Itaque loquendi causâ de ineffa­bilibus, ut fari aliquo modo posse­mus, quod effari nullo modo possu­mus, dictum est à nostris Graecis, una Essentia, tres Substantiae: a La­tinis autem, una Essentia, tres Per­sonae. Et ut intelligatur in aenig­mate quod dicitur placuit, ita dici, ut aliquid diceretur. Ut quaerere­tur quid tria sunt, quid tres confe­rimus nos ad inveniendum aliquid speciale vel generale nomen, quo complectamus haec tria; neque oc­currit animo, quia excedit super­eminentia divinitatis usitati eloquii facultatem. Cap. 3, & 4. Grecian Christians have said one Essence, three Sub­stances [that is, Subsistences:] and the Latins, one Essence, three Persons: And that what we say may be understood [at least] in a Riddle; we thought it good thus it should be said, that something might be said. When it is required what these three are, we apply our selves to find out some special or general Name where­by we may comprize all the three: nor does there any oc­cur to our Thoughts, because the Transcendency of the Divinity exceeds the Faculty of usual Speech. He goes on to the Effect following: ‘If we take these three, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, we can find some­what common, which they all have, and say they are three Men: but touching Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we cannot say they are three Fathers, or three Sons [nor indeed three Gods,] what therefore are the three?’ Three Persons. By all which it is plain they used this word Persons, not because it was proper, but because the Speculation was run so fine that they knew not what else, or what less improper to say. And let this suffice in my present Penury of Books, as to the Fathers, who of old either first introduced, or by their Use first au­thorized ( in divinis) this Term, three Persons, or a Trinity of Persons.

As to the Sense of the School-Doctors, touching the word Persona in this Controversy, I must speak chiefly out of my Memory, having besides the Master of the Sentences, and some imperfect pieces of others, only St. Thomas's Sum at hand, in which Work he is somewhat brief on this Term: Yet even therein when he concludes it convenient that the Name Person be used touching God, he does it with this Limitation, that it be Conveniens est ut hoc nomen persona de Deo dicitur; non tamen eodem modo quo di­citur de Crea­turis. not used (or which is the same, understood) after the same manner as it is of the Creatures. But I do avow it, and will be bound to produce Testi­monies enough, as soon as I can come at Books, that it is both his Do­ctrine, and the common Doctrine of his Followers, that the word Per­son, when used touching God and the Creatures, is not taken in the same [Page 8] equal or univocal Sense, but only by way of Proportion: and as to the man­ner Persona de Deo & Creaturis non dici univo­ce sed analogi­ce. of signifying and Imposition of the Name, it first and more properly agrees to the Creatures.

As to Protestant Divines also, for the Reasons above touched I must be sparing in their Numbers; but I am sure the Systematists ordinarily assign either four or five Differences in the Use of the Word, when attributed to God and to the Creature: And I find by me in my Notes, this Pas­sage, which I long since transcribed out of Zanchy, a judicious and learn­ed Calvinist: In the Creatures one Person is not only Una Persona [creata ex contex­tu precedente supplenda] ab altera non tam distincta quam etiam dis­juncta est; at proinde diversae sunt inter se substantiae, licet unius natu­rae. In Deo una Persona ab altera distincta quidem est, sed disjuncta esse non porest, &c. De tribus E­lohim, Parte 2da. lib. 1. c. 3. distinct from the other, but disjoined and separate; so that the Substances are divers, though the Nature one: But in God one Person is indeed distinct from the other, but cannot be disjoined, and therefore the Divine Per­sons are not only of the same Nature, (for so are hu­mane Persons) but of the same Essence. Nay, they so subsist in the same Essence, that they are indeed no­thing else but that Essence. Somewhat very near this the Doctor, to do him Justice, more than once or twice expresly says in his Book, I mean, in his Vindication of the Holy Trinity (viz.) p. 47, 67, 104, &c. that they are distinct, not separate: but then he in effect unsays all again much oftner: and that both by his Definition of a Person, in divinis, and in those other Passages of his, produced by me in my Pa­per, ( p. 14.) and by many other Passages, which I might transcribe from him. For my own part, I am not able to excuse him from contradicting himself over and over, most plainly, in the Space of a dozen Lines, in one of the Pages now cited, ( viz. 67. of his Vindication;) for first he acknowledges, ‘These three Divine Persons are not separate Minds, as created Spirits are, but only distinct: each Person has a Self-conscious­ness of his own, and knows and feels it self (if I may so speak) as di­stinct from the other Divine Persons. The Father has a Self-conscious­ness of his own, whereby he knows and feels himself to be the Father, and not the Son nor Holy Ghost: And the Son in like manner feels him­self to be the Son, and not the Father, nor the Holy Ghost: And the Holy Ghost feels himself to be the Holy Ghost, and not the Father nor the Son;’ as James feels himself to be James, and not Peter nor John. I say then, if the Father hath a Self-consciousness of his own, whereby he knows and feels himself to be the Father, and not the Son, nor the Holy Ghost, as James feels himself to be James and not Peter, &c. then both is he separate from the Son and Holy Ghost, and his Self-consciousness also separate from the Self-consciousness of each the other. And again, if the Father, Son and Spirit, feel himself to be himself, and not the [Page 9] other, as James feels himself to be James, and not Peter nor John; then must each feel himself separate from the other: For 'tis manifest to me, that in knowing and feeling my self not to be Peter nor James, I know and feel my self separate, severed, or several from them. Nay it is by knowing and feeling my self separate, that I know and feel my self distinct. If therefore the Father knows and feels himself distinct from the Son, and from the Holy Ghost, as we Men know our selves distinct from one another, he then must know and feel himself se­parate also unavoidably, or else he does not know and feel himself distinct as we do. He must therefore upon this Hypothesis be separate as well as distinct from the other: Besides, three infinite Minds (as he there, and p. 50. and so onwards, most frequently and familiarly stiles the three Per­sons) and one infinite Mind, that is, three sames, and not three sames, are to me an unavoidable Contradiction: But it had been at least no Con­tradiction to have said, one infinite Mind, or a Substance, may have three manners of Subsisting, or three several Relations, which was the old way of speaking; and which if it had been kept to, the melancholy Stander-by had forborn his Suit. That ancient Notion of a Divine Person is more consistent, and much less obnoxious; though how far satisfactory it may be to all Men, he disputes not: however he does account it to be the com­mon Orthodox Doctrine, now many hundred Years received. And here he would have our Divines to stop, as a common Boundary, for Peace: and his Reason is, because here our Articles which were (as is said in the very Title of them) agreed upon for the avoiding of Diversities of Opi­nions, and for the establishing Consent touching Religion, do stop; ex­pressing only, or stating to us the Doctrine of three Persons in the Terms, wherein from old Times it has been delivered down; and therefore in all Likelihood designing only the old Sense. This is but more clearly and explicitely what the Suit for Forbearance desired of Dr. Sherlock and other present Writers in this Controversy. Wherefore upon the whole, how just in this Case the Imputation of a disguised Heretick, of a Man spite­ful against the Cause and Persons who maintain it; a Wolf in Sheeps clothing, and like Characters fastned upon the Author of it, are, God will judg if the World do not. Had I either disputed against the old Notion, or assigned any new one, or ventured at new and dangerous Explications, as some have done, Mr. Dean had had some Colour for thus treating me: But sith I have not, I must tax this Language also as downright Calumny.

But to come off from this querulous Parenthesis; Dr. Sherlock would not, or did not, stop here, as is apparent by what I have transcribed actu­ally out of his Book; however he tells the World, I did not read it. In [Page 10] which Imputation I will frankly acknowledg every tittle of Truth there is, namely, I had not, when I writ, read his Book all over; for it was ta­ken out of my Lodging (without my Knowledg or Consent) before I had done with it; and perhaps the Doctor has no Reason to complain of that Mischance: But I had looked over all, and carefully read a great part, taken Notes out of it, as will appear by my Adversaria of that Month, yea indeed transcribed much more than I alledged: And I alledged not, as the Dean (to the end he might shuffle off a distinct Answer to me, and the Vin­dication of his Novelties) is pleased to stile them, broken Passages out of Pag. 30. his Book, but intire Definitions and Propositions, which contained the Substance of this Hypothesis, as he stiles it. And I do affirm, the Do­ctor, in what I so cited, ( p. 14, & 15. of my Paper) has gone most plainly beyond and contrary to the Doctrine both of the Fathers, Schools, and Protestant Divines. And in his Apology he seems to have gone be­yond himself: For he at least four times calls our Lord Jesus, a God in­carnate, p. 4, 26, 27, 31. Now if the Son be a God incarnate, then the Father is a God not incarnate: And the same ought to be said, according to this way of speaking, of the Holy Ghost: Nay it is actually said by him in these Words, [ This Confession proves the Holy Ghost a God, Vind. p. 190. lin. ult.] I say then, if there be a God, and a God, and a God, unavoidably there must be three Gods. And this is the very Absurdity the Socinians would reduce their Adversaries to: Therefore the Doctor so defends the Mystery of the Trinity, or so confutes Heresy, as to run in­to the very same Absurdity to which his Adversaries would reduce him, which I hope we may say, without Offence, is most unreasonable, most dangerous, and at present most unseasonable, the thing charged by the Melancholy Stander-by. This the Doctor might have evaded, had he been content to have taken up with the old Acceptation or Definition of a Person in divinis; or to have spoken with Scripture, Jesus Christ is God manifest in the Flesh; or if that must not suffice, as is usual, God incar­nate: But the adding an individuating Particle [ a] to the Name of that common Essence [ God], and then predicating that Name so determined, touching the three Persons, as it reduces the Subjects touching which it is predicated, into the Rank of common Individuals; so it leaves the Essence, when taken without that individuating Particle, in the Rank of a common Species: And so contrary to the constant Doctrine even of the Schools, God shall be predicated of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, as a Species of Individuals; as Man is of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom all acknowledg to have been three Men: and as much must the Father, Son and Holy Ghost be three Gods: Which if it be not most grievous Heresy, [Page 11] and particularly the Heresy of [...] Which my Author says is con­trary to the Doctrine of Greg. Naz. the great Divine. Niceph. Callist. Hist. lib. 18. cap. 48. Philoponus, I must confess I know not what is. I do not say the Dean believes three Gods, God forbid I should; but I do avow, he has said what necessarily infers three Gods: I hope therefore, according to his Promise, ( p. 11.) he will thankfully correct this Absurdity, and not blush to recant an Error.

§. 4. After this my general Vindication, I am now to descend to the Particulars I am charged with.

And first he charges me (in Effect in his Title-page) but more ex­presly in Pag. 2. and in other Places, that I desired no Body would write against Socinians. Whatsoever my Intent was, of which I think he wants the Gift of discerning Spirits to capacitate him for being a Judg; I am sure he can never prove this Charge from my Paper; in which the only Controversy mentioned was that of the Trinity, and possibly some of its Subdivisions. Now it is notorious, (1) That the Socinians are not the only Persons Heterodox in these Points. (2) That these are not the only Points in which they are Heterodox: There are also divers others, in which I believe in my Conscience, they grievously err. The Doctor then might have written against the Socinians, and not meddle with the Doctrine of the Trinity. Therefore when I desired the Controversy of the Trinity might for the present be sorborn, I did not desire that no Bo­dy should write against the Socinians.

The next Touch at me, which I will remark, is, if I am a Divine of Apol. pag. 2. the Church of England, why should I profess (he means stile) my self a Stander-by? I answer, perhaps I was not so conceited of my Skill at the Weapon as others are: But admit I had been, must every one that thinks he has found out some new Pass or Guard, draw presently upon the next Man he meets begirt with a Sword? Should all of the Doctor's Degree, or mine, have written on that Subject, where had been the End of Books? I was therefore, on this Account, as well as in the Sense before mention­ed, a Stander-by; and on how many Scores melancholy, it is too long and too sad to recount: I heartily pray neither Mr. Dean, nor any other Christian, may have like Reason.

But he is always very jealous of Men who are so tender of the wrong Side. It is evident indeed to any who reads my Paper, I have express'd there­in a Tenderness, (1) For the Church of England and the Nicene Faith. (2) For the Credit of the Reformation. (3) For Peace and Holiness. Is any, or are all these the wrong Side? As to his Observation, which he tells us he has made, and which he subjoins, touching Mens Tender­ness being due to their Inclinations, he may keep these his profound poli­tick [Page 12] Notes for better Purpose. I own my Inclination to the three Points mentioned, and wish the same both in him and in all Members of our Church.

As to his perverting my peaceable Assertions, and making them what he pleases, by odious That is's, in the two next Paragraphs, and a multitude of other Places: These are such open disingenuous Arts, that I will only note them; and having told my Reader, that this is his common way of dealing with me, to the end he may cast Reproach and a publick Hate upon me, I will concern my self to answer only to the more material Points, or to the Gross of the Res substrata, which he imputes to me.

I confess my self an Enemy to such open Disputes between Protestants, §. 5. as only publish to the common Enemies the Divisions of the Protestants. Nor do I find the Reformers to have been (whatever Mr. Dean says) for such Disputings: nor that the voluntary Disputings of unauthorized Per­sons have ever suppressed, but rather revived old Heresies. How I would have those who should write in this Controversy authorized, I will anon set down: In the mean time I come to that Latitude and Simplicity wherein I suppose Christian Faith was delivered, and wherein I would have Pag. 3, &c. it left; which Mr. Dean will not understand: And first he would gladly know what I mean by the Latitude of Faith.

Now because he seems to be at a great deal of Pains here to mistake me, (another Man would have said to blunder) I will tell him, that Latitude here is a metaphorical Term; and I will not be so exact as to suppose it translated to our purpose either from Astronomy or Geography, but taking it meerly for one of the triple Dimensions of Bodies, apply it by way of Similitude to that Extent of Signification, which Terms of any Proposi­tion may naturally both in themselves, and in their Dependance on Pre­cedents and Subsequents, admit.

All Men who have read and considered, do know that the same Words may carry with them different Notions; and that the Compass of those different Notions, though it be bounded by the common Import of the Words, yet does often times include divers Specialties in it: And this I affirm as to the Propositions of Faith, both in Holy Scripture, and even in the Apostles Creed it self. As to the latter, I instance in that Clause, He descended into Hell; our Divines have told us, it admits three or four Though it be a Christian's Duty to believe every Article of this Creed, I conceive the agreeing upon some one Sense, wherein to interpret every Article of it, is not so absolutely necessary: but that some one of them may be taken in a LATITƲDE, and either not determined to any one Interpretation, or resolved to be capable of more. Practic. Cat. lib. 5. §. 2. Senses: Dr. Hammond himself allows two; and whosoever understands and believes it in either of those Senses, though he should haply doubt or distrust the other of them, is not guilty either of Heresy or Unbelief: [Page 13] No, nor (supposing that by Contention he divide not the Church or him­self from it) is he to be taxed with Schism. Now to leave Faith in the Latitude in which it was delivered, is to impose no Determinations of such Words or Expressions as necessary to Salvation, but to allow each Per­son to believe the Matter propounded in one of those Senses, whatever it be, which the Words naturally bear, and which in his Conscience he judges the truest. And this Allowance I particularly demand as to the Point in hand, as set down, 1 John 5. 7. And such Allowance in this, as well as in other disputed Points, would, I say, soon reduce Controver­sies amongst Protestants to a very small Compass, at least the Heats in managing them would cease.

Then as to what I mean by Simplicity, he says, I leave it to guess. Is this then a Word of Difficulty; or is this Phrase, the Simplicity of Faith, unusual and uncertain? But when no Exception else could be found, Nodus in scirpo must be pretended. Take then, good Mr. Dean, the Simplicity of Faith in what Sense your good Nature can; yea, should you take it even for Foolishness it self, (which none can think I intended) the first Chapter of the first to the Corinthians would in a sort justify the Expression. But by Simplicity I meant here, as all who are not wilfully blind will understand me, Plainness, Ʋnmixedness, Purity. I would not have so much of Philosophy vamp'd into Faith: And I am not of the Mind of that Cardinal, that we should have been to seek for sundry Articles of our Faith, had it not been for Aristotle; and (though I love him much better) I will add, for Plato either.

But here I must answer (once for all) as to my Displeasure with the §. 6. Pag. 4. School-Doctors. Pray what Hurt have they done, says Mr. Dean? I could give a certain Reason, for which I might say perhaps, they have done him little. But I will rather give him two other Answers; one I hope he will not except against, because it is his own: They sometimes mistake the Fathers Sense, whom they pretend to follow, or clog it with some pecu­liar Niceties of their own; by which Means this Mystery has been confound­ed; Vind. p. 138. And again, p. 139. Though I do not think it impossi­ble to give a tolerable Account of the School-terms and Distinctions, yet that is a Work of greater Difficulty [...]an Ʋse. This we must take for a fair Specimen of Mr. Dean's great Skill and Reading in the School-Doctors. But my own Answer is, the Writings of the School-men, or rather that Vein of Study and Dispute which they have brought into the Church of God, turning the whole Body of Christianity into nice and too curious (many times idle) Questions, and resolving these in the difficultest Phi­losophical Terms, and so running all to thin Metaphysical Distinctions, has made Religion mostly a Business of Speculation and Wit. The En­deavour. [Page 14] of Subtilty has very much eaten out the Heart and Vitals of Chri­stianity; raised fruitless Contentions, bitter Envyings, endless Schisms and Parties in the Church; destroyed in a great measure the Love of God and all good Affection, and debauch'd Faith it self, for the main, into Opinion or Scepticism. This is my Answer further; I do aver the Do­ctrine of the Blessed Trinity is dishonoured and exposed by their Questions and Disputes of it: And particularly, as to the Master of the Sentences, with whom the Dean will not allow me to be intimately acquainted, I Pag. 17. say, that had I used severer Language touching him than that, what Stuff has he in his first Book made of this Doctrine by too much Subtil­ty, and too nice Enquiries, the Matter would justly have born it. And for a Proof hereof, If I should run through all, I must transcribe in a manner his whole first Book: Let it therefore suffice of such Stuff, as I justly called it, to give only a Taste. Methinks these that follow are not seemly Questions to be put, inquired into, or disputed, touching the in­finite incomprehensible Majesty, Creator and Lord of all. I will not therefore turn them into English; Ʋtrum Pater voluntate genuerit filium, Distinct. VI. an necessitate? & an volens vel nolens sit Deus? And it is resolved that the Word of God is the Son of God, by Nature, and not by his Will: There­fore it should seem without his Will, and so the Father, God and a Fa­ther unwillingly. The Unsoundness of this Resolution see in Danae [...]'s Censure on it. The next Question is no more reverent; An Pater potue­rit Dist. VII. vel voluerit gignere filium? Et an hoc sit aliqua potentia quae sit in filio? And if the Father always had such Power and such Will, he had a Power and a Will to do something which the Son had not; and consequently the Son must not be of equal Power with the Father, nor have like Will. The Sum of the Resolution is, Filius potuit gignere, sed non oportuit. A­gain; An filius sit sapiens à seipso, vel per seipsum? And he resolves it; Non est sapiens a se, sed de Patre & à Patre: Dist. 32. E. Again; That may seem a little better touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost; Ʋtrum Spiritus sanctus priùs vel pleniùs procedat à Patre quam à Filio? Dist. XII. And, An plenius vel magis processerit à Patre quam à Filio? Now though he resolved it in the Negative, yet ( ne te perturbaret) lest this should offend any, he tells us, that the Holy Ghost proceeds principally from the Father; but he is found also to proceed from the Son: Sed hoc qu [...]que illi Pater dedit, non jam existenti & nondam habenti? Had I been Author of such a Saying as this last, what should I have heard? But who pleases may read more on the same Subject. I will conclude all this as the Master does a certain Section in one of the cited Distinctions: Sub sil [...]ntio potiùs esset praetereundum, nisi me super hoc aliquid loqui cogeret instantia quaeren­tium; which I will be content to english▪ ‘I would not have discovered [Page 15] the Master's Shame, could I have, in the Judgment of some, escaped otherwise, without the Brand of an ignorant, impudent and false Accu­ser.’ But though I will add no more of these grating Places, yet I will desire of Mr. Dean, because he professes to be able to give a tolerable Ac­count of these Mens Terms and Distinctions, to shew if he pleases his Skill in any useful Explication of the following Passages: Eadem est Potentia Dist. VII. G. Patris quâ potest esse Pater, & Filii quâ potest esse Filius. Yet he doubts not to affirm, Filii originem esse ab initio; at non ipsum esse ab initio, sed ab initiabili. And touching the Trinity and the Holy Ghost; In Trini­tate Dist. XXXII. Ae. est Dilectio quae est Trinitas, & tamen Spiritus sanctus est Dilectio quae non est Trinita [...], nec ideo duae sunt Dilectiones. Take these Assertions ei­ther singly and apart by themselves, as I designed them; or imagine that being all from one Hand, they ought to be consistent with one another, and what pretty Employment will it be to make useful Divinity, I had almost said even Sense of them? I might add hundreds more either on this or other Subjects out of the same Author, but I fear it should be said they are hard Shells without a Kernel; and truly so I long thought them; and a great deal more of other Mens Writings on this Controversy. Nor can I forbear observing by the way, that the learned, pious, holy and or­thodox Dr. Hammond could not, or did not find room so much as for one Section; nay, that I remember, not one Question and Answer for this whole Controversy in his Practical Catechism, which yet excellently in­structs us in many other Controversies wherein Holiness and Christian De­votion is concerned: But in all likelihood he judged what the Church-Ca­techism has taught thereof, out of the Creed, to be sufficient to any Chri­stian Practice which can be superstructed hereon.

Yet I must not thus conclude what I have to say for my Justification in my Reflection on the Master of the Sentences, the learned Dean being so well versed in the School-men, has certainly heard of a certain Censure or Caution to some Texts of the Masters in these Words, Magister non tene­tur: And what is that in plain English, but that on these Subjects the Master has writ so, as that his very Scholars or Partizans are ashamed of him, and not able with all their Subtilties to defend him? One of the first Articles, as I take it, to which this Note is put, is, Charitas quâ di­ligimus Deum & proximum, est Spiritus sanctus: Or, Charitas quae est amor Dei & proximi, non est aliquia Creatura: that is, ‘Charity whereby we love God and our Neighbour, is no created being, but the Holy Ghost.’ This would afford admirable Consequents: But to let them pass untouch'd; being that the Assertion it self so intimately concerns the Holy Ghost, as to pronounce, in some measure, touching his very Quid­dity, as I may so speak; and being that the Holy Ghost is the third Person [Page 16] in the Trinity, this must necessarily be acknowledged to be a very consi­derable Point in the Controversy of the Trinity. And then neither have all the Papists been very Orthodox in the Disputes a­bout As to the Orthodoxy of all the Papists, in Point of the Trinity, I would ask Mr. Dean if he never heard any thing of a Design some had of getting in, or add­ing the Blessed Virgin to the Trinity, and what a Trinity they would in such Case have made of it? Or how Orthodox that Party was in their Conceptions, ei­ther of the Deity or of that Trinity? &c. the Trinity, as Mr. Dean says, Apol. p. 23. for the Master himself advanced herein a gross heretical Proposition; nor was the melancholy Stander-by un­acquainted with the Master, when he only with a light Touch censured what the Master had troubled the World with on this Controversy. For my own part, I would be unwilling to be put upon it to defend what yet the Master asserts, and after his way endeavours to prove, in another Place, touching the Holy Ghost, that (saith he) the Holy Ghost is an Act of Love, (so I render Dilectionem) or the Love of Spiritum san­ctum Dilectio­nem esse sive amorem Patris & Filii, quo sci­licet Pater dili­git Filium, & Filius Patrem. Dist. 10. F. the Father, and of the Son, namely, wherewith the Father loveth the Son, and the Son the Father: Notwithstanding that that Distinction has no such Stricture, that I have observed, set upon it by the Scholastick Censors; and notwithstanding too that Mr. Dean has more amply explicated and espoused it, Vind. p. 130, &c. The Father, saith the Dean, is original Mind and Wisdom: The Son the Word and Wisdom of the Father, that is, the reflex Knowledg of himself, which is the perfect Image of his own Wis­dom and the Holy Ghost, that Divine Love which the Father and Son have for each other. These he calls three substantial Acts in God, so distinct as that they can never be the same. But whose will consider what Idea our Minds frame of Self-reflection and Love, (the Latin Term is Dilectio) will rather stile these immanent Actions, how permanent soever they may be supposed. Now that an Action, though immanent, can be a living, in­telligent Substance, an infinite eternal Mind, is what I would be loth to be bound to the Proof of.

But says the Dean, why did you not accuse the Fathers and Councils! for the Master took most of what he has out of them.

Suppose that I had so much Reverence for the Fathers and Councils, as to be willing their Names should not be blemish'd, am I to be chastised for that? He and all the World know, I could not read the Master's Book, but I must read therein the Names, and oftentimes the Places of the Fa­thers, whence he took most of what he says: I could not therefore be ig­norant that many of these things are to be found in the Fathers: But I was desirous, I say, that their venerable Names should shine as bright as may be; and that the rather, for that this Rummager has after a sort weed­ed their Writings, and very often taken only the worst things out of them. The Father, out of whom he has injudiciously amass'd together the most he has of the Trinity, complains, those his Books of the Trinity [Page 17] were almost ravish'd out of his Hands, before he could amend or finish Aug. Retract. lib. 2. cap. 15. them as he would have done; and that he intended not to have publish­ed them, but to have spoken what he thought of this Argument in ano­ther Work. When therefore I find St. Austin produced, proving the Son the Beginning, a Principle, or Original, ( Principium the Word is) and that not only in respect of the Creatures, but even of the Holy Ghost; from such a Testimony of Scripture as this is, They said unto him, Who art thou? and he answered, Even the same that I said unto you from the Begin­ning, which the vulgar Latin, and St. Austin as well as some other Fa­thers, corruptly read, The Beginning, who also speak to you: I let St. Austin pass, who in effect did as good as ask Pardon for his Mistake, or misapplying this Text; and I tax him, who taking no Notice of the Fa­ther's excusing his imperfect Work, alledgeth even the most culpable Pas­sages in it for legitimate Proofs.

He by this Means makes the Fathers Over-sights his, and is justly to be blamed for them. But as to his Faithfulness in dealing with the Fathers, hear what a great Man says; ‘His Books of the Sentences, says Mornaeus, he has made up out of Pieces of the Fathers, here and there culled out and put together in a certain Order; which Fathers he, by changing, omitting, adding Words at pleasure, has forced to serve his Plot, and bowed to the corrupt Divinity of his Age.’ And however Orthodox any, who affect Dispute and endless Speculation, may judg him in the Do­ctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation, Bellarmine himself, after Recital of his Works, adds this Account on him out of Matthew Paris, ‘That he was accused of Heresy in the Matter of the Incarnation, and condemn'd at Paris nineteen Years after his Death.’ Then as to the Point of the Trinity, the Case wherein I taxed him, L. Danaeus (a Geneva Divine, and no Socinian) avows and proves, that in every Part of his Disputation In quâlibet hu­jus Disputatio­nis parte, neg­ligentia dolo malo aequipa­ratur. Censura ad Dist. 35. lib. 1. hereon, his Fraud and Negligence are equal. And whosoever will spend a few Hours in perusing the said Danaeus's Prolegomena to his Commenta­ry on the first Book of the Sentences, (the Master's Piece by me chal­lenged) and especially Prolegom. V. will find, both there, and more fully in the Book, the Master distinctly convicted to be, (1) A false Witness; (2) A pernicious Writer; And, (3) A ridiculous one. He will find also an explicit Collection of his Frauds and Falsifications; to which the Author subjoins, he has not pick'd out Passages to cavil at, but rather challenges any to produce what is faultless. I might say much more, but let this suffice as to my Defence in whatsoever Reflections I made on the [Page 18] Master of the Sentences in this Point. I hope it appears I gave not that Touch upon him, which I did without Reason and knowledg of his Ac­complishments.

But for all this, the more general Cause of my being so angry with the §. 7. Pag. 5. School-Doctors, is, because I have not Industry enough to read or understand them.

I thank Mr. Dean for this Ornament, and will take hence only an Oc­casion of a little publick Penance before God and the World, confessing with hearty Sorrow and Shame, that I have not been so industrious as I ought to have been: I cannot before an all-seeing Eye acquit my self of some kind of Idleness, but beseech my good God to pardon what cannot be recalled, and to quicken me for the future to double Diligence. Yet I may adventure to plead, that amongst them who have known the Varie­ty of my Labours since I came out into the World, and I believe also amongst all those now alive, who either had the Tuition of me, or were Associates of my Studies in my Education, there is none will say I was in any measure ever noted ( [...]) for a scandalous Ideler. Then as to my reading and understanding the School-men in particular, I will only add, that many Years ago, as soon as Master of Arts, I set my self to read and study those of best Note amongst them, and spent no inconsi­derable Time and Pains therein, as much at least as a Life otherwise labo­rious would permit; that about ten or eleven Years ago, having some Leisure and Opportunity, I resumed those Studies with particular Purpose to refresh my Memory, and rectify (if I could) my Judgment, both in and by them; that I think, when I read them, I generally do under­stand them, (I said generally, for I am of Opinion, that sometimes they understood not themselves, that is, they disputed themselves into uncer­tain, obscure and confused Notions) but I confess I never read these Do­ctors with such Relish, Savour and Delight, with such Warmth, good Affection and Holy Advantage, as I did and daily do read the sacred Scrip­tures. O the infinite Disproportion of them! Even in moral Notions, in which notwithstanding divers of the School-Doctors excel themselves, comparatively to their other Writings. How much more Force is there sometimes in one Word or Glance of the Holy Ghost, than in the acutest Definitions of the Doctors? How far sharper and more piercing are the Divine Oracles, even dividing asunder the Soul and Spirit, and discern­ing of the Thoughts and Intents of the Heart? Further, I acknowledg my Memory has not such a retentive Faculty of the nice Distinctions and Divisions which these Wits run; nor, after all, do I see the Ʋse of them as to promoting Peace, Holiness, or in divers Cases sound Judgment in the Church of God. How many School-Notions were (not yet two Ages [Page 19] ago) made Points of Faith, as far as the usurping Power of what stiled it self an Oecumenical Council could make them? And has Christianity received so much Improvement by those Sanctions, as that we should be fond of the Fountains whence they derived those Waters of Meribah, or at this Day pretend that these spinose and crabbed Doctors have only guard­ed Christianity with a Hedg of Thorns? &c. I pity those who for a shist betake themselves to such Assertions, and I list not to pursue this thence: only for a final Trial of my Insight into those Authors, I appeal to every judicious Reader, whether I did not deliver in my Paper, p. 13. the Doctrine of the Trinity and Unity more conformably to the Doctrine of the Schools, than Dr. Sherlock did in his Vindication, notwithstanding his pretended greater Conversation in them. I transcribed it not indeed either out of the School-men or Canonists, de summâ Trinit. (from whom Mr. Hooker seems to have almost translated in this Point) nor yet from St. Austin, from whom they all have taken it; though I was ignorant of none of those: but from a Master of the Temple, because I took that [to the Ma­ster of the Temple] to be more an Argument ad Hominem. Now if I faithfully reported the Doctrine of the Schools, 'tis very probable I was not so unacquainted with them, as Mr. Dean's Candour would represent me.

My next Accusation is, that I have said, The first Reformers complain­ed §. 8. Pag. 5. of this, [namely, the corrupt Divinity of the Schools] and desired a purer and more scriptural (he instead thereof puts spiritual) sort of Di­vinity. I did indeed say this, but not without due Authority. My Words were very nearly (as nearly as I could remember) the English of a Passage of the great Melancthon, which, having not then my Note-books at hand, I could not perfectly Tantum Labyrinthorum & falsa­rum opinionum est in Thomâ, Sco­to & similibus, qui dediti Aristote­lis Doctrinae, transformare Ecclesiae Doctrinam in Philosophiam coepe­runt, ut semper saniores Theologi desideraverint aliud genus Doctrinae plenius & purius. And a little be­fore; Haec aetas non tantum coenum, sed & insuper venena, id est opini­ones probantes manifesta idola in fontes evangelicos invexit. Philip. Melancthon. in Praefat. ad Luther. Tom. 2. report, but will now in the Margin transcribe the Text, by which it may appear, I was favourable in my Cen­sure, and spoke not the full of what my Author would have warranted. And if this which is said in the Mar­gin satisfy not, that the Doctrine of the School-men is full of Labyrinths and Falsities, of Dirt and Poison, so as to have infected the very Fountains of the Gospel-Doctrine, which yet is more than I said, let Persons of Leisure and Advantages consult the second Tome of Melancthon's own Works, where they may find some little Tracts designed to make good this Charge; particularly, Oratio Thomae Didymi (a personated Name no doubt) pro M. Luther: And Philippi Melancthonis pro Luth. Apologia, adversus furiosorum Parisiensium Decretum, &c.

I could have said much to the same Effect out of Luther himself in di­vers [Page 20] Places, but I feared it might have been said, he was too fiery. Nor are like Passages at all infrequent in Calvin: but perhaps by some Men as much might have been said of him as of me, that he had not read or under­stood whom he censured: Melancthon's Authority I thought I might more safely speak upon, he being a Person whose Learning and Moderation might recommend his Judgment as more sincere and competent. Now these three of the first Reformers I shall abide by at present, as having censured the Divinity of the Schools much more severely, than I did after them.

But these were not our English Reformers; and I censured even them for retaining Scholastick Cramping Terms in their publick Prayers. By Mr. Dean's Favour I censured them not, only I modestly wished they had used the same Temper as did the foreign Reformers, in banishing hard or Scho­lastick Terms out of our Prayers.

By these Terms he says I mean the Beginning of the Litany. And how came he to know my Thoughts? I will assure him I meant not that alone. I will not touch upon divers Collects: But what does he think of that Preface in the Communion Service, ordered to be used before the [...], on Trinity Sunday? Has not that School-Divinity enough in it, all address'd to God by way of direct Adoration? However, because he has pitch'd upon the other, I am content to stick by it, and shall only give him, touching it, the Sense of two of the first Reformers; I confess not ours in England, (for I express my Sorrow that they observed not such Caution) but two the most eminent who led the way to them. Luther lest that Petition, O Holy, Blessed and Glorious Trinity, &c. out of the Liturgy; as not only his Enemies, Bellarmine and others, accuse him to have done, but the German Office to this Day evidenceth: And Gerard, Brochmand, and other learned Lutherans, not only confess, but defend him for it, saying, the German Word which they use for the Trinity, sig­nifies Triplicity rather than Trinity. But if that had been all, why could not Trinity have been adopted into High Dutch as well as into English? There was another Reason for it, which I am loth to speak. Calvin not only omits it, but thus censures it: It is good, says he, to forbear such Forms of speaking which are either too rough or remote from the Ʋse of the Holy Scripture. The Prayer so Utile est supersedere à formulis loquendi nimiùm asperis vel à Scrip­turae usu remotis. Precatio vulgo trita, sancta Trinitas unus Deus mise­rere nostri, mihi non placet, ac om­nino Barbariem sapit. Epist. quâ fidem admonitionis confirmat ad Polonos; Tom. ult. p. 687. common with the People, O Holy Trinity, one God, have Mercy upon us, does not please me, and altogether savours of Barbarity. Had the Socinians been the on­ly Persons who except against it, more might be said for the retaining it: But as to its Original, it was cer­tainly never in the publick Prayers till introduced by [Page 21] Pope Gregory the Great, the Compiler of the Litany for the main part, or the Body of it, though not perfectly in the Form it now stands in; and Ethnici in sum­mâ rerum ig­norantiâ quem potissimum De­ûm aut Dearū orarent, nescie­bant omnes i­gitur precaban­tur, &c. Ca­saub. what other Innovations came in with it, is sufficiently known. No less a Man than Casaubon will tell us, whom the Church imitated, or what Precedents she had in such accumulate repeated Invocations; Exercitat. p. 327. Edit. Londin. A. D. 1614. Or, Ad An. D. XXXII. N. 14. And not only in a manner all our Nonconformist Countrymen, elder or la­ter, but Foreigners of great Learning, have strong Exceptions against this Part of the Litany. If any will answer those which amongst others the learned Johannes Forbesius, in his Instructiones Historico-Theologicae (Part. 1. Qu. 31. a. 1.) brings, I will acknowledg to owe great Satisfaction to such a Person. For how­ever Hâc formulâ periculosè disper­guntur cogitationes, & conceptio­nes precantis veluti ad diversa ob­jecta, quas recolligere conatur col­lectione objectorum in unum. Nullo nititur praecepto, vel exemplo sa­crae Scripturae vel catholicae anti­quitatis: imo ab eisdem & à do­ctrinâ saniorum Scholasticorum, & ab ipsâ ratione Theologicâ Discre­pat. &c. Forbes. I acknowledg some Men may use the prescribed Form without Sin, yet I cannot but judg it much safer not to go so near dividing the Deity, and so far to distract Devotion. Much more than this could I say, which I cannot answer so well as I would, on this Subject: but this may suffice to shew, the Glance▪ I gave was not without Cause. And the reducing di­vers of our Prayers to more Scriptural Forms, would much recommend our Reformation to foreign Divines, as well as to those of our own Country, whom we ought, if possible, to bring in and unite to us.

But this is only a plausible Project much talked of of late, and such, §. 9. Pag. 6. which Hereticks in former Days were the first Proposers of. The Arians objected this against the Homoousions, that it was an unscriptural Word: By Mr. Dean's Favour he herein contradicts St. Athanasius himself, who accuses the Arians, that they [...]; first began to fight against God from unwritten Terms, or Arguments; and particularly objects against them using the word [...], or un­begotten, pleading that it was an unscriptural Word, [...] &c. Athanas. in Epist. de Synod. Nic. contra Haeresin. Arian. decretis. [...] lb. p. 282. and therefore suspitious, having also various Significa­tions; but that the simple, written and truest Terms, which had but one Signification, were those in Scripture, the Father and the Son; that unbegotten was used by the Heathens, who knew not the Father, nor the Son; but that of the Father was known to be from our Lord's own Mouth. And doth he not at the same time apo­logize from the Necessity that lay upon the Council, for the Use of the word [...], though not in Scripture, and toge­ther confess, that the most accurate Expressions or Notions of the Truth are [Page 22] rather to be taken from the Scriptures than other Books? It were to be wished this Father had been more constant to this his ingenuous Acknow­ledgment. Again, did not St. Ambrose also in the like Case, disputing against the Arians, say as much of Ingenitus in Latin, that it was no Scripture-term, and therefore refuse it? I am under great Infelicity that I am without so many of my Books, and so being oftentimes to trust Me­mory or old Notes, cannot make my Answers so close and pertinent as otherwise I might: But I am sure St. Ambrose (and I think in his Book of our Lord's Incarnation) answering the Arians Argument for proving the Father and the Son not to be of the same Nature and Substance, name­ly, that one was ingenitus, unbegotten, the other genitus, begotten, (now, said they, the same Nature and Substance cannot be begotten and unbegotten) returns roundly, In sanctâ Scripturâ nusquam invenio, non legi; or to that purpose; Unbegotten is no where in Scripture. I am not, I am sure, far from his very Words. Now was this a good Answer in the Fathers; and shall the same be ill, meerly because at another time, in another Case, it came from an Heretick? The Hereticks proposing it, you say, renders it suspect: St. Athanasius and St. Ambrose using it, say I, and relying upon it too, gives it Authority. The Hereticks used it not first, but only retorted it on the Fathers: Wherefore at least admit the Authority of the one to take off the Disadvantage it may sustain from the other; and let the Project, as you call it, stand or fall according to its own naked Merit: Only by the way give me leave to add, that if what is just and reasonable must be rejected because it has been sometimes used by Hereticks, we must oftentimes give over pleading from Scripture, and quit a World of Texts therein.

I must acknowledg I am not able to see why Men should be so averse from the Language of the Holy Ghost, either in their Prayers or Creeds. The Sum of the Reason alledged is, that it is the Sense of Scripture which Pag. 7. is the true Faith, and not merely the Words: And must we, saith Mr. Dean very admirably, believe the Words or Sense of the Scripture? I may desire him, if he can, to believe this or that Sense, as revealed by God, (for he cannot know this or that Sense or Proposition as revealed by God) without the Words in which it was revealed. I demand, Do those Words express, contain and convey to us this Sense of such or such Point of Faith, or do they not? If they do not, then the Sense insisted on is not the Sense of the Scripture, and consequently not Faith. If they do, why should we not keep those Words by which God hath thought fit to express this Sense? Why should we separate what he has joined? Are we wiser than he? or can we express the Mind of God better than himself?

But when Hereticks have used their utmost Art to make the Words of [Page 23] Scripture signify what they please, is it not necessary to fix their true Sense, and to express that in such other Words as Hereticks cannot pervert?

Yes, in the Name of God, let us use our utmost Art to vindicate (if possible) all and every Scripture from Heretical Glosses or Distortions, and with all the Light and Evidence we can, discover and assert its genuine Sense. The natural Explication of Scripture is our immediate Scope in most, or in all the Arts and Sciences, which as Divines we take in. But what do all our Explications effect, save a Proof or Discovery that this or that is the Sense contained under such Words of Scripture?

When therefore we have plainly proved that these Words of Scripture contain this Sense, why should we change the Words? If they were not plain, the Explication, supposing it to have done any thing to the pur­pose, has made them plain: When they are plain, then why may they not be kept?

They may be undetermined, said Mr. Dean, and 'tis necessary to fix their §. 10. true Sense. But this is the Difficulty: They may rationally, at least pro­bably, admit more Senses than one; and when you say you have fixed your own true Sense, another shall deny the Sense you have fixed to be the true Sense; at least assign another equally probable Sense: And a third Person, it may be a third. For Instance, the Apostle tells us, 1 Cor. 2. 10, 12. God hath revealed [the Joys and Glories which he has prepared for those that love him] unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God: For what Man knoweth the things of Man save the Spirit of Man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no Man but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spi­rit of the World, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things which are freely given us of God. This Text the learned Dr. Sher­lock, as well as others, (even Athanasius himself) interpret not without Probability of the essential Spirit of God; and the Doctor, both in his Vindication and Apology, endeavours thence to prove the Personality of the Holy Ghost, and his mutual Consciousness with the Father and the Son. Now I sacredly protest I remember not my self ever to have read any Socinian Author on this Text: But I find some others, by the word Spirit, here understand the spiritual Illumination and inward Perswasion of Mind wrought in the Apostles and other faithful People: And this we seem enforced from ver. 12. to admit; where we read the Apostles to have received the Spirit, which cannot be well understood of the Person, but of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost. This agrees too with the Close of ver. 10. The Spirit searcheth all things, that is [ scrutari nos facit]. This Illumination in their Search, leads all such who are endowed therewith, in­to the knowledg and belief of all things necessary to their Salvation, even the [Page 24] deepest Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. Further, this spiritual Gift may be said to know, i. e. we by this Illumination know and relish the things of God, as feelingly as the Spirit of Man knows the things of a Man; because this Gift is so true a Communication from God, and as it were somewhat of the Divine Nature (2 Pet. 1. 4.) imparted to us. But that the Spirit of God here spoken of as knowing the things of God, should be a Person distinct from God, any more than the Spirit of a Man, knowing the things of a Man, is a Person distinct from the Man, seems unreasonable. And it is considerable, that amongst others, even Calvin and Beza allow, by the Spirit here may be understood such Gift of Illu­mination as spoken of. But Grotius referring us to what he had said on Mark 2. 8, &c. with great Learning and Probability interprets the Spirit here, of the Divine Nature of Christ; and tells us it was by Christ, as coming from the Bosom of his Father, and knowing all his Secrets, that these things were revealed to the Apostles; and that the Sense here is the same as in John 1. 18. and ch. 6. 46, &c. and he produces many Autho­rities, both from Scripture and Fathers, touching the Divine Nature of our Lord being stiled the Spirit. Now who shall determine which is the true and genuine Sense? and if any of the two latter should be genuine, then has not the Dean evinced hence what he conceived, and particularly not the mutual Consciousness of the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son, for that the Person of the Holy Ghost is not here spoken of? It were easy, but that it would be tedious, to give like Instances in many other Texts of Holy Scripture. What shall we do then? It were an admirable Expedient indeed, could we determine infallibly this or that to be the true Sense of each controverted Text, and then express that Sense in such Words as Hereticks cannot pervert. But where shall we find that Infalli­bility, or those Words? Some have maintained (whatever their Judg­ment is now I know not, nor must concern my self, if they use to contra­dict themselves: Some I say have maintained) that there is no infallible Judg on Earth, nor any need of one, being we have, as far as is necessary to Salvation, an infallible Rule, the Scriptures of Truth: Suppose then, as to the forementioned Place, we should take some such ample, wide or large Sense as this; ‘The Joys and Glories of Heaven, the good things which God has prepared for them that love him, we could never have known without Divine Revelation, nor should ever have had a Sense, Relish and Perswasion of, without a Work of Illumination and Con­viction upon our Minds, or more generally without other Aids and Assistances of Grace.’ This well enough sutes with the Text, and thus much is sufficient to conclude hence for Salvation, or to any Intent of holy Life: and this all Protestants will acquiesce in, at least none will contra­dict. [Page 25] Why may not we stop then here in this gene­ral This restraining of the Word of God from that LATITƲDE and Generali­ty, and the Ʋnderstandings of Men from that Liberty wherein Christ and the Apostles left them, is and has been the only Foundation of all the Schisms in the Church, and that which makes them im­mortal. Mr. Chilling worth, Ch. IV. n. 16. Sense, without affixing any of those particular Senses to the Text? that is, Is it not best to leave it in its full Latitude, without restraining the word Spirit?

Further, I would be clearly for expressing some fixed true Sense of all controverted Texts in such Words as Hereticks cannot pervert, but for two or three Reasons, one already mentioned, namely, that I cannot always be sure which Sense is most truly af­fix'd: and being I am not or cannot be so, a second Reason will be, that by expressing such Sense in such Words, and fixing it to Scripture, so that now such Sense should become the Sense of Scripture, ( it being, as we know, the Sense of Scripture which is the true Faith, not meerly the Pag. 7. Words) I should fear by this means, Mens changing Faith, or which is much the same, changing Scripture. And a third Reason, which is as urgent as all the rest, is, I do not know, nor does it appear, that any Man knows, no nor that any Church or Council ever have known, where to find such Words which Hereticks cannot pervert.

I could assign many Words from time to time pitch'd upon, to prick the Fingers of Hereticks, and guard the Faith: but I will content my self Pag. 5. with two, neither of which Mr. Dean can pretend to be unacquainted with; they are [...], and Personae: These we know have been long thought fit Terms to fix the Sense of Scriptures: But are they Words which Hereticks cannot pervert? or, are they not more equivocal, and so more pervertable, than most of the usual Terms in Scripture? The first indeed is several times used singularly in the Greek of the New Te­stament, and rendred constantly by the old Interpreter Substantia; but by many Moderns, and particularly by our Translators, two or three ways: Three times that now occur to me, by Confidence; 2 Cor. 9. 4. and ch. 11. 17. Heb. 3. 14. (yet in the first of these Places Beza tells us, it might have been rendred, in hoc fundamento gloriationis, which is near the first and natural Import of the Word: And Castellio renders it, in hâc materiâ: Erasmus, in hoc argumento; which we may fitly english, in this Subject of Boasting:) Once ( viz. Heb. 11. 1.) by Substance, which is its Philosophical Acceptation: And once by Person, which I may call the Ecclesiastical or Scholastical Acceptation of the Word, affixed to this Place by Theophilact, as it is said by Authority of Gregory Nissen; but I have neither by me to consult. After all, notwithstanding, we no where read [...] in Scripture, though frequently in the Fa­thers. Suppose then we take this Term, Three Hypostases, to fix the Sense of that Text, There are three that bear Witness in Heaven, &c. [Page 26] Are there now no more Homonymies of it that yet we have seen? Yes, [...], saith Budaeus, is almost the same as Existence; and Evil has [...], but a [...]: for both which he gives good Authority. Again, Nicephorus Callistus tells us, The Word is scarce in use amongst the [...]. Hist. lib. 10. cap. 15. in Sentent. lib. 1. Dist. 23. Antients in any certain Signification, but the Moderns have frequently used it for [...]: nay [...] and [...], per totam secularium scholam, are the same, says Estius. Now all the World knows that [...], although used ordinarily by Aristotle for his Predicament of Substance, yet more properly signifies Essence or Nature. Three Hypostases then may be in­terpreted three Essences, or Natures; and under this Term may Tritheism it self, in its worse Sense, lurk. Nor are there wanting those who tell us, this very Term led Philoponus into his Heresy. Further, Bellarmine will have it, that Hypostasis properly signifies Substantiam primam, which In Controv. de Christo. is not necessarily [...], or a Person, but may be any meaner Animate, or even an Inanimate, individual. I could add yet two or three [...]. Niceph. ubi supr. more Significations of this Word out of the above-mentioned Nicephorus Callistus, who vouches good Authority for the meanest of them; which I will not here set down, lest the Dean should say, I teach People to ridi­cule the Trinity in their Prayers, when I only report the Words of appro­ved Authors, to caution others against unadvised and obnoxious Terms. But it is plain, from what I have said, this Term is further from fixing the Sense of Scripture, than the Terms of Scripture.

Next as to the word Persona, though that Word be now (upon the Authority above-mentioned) by Beza brought in, and justly too, into our modern Translations; yet it was true in Aquinas's time, and since that too, that it was neither in Old nor New Testament used touching God▪ Nomen perso­na in Scriptu­ris veteris vel novi Testamen­ti non inveni­tur dictum de Deo. 1. q. 29. [...]. 3. And when used plurally, (as the former) it must be acknowledged an Ecclesiastical or Scholastical Word, sound out, as the other, for [...]ixing (if possible) the Sense of Scripture, to use the Dean's Phrase; and does it do it? The Dean no doubt knows what Laurentius Valla, a Critick, but no Socinian, says of its Congruity in this Point. And it is too trite a Subject to reckon up all its Homonymies. I will only remind, that it is taken in one Sense in humanis, for a single Substance, separate and by it self; in another in divinis, for such a Substance distinct, but not separate.

Now upon the whole, have either of these Words fix'd the Sense of the Scripture, so that Hereticks cannot pervert it, and have a private Sense of their own touching it? May not a Man, (1) Own three Hypostases, or three Persons, that is, profess Faith in or under the two most Ortho­dox Terms that have been found out, and none but God and himself know what he means? Nay, may he not hold to the Words, and yet hold Heresy, yea Blasphemy, and that in divers particular Senses which I [Page 27] have named, and which I have declined to name, for that the Subject is so tender? Again, (2) May not a Man use the Words quite contrary to the Forms, in which the Fathers generally use them, and yet speak Or­thodox Truth? Did not, if Theodoret say Truth, the Council of Sar­dis [...] Theodor. Hist. lib. 2. cap. 8. say, This Catholick Tradition and Confession have we received and taught; this do we hold, that there is but one Hypostasis, meaning there­by one Substance of the Deity? Nay, lastly, must it not be acknow­ledged, that at least one of these Words, ( viz. Hypostasis) has given occasion to the Tritheites Heresy; as any Man may see who pleases to con­sult what Photius, what Leontius the Byzantine Advocate, and what Ni­cephorus Callistus report of Thiloponus, too long here to be inserted?

Were it not better then to keep to Scripture-Words, in which all agree, than to take up new ones of humane Invention, and contend and damn one another about them; when yet it is apparent we may use these, (how­ever artificial refined Terms) and be as far from agreeing in Sense as ever we were, nay much further than if we had kept to Scripture-Language? Hereticks may here conceal themselves under a larger Latitude of Expressi­on, Pag. 8. and spread their Heresies with a traditionary Sense and Comment of their own, more exactly and poisonously than the Purity and Simplicity of the Holy Text would have permitted. But if any be still fond of the Litigious, Ecclesiastical, or Scholastical Terms in their Confessions and Articles, let them stand for me. In the Orthodox Sense, and for Peace sake, they may be subscribed to: only in our Prayers at least, wherein a most intire Assent and Consent, without doubting or doubling, is to be in­gaged, [...]. let us have Scripture, and speak to God as he has revealed himself to us.

What then? must we reform the Doctrine of the Trinity out of our Prayers, as, in his good-natured Fit, Mr. Dean expresses it? No; but put it in there only as God has put it in our Bibles: And my Hopes and Desires of seeing this done, I take to be no foul Imputation, nor at all Pag. 5. likely to cast an ill Reflection on any Design of excellent Persons whatso­ever.

But I must return with my Apologist to the Latitude of Faith, which §. 11. he again (to use his own Term) tragically complains of me for pleading for, and demands whether there be any more than one true Christian Faith? Pag. 8. and whether Christ and his Apostles intended to teach any more? Or whe­ther they did not intend that all Christians should be obliged to believe this one Faith? Here are Questions enow, and Fallacy enough in them. I an­swer briefly and plainly; Faith, as Truth, can be but one. And every Truth which Christ and his Apostles taught, ought, if it can be without Scruple understood, without Scruple to be believed. All Christians are [Page 28] obliged to believe to the utmost of their Understandings each Truth by Christ and his Apostles taught. But whether a determinate, explicite Belief of all the Truths which Christ and his Apostles taught, be abso­lutely necessary to the Salvation of every private Christian, or even of e­very Christian Doctor, I take to be a Question worthy of the Dean's Consideration. For mine own part I dare not affirm it, but judg a Lati­tude must be allowed; and in such Determinations as exceed most Mens Un­derstanding, some such Temper as my Notion of a Negative Belief must be admitted. Which Term, by his good Favour, has no more Impro­priety or Contradiction in it, than that more usual one amongst Divines of a Negative Righteousness, whence I trans-sumed it; thinking it for a Reason, which he may guess at, more palatable to some People than an implicite Faith: and I having so fully and perspicuously defin'd it, it was poor and pedantic in him to carp at the Term. In a word, we are to re­ject nothing as false, nor esteem any thing as mean, superfluous or un­profitable, which our Lord, or his Apostles have taught. We are to give Diligence to understand, and as we can understand, explicitely to believe all: but there are many Points in Divinity, (that is, in the whole Body of what our Lord and his Apostles have taught) whereof perhaps we may not have so clear and determinate a Sense, as that we can say, this or that is it, which our Lord and his Apostles intended to oblige us to believe. And here we must either totally suspend our Faith, till we can better sa­tisfy our selves, (in the mean while not contradicting) or else we must believe, though not without some Tenderness, what to us appears the more probable of the several Points in Scruple. Now the Belief of the more probable Side cannot be stiled Faith, but in a certain Latitude of the Name. 'Tis sure our Lord and his Apostles full well knew they both spoke and writ to People of very different Capacities and Circum­stances, and no doubt accordingly accommodated their Doctrine. What was necessary to the Salvation of all, is by them delivered very plain; and I will add, 'tis short. Certa semper sunt in paucis, says Tertullian: And all learned Protestant Divines have been ever very tender in defining the Number of Fundamentals, or what things are necessary by all to be be­lieved to their Salvation. Here the Minumum quod sic, as we commonly speak, is a difficult Point to determine; and Dr. Hammond in his Book of Fundamentals, has amply shewn there must be, as to the Number of them, a Latitude allowed, according to different States or Circumstances of Men. But his Authority is infinitely greater, who said, Ʋnto whom­soever much is given, of him shall be much required: Consequently of him who knew not, or (giving honest Diligence to know) understood not what is revealed, a less measure of Faith shall be expected. So that [Page 29] even here, I stand to it, is a Latitude. Suppose a Man to have been bap­tized, to understand competently the Apostles Creed, and the common Rules of Christian Duty, to profess the Belief hereof, to shew his Love to God and Christ by good Works, and a Life savouring of Heaven, to live in the Communion of such a Church or Society of Christians as will al­low such a Person for a Member of Christ, though perhaps he may not be admittted (for want of great Knowledg and a Faith of deeper My­steries) into the Communion of the regular establish'd Church (which yet he is far from contemning or censuring:) Suppose, I say, a Person to be of such Character and Circumstances, shall we dare to say this Man's Faith is not sufficient to his Salvation, because we our selves perhaps have more Faith, and are justly perswaded more is necessary to our own Salva­tion? In all Likelihood he endangers himself to be excluded from Hea­ven, who takes upon him to exclude such.

I am far from denying that Men ought to grow up to Perfection in all Faith and Knowledg; that is, to endeavour to comprehend and believe, as near as they are able, all the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven▪ or all re­vealed Truths built upon that one Foundation, Jesus Christ, and him crucifi­ed. But we know how vastly the Superstructure is increased: the Compass of Scripture, even of the New Testament, is large; the Difficulty of under­standing it, at this Distance, great; the Lights which we have by Fa­thers and Doctors, various, and by their Variety many times dazling and confounding one another; nay even whole Churches in Doctrinals very contrary to one another; and at least one, and that the greatest of them all, for the maintaining her Grandeur, has designedly, with all the Arts [...]. Ephes. 4. 14. and Methods of Deceit, new modell'd the whole Frame of Christian Do­ctrine, and not stuck in a sort to corrupt even Scripture it self, by impo­sing on the World her corrupt Translation, and in many Points corrupter Sense of it, for infallible Truth, and the only sure way to Heaven: in which Impositions of hers all Protestants agree many Points to be falla­cious and destructive. Now these being, and having been the Circum­stances of the present Age, and indeed of many late Ages; is it not the constant Doctrine of all Reformed Churches, that every Person should with Prayer, Humility, and Study of the Truth, proposing unto himself the Holy Scripture for his Rule, judg for himself? And must not every Man believe what is the Result of his Judgment, or what in Conscience, according to Scripture, he judgeth Truth? Now perhaps sundry Points which particular Doctors, yea which Churches have differently determin­ed, and which some of them pretend to be of Faith, an honest inquisi­tive Man cannot perceive the Holy Ghost to have determined at all; nor does he find them in the Apostles Creed (the old Standard or Leiger-Roll [Page 30] of Fundamentals:) Nay further, examining them according to the Ana­logy or Proportion of Faith, (that is, comparing them with undoubted Fundamentals) he cannot resolve which Opinion bears most Proportion, or is most certain. In this Case what shall the Man do? For my own part I can see nothing more proper and safe, than to take the Matter in that Latitude wherein the Scripture delivered it. Had not learned Men differently interpreted and imbroiled the Text, perhaps I should never have perceived any more than one Sense of it, even that in which I now take it: But having seen their Glosses, I am sensible the Text will admit several Interpretations; and which of them was designed by the Holy Ghost, I know not: I disbelieve none of them; nor will I, as far as able, in my Practice act contrary to what either or any of them enforces. I submit intirely to the Authority of God in all. Here's my negative Belief. I will not divide the Christian Church, nor take Part with them that do di­vide it, but hold the Ʋnity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace; maintain Christian Charity with all Christian People, and esteem all them to be Christians who are content to walk (or who, without the Contradiction of a disorderly Life, profess to walk) by that Rule which I own, namely, Holy Scripture. This is the Latitude I plead for, and from which I think I never shall be driven.

But there being but one Faith, there can be no more Latitude in Faith §. 12. than there is in an Ʋnit. This is a Subtilty indeed, and no doubt a stabbing Argument against the People of the long Name, as some are pleased to stile many conformable moderate Persons. But are there not as many sorts of Ʋnits as there are of Ʋnities? And did Mr. Dean never hear in Philosophy of an Ʋnity of Composition, which is so far from ex­cluding Parts, that it supposes them? Or in Arithmetick, did he never hear of Integrals▪ and what minute Parts thereof Artists can make? No Latitude in an Unit: Yes, and in the one Faith too, especially as by the one Faith we understand what Churches and Doctors have now made it. Have we not whole Systems of Opinions now adays made up into Con­fessions of Faith? Certainly all controverted Points in Christian Doctrine can no more be maturely determined, and the stated Truth distinctly be believed by all Men, than all Christian Perfection be by all equally attain­ed. There are those to whom it is given in an ampler and more peculiar measure, to know the Mystery of the Kingdom. Though all may have the same Scripture or Body of revealed Religion, all have not the same natural Sagacity and Judgment, the same Education and Advantages of Improvement, the same Leisure and Opportunity for Search and Appli­cation of Mind. Some, and that far the greatest Numbers of Christians, can only understand the common Christianity, repent of their Sins, and [Page 31] in Well-doing depend upon God's Mercy in Christ Jesus for Life everlast­ing: Others leaving (that is, not stopping at those) the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ, (the alone true Foundation) go on unto Perfection. So that there is a measure of Faith as well as of other Christian Perfections: And God is doubly the Author of a Latitude in Faith; (1) In revealing his Truth in such Terms as admit of a Latitude of Conception. (2) In giving to Men, as he sees fit, such measures of Knowledg and Perswasion as leaves them in an higher or lower Degree of Faith, and even of Holiness: And accordingly in our Father's House there are many Mansions. Nor can any Man with Reason gainsay these things.

Now though this be far from thinking it indifferent what Men believe, Pag. 9. or whether they believe any thing or not; yea, faralso from believing what we please; yet I confess it is believing, as by Grace we are able. I must conceive as I can, and judg as I can, and believe as I can too: And nei­ther I, nor any Man alive, who believes any thing, can believe all that dictating Men will impose upon them. The Authority of the Church, it is true, is of great Weight, and will go very far to the determining any sober Man's Judgment, in a case where Evidences on both sides are per­fectly equal, that is alike probable, or alike uncertain. But the Faith we owe to the Church, and that we owe to God, are very different. All the Churches or Councils in the World can never make that an Arti­cle of Faith which God has not made so. He who alone can bestow Sal­vation, has alone Power to enact the Conditions of it, and make Arti­cles of Faith. But in Controversies the Church may declare her Sense, and we are bound so far peaceably to submit and accept it, as not to con­tradict or teach contrary, under Penalty of her Censures. And this I would be content to conceive the whole of what our Church requires, as to those things which are meerly her Determinations: For in truth it is to no purpose for her to require such Approbation and Consent, which whe­ther paid or no, she can never come to have Knowledg; of which sort is Belief and inward Approbation. To exact this, may breed Hypocrisy; it cannot be a Seed of Charity and true Christian Concord. And thus as to that Latitude, Simplicity and negative Belief which have so much of­fended the Apologist; though I am well satisfied, that had I imbraced his Definitions and Hypotheses, he would have allowed me as great a La­titude in deceding from the Churches Doctrine, as he has taken himself.

And now passing by many Favours (so I call divers scornful Expressi­ons §. 13. by the way) which Mr. Dean is pleased to bestow upon me, I come next to profess, that notwithstanding any thing which he hath said to the contrary, I am clearly of the Mind still, that it is Opposition chiefly which keeps many Heterodox Opinions and Pamphlets alive.

But it is better such Pamphlets should be in an hundred Hands with an Pag. 10. Answer, than in sive without one. Not to tell him, he takes Care by the rate he receives for every Sheet he publishes, that such Pieces of his as the Vindication of the Trinity, shall not be in the Hands of one Person in an hundred, (I am sure, at least on a certain time, I could not spare Money to buy it). I will only say, 'tis hard to determine which more subverts the Orthodox Doctrine, the Adversaries Impugnations, or his Vindication. I have heard that the wicked Vanninus so writ in Proof of the Being of a God, as to increase the Suspition of Atheists that there was none. And I do avow that Dr. Sherlock has so vindicated the Trinity, that he has, to his Power, made the Unity asserted by the Fathers utterly impossible, and run into the very Absurdity whereto the Adversaries would reduce us: For if his Definitions and Hypotheses be true, there must unavoidably be three Gods, as has been shewn; and there may be as well three thousand, or as many as Varro says the Romans ever had.

No, these three are one, says Mr. Dean; one by mutual Consciousness. I answer, besides that this amounts to no more than to an Unity of Ac­cord, which (as has been said) is not the Unity that the Church and Fa­thers ever held, and which we have seen the Council of Sardis avowed to be the Catholick Faith ever taught, received and delivered down, ( [...]) one Substance, or an Unity of Substance; besides this, I say, three thousand Minds or Spirits may be as well conceived mutually consci­ous, as three; and so we may defend Polytheism, or maintain all the Gods of the Heathen to have been but one.

Indeed I never read any Christian Writer to go so near in express Terms asserting a Plurality of Gods, ad the Dean of St. Pauls has done: a God, and a God, and a God, as has been shewn. And if this kind of speaking be not direct or full enough, what is wanting in express Terms, is abun­dantly made up in his Hypothesis, which unavoidably infers three Gods; and those no more or otherwise one, than even an infinite Number (could there be such a Number) of Minds might be one: which two Points, though I was content to stile only the Absurdities to which our Adversa­ries would reduce us, yet I know what Names other People would have given them, could they have been found in any Writings of mine.

Further, it is to be considered, Dr. Sherlock's Vindication of the Do­ctrine of the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity, (an august and glorious Title, vastly raising the Expectation of all who read or hear it) came out with the Solemnity of a Publick, I had almost said Canonical Licence in its Front, affixed thereto by an Ecclesiastical Reverend Person, authorized by Law for such Purpose: So did his Apology also. This at first Sight re­presents the Doctrine contained in them, not as the Sentiments of a pri­vate [Page 33] Doctor, but as Doctrine approved by our Church; for there are at least three Doctors of the Church to avouch for it. And some will say, If it be thus authorized by the Chaplains, are not certain other much greater Persons concerned for it? What Advantage now may the Enemy take every way thence? Plainly; forasmuch as other Doctors and Bi­shops of the Church cannot but disapprove and disclaim this Explication or Notion of the three Persons, or of the Trinity, and only of such an Unity as there asserted, it will and must be said, we are neither agreed amongst our selves as to Trinity nor Unity: Shall therefore the melan­choly Stander by be thought an Enemy to the Church for desiring such Writings as these may be forborn?

Again, Mr. Dean tells us, that Dr. Wallis when he called the three Per­sons Pag. 9. three Somewhats, thereby only meant, that the true Notion of a Per­son he did not know: And hereto, by the way, Mr. Dean, according to his wonted Ingenuity or Care, subjoins, I commended this. No, Sir, that which I commended was what I wish had been to be found in you; Dr. Wallis's Orthodoxy in the Acceptation of the word Persons in divinis, (set down by me in the Doctor's own Words) for something analogous to Persons, and not signifying just the same. But to commend Dr. Wal­lis, or any one who worships three Persons, for saying he does not know what a Person is, is so far from me, that I say Mr. Dean in imputing the Saying to Dr. Wallis, and the commending it to me, has wronged us both egregiously: the Doctor, in exposing him (and Multitudes in him) as liable to this unavoidable Consequence, that they worship they know not what: and me, in telling the World I commend them that do so. I delight not to search further into, much less to exaggerate the Advan­tages Dr. Sherlock's Books on this Subject have given our Adversaries of all kinds. By these Touches it is plain more may be assigned: But as to those two above-named Particulars, which I only stiled Absurdities, the [...] or original Grounds of all the rest; having now shewn them expresly enough, I must mind Mr. Dean of his Promise, that he will correct them; and it may be a fit Subject for some of those few short Treatises, which he has told us he will publish on this Argument as he has leisure: whether he correct them thankfully or no I value not much, pro­vided Pag. 11. he sincerely or expresly recant them, which in case of Errors he has said he will not blush to do.

However I will not blush to press again what he endeavours to expose, §. 14. my Desires to all to let this Controversy rest, as it was above thirteen hundred Years ago determined by two general Councils: And my Reason stands unshaken, as far as I can see, by the Dean or any else: The Im­provements which have since been attempted upon it, have more em­broil'd [Page 34] it than explain'd it, and bring us down many times into grosser and more phantastical Conceptions of the Deity than become us. As to what the Schools and Dr. Sherlock have done, I have already spoke my Sense. I could have shewn that Dr. Walls was only the English Author for three Somewhats, and have cited a certain Father for tria quaedam; but I had rather Mr. Dean should tell the World how ignorant I am of the Fathers, than that their Esteem should be lessened by any thing pro­duced by me that may seem to reflect on them. Only because the World, as if weary of metaphysical Improvements in this and like Subjects, be­gins now to be fond of, or expect even in Christian Mysteries some Won­ders from Physicks or Mathematicks, I shall give an Account of something more copious in this kind, than what, as far as I know, our learned Pro­fessor here at home has as yet published. There is a Book intituled, Nou­velles▪ de la Republique des Lettres, imprinted at Amsterdam, 1685. wherein I find an Account of an Essay called a Memorial [ Memoire] communicated by M. and writ to shew the Habitude or Resemblance [ Rapport] of the three Dimensions of a Body to the three Persons of the Deity; in which, after a short Preface of the different Natures of a think­ing and extense Substance, there is drawn a Parallel between La Trinite in one Column, and Laquantite in another, amounting to no fewer than twenty three Particulars. And after somewhat said of the Use of these Parallels, wherein he utterly denies the false Idea's, as he terms them, of the School-men, he adds seven more parallel Instances▪ between the Ob­jections Hereticks make against the Trinity, and such as may be made a­gainst the triple Dimensions of Bodies. Then follow ten Axioms out of the Religio rationalis Andreae Vissovatii, (an Author of whom I can find no Account amongst those Books which I have to consult) placed also Co­lumn-wise, the Trinity on one Side, and extense Substance on the other. He ends with a Promise (if this Essay take) of a Parallel between the Incarnation and the sensible World: on all which I will only say, Real and Physical Quantity exists only in Bodies; Mathematical Quantity merely in the Mind, or Thoughts of the Artist. Now how highly Chri­stianity is likely to be advanced by such Speculations as these, what real and what rare spiritual Conceptions and Demonstrations, at this rate, we shall in some time come to have touching God, I leave all considering Men to judg; and in the mean while again desire all to stop at the afore-men­tioned safe Boundaries of Faith and Peace.

I must now proceed with Mr. Dean rebuking me, as surely intending §. 15. this for no more than a Jest, that I would have the Doctrine of the Trini­ty left upon its old bottom of Authority. And here he demands, would I my­self Pag. 12. believe such absurd Doctrines as some represent the Trinity in Ʋnity to▪ [Page 35] be, meerly upon Church-Authority? for his Part he declares he would not. And for my part, I who adhere to Scripture, and plead for such strict Adhesion, am press'd with none of these Absurdities or absurd Doctrines; but if he will not accept such Terms or Forms of speaking as Homoousion, or Consubstantial, Conglorified, and the like, from Councils and Fathers, he must (which would be a great Fault in me) even let them alone. I do not know whence else he can or must receive them, nor who else coin­ed them, and desire him to inform me. Perhaps he will say what the great Father in this Controversy did before him; these syllabical Words are not indeed in Scripture, but ( [...]) their Sense is. I answer; So I believe the Father-thought; and so I be­lieve thought the Generality of the Nicene Fathers, (for by Mr. Dean's Favour, they pretended rather to determine this Point out of Scripture, than to deliver any traditionary Sense thereof; and agreeable to this Pre­tence was the placing the Holy Records in the midst of the Council;) yea (admitting what we judg good Consequents out of Scripture to be of the same Truth with Scripture) so think I: but so do not others think, nor will I pretend my self able, nor do I see any (notwithstanding their mighty Boasts) able to convince them. Demonstrate to the World this to be the Sense of Scripture, and the Controversy is at an end: Till that be done, if we will be fair, we must own this to be the State of our E­vidence. We have for the Orthodox Side, Scripture interpreted by the Tradition of the Church: this at length resolves it self mainly into Church-Authority. For the traditionary Sense which determines Scripture to sig­nify this, not that, is of such Authority: and therefore is the Dogme thence concluded such also. Wherefore I see no Reason to recal that ho­nest Acknowledgment of mine, (conceived indeed in Terms a little larger) After all Authority must define this Controversy: Yet haply it might not be amiss to desire my Words may be strictly attended: I said indefinitely, Authority; for I know not whether it can be said, single Ecclesiastical Authority did ever effectually define it, (that is, appease the Controversy) nor will it, I fear, ever be able. There was some other concurrent Pow­er, of which I forbear to speak, interposed to temperate the Factious in a certain Council, as well as to recommend its Decrees: and so must there be amongst us for the ending this Controversy. Let but the Forms of Worship, which some Mens Consciences cannot bear, be made easy, that we may unite in the Service of God; and 'tis no matter how severe the Laws be against any who shall write or speak more in the Controversy.

I cannot tell but Mr. Dean may have private Reasons which induce him rather to abide by the Arguments or Sentiments of some Fathers, than the Authority of the Councils by me insisted on. I have not pretended to [Page 36] much Skill in Fathers and Councils; and no where imperiously to justi­fy my Pretences within the Space of two or three Pages, rattle out over and over the same six or seven Fathers in a Breath, without producing a Word out of any of them, which some Men may interpret a Pretence to Skill in them, but no good Mark whence to discover it. However, be­cause the Judgment and Authority of Councils is so little in his Esteem, and the learned and subtile Disputations of a certain Person in the Nicene Pag. 13. Council of so great Force with him, I will take leave, notwithstanding my being so little vers'd in these Authors, to tell him, that though I have [...] [...]ue and profound a Veneration for the Council of Nice as most Men living, yet I judg there is nothing has more exposed that Council than those tedious and jejune Disputes reported by some to have passed therein. I have, I say, a true and profound Veneration for that Coun­cil, and esteem it only second to that of the Apostles in Acts 15. Who can think otherwise of it that considers the Number of the Fathers there­in, or otherwise that reflects on the Quality of many (I do not say all) of them: the Number three hundreed and eighteen: their Quality, di­vers of them such who had even at that time bid fair for Martyrdom; Confessors of the first Rank, that bore in their Body [...], the Eccles. Hist. l. 1. c. 7. Marks of Christ; they are Theodoret's Words of them in allusion to the Apostles; that had some of them their Hands cut off, had been seared and tormented with Fire, and otherwise suffered for the Faith of Jesus; and of some, I remember, he says, that they had the very Apostolick Gifts of Miracles; he mentions one who had raised the Dead. The Decrees of such Persons, I confess, next to those of the Apostles, do obtain very much upon me. But as to these Decrees in Points of Faith, what shall we do for them? I know of none but their Creed which asserts indeed the Divinity of the Son, and his Consubstantiality with the Father; but of the Holy Ghost it makes only a bare mention, without asserting any thing, only professing simply the Belief of the Holy Ghost. This Creed has been most religiously preserved, and the Greek. Text thereof reputed sa­cred; insomuch that in the Latin Edition of St. Cyril of Alexandria his Dialogues touching the Trinity, we have the Greek Text set down intire by it self: Admitting therefore this Creed inviolably, yet as to the Disputes in this Council, by Mr. Dean's Favour, we are much to seek. Athana­sius reports one Dispute he had with Arius, but (if I mistook not my self when I read it) that was in the way to the Council, and not in the Coun­cil it self; for Athanasius being at that time only a Deacon, though chief of the Alexandrian Quire of Deacons, I am not satisfied that he was ad­mitted so wonderfully to dispute in the Council, as Mr. Dean pretends. I could give many Reasons for my Opinion herein, but for Brevities sake [Page 37] forbear them. Then as to the Disputes reported by Gelasius Cyzicenus, Photius, whose Credit I need not assert, censures him as a pitiful and [...] Phot. Bib­lioth. Cod. 15. mean Writer, superficial; and his Book no more Argumentative than Histo­rical: So I render that obscure Passage of my Author, cited in the Mar­gin. And though Alfonsus Pisanus the Jesuit, has lick'd him up, and put him off with all the Credit he can, yet hear what a late Doctor and Fellow of the Sorbon says of him [ Genuina act a minimè continet:] ‘His Book contains not the genuine Acts of the Council: nay the Acts Edmund. Ri­cher. Hist. Con­cil. gen. l. 1. c. 2. Equidem cum maximo animi moeroredicere cogor, nullos extare libros, in▪ quibus tot tan­táque fictitia scripta, quàm, in tomis Con­ciliorum le­gantur. §. 6. thereof never came intirely to us.’ And if not the Acts of the Coun­cil, much less the Debates, whereof the Acts were the Result. Gelasi­us indeed talks of having transcribed and collected what he writes out of old Parchments of Dalmatius Archbishop of Cyzicum, which he found intire in his Father's House; but either this was a Device to put off his Work with better Colour and Authority, or else that Dalmatius, if Au­thor of that History, was as shallow as himself. A better, and in these Matters a more judicious Historian (though I confess as to the Lives of Saints a little Monkish and Legendary) gives us this Account as to the Point in Hand: ‘ Hosius Bishop of Corduba seems to be the first who brought in [to be treated of in Councils (I suppose) he means] the mention of those Words, Substance and Subsistence, or Person, ( [...].) For being sent by Constantine the Emperor to Alex­andria for appeasing the Disturbances which Ariu [...] had raised there, and [...]. endeavouring also to pull up by the Roots the Opinion of Sabellius of Libya, he moved the Question touching Substance and Subsistence, by which [...] much of a certain contentious kind of trifling (the word imports very near what we call Banter) was kindled: And the Nicene Council, which was held at length, esteemed that Question unworthy of Debate or Mention. But after­wards, [...] when some again began to contend and trifle ( [...]) touch­ing this Matter, the Synod of Alexandria seems to me wisely to have resolved what I before reported. Now the Decree of the Synod of Alexandria, which he before reported, was this; Forasmuch as the Question of Substance and Subsistence (or Person) has much disturbed the Churches, and frequent Contentions and Disputations have hereto­fore passed touching these Words, the Synod of Alexandria having discussed the Signification and proper Import of them, has decreed, that there is no need of these Terms touching God: for the word Sub­stance [...] ( [...]) is no where found in Holy Writ. But St. Paul, for the better expressing his Doctrine, abused the word Subsistence or Person, ( [...]) Notwithstanding this Synod has decreed, that these Words should be used after another way, when any have occasion to confute [Page 38] the Heresy of Sabellius, lest through Want (or Du­biousness) of Words we should think that in dis­coursing [...] of God we call one thing by three Names: but that every of the Names which we use in the Trinity being trebly distinguish'd, should be theo­logically express'd by a proper Subsistence.’ Thus my Author, who also presently after the Passage where I first broke off, reports a remarkable Piece of Advice out of Evagrius, which I ought not to omit: ‘ Evagrius Ascetes, saith he, in his Book of Monasticks, disswades us to discourse boldly and on our Heads touching the Deity, and would by no means have Men to go about to define God, he being most simple. For, adds he, every Proposition or Enunciation contains either some general Nature which is predicated, or some special one; or else some Difference, properly or Accident, or somewhat compounded and made up of these: But if we can perceive none of these in the Holy Trinity, let us adore that with Silence which we cannot utter or declare.’ Nicephor. Callist. l. 10. c. 15. St. Austin himself, whose Authority ought to go vastly further, is sometimes in the same strain, who, though in his numerous Books of the Trinity he sists Veriùs enim cogitatur Deus quàm dicitur, & veriùs est quam cogita­tur. De Trin. lib. 7. all as fine as he can, yet at length confesses, to the same Effect with my Author last cited, the Subject to be beyond Expression: For, saith he, our Thoughts of God are commonly more true than our Expressions; But God more truly is than we can think.

But to return again to History and Mr. Dean: The Coessentiality or Con­substantiality of the Son with the Father was the Point determined against Arius in the Council of Nice, which was indeed previous or preliminary to one Part of the Doctrine of the Trinity: but the Controversy of the Trinity of Persons was not raised but by the Followers of Arius, not by himself, (as Baronius both witnesses and proves) and therefore could not be decided in the Council of Nice. If therefore we were to stand only to the Decrees of the Council of Nice, in the Matter of the Trinity, our Faith herein would be comparatively very short: For by that Council nei­ther was there affirmed a Trinity of Persons, nor Unity of the three. It is not therein so much as determined what the Holy Ghost is. Mr. Dean therefore did me wrong if he intended those Words, The Council of Nice, Pag. 13. on whose Authority we must rest, (namely in Point of the Trinity) should be understood to be my Words. He may be permitted to confound the learned and subtil Disputations of Athanasius in behalf of the Divinity of Christ, (which Point indeed was determined in the Council of Nice) and the Controversy of the Trinity in Unity, (to which there was some con­sid [...] Advance made in the Council of Constantinople;) he, I say, may [Page 39] be admitted to confound these two together, and to rest for both upon the single Authority of the Council of Nice, because in that Council he will find Athanasius, and so may hope to hook in the Confession commonly called the Creed of St. Athanasius, (I use the Terms of our own Litur­gy:) but I expresly avouched the Authority of the Nicene and first Con­stantinopolitan Councils in Conjunction, as having betwixt them setled the Doctrine of the Trinity; yet not in the hard Words which after-Ages used. For in these two Councils, though there be in effect three Persons de­clared, yet is not the term three Persons used; but both the Matter and the Language wherein the Decision is made, looks much liker that of the Scripture than what we find in a certain later Creed, when Men pro­ceeded to draw Consectaries from these Councils Definitions, and put such their Consectaries into hard, artificial and intricate Terms; and then imposed all for Faith, with so much Nicety, that it is at least as easy to mistake as to understand the Truth: and sometimes really the Mistake is much the more obvious.

I cannot forbear an Instance or two out of the Creed just now men­tioned, usually ascribed to Athanasius; but if Vossius be in the right, compiled much after his Age by one Anastasius, as he conjectures, if my Memory fail not, for I have not my Book by me: that Creed then thus proceeds; THE FATHER IS ETERNAL, THE SON ETERNAL, AND THE HOLY GHOST ETERNAL; AND YET THEY ARE NOT THREE ETERNALS, BƲT ONE ETERNAL. AS ALSO THERE ARE NOT THREE INCOMPREHENSIBLES, NOR THREE ƲNCREATED, BƲT ONE ƲNCREATED, AND ONE INCOMPREHENSIBLE. Suppose now a Man should thus argue hence; If there are three, yet not three uncreated, but one uncreated, then two of the three must be created: For the three must be either crea­ted or uncreated, that is, eternally existent. But it is further also added, that there are not three Eternals, but one Eternal: therefore supposing the Father to be uncreated and eternal, (as of the three most properly and essentially Uncreatedness and Eternity belongs to him, insomuch as the Son is his Begotten, and the Holy Ghost proceeds from him;) supposing, I say, the Father uncreated and eternal, it seems hence unavoidably to fol­low, the Son and the Holy Ghost are created and not eternal: for there are not three Uncreated, nor three Eternals. The same may be said in like manner as to the other Attributes of Incomprehensible and Almighty. And if any should profess the Son and Holy Ghost created, or not eter­nal, would not all cry out immediately, Heresy! Blasphemy! It will not be sufficient here to say, It is confessed before that the Son is uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate, &c. for that Confession is now contra­dicted, [Page 40] by saying there is but one uncreate. What shall we then do to extricate our selves from the Niceties of this Creed? How few of the People have the Clew? Verily not one in a thousand of the Laity that 'Hic ponuntur adjectivè istae dictiones [viz. coaeterni, &c.] ibi autem ad­jectivè. Glossa ad verbum Co­aeterni. De summa Trini­tate, c. 1. Fir­miter credi­mus. say, sing or receive this Creed, and it may be not one in an hundred of the Clergy. But to salve all, behold a wholesom Distinction out of a known Gloss: When we say, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are all three uncreate, we take Uncreate as an Adjective; and then the Proposi­tion is true. When we say there are not three uncreate, we take it as a Substantive: For if we should say there are three uncreated, taking it as a Substantive, it were Heresy. And so in the case of Eternal; when we say the Father is eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Ghost eternal, and all three eternal, we take Eternal as an Adjective: But if we should take Eternal as a Substantive, then we must deny that there are three Eternals: (surely then by the way must we also deny that there are three infinite Minds, and that even according to Athanasius himself: But to come a­gain to the Gloss) Can now any Man living give me a Reason why Un­create or Eternal should be less an Adjective when understood of an un­crete Substance or Essence, than it is when understood of an uncreate Person? And yet taking it either substantively or adjectively, if I should so use it, as to deny there are three uncreated Persons, I am as much a Heretick as if I should say there are three uncreated Essences. There is therefore very happily a further Remedy in the said Gloss, namely, that Hic designat Personas, ibi Essentiam. Gl. ubi supra. when we profess all three are uncreate and coeternal, we must understand or supply the word Person: When we say there is but one Uncreate and one Eternal, we must understand Essence or Nature.

In fine then, if we have not Metaphysicks enough, and Grammar enough, to find out when a Word is to denote the Essence, and when the Person, or perhaps when it is to be taken adjectively, when substan­tively, we shall be led by the very Letter of this Creed, to profess Heresy and Blasphemy instead of the true Faith. Were it not now better that this Creed were either made plainer, or totally laid aside, than urged and used as it is? But indeed neither of the two Councils mentioned made any such Creed as this; nor, as I really believe, did Athanasius himself: He and others of the Fathers perhaps did dispute or opine to this or the like Effect; but surely they never designed to impose such a Form of Be­lief under such damning Clauses as are contained herein. This may the rather be concluded, for that Gregory Nyssen penn'd the Constantinopoli­tan So Baronius. Creed in that Council, ten Years at least after Athanasius his Death: And amongst other Fathers of that Council, Gregory Nazianzen and Jerome (cited here to little Purpose by Mr. Dean) approved it as it is, without the pretended Athanasian Criticisms and Severities; nay with­out [Page 41] the very Filioque. I had Reason therefore, as to the Doctrine of the Trinity, not to go beyond the Decisions of these Councils, but to ac­quiesce in their Authorities. What further Authority, beyond that of the Church, interposed in the Council of Nice, I have no mind to speak. I will also pass by here, as small Faults, some Blunders of Mr. Dean's which he is guilty of in his huddle of Fathers, making St. Athanasius, St. Hilary, and St. Basil, to write largely against these Heresies, which former Councils had condemned: whereas they all three died when there had but yet one Council sat; and therein, as far as with Certainty appears, but one Heresy, namely that of Arim, condemned; (for I cannot allow the Quarto Decimani to have been Hereticks:) they could not therefore write against Heresies condemned by Councils. But waving these and other Exceptions which I might justly make touching all these Fathers Writings on this Subject, as being impertinently cited against me; I say after all, if the Worship of the Trinity might be left as these Fathers, and particularly as St. Hilary in the End of his twelfth Book of the Tri­nity, left it, (whose Words I produce not, for a Reason any one may guess who pleases to consult them) the Differences in this Controversy amongst Protestants would be nearer a Compromise. And thus as to my Adhe­sion to the Authority of these Councils.

My next Charge is, what I confess was great News to me, that I am §. 16. Pag. 14. well vers'd in Mr. Hobbs's Divinity. Truly though I neither have, nor ever had any Esteem for Mr. Hobbs's Divinity, yet I could wish my self better skilled in it, for then I should better know it when I meet with it in other Mens Writings disguised, (now 'tis said, a certain great Person, no Stranger to the Temple, has lately espoused it under a very slighty Dis­guise) and I should be able more perfectly to wipe off the Imputation of being a Disciple to it at present, without any Consciousness to my self cast upon me. I could here tell Mr. Dean a very true Secret; that there were two Books which I was afraid to read when I was young, lest they should corrupt me, and Mr. Hobbs's Leviathan was one: And having neglected it when my Curiosity was strongest, I never read it since. So that it would be very strange, should I be well vers'd in a Man's Doctrine which I never read: But the best of it is, Mr. Dean shews here also his great Reading, and cites Mr. Hobbs, just as before he did the Fathers, at random, without giving us any Text out of him. And I neither have by me, nor in case I had, have I leisure to search all Mr. Hobbs's Works, to see whether he has any such Assertion as Mr. Dean alledges. In an­swering Arguments from Testimony, the Testimony it self ought first to be examined: And this not appearing, I must for that Reason wave any more particular Answer to this Charge: Only as to what follows in the [Page 42] Apology, I will renew my Request to Mr. Dean, as being a Person of Learning, for that small Favour, that he will hereafter be consistent with, and not contradict himself; and particularly that he will no more affirm that Point made plain and easy, which he confesses difficult and incompre­hensible. And to prevail with him for this Boon, I will promise publick­ly to beg his Pardon for the Affront of making this my Request to him a second time, if I do not immediately prove that in this Matter of the Tri­nity, which here in his Apology he confesses to be an incomprehensible My­stery, he does not say again and again in his Vindication thereof, that he has made it plain and easy, and so has contradicted himself in the Point objected. First, I say he confesses here the Divine Nature, the Trinity of Divine Persons, and the Unity of the Divine Essence, to be incomprehen­sible. Secondly, He says in his Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, (p. 48.) that he will not pretend to fathom such a Mystery as this. Here he is for the Incomprehensibility of it. Then in his Preface to his Vindi­cation he tells us, the writing that Book cost him many Thoughts; and those who have a mind throughly to understand it, must not think much if it cost them some, notwithstanding all that he has done to explain the My­stery. Here's the Difficulty of it acknowledged still: Yet a little before, in the very self-same Preface, he says, he has given a very easy and intelligi­ble Notion of a Trinity in Ʋnity. And in his Vindication, (p. 66.) that his Account thereof gives a plain and intelligible Solution of all the Diffi­culties and seeming Contradictions in the Doctrine of the Trinity. And again, ( p. 68.) in a kind of an Epiphonema, This is a very plain and in­telligible Account of this great and venerable Mystery, as plain and intelli­gible as the Notion of one God, or of one Person in the Godhead: Notions which are very easy and intelligible, and whereof all the Difficulties and seeming Repugnancies or Contradictions have received a plain and easy Solution, are certainly comprehensible and easy: For what hinders them from being so? Or what do we mean in our present State by compre­hending any Notion or Doctrine, but a clear understanding it without any Difficulty or Perplexity? That which I said therefore of some Writers pretending to make this Controversy comprehensible and easy, is verified in him, though I did not name him, and so is no spiteful and scandalous Imputation of mine to him, as he, in his good Nature and sweet Lan­guage, is pleased to stile it, but was justly and truly spoken with Humili­ty and peaceable Design: And he must one Day answer, if he do not re­pent, for this his second slandering me with Spite against him, whom Pag. 11, & 15. (God knows) I both loved and honoured, and at present wish him as well as my own Soul; nor do I reprehend any thing in him which I would bear in my self.

But now I may set my Heart at Rest as to this Controversy, if Mr. Dean will stand to the Profession he has made; for he says, all that any Man (therefore that he) pretends to in vindicating the Doctrine of the Tri­nity, Pag. 16. is to prove that this Faith is taught in Scripture. This is that which I would be at, and have contended for, that we may have nothing ob­truded upon us for Faith in this Point, but what is taught in Scripture; and then I am sure there will be no fear that any wise Man should reject Scripture for its sake, or put strained and unnatural Senses on it, to recon­cile it to Reason: But that three such Persons as he has defined are by Scripture asserted, or can be thence concluded to be in the Deity, I have denied, I do and must ever deny, and conceive I have proved contra­dictious.

In the next Place, having repeated his old Prevarication touching my §. 17. stiling the Socinians the learned Writers of Controversy, he is displeased with me for not taking them to task for denying the Divine Nature to be incomprehensible. Truly I never heard or read any of the Socinians guilty of such Presumption or Blasphemy. But this I take only to be a Conse­quence drawn by himself from a certain Opinion of theirs, and then fastned upon them: Of which kind of fair dealing I will say nothing for the present. But I do know there are some who deny God's Prescience of future Contigents, touching which I had no Occasion to speak; no more had he here, but that he would hedg in any thing, pertinent or imperti­nent, to inodiate an innocent Person; which being he has done, I will take the Occasion to profess before the Searcher of all Hearts, who knows what is in Man, that he knows I do believe, and in my Soul adore his Prescience; that I abhor any Suspicions of it, as seeing scarce any of his Perfections more clearly express'd, and by a World of Instances verified in Holy Scripture. Nay, I voluntarily profess, I cannot conceive infinite Knowledg without Prescience; and though, I do confess, I cannot com­prehend infinite Knowledg, because I am very finite, yet I bless him who helps my Ʋnbelief, and has as fully possess'd my Heart with the Perswasion thereof, as with the Perswasion of his Existence.

But I cannot so easily believe Mr. Dean's Notions for facilitating, I sup­pose the comprehending the next Divine Attribute, which he lugs-in, namely Eternity; which though he truly says, ( pag. 16. lin. 28, 29.) to be without Beginning and without Succession, yet with his usual Attention he explains ( lin 32.) to be a Succession without a Beginning, a Second or a Third without a First. This Notion I will not accuse him to have taken from the School-Doctors.

Only I must ask him why he put those Words, a God Adequate and Commensurate to our Ʋnderstandings, a little finite comprehensible God, [Page 44] in the same Character in which he ordinarily puts the Words he cites or wire-draws from my Paper. If he did it with a Design to possess the Reader that I had any such Words, or had said any thing from whence such an Inserence could be made, I have another Kindness to thank him for, of a like Nature to his others.

I now proceed to account for the last Reason I assigned for the present §. 18. Unreasonableness of some Mens agitating this Controversy, which was, Hereby (that is, as both the very Title and the Paper it self expresly assert, by some learned Mens present Writings on this Controversy) our Church at present, and the common Christianity, it may be feared, will be daily Pag. 18. more and more exposed to atheistical Men,—they being not likely to over­look the Advantages thus daily given them. This Mr. Dean, according to his usual way, first calumniously perverts to another Sense; then for this bold Stroke, as he calls it, will scarce allow me to be either a Christian or a Divine: And lastly falls on catechising me.

First; He calumniously perverts my Sense: for, says he, The Sum of this is, that to vindicate the Doctrine of the Trinity against Socinians, will make Men Atheists. Not so fast, good Mr. Dean: This Sum agrees not either with your own reckoning or with mine: Three times at least in your Paper you said, these learned Writers of Controversies, by me de­signed, were the Socinians: According to which (your own) Interpreta­tion, your Proposition (or the Sum) explicitely should have been this, The Socinians present writing against the Trinity will make Men Atheists. Do you then deny that Proposition? No; you'l say, I believe, you thought not of it. But you know very well on the other side, that amongst the present learned Writers of Controversy your self were more immediately concerned; (they are your own Words, pag. 2.) And now the Sum, if truly stated, will be much different, namely this; Such Vin­dications of the Trinity, as that writ by Dr. Sherlock, tend rather to make Men Atheists than to convert Socinians. This, Sir, was my mean­ing, and this I re-assert. For Atheists may confute Tritheism or Poly­theism, (for my Part I see not how either is defensible;) and having pro­ved such Doctrines in Religion to be false, they will be ready to conclude all Religion is so too: but they can never overthrow the Doctrine of one God the Father of all; and one Saviour, the Son of God, our Lord Christ Jesus; and of one Spirit sanctifying and uniting the whole Body of Christian People; or of these three being one. And this, if you will call it a bold Stroke, I stick to it, and fear not being exposed though I double it.

The Substance of two of his Questions is answered already. First, Do I believe the Doctrine of the Trinity to be desensible or no? I do, as deli­vered [Page 45] in Scripture, but not upon his novel Definitions and Hypotheses: But why do I not defend it better? I have partly answered it already; and a further Answer to that, and to his second Question, will come in by and by. In the mean time as to his third; Wh [...] are Atheists concerned in the Disputes of the Trinity? Very much in such Vindications of it, which give such a Notion of the true God as implicates, or is inconsistent with it self, ( viz.) that the true God, adored by all Christian People, should be three infinite Minds, and yet not three infinite Minds: If it be, as it is im­possible that there should be, more infinite Minds than one, then will A­theists say, it is impossible such a Being should exist, as you describe your God to be; that is, there is no God.

After these Questions I am to be told a Secret, which though in great §. 19. Pag. 19. Modesty I conceal, yet possibly I may be privy to, (viz.) that Atheists and Deists, Men who are for no Religion, are of late very zealous Socinians. I easily believe and acknowledg Mr. Dean better acquainted with the Town than I am: but if Atheists and Deists be zealous Socinians, let him ne­ver again object to me my Socinian Friends; for I protest I have not, to my Knowledg, any familiar Acquaintance, much less Friendship, with any Atheists or Theists in the World. I pray, as our Church teaches to pray, FOR ALL INFIDELS AS WELL AS TƲRKS AND JEWS, that GOD WOƲLD TƲRN THEIR HEARTS: And in my Sphere, as God gives me Opportunity, I desire to labour in his Church to that purpose; but otherwise I am so far from espousing the Conversation, much less Friendship of any such, as that I say with the great Apostle, If any Man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran­atha. And as for my own part, I from my Heart receive every Tittle of the revealed Christian Religion; particularly as to those two Magna­lia, the Trinity and Incarnation. Touching the former I have once and again declared my Judgment and Faith: and touching the latter, this being the meetest Place wherein to profess my Faith of it, I do profess sincerely to believe my Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, the Word who was in the Beginning, and who was with God, and was and is God, blessed for ever, to have been in fulness of Time made of a Wo­man, and so to have become Flesh, or truly taken upon him Flesh and Blood; to have been in the World as we are in the World, subject to all In­firmities, Sin only excepted; and that as such, having by himself purged our Sins, he is sat down on the right Hand of the Majesty on high; and as he lives for ever to make Intercession for us, so he shall come to judg the World at the last Day. Thus do I from my Heart adore and preach him, and shall do, I trust, to my dying Hour. I know indeed, and have Con­verse with some who are not in all these Particulars of my Mind; yet neither [Page 46] are they licentious Wits, nor do they ridicule and scorn this Faith; nor do I see how any sober Men dare ridicule it: But some vertuous Rationalists having perhaps faln upon bad Books, and by that Means lying under strong Prepossessions, they misinterpret these Passages of Holy Scripture which I have reported, and others like, and endeavour to evade their Evi­dence when applied to that Sense, to which we of the Church of England alledg them. Now I do not think Stiffness and an immoderate [...], a winding up the State of each Question still higher and higher, and then disputing scornfully, and defending all in new Methods, or by new Hy­potheses, to be the way to reclaim these Men; but what I conceive to be most serviceable, I shall, before I have done, speak out and submit. As to Men that ridicule and scoff at any thing in Religion, yea though it be erroneous, as long as it is consistent with Holiness and Charity, has a fair Claim to Scripture, and seems deducible thence, I think such Scoffers highly prophane; and both these and all such, who treat those that are not of their Opinions with Scorn and Haughtiness, I judg them to be next door to David's Scorners, Psal. 1. namely, in the highest Class of the Wicked, and very near being incorrigible: which is all I will say, as to this Imputation, of my having entertained a Friendship with such Men.

Mr. Dean goes on and says, I have found out such a Reason to prove §. 20. Pag. 20. the present Danger of disputing the Controversy of the Holy Trinity, as he believes was never dream'd of, and that is, that it is one of the Fundamen­tals of Christian Religion: Now to litigate touching a Fundamental, is to turn it into Controversy, &c. Here I must again complain of soul deal­ing; my Words were, ‘The Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, in whose Names we and all Christians are or ought to have been baptized, is esteemed, as it is if duly stated, one of the Fundamentals of Christian Religion.’ It is apparent I did affirm the Doctrine of the Trinity a Fundamental with this Restriction, if duly stated. He charges it upon me, as affirm'd simply and at large. I deny it to be a Fundamental, or so much a Truth, as Dr. Sherlock states it in his Vindication of it, ( viz.) that there is a Trinity of infinite Minds, &c. though, with Reverence, I acknowledg and believe it to be both a Truth and a Fundamental, as the Scripture states it. Now for Men to take the Name of a fundamental and revered Truth, the Holy Trinity, and affix it to a novel and gross Pack of Errors, and to go on to dispute for those Errors under the sacred Title of a Fundamental of the Catholick and Apostolick Faith, which was plainly enough my Sense, this I say and stand to it, is of dreadful Danger, and may prove of as mischievous Consequence as most Practices assigna­ble. For in case the Adversary disprove and expose that Error, it is not with the Generality of People the Error that suffers, but that great Truth, [Page 47] the sacred Name whereof was abused. And whereas he demands, Is it dangerous to preserve and defend Foundations when Hereticks unsettle them? I answer, he has truly done neither, (neither secured nor defended them) but very surely has he done a third thing, he has to his Power changed them. Wherefore to all that dreadful aggravative Discourse, which takes up a whole Page and an half, spent to render me ridiculous, and my As­sertion Pag. 20, & 21. extravagant, as if, according to what I urge, Men might not argue against Atheism; I will give no other Answer, than that I pray God to forgive him the making this Parallel, and grant unto him hereafter better to employ his Time and Parts than in such open and unartificial Exagge­rations.

In the next Page follows a Piece of News which I am truly to thank him for, touching a Treatise in the Press from our excellent Primate. Pag. 22. Now though this Intimation was intended against the Design of my Pa­per, as an Argument from Authority, and the Authority too of such a Person, whom should I offer to except against, I should most justly ex­pose my Judgment, if no more; yet so welcome is the Tidings he tells me, that here also I forgive both this his ill Intent, and the sly Scoff with which he concludes that Paragraph; not doubting but when I see that Piece, I shall find in it both plain and perspicuous Scripture-Notions, clear Reason and genuine Antiquity. Besides I must tell the Apologist, I look upon his Grace, both by his publick Station and personal Qualifications, far otherwise capacitated to write on this Subject than a private Doctor; such as I suppose Mr. Dean was, when he writ what he stiled the Vindica­tion of the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity.

I now come to what he has to say against my last Argument for a tem­porary §. 21. Forbearance of these Disputes, which he thus reports; that I say, All Controversies are now unseasonable in such a Juncture, wherein nothing but an Ʋnity of Counsels, and joining Hands and Hearts can preserve the Reformation, and scarce any thing more credit it than an Ʋnion in Doctri­nals. This Report of my Argument is according to his wonted Can­dour and Veracity: But my Argument, by his Favour, stood not so in my Paper; it was more carefully express'd, had more Parts, and those pressing closer. I desire it may be considered, I was to say as much as I could in a little; and however Mr. Dean thinks fit to deal with me, I am not ashamed of any Part of what I said: My Argument then stood thus; ‘As indeed all Controversies amongst Protestants are most unseasonable in such a Juncture, wherein, under God, nothing but an Union of Coun­sels, and joining Hands and Hearts can preserve the Reformation, (and scarce any thing more credit and justify it than an Union in Doctri­nals;) so above all other Controversies none can well be thought of, [Page 48] worse tim'd than this.’ Of which ill timing it I gave a very particu­lar Proof, too warm it seems for him to touch upon, and therefore he slipp'd it away between his Fingers as if it had not been. But how an­swers he my Argument? First he disjoints it, then answers to what Parts of it he pleases, and to those Parts in what Order he pleases: And finally, never considers the Parts as connected and together, adding Strength to the main Conclusion. Indeed such dealing as this, with some Scorn in­terlaced, is his usual way of confuting. What he says worth notice, I shall reflect upon. The first Member of my Argument he thinks fit to ampliate, and will say a little more, that they [i. e. all Controversies a­mongst Protestants, which was the Subject of my Proposition] are always unseasonable; for there is no Juncture seasonable to broach Heresies and oppose Truth. But may there be no Controversies, especially amongst Protestants, which broach not Heresies? The Denial of the Trinity duly stated, I allow to be Heresy. But we, in the first Member of the Argu­ment, speak of all Controversies amongst Protestants. Now do all Dis­sensions amongst Protestants arise to Heresy on one side or other? God for­bid! Again, in times of publick Peace may there not be (very seasona­bly) amicable Conferences and Arguings between those who dissent from one another, in order to clearing Difficulties, and so to brotherly Accord? Even those Treaties are certainly some kind of Controversies, though some Men may be very unfit for them, and therefore have little Kindness for them: and those, I stand to it, ought to be held in due Season. But at present I did not think even these kind of Arguings seasonable, but would have them also suspended; and was of Opinion, that as things stand, all Protestants suffering each other to worship God in his own way, according to the Conscience of each, should join against a common Ene­my. What I said may be Truth and advisable, and as far as I yet see, is so. What Mr. Dean adds is not true, and his Proof of it is very insuffi­cient, to say no worse: For he would prove all Controversies to be al­ways unseasonable, because some are so. I will not tell him, that even Heresies may be, and daily are in University-Disputations, and like Theo­logical Exercises, strongly argued for, and Truth opposed; not only for exercising and ripening Scholars, but that all the Strength Heresies have may be detected and enervated, and the weaker Side of Truth secured: so that thus also all Controversies asserting Heresy, and opposing Truth, are not always unseasonable. So great a Disputant as Mr. Dean ought not to have advanced so universal a Proposition without more Caution. As to his defending Fundamental Truths, I have already spoken: How­ever seasonable the defending them may always be, I say in a word, the changing of them can be never so.

Next he repeats two other Members of my Argument, and begins with carping at the last thus; Is the Ʋnion in Doctrinals ever the greater that Socinians boldly and publickly affront the Faith of the Church, and no body appears to defend it? I answer, that I am not for any Affronts in what Cause soever, for I seldom see they do good; but most of all am I against Affronts to the publick Faith of the Church. The Socinians, I am informed, were silent some while upon my Paper, till others blew the Coals afresh. It is utterly against my Mind, and grieves my Soul, if they do affront the establish'd Church, and 'tis more than I know: God forbid I should excuse them for it: I would have them, and all Men, to be peaceable, meek and humble. But in case of such Affronts, the Church, God be blessed, has better Ways to vindicate the Faith and her own Ho­nour, than the Fancies and new Notions of private Doctors, who con­sult her not, but run perfectly upon their own Heads, and advance their own Principles, being busy and intermeddling in every Controversy that is moved. I boldly aver, less would be said against the Truth, did not such Persons, appearing for it, by their pretended Defences of it, and by the haughty Stile and Manner of penning them, give new Matter to the Adversary. Those daily fresh Provocations, and the Effects of them, are what I did in part, and must still insist upon, as one main Reason for my Suit for Forbearance.

But will the World think that we are all of one Mind because there is §. 22. disputing but on one side? Then they will think us all Socinians, &c. I an­swer, Let us go on in Conformity to our Church-Doctrine, and especial­ly in an holy, humble, peaceable, obliging Conversation, and touching our Judgment in Doctrinals, the World will sooner credit our Practice, and the Articles, (or Confession) the Liturgy, Catechism, Homilies, Con­stitutions, and such publick Acts of our Church, than twenty little Vin­dications of private Doctors. And as for the Pamphlets of some obscure and anonymous Persons, I still say again, 'tis Opposition, for the main, that gives them Celebrity and Life. Heresies have from Age to Age still been transmitted to Posterity, by sundry Consutations they have received. Had we had only the Holy Scripture and our Creed, with a few practi­cal and devotional Books delivered down to us, we should have been united in a plain Faith, in Charity and Holiness built thereupon; and the very Names, as well as the Errors of the antient Hereticks, had been long since buried and unknown: Whereas every Age now, by what has been writ against Heresies, know how to refine and new vamp them. What fur­ther are in my poor Opinion the meetest Ways to provide against Socinia­nism as well as all the other— isms or dissenting Parties, I shall speak per­haps anon.

In the mean time I must not let pass a very signal Favour of Mr. Dean's, to render me, if he could, obnoxious to the Government, in making me privy to a very dangerous Secret, or great Truth fit for all Governments to Pag. 23. consider, (truly their Majesties Chaplain in ordinary ought to admonish the Government of their Oversights) a Truth, he says, which I have un­warily confess'd, (and he is in the right of it, for I thought not of it; nay I neither before knew, nor do I now believe it to be generally a Truth) that every Schism in the Church is a new Party and Faction in the State, which are always troublesom to Government when it wants their Help. This may be true of every vast or multitudinous Schism, when the Number infected come to bear some considerable Proportion, as per­haps of a fifth or sixth Part to the whole Nation; but not of every Party which some call a Schism, surely as to that little contemptible Party that Pag. 19. only think themselves considerable; as to that so inconsiderable, abhorred Party, when they stand by themselves, that all Parties who own any Reli­gion Pag. 23. will join Counsels, and Hands, and Hearts, to renounce them, (as he had not above nine Lines before drawn the Character of the Socinian:) The Help of these surely can neither be wanted by the Government, nor they ever be troublesome to it. If therefore any Words of mine import any such thing, (which I profess I cannot see they do) I confess it was said very unawares, nay contrary to my Intention. Besides, I should ne­ver have expected this Insinuation from Mr. Dean against the Socinians of all Parties in the World: For he being a Person so deeply engaged against them, cannot be esteemed so little read or vers'd in their Heresy, as to be ignorant, that amongst their Errors of Note, this is one, That it is not lawful for any Christian Man to exercise even the Civil Power of the Sword; that Christians are to leave this Matter to the World, and that there never will be wanting worldly Men enough, Children of this Gene­ration, who will be ambitious enough of Power and Government, and who are fitter for it, and much better Managers of it than are or would be the Children of the Light: that therefore they are to be subject to the Power that is, and not to attempt the possessing themselves of Rule. This Party therefore of all other, ought not to fall under the Jealousy of the Government: Nor should Mr. Dean, of all Men, being he so well knows this to be against their Principles, have accused them of it.

And now passing by some poor trifling Reflections which he makes up­on me, (touching my Intimacy with Socinians, &c.) without regarding whether that which he infers follow from the Premisses he takes, and which mostly make up his 24th Page, I come to speak more fully my meaning in a Passage of more Weight, which he is unwilling to understand. For­asmuch as all Men know, Opposition commonly makes those whom we [Page 51] cannot quiet, only more eager and troublesom, I had perswaded a Neglect of the Socinian Papers till fit Time and Place, as really believing that if they received no new Matter to provoke them to write, they would sur­cease. Now Mr. Dean will have the Time he wrote in to be a fit Time, Pag. 23 (I suppose because he had leisure and a Mind to give the World some new Specimen of his Skill in Dispute, and for other Reasons that the World talk of) and what I mean by fit Place he knows not. But that he may be soon let into the whole meaning, as well as Reasonableness of my Propo­sals, I will tell him, that the great St. Augustine would not undertake writing against the Pelagians, till chosen and deputed thereto by two Councils, in both which he sat; one of Carthage, the other of Milevis, both held according to Baronius, in the Year CCCCXVI. From conside­ration of which memorable Precedent, I concluded the fittest Time and Place for the taking notice of, and confuting heretical Doctrines, especi­ally in such tender Points as that of the Holy Trinity, to be (what is near­est a Council amongst us, namely) a full House of Convocation; and the fittest Persons to do this, a Committee chosen by that great and reve­rend Assembly; and the Work afterwards to be revised and approved by the said Assembly. How far it might be expedient to call or admit the Ad­versaries to publick Disputation at such Time and Place, I take not upon me to consider. But according to this Method, we should be sure to have no novel Hypotheses or Definitions put upon us, or started: On the con­trary, all Points would be maturely stated with Moderation and Caution, even Expressions themselves weighed, the Truth solidly confirmed, Er­ror confuted and censured. So that in fine, all Sons of the Church would and must be concluded, and by this Means a due End would be put to these Controversies. This was what I meant by saying, ‘At fit Time and Place let that be done which shall be judged most Christian and most wholesorn.’ And I believe a little Candour and Consideration would easily have taken my Meaning. But having now thus more fully de­clared it, I shall only add as to this Matter, that I persist still in the same Opinion.

So do I also in my Proposal of what I termed a Negative Belief, which he again attempts to expose; instead of which Term, if any will give me a better and more significant Succedaneum, I shall readily accept it: but as for the thing it self, I judg it, as I have said, most reasonable and just. Nor do I see any readier Expedient towards such Ʋnion, as in the present State of things may be adjudged possible, than what I pro­posed, namely, that in such mysterious Points which we cannot understand or clear our selves in, we shall be permitted (what indeed as to the inward Act none can hinder) to suspend our Judgment, and not be required to de­clare [Page 52] any further Assent and Consent to the Churches Determination, than that we will not contradict or teach contrary thereto: Withal, that in the mean time no Practice be imposed upon any contrary to their Conscience.

But I would have it noted here, that I neither in my Paper did, nor do I now propose this Temper, as a Mean to qualify Men for Church-Preferments, but only for Communion.

Now though Mr. Dean may judg all this unpracticable, and that it is not possible to bring hereby some Men to hold their Tongues, yet perhaps he judges of their Tongues by what he knows, and has declared of his own Pen, that he will, in a certain Controversy, never lay it down while he can hold it in his Hand. However I find some in Print to be of a con­trary Mind in this Point, even touching himself; and to believe, that if the Booksellers would but hold their Hands in giving him so much a Sheet for his Copies, he would soon cease troubling the World with Contro­versy of any kind.

But he adds, that I remembred not, when I made this Proposal, what I Pag. 26. had said of some Mens Zeal, and eternal Disputing. I did remember, good Sir, what I had said and spoke consistently with it, which is more than some People always do; but you misrepresent what I said according to your usual Fidelity: My Words were, ‘An Answer would only breed a Reply, that a Rejoinder, that a Triplication, and so in infini­tum.’ But I did not say there would be a Reply, if there were no An­swer; nor a Triplication, if no Rejoinder; nor any eternal Disputing, if (as I desired) some Writers would desist, neglect their Adversaries, or forbear insolently to exasperate them.

Now as to the Questions he asks me, I will take the Liberty to imitate §. 24. my Saviour, and answer one captious Question with another.

1st. He asks, Whether I will allow them, whom I grant to be in Pos­session of the Faith of the Trinity and Incarnation, to keep Possession of it, to teach, explain and confirm it to their People? And I will ask him, Whether he never saw certain Royal Injunctions assigning fit Subjects for Sermons? Some in Queen Elizabeth's Time, and others since, ordinarily transmitted to the Clergy by the Primate of the Kingdom, that Preachers shall in their Sermons purely and sincerely declare unto their Hearers the Word of God, and in the same exhort them to good Works; to Works of Faith, as Mercy and Charity;—that they shall forbear difficult and con­troversial Points. Now although this of the Trinity be not, that I re­member, mentioned, yet I am sure there is the same Reason of it, as of those that are: And, by his Favour, I will ask him further, whether it be not fit to obey such Injunctions? or whether the Doctrine of the Tri­nity be not as difficult and remote from the common Peoples Understand­ing, [Page 53] as is the Doctrine of Predestination and God's Decrees? Notwith­standing this, I yield; In the Name of God, let Ministers at due Season, as on Trinity-Sunday, and the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord, preach to their People, as they judg it most edifying, the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation; only let them do it plainly, easily, purely and sincerely, according to Scripture, and not with Innovations of their own.

His 2d Particular I expected would have been a Question also, as he promised; but he had either forgot his Promise, or changed his Mind, and so he puts the Case categorically thus: I hope, says Mr. Dean, he [that is, the melancholy Stander-by] does not propose this Negative Belief, as he calls it, as a Term of Communion; that though we know them to deny the Trinity and Incarnation, yet if they will agree not publickly to oppose and contradict this Faith, we shall receive them to our Communion. Now though he has not proposed this in form of a Question, yet I will answer it with a very short one; Why not? At least as far forth as we know (that is, as they profess) they can in Conscience join with us: Nay, has not Mr. Dean done it? or would he not in the Case I shall now put? namely, Suppose him or me to be in the Pulpit, beginning our Prayer before Ser­mon, either, as some do, with the Collect, Prevent us, O Lord, &c. or with some Form or Conceptions of our own, (in which notwithstanding is nothing of Controversy intermix'd) and to subjoin to our own Prayer that of our Lord's. Suppose in like manner after Sermon we should use either that Collect, Grant we beseech thee, &c. or some Prayer of our own, and then give the Blessing to the whole Congregation promiscu­ously. Admit now, that in the Beginning of our very first Prayer we should have seen a Person whom we know to be a good Liver, and pro­fessing the common Christianity, (in other Points) but so unhappy, as that he cannot be convinced of the Doctrine of three Persons in the God­head, as it is ordinarily taught, or of the Incarnation of the second Per­son, though he does from his Heart believe and confess Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, and hold all other the Articles of the Apostles Creed; would or should, either Mr. Dean or I, in such case stop as soon as we saw that Person in the Congregation, and bid him go out, refusing he should join with us in those Prayers, or receive his Share in that Blessing, to both which he heartily says Amen? that is, Shall I not admit him to Commu­nion as far as I know he does consent and desire to communicate with me and other Orthodox Christian People? I know the Story of St. John the Evangelist and Cerinthus, but Cerinthus was anotherguise Heretick than such Person as in the Character supposed.

I might animadvert as I pass, that (in pag. 27.) Mr. Dean imputes sundry Points very iniquitously stated to the Socinians, which yet they [Page 54] hold not as he states them. I am not concerned to defend the Socinian Errors; but as I love Truth and Peace, I cannot forbear observing, that he here wrongs them. First, as to what he speaks of the Object of Chri­stian Worship; if he, as some in the World, had had personal dealing with the Generality of his Parishioners, as to Matters of Conscience, he would say, that the Ignorance of many Church-People, and so the Errors of their Conceptions, both touching God, and touching the three Per­sons in the Godhead, much more alter (as to them) the Object of the Christian Worship, than do the Errors of the Socinians. Again, where­as he says, the Socinians deny that the Son of God offered himself a Sacri­fice to expiate our Sins: I do so far depend upon my Memory, as to avow they affirm our Lord Jesus to have been Victimam verè expiatoriam, a Sa­crifice truly expiatory; they are the Words of the Author of the short Exposition of the Apostles Creed, whether Slicktingius (as I rather think) or Crellius, I cannot now tell, having not seen my Book divers Years. Nor do they deny the Love of God to Mankind in giving his only Son to be our Prophet and Saviour, and Redeemer too; nor his Intercession as their High Priest in virtue of his Blood, shed as an Atonement for our Sins. They differ from us perhaps in explaining the Nature of Expiation and Satisfaction; but both an Expiation and a Satisfaction they allow. Some Men write against them without understanding them. But I forbear fur­ther intermeddling in these kinds of Injuries, though, to use Mr. Dean's Words, it were easy to enlarge on this Argument: I am not writing a De­fence Pag. 28. of the Socinians, only I am vindicating a peaceable Design in a Man that is none, but loves Godliness, Vertue and good Works, where-ever he meets with them: and who may chance sooner to perswade many So­cinians to be silent, by making it apparent he would not wrong them, (however odious others make them by unjust Charges) than will those be able who try their Skill, and strain their Veracity in fierce and haughty Disputes against them. Men may have Wit enough, if they have Justice done them, to understand when it is fit to be quiet, who will scarce sit down silent under publick Calumnies.

In the next Place Mr. Dean falls upon me for saying, very much is done §. 25. [namely, for present Union] by the late Act in Favour of Dissenters, and taxes me here again according to his wonted Civility, with pretending to give Account of Acts of Parliament, as I do of other Books, without see­ing them. A strange kind of Incredulity touching my Reading has pos­sess'd this Gentleman: Must I not be believed to have read Books, ex­cept I produce Witnesses that heard or saw me read them? I can produce Witnesses now in London, where I bought this Act, and where I bor­rowed his Book of the Trinity, before I wrote touching either. And I [Page 55] must take the Liberty to say, that as I read both, so it appears not in the least by any thing I have writ, that I was ignorant in either.

But no Dissenters have any Benefit by that Act who do not renounce Soci­nianism. By your good Favour, Sir, this is too roundly and boldly said: Is there no Favour to Dissenters but that of allowing them publick Assem­blies? What do you think of a tacit Connivance, if not at their stay at home, yet allowing them quietly to come to our Congregations, and joining therewith as far as they are able? What of a kind of vetuit inquiri? I declare I would not consent that the Socinians should have the Liberty some other N. Cs. have, to teach publickly all their Opinions in separate Congregations; for I would have most, or all of the Controversies be­twixt them and us silenced; and therefore I said, very much, if not full enough, was done already in their Favour; and that the Authority which passed that Act, could relax more if necessary. And I hope that Authority, namely King and Parliament, will in time relax what more is necessary for such an Ʋnion as is possible. In the mean while, neither did I, nor had I the occasion which is now given me, to speak what (God be blessed) was before relaxed by other Acts, perhaps not with any great liking of some Men; notwithstanding I had those Relaxations, even then, in mine Eye; and I can truly say, they came into the Consideration which moved me to say what I did on this Point: There was such a thing as a Writ de Haeretico comburendo, which I have heard some Persons, learned in the Law, say, did lie even at Common Law; and I am sure the Canonists tell us, prevailed by Custom throughout Christendom: And we know one Mi­chael Servetus, in whose Writings Grotius could never find what some charged upon him, was burnt even at Geneva (by no Papists) in the prevailing Virtue of that Custom, I will not speak on what Pretences. This Writ is now, as I have heard, taken away (and so it may be hoped the Custom here in a fair way to be abolished) by express Statute; where­by possibly some Men may think a very considerable Benefit, no less than Security of Lives and Estates, may redound to them, in case some such of their Friends as Mr. Dean were in the Place they affect.

As to those odious Terms with which he hath interlaced his next Para­graph [ His beloved Socinians—We may see what a hearty good Will he has to the Cause. This is such a scandalous Representation of the Bishops of England, which in due time (when the Dean of St. Paul's comes to be one of them) they may resent] These are more of the Favours, for his Liberality, wherein I may come to be beholden to him in that Day, when the Reproaches and Calumnies which Men have sustained for the sake of Christ, or (which is much like the same) for Peace amongst Christian People, with a Design of Holiness, shall add to the Weight of their Glory.

But I must after another sort answer to that heavy Charge which fol­lows, §. 26. Pag. 29. of my tempting the Bishops to dispute the Bounds of their Authority; and that through my Ignorance both of ancient and later Histories or Pra­ctice. The thing I had said was this, ‘That to the authorizing every Al­teration which should be made in our Liturgy or Canons, I did not judg the Concurrence of such a lower House of Convocation as is now customary, to be necessary: And that if this Course had been observed in K. Edward the Sixth's time, we had had no reformed Liturgy, perhaps no Reformation at all. And for Proof that the Synods for such Affairs were of old made up of Bishops and fewer Doctors, I had appealed to the Practice of the Primitive and truly Catholick Church.’ This is in Mr. Dean's Language, without any Provocation, a setting up the Authority of Bishops against the lower House, a threatning unruly Presby­ters, and that through my understanding no better the Practice of the Pri­mitive Church, than I do K. Edward the VIth's Reformation.

To draw my Answer into as short a Compass as I can, (waving to that Purpose his usual Exaggerations as apparently undue; waving also the known Diminutions of Episcopal Power, the Source and Original there­of due to Rome and Sectaries, and the Mischief which Religion and the Church sustain thereby) I will speak only to what I perceive pinches him most, the Reformation first made of our Liturgy and publick Worship in King Edward the IVth's Days, which though I did not say or suppose to be made by the Body of the Bishops in opposition to the Presbyters, as he falsly charges upon me, (for as I have no such Word, so I better understand the History) yet I did, and I do say it was made without a lower House of Convocation; and by whom, I shall speak particularly enough before I have done.

Now the Evidence on which I ground all, I say, is such publick Re­mains and Histories of those Days and Affairs as are commonly to be had; such are King Edward's Injunctions, Order of Communion-Service, &c. First printed A. D. 1547. [collected, and with other things reprinted, soon upon his late Majesty K. Charles II. his happy Restoration, with a Preface of Dr. Sparrow's to the Collection; but the Collection not made by Dr. Sparrow himself, as he himself when Bishop of Exeter told me, (for had he had the over­ruling it, he said he would have put in more Materials) but by such who consulted their own present Profit] such are too, Fox' s Acts and Monu­ments, Part 2. Book 9. Sir John Hayward' s Life and Reign of K. Ed­ward the Sixth; Dr. Heylin' s History of the Reformation; and Dr. Bur­net' s (now Bishop of Salisbury) more lately. If Mr. Dean has had any Access to any Archives or more authentick Records than those by which these Historians were guided, he would have done well to have published [Page 57] them. In the mean while I, with others, am content in this Matter to admit for Truth what these concurrently have delivered.

To our Point then: That blessed Prince K. Edward VI. began his Reign January 28, 1546 / 7; and if we will take together all that was done towards the Reformation of Religion, in the first nine Months of his Reign, Sir John Hayward, of whose Veracity I find no Reason to doubt, has thus drawn up the Sum; ‘Soon after the Beginning of the young Life and Reign of Edw. VI. pag. 45, 46. King's Reign certain Injunctions were set forth for removing Images out of Churches, which had been highly not only esteemed but honoured before, and for abolishing or altering some other antient Observations in the Church. Hereupon Commissioners were dispatched into all Parts of the Realm to see those Injunctions to be executed; with those divers Preachers were sent, furnished with Instructions to perswade the People from praying to Saints, or for the Dead, from adoring Images, from Ʋse of Beads, Ashes and Processions, from Mass, Dirges, praying in unknown Languages, and from some other like things, whereunto a long Custom had wrought a Religious Observation; and for defect of Preachers, Homilies were appointed to be publickly read in Churches, aiming to the very same End.’

‘Some other offering to maintain these Ceremonies, were either pu­nished or forced to recant: Edmond Boner Bishop of London was com­mitted Prisoner to the Fleet, for refusing to receive these Injunctions; Stephen Gardiner was likewise committed first to the Fleet, afterwards to the Tower, for that he had openly preached that it were well these Changes in Religion should be stayed, until the King were of Years to govern by himself. This the People apprehending worse than it was either spoken or meant, a Question began to be raised among them, whether during the King's Minority such Alterations might lawfully be made or no. For the like Causes Tonstal Bishop of Duresm, and Heath Bishop of Rochester, were in like sort committed to Prison. All these being then, and still continuing famous for Learning and Judg­ment, were dispossessed of their Bishopricks, but no Man was touched in Life.’

‘Hereupon a Parliament was held in the first Year of the King. Thus far Sir John, a learned and religious Knight, Doctor of Law, and a wise and wary Historian.’ This Parliament was summoned to meet Nov. 4. 1547. when now had passed but nine Months and some odd Days of this King's Reign. And all this while could there be no Convocation, because no Parliament. Therefore all this, which was a considerable Advance to the Reformation, was done without the Consent of a lower House of Convocation; for there was none either higher or lower called.

But it may be said, Sir John writes liker a Civil than Ecclesiastical Hi­storian, putting things of the same Nature together, but not punctually concerning himself as to their respective Date. We will take therefore next the eldest of the Ecclesiastic Historians, which report the Transactions of this Reign, namely Fox; and from him we have these Steps of Pro­ceeding in the Reformation.

First, saith he, ‘By the single Authority of King and Council was ap­pointed a general Visitation by certain learned, discreet and worshipful Personages, his Commissioners in that Behalf, divided into several Companies, assigned to the several Diocesses, appointing to every Company one or two learned Preachers, which at every Session should in their Preaching instruct the People in the true Doctrine of Christ. The Order for this Visitation issued Sept. 1. 1547.’

‘Secondly, That these Commissioners might be more orderly in their Business, there were delivered to them by the same Authority certain Injunctions and Ecclesiastical Orders drawn out by the King's learned Council, which they should both enquire of, and also in his Majesty's Behalf command to be observed by every Person to whom they did se­verally appertain within their Circuits.’ This saith Dr. Heylin, the King might do by his own Authority, as his Father had done, &c. An. 1536.

And here, according to Dr. Burnet, comes in a Convocation, which Hist. of Refor. Par. 2. p. 27, &c neither Mr. Fox, nor Sir John Hayward, nor Sir Richard Baker, nor any other Historian that I have seen, mentioneth: but I most readily admit for Truth what the reverend Person reports. Let us see then, according to this exacter Historian, what the Convocation did as to the Reformati­on, or otherwise.

‘ Fourthly; That some Consideration might be had for the maintenance of the Clergy the first Year they came into their Livings, in which they were charged with the first Fruits; to which they added a Desire to know whether they might safely speak their Minds about Religion, without the Danger of any Law.’ Thus Dr. Burnet.

As to the first of these Petitions, all I find done, was, that at some Di­stance [Page 60] of time several Attempts and Proceedings pass'd in order to it, and Extracted out of Dr. Burnet. at length the Work was finish'd by divers Committees successively, but those neither of the Convocation, nor named by the Convocation: In­deed Cranmer was the principal Person; and who else were imployed therein, may be seen in Dr. Burnet's 2d Part, p. 196, 197. But before it received the Royal Confirmation, the King died, and the Work fell with him, says my Author, As to the second I do not observe any Notice was taken of it, either by the Bishops then in Power, or by the Parliament. And I conjecture the Reason to be, for that it was known full well to the Reformers, that the Generality of the Clergy were at that time Papists in See Dr. Burnet, Part 2. p. 96. their Hearts (which hindred the Church of many Powers and Privileges that otherwise might have been granted to her:) And however many of them for that time complied, yet in Q. Mary's Days, when Popery came to be resettled by Parliament, all of them save 177, if we may believe See his Journal, pag. 23. Part 2. p. 50. Sir Simon D' Ewes, turned about again, or became I apists. As to the third, It was resolved, saith Dr. Burnet▪ that many Bishops and Divines should be sent [the same who afterwards compiled the Liturgy, saith Dr. Heylin, were sent] to Windsor, to labour in the Matter of the Communion-Service; but that required so much Consideration, that they would not enter into it during a Session of Parliament: However it was finish'd and publish'd with the King's Proclamation, March 8, 1547 / 8, as Dr. Hey­lin tells us. And for the fourth, what Answer was given to it doth not appear: Thus the Reverend Doctor. However most certain it is, that neither were these Bishops and Divines named by the lower House of Con­vocation, but by the King and Council, as will by and by appear; nor the Alterations by them made, ever brought before that House.

What further Dr. Burnet records done by this Convocation, upon the Bishops sending down to the lower House a Declaration concerning the Sa­crament to be received in both kinds, and the Marriage of the Clergy, (to the former of which all consented, and to the latter most) I need not re­port. What I have faithfully thus represented from him, is the Sum of that Account, which he says is all he could recover of that Convocation. Pag. 50. And what shall the Man do that comes after him? Despairing therefore of more touching this Convocation, we will go on with Fox and others in the Proceedings of the Reformation made without them.

Not only the Communion was enjoyned by Act of Parliament to be mini­stred in both kinds, to which it may be said the Convocation consented, but by the same Parliament solitary Communion of the Priest or private Masses were put down, (of which that we find the Convocation had ne­ver been consulted, and to which that lower House, for many Reasons, would never have consented) and the Curates required at least one Day [Page 61] before the Communion to exhort all Persons that should be present to pre­pare themselves for receiving.

‘ Fifthly; After this most godly Consent of the Parliament,’ continues my Author, making no mention of a Convocation, (for that now was broke up with the Parliament) ‘ The King being no less desirous to have Fox, p. 1183. the Form of the Administration of the Sacrament truly reduced to the right Rule of the Scripture, and first Use of the Primitive Church, than he was to establish the same by his own Regal Laws, appointed certain of the most grave and learned Bishops and others of his Realm, to assemble together at his Castle at Windsor, and there to argue and intreat upon this Matter, and conclude upon, and set forth one perfect and uniform Order, according to the Rule and Use aforesaid.’ Here was made the (then new English) uniform Order of the Communion.

‘ Sixthly; In the mean while that these learned Persons were thus oc­cupied about their Conferences, the Lord Protector and the rest of the King's Council farther remembring that the time of the Year approach­ing, wherein were practised many superstitious Abuses and blasphemous Ceremonies against the Glory of God and Truth of his Word, and determining the utter abolishing thereof, directed their Letters unto the Godly and Reverend Father Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canter­bury, requiring him, that upon the Receipt thereof he should will eve­ry Bishop within his Province forthwith to give in Charge to all the Curates of their Diocesses, that neither Candles should be any more born upon Candlemas-day; neither yet Ashes used in Lent, nor Palms upon Palm-Sunday; which was done accordingly.’ And one of the Letters may be seen in my Author, expresly saying, All this was done by my Lord Protector's Grace, with the Advice of other the King's Ma­jesty's most honourable Council, dated Jan. 28, 1547 / 8; at which time the King had reigned one Year compleat.

‘ Seventhly; Contention and Strife arising amongst the common Peo­ple in divers Places of the Realm about Images, what of these had been idolatrously abused, and what not; and consequently what should be pulled down and destroyed, what left; the Lords of the Council by one Advice thinking it best (of good Experience) for the avoiding all Discord and Tumult, that all manner of Images should be clean taken out of Churches, and none suffered to remain, did thereupon again write their Letters unto the Archbishop of Canterbury to that Effect.’ The Copy of the Letters bearing Date Feb. 11, 1547 / 8, with Boner's Letters in Obedience to the Archbishop's Mandate thereupon, may be seen at large in Fox.

‘ Eighthly; By this time the uniform Order for the Communion in English being finished, Letters missive from the Council are issued forth to the Bishops of the Realm concerning the Communion to be admi­nistred according to the Tenour of the said Book. Which Letters also may be read in the same Author, p. 1184. bearing Date at Westminster, March 13, 1548.’

‘ Ninthly; Notwithstanding all these Orders (to proceed) through the perverse Obstinacy and dissembling Frowardness of many of the Priests, [who therefore never consented hereto in Convocation] there arising a marvellous Schism and Variety of Fashions in celebrating the Common Service and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church: the King's Council having good Intelligence hereof, did by their prudent Advices again appoint the Archbishop of Canterbury, with certain of the best learned and discreet Bishops, and other learned Men, to draw and make one convenient and meet Order, Rite and Fashion of Common-Prayer and Administration of the Sacrament, to be had and used within the Realm; which was accordingly done, and the Book (which was the first of the two in his Reign) was by the King exhibited to the Lords and Commons as­sembled in Parliament about Nov. 4, 1548. in the second Year of his Reign, in which Parliament it pass'd with the Assent of the said Lords and Commons.’ But that it ever came before the Convocation, cannot be proved. When even eight Bishops in the House of Lords protested against it, no one can believe that it would then have pass'd a Convocati­on, and therefore no doubt it was never brought before them.

And thus proceeded the two first Years of King Edward the Sixth his Reformation, as far as I can collect from my afore-mentioned Authors; which two Years broke the Ice, and made way for perfecter Work: For by these Proceedings the Eyes of the Clergy, no less than of the People, (who had both need enough) began to be opened; many of both sorts got a Taste of the Truth, and took a Relish of the Reformation, which by the Vigilance of the Government, and indefatigable Diligence of the Reformers, but chiefly by the prevailing and victorious Power of the Truth, and the Influence of God's Spirit, daily grew and advanced; in­somuch that a happy Forwardness towards a Settlement presented it self in the succeeding Part of this Reign. But I may truly say, Had not the Reformers taken Time by the Forelock, and they not begun with the Dawn of the Day: Had the King, Council, and the immortal Arch­bishop staid for such a Convocation which would have approved their Re­formation, in all likelihood we had had little, or, as I affirmed, no Refor­mation at all in King Edward's, and God only knows whether in the se­cond [Page 63] following Reign. For how the next of all might have strengthned Popery, (as Bones broke, and once well knit again, are, they say, the stronger in that Part) we are not able to guess. Sure it is, could the Bo­dy of the Clergy in the Beginning have crushed the Designs of the Refor­mation, they would have done it, and by many sad Instances shewed their good Will. Wherefore as to the later Years of King Edward, and the Corrections and Additions made to the Liturgy near towards the End of his Reign, I am not concern'd to speak: Only ( ex abundanti) I will Part 2. p. 169. add, it appears by Dr. Burnet, the making these was the Work of the Re­formers, not of the Convocation. And ‘it is supposed, saith Dr. Hey­lin, Hist. Reform. Anno 1552. pag. 126. the Convocation durst not canvass or alter what was before settled by the King's Authority and Act of Parliament.’ Indeed all Men know, that ever since the Submission of the Clergy in Henry the VIIIth's Time, the Convocation hath been cut off from meddling with the State of Re­ligion, except as they are authorized by the King. And had there been any such Authority given, no doubt we should have found the Footsteps thereof. I do not think it needful to speak more largely on this Point: What I have said will sufficiently evince I did not speak without Book in what I hinted: If any one else use to do so, let him look to it.

After this Endeavour to expose my Ignorance, Mr. Dean intimates his §. 27. Regret, that I had not made my compassionate Suit in a severer Age than this the Reign of our merciful and gracious Princes: for which Kindness of his I only return my Prayers, that he may never feel the Severity of such Hands into which he could be content others should have faln. And then he proceeds to tell the World, I conclude with a heavy Charge upon himself and Dr. Wallis, (a greater Person would have said, Dr. Wallis and himself) that they have receded from the Doctrine taught even in our own Church about the Holy Trinity.

The whole of this is not true: I never charged Dr. Wallis with reced­ing from the Doctrine taught in our Church, but rather expresly alledg­ing his Words, We mean by Persons [in divinis] no more but somewhat analogous to Persons; I said, this has been ever held by all learned Trinita­rians. All I mentioned which troubled me, as to the Doctor's explaining of the Trinity, was an indecent Expression, of which I have no mind to speak more.

But as to Dr. Sherlock, I did produce not broken Passages, as Mr. Dean stiles them, but his intire Definition or Description of a Person in divinis, which he gives in his Vindication of the Trinity; and as I have said, the Sum of his Hypothesis in his very own Words, which I read in and tran­scribed from his Book: And I do now expresly avow, though I did not then do it so directly, that he has receded herein from the Doctrine for­merly [Page 64] taught, not only in our Church, but in the whole Christian World in this Point. And I think I have already made it out, as far as is consistent with the Brevity I here design. But whereas he says, that that very Ac­count Pag. 30. which I give of the Trinity out of Mr. Hooker' s Book, is owned and particularly explained by his Hypothesis: I must acknowledg he has indeed owned it in his Book, but in the same contradicted it, both in express Terms, and by his Hypothesis. And I add, 'tis impossible by his Hypo­thesis to explain it. He contradicts it in express Terms. One Substance and three Properties was Mr. Hooker's Language (and whence taken I have shewn.) Three real substantial Beings, (which if it signifies not Vind. pag. 47. Pag. 83. three Substances, I cannot tell what it signifies) and three proper distin­guishing Characters (had it not been for Affectation of Novelty he might as well have said three Properties) are Mr. Dean's Terms. And these I take to be Contradictions. For one Substance and three Substances, that is three Substances and not three, (because only one Substance with three Properties) is a Contradiction, if any in the World.

His Hypothesis contradicts, that is, destroys it: For his Definition or Account what we are to mean by a Person in the Holy Trinity, is part of his Hypothesis: But that makes the three Persons three real substantial Be­ings, Vind. p. 47, 48, 49, 50, &c. three distinct infinite Minds, three uncreated Spirits, (that is, imma­terial Substances) three intelligent Beings, having each Ʋnderstanding, Will, and Power of Action. Now this, as before made out, is contra­dictious to the Doctrine brought by Mr. Hooker. And because his Hypo­thesis in the very first fundamental Point of it, namely, the Definition he gives of a Person, contradicts the former Explication of the Trinity, therefore 'tis impossible to explain that by his.

However, we will take the other Part of his Hypothesis, and try whe­ther we can find therewith any more Consistency. As he supposes these three uncreated Spirits to be distinct by Self-consciousness, so to be one (numerically one) Essence, or one God by mutual Consciousness. But by the former Part of his Hypothesis, each Person had (and to use his Words, knew and felt himself to have) an Ʋnderstanding, Will, and Power of Action of his own. Now though the Supposal of mutual Consciousness may in some measure explain how each thereby may have or be possess'd of one anothers Knowledg or Ʋnderstanding; yet that any can have or be pos­sess'd of another's Will, by being conscious to him what his Will is, much less should have the Power of another, because he knows as well as he what he can do, is in my Apprehension impossible: For it makes Un­derstanding, Will and Power, to be the same thing. And it is plain, mutual Consciousness, in Propriety of Speech, implies only mutual Know­ledg. I may know another's Will, yet not be able to bring mine to it: [Page 65] I may know what another is able to do, yet not arrive at his Power. Much more might be said to shew the Insufficiency of mutual Conscious­ness for salving the Unity of three such Persons as he has supposed in one Nature, any otherwise than as three Individuals are united in one special Nature, which will not serve his turn; but I had rather make an end.

Before he concludes he must clothe me, as he has been used to do others, §. 28. and as the Heathen did the Primitive Christians, that Beasts might sooner seize them; or as the Inquisitors do Hereticks before their Execution, in some monstrous Shape; that the World, at least the Church, may abhor me. Accordingly in an insulting Mood, as thinking himself to have run me down, he puts the Question, And can any Man tell what Opinion this Pag. 30. melancholy Stander-by has of the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation? And he answers it himself, that I dare not speak out, but I give very broad Signs what I would be at. But can any Man tell how the Doctrine of the Incarnation comes in here? My Paper had not so much as named it. On­ly we must know the Doctor had writ on it, and he could not give me Load enough, except he possess the World, that I dissent from him in a Doctrine wherein perhaps he is more Orthodox, as well as in that where­in he is Heterodox. I said, perhaps he is more Orthodox in the Doctrine of the Incarnation: but admitting the necessary and immediate Conse­quence of one Branch of his Hypothesis, he is not so: For if Self-consci­ousness alone distinguish one Mind, whether finite or infinite, from another, then inasmuch as all must allow there is no more essential Property of the rational Soul, than to be conscious to it self, it will follow, that there are two Persons in Christ, (viz.) the second Person of the Godhead, and the Man Christ Jesus; which I think is Nestorianism: Else he must deny the Son of God did take a rational Soul, or became truly Man; utrum ho­rum? But forasmuch as this is only a Consectary of his Doctrine, and not expresly delivered by him, I affix it not to him. However I must com­plain, he has done me wrong here, fliely and beyond the present Cue, to put the World upon a Jealousy of my Orthodoxy in Point of the Incarna­tion; and for a Farewell, having by corrupting, dismembring and mis­placing my Words, fastned upon me divers extravagant things, as said by me, which I never said, (as will appear by inspecting my Paper) to ex­pose me as the greatest Applauder of the Socinians, to take off my Sheeps Clothing, as he calls it, and put me on the Wolves: In Conclusion, devout­ly praying God to preserve his Church from such as me.

But if I may have Liberty to answer his Question, I will satisfy the World what Opinion I have both of all the Controversies on Foot amongst English Protestants, (for others I meddle not with) and particularly of those of the Trinity and Incarnation.

First; As to all Controversies amongst English Protestants, I had in my Paper express'd my Opinion, (and Affection too, p. 12.) perhaps with so much Moderation and Justice, that Mr. Dean thought not fit to take any notice of that Part. A happy Page of mine that; which alone, as far as I can perceive, escaped his good-natured Pen. Now the Sum of what I there said, and suggested in other Places of my Paper, is this; that being we are all agreed in the common Christianity, (thereby I mean the Apostles Creed and the Evangelical Law, which is the Sum of Holy Scripture) therefore both all private Doctors, except in the Schools, and all other private Persons of what Party soever, should let Controversy a­lone, and keep their Minds to themselves; refrain from exposing one ano­ther, and treasuring up to one another Wrath against an evil Day; and should bend all their Studies to reform their own and others Lives, wor­shipping God sincerely according to their Consciences, and blessing him for their present Liberty, and studying to be quiet and to do their own Bu­siness. This is my Sense for the present, as to all Controversies amongst us Protestants in general.

Then as to the two particular Doctrines by him mentioned, I have sufficiently declared my Judgment already in this Paper. And I will add thereto only thus much, that my Opinion, as to the Controversy betwixt Dr. Sherlock and me, as more fully I have set it forth in this Paper, is not by me newly taken up: For above one and thirty Years ago, being then a Preacher in Oxford, I publickly averr'd what I still judg to be Truth, and what was not then taxed as Heretical, That he that shall affirm there are three Persons in the Godhead, taking the word Person properly or strict­ly, as we do in ordinary Cases, is guilty of a more grievous Error than he who altogether denies three Persons: That both then I had, and since have subscribed several times to the Church-Articles, which are plain enough in these Points: That otherwise, according to Law, as required, I have given Assurance of my Orthodoxy and Conformity; nor have I done or writ any thing by which I have retracted such Subscription or Conformi­ty: and therefore I fear no Man's good Will as to reforming me out of the Church.

But in Sum, I think it no Point of Nonconformity to desire, and in my Sphere endeavour, promote or perswade the reforming of such things in our Church as keep many good Men out of it: And therefore, not­withstanding my Engagements to the Church, and Adherence thereto, I declare it as my Judgment, that the Church is bound upon her Faith, that is, upon her Promise often and on several Occasions given, (especially upon the Profession she has made in time of her Adversity) to reform her Liturgy in divers Points, and to relax the Conditions of her Commu­nion, [Page 67] as soon as a convenient State of Affairs offers it self; of which I do not pretend to be a competent Judg, but am of opinion, much Delay will be dangerous: And in case, when a fit Season offers it self, the Church should not reform or relax as abovesaid, I fear she will forfeit much of her Credit, and scarce be believed again in a Day of Tribulation, if it should happen to her, which God forbid.

Mr. Dean concludes with a Promise, that having vindicated the antient Pag. 32. Rights and Liberties of the Church, to defend the truly Catholick and Apo­stolick Faith from the Assaults of Hereticks, he shall apply himself, as his leisure serves, to the Defence of his Vindication, &c. Alas good Man! Who ever went about any-wise to infringe those Liberties? Is intreating Men a while to forbear dangerous Disputes, and those too so managed, as to expose both themselves, the Truth and the Church, an Invasion of their Liberties, nay and of the Rights of the Church too? Verily, if the Doctrine of three infinite Minds, their Self-consciousness and mutual Con­sciousness, be not either censured by our Church, or generally disowned by the Divines of it, it will soon be thought the Churches Doctrine. And this being about a Fundamental, perhaps some shortly will put the Que­stion, not, where was your Church and Faith before Luther, but where before Dr. Sherlock? till he wrote, you were not clear in Fundamentals. For my Part I have admired to see, first such an Explication of the Trinity, and then such a Reassertion of it, reviling and menacing an humble Man for Moderation, and dissenting from Novelties and Heterodoxies, come forth with publick Licence.

But to return to the Need there was of the Dean's vindicating the anti­ent Rights and Liberties of the Church. The Case is just the same, as if a Stranger in a time of War, accidentally finding a Friend of his engaged in a private hazardous Rencounter against experienced Duelists, and trusting to some new little Slights he had got, should cry out to them all to hold their Hands; and by all means that he could use, should perswade them to desist, telling them they had more need to be at their Prayers for Publick Peace, and to reserve themselves, Strength and Skill against the Common Enemy. Now it would be a pleasant thing in such a Juncture, to hear this Stranger's Friend exclaim against the kind Stranger, for at­tempting or infringing therein his and the publick Rights and Liberties of Mankind, (given forsooth to all by the Law of Nature) to defend them­selves. Even just so much Occasion and Reason had Mr. Dean to under­take a Vindication of the antient Rights and Liberties of the Church a­gainst me. He will now apply himself, he says, as his leisure serves, to the Defence of his Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and Incar­nation. Now I must beg his Pardon, to say, I can conceive but two ways [Page 68] in the World he has to vindicate it; the one, and that the most honoura­ble, is, to write such a Piece as the Great St. Austin did in his latter Years, and which is commonly put in the Beginning of his first Tome, called his Retractations. The other, such a shift as some Men now and then have been put to, to buy up or get into his Hands, if it were possible, all the Copies of his Book, and destroy them, that so his beloved Hypothesis may die away. By either of these Means he may effectually vindicate his Vin­dication: But if he be above this honest Advice, I cannot help it.

Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti: I'shall not, God willing, trouble either the World or him any more with animadverting upon his Writings.