relapsed after Abjuration he is left in a worse condition The matter of Heresie was to be judged of by the Canonical Scripture Or 2. By what hath been determined by the four General Councils 3. By any General council according to express Scripture 4. By Parliament with Assent of the Convocation What Power your Lordship hath over the Head or Members of Exeter Colledge in case of Heresie I refer to their Statutes What Operation these Methods may effect I know not but there needs a speedy Application where the Gangreen gains so visibly and may be so mortal But why talk I thus to so great a Master in our Israel who hath a more perfect knowledge of all those things whereof I speak Your Lordship hath been a constant and eminent Assertor of the Faith established in the Church of England the Foundation whereof is that of the Ever Blessed Trinity on which all our Worship and all our Hopes are built but ungodly Men have in this too licentious Age endeavoured with all their Might and Subtilty to subvert this Foundation and that which hath caused this Address to your Lordship is a holy Indignation when I considered that there are more who appear in Print to destroy than to establish this Foundation which hath caused me though the weakest of many Thousands that my Zeal may provoke others that have more Knowledge and Abilities to solicite the Cause of the Eternal Son of God against whom that Outcry in the Gospel is revived This is the heir Come let us kill him and seize on his inheritance which they attempt to do by force of their own Merit and a Natural Righteousness making void the Righteousness which is of God by Faith in Christ who is Jehova The Lord our righteousness He that says of Faith in Christ as the eternal Son of God That it is impertinent to our Lord's design fruitless to the Contemplator's purpose and dangerous in respect of Blasphemy and because we have no sure grounds to go upon see p. 29. of the Naked Gospel in 2 Col. He that shall say that it is made the most mischievous Incendiary in the Christian World To the Reader p. 7. of the last Edition He that shall say of those who altogether deny our Saviour's Deity and dare not worship him at all That he dares not in Charity deny the name of Christians or hope of Salvation to such p. 55. of the last Edition gives great encouragement to the Infidelity of Jews and Turks and contradicts the Scripture which assures us That there is no other Name under Heaven given among Men whereby we must be saved Acts 4.12 And the pretence of enlarging Charity is too short a Cloak to cover so much Nakedness it is not Charity to spare a Barrabbus and crucifie Christ it is as much against the Law of the Land and the Constitutions of the Church as against the Law of God to cherish such Vipers The Act 1 0 Guilel Mariae made for exempting their Majesties Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of certain Laws provided that such as will have benefit by that Act shall subscribe a Profession of the Christian Belief in these words I A. B. profess Faith in God the Father and in Iesus Christ his Eternal Son and in the Holy Spirit one God blessed for evermore This is the Faith which I contend for and for which I beg your Lordship's Patronage who hath already so eminently and successfully appeared in its defence against that unlimited Toleration which would have destroyed it He that is now your Client is the Eternal Son of God to whom as the Author of our Salvation we were dedicated in our Baptism and have been taught by the undoubted Oracles of God That he is our Creator by whom all things were made that are made that God that redeemed his Church with his own proper Blood neither is there Salvation in any other Name the true God and Eternal Life to whose Almighty Protection and All-sufficient Grace which are able to save to the utmost all that come to God by Him I shall daily recommend your Lordship and all your Relations and Affairs as is in Duty bound Your Lordship 's most humble and obliged Servant THO. LONG THE PREFACE MAresius in the Preface to the Second Part of his Hydra Socin takes notice of the Printing in England Anno 1654. The Socinian Catechism of John Beedle Master of Arts containing all the Impieties and Blasphemies of Socinus to which he says was added a Catalogue of Socinian Books his Twelve Reasons against the Deity of the Holy Ghost and the Life of Faustus Socinus and that Learned Man thus complains of it O the deplorable Condition of England which having driven out their King now constrains the King of Kings to be banished and seems to have no greater value for that Liberty which was purchased by Christ's Blood than to obtain a License of Hearing Writing and Believing what they please If this were a Scandal to the English Nation in those lawless Times and gave so great an offence to foreign Divines How much more will the Offence and Scandal be when the Gospel shall be sent naked abroad by the hands of a Doctor of Divinity and Rector of a Colledge and one that writes himself a True Son of the Church of England especially considering that we have now a Protestant King and Queen whom God long preserve Defenders of the Ancient Catholick Faith which hath been so long professed in the Church It is greatly to be deplored that the Racovian Catechism is so commonly sold both in Latine and English as is Crellius also and Beedle's Catechism and his Arguments against the Deity of the Holy Ghost And lately a Swarm of Pamphlets like venomous Insects in all parts of the Land of Theists Anti-Trinitarians Unitarians Arians and Socinians darkning as much as they may the Light of the Gospel and poysoning the People Grotius in his Vindication of the States of Holland professeth that he knew not one in all the Assembly of the States that was not ready to denounce an Anathema as well to the old Doctrines of Samosatenus as to the new of Socinus against the Consubstantial and unconfused and undivided Trinity yet at that time the Heresie of Servetus had taken root and spread itself secretly among very many so that he himself to avoid suspicion of being a Patron to them thought fit to write his Book of the Satisfaction of Christ and we have this Expression in his Book De Pietate Ordinum Holland Seeing that Heresie is the Poyson of the Church and is quick in its Operation and there are certain Degrees of Heresie one being more hurtful than another there cannot be found any that is worse than the Heresie of Socinus at the mentioning whereof all good men do tremble We have reason to bless God that in such lioentious Times as we have seen in the former Age when a General Toleration was
granted and all sort of Heresies were impunely permitted and Orthodox Doctrines discountenanced there are so few persons infected with Heresie and so many learned persons left us to vindicate the Truths of the Gospel yet are there some Thousands infected with Anabaptism and Quakerism among whom the Pelagian and Socinian Doctrines have got the Ascendent They talked formerly of being Godded with God and Christed with Christ and now they deny the Godhead of Christ and Man it with Man what number of such Hereticks are now among us the Author of the NAKED GOSPEL may know better than others doubtless he presumes of a large Muster otherwise he would not appear as a Leader to head them but that he should appear under the Notion of a Son of the Church of England is the greatest Affront that could be done it for as Plutarch says he had rather Men should say there was never such a Man as Plutarch than that they should say he was a Vicious Person So is it a less reproach for the Papists to say there never was such a Church as the Church of England than to say it is a Church professing Pelagian and Socinian Doctrines The Fathers and Sons of our Church have not and by the Grace of God will not be wanting in their Duty to Assert her Doctrines and to Silence all her Adversaries The University of Oxford have manifested their Abhorrence of it in Condemning the Book to the Fire And the Right Reverend the Bishop of Exeter Visitor of that Colledge whereof the Author was Rector hath as the Statutes of the Colledge directed him in Case of Heresie very seasonably repremanded him whereby it is hoped the Gangreen of his Heresies will be mortified and cut off from infecting the Members of that Famous Colledge Nor do I doubt but all that have any Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical will shew the like Detestation of that Damnable Heresie that denieth the Lord that bought them The Ancient Fathers were very severe against such Ignatius mentioning that passage in Jer. 17. Cursed is the man that trusteth in man saith that they are under the Curse that affirm Christ to be a meer man Origen on Job l. 1. c. 4. Whatever men shall do without Faith in the Holy Trinity they do in vain and shall have no reward Fulgentius de fide p. 9. saith he cannot be a Christian that shall not confess the Lord Christ to be his God The Fathers have said as much concerning the Arians that they were Antichristians rather than Christians Yea they say the like of Arius as of Julian That they were both guilty of the Sin against the Holy Ghost and if to the rest of our National Sins we should add this to suffer the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity to be thus publickly derided and made the Subject of profane Pamphlets that the Writers should confidently own them and falsely profess themselves Sons of the Church of England that there should be a Secret Press still in Labour to be delivered of such Monsters that there should be a Club to Father them and such Hectors to defend and support them and so many to applaud them and such Books as were long since written in Latin are taught to speak English and French and our English Books in requital are taught to speak Latin and French Arrianism is one of the great Provocations for which the Lord's hand is not withdrawn but is still stretched out to be avenged on us Luther on his Death bed was wont to exhort those who came to visit him Oremus pro Domino nostro ejus Evangelio Let us pray for our Lord and for his Gospel The Gospel was then reviving and gaining its liberty it is now imprisoned in all Countries where Popery doth prevail and it is like to be stript Naked at home if some charitable Hand doth not seasonably prevent it to which that Doom which our Saviour hath denounced Mat. 25.43 Go ye cursed for I was naked and ye cloathed me not should excite every good Christian otherwise we may justly fear that for all the Affronts and Indignities which the Prophane on the one hand and the Hereticks and Blasphemers on the other hand between whom our blessed Saviour is crucified afresh and put to open shame he deal with us as he did with the Church of Ephesus Rev. 2.5 I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy Candlestick except thou repent And the great haste which so many do make to banish the true knowledge of God out of the Land is a fearful Prognostick that our Saviour will come quickly to be avenged on such a People My present Undertaking is only to do the Office of a Watch-man or Sentinel to discover the approach of an Adversary and to sound an Alarme to such as are better furnished with Arms and Abilities to vanquish them of which by the Blessing of God our Church is provided with many thousands who I doubt not will fight it out Usque ad Triarios If I have for the sake of my Country-men collected a few Arguments against the Socinian Tenets it is what the Discourse of the Author led me to my intent was to discover the dangerous Design of the Naked Gospel which the Author pretends was for the enlarging of Charity and for condemning of Impositions in Matters of Faith under which Notion he industriously condemns those Doctrines of the Nicene Fathers and of Athanasius which have been received in the Church of England not only from them but from the most Primitive Times But the Doctor says We have no firm ground to go upon not from Scripture because the Arrians capt Scripture with the Orthodox nor from Antiquity which they claimed with the same confidence nor from Councils which determined sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other p. 37. c. 1. Yet he grants that the Catholicks have the advantage of long possession and that after Sentence and at last leaves both the Arrian and Athanasian Doctrines on the same level with Roman Impositions equally unworthy of our Faith or Study By this and what I shall further urge from the Naked Gospel it will evidently appear that if the Doctor be of any Religion that names the Name of Christ he must be a Socinian As to the Author's design he pretends it to be 1. For the enlarging of Charity i. e. for a Toleration of his Opinions 2. To prevent Impositions in Matters of Faith to both which I have replyed and shewn that the real design is to ridicule the Athanasian Creed and the Council of Nice and to prefer a Natural Religion above that which is taught by them which he accounts among his unreasonable Impositions as having 1. No footing in Scripture in answer whereto I have shewn the Harmony of the Old and New Testament in Confirmation of those Doctrines 2. Whereas he says they have no Foundation in the Fathers I have produced their Authorities And thirdly as for the Councils Because the Socinians decline
which term he may comprehend all sort of Heresies an universal Toleration without any reserve which hath been pleaded for in former times 2. That through the whole Book it is not so much the manner of the Generation that is insisted on but the Eternity of it is denied and to this end the Arguments of the Arrians are applauded and the Reasons and Scriptures that affirm it are either suppressed or ridicul'd To begin with the Propositions referred to in the Decree he tells us That Mahomet did profess all the Articles of the Christian Faith but Mahomet did not profess the Eternal Generation of the Son of God therefore this is no Article of the Christian Faith in the Doctor 's Opinion What the Charity of the Socinians is toward such as hold the Doctrine of the Church of England we may learn from Smalcius at the end of his Book concerning the Divinity of Christ We doubt not to affirm boldly that not one of all those who believe Jesus Christ of himself God can ever by any means have certain hope of Eternal Life by vertue of his Opinion concerning Christ Hence they call us Polytheists Antichristians and say we are not worthy of the Name of Christians This is Charity enlarged In the same Paragraph he says When by nice and hot Disputes concerning especially the Second and Third Persons of the Trinity the Minds of the People had been long confounded so that to vulgar understandings the Doctrine of the Trinity appeared no less guilty of Polytheism than that of Image-worship did of Idolatry then was there a tempting opportunity offered to the Impostor and he laid hold on it to set up himself for a reformer of such corruptions as were both too gross to be justified and too visible to be denied Now what did this Impostor reform but the Doctrine of the Trinity denying the Godhead of the Son and Holy Ghost as such corruptions which were too gross to be justified and too visible to be denied It is a credible History of those Times which I have related that one Sergius a Monk and some other Apostate Christians join'd with Mahomet in compiling the Alchoran these retained so much veneration for our Saviour as to grant him what the Socinians do a kind of Divinity for they acknowledge him to be a true Prophet and so he may be called Divine as we call St. John by way of Eminency The Divine and so our Socinian Reformers agree with the Mahometan some say the Doctrine of the Trinity was laid aside to make way for the Turks to become Christians but we find a contrary effect that many Christians turn Turks I hope the Reader is satisfied by what I collected out of the Alchoran that Mahomet and his Arian Genius purposely designed to overthrow the Doctrine of the Trinity and to represent our Saviour as a meer Man though as a Messenger of God And what less is implied in these words of the Doctor 's That to vulgar understandings the Doctrine of the Trinity appeared no less guilty of Polytheism than that of Image-worship did of Idolatry The next Proposition is This When the great Question concerning the eternity of his i. e. Christ's Godhead first embroiled the World Constantine condemned it as a silly Question fitter for Fools and Children than for Priests or wise Men. Note here The Question was not concerning the Manner of the Generation of our Saviour but the Eternity of his Godhead and how justly this Censure of Constantine's was past on that Question this Author says we may discover in three particulars 1. It was impertinent to our Lord's Design 2. Fruitless to the Contemplator's own purpose 3. It is dangerous This is Socinianism in grain Now because the Author would excuse himself from this Charge by pleading that he only relates the Opinion of Constantine the consideration of that good Emperor's management and determination of this great Question is more strictly and fully to be weighed This Author tells us p. 31. Col. 2. Such was the judgment of the great Constantine when the Game was first set on foot How it was then by the Arian party represented to him is not evident they dealt subtily but after that he had called the Nicene Council and was fully informed of the state of the Question he was so far from thinking it silly and vain that he wrote Letters to several Churches to inform them that after mature consideration the Opinion of Arius was condemned branded the Arians with the Name of Porphyrians caused their Books to be burnt and threatned death to any that should conceal them and hearing of the miserable end of that wretched man as it is described by Socrates he made it his business to extirpate it No doubt the Doctor knew these passages related of Constantine as well as those which he mentions calling it a Silly Question and fitter for Boys than for Priests what can he plead then for proclaiming the one and wholly suppressing the other which were Constantine's second and best Thoughts and his setled Judgment after mature deliberation Yet our Author still ridicules the Athanasian Doctrine as a Pushpin Controversie and says that Leonas reprimanded that party with Go and play the Fools at home Leonas was an Arian sent by Constantius the Arian Emperour to awe the Council nor did he bid them go and play the Fools at home I find no such thing in the place quoted by the Doctor viz. Socrates l. 2. c. 23. But there is a full Character of this Leonas in Soz. l. 4. c. 22. how that Acacius an Arian Bishop held private Conference with him and consulted for that Interest but could not prevail insomuch that when both Parties were met in his Lodgings and he found the Arian Party like to be baffled he bid them in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I think no good Man would translate Go and play the Fools at home Socrates l. 2. c. 40. which signifies only Go and talk it out in the Church Leonas supposing they would be more modest and reverent in that Holy Place than in his House But of this the Historian observes in the next chap. 42 That Acacius and Eudoxius made great advantage For says he they perceiving the Indignation of the Emperour against Macedonius and other Hereticks deposed many of them and advanced Eudoxius to the Bishoprick of Constantinople for the contention was not so much for Religion as for Preferment the contending Parties having deposed each other and Acacius and Eudoxius with their Party did especially endeavour to depose the adverse Party and coined their New Creeds to that end being so confident of the Emperour's Favour and hence grew those various Confessions of some Councils under Constantius whereof p. 34. c. 4. the Doctor says That Socrates reckoned no less than Nine not Nine Councils but Confessions of which the Historian gives this particular Account calling them a Labyrinth of Expositions two of which were
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he calls it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Word of God and the Divine Word the Idea of Idea's and says That it is the beginning and end of the good pleasure of God that it abides with God that God had a power of Generation that the First-begotten is comprehended in the Mind only Tractat. Allegor Post sex dies and in the Treatise of the Modesty of Women the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is called The Eternal Character of God and is God Now these obscure Notions which both Jews and Gentiles had of the Son of God are by St. John more plainly delivered for the Instruction of all Men and applied to the Person of our Saviour to convince us that he is the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word and that this Word is God that God that was made Flesh and dwelt among Men and that they beheld his Glory the Glory of the only begotten Son of God full of Grace and Truth And the Jews in our Saviour's time concluded That Christ calling himself the Son of God made himself equal When our Saviour requires our belief of such Propositions as exceed our understanding it is a contempt and undervaluing of his Authority and Veracity to expect Demonstrations for them The Notion of a Christian is one that believes in Christ and St. August Serm. de Tempore 189 speaks of Adult Persons that were Baptized saying I am now one of the Faithful and believe what I cannot comprehend And St. Basil de S. S. c. 7. I testifie saith he to all that profess Christ and yet deny him to be God that Christ shall profit them nothing What Philosopher knows the Nature and Motions of his own Soul how it informs the Body and is Tota in toto tota in qualibet parte or by what Ligaments it is united to the Body and shall we presume not to believe the Union of the Godhead to the Manhood and other Revelations of the Gospel because our Reason cannot demonstrate how these things can be Si potes Cape si non potes Crede saith St. August Tract in John 35. The way to get a right understanding in spiritual things is to believe and practice them 'T is not we know and believe in Matters of our Salvation but we believe and are sure as the Original is Joh. 6.69 Believe that thou mayst understand saith St. Aug. on St. John Tract 29. If ye believe not that I am he saith our Saviour i. e. he that said Joh. 8.16 I am not alone but I and the Father that sent me I whom if you had known you should have known the Father also v. 19. I that came to die for your sins If ye believe not that I am he ye shall die in your sins It is well saith an ingenious Commentator that he said not Except you know that I am he ye shall die in your sins Tu rationare ego miror tu disputa ego Credam saith St. Augustine Do you reason I admire do you dispute I will believe And what was that he would believe Ipse Deus tria est unum quodque horum trium Deus est Omnia tria non Dii sed Deus est i. e. God is Three and each of these Three is God and all Three are not many but One God Tertullian was a Person of as profound Reason as any Socinian yet he submitted it to Revelation Natus est Dei Filius non pudet quia pudendum mortuus est Dei Filius prorsus Credibile quia ineptum certum est quia impossibile And Christianorum est Deum mortuum credere contra Marcion l. 2. n. 41. When in the Primitive Times Adult Persons were baptized they were question'd thus Credis in Deum Patrem the answer was Credo and so Credis in Deum filium Credis in Deum Spiritum Sanctam And hence they were called The Faithful St. Ambrose de Sacrament l. 2. c. 7. 1. The Doctor adds And if we descend to particulars in the Doctrines that are imposed as Articles of Faith the more Objections will rise in force and number By the way it is necessary to consider of what sort of Faith and Articles thereof he speaks if of an Antinomian Faith as separated from new Obedience and such Articles as are the Inventions and Impositions of Men then the Doctor acts impertinently and fights his own Shadow which he would ill resent His following Discourse will evidence what Faith he speaks of for p. 13. col 2. It is says he an acknowledged foundation in all Sciences that we must seek Truth by application of generals to particulars and it is the general scope of the Gospel to advance Natural Religion 'T is then the Faith of the Gospel which he treats of under his Notion of advancing Natural Religion and the sting of the Objection he says is this That Faith hath no place among Vertues but Credulity hath one among Vices So that the truth of Evangelical Precepts and Revelations must be sought and approved by application of the Generals in Natural Religion The Objection which he says hath a Sting p. 13. Col. 2. is this That Faith hath no place among Vertues but Credulity hath among Vices The Doctor well knows that the Faith we of the Church of England do profess is such a Faith as for the Objects of it is contained in the Creeds which we receive and such as for the nature of it doth work by Love and doth both purifie the heart and makes the Believer fruitful in every good Work a Faith that keeps us humble and holy not presuming to be justified by the merit of any Works of our own but through the Satisfaction made by Christ for which God will accept us and our sincere Obedience not imputing our Sins to us Moreover we acknowledge this Faith to be the Gift and the Work of God in us as Joh. 6.28 and St. Paul To you it is given not only to believe but to suffer And Phil. 1.29 By faith ye are saved and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God Ephes 2.8 This is the Faith which he would make as Naked as his Gospel as if it were an effect of natural Reason as the Pelagians hold and wholly in our power without any operation of the Spirit of Christ without whom we can do nothing as to obtaining of the Grace of Faith or bringing forth the Fruits of Holiness If this be the Faith which he opposeth a belief of the Holy Trinity the Redemption of Mankind by the Eternal Son of God the Operation of the Holy Spirit in our Sanctification as it clearly appears he leaves all Christians in a State of Nature without any remedy by the Fountain of Grace of whose Fulness we have all received grace for grace In this Chapter Page 14. the Doctor mentioning that Scripture Rom. 4. ult Christ was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification he says That though the
Service of God by the free Directions of their own Nature That to this end he sent his only begotten Son into the World teaching them That the best service of God consisteth in being like him and for their encouragement therein promising them upon their Repentance pardon of Sins past and everlasting Life This saith he is the Sum of the Gospel i. e. of his Naked Gospel Here is not a word of that Grace and Truth that came by Jesus nor that God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself Making him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him Not a word of that Redemption which St. Peter speaks of made for us by the precious Blood of the Son of God or that Christ redeemed the Church by his own Blood dying for our Sins and rising again for our Justification Revel 1. washing us in his own Blood from our Sins Not a word of that which St. Paul made his whole work to preach Christ crucified that others with him might know him and the power of his resurrection that we may be found in him not having our own righteousness but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith Phil. 3.8 9. Nor that without the shedding of this Blood there could be no Remission of Sins But though the Apostle counts this knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord so excellent that all things else are but loss and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dogs meat in comparison with it Yet the Doctor prefers his Natural Faith or his Carnal Reason above all this for there is not one word of all this to cover the Nakedness of his New-born Gospel but as the Socinians say God sent his only begotten Son into the World to teach them not to die for them how by the free Directions of their own Nature without any grace or assistance of the Spirit of God or any Revelations of that Grace and Truth that came by him That the best service of God consists in being like him to which end he supposeth the free Dictates of their own Nature are sufficient Deus nil fecit promising them upon their Repentance pardon of their Sins past and everlasting Life Which John Baptist and other Prophets had done before him Not a word of Christ's giving Repentance or that eternal Life is the gift of God which he grounds on that Repentance which flows from the free Directions of their own Nature What part Faith hath in all this is his next Enquiry which is to shew that it hath no part at all Enquiry II. He says is to shew What Changes or Additions later Ages have made in Matter of Faith He tells us p. 50. c. 2. That our Lord honoured it as the Great King did Daniel above all his Princes That he came into the World to advance it That he promised it eternal Life and both he and his Apostle make it half the Gospel we meet it in every page of the New Testament and on sight of its glory we talk as St. Peter did when confounded at the brightness of our Lord we know not what But our Author hath no sooner cried his Hosanna to Faith as the Jews did to Christ but presently proclaims his Crucifigite and casts this Daniel into a Lion's Den to be rent by such furious Beasts he first casts her from the Throne wherein Christ placed it and what the Gospel makes the Mother-Grace he makes the Mother-Error p. 51. c. 1. his words are This is the Mother-Error that whereas Faith is no better than a Retainer to Holiness we place it in the Throne as an Absolute Prince and think it our Duty to enlarge its Dominions as far and exalt its Prerogative as high as we can as if it were some precious Diamond valuable for its Brightness Hardness or other irrespective Vertue of its own Doth this Author know what he says or consider whereof he affirms these things If it be of that implicite Faith required in the Church of Rome or that naked Faith of the Gnosticks or Solifidians viz. a bare profession of Faith in Christ separate from Obedience he only beats the Air but if of that Faith required in the Gospel and professed in the Church of England the nature whereof he cannot but know then he striks at the very Life of Christian Religion for that is a Faith working by Love a Faith in Christ's meritorious Death Passion Resurrection and Intercession which the Socinians will not admit of A Faith that purifieth the Heart that teacheth us that Christ dying for all all were dead in Sins and Trespasses and that he died for all that henceforth they should not live to themselves but unto him that died for them and rose again this is the true Christian Faith grounded on the Grace of God which bringeth salvation and hath appeared to all men teaching them that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts they should live righteously soberly and godly in this present world This the end of manifesting the Gospel as St. Paul Rom. 16.26 This the Obedience of Faith This is the Faith which we preach in the Church of England and which the Doctor so opposeth and vilifieth It is evident that the Faith which this Doctor would degrade is that which hath for its Object Christ crucified bearing our Sins making an Atonement bearing the Chastisement of our Peace reconciling us to God by the Sacrifice on the Cross All which he would resolve into a Natural Faith in the Veracity of God and so makes our Faith in Christ crucified the chiefest Notion of a justifying Faith to be of none effect But let us hear the Reason he gives for his degrading of Faith p. 50. c. 2. We consider not saith he that two of the reasons which induced our Lord to call so importunately for it are expired Those Reasons I suppose we had p. 19. c. 2. 1. The Difficulties of believing 2. The Danger of professing it To which there needs no other Answer then what he himself hath given p. 50. c. 1. That Faith must necessarily be called for with importunity suitable both to the Difficulties and Dangers which at that time encompassed it and to the serviceableness which at all times accompanies it For is there not now also need of Faith to strengthen us against the Temptations of the World the Flesh and the Devil Or is our Fight now only against Flesh and Bloud are there not Spiritual Wickednesses also Are there not such Lusts as are as dear as a right Hand or Eye that must be cut off And what is it that giveth us the Victory over these and a world of others but our Faith Were not our Faith serviceable to these ends he might have some excuse for calling our Saviour a humersome and capricious Lord as he doth p. 51. c. 1. and p. 57. c. 2. that without any other motive than his unaccountable will imposeth a
their Authority I have but briefly toucht them As to my Method having first considered his Preface in the next place I have considered his Apology 3. I have made some general Reflections on the Book and lastly I have discovered what Socinian Doctrines are covertly delivered in each Chapter for I find his Oracles like those of old to carry a doubtful or double Sence to be as a Reserve and Refuge that being driven from the one he might flye to the other and indeed it is more difficult to discover and draw him forth from those Ambushes wherein he lies in wait to deceive than to baffle his greatest Strength in a plain and open Field the first is my chief endeavour though I have not on occasion declined the other what I have attempted was not in confidence of my own Abilities having never been exercised in this spiny Controversie and being now by Age Miles emeritus but only to excite and provoke others to contend for the common Salvation in the Faith once delivered to the Saints and whatever the success be I hope I shall obtain the Pardon of all good Men seeing I have according to my power cast in my Mite into the Church's Treasury AN ANSWER To a Late TREATISE ENTITULED The Naked Gospel THE Author of the Naked Gospel calls himself a true Son of the Church of England now the Doctrine of the Church of England is declared in her Liturgy her Articles and Homilies in her Liturgy she hath inserted the Three Creeds viz. that called the Apostles the Nicene and the Athanasian these two last our Author would have to be restrained to the Letter of the former because that only is used in the Offices for Administration of Baptism and Visitation of the Sick but if he be a true Son of the Church he hath or should ex animo have given his Assent and Consent to all the Doctrines avowed by the Church However it is well that the Doctor seems to approve of the Apostles Creed because I find the Socinians deny the Godhead of the Son and Holy Ghost being it is not expresly affirmed in that Creed yet certainly they had not been made Objects of our Faith if they were not of the Godhead This Creed is but a larger Profession of our Christian Faith which we made at our Baptism where we dedicate ourselves to the Service of that one God who is Father Son and Holy Ghost The Right Reverend Bishop of Chester hath sufficiently proved the Deity of the Son and Holy Ghost in his learned Exposition of that Creed Nor have we ever heard of any of the Fathers that have interpreted it otherwise than as the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds have done yet I have been credibly informed that a Doctor who stiles himself of the Church of England gravely declared That this Creed also might be reformed But in the Church of England we find the reiterated Acknowledgment of the Blessed Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost so in the Doxology in the Form used in Baptism and in the Litany O Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity Three Persons and One God c And in that very ancient Hymn after the Communion it is said of our Saviour Thou only art Holy thou only art the Lord thou only O Christ with the Holy Ghost art most high in the Glory of God the Father In the Te Deum Thou art the King of Glory O Christ thou art the Everlasting Son of the Father In the first Article concerning the Trinity the Church of England says That in the Unity of the Divine Nature there are three Persons of the same Essence Power and Eternity Father Son and Holy Ghost In the Homely for Whitsunday she says The Holy Ghost is a Spiritual and Divine Substance the third Person in the Deity distinct from the Father and the Son Which thing may most easily be proved by most plain Testimonies of God's Holy Word Canon 〈◊〉 1640. And in the Canons it is forbidden to read Socinian Books And in the former Book of Canons we are forbid to teach any thing but what is agreeable to the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament and what the ancient Fathers and Bishops have collected out of them It was therefore a Protestatio contra factum to stile himself a true Son c. and under that Title to publish to the World what is so opposite to her Doctrine May not the Church complain of such Sons in the words of the Prophet Isaiah c. 1. I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me But God be thanked the Church of England doth not want more dutiful Sons such as on all occasions are ready and able to vindicate her Doctrines and assert her Discipline That famous University whereof the Author was a Member seasonably manifested her Detestation of his Heretical Opinions by condemning them to the Flames that there might not be a Spark left to kindle such dangerous Fires in the Church which Decree for the Reader 's satisfaction is here inserted The Judgment and Decree of the Vniversity of Oxford delivered in a Convocation held August 19th 1690. against some Impious and Heretical Propositions transcribed and quoted out of an Infamous Libel of late perfidiously printed within the said Vniversity and published with this Title The Naked Gospel which do Impugne and Assault the principal Mysteries of our Faith alway retained and preserved in the Catholick Church and especially in the Church of England IMPRIMATUR Jonathan Edwards Vice-Can Oxon. WHereas there is lately published an Infamous Libel entituled The Naked Gospel which under that specious Title destroys the Foundation of the Primitive Faith once delivered to the Saints assaults the chief Mysteries of our Religion and not only denies but reproacheth him that bought us the Lord Jesus Christ who is God blessed for ever And whereas it appears that this Libel deserving to be condemned to eternal Flames hath been by an unheard of Persideousness printed and published within this University therefore for the Honour of the Holy and Individual Trinity for Preservation of the Catholick Doctrine in the Church and moreover for the Defence as much as in us lieth of the Reputation and Esteem of this University which with all care we desire to preserve intire and inviolable We the Vice-Chancellor Doctors Proctors the Regent and Non-Regent Masters convocated in a full Senate of Convocation on the 19th of August 1690 in manner and place accustomed certain Propositions in the said Libel contained which we have caused to be transcribed and hereafter recited being first Read have by our Common Suffrages and the Unanimous Consent and Assent of Us all Decreed in manner following I. We do Condemn all and every of these Propositions and others to them belonging which for Brevity's sake are pretermitted as False Impious and Contumelious to the Christian Religion and especially to the Church of England And we Decree and Declare most of them to be Heretical as contrary
the Gnosticks and Nicolaitans whose deeds God hated Mahomet was of the same Opinion with those Hereticks for though the Doctor says he professed all the Articles of the Christian Faith yet it 's evident he denied the Deity of Christ though he owned him to be a true Prophet and Messenger of God in which respect the Doctor might say he owned as much of the Christian Faith as the Socinians do and we may say he was for a Naked Gospel as well as the Doctor The Question therefore which the Doctor makes whether Mahomet or Christian Doctors have more corrupted the Gospel and hindred the success of it is easily resolved for the Gnosticks Cerinthians Ebionites c. all which called themselves Christian Doctors and Reformers of the Gospel as he calls Mahomet Were those Christian Doctors who by their corrupt and Antichristian Errors defamed the Gospel and opposed the Deity of its Author And these and such others made way for Mahomet by shewing that they held a Gospel whereof every Article was to be found in the Alchoran And had our Doctor lived in the days of Mahomet it 's not unlike but he might have been one of those Christian Doctors that would have reformed the Gospels according to the Alchoran As for any new Additions or Impositions in Matters of Faith the Doctor knows the Church of England utterly disclaims them And to avoid such traditionary Impositions the Church of England retaining whatsoever is agreeable to the Scriptures and Primitive Churches hath reformed herself from all the corrupt Innovations and Impositions of the Church of Rome as well in Matters of Doctrine as of Government and Discipline And now to the Doctor 's Question Whether Mahomet or the Christian Doctors have more corrupted the Gospel c. This was the Tempting Opportunity says the Doctor offered to the Impostor and he laid hold on it to set up himself for a Reformer Sir W. Temple p. 107. of the Second Part of his Essays may inform him who was the fore-runner of Anti-Christ as the Fathers termed Arius About the Year 600 the time when Mahomet appeared the Provinces of the East were over-run with Arianism who denied or undermined the Divinity of Christ and allowed only his Prophetical Office The Countries of Arabia and Egypt were filled with great numbers of the scattered Jews who on the destruction of their Country in Adrian's time had fled into these Provinces to avoid the utter ruine of their Nation threatned by that Emperour Arabia and Egypt were inhabited by Gentiles who were given to pleasures and Riches Mahomet to humour and comply with these three sorts of men and by assistance of Sergius a Monk an Arian Heretick who fearing the Censure of the Church of Constantinople which then resolved to suppress that and the Heresie of the Monothelites fled into Arabia and was entertained by Mahomet's Master where he grew into acquaintance with Mahomet and became his only Confident framed a Scheme of Religion which might take in the common Opinions and Dispositions of all those three Parties which yet might be agreeable to his own temper and designs He professed One God Creator of the World and that God sent Moses his first and great Prophet to give his Laws to Mankind which were not obeyed by the Jews nor received by the Gentiles therefore in later Ages he sent Christ who was the second Prophet and greater than Moses to preach his Laws in greater purity but to do it with gentleness patience and humility which found no better reception or success among Men than Moses had done and therefore God had now sent his last and greatest Prophet Mahomet to publish his Laws with more Power to subdue them by Force and Violence who would not willingly receive them that such as would not obey should be ruined but the obedient should have the possession of his and their Enemies as a Reward in this Life and a Paradise hereafter with all sensual enjoyments especially of beautiful Women newly created for that purpose these prevailed with Arians Jews and Gentiles in those parts c. Hence it appears what this Reformer was and what were the tempting opportunities which he laid hold on To please the Jews Mahomet observed Circumcision in imitation of Abraham and recommended to them the Laws of Moses to please the Gentiles he permitted Polygamy to the number of four Wives and as many Concubines as they could maintain and to please the Christians he permitted them to have a Naked Gospel and a Natural Faith in Christ as a Messenger of GOD greater than Moses but not God or the Saviour of the World for they deny that he was crucified but was taken up alive into Heaven but these are not all the Articles of the Christian Faith he denied the Crucifixion of our Saviour his Resurrection Ascention and that he should come to Judge the World to reward or punish Men according to their Works Sandius p. 347. mentioneth some other of Mahomet's Doctrines As that God is One both in Essence and Person and that there are not Father Son and Holy Ghost that Christ is to be worshipped but not with that Divine Worship as his Lord and God is He says That Jews and Gentiles and every one that worshippeth and feareth God and doth Good Works may be saved and he quotes Baronius saying That the Mahomitans do worship Christ as the Arrians and Nestorians do p. 348. The Author of Mahomet's Life Printed before the English Alchoran says He was ordained to be a Scourge for the Christians who in multitudes at that time had forsaken the Truth to follow the Sects and Heresies of the Arrians Nestorians Donatists and others By such as these the Candlestick by God's just Judgment was removed out of the Asian Churches at first and the pure Light of the Gospel is much darkned in these later Ages by Anti-Trinitarians Servetians and Socinians who have well nigh extinguished that Gospel which is the Light of the World and would leave Mankind as naked and as much ashamed as our first Parents when they had eaten of the forbidden Fruit. I confess that when I first read that Mahomet profest all the Articles of Christ's Faith I was not aware that the Doctor might mean according to his New Gospel or the Socinian Creed but on enquiry into the Alchoran and computation of Time when the Alchoran was written viz about the year 600 before which time the whole World as St. Hierome observed was become Arrian and Sergius the Monk that had a chief hand in contriving it was an Arrian I found that the Doctor makes a very great Agreement in Matters of Faith between the Alchoran and his Naked Gospel so that as he says Mahomet set up for a Reformer of the Gospel in his time so we have another Sergeus who sets up for a Reformer of the Gospel according to the Alchoran in our time as by the following particulars will appear The English Alchoran as it is Reprinted 1688 is that
entred into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh This is a deceiver and an Antichrist And 1 Job 5.7 he plainly asserts the Doctrine of the Trinity There are three that bear witness in heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these Three are One. It is very observable what Grotius says in the Preface of his Annotations on St. John The Ancients among other causes of St. John 's Writing this Gospel do generally assign this as the chief that he might apply a Remedy to that Poyson which at that time was dispersed in the Church among all that professed the Name of Christ which could be no other than the denying of the Eternal Deity of the Son of God which that Evangelist asserted Now tho' it may seem a superfluous work to enquire into the Opinions of the Author of the Naked Gospel after the Censure of the University the reading whereof may satisfie any Judicious and Impartial Reader yet least I should seem to make an Adversary where I find none and to fight against my own Shadow as against some formidable Monster I shall 1. Consider what the Author hath said to clear himself from the Reasons of that Decree 2. Make some few general Remarks on the design of the Naked Gospel And 3ly More particularly Examine the Opinions asserted or insinuated by the Author In his Vindication p. 4. he declares his Faith to be no other than that of the Church of England and renounceth any word which in that or any other Book may seem to contradict it The Contradiction is not seeming but real and differs as much as Time doth from Eternity or the Doctrine of the Church of England of which I have given an account from the Arrian and Socinian Heresies if he renounceth any thing he must renounce almost all but how he will do it so as to remove the Scandal from the Church of England which as Monsieur Jeru observes is now conceived to be tainted with Socinian Doctrines from such Writings as this of the Naked Gospel I cannot well conceive unless he disclaim his being a true Son of the Church of England He says The Author of that Book is so far from denying the Divinity of Christ that he plainly asserts it But what Divinity is that is it the Eternal Godhead and Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father This is not to be found yea it is the whole design of the Author to impugne it he grants him no other Divinity than the Arrians did of a created God nor indeed so much for he speaks of our Saviour under the same Notions and Expressions as Socinus and Smalâ—ius did granting him a Divinity but not a Deity of which more hereafter But he would prove his Assertion from these words of his That the Author of our Gospel was not only great but infinite But the Question is whom he means by our Author whether God the Father the prime or God the Son as the immediate Author for thus the Moral Law was given by Moses yet God was the prime Author and in this sence an Arrian may and the Socinians do say Christ waâ— the Messenger of God and received all his Commands from God and so the Author of the Gospel in the Socinians sence is infinite for thâ—s Crellius on Heb. 2. v. 3. says Christ was not the first Author of the Gospel as neither were the Angels of the Law but God was the prime Author of both the Law and Gospel though the Law was published by Angels and the Gospel by Christ so that Christ was no otherwise a Law-giver in publishing the Gospel than Moses was in proclaiming the Law which Crellius in his Book de Uno Deo endeavours to maintain at large and in the same sence I fear the Doctor calls the Author of our Gospel infinite viz. that God the Father is the Author of the Gospel But being conscious that some Expressions unsuitable to so plain an Assertion as that of the Infinity of the Author of the Gospel might drop from his hasty Pen he says p. 5. that such hasty Expressions ought to be thereby i. e. by the word Infinity to be interpreted Answ And so it might if he had applied it to the Person of Christ but he tells us the occasion of that Expression was Ch. 11. from the assurance of a Christian grounded on the Resurrection beyond the hopes of a Heathen and the Persons in whom the one and the other believed Now whom do the Arrians believe to be the Author of that Resurrection but God the Father whom they often affirm to have raised our Saviour from the Dead and it s no wonder if they own his Infinity this being the substance of what they say is necessary to be believed viz. That God raised Jesus from the Dead and to confess him our Lord denying that Christ arose by any power of his own Therefore he would not have his Expressions imputed to his setled Opinion but his too great hast and heat in a Question which did nor concern the Divinity of Christ but the manner of his Generation the former as he adds was on both sides acknowledged the latter was the whole subject of the Dispute which Constantines Letter so often calleth Silly Answ If the Divinity of Christ in its proper sence i. e. his Deity had been acknowlegded I believe there had been no dispute concerning the manner of his Generation the Question was Whether he were Consubstantial with the Father or not not concerning the manner or modus but whether he were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Substance with the Father If the Dispute in Constantine's time had been only about the manner of Christ's Generation the Doctor might have taken in the Parenthesis of Dr. Wallis that it is not distinctly declared by God nor are we able fully to comprehend it nor is it necessary for us to know but it is necessary to know that this Generation was from Eternity that we may ground our Faith and Hope in him that is God and so is able to save to the utmost all that come to God by him he being the Lord i. e. Jehovah our Righteousness What the Controversy in the Nicene Council against Arrius was and how it was decided shall appear anon 2ly He says the design of his Book was only to disable Humane Authority from imposing on our Belief more Doctrines than Christ and his Apostles declared to be necessary Here are two bold Strokes first the Doctor will determine what those necessary Doctrines are and then he will disable Magistrates from imposing any other and so we shall lose the great Fundamental the Eternal Godhead of Christ which his Naked Gospel doth impugne 3ly Another design of this Author he says is By a due confinement of Faith to enlarge Charity Ans The Apostles method to enlarge Charity was not to confine but propagate the Faith once delivered to the Saints as the best motive
which held the contrary should be called Hereticks made infamous and punished All this Constantine and the Council of Nice had done long before He adds Behold now the ground on which one of our Fundamental Articles of Faith is built The meaning of this is that it is an Imperial Imposition to which we shall give an Answer anon Prop. 9. What more ridiculously silly than to build so weighty a Doctrine upon implicite Faith in two Bishops partial to their own Sees whereof the one gave it Birth the other Maintenance and what more odious than to prosecute as Hereticks and Malefactors all such as should refuse to be so grosly imposed on Answ What can be more falsly said than that this Doctrine hath no other Foundation than what this Author allows it When it was confirm'd by that famous Council not as their own Opinions only but as the constant Doctrine of the Churches of God in former Ages grounded on the Holy Scriptures and therefore to reflect on it as the first and most uncharitable Dispute that ever rent the Christian World doth not become any Christian much less a true Son of the Church of England See p. 55. col 1. In the 10th Proposition he affirms That on his Premises being considered Men may be tempted as it seems he hath been to number the Athanasian among the Roman Doctrines and to leave it on the same level with the Arrian equally unworthy of our Faith and Study It appears then that our Doctor never studied this Doctrine whereof he hath long been a Professor so far as to make it an Article of his Faith and if his Pelagian Doctrines and Sermons concerning Original Sin for which many learned Men have severely censured him with which the University was so offended as to oblige him to explain by way of a Recantation and of his Opinion of Turkish Devotion and his Naked Gospel were duly considered the Considerator must be perswaded that the Doctor had made the Socinian Doctrines his constant study and never thought the Catholick Doctrines worthy of his Study or Faith or that instead of not bestowing one days study in reading Socinian Writers he had not bestowed so much time in reading the Articles or Liturgy of the Church of England In the 11th he saith We cannot think it necessary to Salvation that every private Christian and by the same reason that no private Christian should believe that as an Article of Faith which the best Ages of the Church thought not worth knowing Which in the Second Edition he thus expresseth An Opinion which so many good and wise Men as lived within three hundred years after Christ were so far from believing as matter of Faith that they did not receive it as matter of certainty nor perhaps of credibility Answ St. John lived many Years after Christ he not only received it but asserted it throughout his Gospel and Epistles against Ebion and Cerinthus St. Ignatius calls them Serpents that did deny it Polycarp called Marcion The first begotten of the Devil for believing the contrary these I trust every true Son of the Church of England will acknowledge to have been good and wise Men. But you shall hear anon of an Army of Martyrs that have sealed it with their Blood and what a fruitful Seed of this saving Doctrine the Blood of these Martyrs hath been in the Church of God That learned and seasonable Collection of Mr. Bull 's concerning the Judgment of the Fathers in the first 300 Years after our Saviour shews abundantly what was their belief concerning the Deity of our Saviour which may silence the Dispute and save the labour of any farther Collection an account whereof for my Country-mens sake who either understand not the Latin Tongue or cannot compass the Book I shall present to my Reader and refer the Learned to the Book itself where they may find all their Testimonies vindicated and irrefragably asserted against the Objection of Sandius Petavius and other Socinian Authors in their proper place In the Twelfth Proposition he insinuates That the Positions of the Athanasians seems to infer Polytheism and when they deny the consequence he says They contradict the Rules of Reasoning and that they do so because they allow Reason no hearing in Mysteries of Faith and that this cannot excuse them from being Hereticks in Religion or Logick Whereas for the Arrians he pleads That they profess to believe of Christ whatever himself or his Apostles have spoken and where-ever one expression seems to contradict another they take such a course to reconcile them as the Laws and Customs of all the World direct This shews plainly what Party he adheres to The Rule which he gives us for the justification of the Arians is this It is frequent for Rhetorick to exceed but never to diminish the Grammatical Character of a Person whose Honour the Writer professeth to advance and therefore they think it more reasonable that those expressions which exalt our Saviour's Person to an equality wth the Father should stoop to those which speak him inferiour rather than those which speak him inferiour should be strained up to those which speak him equal As if Christ and his Apostles which wrote the History of Christ did not deal more faithfully in relating the truth concerning his Person as being one and equal to the Father than those Rhetoricians who to advance the Doctrine of Arius would depress him beneath himself and leave him as Naked as the New Gospel doth stripping him of all those glorious Attributes that should support his Worship and depriving the Church of that satisfaction which he made for it when he redeemed it with his own most precious Blood which by the Socinian Doctor 's is trampled under foot and counted a vain thing These Propositions will fall under our farther Consideration of the several Chapters To which I now proceed Chap. 1. He treats of the Gospel preached by our Saviour and his Apostles as necessary to Salvation the Character whereof is either that of a Covenant or a Message Of the Gospel as a Covenant he speaks as slightly as short quoting only Jer. 31.33 and Heb. 8.8 and says It is delivered more succinctly ch 10.17 This Covenant he says Leans on the Law of Nature which also keeps it firm in its place Thus the Covenant of Grace is confounded with the Law of Works though the Apostle sets them in opposition We are not under the Law but Grace That Christ is the Foundation of the Evangelical Covenant ratified and sealed by his Blood the Scripture teacheth so plainly that he that runs may read Covenants were wont to be made by Sacrifice as Dr. Outrede hath proved and so was this Covenant it was sealed in the Blood of the Son of God without which there could be no remission The Apostle calls him the Surety of a better Covenant and bringing in a better hope the first Covenant was Do this and live the second is He that believes and is
answered Our Doctor mentions it for another reason viz. how any Church dare challenge or any Man dares pay that Faith to any yea all the Creatures in Heaven and Earth which is due to God only And on the Socinian and Arian supposition that Christ is a Creature there is no more Faith or Obedience due to him than to other Messengers of God but we must seek for Salvation by a Natural Religion and then blind as we are by Nature and having but blind Guides we may soon fall into the Ditch For the natural man perceiveth not the things of the spirit flesh and bloud cannot reveal them nor can any man say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost That this seems to be the Socinian sence of the Author is probable from the following words Those who require implicit Faith on any other authority so as to contradict reason give God the lye making him contradict himself for Reason is no less the word of God than is the Scripture So that if the Doctrines of the Gospel contradict the Reason of Arians and Socinians they are not to be received for therefore only are we to believe the Scripture because we are by plain Reason convinced that it is the Word of God But what if some Socinians be tainted with Quakerism and their Reason tells them the Gospel is not the Word of God but that Word is written in their Hearts and the Light within them is the only Word of God and not the Word incarnate or that which is written with Pen and Inke that is in our Doctor 's Opinion the Natural Religion for though the evidence we have that what is offered us for the Word of God is really such to this we must pay neither more nor less belief than Reason will prove due p. 18. col 2. P. 19. c. 2. The Doctor speaking of Belief says thus The same Natural Religion which claimed it as due to God forbad to pay it to any Creature upon the former account there was no need of an express Precept and upon the later there was the greatest need not only of an express Command but such repeated Importunities as might out voice both Reason when it should decry such a Command and Interest when it should rebel against convinced Reason both whereof concurred against the belief which our Lord required The sence of this Paragraph seems to be this That as the Faith which Natural Religion claims as due to God needed no express Precept so Natural Religion forbidding to pay Faith to any Creature there was the greatest need not only of an express Command but repeated Importunities to pay it to Christ such as might out-voice both Reason and Interest seeing they both concurred against the belief which our Lord required I wish the Doctor would give a more rational inference from these words then this that both Natural Religion Reason and Interest do forbid to pay Faith to Christ as forbidding to pay it to a Creature for he saith they concur against the belief which our Lord required If the Doctor by implicit Faith means more particularly a readiness to believe as Articles of Faith and as necessary to Salvation whatever Propositions are imposed on him by his Superiors he well knows we have no such Custom in the Church of England we call no Man on Earth our Master or Law-giver in Matters of Faith He that advanceth his own Reason which is often against and then it must be above Scripture he is in as bad a condition as the most bigotted Papist for he makes himself and all his Faculties and Reasonings as Infallible as they believe the Pope to be Chap. 5. The Contents of this Chapter is thus express'd Why Faith under the Gospel maketh a greater figure than under the Law This state of the Question he presently alters and makes it his business to shew That when our Saviour first claimed the publick profession of Faith in him there were extraordinary reasons for his Importunity and Promises some whereof in these days when the Christian Religion hath been long established have lost their influence and by consequence the importunity of those Precepts and the influence of those Promises do now cease These extraordinary Reasons viz. for professing Faith in Christ he draws from 1. The Difficulty and 2. the Danger of professing Faith in Christ and 3. the Necessity of it All which are readily granted viz. That though it were both difficult and dangerous yet it was necessary that the Disciples of Christ should publickly own Faith in him but then the Inference which he makes is not conclusive p. 23. col 1. viz. Now that our Education makes it as difficult and our Laws as dangerous to deny Christ as it was then to confess him and consequently what extraordinary merit Faith might draw from those Topicks must now be lowered and so Faith will appear a common Grace worthy of no greater than common rewards Is false for as he confesseth though in extraordinary respects that necessity be now abated yet there is a permament necessity from the influence which Faith alway hath on the action of Believers because as he says The Christian is alway a Souldier and must fight against all kinds of Enemies to Christ's Kingdom not only Flesh and Bloud but spiritual Wickedness and whatever would not have the Lord rule over them He must follow the Captain of his Salvation who was made perfect by Sufferings and when tempted he must walk in the steps of his Father Abraham sacrifice his Lusts though no less dear than was his Isaac So that Faith must be habitually the same and therefore needs the same encouragements now as it did when it was first required And I see no great need of that which he so carefully requires that we must distinguish the times for we are still under those later times which St. Paul calls perillous wherein we shall meet with divers Tryals and Temptation and therefore need the whole Armor of God c. And we still need the same degrees of Faith to overcome the World i. e. The lust of the Flesh the lust of the Eyes and the pride of Life To this great Work he says Christ came furnished with no other power but of working Miracles but the Scripture tells us of other powers for St. John says Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ He had the power to confer Grace to give Repentance and Remission of Sins to give Faith and to increase it to open the eyes of their Understandings and turn them from Darkness unto Light and from the power of Satan to God without which powers that of working Miracles was insufficient for we read of many that wrought Miracles in Christ's name and yet had no saving Faith and a Heathen may have a Natural Faith and Moral Vertues and yet come short of Salvation He adds in the conclusion of this Chapter That if we believe him i. e. Christ to require Faith for any other
omits that the Word was God that it was in the bosom of the Father ought to be explained with respect to this express Declaration of the Saviour of the World so that if he said he was the Son of God it was because the Father had sanctified him and sent him into the World and according to this Passage I may says he lawfully explain any other Passage wherein Christ is called God or Son of God for they are all taken from the Economy or Ministry of Christ We shall meet this Gentleman again anon in the mean time we must not be uncivil to the Doctor who hath been so civil as to grant That Christ was first sanctified and afterward sent whereas others were first sent into the World the common way and afterward sanctified To them God sent his Word by their Betters but it is not sent to me by my Betters but by me to my Inferiors Now if Christ were first sanctified and then sent into the World then he had a Being before he came into the World and that Being must be as a Creator or a Creature or a middle Nature a made God as the Arians call him the Arians say more That he was God's Instrument or Agent in creating the World which is so evident in the Scripture that no Man of sence can deny that diligently reads John 1. Colos 1. and Heb. 1. Now if God to qualify him for so great a Work as that of the Creation did communicate to him the great Attributes of Divine Wisdom Omnipotence and Omnissience which are Infinite why might he not communicate to him also that other Attribute of his Eternity in his Generation But to come to the Doctor 's Argument viz. That Christ spake nothing to the Jews of what he was from Eternity in himself but what he was in relation to the World Doth not the Doctor grant he was first sanctified and then sent into the World And what is that Sanctification but his being ordained by God to be the Redeemer and Saviour of the World So Crellius says l. 1. sect 2. c. 31. To sanctify signifieth in Scripture to separate one and choose him to a singular Office Now Christ by an everlasting Decree was set apart to be the Lamb slain as an All sufficient Sacrifice for the Sins of all Mankind his Sanctification or Ordination to the Office of a Redeemer was by that Decree of which the Psalmist gives us a Copy Psal 2. I will declare the decree the Lord hath said to me Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee which the ancient Jews affirm to be spoken of the Messias And the Hodie the day was from all Eternity for the Redemption of Mankind could not be effected but by an Infinite Price as Scripture teacheth The Argument urged by our Doctor and the Socinians is That our Saviour on so pressing an occasion ought to assert his Right yet spake nothing of what he was from Eternity So Crellius and our Doctor But we affirm that our Saviour was not obliged so to do on this occasion it was sufficient for him to clear himself from the Accusation of being a Blasphemer which he doth by an Argument out of their own Law which may be thus illustrated The Doctor stiles himself A true Son of the Church of England to which it may be said that he being an Arian or Socinian doth blaspheme i. e. speaks evil of the Church of England in making himself who is a Socinian a true Son of that Church which owns no such for her Sons that are of that Belief Now how will the Doctor vindicate himself from this Accusation will he say I was baptized into the Faith of that Church in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost I was for Twenty five Years a Professor of Divinity in that Church a Rector of Exeter-Colledge This would be an impertinent Argument for there have been many of that Church which are gone from it some to the Church of Rome others to Socinian Conventicles the most proper Argument would have been to shew that in our Law the Articles of our Religion our Litany and Homilies the Arrian Religion or Socinian Religion asserted or that neither in his Writings or Sermons he hath affirmed any other Doctrine than what is established in that Church for the Question is not concerning the Dignity of his Person or his Birth or Qualifications but whether he be a true Son of that Church and can shew the consonancy of his Faith to that of the Church of England This was our Saviour's Argument to vindicate himself from the Jews Accusation who accounted him a Blasphemer in that he being a Man made himself the Son of God he doth not argue from his being the Son of God or from his doing such Works as no other Man did but proves from their Law wherein the Title of God is given to Men that were inferiour to him viz. to Princes Priests and Prophets he was not concern'd to tell them whether he was the Son of God by distinguishing between a Son of God by Nature and a Son by Office he doth not deny but still asserts the first both before v. 30. I and my Father are one and after ver 38. The Father is in me and I in him And his being sanctified and sent into the World proves the same viz. that he was the Son of God for otherwise God sent not his Son and sanctified him before he came into the World but first sent him into the World and then sanctified him to be his Son which though contrary to what the Doctor grants from the Text yet the Socinians generally deny and ascribe his Sonship to his Birth his Baptism Unction to his Office his Resurrection and Exaltation on any thing but his Eternal Generation and Ordination to be the Saviour and Redeemer of the World for which Office all the Angels of God were not sufficient And now we return to the thoughtful Gentleman This Gentleman thinks to thrust home this Argument to the Ruin of the Catholick Doctrine For he says it is written with the Finger of Truth and unanswerable p. 3. col 2. But that the Orthodox are wont to swallow all sorts of Contradictions and to cast dust in the eyes of the simple This Reproach notwithstanding we will go hand in hand with him in search of that Truth which this Scripture propounds for we are agreed that our Saviour delivers his Doctrine in profound Wisdom having regard to the Circumstances of Place Time and Person by these Particulars we shall examine the Text laying down this general Observation That St. John was desired by the Church of Ephesus who were pestered with the Heresies of the Gnosticks Ebion and Cerinthus who denied the Deity of the Son of God and ascribed the Creation to certain Aeones or Angels denying it to be ascribed to Christ both which Errors he particularly refutes 1. Then consider the Persons with whom he had to
deny And though this Position were rash enough yet what he adds is much worse viz. That the Athanasian may be numbered among the Roman Doctrines and to be leveled with the Arian equally unworthy of not only our Faith but our Study Now the Athanasian Doctrine is not only agreeable to the Nicene but they are both retained in the Doctrine of the Church of England and how can he affirm himself a Son of the Church of England who bids such an open Defiance to the Doctrine of that Church The Nicene Council grounded their Decrees on the Scripture as they had been understood by the Primitive and Apostolical Fathers before there was either Imperial or Papal Power in the Christian Church and it is very strange if this be not a more firm Foundation than his corrupt Reason when it is contrary both to Scripture Antiquity and Councils and the sence of the Catholick Church in all Ages as much as to the Faith of the Church of England In this Chapter the Doctor tells us of the Council of Ariminum which was many Years after that of Nice and was the greatest for number that ever was but one of the worst for the major part were Arians the Doctor confessing p. 38. col 2. That the Arians had all the Eastern Churches except that of Hierusalem that in this Council the Latine Church were circumvented by the Greeks who when it was proposed by the Greeks Whether they would worship Christ or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they cried they believed not in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in Christ Before I answer this Objection I shall add another which the Doctor urgeth p. 14. c. 1. speaking of the Consubstantiality he says It was a Mystery to those very Councils which determined it and as it appears says he by those contrary Determinations of several Councils and by the wavering of the same Council for that of Sermium framed two or three one whereof they would have reneg'd and laboured to recal its Copies Answ This Variety of Councils was occasioned partly by the influence of Arian Emperors under whom at that time St. Hierome observed the whole World became Arians but more especially by subtilty of those Greeks of whom he speaks who pleaded the Cause of the Arians in that Council of Ariminum against the Latine Church for those sort of Greeks were possest of the Eastern Churches as our Doctor observes But the Latine Church adhered to the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds and as Ignorant as the Doctor accounts them they discovered and baffled the Sophistry of his subtile Greeks even in that Declaration of theirs That they believed not in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in Christ i. e. not in such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some of those subtile Greeks would have imposed on them contrary to the Opinion they had of Christ Now this piece of Sophistry will thus appear Athanasius speaking of some Hereticks who used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says That Paulus Samos used it in a sence that might confirm his Error and destroy the true Notion of the Word The Council of Nice agreed the meaning of it to be That the Son had a proper Personality which made him the second Person in the Trinity but was of the Substance with the Father And Socrates l. 1. c. 8. says They held the Son to be of the Father but not as a part of his Substance which was the Error of Paulus Samos Sabellius c. declaring the Divine Essence to be undivided contrary to the Opinion of those Hereticks that held the Divine Substance to be divided between the Father and the Son And in this sence they used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Council of Nice accounted Heretical this was known to the Latine Church and when they proposed that word in a sence opposite to the Nicene Faith they did as they had just cause reject it and answered that subtile Question with a plain renouncing of the Error of those Hereticks that thought to impose their sence on them We will not worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Christ In this sence it was that the Fathers in that Council renounced the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eustathius had this distinction from Marcellus his Master whom St. Hilary and St. Basil call an Heretick See Socrates l. 1. c. 23. and Sozomon l. 2. c. 11. I shall here once for all give my Reader a short Account of the Controversy between St. Athanasius and Arius Alexander Bishop of Alexandria having heard of the Blasphemy of Arius a Priest under his Jurisdiction called a Synod of his Province to enquire into his Opinions and censure him Arius appeared and maintained That there was a time when Christ was not that he was Deus Factus made a God and so a Creature For these and other Heretical Opinions he was Excommunicated together with some others whom he had drawn to his Opinion and by their means the People were also divided denying to hold Communion with each other The Emperor being informed how far the Dissention spread and what Tumults had been already occasioned by the Controversy between the Catholicks and Arians though not fully informed of the truth of the Question made it his business to apply a seasonable Remedy to so great an Evil and first he sent Letters by Hosius Bishop of Corduba both to Alexander and Arius enjoyning them to Peace and Brotherly Communion I find saith the Emperor that the rise of the Controversy between you is this That when you Alexander required of your Presbyters what they thought of a certain place in the Law or rather of a needless Question and you Arius did imprudently reply what you neither ought to think nor being thought you ought to have supprest by silence the Discord between you caused a breach in your Communion whereby the People also were divided from the Unity of the Church wherefore I Exhort that each of you pardoning each other do embrace what I your Fellow-Servant most justly require for it was neither fit to move such a Question at first nor being moved to return such an Answer to it for such Questions which no necessity of the Law doth prescribe ought to be kept in our own Breasts and not to be unadvisedly committed to the Ears of the Vulgar lest we for the infirmity of our Nature not being able to explain what is proposed and the People through their dulness being not able to apprehend it they necessarily fall into Blasphemy or Schism for the Contention is not about any great Command of the Law nor is there any new Opinion started concerning the Worship of God but you both retain one and the same Opinion so it seems the Emperour was informed and therefore may well live in the same Communion as the various Sect of Philosophers do Let us duly consider how unequal it is that by your Contention about light and vain words the People that lived as Brethren should
itself but the Divine Nature assuming did confer And thus you have as time gave leave in one View the chief Points of this large and intricate Controversie To God the Father to the Son God and Man and to the Holy Ghost be all Honour Praise and Glory now and for ever Amen The CONCLUSION St. Hilary having vindicated the Doctrine of the Trinity l. 6. n. 2. says Lord I believed thy words if I am deceived Moses David Solomon and thy Apostles have deceived me if it be a Fault to believe these pardon me Almighty God for in this belief I can die deny it I cannot We have been baptized in this Faith we have offered up all our Prayers in this Faith and payed all our Thanksgivings to the Blessed Trinity and therefore we cannot dye comfortably in any other And with much more confidence may the Devout Trinitarian say as St. Heirome expresseth it Ecce Crucifixus meus Deus Behold my God which was crucified for me when he sees him coming in Judgment than the Arian or Socinian who proudly deny his Godhead and Satisfaction who may too late complain in the words of St. Augustine in his Confession l. 5. c. 9. I was going towards Hell laden with all my Sins while I believed not that Christ had satisfied for them FINIS ANIMADVERSIONS ON The Naked Gospel As now Published By ARTHVR BVRY D. D. THat this Book is now first published by the Doctor whose Name is prefixed cannot in Justice be denied by them that have read the former for it is quite another Book and it may be true though either one or the other if not both of the former Editions of the Naked Gospel were published by the same Author because they are not the same Books yet the one which he having caused to be printed and dispersed among his Friends in several parts of the Nation and the other wherein he made several Alterations may be affirmed to be published by the same hand the truth whereof needs no farther enquiry after the Oxford Animadversions That this present Copy is another Book appears by its divers Alterations and Additions which are made whether for the better or the worse will appear to every judicious Reader and that there needs no other or severer Reflections on it than what the Author himself hath made He seems so to tumble in the Net which he hath woven as to be more intangled by striving to get out In his Preface to the Reader he confesseth He had not patience to be silent at such a time when the suppression of such Opinions as he hath published would have been greatly advantagious both to Truth and Peace And whether it would not have been a great degree of sauciness by a point blanck Address of such a Present as the Naked Gospel to direct the Venerable Body of the Convocation of the Clergy in what they had to do is put beyond doubt by the Oxford Convocation I cannot find as he says that it was intended that the Convocation of the Clergy was called to make Alterations in Matters of Faith nor that we are to weigh at the same Beam a Rite in the one and a Doctrine in the other Seale The Convocation I believe would have given up all their Rites and Ceremonies rather than the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation which the Doctor on pretence of Charity would have them to abandon He confesseth That his Book was penned with less caution than was necessary for what was to be exposed to every vulgar eye But how could he imagine that so many learned and good Men would be pleased with his questioning or denying the truth and belief of such Doctrines as they themselves believe to be necessary to Salvation He might therefore very well have spared his unbecoming Reflections on that Body That the Doctor was suspected to disbelieve the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation was not because he did not expresly declare his Opinion concerning them which a true Son of the Church of England and one that had been long before suspected as Heterodox writing on that subject was highly concern'd to do but because he hath slily and frequently insinuated divers Arguments against them and his daubing with untempered Mortar in his two new Chapters of the Trinity and Incarnation will render the matter more obscure and defaced As for those words in the conclusion which he conceives some are most offended with wherein he cannot submit to the least compliance Let him enjoy his own Sentiments only I cannot perswade my self that more than his an hundred years experience calls on us to tack about and steer a contrary course to what our Pilots in the greatest part of that time have steered As the number of those Men who are as sick of King William as they were lately of King James is so small that they may be all written in a Ring If he intends as the current of his Discourse would carry it such as were in the late Convocation all which had testified by solemn Oaths and divers of them by their learned Arguments and Exhortations their cheerful Obedience to their present Majesties whom God preserve as the most hopeful Defenders of our established Religion so I heartily pray there may not be one such Prevaricator left among us though even among the Twelve Disciples of our Saviour there was a Judas and I hope there is not one of a thousand among our Clergy that is so ill as the Doctor would represent them such I mean as he says would wish for the cruel French to deliver them from the present Government or that is so unreasonably jealous as to think that his present Majesty designs to make this Church not unlike to that in which himself was educated for which his vile suggestion contrary to His Majesties most gracious Assurances the Doctor is concern'd to beg His Majesty's Pardon and I pray God to pardon him also It is a most invidious and malicious Quere which he adds Which of the two are the truer Church of England-men those who dread the return of King James with his Jesuits or those who wish and labour for it Those who are so stiff as rather to hazard the whole than to part with the least circumstance And cover their stiffness to their own humours and interests with the specious pretence of zeal for the Church To which I answer That as I do not know so if I did know any person so ill affected I should abhor them as the Pests of the Nation To those of the Doctor I shall oppose these Queries Which are the truer Church of England men those who dread the growth and success of the Arian and Socinian Heresies or those who adhere to the established Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation of our blessed Saviour Those who would erect a Natural Religion a Jewish or Turkish Faith on the Ruines of that which is truly Christian Ancient and Catholick or those who live in the Communion
Imprimatur March 30 1691. Z. Isham R. P. D. Hen. Episc Lond. à Sacris AN ANSWER TO A Socinian Treatise CALL'D The Naked Gospel WHICH WAS Decreed by the University of Oxford in Convocation August 19 Anno Dom. 1690. to be Publickly Burnt as containing divers Heretical Propositions WITH A POSTSCRIPT in Answer to what is added by Dr. Bury in the Edition just Published By THOMAS LONG B. D. One of the Prebendaries of St. Peter's Exon Contra rationem nemo Sobrius contra Scripturam nemo Christianus contra Ecclesiam nemo pacificus senserit August de Trinitate l. 4. c. 6. Sanctius reverentius visum est de actis Deorum credere quam Scire Tacitus London Printed by Freeman Collins and are to be Sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1691. TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD JONATHAN By Divine Permission Lord Bishop of EXON I May justly fear that in the Dedication of these Exercitations I have done as some inconsiderate Persons who seek to excuse a less by committing of a greater Offence It was I confess a great Presumption that I prefixt your Lordship's Name to a Hasty Scrible against the Crime of Persecution charged on the Church of England and now I presume upon your Lordship's Patience and Patronage in a Case of greater Importance it is not a Scandalum Magnatum nor any of the Plea's of a Temporal Crown but a Crime Laesae Majestatis an Overt Attempt to overthrow the Crown and Kingdom of our Blessed Saviour as if he also were a King de Facto and not de Jure which I now lay before your Lordship it is the Crown and Dignity of him in whose Person and Due Worship and Honour our common Salvation is wrapt up The Sanction of our Law viz. de Heretico comburendo was I confess too severe but if there be not some Powerful Restraint laid on such Damnable Heresies as deny the LORD that bought them the Sons of Belial will not forbear to deny him on Earth with a Non Obstante to our Saviour's threatning Him will I deny before my Father which is in heaven The Ecclesiastical Laws are but as Bruta Fulmina to such as wilfully Excommunicate themselves and unless the Temporal Power supply the Defects of the Spiritual we are like to run into a worse Confusion than hitherto we have this sort of Men being as great Enemies to the one as to the other Ruarus who incurred a Banishment for his Socinianism though as modest as any of them in a Tract of Magistracy printed with his Epistles p. 461. says The times may be such and if we consider the state of all Ages and Nations they have been and still are such that it is more hard for a Christian to discharge the Office of a Magistrate especially of a Supreme than for a rich Man to enter into the kingdom of heaven They are for an Independent Ministry no Friends to either of our Lord's Institutions the Sacraments of Infant Baptism and the Eucharist and though while they are under the Power of the Civil Magistrate they plead for an enlarged Charity yet if at any time they get the Sword to hang at their sides their Cruelty will be much more extensive This I speak the more positively because First Their Principles lead them to it for if the Papists with whom we agree in the chiefest Articles of Religion be such implacable Enemies as to design the utter Extirpation of our Church how much more will the Socinians who condemn us as Polytheists and Idolators for worshipping those whom they account meer Creatures execute their Fury on us But 2ly their Practices have abundantly declared their Inveterate Malice for when one Arian Presbyter had drawn Constantius to be of his Opinion I tremble to relate what Havock was made in the Church and before that time under Dioclesian having gotten the Donatists and other Hereticks to strengthen their Party they committed more Outrages on the Catholicks than Dioclesian himself though that was the fluctus Decumanus the most impetuous Wave that overflowed the Church I shall give a brief Account from a Witness above all Exceptions Vincent Lirinensis Ch. 6. Contr. Her with whom St. Augustine agrees in his Discourses against the Arians Vol. 7. and Socrates l. 2. c. 10. l. 4. c. 13. and Sozomen l. 3. c. 6. the words of Vincentius are these Cùm prophana ipsa Arrianorum Novitas velut quaedam bellona aut furia Capto prius omnium Imperatore cuncta deinde Palatii culmina legibus novis subjugasset nequaquam deinceps destitit Universa Miserere atque vexare privata publica sacra prophanaque omnia nullum boni veri genere descrimen sed quoscunque collibuisset tanquam deloco superiore percutere tunc temeratae conjuges depopulatae viduae prophanatae Virgines monasteria demolita desturbate clerici verberati Levitae acti in exilium sacerdotes oppleta sanctis ergastula carceres Metalla quorum pars Maxima interdictis urbibus protrusi atque extorres inter deserta spleluncas feras saxa nuditate fame siti affecti contrite tabe facti sunt Atque haec omnia nunquid ullam aliam ob causam nisi utique dum pro caelesti dogmate humanae superstitiones introducuntur dum bene fundata antiquitas scelesta novitate subruitur dum superiorum instituta violantur dum rescinduntur scita patrum dum convelluntur definita Majorum dum sese intra sacratae atque incorruptae veritatis castissimos limites prophanae ac novellae curiositatis libido non continet This one Testimony of so good an Author is enough to make us abhor the Authors of the Arian and much more of the Socinian Heresie which is more Impious and guilty of the greater Blasphemy the more sacrilegious Novelty and of such intollerable Pride and Contempt of all Mankind but themselves even while they are under severe Laws that I believe if their Power were equal it would be as well for our Temporal as Spiritual Condition to live under the Roman as the Racovian Harrows The Statute 29 Car. 2. which abrogated that De Heretico Comburendo declares That it doth not take away or abridge any Iurisdiction of Protestant Archbishops Bishops or other Iudges of his Majesty's Ecclesiastical Courts in Causes of Atheism Blasphemy Heresie Schism or other Damnable Doctrines or Opinions but they may proceed to punish the same according to the Ecclesiastical Laws by Excommunication Deprivation Degradation and other Ecclesiastical Censures not extending to Death So as before the Act the Learned Judge Hales in the beginning of his Plea's of the Crown gives an Account of the manner of Conviction of Hereticks which he says is First By the Common Law Whereof he gives some Instances Secondly By Archbishops and Bishops in a General Synod Thirdly By the Bishop in his Diocess The Common Law he says inflicts no Forfeiture neither indeed doth the Ecclesiastical if the Criminal abjure his Opinions being pro salute Animae but if he
which from such a Possession would prescribe to our Belief Pag. 57. of the Interpolated Edition What more ridiculously silly than to build so weighty a Doctrine upon Implicit Faith in two Bishops partial to their own Sees whereof the one gave it Birth and the other Maintenance And what more odious than to persecute as Hereticks and Malefactors all such as should refuse to be so grosly imposed upon Pag. 57. of the first Edition Certainly whoever shall carefully observe how the now established Doctrine was from first to last advanced by gross Partiality of the most guilty kind and at last imposed by a Novice Emperor upon Implicit Faith of two Bishops of whose Sees the one brought it into the World and the other maintain'd it and a new coin'd Tradition lately obtruded by the guiltier of those Sees but unpleaded because unheard of in those former long and miserable Times which it might and ought to have delivered from the Convulsions they suffered Whoever I say shall carefully observe this and withal what foul Tricks the Church of Rome used in the West and with what ill Success in the East whose Churches did at last more Universally embrace Arrius 's Opinion than at first they condemned it may be tempted to number the Athanasian among the Roman Doctrines and cannot but think it fairly dealt with if its boasted Possession pardoned it be left upon the same level with the Arrian equally unworthy not only of our Faith but of our Study Pag. 57. If further we consider what the Historian expresly declareth that at the rise of this Controversie most of the Bishops understood not it's meaning we cannot think it necessary to Salvation that every private Christian should believe that as an Article of Faith which the best Ages of the Church thought not worth knowing This upon second thoughts is thus express'd in a 2d Edition An Opinion which so many wise and good Men as lived within 300 Years after Christ were so far from believing Matter of Faith that they did not receive it as Matter of Certainty nor perhaps of Credibility Pag. 59 Pag. 58. The Athanasians abhor Polytheism no less than do the Arrians If their Positions seem to infer it they deny the consequence if this contradict the Rules of reasoning they avow it for they allow Reason no hearing in Mysteries of Faith if this make them Hereticks it is not in Religion but in Logick On the other side the Arrians profess to believe of Christ whatever himself or his Apostles have spoken and where one expression in Scripture seemeth to contradict another they take such a Course to reconcile them as the Laws and Customs of all the World direct It is very frequent for Rhetorick to exceed but never to diminish the Grammatical Character of a Person whose honour the Writer professeth to advance and upon this account they think it more reasonable that those Expressions which exalt our Saviour's Person to an Equality with the Father should stoop to those which speak him Inferior than that those which speak him Inferior should be strained up to those which speak him Equal And however this is the safer Way since it will lead us to such a Belief as will suffice for that end for whose sake alone Belief itself is required Pag. 70. To this Question Whether any Promise of God does necessarily import a Restitution of the same Numerical Matter He answers That the Words of St. Paul Thou fool that which thou sowest c. plainly deny the Resurrection of the same Numerical Particles P. 70. To another Question Whether it be more honourable to God and more serviceable to the design of the Gospel that we believe the Contrary He answers That it is the same as to ask Whether it be more honourable to salve all his Perfections or to robb one that we may cloath the other The very mentioning of these Opinions is a sufficient Confutation to all such as have heartily imbraced the Doctrine of the Church of England But the Author in his Vindication pretends that what he hath written was only to enlarge Charity i. e. to procure a Toleration of such Opinions as he hath published I shall only discover that Line of Socinianism much blacker than his Ink which runs through his whole Book and then the Reader may judge to what his inlarged Charity doth tend The Design of the Preface is to shew saith the Doctor that the Success of the Gospel which made such great Conquests at first hath been hindred by the difference of the Modern Gospel from the Primitive in its Doctrine which difference he says is so great that if an Apostle should return into the World he would be so far from owning it that he would not be able to understand it Answ If the Gospel which we receive be so intirely corrupted he doth utterly overthrow that Providence of God which he admires in giving it so great a success whereas all good Christians believe the Gospel to be the same and bless the Providence of Almighty God in preserving it pure and uncorrupt to this present time and we still say if an Apostle or an Angel from Heaven shall preach any other Gospel contrary to or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides what we have received let him be accursed I hope therefore the Doctor doth not think of setting up any other Judge of Controversies than what the Church whereof he calls himself a True Son doth own and profess if the Success of it hath been hindred in any Age it may not be imputed to the Doctrine therein delivered nor to the Providence of God in preserving it intire but to those false and contrary Doctrines which by the Instruments of Satan transforming themselves into Angels of Light endeavoured to destroy in its infancy such as St. Peter calls damnable errors denying the Lord that bought them and teaching that Jesus Christ was no◠come in the flesh i. e. that God the Word was not made flesh but the flesh was made God Such were Ebion a Jew Cerinthus and Marcion who spread their Errors against the Deity of Christ while St. John was living with which Errors the Church of Ephesus was so infested that she besought St. John to write in confutation of them as he did both in his Gospel and Epistles The other Apostles were diligent in confuting the Errors of the Gnosticks who would have brought in the worshipping of Saints and Angels as inferior Gods These generally condemned St. Paul's Epistles and kept to the Jewish Observations which the Apostles wrote against the Nicolaitans also mentioned Rev. 2.6 were of the like Opinion with the Gnosticks and Cerinthus For hating of whose Deeds the Church of Ephesus is commended Ireneus l. 3. c. 11. says that St. John wrote his Gospel to destroy that Error which had been sown by Cerinthus and before him by the Nicolaitans So that the Success of the Gospel was hindred by not only those false Doctrines but the impure Lives of
which I quote p. 3. speaking to the Christians Mahomet says Say not God hath a Companion equal to him because you know the contrary P. 4. God created the Heavens and the Earth and then ascended into Heaven P. 44. Zachary prayed to God for a Progeny the Angels declared to him from God That he should have a Son called John he shall affirm the Messias to be the Word of God Jesus is with God as is Adam God created him out of the Earth I do not associate God him with any one and acknowledge no other Lord but him P. 46. There is no God but God alone the Omnipotent and Wise P. 86. There be some that alter the Scripture in reading it and will make us believe that what we read is in the Scripture though it be not they blaspheme and know it well God gave not to Men the Scripture Knowledge and Prophesies to say to the People Worship me instead of God but that they should say Observe exactly what you read in the Scripture God doth not command you to adore Angels or Prophets P. 48. We believe in what was inspired by Moses Jesus and generally by all the Prophets Abraham was not of them that believe in many Gods P. 49. Follow ye the Law of Abraham that is pleasing to him he profest the Unity of the Divine Majesty he was not of them that believe in many Gods P. 94. Certainly they that believe Messias the Son of Mary to be God are impious The Messias commanded the Children of Israel to worship God his and their Lord. Paradise is forbidden to him that shall say God hath a Companion equal to him Such as affirm there are Three Gods are impious P. 86. The Messias the Son of Mary is a Prophet and Apostle of God like to the Prophets that came before him His Mother is Holy say to him Who can hinder God to extirminate the Messias and his Mother P. 86. Of the Jews he says few of them shall believe because of their Malice and Blasphemies vomited against Mary They said We have slain the Messias Jesus the Son of Mary the Prophet and Apostle of God Certainly they slew him not neither crucified him they crucified one that resembled him such as doubt it are in a manifest Error for God took him up to himself Such as have the knowledge of the Scripture ought to believe in Jesus before his Death he shall be a Witness against them in the Day of Judgment P. 80 81. You shall hear many Christians that have an inclination towards true Believers and have Priests and Religious that are humble and their eyes full of tears say Lord we believe in thy Law write us in the Number of them that profess thy Unity P. 95. He shall say in the Day of Judgment O Jesus didst thou injoyn thy People to Worship Thee and thy Mother as two Gods Jesus shall answer Praised be thy Name I will take heed of speaking what is not true I delivered nothing but what thou commandest me to speak viz. Worship God your Lord and mine p. 99. Infidels believe not in his Unity p. 101. The Jews say That the Son of God is most just and powerful The Christians say That the Messias is the Son of God their words are like the words of Infidels but God shall lay on them his Curse p. 153. Consider how they blaspheme they adore their Doctors and Priests and the Messias also the Son of Mary who commanded them to worship One God alone there is but one sole God there is nothing equal to him they would extinguish the Ligqt of God but he shall not suffer them How the Naked Gospel agreeth with the Alchoran in most of these particulars might be shewn but he that reads it will be soon satisfied that it is a Commentary on that Text. But since the Doctor or some one for him hath written his Vindication I shall briefly consider what is said in Defence of those Propositions condemned by the University And first I observe That in these Propositions and what may be added to them from the Naked Gospel the quintessence of the Arian and Socinian Controversies is contracted and composed Secundum Artem and by him or some other on his behalf recommended as a safe means to promote a General Comprehension and an enlarged Charity but to the destruction of Catholick Verity Now because these Propositions are not only published in several Impressions of that Libel but defended by the Author or some other on his behalf and the Gangreen begins to spread among prophane and unstable Wits which too much abound it seemed necessary to provide an Antidote against those old Errors to which the Author hath given a new Resurrection like that which he maintains of our Bodies not in the same form but another more agreeable to his new Divinity and Philosophy and equally opposite to the written Gospel as understood by the Primitive Fathers and received by the Church of England The difference which the Author fancieth to be made in the Gospel is the preaching of the Doctrine of the Eternal Deity of our Saviour which this Author explodes as not to be comprehended by his Reason and not agreeable to that Natural Religion which he makes the Foundation of the Gospel now if there be any alteration made it is by those which have denied the Eternal Deity of our Saviour for as I said while St. John was yet living Ebion and Cerinthus began that Heresie Ebion taught That Christ was a meer Man and had no existence before he was born into the World of which the Church of Ephesus then complained to St. John desiring him to write in Confutation of that Heresie and Justin Martyr and Ireneus brand this Heresie as did Ignatius before them and St. John before him who called such as denied that Jesus Christ was come in the Flesh Deceivers and Antichrists Cerinthus held a pre-existence of Reason or the Word which he says descended on our Saviour at his Baptism and ascended from him into Heaven when he was crucified for which Opinions St. John meeting him in a Bath fled from his company as fearing least the Walls of the Bath wherein he was might fall on him Against these Heresies St. John being importun'd wrote his Gospel purposely to assert the Divine Essence of the Son of God as he tells us ch 20.31 These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing ye might have life through his name And besides the Historical part of that Gospel the whole is one continued Argument for the Confirmation of this Truth which we shall have occasion to speak of more at large and shall only observe here what he says 1 Job 5.20 We know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding to know him that is true This is the true God and eternal life And in the 2 Epistle v. 7. Many deceivers are
to Charity we have one Lord one Faith one Baptism but such as the Author is the Socinians deny the Lord that bought them destroy the Foundation of Faith in the Godhead and satisfaction of Christ and wholly disannul Baptism and so cut asunder this triple Cord that obligeth Christians to Charity and indeed as they acknowledge not the one Lord so they nullify the one Faith in him and make the one Baptism of no effect and therefore have utterly destroyed Charity The next charge of exposing the Divinity of Christ he says p. 5. hath no other evidence but this That he is sometimes stiled a crucified Vagabond and this he says is but once viz. in the Introduction But was it not said with as little modesty p. 21. c. 2. That he was a Vagabond Galilean which expressions by the Rule of Fortiter calumniare aliquod adherebit will not excuse him by saying he personated an Infidel such playing with Holy Things is much worse than his play at push Pin. P. 6. he protesteth That in his whole life he never spent so much time in reading Socinian Books as put altogether would amount to one whole day By spending so much time I suppose he means he did not lose or mispend it but it was well bestowed or perhaps he made the Arrian Controversy his chief Study which is as contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England as the Socinian So Socinus protested he never read Arrius Credat Judaeus I would here remind the Doctor of the excellent Advice of the incomparable King Charles the First mentioned by himself in his Preface I would have you as I hope you are already well grounded and setled in your Religion the best Profession whereof I have ever esteemed that of the Church of England in which you have been Educated c. It is well known that the Doctor was not only educated in the Church of England but to that very time when he wrote his Naked Gospel that is till he was sixty five Years old as he computes his Age he hath lived in the Communion of that Church we may therefore marvel how he was so soon removed from him that called him to the Grace of Christ unto another Gospel as St. Paul expresseth it Gal. 1.6 which would pervert the Gospel of Christ Did he not judiciously make the Doctrine of the Church of England his own as that Blessed King advised Did he not by his own judgment and reason but by his hand only seal to the Bond which Education had written or take it up only on Mens Customs or Traditions as that good King speaks if so he was guilty of great Oscitancy in the matter of Religion on which Salvation depends or if after so long Profession of the Doctrine of the Church he began to entertain some doubts of the truth of it he was guilty of great Levity in so weighty a Matter not to bestow many Years in the Examination of the Errors of that Doctrine which he forsook and imbracing another vastly and dangerously differing from it without bestowing so much as one Day 's reading the Grounds and Reasons of it On supposition therefore that the Doctor hath embraced either the Arrian or Socinian Doctrines he was unaccountably rash there being so many Books written by learned Men of both Parties to leave a Religion which he had so long profest and had time to enquire into and without more than one Days study in a Case of such consequence to fall off to a contrary Opinion This may tempt Men to think it was done in a Pet some may think because he was not removed to a higher Station as he intimates somewhere the Archbishop promised he should in some short time but being not done he thought to remind him of his Promise by Dedicating that Book of a Constant Communicant to his Grace yet after all he was left in that Place where he spent three Pence of his own to every Penny of his Preferment For my part I have a better opinion of the Doctor and that he had long studied and often discoursed with learned Men concerning the Socinian Controversy and that the Naked Gospel was the product of many Years spent in Reading Conference and Meditation on those Points before he came to a Resolution For I have heard of a Doctor of his Age who often discoursed with his Father a Reverend Divine concerning some Arminian Pelagian and Socinian Points and in heat of disputation did tell his Father That it would not be well till we came up to the Socinian Doctrine this was many years since And what means his sitting down when the Athanasian Creed was said but his contempt of it The next Charge is That the Godhead of our Saviour is declared to be an impertinent and dangerous Speculation This he thinks is discharged by the former distinction of the manner of the Generation c. and adds That those Fathers who were the most earnest Assertors of the Doctrine of Christ's Divinity he doth not say of his Eternal Deity were also the most severe Censurers of Curiosity concerning the manner of his Generation And our Author is a Son of those Fathers who granted a Created Deity to our Saviour and most severely censured those that held his Eternal Generation as being guilty of Polytheism which is often intimated by him This is the sum of the Author's Defence I would willingly know of what sort of Divinity it is that he ascribes to our Saviour because I find that the Arrians acknowledge that he is a Created God and the Socinians grant a Divinity but not so much as a Created Deity I see no more granted him as to his Person by the Socinians than by the Turks which acknowledge he was a Divine Man and a true Prophet or Messenger of God This Divinity he learnt of Smalcius as I shall shew hereafter or of Crellius as is already shewn whose words as well as sence he so often repeats as will give great cause to the Reader to conclude that he spent more than one whole Day in reading the Socinian Controversies The general Remarks which I shall make on the Naked Gospel are as follow 1. That whereas the Author pretends the special Design of it is to enlarge Charity yet that Charity is only designed for a Toleration of the Arrian and Socinian Doctrines and he sharply reflects on all such as he perceived to be averse from such his enlarged Charity p. 39. Col. 1. If Bishop Alexander the first Author of the Nicety thought fit to tolerate the Arrians we can ill prentend to Charity if we allow them no title to God's Pardon or his Church's Communion P. 57. of his interpolated Edition he pleads That nothing can be more odious than to persecute as Hereticks and Malefactors all such as should refuse to be imposed on viz. by the Bishops that asserted the Trinity P. 11. of his Vindication he recommends the charitable Heresie of the Latitudinarians under
set forth at Antioch a third by Narcissus and some Bishops with him the fourth by Eudoxius three others at Sirmium one of which was read at Ariminum the eighth was that of Acacius published at Selucia which was the same that was published at Constantinople with an Appendix forbidding the use of the words Substance and Hypostasis Now all these were conceived and brought forth in a few Years together under Constantius and by the influence of that Arian Emperour who made it his business to advance and propagate that Heresie But what are these scuffles for Interest and Promotion which though favoured by an Arian Emperour were not only strenuously opposed but generally defeated to the constant and unanimous Decrees of the four first General Councils and many others of the Eastern Churches and by all the Western or Latin Churches who constantly asserted the Doctrine of the Trinity I cannot better compare these Alterations in Matters of Faith which were made after the Nicene Council than to the various Revolutions that hapned in this Kingdom after the Dethroning of King Charles I. of blessed Memory wherein the several Factions as they got into Power strove not so much for Religion which was always made the pretence as for Interest and Advantage to the overthrow both of a well-establish'd Government and Religion which now through the Blessing of God are returned to their ancient Channels and may they ever bear down all opposition and run on without interruption to make glad the City of God I cannot omit one Remark more in this place namely how partial the Doctor is in relating the History of Athanasius and Arius He summs up in few words whatever Philostorgus and Sandius the Arians had suggested against Athanasius How he was banished by the Council at Tyre Antioch Sirmium and Ariminum but is ashamed to mention those Sham-Plots that were contrived against him and retorted upon his adversaries to their perpetual Infamy as Dr. Cave and Dr. Sherlock have discovered nor have we a word how at the Council of Millan where the Catholicks were forced to condemn Athanasius Constantius drawing his Sword and telling them That he himself accused Athanasius and ought to be believed and banished such as would not consent to it But as for Arius he pleads for him as if he had been as much a Messenger sent from God as our Saviour in his opinion was as much doth he speak in defence of Arius That he was justified by such as had condemned him by the Emperor and a Council at Jerusalem p. 37. c. 2. And Athasius threatned to be deposed if he did not receive him into communion though the Doctor confesseth he would not admit the word Consubstantial into his Creed That the Eastern Bishops but such as the Doctor says p. 38. c. 2. were generally Arians took Arius his part against Athanasius and condemn'd him in the Council of Sardica But all this trouble was not occasioned upon the account of Athanasius his Faith but the Arian perfidy who falsly accused and maliciously condemned him Wherefore it will be seasonable in this place to give you a short Account of what the most Authentick Historians have related which you shall have presently In the third Proposition he says That the Evangelists in setting down our Lord's Genealogy do not satisfie but amuse us and professing to instruct us do doubly disappoint us first by deriving it from a wrong Father and then by destracting us two several ways which he says is a warning against searching after the Eternal Generation As supposing it to be needless and therefore impossible to prove him derived from David though the Scripture calls him both David's Son and David's Lord he concludes it to be impossible to understand his Eternal Generation And thus the knowledge both of the Generation of our Saviour as Man as well as that as God are both concluded to be impossible to be known because they are above our Understandings So that he first raiseth a doubt of our Saviour's Descent from David according to the Flesh that he may make that a ground of his Eternal Generation by the Father In the fourth Proposition he intimates That a Heathen might justifie Polytheism at the same rate as the Athanasian Fathers have done the Doctrine of the Trinity and that the Papists may justifie their no-less-beloved Mystery of Transubstantiation as he calls it and affirms with them That the Scripture is no less express for the one than the other and the Contradictions no less gross in the one than the other And then ridicules that learned and ingenuous Tract which was lately Printed to shew what better grounds the Doctrine of the Trinity hath in the Scripture than that of Transubstantiation for want of Argument to confute it As if we could as easily apprehend the Nature of Things immaterial and removed above our Reason as well as our Sence as we can of those corporeal Beings such as the consecrated Hosts which contradict both Reason and Sence In the Fifth Proposition he affirms That the Questions concerning the Trinity were decided by no other Evidence but of Imperial and Papal Authority The Pope would be much more obliged and grateful to him than the Church of England if he could prove the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome over all the Churches and that in Matters of Faith as ancient as Constantine In the Sixth That there is danger of Blasphemy in examining the silly Question concerning the Eternity of the Godhead of Christ and that we have no firm ground to go upon But is not that Rule of Vincent Lirinensis a good ground Quod semper quod ubique quod ab omnibus But in this he joyns with Smalcius to call us Blasphemers and Antichristians In the Seventh That the only advantage of the Catholicks is long possession That they have so handled matters as to hide much and varnish all That the Sentence which determined the Controversie in the Council of Nice was not by the Merit of the Cause but the Interest of Parties Answ Long possession of such Truths as have a good Foundation in the Scripture is a Title beyond any that pretends against it when the Universal Church hath in all Ages except only a short interruption under one or two Arian Princes judged the Doctrine against the Deity of our Saviour as a destructive Herosie If we may thank the Doctor for any thing it is for granting us this long possession even ever since the Gospel was first published In the Eighth Proposition he says This long and mischievous Controversie was at last decided by Theodosius who receiving his Instructions and Baptism from a Consubstantialist required all his Subjects to conform to that Religion which Peter the Prince of the Apostles from the beginning delivered to the Romans and which at that time Damasus Bishop of Rome and Peter of Alexandria held and that Church only should be esteemed Catholick which worshipped the Divine Trinity with equal Honour and those
Trinitat Pag. 9. Col. 2. He takes occasion to mention the two great Institutions of our Saviour viz. Baptism and the Sacrament of his Body and Blood these he calls Positive Rites which he i. e. Christ appointed thereby to ingage us to profess our selves his Disciples and are not Parts of his Covenant but Badges of his Followers and Acknowledgments of our Homage to his Person These Rituals says he we shall not neglect yet I find not one word of the Eucharist all that he says of Baptism is Pag. 22. Col. 2. That the Design of Baptism as he had said before was an open Profession of Faith in defiance to the World and all its Powers forgetting what he had said before on our Saviour's words and Commission to his Disciples whom he sent to baptize He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved not simply as he notes he that believeth but he that believeth and is baptized and as the Apostle Hebr. 6. reckoneth Baptism among the Fundamentals so it hath the Characters which our Author requires in a Fundamental viz. a Precept with a Promise annexed shall be saved yet he thinks it but a Ceremony and Badge of outward profession I cannot but take notice how the Doctor pretending to be an Advocate for Infant Baptism turns Prevaricator and instead of giving them a right to it robs them of the benefits thereof he says indeed that the Church may upon small security from other sureties admit any Infant for a Member i. e. of such a Society as do profess the Faith of Christ and by his argument they may as well omit as admit the Baptism of Children for says he since the Gospel is the established Religion and the Profession of the very Parents maketh great odds against any danger of the contrary the Church may c. So that the Profession of the Parents may supersede the small security of other Sureties and if there be no other end of Baptism but to ingage Infants to the Profession of Faith in Christ it may be omitted till they are adult or if they should die before they who are not baptized are in no worse condition than they who are baptized And is not our Author deeply baptized into the Sentiments of the Socinians in all this and become a Disciple of them and the Antipedobaptists A Son of the Church of England is taught that Baptism is generally necessary to Salvation That it is certain by God's Word that Children which are baptized dying before they commit actual sin are undoubtedly saved in the Rubrick after Baptism and in the Catechism Baptism is defined to be an outward and visible Sign of an inward and spiritual Grace given unto us ordained by Christ himself as a means whereby we receive the same and a pledge to assure us thereof and the benefit of it is this That being by nature born in Sin and Children of Wrath we are thereby made the Children of Grace or as it is more largely expressed the baptized are made Members of Christ Children of God and Inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven But the Socinians reason cannot apprehend how this can be As to the other Sacrament one Egg is not better like another than his Discourse of the Lord's Supper is with that of Smalcius in the Doctor 's Book called the Constant Communicant which he that reads will find to be but a Comment on Smalcius his Text who as generally the Socinians do teach that this Sacrament which they call a Rite was instituted only for a Remembrance of the Death of Christ not that we receive any new benefit by it or that any thing is therein conveyed or sealed to us and so the words of Consecration are interpreted by the Doctor as by a Socinian thus i. e. This whole action which is now doing is my Body which is given for you i. e. signifies my giving myself to Death for your Salvation so that ye ought alway to commemorate my Death by this Rite or Ceremony And Socinus plainly denieth that the Sacraments are strengthners of our Faith or seals whereby the Promises of God are confirmed to us or the strength of heavenly Grace encreased The Doctor also calls the Sacraments Rites makes the Lord's Supper only a Grace-cup to be commended to one another after a Feast and breaking some Bread prepared for that use and therefore we need not dread to be constant Communicants or to be precise in our Reverence at it as if he would have us forbear kneeling as the Socinians do lest we should be thought to Adore On a design to deny that there is the presence of Christ's Body or Bloud in any sence or that any Grace or Promise is thereby conveyed or sealed to us these things are some of them obscurely and some of them too plainly asserted in that Book One general Remark more which I formerly mention'd is That he often speaks of a Divinity of Christ but never of his Deity which is noted to be studiously done by the Socinians that though they grant our Saviour a kind of Divinity as a Man of God yet will not honour him with the title of a Deity as God and Man wherein they deal with Christ as the Heathen dealt with their Hero's as Servius notes on Virgil Deos vocabant perpetuos Divos ex Hominibus factos or as we call our ancient Writers Divus Angustinus This is observed by Cloppenburgh against Smalcius that he allowed our Saviour to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Partaker of the Divine Nature which St. Peter speaks of 2 Pet. 1.4 which may be attributed to all holy Men. Smalcius placing in his Frontispiece the 9th Verse of Col. 2. keeps to this word and thus renders it In Christ dwelt all the fulness of the Divinity bodily on which Cloppenburgh observes that with Smalcius the Deity and Divinity do differ as much as Infinite and Finite And it is to be feared that the Doctor hath the same Notion though not only our Translation but Pagnine and Arias Montanus read as we do the Fulness of the Godhead c. for he still keeps to the word Divinity when he speaks of Christ as Smalcius did before him Another Remark is his depraving the nature and necessity of Evangelical Faith and setting Reason and Natural Religion above and against it Here first I remark how well the Doctor agrees with Volkelius in his Discourse of Faith There are saith the Doctor but two Articles of Faith at most and sometime they are reduced to one and either of them Faith and Repentance There are saith Volkelius two general Precepts of the Gospel Faith and Repentance which are sometime joyned in one Precept and sometime in distinct Precepts De fide And he mentions the same of the Gospel as our Doctor often doth That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved But then Volkelius by this Faith means an
recalled him to Constantinople to question him for those Tumults which he had raised there but the same mischief followed him for at Constantinople he found his Friend Eusebius of Nicomedia and Alexander his Adversary whom Eusebius threatned that he should shortly be deprived of his Priesthood if he admitted not Arius into Communion at which Alexander being greatly troubled prays and fasts shutting up himself in the Church called Irene and coming to the Altar prostrates himself on the Ground under the holy Table for many days and nights asking of God and he received what he asked That if the Opinion of Arius were right he might not live to the Day appointed for the Dispute but if the Faith which he professed were true that Arius might suffer the punishment due to his impiety The Emperour in the mean time sent for Arius and willing to be better assured of the Faith which he professed asked him Whether he would consent to the Decrees of the Council of Nice he presently answered He would and did subscribe them in the Emperour's presence at which the Emperour wondered and suspecting some fraud urged him to swear to them and this he did also Now the fraud which he used as I have been informed saith Socrates c. 38. was this Arius had written his own Opinions in a Paper which he had hid in his Bosome and swore that he did in his Mind believe as he had written Then the Emperour commanded Alexander who was then Bishop of Constantinople to receive him into Communion the day following Arius being about to go into the Church with his Companions the Judgment of God seized on him for going out of the Emperour's Palace he walked through the City magnificently guarded by a company of Eusebians drawing all eyes upon him when he came to a place where stood a Porphery Statue a great terrour through the consciousness of his wickedness seiz'd on him and with it a great Looseness in his Bowels and enquiring where he might step aside to ease himself he was directed to a place near at hand where being come his Heart grew faint and he voided his Bowels with his Excrements with much Blood and his Liver and Spleen followed the place is yet to be seen which all that pass by do point at relating the manner of Arius's death These Accidents did greatly confirm the Emperour in the Faith which was decreed in the Nicene Council St. Ambrose compares his Death with that of Judas That is not a fortuitous Death saith he where an Example of the like punishment on the like sin was inflicted before that both should suffer the same punishment who had denied and betrayed the same Lord for Sozom. says as it is said of Judas that he burst asunder I shall only remark here how much mischief one Arian Presbyter by his false insinuations with Men in Authority may occasion in a well-established Church which notwithstanding all his arts and industry by God's good Providence tended at last to the confirmation of the Truth In p. 38. col 1. he tells us of the Settlement of the Controversie by Theodosius though he could not be ignorant that Constantine had done it many years before but he conceals the manner of doing it viz. How that he being sick at Thessalonica was baptized by Ascolius Bishop of that place a Person of great eminency both for his Words and Works and adorned with all the Gifts of the Priestly Office being recovered he resolved to propagate that Faith into which he was baptized and which his Ancestors had profest viz. that of the Nicene Creed and he greatly delighted in Ascolius as being of the same belief as he did also in the Illirians because none of them were infected with the pest of Arian Doctrines and asking concerning the other Provinces he was informed that all the Churches as far as Macedonia did all agree in the same Faith and did worship God the Word and the Holy Ghost equally with the Father and being told of the other Provinces towards the East that they were tumultuous and divided into several Sects especially at Constantinople and then thinking it better to declare unto his Subjects his Opinion of the Deity he sent his Rescript from Thessalonica to the People of Constantinople that from thence as from the Fort of the Empire his Rescript might be speedily issued to other Cities Now all this being in the same Chapter which the Doctor quotes I wonder at the Doctor 's Exclamations Behold now the ground on which one of our Fundamental Articles of Faith is built Behold the Justice of that Plea which from such a possession would prescribe to our belief We have traced it says the Doctor from the Spring with no worse intent than to appeal from the Great Theodosius who put it above dispute to the Greater Constantine who put it below dispute Now seeing he appealed to Constantine we have his Decision which I find the Doctor as faulty as he judged Arius to be In the mean time I suppose from his own Quotation that the claim of possession of this great Article of our Faith is not either from the Great Theodosius nor from the Greater Constantine nor the Council of Nice but from the Scripture of him that is God over all blessed for ever and even Socinus himself agrees with us in this and differs from the Doctor in his Third Epistle to Radecius affirming That even from the first beginning of the Church there were so many Men most famous as well for their Learning as their Piety so many holy Martyrs of Christ which cannot be numbred who followed this otherwise most grievous Errour That Christ is that One God that created all things and that he was begotten of his proper Substance And may not the Church of England admire how one of her true Sons is so much more a Socinian than Socinus himself as to deny all this that her Son should suppress the Testimony which he knew to be true to serve an Errour which he knows to be false and damnable Did the Settlement of Christ's Deity begin with the Reign of Theodosius and because he found some Hereticks that denied it was he the first that founded it Shall we call the Doctor the Author of Socinianism because he first published it in Exeter-Colledge We can shew the Succession of those Apostles and Apostolick Men that have derived the Consubstantiality home to our days in all the Churches Greek and Latine I suppose the Doctor will not glory in the Pedigree of his Heresie for so it hath been accounted ever since St. John's Gospel was written or what temptation could a Man of his Education have to number the Athanasian Doctrine which he hath so long profest if he be not an arrant Hypocrite among the Roman Theodosius indeed recommended it to his Subjects by a good Argument viz. That it was the Faith which St. Peter delivered at the beginning of the Plantation of the Gospel to the Church
and what other or better sence can we find than what the Catholick Church alway affirmed viz. That Christ with his Father and the Holy Ghost is the only true God And thus St. Augustine as hath been said renders it This is Life eternal to know thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent to be the only true God Cont. Arium Tom. 6. n. 17. P. 54. Against Christ's Righteousness imputed to us he tells a Story of a Land that was wasted with a raging Plague to whom came a great Physitian declaring he had a Nostrum which never failed to cure those that trusted it that it cost him dear but he would freely communicate it to all that needed and desir'd it and exhorted all to come to him which many did and were cured but some said there needed no more but to trust to the Medicine The Physitian was infinitely skilful in his Art and faithful in his Promises wherefore by confidence in him they should have all his health imputed to them and that should cure them as perfectly as if they received real health by the use of his Prescriptions This is a Fiction of his own to serve his Hypothesis which I shall answer by a more probable Story out of the Midras Tehillim or the Exposition of the Psalms where on those words Kiss the Son we have this Parable This is as when a certain King was displeased with the Inhabitants of a great City the Citizens went and made Supplication to the King's Son to appease his Father's displeasure The Son went and effectually prevailed with his Father to forgive them and take them into his Favour which the King's Son having signified to the Citizens they addressed their Thanks to the King The King bid them go and give Thanks to his Son for had it not been for his Mediation their City had been destroyed This is that which is said Kiss the Son and it may be well for the Doctor if he would go and do likewise It is not good to make sport of holy Things and droll on the Mysteries of our Salvation comparing them to Fables and this in Scripture Phrase ridiculing the Peace of God as passing all understanding and the Meritorious Death of our Saviour to the Prescriptions or Juggles of a Quack as if Faith in the Power and Merits of our Saviour were as vain as the Opinions of the Mobile concerning an Empyrick yet we read of great Miracles wrought by Faith in the Person of Christ P. 41. Thus the Leaper by his Faith Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean And the Centurian's Faith prevailed for his Servant Matth. 8. And as many as touched the hem of his garment were healed by their faith in his almighty power There could not therefore be a more odious Comparison he says of the Mystery which the Apostle spake of to the Ephesians That though it were hard to be believed yet it was easie to be understood for it signified only That the Gentiles were Fellow-Heirs with the Jews But was not this a Mystery hid from that Nation until Christ and his Apostles revealed it wiser Men than the Doctor do rightly admire some Secrets in Nature which when their Causes and Natures are discovered very ignorant Men may apprehend this the Doctor says to shew That it is so far from being an honour that it is rather a defect As if there were no difficulty in Matters of Faith and the Mystery of Godliness mentioned by St. Paul in Timothy viz. God manifested in the flesh were no harder to be understood than that Mystery which had been so clearly revealed The admission of the Gentiles to a fellowship with the Jews This is to serve another Hypothesis of his That we are not bound to believe what we cannot understand by our Reason and so to invalidate our belief of the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature in Christ for saith the Doctor p. 32. col 1. If we will needs enquire into the Mysteries of Christ's Divinity and Incarnation we shall find our Understandings no less confounded by the brightness of the Mystery than our Eyes are by the Sun and of this the Holy Ghost warns us not only by a careful silence concerning our Lord's Genealogy but by express Types and Prophesies concerning its inscrutability So that by the Doctor 's Propositions neither our Knowledge nor our Faith have any thing to do about the Divinity he will not call it the Deity of our Saviour or his Incarnation it matters not whether we know or believe any thing concerning either I shall not charge the Dr. with any thing that he hath not expresly said and therefore do acknowledge that what he speaks of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation falls not under our debate but I know that the Socinians say that there is no firmer footing for the Doctrine of the Trinity in the holy Scripture than for Transubstantiation and the Socinians at Alba Julia in a Treatise printed 1568. say thus Whoever believes the Pope to be Antichrist doth truly believe the Popish Trinity Infant Baptism and other Popish Sacraments to be the Doctrines of Devils And when I consider that the Naked Gospel is bereaved of this Doctrine and intended not so much against the Doctrine and Sacraments retained in that Church as against what is maintained in the Church of England I submit it to the Judgment of others whether these following expressions of the Authors do not reflect on the Doctrine of our Church when he speaks of a pack of impertinent Mysteries p. 58. col 2. And that Mahomet among all his Whimsies hath nothing comparable to it p. 59. col 1. And that the Athanasian Doctrine may be numbred with the Papal and of the Contradictions which are in the one as well as in the other P. 41. c. 1. P. 21. c. 1. P. 56. c. 2. The Doctor seems much offended at the word Mystery thô he knows thereis nothing reserved from the youngest Catecheumen in the Church of England who is diligently instructed in the Principles of Religion by order of the Church yet he must grant that there were many things in the Scripture which continued to be so until they were revealed such were those Mysteries mentioned by St. Paul 1 Tim. 3.16 Without question great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of angels believed on in the world received up into glory And such were those Parables which our Saviour proposed to his Disciples which exceeded their apprehensions until they were expounded to them by our Saviour And such was that Mystery which the Apostle speaks of Ephes 1.10 and Ephes 3.6 which was not made known to the Sons of Men in other Ages as it was revealed to the Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit viz. That the Gentiles should be Fellow heirs and of the same Body and partakers of his Promise in Christ by the Gospel But when the Gentiles were taken in to be
Fellow heirs with the believing Jews then it ceased to be a Mystery and surely there is another Mystery in v. 9. of that 3d Chapter which our Doctor cannot yet apprehend thô plainly revealed viz. That God created all things by Jesus Christ See Crellius Heb. 1. v. 10. which though frequently asserted in the Scripture as Col. 1. Heb. 1. c. yet the Socinians utterly deny nor can they apprehend what is that Righteousness which is by Faith as opposed to that which is by the Law or to our Doctor 's Natural Faith but the Doctor tells us of another Mystery little less than a Contradiction as p. 1. c. 2. viz. The Patriarchs knew only the Fathers yet Abraham had the knowledge of Christ and our Saviour says that Moses spake of him and the Doctor affirms the same That Moses spake of Christ Deut. 30.12 for the Doctor saith p. 41. c. 1. that the Apostle applied that place to Christ If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved It was not so much in dislike of the Popish Mysteries that the Doctor so often rejects whatever is above human Reason under that Notion as in dislike of the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Eternal Generation of our Saviour of which he speaking p. 34. c. 1. says If you understand not this you must not wonder at least not gain-say it for it is a Mystery which Reason cannot fathom and therefore must be rejected as one of the Packs of Impertinent Mysteries p. 58. c. 2. The Doctor that writes so mystically himself should not be so much displeased if he meet with some Mysteries in other Writings especially in the Scripture wherein as St. Peter observes of St. Paul's Epistles There are some things hard to be understood and will not be fully explained till Elias come And indeed as Naked as his Gospel is it is darkned with so many obscure mists and subtle insinuations that it will appear to some of his most diligent Readers to be one continued Mystery of Iniquity It is a sorry shift which Sandius and others that write against the Trinity make to excuse themselves for thus Sandius pleads see his Appendix p. 107. That he wrote his Book on behalf of the Protestants against the Papists to convince them that the Scripture is the only Rule of Faith because they could not prove the chiefest Articles of their Faith viz. the Trinity Consubstantiality and Coequality from the Tradition of the Fathers of the three first Ages In this our Doctor follows Sandius and would perswade us to renounce the Doctrine of the Trinity because it is a Popish Doctrine See more of this in another Epistle of Sandius p. 261. I have proved saith he that the whole World in the fourth Age was Arian and the Arians enjoyed Temporal Felicity and wrought Miracles to shew against the Papists that these are not marks of the true Church I reckoned diverse Councils of the Arians who condemned the Catholick Faith to shew that we ought not to depend on their Determinations in Matters of Faith but on Scripture only I have shewn that the Church of Rome hath honoured many Arians that were of very evil lives as Saints to shew you what manner of Saints the Papists do Invocate by the Authority of the Infallible Church of Rome c. All this is right but when the whole design of his Book is to shew that the Doctrine of Arius denying the Godhead of Christ and making him a Creature is more consonant to Scripture and Antiquity than that of the Trinity in the Church of Rome is to condemn all other Churches that maintain the same Doctrine for to this purpose tends that which remains in the Third Enquiry concerning the Papists who do impose new Articles of Faith and set their Traditions and Decrees in an equal rank with the Scriptures and sometimes above them with a Nonobstante to Christ's own Institutions as the Socinians do by their Reason let them therefore dispute the Case with each other and let Baal plead for himself He cannot wound the Church of England through their sides unless he can prove the Doctrine of the Trinity to be a Popish Tradition which he doth more than intimate and herein he would do them more service than any of their Champions by proving Popery to be more ancient than the Council of Nice I am now come to the Conclusion of the Author who shuts up his Naked Gospel as generally the Socinians do with a Plea for Toleration to all that confess the Lord Jesus and believe that God raised him from the Dead though they leave him as Naked a Lord as the Doctor hath left the Gospel robbing him of his Eternity and Deity and that Honour and Worship which on those considerations are due to him our Faith in his Name Obedience to his Commands a devout use of his Holy Sacraments and so turn Turks Jews o◠as some English Socinians have done Quakers and live above Ordinances satisfying themselves with a Christ within them and a Natural or Naked Gospel as Mr. Pen in a Socinian Tract hath done This he calls giving Faith its due Bounds by imprisoning it and dismembring it separating Obedience and Love which are inseparable from Evangelical Faith And as for Love saith he we must give it its due boundlesness even to them that love not but deny and bid open defiance to the Godhead of Christ to whom the Apostle denounceth Anathema I wish heartily the Doctor had shewn more Charity to the Church of Christ in general than to think and speak of them as guilty of Idolatry in all Ages for so are they that give Divine Worship to a Creature and that he who stiles himself a Son of the Church of England would not defame her as tainted with Popish because she holds the Athanasian Doctrine for he calls that and the Nicene their Creeds and our Litany their Litany and so becoming a Papist to the Papists and it 's much better to be an Athanasian Papist than an Arian or Socinian Heretick The Doctor tells us in the Vindication p. 7. of his intention to have presented his Naked Gospel to the Convocation that they might be induced to enlarge their Charity at a time when all the Christian World expected it from them And was all the Christian World once more become Arians that they should become Disciples to his Naked Gospel I cannot conceive what compliance the Doctor could presume of from that Convocation he well knows their Prolocutor was the same that agreed shortly after to the burning of it in the Convocation at Oxford and doubtless both he and the several Members would have had the same Resentment of it at Westminster as the Oxford Convocation had When therefore we see a Viper rising out of the Fires of Oxford and hissing p. 5. That the Heresie lay not in the Book but in the
Conclusion he deserves to be shaken into the Fire again for the impotent Creature doth not only hiss at the mistaken Author of Nolumus leges Angliae mutari but on the whole Convocation for their stiffness to their Constitutions whose very Authors says he in the Conclusion were they now living and true to their own reason must be willing to abolish them This is the Doctor 's enlarged Charity to the deceased Compilers of our Liturgy that they would have done as he desireth i. e. removing the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds the Litany Doxology and I know not what Constitutions besides the Institutions of our Saviour to wit the two Sacraments Baptism and the Eucharist the ends whereof this Doctor with the Socinians doth utterly destroy and retains them only as Rites and Badges of an outward Profession of a Naked Gospel But let us enquire wherein this enlarged Charity of the Doctor 's doth consist Charity is either the love of God or of our Neighbours Now first our love to God ought to bear proportion with the love he hath bestowed on us of which the Apostle Joh. 3.16 saith God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And Ver. 17. That the world by him might be saved The World then without Christ was in a lost and perishing condition God had for Sin shut them up under a sentence of Condemnation and it was his infinite Goodness and Wisdom to contrive the Means of our Salvation such as might reconcile us to himself to which end he thought this the fittest to send his only begotten Son into the World to dye for our sins the just for the unjust making him to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him of this love the Apostle with admiration says Behold what manner of love the Father hath shewn to us c. If God had only sent a Prophet a Man of God to make a fuller Declaration of his Will this had not been a reason of so great Admiration but when he sent his only begotten Son that was one with the Father and laid help on him that was mighty able to save us to the utmost being God and Man this deserves the Sic So and the Ecce Behold and our admiration What manner of Love had he been the Son of God only by a miraculous Conception which freed him from Original Corruption had he only lived a Holy Life and left us a good Example had he only died to confirm the truth of his Doctrine as the Socinians say the Birth of St. John Baptist his austere Life and Death might come near to all this The Gift therefore here spoken of must be such as became the Infinite Goodness of God such as might reconcile his Love to us with his Love to his Justice such as might be sufficient to satisfie for the Sins of all that should believe in his Son and obey the Commands of God by him Which now is the greater Obligation of our Love to God to believe as I have said the Socinians do or as the Catholicks That God sent his only Begotten i. e. his Eternal Son the Wonderful the Mighty GOD to satisfie for our Sins to instruct us in all things that concern the Glory of God and our own Salvation to hear our Prayers and relieve all our Necessities to sanctifie our Souls and make us Partakers of the Divine Nature by the operation of the Spirit of Grace This is Love and this the Gift that God bestowed on us through his Infinite Love and in some proportion we ought so to love God as he first loved us And to think of and esteem of this Gift less than what the Scripture hath valued it at is not rightly to apprehend his Love or our infinite Obligations to make suitable Returns 2. As to our Love to Christ if he were only a Man that taught us the Will of God so did the Apostles if he died only to confirm his Doctrine and give us an Example of Constancy and Patience so have many Martyrs done But Rom. 5.7 8. God commended his love to us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us and had he only died for us and not been able to rise again and to take up his life as well as to lay it down had he not destroyed all the Enemies of our Salvation and ascended to Heaven having all Power committed to him we might argue as the Apostle doth If Christ be not risen and if he be not the Eternal Son of God to make Intercession for us and to send the Holy Ghost to sanctifie us then is our Preaching vain and our Faith is vain and we are yet in our Sins but now we may sing ouâ— Epinicion over all our Enemies The stâ—ng of Death is sin and the strength of Sin is the Law but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 15.56 57. Then for his Love to the Holy Spirit of God it is too well known that the Socinians deny his Deity and say That the Holy Spirit is nothing separate from the Word so that we need not to Baptize in his Name to praise him in our Doxology or to pray to him Come Holy Ghost Eternal God c. Our natural Reason and Faith in God makes the assistance of any other Spirit needless and why then should we wait on the Spirit of God any longer or believe that God will give any other Spirit to them that ask it Is there no other Spirit but that which works in the Children of Disobedience Are not some Souls an Habitation of God through the Spirit Read we not of the Spirit of the Son Gal. 4.6 that helps our Infirmities Do we not read of the divers Gifts of the Spirit and that it is Christ's Vice-Roy as I may say to preside over his Church to the World's end And is there no Love no Obedience due to his Spirit but we must joyn with the Socinians to pluck the Holy Ghost from his Throne 2. As for his enlarged Charity to his Brethren what love doth he manifest to the Church of God that hath been founded on this Rock of the Confession of St. Peter Thou art Christ the Son of the living God when by his Principles they are proclaimed to be Idolaters as worshipping a Creature besides the Creator and giving him and the Holy Spirit which by his Maxims are not God by nature the same Divine Honour which is due to God only And as to the Church of England particularly it hath been declared how contrary his Opinions are to her avowed Doctrines more especially his Charity to the Convocation of the Clergy at Westminster whom he condemns to be too stiff to their Constitutions when he says All the World expected a Condescention from them is not very large It was no very good Opinion that he
conceived of them when he thought to present his Naked Gospel to them as if they would have faln in love with its Nakedness And the truth is they saw so many shameful and scandalous Pamphlets demanding Alterations in our Constitutions and Doctrines and a Toleration of Latitudinarian Principles that though they were willing to make some moderate Concessions yet when they perceived there would be no end of demanding such Alterations as they could not consent to they thought it fit to maintain their ground and not give way to unreasonable Propoposals such as these which the Doctor now makes for a Toleration of the Socinian Heresie As for his Charity to the Oxford Convocations the Reflections made on them in his Vindication which hath been already considered do discover that his Charity begins and ends at home and is confined only to Men of his own Perswasion I think I do not conjecture amiss if I say that he hath the same enlarged Charity for us as Smalcius had who concludes his Book De Divinitate Christi thus I doubt not to affirm confidently That none of those who believe Jesus Christ to be God of himself and to have Divine Power can by any means have certain hope of Eternal Life by vertue of his Opinion concerning Christ. And such is the Charity of this Author to all that profess Christ to be their Saviour and say Thou art the King of Gory O Christ Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father If this were the Doctor 's design in writing his Naked Gospel I shall conform to the Apostle who enjoyns That if an Angel from Heaven should teach what is so opposite to the Gospel which the Church in all Ages hath received and believed he deserves an Anathema Thus at last we are like to see a thorough Reformation of the glorious Gospel of our Lord and Saviour even such as we saw of the once Flourishing Church of England under the Government of the most Religious King and Martyr Charles the First It was reformed first by a Presbyterian Parliament which took away her Bishops and Liturgy then by an Independent Army that devoured her Lands and Revenues then by an Inspired General which brought in a Toleration of all sorts of Enthusiasts and after sundry Revolutions by a Naked Rump which if God alone had not prevented it would have left us all in Confusion Thus the Gospel which spread so far and wide under the Ministry of our Saviour and his Apostles was first reformed by a Juncture of Gnosticks Nicolaitans and Ebionites who mixt the Jewish Opinions and Observations with the pure Ordinances of the Gospel and would equal Moses with Christ then by the Samosatenians and Arians who robbed him of that which he thought no Robbery to assume to himself i. e. to be equal with God Then by Mahomet that great Impostor who preferred himself above our Saviour drawing all Sects into a Body under himself And now after various Revolutions by the Naked Gospel which proclaims our Saviour a meer Man as Moses and other Messengers of God were to whom therefore some already do and the rest of the Socinians ought by their Principles to deny any Religious Worship which by their own Confession is due to God only and to no Creature whatsoever And who can foresee with what Viperous Monsters the Naked Gospel is now pregnant which begin to eat through the Bowels of that Church wherein they have been nourished and proclaim Liberty to all sort of Heresies and Blasphemies against the Son of God and the Spirit of Grace as the Apostle speaks Heb. 10.28 Trampling under foot the Son of God and doing despite to the Spirit of Grace When one Pamphlet proclaims the Holy Ghost Dethron'd another The Triple God Buried and the Doctrine of the Trinity is a Popish Antichristian Diabolical Doctrine these dreadful Alarms from the Bottomless Pit should awaken all good Christians unanimously to Invoke the Ever Blessed Trinity to arise and plead its own Cause against such as daily Blaspheme them The loud Blasphemies of these Philistines against not only the Israel of God but the God of Israel hath called me forth to bid Defiance to this Goliah though armed only with a Stone and a Sling not doubting but there are many Worthies in our Israel who will appear and do wonderful things All that I intended was to discover where this Adversary lay hid under the usual Disguise of the Old Serpent that mostly appears as an Angel of Light that he may with less suspicion effect his Works of Darkness and I doubt not but the Church of Christ hath still such good Angels ministring to her before whom such Angels of Satan shall flee and fall as Lightning The Rabbies say That on the Stone wherewith David slew Goliah the Characters of the Messiah were engraven I shall sling a Stone or two in the Name of the Messiah our Blessed Saviour against those Philistines that have blasphemed that Name and commit the success of them to the All-disposing Providence of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost The first Argument that I shall urge is the Harmony of the Old and New Testament which speaks of the Deity of the Messias and apply it to our Saviour The second is drawn from the Doctrine and Faith of such eminent Fathers and Martyrs as suffered for that Faith The third from those Judgments of God executed on those who in their several Ages openly opposed that Faith which may serve as Examples to deter others from tempting Christ lest they be destroyed as those were of whom the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 10.9 From which Premises we may rightly infer an Equality of Nature and Power in the Father and the Son and conclude the same Honour and Worship due to both When Arcadius an Arian Emperor assumed his Son to a Partnership in the Empire the good Bishop St. Ambrose as I remember addressing himself to Arcadius humbled himself with all due Obeysance but took no notice of his Son Honorius at which the Emperor manifesting his displeasure the good Bishop took occasion to tell him That if he were offended at the disrespect shewn to his Son he might consider that the God of Heaven might be more justly displeased with them that neglected to honour his Son which I leave you to apply Some Socinians deny our Saviour any Worship and others grant him only a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such an inferior Honor as the Papists do their Saints not that Divine Worship which properly belongs to the Deity It is generally agreed by the Socinians to make the Holy Sripture Judge of this great Controversy concerning the Godhead of our Saviour but they would have Reason to be Judge of the sence of the Scripture and to this we would appeal if they would not seek little Evasions from Particles and Criticisms of their own inventions against the plain Letter of the Scripture for Smaltsius one of their best Champions says Ludum jocum è
of the Church of England where this Christian Religion is established Every good Protestant will readily answer these Queries And notwithstanding the Protestation of the Doctor in the close of his Epistle to the Reader That he is not conscious of having contradicted any of the Church's Articles in any one word The impartial Reader will perceive by what hath been discovered to be the design of the Naked Gospel in the foregoing Exercitations that it was mainly intended against the most important of those Articles I only recommend to the Doctor 's serious Consideration that as it is an unaccountable Phrensie for any that abhors Popery and Slavery to grow weary of the present Government and to desire the return of the late King by a French Power so it is the highest degree of impiety for a Person that hath been long educated and instructed in the Doctrine of the Church of England which teacheth to adore the blessed Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords not only to dethrone but debase him as a meer Creature and esteem no otherwise of him than as a King de Facto made and advanced by Imperial and Papal Edicts and Decrees not so ancient as Constantine but by Theodosius and Damasus bishop of Rome See p. 38. of the Edition in two Colums From what Point the Wind blew that hath caused the Doctor to steer a course contrary to what he intended at his first setting out is not so intelligible as to guess at what Harbor he intends to lay up he doth seemingly at least recant many of those Heretical Opinions which he had asserted in the first Edition of the Naked Gospel but so inconsistently that the New Piece which he hath patcht on upon the Old Garment will make the Rent worse But this is no other artifice than what hath been practised by the Arians and Socinians heretofore whose feigned Confessions and Recantations they on occasion recanted again and their later Deeds have been worse than the former Chap. 7. of the Holy Trinity The D.'s first care is to give us a right notion of the usual words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Substance and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Person which he would translate beingness and propriety The word Substance he says p. 45. is so much applied to matter that some with great confidence deride it as a contradiction to say that a Substance can be immaterial of this Opinion were Vorstius and Hobs and how much the Doctor differs from them that which follows may evidence The more we attend to our own Senses says the Doctor or Aristotle's Predicaments the more strongly are our Minds possest that Substance must be material c. As to the word Person p. 46. he says Could we be as sensible that the word Person in its metaphysical height is no less improperly applied to the second Distinction in the Trinity than the word Begotten is in its Physical baseness and could we cast away that improper word and use the warier word Subsistence and Propriety we should more easily satisfie our selves and others Wherefore taking the word Substance for Subsistence and Person for Propriety he proceeds to give us a new Notion of the Trinity such as agrees with the Doctrine of Paulus Samosatenus and Sabellius That the one high God is both Father Son and Holy Ghost His Positions are these 1. That God is a Being absolutely perfect 2. That Mind is the most perfect Being The same with Plato's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Original being derived from none but Author of all and therefore properly stiled the Father As Mind is the most perfect Being so the most perfect Being must be a perfect Mind but an unthinking Mind cannot be a perfect one God therefore was never unthinking and since thought is the first and proper Issue of a thinking Mind therefore may it most properly be stiled The first begotten Son and co-eternal with the Father because the Father was never before him p. 48. A thought is no less than a word conceived and a word is no more than a thought brought forth The Mind or its Wisdom cannot be absolutely perfect if they do not or cannot perform or want Power to act there must therefore be a third Person which the Scripture calls the Holy Ghost which is constantly described by Power and Action This is the Doctor 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which he thinks he hath obliged all Mankind displayed the Mystery of the Trinity which hath been the trouble of all Ages and in which he hath not advanced one Proposition without warrant from the Scripture the Church of England the Fathers of the Church and the best Champions for that Doctrine and that which is his greatest hope is that the Unitarians will not dissent from one of them if taken in that sence which their terms freely offer p. 51. And I fear it is to serve their Hypothesis that the Doctor hath conceived and published this Notion It is not a little surprising that the Doctrine which was so lately ridicul'd under the term Mystery and which must remain so still a point of Push-pin Divinity The Athanasian Doctrine fit to be numbred with the Roman and would be fairly dealt with if left on the same level with the Arian equally unworthy not onely of our Faith but our Study see The Naked Gospel printed in two Columns p. 38. A long and mischievous Controversie and Behold now the ground on which one of our Fundamental Articles is built should now deserve another Ecce to behold p. 49. of the Doctor 's Edition how the very Light of Nature demonstrates St. John's Mystery There are three that bear witness in heaven c. And p. 53. How our Platonizing Doctor confutes the Atheists who accuse this Mystery as contrary to Reason which he now saith reason in Plato discovereth the Doctor having adapted a Natural Trinity for his Natural Religion But the Doctor is conscious of another Error viz. That he hath Sabellionized with Sabellius for mentioning St. Augustine's Opinion concerning the Trinity p. 50. says that it favors more of Sabellianism than his as above explained As the Doctor 's Opinion is by him explained it may serve as the Center wherein all the Opinions of the Ancient and Modern Hereticks may meet and acquiesce Vm. Lirinensis asks Quis ante sceleratum Sabellium Unitatis Trinitatem consundere Ausus est Whoever so confounded the Doctrine of the Trinity as the impious Sabellius Of whom Sandius says Sabelliani tribuendo patri essentiam filio scientiam sancto vitam videntur negasse subsistentiam filii sancti Sandius p. 120. Consonant to this our Doctor says The Mind is Beingness or the Father the Son is Wisdom the Holy Ghost is Power and Activity Again Sandius p. 111. Sabellius taught the one God in Essence and Substance to be the Father Son and Holy Ghost which three he called three Vertues or Proprieties three Names three Persons and for proof of this Opinion
produced these Scriptures He that hath seen me hath seen the Father also I and the Father are one And I in the Father and the Father in me Which Scripture were commonly used by the Noetians and Samosatenians Patris voluit esse substantiam solidam propriam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 filium autem sanctum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. as our Doctor renders it Wisdom and Power to act Sandius goes on Sabellius compared the Father to the Hyposi asis of the Sun the Son to the Light and Rays the Holy Ghost to its Calefaction he so taught the Father Son and Holy Ghost to be one that they were but one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whence his Followers as Sandius observes were called Patropassians as teaching God the Father by the assumption of Humane Nature to be called the Son and in that Nature the Father suffered because one and the same God was Father Son and Holy Ghost without distinction of Persons which as Lirinensis said was to confound the Trinity and as our Doctor doth make it to consist of one Substance and two Proprieties or Energies viz. to Think and to Act. The Doctor says that Thought is the first begotten Son of God that Thought is a Word brought forth and is the same in substance with the Mind whence it issueth but if it issueth from the Mind it becomes separate and cannot be any longer the same with the Mind And this Opinion is the same which Philastrius notes to be the Opinion of Paulus of Samosata That the Word was not the substantial Son of God co-eternal with the Father but the Verbum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the enunciative or prolative Word only an aery Sound not a living and sempeternal Person co-equal with the Father An Opinion somewhat like that of Mr. Hobbs concerning the Trinity which he makes God the Father speaking by Moses in the Old Testament and by Christ in the New Sandius observes the like of Cosmas who taught with Sabellius That the Word of God was naked and without any subsistence which his Followers called Verbum vocale enunciativum and sometime internal or mental p. 117. And he tells us that though the Modern Socinians detest the Error of Sabellius yet they are ignorantly guilty of it p. 120. Near of kin are the Doctor 's new Notions of the second Person in the Holy Trinity to the old Heresies so often condemned making the second Person a Thought the third a Power and he might have named as many more of the Divine Propriety viz. Holiness Love Justice c. as would have made a Denary of Persons The Doctor describes the third Person in the Trinity by Power and Action and this description he says is constantly used in the Holy Scripture Though we find the Attribute of Holy more frequently annexed to that of the Spirit as Eph. 4.30 Grieve not the holy Spirit Eph. 1.13 and the Holy Ghost in almost an hundred places We find also that of Power attributed to the second Person more eminently than to the third as 1 Cor. 1.24 Christ is called the power of God and the wisdom of God Matth. 28.18 All power is given to me in heaven and earth Hebr. 1.3 He upholds all things by the word of his power Matth. 9.6 The Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins And he that made and upholds and shall judge all Men may most properly be called the power of God How vain then is that boast of the Doctor 's p. 49. That this his way of tracing the Holy Trinity agrees to a syllable with the words of the Holy Scripture and the Church of England and is more plain to be understood and proved than that magisterial way vulgarly used wherein Reason is not permitted to speak p. 50. This is Platonis fastum Majore fastu to oppose his private Reason against both the Reason and Authority of that Church whereof he professeth himself a Son and impose on it an old Heresie in a new Dress Bellar. in Cronol says That Fr. David held the Son and Holy Spirit to be Virtutes Dei non distinctas a Patre persona relatione vel essentiae Chap. 8. p. 53. Treateth of the Incarnation The Doctor entituled Chap. 7. of the first Edition thus Of Belief with meer respect to the Person of Christ Inquisitiveness concerning his Incarnation censured first because Impertinent And he endeavours to prove it impertinent to our Lord's design viz. That we should enquire after the Dignity of his Person that he was the Eternal Son of God this he calls Boys play and Push-pin and quotes the Judgment of Constantine for it When the Game as he calls it was first set on foot Then p. 29. of the first Edition It was no more necessary to understand the Dignity of the Person of Christ than for a Traveller to understand the Features of the Sun Now p. 55. of the new Edition If we regard the Dignity of the Person it is plainly more honourable to believe him God the Creator than a Creature Deified Then p. 30. he says That part of Mankind which our Lord most favoureth are most unable to pay him such a belief Now p. 54. If we consider the thing it self it appears much more credible that the Eternal Son of God should descend to the Nature of Man than that a Man should be made God endued with a new Omniscience to hear and Omnipotence to grant the Prayers of all Supplicants Then it was fruitless to the Enquirer's satisfaction p. 31. Now p. 55. If we consider the fruits our thankfulness must be greater our love more inflamed our obedience more quickned our hatred to sin more sharpned and all the good ends of Faith much more promoted Then it was dangerous lest we should blaspheme p. 36. and because we have no firm ground to go upon Now p. 55. Upon all accounts were the Scriptures so doubtful as to leave us to our choice we ought rather to carry our biass toward our Lord 's eternal Divinity than against it In this and what other Disputes may arise for I have not leisure to enquire what other Additions or Alterations are made I doubt not but the Rector of Exeter-Colledge will sufficiently answer the private Opinions of Dr. A. B. In the mean time I am very glad to hear and heartily congratulate the Doctor for what he hath declared p. 53. That though there be in the Trinity a great Mystery yet now nothing is more plain than that of St. John The word became flesh and dwelt among us or those words of St. Paul Great is the Mystery of Godliness God was manifested in the flesh And that these and several other words of Scripture so plainly speak our Lord's Divinity that whoever otherwise interprets them will no less rob the words of their meaning than Christ of his honour And what is there in this wonderful Mystery that Reason cannot comprehend p. 54. And
I hope he will make his Notion more intelligible how a Thought which he calls the first-begotten Son of God may also be called the only begotten Son of God And how a Thought or Word mental or declared could intimately vitally and perfectly unite itself to a divinely begotten Child which whatever he says to the contrary is much more obscure than what the Scripture and the Church of England have said When he says p. 54. He can see no great reason why Socinus who contended for the Worship of Christ should also contend against his Eternity I should think he means he sees no reason for it at all and seeing he hath so much Charity for those that altogether deny our Saviour's Deity and dare not worship or invoke him at all as not to deny them the Name of Christians or hope of Salvation I beseech him to extend a more affectionate and real love and good will to all such as heartily profess to believe the one and sincerely devote themselves to the practice of the other But this seeming Reproof of Socinus for his Opinion concerning the Divinity of Christ is no more than that for which David Franken and others that agreed with Socinus to deny his eternal Deity did more severely reprimand him for viz. for worshipping him whom he affirmed to be but a Creature contrary to the Scripture To confute and silence this new Notion of the Doctor and to shew how much more intelligible and rational the Doctrine of the Eternal Generation of the Son of God as professed in the Church of England is I shall inform the Reader of that demonstrative Explanation of it which the learned Dr. Pearson Bishop of Chester hath elaborated Dr. Pearson on the Creed p. 267. Printed 1659. The third assertion to be demonstrated is That the Divine Essence which Christ had as the Word before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary he had not of himself but by communication from God the Father for this can not be denied That there can be but one Essence properly Divine and so but one God of infinite Wisdom Power and Majesty that there can be but one Person originally of himself subsisting in that infinite Being because a Plurality of more Persons so subsisting would necessarily infer a multiplicity of Gods Wherefore it necessarily followeth that Jesus Christ who is certainly not the Father cannot be a Person subsisting in the Divine Nature originally of himself and consequently being we have already proved that he is truly and properly the Eternal God he must be understood to have the Godhead communicated to him from the Father All things whatever the Father hath are mine saith Christ John 16.15 Because in him is the same fulness of the Godhead and more than that the Father cannot have p. 269. Being the Divine Nature as it is absolutely immaterial and incorporeal is also indivisible Christ cannot have any part of it only communicated to him but the whole by which he must be acknowledged co-essential of the same Substance with the Father as the Council of Nice determined and the Fathers before them taught Hence Christ says I and the Father are one Joh. 10.30 which raised a second motion in the Jews to stone him and though Christ saith The Father is in me and I in him yet withal he saith I came out from the Father by the former shewing the Divinity of his Essence by the later the Origination of himself We must not look on the Divine Nature as sterile but rather acknowledge and admire the secundity and communicability of itself upon which the Creation of the World dependeth God making all things by his Word to whom he first communicated that Omnipotency which is the cause of all things The fourth assertion followeth which is That the communication of the Divine Essence by the Father is the Generation of the Son and Christ who was eternally God not of himself but from the Father is the Eternal Son of God That God alway had a Son appears by Agur's Question Who hath established all the ends of the Earth What is his Name And what is his Son's Name if thou canst tell And it was the chief design of Mahomet to deny this truth because he knew it was not otherwise possible to prefer himself before our Saviour wherefore he frequently inculcates that Blasphemy in his Alchoran that God hath no such Son nor any equal with him and his Disciples have corrupted the Psalm of David Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee into Thou art my Prophet I have educated thee But by the consent of the ancient Jews and the interpretation of the blessed Apostles we know these words belong to Christ and in the most proper sense to him alone Now that the communication of the Divine Essence by the Father was the true and proper Generation by which he hath begotten the Son will thus appear because the most proper Generation which we know is nothing else but a vital production of another in the same Nature with a full representation of him from whom he is produced Thus Man begetteth a Son that is produceth another Man of the same humane Nature with himself and this production as a perfect Generation becomes the foundation of the relation of Paternity in him that produceth and of Filiation in him that is produced This is the known Confession of all Men That a Son is nothing but another produced by his Father in the same Nature with him The similitude in which the Propriety of Generation is preserved is that which consists in identity of Nature and this communication of the Divine Essence by the Father to the Word is evidently a sufficient foundation of such a similitude from whence Christ is called The Image of God the brightness of his Glory the express Image of his Person Then he proceeds to shew That this communication of the Divine Essence is a more proper Generation than any Generation of the Creatures not only because it is in a more perfect manner but also because the identity of Nature is most perfect As in the Divine Essence we acknowledge all the Perfections of the Creature substracting all the Imperfections which adhere to them in things below so in communication we must look upon the reality without any kind of defect blemish or impurity In humane Generation the Son is begotten in the same Nature with the Father which is performed by derivation or decision of part of the Substance of the Parent but this decision includeth imperfection because it supposeth the Substance divisible and consequently corporeal whereas the Essence of God is incorporeal spiritual and indivisible and therefore his Nature is really communicated not by derivation or decision but by a total and plenary communication In natural Generation the Father necessarily precedeth the Son and begets one younger than himself for seeing Generation is for the perpetuity of the Species where the individuals successively fail it is sufficient if the