has read them and thinks he doth generally understand them and I had rather take his word than contest that point with him But the Dean says he censured even our English Reformers for retaining Scholastick Cramping Terms in their Publick Prayers This he denies but owns that he did modestly wish that they had observed the same Temper as did the Foreign Reformers which implies that they ought to have done so and yet did not which notwithstanding the Modesty of it I take to be censuring them Nay and is not what follows Censuring our Litany and the Compilers of it If it be not I am sure the Dissenters themselves never censured it But by these Terms the Dean says he means the beginning of the Litany And how comes he to know his thoughts A very pretty question For how should any man with out conjuring know by his own words that he meant the Litany which he prophanely and scornfully ridicules â—ut he meant not that alone a good excuse for it seems he meant also the â—reface in the Communion Service before the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on Trinity Sunday that is Who art one God one Lord not one only Persâ—n but three persons in one Substance for that which we believe of the Glory of the Father the same we believe of the Son and of the Holy Ghost without any difference or inequality And has not that School Divinity enough in it And if this be all the hurt in School Diviniâ—y it will make every good Christian very fond of it for it contains the true â—hristian Faith But because the Dean has pitch'd upon the other he will stick by it Generously done Now let us see how he defends his Censure Luther and Calvin are both called in to help Luther left out that Petition O Ho'y Blessed and Glorious Trinity Three Persons and One God Of which he confesses the Lutherans give another reason viz. That the German Word did not so expresly signify a Trinity as to exclude a Triplicity but he will not allow this to be currant but I suppose they understood I uther's reason better than he And then Calvin disliked it also but so he did Episcopacy and will he think that a sufficient ground to censure our Reformers for retaining it But to what purpose are these Citations Let them be as express as they will they are no Argument to us who are no more bound to acquiesce in their Judgment than our Author is in that of the Compilers of our Liturgy for whom I think he should have as much Reverence as either for Luther or Calvin But other Foreigners also and our Nonconformist Countreymen have strong exceptions against this part of the Litany which he cannot answer as he would I am sorry for it but I hope there are some others in the Church who can How he would have them answered I cannot tell but I suppose he can answer them so as to satisfy himself which sure cannot be without sufficient reason to justify the Lawfulness of these Forms And if that can be done which if it could not he must be a Hypocrite in using them I am sure 't is no sign of a Tenderness for the Credit of the English Reformation to endeavour thus to expose it and to publish what he thinks to be the Infirmities of it when this publication can serve no other end than to encourage men in their opposition to and dislike of the Establish'd Church Certainly it had been more proper to have reserved these Complaints till his fit Time and Place But he will grant that these Forms may be used without sin but yet he judgeth it much safer not to come so near dividing the Deity and so far to distract Devotion But must we not then lay aside the Apostolical Form of Benediction in constant use among us the Doxology and the Form of Baptism for fear of dividing the Deity and distracting Devotion For in all these there is as express distinct and particular mention of Three I dare not add Persons for fear of offending our Author as in the Litany But still he would have these Forms reduced to more Scriptural ones to bring in our own Dissenters whom we ought if possible I hope I may add by reasonable Methods to bring in and unite to us But here I cannot but observe that this and a great deal more of his Book is directly Writing against the received Doctrine of the Trinity and the Established Worship of the Church of England Now what is this to the design of his Book to persuade men not to Write in Defence of the Doctrine of the Trinity Did he do that only that he might have liberty to Ridicule and Expose it I must confess 't is a good Argument to engage men not to Write in Defence of this Doctrine of the Church if he can make it out that it ought not to be retain'd But methinks 't is such a kind of Argument that bespeaks a man not so much a Peacemaker as a profest Adversary And besides I would ask him Whether it be less Dangerous and less Vnseasonable at present for him to Write against the Established Doctrine and Worship of the Church than for others to Write in Defence of them In the next Section he tells us That Vnscriptural Words were complained of by the Fathers as well as by Hereticks and by the Fathers first for which he cites St. Athanasius and St. Ambrose whom I am not now at leisure to turn over nor does it seem very material to the present business St. Athanasius he owns Apologizeth for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the Necessity of it and if that will be allowed as a good reason I suppose the Dean will not desire more in favour of Vnscriptural Terms and therefore since our Author is willing I think we had as good let this project stand upon its own merits Here then he is very liberal and will allow us to Vindicate Scripture from Heretical Glosses Why then may we not Write in Defence of the Doctrine of the Trinity and show what is the true sense of Scripture in that Point And if we may do this Why is it not seasonable to do it now Hereticks are so busy in perverting the true sense of Scripture And if he will grant us this the main design of his Book is overthrown But when we have plainly proved that these words of Scripture contain this sense why should we I suppose he means in our Creeds and Articles change the Words I will tell him one short reason if he does not know it already and that is because when we have proved this to be the true sense of Scripture so as to satisfy honest and unprejudiced Minds yet perverse Hereticks may still take them in their own sense and so we shall be never the nearer the knowledge of their Minds nor able to distinguish them unless we require them to profess they believe them in that
Scripture and not with Innovations of their own This if he be sincere and plain in what he says is all we desire and if he will promise never to revoke this Grant we will be satisfied In the next place he is for admitting known Socinians into the Communion of the Church The Dean had said He hoped he the Stander-by did not propose this Negative Belief as he calls it as a Term of Communion that though we know them â—o deny the Trinity and Incarnation yet if they will agree not publickly to oppose and contradict this Faith we shall receive them to our Communion Thus far our Author cites but the Dean had said also and fling the Worship of the Holy Trinity and of a God Incarnate out of our Liturgies for their sake This he very roundly answers and utterly confutes with a short Why not This is indeed a short Question and needs no long Answer for in the next Page if he would but look on it the Dean has given him a sufficient Reason Why not But he thinks to evade all by putting an impertinent Case too long to be recited here and indeed not worth it For it doth by no means reach the Point which isc Whether the Governors of the Church ought to make the Terms of Communion so large as that known professed Socinians and Arians may fully communicate with us as compleat and Orthodox Members of the Church and not as our Author gravely puts it Whether every Preacher should stop when he sees a Socinian come into the Church Besides he supposes his Socinian to be a known good liver and professing the common Christianity but it may be we may not agree with him and suppose I should not be so happy as to think so well of his Socinian Friend as he doth will he then give me leave to turn him out of the Church But what is all this to the Publick Constitutions of a Church and the Laws of Communion Must they be made so loose as to admit all sorts of Hereticks because an Heretick of any sort may sometimes appear at least to be a good liver and profess to believe the Common Christianity c. as there have been such Professors of other Heresies and may be of any as well as of this If our Author answers this too with a Why not I desire he will subjoin a Reason for what he says and then he may deserve a Reply And now our great Champion of wrong'd Innocence out of his extraordinary Generosity and love of Peace and Truth cannot forbear observing that the Dean wrongs the poor innocent Socinians and imputes sundry Points very iniquitously stated to them which yet they hold not as he states them And first he tells us If he the Dean as some in the world had had Personal Dealing with the generality of his Parishioners as to matters of Conscience he would say That the Ignorance of many Church-people and so the Errors of their Conceptions touching God and the Three Persons in the Godhead much more alter as to them the Object of the Christian Worship The Dean I believe tho not so unacquainted with his Parishioners while he had a Parish yet never met with such Ignorance as this and yet no man doubts but there are some persons very ignorant who have no distinct Conceptions of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost but yet have no Heretical Opinions about them and I wonder this Stander-by who is so fond of a Negative Belief should not see a difference between a Negative Orthodoxy and professed positive Heresy By the same Argument he might as well prove that all other Hereticks ought to be received into the Communion of the Christian Church because there are a great many Christians that are extremely ignorant in all other Points of Faith But tho a general confused indistinct Knowledge with a sober and pious Conversation may qualify men for Christian Communion yet profest Hereticks ought to be flung out of the Church The first are the Churches Care to instruct them better as Opportunity and their Capacities will admit the others are her profest Enemies and must be removed from the Church to preserve the sound parts from infection and I can t imagine what Notion a man can have of Church-Communion without Unity of Faith tho the same Communion may admit of very different degrees of Knowledge It would be too tedious and not very pertinent here to run thorough these things but I am sure for all his haste the Dean has not in this place imputed any thing to the Socinians but what they avowedly and in Print maintain for it is evident that the Socinians do deny the Meritorious Sacrifice and the Meritorious Intercession of our Saviour that they do also deny that the Eternal Son of God Offered himself that God demonstrated his Love to us by sending his own Son in a proper sense as opposed to a mere Man or Created Spirit and consequently they do deny the Humility and Condescension of the Eternal Son of God in becoming Man c. and therefore these things are not iniquitously imputed to the Socinians which yet are the very things which the Dean's Discourse imputes to them and therefore he has no reason to add That some men Write against them without understanding them but I am afraid 't is too true That some men Apologize for them without understanding thâ—m As to the Socinians altering the Object of Religious Worship I refer the Reader to that Discourse of the Dean's to which he himself has referr'd in his Apology where he will find that point more largely handled and fully and clearly Proved But now we come to a great Point and which takes up a great many Pages in our Author about the Authority of Parliaments Bishops and Convocations on which Head I have some good Reasons not to be so large and to desire the Reader 's excuse if I do not follow our Author in all he says on this Subject especially since our proper business doth not require it and therefore I do not care to ramble like him unless I had the same advantage as he has to be on the securer side 'T is not safe to define what Parliaments can do without Convocationâ— or Bishops without Presbyters But I am sure the Church has no cause to thank our Author who would first betray her Faith and then diminish her Authority even in things purely Spiritual First he gives up the Convocation for what reason is manifest and for which the Inferior Clergy are bound to thank him And then he does the same in effect for the Bishops when he allows so much to the Parliament for they have not so much as a Negative Voice there and Articles of Faith may be coined even against the express will of every one of them and though he cannot believe the Body of the Bishops disallowed or did not with good liking consent to the Act of Toleration if
and what none would contend for but he that either knows not what he asks or has a mind to overthrow the true Faith The next thing as near as I can guess that he endeavours to shew from Fathers Schoolmen and Protestant Divines is That the word Person is equivocal and uncertain in its signification I hope then his Clients may like it the better as being able to make use of it in a sense agreeable to their own Doctrines But after all this Vncertainty of the word Person about which he has shown so much Learning as far as I can find there is so much of its Signification agreed to on all hands that the Antitrinitarians are unwilling to use it as evidently including something that will not go down with them and I fear that this is the true reason of our Author's Quarrel against it But now our Author has shown himself such a Master of Books he can't forbear stepping a little out of the way again to show himself as great a Master of Reason and therefore falls foul upon the Dean for contradicting himself for making Three Minds and One Mind and making the Persons Distinct and not Separate which is to him an unavoidable Contradiction And who can help it if it be What the Dean maintains is not so to every body's apprehension especially if it be considered in his own words without our Author's Comment on them for it may be understood how Three Minds are One tho it be something difficult to apprehend that they are three sames and not three sames And I can no more understand our Author's arguing That if they are Distinct they are Separate also than he can the Dean's when he says they are Distinct and yet not Separate which I believe will not sound like an Absurdity to any but a Socinian Vnderstanding But if the Dean has been mistaken and has fallen short in his Arguing and has also set up an Hypothesis full of Contradictions which yet there are a great many Wiser men than our Author do not believe what would all this be to the Design of our Author's Book If Dr. Sherlock does not argue well must no body therefore write that can argue better If his Hypothesis be unreasonable is it therefore unreasonable to write in Defence of the Doctrine of the Trinity Or is the Doctrine it self unreasonable Some men we know think so and this may be several strokes in his Book be suspected to be the Opinion of our Author However he is so great a Lover of Peace why then does he quarrel so much with the Orthodox Writers and the Church of England that he is willing to admit the old way of speaking and the Ancient Notion of a Divine Person as being more consistent and less obnoxious Which if it had been kept to he had fâ—rborn his Suit 'T is the New Notion then that he quarrels at but why then must all men be desired not to write in Defence of the Doctrine of the Trinity even tho they do hold to the old Notion But hâ—re that is in the Ancient Notion of a Person or rather in that Word since it has been a long time in use without ever defending or explaining the thing he would have our Divines stop for Peace sake And I believe they will gratify him so far as not to enter into any farther Disputes about it if he will secure that the Socinians shall not oppose this but subscribe to it and not write against it Now he would persuade us and so it may be he might if we had never seen his Melancholy â—uit or did not understand English That all he desired was that men would stop at the Ancient Notion c. when 't is plain to any English understanding that he desired a great deal more viz. That no body would write at all in Defence of the Ancient Faith or Ancient Notion â—f a Person though our Adversaries do daily affront and ridicule the Doctrine of the Church and the Ancient Notion too For I only desire to know Whether the ridiculing the Athanasian Creed which was the occasion of Dr. Sherlock's Vindication be not ridiculing the Ancient Notion This being all his harmless Design he is very angry at the Imputation of Disguised Heretick c. What he is I determine not but I am sure he writes just as if he were such an one and since he has not set his Name I can't apprehend it any ways uncharitable to suspect so much of an unknown Author of whom we have nothing else to judge by but his Book which I am sure will never prove that he is any thing better and does well deserve to have a Brand set upon it that unwary Readers may not be deceived by it And this I believe whatever he doth very few Orthodox Hearty Asserters of the Catholick Faith will think a Calumny Now for the Dean's New Hypothesis again who did not keep within bounds and stop where he ought to have done but must needs be rambling and therefore he must have a lash or two for that And for the Reader 's great Edification our kind Author will give an account how far he had read of the Dean's Book when he writ which and several other as weighty Accounts of himself and his private Concerns I leave to the Reader that has Curiosity enough to peruse them But the Dean holds that which necessarily infers Three Gods and in his Apology goes beyond himself as in his Vindication he went plainly beyond and contrary to the Doctrine of the Fathers Schools and Protestant Divines Pray what 's the matter now Why he calls the Son a God Incarnate and the Holy Ghost a God and therefore infallibly by vertue of this little Particle a there must be Three Gods all the world can't help it For tho he expresly says These Three are but One God and proves it too yet as long as he says the Son is a God Incarnate there is nothing can vindicate him from the Imputation of Tritheism and therefore he must according to his Promise thankfully correct this Absurdity now it is so plainly shown him But does a God Incarnate signify any more but that he who is Incarnate is God Which if we were always to deal with such Criticks is a much safer way of speaking than to say he is God Incarnate for among those who own a Trinity of Divine Persons in the Godhead a God Incarnate can signify no more than that One of the Divine Persons who is really and truly God is Incarnate but to say God Incarnaâ—e might be abused by such perverse Criticks to signify That the whole Trinity which is the One God is Incarnate The next Complaint of our Author is That the Dean charges him with desiring that no body would write agaâ—nst the Socinians And pray is not that the design of his Melancholy Suit To most mens apprehensions I dare say it is nor do I find that he himself makes any exception
sense which we have proved to be the true sense and then it must be in other Words for though we have shown to all reasonable men what is the true meaning of them and so made the sense of the words plain yet the words are the same that they were and therefore every one who took them in a perverse sense before may do so still if he will Besides why may not any man who believes that to be the true sense which has been shown so to be profess his Belief in those terms when required by the Church as well as in Scripture Words which he takes in the same sense The Dean urges They i.e. Scripture-Words may be undetermined and 't is necessary to fix their true sense But this says our Author is the Difficulty They may rationally at least probably admit of more senses than one c. He gives an example of this which is not very much for his Reputation because it can serve no other end but to overthrow the Personality of the Holy Ghost and his Intimate Conscious Knowledge of God and were my design at present to dispute the sense of particular Texts it were easy to show that it is not the Obscurity of the Text but his own Inclination which makes him fancy his Latitude of Sense but it is a vain thing in such a cause as this to infer a general Rule from a particular Instance For how many instances soever of this nature he could give if he will allow that there are any express Texts for the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost which will not admit such a Latitude of sense as he must acknowledge if he will allow the Doctrine of the Trinity to be a Scripture-Doctrine there can be no pretence then to leave such a Fundamental Article in such a Latitude of sense that men may either own or deny a Trinity as they please Further He would be clearly for expressing some fixed true sense of all Controverted Texâ—s in such Words as Hereticks cannot pervert but for two or three Reasons which are worth hearing His first Reason is because he cannot always be sure which sense is most truly affixed But can he never be sure of this in any Texts that have been Controverted If he can then this is no reason why it should not be done in them His second Reason depends upon the first and so must stand or fall with that for where we can be sure which is the true sense of Scripture there is no such danger of changing Faith and changing Scripture by fixing the sense but the greater fear is of having no Scripture if you have no determined sense of it His last Reason as urgent as all the rest is that we cannot tell where to find such Words as Hereticks cannot pervert I grant some Hereticks are so perverse as to wrest almost any words to their own sense or else the Socinians could never have wrested such plain Texts of Scripture and forced them to comply with their Notions But that some words have been found that Hereticks could not pervert is I think undeniable since they have and do frequently refuse to subscribe to them and raise such opposition against them as for instance the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Arians always opposed Now if these words did not plainly contain such a sense as doth expressly contradict their Opinions why should they not profess their Faith in such words He could assign many words pitch'd upon from time to time to guard the Faith and prick the fingers of Hereticks c. What then This is no proof that all words can be perverted or that none were ever pitch'd upon that could not As to the two words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Personae pitch'd upon by him and so learnedly Criticis'd upon I shall only say in short that these and such other words as the Church of England delivers her Doctrine in have prick'd the fingers of some men or else what makes the Socinians cry out so There is something plainly signified by them which the Antitrinitarians think not so easily reconcilable to their Opinions as the Words of Scripture are though it be indeed no more than we say and prove to be contain'd in Scripture or else why do they not rest contented with them as well as with the words of Scripture Suppose there are some Homonymies as our Author complains in some words used in this Controversy will these words admit the Heresies against which they are directed Will they admit Socinian Opinions Or do they contradict them If they do then they serve the end for which they were designed notwithstanding these Homonymies Our Author seems to think That Words cannot be found to fix the Sense of Scripture unless the same words will exclude All Heresies concerning the Subject to which they are apply'd which is manifestly absurd For if I confess that God is Almighty in the most express terms that can be imagined may I not for all that affirm that he is not Just or Good And must the word Almighty be rejected because it does nâ—â— exclude All Heresies concerning the Divine Nature though it sufficiently exclude all such Blasphemous Notions as make God a weak and impotent Being Now though I confess Three Persons in the Godhead 't is no wonder that I may nevertheless hold Heresy and Blasphemy and assert Three Gods too but can I under these words mean that there is not a Trinity of Persons as Socinians affirm But Hereticks may here conceal themselves under a larger Latitude of Expression and spread their Heresies with a Traditionary Sense and Comment of their own more exactly and more poisonously then the purity of the Holy Text would have permitted How shall we be able to deal with this man who is so well skilled in the versatile wit of Hereticks that neither Scripture-words nor all the words made use of by the Antient Fathers with great Caution and Judgment are able to hold him I wonder how he knows what either Heresy or Orthodoxy is as to the Doctrine of the Trinity when if we may believe him there are no words that do determinately signify either but both the words of Scripture and Fathers will equally serve both But now we must return to the Latitude of Faith which the Dean tragically complains of him for pleading for c. Here our Author is much out of humour at some Questions which the Dean put to him and I do not wonder that it goes against his stomach to answer them briefly and plainly though he says he will For upon reading his Answers they appear neither brief nor plain nor can I well tell what to make of his tedious harangue for some Pages together The Dean asks him if there be any more Faiths than One to this indeed he answers plainly That Faith as Truth can be but One But then in what follows he makes it neither brief nor plain for though he