there are above fourty Clear places of Scripture that express the Plurality of Persons in the Deity and yet they refuse to attend to them Which shews that their eyes are blinded and that they wilfully give themseves up to Mistakes The Ancient Fathers and Writers of the Church who may well be supposed to have some knowledg and insight into this Catholick Doctrine unanimously assert the Distinction of Persons or Subsistencies in the Godhead Which is freely acknowledg'd by their Great Master who expresly tells us that the Fathers both before and after the Nicene Council asserted the same doctrine that we do And this hath been the constant profession of the Orthodox Churches of Christ in all ages But notwithstanding this there have been some since unmindful of what their Master had acknowledg'd that have endeavour'd to make the Writings of those Ancients speak for them therein both contradicting Socinus and the Truth it self Nay even among the late Tracts published by the Socinians there is a formal Collection of the Testimonies of Greek and Latin Fathers against the Doctrine of the Trinity So contradictory are these men to one another There is no need of quoting any Particular Authors under this Head for they all appear in a full body against the doctrine of the Trinity Here the whole Posse of the Racovians shew themselves unanimously and without exception declaring that there is but One Person viz. the Father in the Deity and that the Son and Holy Ghost are not God As for the Blessed Son of God who is the Word of the Father begotten from everlasting by him they affirm him to be no other than a Man dignified with the title of God And as for the Holy Ghost who is co-essential with the Father some of them who adhere to Bidle hold he is an Angel or Messenger of God and consequently a Person but the rest of them deny his Personality and averre him to be only the Power or Influence of God and so is only a Quality or Operation as if the Apostles were commanded to baptize all Nations in the name of an Operation and at the same time were enjoyn'd to baptize in the name of Two Persons This is very harsh yea it is very inconsistent and absurd However these Gentlemen are resolv'd to adhere to it and they bid open defiance to the Contrary Doctrine One of the New Racovians tells us that the doctrine of the Trinity hath been partly the direct and necessary Cause and partly the unhappy occasion of diverse Scandalous and Hurtful Errors and Heresies And in an other place he declares that this doctrine is as little consistent with Piety towards God as it is with Reason But this is very mild and gentle in respect of what some other Unitarians belch forth Servetus when he speaks of the Eternal Generation of the Son of God ridicules it in such blasphemous terms as are not to be mention'd and he often calls the Trinity the Three-headed Cerberus Others of them stile it a Monstrous Idol a Fiction of Antichrist an Infernal Imposture Nay our very Modern Socinians our English Unitarians discover a very Prophane Spirit when they speak of this Sublime Point The language of the Church say they concerning the Trinity is BARBAROUS the faith of it is Monstrous And how elegantly do they express themselves when they tell us that the doctrine of the Trinity is a dry and empty notion a bone without marrow or meat What can be more prophane than their stiling the Three Divine Persons a Trinity of Cyphers a Club or Cabal of Gods a Council or Committee of Gods where sometimes one is President and sometimes another is in the Chair and in another place a Castle in the air Let any one peruse their late Prints and observe the freedom of their Stile and he will find it light and frothy as one of their late Converts expresses it he will find them irreverently deriding this Profound Mystery in such terms as I forbear to rehearse because they are most unworthy of Christian and Pious Ears he will find that there was reason to tax them with Irreligion and Prophaneness and that I did not reproach them when I laid these to their Charge But more especially as to the imputation of Atheism which is yet a more Heinous Crime I request the Reader to consider and weigh 1 John 2. 23. Whosoever denieth the Son the same hath not the Father Take it thus with the preceding verse which will lead us to the true sense of it Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son As much as to say if there ever was a Person that might be truly call'd a Liar if ever any one deserved that name then certainly he that gainsays so plain a Truth as this that Jesus is the Messias is an egregious Liar and Falsifier and merits to be call'd so Yea to such a one belongs not only the Title of a Liar but of Antichrist because he is a direct Opposer of Christ as he is the Son of God the Father and therein he denies both the Father and the Son For it follows Whosoever denieth the Son the same hath not the Father i. e. he denieth the Father as well as the Son for not having the Father is the same with denying him as is most evident from the preceding clause where it is call'd the denying of the Father Now I suppose the Socinians will grant that the denying of the Father is Atheism wherefore they must also acknowledg that the denying of the Son is Atheism because in this is included according to these words of St. John the denying of the Father This is a Text which it may be they never thought of i. e. of the force and influence of it therefore I intreat them to ponder it now and therein to see a Character of themselves There were in St. John's days some of their Perswasion some that opposed the doctrine of the Trinity and especially the Deity of the Second Person they labour'd to perswade the People as their Successors do in our days that the Father only was God and that the Son was excluded wholly from the Divinity Against these this Apostle writes and lets them know that the Son as well as the Father is God and that he who hath the confidence to deny the Deity of the former doth also deny the Deity of the latter For such is the nature of the Godhead that one of these cannot be Alone The Father is not without the Son neither can be as this latter cannot be without the other They are so mutually joyn'd together that they cannot be separated This Coherence is inviolable and therefore he that denies the Eternal Son of God denies the Father he that holds Christ is not the Son of God by Eternal Generation in effect disowns the Godhead of the Father
and if he doth so he is an Atheist This is a Text that is not question'd by the Socinians though the next clause in the verse hath been doubted of by them and some others These are Words of the Beloved Disciple who lay in his Master's Bosom and had extraordinary communications of the Spirit and was favour'd in a peculiar manner with Divine Discoveries and Revelations This is he that may be called the Great Eagle and that name was given him by the Ancient Christians and much more deservedly than Maimonides was called so by the Modern Jews because he soared so high and was so quick-sighted in the Mysteries of the Gospel and had so piercing and sagacious judgment Therefore on all these accounts I urge this Text upon Socinus's followers wishing them to be sensible of the force of it The denyal of the Son i. e. the denying of his Divinity which consists in his being the Eternal Son of God is a denyal of the Father also They that deny the Deity of the Second and Third Persons in whom the Divinity as truly subsists as in the First deny the Deity of the First Person Whence it irrefragably follows that a Socinian is an Atheist He is so if this Syllogism will prove him to be one He that denies the existence of the True God is an Atheist the Socinian doth the former therefore he is the latter The Major is the definition of an Atheist and therefore can't be question'd The Minor therefore must be proved which is easily done thus He that denies Christ to be the True God i. e. of the same substance with the Father denies the existence of the True God but a Socinian denies Christ to be the true God i. e of the same substance with the Father Ergò The Second Proposition will not be denied by these Gentlemen therefore I am to clear the Major and that is soon done thus If the denying of the Divinity of the Son be the denying of the Divinity of the Father then he that denies Christ to be the True God c. denies the existence of the True God but the denying of the Divinity of the Son is the denying of the Divinity of the Father Ergò The first Proposition will be yielded I conceive therefore I am to take care of the second and that is soon done from the forecited Text which is the very substance of it Whosoever denieth the Son the same hath not the Father The Socinians do the former therefore they are guilty of the latter There is such a Connection between these two the Father and the Son they being Co-essential and Co-eternal that if you deny the Divinity of the one you deny that of the other Therefore they are Atheists that deny the Divinity of our Saviour therefore in the interpretation and accounts of the Apostle St. John Socinians are such for they deny the Divinity of Christ and in denying of that deny the Divinity of the Father And this was the Sense of the Primitive Christians and Pious Professors of that Holy Religion for we find that Baptism is called the renouncing of Atheism and the acknowledgment of the Deity because in the Form of Baptism the Trinity is professed and owned or the Deity as it contains in it Three Distinct Persons Those therefore who deny these are chargable with Atheism more especially according to the tenour of St. John's Words and the acception of the Gospel those are to be taxed with it who deny the Divinity of our Saviour Perhaps it may be expected here that I should maintain the contrary Truth and formally prove and defend the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity but because there have been so many Treatises lately published on this subject and because I design a Just Discourse upon it my self among others which I intend to offer to the world upon the Articles of the Creed I will dismiss this Point at present after I have made this one request to the Reader that he would vouchsafe in the most serious manner to consult the Writings of the New Testament and studiously to compare those places together which refer to this Sublime Matter and then he will clearly discover the Truth and Reality of it Nay he will be convinced of this from what our Saviour himself saith concerning it for though for certain good reasons he was not forward to declare his Divine Nature and Dignity yet he often uttered such words as implied that he was the Eternal Son of God as when he said Before Abraham was I am John 8. 58. I and my Father are one John 10. 30. which the Jews well understood when they laid this to his charge Thou makest thy self God v. 32 33. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father because we are but One. John 14. 9. I am in the Father and the Father in me v. 10. And to the very last he owned this Mat. 26. 63 64. Mark 14. 62. whereas the Socinians as resolutely persevere in the denial of it And denying him to be God they consequently disown his Satisfaction which is another Black Crime chargable upon them and that very justly They allow Christ to be a Saviour but on this account only because he shews us the way to Salvation and will afterwards bestow it upon us As to his death they acknowledg that it was to confirm the New Covenant by shedding of his blood he ratified it as before under the Law the Old Covenant was made by effusion of blood But that there was any thing Meritorious and properly Expiatory in his Death they stiffly deny for it is the peremptory decision of Socinus himself that Christ did not merit by any thing that he did and Volkelius expresly saith the same Nay the former of these to explain himself undertakes to shew that Christ had nothing in him that was singular and that he neither did or suffered any thing that was so And elsewhere he hath these very words Whatsoever Christ suffered can have in it no greater vertue than if any mere man whosoever had suffered the same This is the opinion they have of the Passion and Death of our Blessed Lord. And to propagate this they endeavour by all means to vilifie his Priesthood They manifestly confound his Sacerdotal and Regal Office And they would perswade us that his Priestly Office did not commence here on Earth but was first exerted in heaven And such like Inventions they have to evade the Satisfaction of Christ which they resolve never to admit of Accordingly Socinus hath no less than fifteen Chapters against it in one book and the three first Parts of an other Treatise are wholly spent on the same subject and are indeed but a Repetition of what he said before And he again insists upon this in his Disputation with Francken His Friends unanimously assert the same doctrine and professedly declare that Christ did not by his death satisfie the Divine
fleet F. Socinus seeing the bent of the Scripture so much against him sets himself to the finding out ways to avoid the force of them It is granted likewise that some of Socinus's followers are very useful in their Expositions of the New Testament They settle the sense and scope of the words and furnish the Reader with several Criticisms of good use He that denies this is to be suspected of causeless Prejudice and ill-will against them But then it must be said that they too often pervert the native sense of the words and force the Texts to speak what they please and generally the Arguments they offer are weak and unmanly groundless and precarious but they have a way of shoving them on with some craft and subtilty They are all very dexterous at this but Enjedinus Crellius and Slichtingius's Comments on Texts are of this sort especially It would create wonder sometimes to see their Elaborate Sophistry in finding out Trajections and Transpositions in several places in altering the genuine and obvious sense of Texts in their subtile ways of perverting and wresting of some clear passages of the Bible It must be said they have exercised the height of their Wit and Parts in this performance But as it was said of old of the Dice-player the better he was at the Game the worse he was so here it is most true the more these men excel in this way of Cheating and Imposing upon mankind the more is their Badness discover'd and the greater is their Crime And our Domestick Socinians agree with the Foreigners in this for they use the same little Arts and Tricks to deprave the sense of Holy Writ and to render it serviceable for their turn If I should instance only in their strange and unaccountable interpreting of the first verses of the first Chapter of St. John's Gospel that would be sufficient to let us see what a marvelous talent they have of misinterpreting and wresting the Holy Book In the beginning say they is as much as in the beginning of the Gospel or the Gospel-state though there is not the least colour for any such Gloss from the whole Context and though all Expositors both Antient and Modern have understood it otherwise The Word was with God i. e. when Christ ascended into Heaven viz. some time before his Publick Ministry though there is no foundation for any such surmise as I shall immediately shew And the Word was God or a God for so these nice Criticks will have us read it though it is well known to the Learned that the omission of the Article is not argumentative i. e. he was appointed to be a kind of God or God's Representative as Magistrates are call'd Gods All things were made by him i. e. all things were not made by him but only reform'd and renew'd The world was made by him i. e. it was new modell'd or the Spiritual World the World of the Messias was made by him From these and such like Conceits which their Writings abound with you may discern the Air and Genius of these Men you cannot but take notice that they love to play upon words and phrases they delight in coining sophistical Evasions they study artifice and shifts By which they shew themselves to be no Spurious offspring but the true Sons of Arius who as the Ecclesiastical Historian acquaints us was not unskill'd in Logical Querks And an other of the Antients observes that the Arian Cause was managed by Old Subtile Disputants such as had been bred up to Controversies and knew how to make the best of their Ill Arguments and to Dissemble when they thought there was occasion for it Our late Revivers of the Cause are furnish'd with the same Skill and use it as advantageously They will pretend to own Christ's Divinity they will say Christ is God and True God and yet if you come to the trial they wholly renounce it and tell you Christ is only God's Minister his Messenger his Embassador This is all you can get from an other of their Writers Only the Father saith he is true God and the Lord Christ is his Prophet his Embassador his Messenger so that Christ is no more than what the Turks confess Mahomet to be Though our Blessed Saviour be so often stiled God and Lord in the New Testament yet the Antitrinitarians would needs persuade us that the meaning of it is no other than this that he was a Great and Eminent Man whence it follows that they hold Christ to be Lord and God in the same sense that the Papists talk of their Lord God the Pope So they will tell you that the Death of Christ is an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of mankind and yet whatever they pretend they really own no such thing as the Reverend Bishop Stillingfleet rightly remarks and irrefragably proves beyond all Exceptions in his Admirable Treatise against Crellius And in several other Instances it might be shew'd that they intolerably abuse and deceive the world In brief never was Prejudice more rampant never were Fallacies so often placed in the room of Arguments never was Reason so grosly abused never was Logick so ill employ'd never were Grammer and Criticism so scandalously thrown away as in the Writings of these men and all is done to distort the Word of God to elude the meaning of the Holy Ghost to plead against the Lord of Life and Glory and against the only way and means of their Salvation Here under this First Head viz. their Abusing of Scripture I will take notice of One Particular Instance of it which to the Common Reader perhaps may be a Rarity They thinking it necessary that Christ being but a mere Man for they hold him to be no other should be extraordinarily instructed by God as to his Office of the Messias and therefore it would be requisite that he should like St. Paul be taken up into the third Heaven and there be taught particularly how to discharge his Office and how to teach men upon Earth Accordingly they were to find out some Texts of Scripture which might be strained to support this Fiction viz. That Christ went up into Heaven in the time of the forty days Fast or some time before he began to Preach that he might receive Instructions from God concerning the Gospel-dispensation and concerning the things that he was to deliver upon earth To this purpose they pitch upon John 3. 13. No man hath ascended up into Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of Man who is in Heaven and they would persuade us that these words are spoken concerning that Ascension which they fancy But this meaning cannot be fastned upon them because we are here plainly inform'd that Christ came down from Heaven first and then afterwards ascended thither whereas it is their assertion that he first ascended and then came down thence It is impossible therefore to stretch these words so as to
Sacred Scripture hath recorded It is to be wondred at that notwithstanding this these men should be so blind it is strange and unaccountable that they take no notice of their being baffled by the Fulfilling of those Predictions Likewise who sees not that the Providence of God extends it self to this sort of future actions and occurrences for he manages these for great and excellent ends in the world But how can he do this if he hath no knwledg of them Can his Care and Providence be exercised about them and yet he be wholly Ignorant of them Thus it is evident that at the same time that these men deny the Divine Prescience they do also take away Providence for it is impossible that God should dispose order and take care of those actions and events which he knows nothing of Which shews how absurd and ridiculous that passage in Socinus is viz. that this Prescience which we assert to be in God doth in some part take away and obscure that continual Care which he takes of humane affairs and renders him in a manner Idle One would not imagine that such an Inconsistent Thought should come into a mans head and much less that it should be propagated as we see in Vorstius and others If they had not a strong propension to diminish and disparage the Divine Nature and to foster Atheism certainly they could not thus discourse certainly they could not maintain that God is ignorant of what any Man will say think or do the next moment and that he hath no notice at all of such Future Occurrences as depend on the free will of man till they actually come to pass i. e. when every intelligent creature hath a knowledg of them There is yet another Attribute of God concerning which they have a very unbecoming notion and such as is inconsistent with the Perfection of the Divine Nature God's Eternity is represented by them to have in it a Succession of Duration as there is in Time They are the very words of * Socinus and Crellius And the English Socinians shew themselves to be of this mind placing the nature of Eternity in a Continual Succession And as for the contrary notion it is laught at by some of them as a Whimsical Paradox But certainly this is no other than confounding of Finite and Infinite and making Time and Eternity the same Where there is a Succession there was a Beginning or First Moment which plainly demonstrates that there is no Succession in God's duration because all things are Together and at Once those things which are past present and to come are always coexistent and present with him One day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day Psal. 90. 4. Which denotes that there are not in God those three differences of Time before mention'd which are in the duration of other things and consequently there are no Parts and no Succession in the Eternal Duration of God This I think no man will deny to be rational that the Permanency of the Existence of God should be differenced from that of Creatures and accordingly that he should not be measured by Time as they are I go upon this ground that we ought to attribute the most Excellent things to God and on the contrary that we must not ascribe any thing to him that hath the least Shew of Imperfection and will diminish his Divine Nature This is a safe and sound bottom and on this I build my Assertion viz. that a Temporal and Successive duration ought not to be attributed to God If the persons I am now dealing with had attended to this Rule had built on this basis they would not have pronounced such strange things as they do concerning the Deity they would have had more reverent conceptions of him they would not have vented such undue Opinions and Surmises concerning the Divine Nature But they having taken up these Perswasions endeavour to defend them and it hath happen'd that some persons of good Parts have undertaken the Cause and have rendred it very plausible to such as have not an eye to the Infinite and Superlative Excellency of God the Supreme Being I grant that there are some Learned Meâ—… that are no Socinians who seem to allow 〈◊〉 a Successive Duration in him but if we duly weigh what they say we shall find thaâ—… they chiefly set themselves against the nice speculations of the Schoolmen concerning Succession but they apply noâ—… this way of Duration in a proper and strict manner unto God They owâ—… some kind of resemblance of it in Eternity but there is no such thing formally and really The reason is because Succession implies in it Parts Divisibility Motion and Change but an Eternal Undivideâ—… Being is not capable of these and by consequence not of such a Duration Wherefore it follows that the Eternity of God is in a manner denied by the Socinians 〈◊〉 leave it to the Reader to apply the Censure CHAP. III. The Socinians renounce the doctrine of the Trinity though it be attested by the Scriptures and Fathers They prophanely ridicule it They are demonstrated to be Atheists from St. John's Words Epist. 1. ch 2. v. 23. The Argument thence is reduced into an unanswerable Syllogism The doctrine of the Trinity intended to be particularly treated of hereafter by the Author Christ's own words evince his Divinity The Socinians denying him to be God consequently deny his Satisfaction That Text Rom. 3. 25. is urged against them Whence are inferr'd the Unreasonableness and Impiousness of their Cavils Christ's Satisfaction proved from Isai. 53. 5. c. From those Texts which speak of Reconciliation made by him From other places which mention his Suffering and Dying for us his being a Propitiation an Atonement a Sacrifice his Redeeming us Both the former and present Socinians agree in reviling deriding and blaspheming the Merits and Satisfaction of our Saviour THUS far we have seen how defective they are in their Notions concerning God as he is considerd in respect of his Attributes We will in the next place observe how faulty they are in their Conceptions concerning Him as he is to be considered in regard of the Persons contain'd in his Godhead The Holy Scriptures especially of the New Testament bear witness that though there is but One Living and True God yet in Unity of this Godhead there is a Trinity of Persons of one substance majesty power and glory viz. the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and that these are the very Eternal God There is abundant proof of this from a vast number of Plain and Obvious Texts and yet the Disciples of Socinus stubbornly disown this Clear Truth They have but a Text or two on which they pretend to build their belief of Christ's Ascending into heaven before he preach'd the Gospel and yet these though distorted and misapplied they think a sufficient basis for that Conceit of theirs but behold
the Socinian Writers there is a Necessity of openly adhering to some Congregation professing Christ's discipline and that Congregation must be such as they think to be purer than the rest This is the whole design and subject of Socinus's book De Officio hominis Christiani to shew that they must be of some Church and particularly of those who were then call'd Arians or Ebionites That is in plain terms those who are of the Anti-Trinitarian perswasion must have a Gather'd Church and there make publick profession of their belief and openly teach those Doctrines which they are perswaded to be true And yet I offer it to be taken notice of that though this be profess'd in their Writings to be an Indispensable Point of Religion c. yet they regard not the practising of it None of our English Socinians have any Set Meetings for the propagating of their doctrine as men of other perswasions have at this day We cannot but take notice that all Parties who think their Way to be True and Good hold distinct Congregations on the Lord's day or at other Solemn times and then make profession of their particular Way and Worship It is well known that this is the usage and practice of all the different Parties of Religion They did it even when they had a Prohibition from the Government but now much more openly when they are not restrained by Publick Authority But there is not so much as one single Meeting in the way of Religion and Worship upheld by the Socinians tho it is certain that their way of worship differs from that of all Other Parties because the very Object of Worship is different I mean as to their consideration of it for they look upon our Saviour as a Creature and no other Which one thing should make them assemble together in a distinct place and manner from all other Professors of Religion They should if they acted according to their own Principles have a peculiar Church and openly preach up their Perswasions and declare against the false and Idolatrous Worship of all Professors of Christianity but themselves for so it seems they esteem it Thus I say they are obliged to do if they will be consistent to themselves They must form an Assembly of their own and if they want Members they know where to have them it is but sending for some more of their brethren in Transylvania Poland c. and so they may be stock'd I do not see how they can possibly omit the Meeting together as a Church suppose in London or some other convenient place for their Principles of Ecclesiastical Government or Discipline oblige them to this If they say that some Prudential Considerations prevail with them to do otherwise then it is clear that their Prudence is of such a sort that it outweighs yea wholly excludes their Duty and surely men of their Reason and Judgment will not boast much of such a Prudence Besides if they pretend Discretion and Prudence for their not Assembling together then in so doing they tax all the Meetings and Congregations of other Perswasions as herds of Imprudent and Impolitick Men and whether such a Charge as this savours of Prudence I leave it to themselves to judg To say the truth these Gentlemen can be as smart upon the Dissenters when they think fit as upon Church-men we are told in the Trinitarian Scheme of Religion that the former have separated from the Church of England for small and inconsiderable causes And in an other of their late Essays they rattle all Dissenters at a high rate charging them with great inconsistency to themselves and their own principles and afterwards they call them Wiâ—…-Worshippers telling them that their worship is without any warrant of Scripture either by precept or so much as one example nay against the full current of Scripture-Worship Then they add their Worship iâ—… of their own invention and soon after they call it a Popish Invention Now one would think that these men who thus condemn all Dissenters and declare forâ—… Purer Congregation and Worship than other men should have Particular and Distinct Assemblies of their own but they have not they mix with others and particularly sometimes with the Churches of the Conformists yea some of them have been and are still professed Members of the Church of England joyning in that Service particularly the Liâ—…any where the Three Persons of the God-head are invoked and the Doxology which is so frequently repeated wherein the Deity not only of the Father but of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is publickly professed and owned Socinus had other thoughts when he endeavour'd to prove that the people of the kingdom of Poland and of the Great Dutchy of Lithuania ought to joyn themselves to the Assemblies of those that were call'd Arians that is those who profess'd Socinus's doctrine Now will not any rational and considerate man infer hence that our English Socinians are very cold and unconcerned in their Religion for though according to the Scheme of their Church-Government they ought to Meet together in a visible and solemn manner yet they are so Indifferent that they will not or so Cowardly that they dare not do it Which breeds a suspicion of them that they only act a Part and that at another time they will be at something else Which appears from this likewise that tho they under hand manage their Cause and write in defence of it yet they conceal their Names and Persons They are against Mysteries but they keep in the Clouds and will not let the world know who they are This evidently convinces us how Indifferent they are for if they were verily perswaded that their doctrine is really True and that it contains in it Substantial and Necessary Points of Faith and Religion they would not they could not act thus under a disguise but they would be sensible that it is absolutely requisite to discover themselves and to deal above board and to be plain and free in their owning of the Cause for if they be Verities of Necessary Concern in Religion as they sometimes pretend then they are worth the Publick owning and these persons may glory in the defence of them But we see they dare not even in this Juncture when Liberty was allow'd them and they might safely speak their minds appear with open face and set their Names before their Writings This shews that they have no true Zeal for their Cause yea that at the bottom they are but little or not at all concerned And if they be not deeply concerned for that which is their Darling Point what can we think of them as to the rest But it is not only Cowardize but something of a worse nature that makes them thus mask themselves These Knights Errant who come not like those of old to do kindnesses to the distressed will not vouchsafe to lift up the beavers of their helmets and let us see who they are because
out of their favour They laugh at the Orthodox as they call them for thundring it from their Pulpits that matters of Faith are above Reason So the Letter to the Clergy of both Universities chap. 10. And those that will not reject the Trinity and other doctrines exploded by the Socinians are Priest-ridden Letter of Resolution p. 19. They adhere to other Enthusiastick Spirits as to their mistaken conceits concerning Magistracy and the Secular Sword They perfectly accord with the Quakers in their opinions about the Trinity Christ's Satisfaction Original Corruption concerning the Ministerial Function and Mission concerning Infant-Baptism the Observation of the Christian Sabbath going to War c. So that any considerate man may observe that Quakerism is the spawn of Socinianism Nay they seem to have given rise to the wild Sect of Muggletonians who from them have learnt to hold but One Person in the Godhead viz. God the Father and to call the Trinity or a God of Three Persons as they speak a Monster as our Gentlemen are pleas'd also to express themselves They have been taught from them to renounce the Power of the Christian Magistrate and the Office of a Christian Minister they are instructed by them in their Tenents concerning the Spirits or Souls of men viz. that they can't act without the body and that therefore they are extinct as soon as they are separated from it They are the very words of this late Party and they are taken from the Racovians An other detachment is that the Bodies of the deceased wherein they lived and died shall not rise again shall not appear any more This is their language whence it is evident that Reeve and Muggleton suck'd their Principle from Faustus Socinus and his Adherents And thus you see that as the Socinians borrow from several Sects so they set up others they receive and distribute Poison and thereby doubly endanger mankind Lastly it is apparent that they borrow from Deists and Atheists and thereby yet further bring mischief upon the world And from the whole it is evident that these persons are corrupted not only in some matters of lesser moment but in those that are of the highest concern not only in merely Speculative doctrines but such as immediately relate to Practise not only in some Principles that respect the Circumstances of Christianity but in those that are Substantial and Fundamental those that are of the very Essence of the Christian Faith Let this be seriously thought of that we may have a true apprehension of the mischief of Socinianism Secondly Observe the strange boldness as well as falshood of these men They are often in their Writings insinuating into their Readers that they build all their Assertions on the Scriptures and thence they require their assent to what they deliver But from the several Particulars which I have insisted upon it is clear that they have no ground to require or claim it upon that account for I have manifestly discover'd the opposition of their Tenents to the plain dictates of the Holy Spirit in the Bible There they are condemned as spurious and adulterate Notions there they are rejected as Pernicious and Poisonous doctrines And yet they have the confidence to ground these on the authority of the Inspired Writings the Sacred Oracles of Truth yea One of them tells the world that he was brought to these Perswasions by reading the Scripture that hereby they may the more effectually impose upon the minds of men who they think will be ready to attend to that which they pretend is bottom'd on the Word of God Thirdly These things which have been suggested may be serviceable to give us a Right Idea of the persons I have been dealing with Surely those who have thus mangled and abused Religion cannot be thought to have a Good Intention in the work which they are about at this day yea they must be thought to have a very Bad one We may argue thus It is no wonder that they that pervert and deprave so many doctrines of Religion do more especially enervate the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity If it were only on the account of all their other wild notions we might have reason to suspect yea to condemn their blasphemous Opinion concerning our Lord Jesus Christ viz. their flat denial of his Godhead and of his Satisfaction c. It is not to be marvel'd at that they proceed thus far having done so much besides having in other Points of Christianity shew'd what a faculty they have of perverting and distorting the Truths of the Gospel What I have said therefore will be useful to enlighten the Reader that he may understand what manner of persons these are that to speak plainly he may be convinced that they are no Christians Whatever pretences they make to that Title it is impossible they should with reason lay claim to it for they neither are baptised into the Christian Faith nor do they make Profession of it as you have heard but on the contrary they subvert Christianity it self and deny the Divine Author of it How then can these men challenge the name of Christians Nay I could observe that they industriously comply with Jews and Turks in opposition to and defiance of all Sober Christians To gratifie the former they think fit to renounce the avowed Principles of the latter Herein they follow their Old Friend Servetus who had convers'd a long time with Jews and Mahometans and had espoused many of their Opinions and was a great Admirer of them Especially he declar'd his approbation of the Alcoran and thought it reconcileable with the New Testament if the doctrine of the Trinity were laid aside It is often mention'd by Socinus and other Racovian Writers that this doctrine and that of the Incarnation hinders Jews and Turks from embracing the Christian Religion And even the late Socinian Penmen in their New Tractates talk much of this that the doctrine of the Trinity puts a stop to the conversion of Jews Mahometans and Heathens and thereupon they are very earnest with their Readers to abandon this Great Point of Christianity in mere complacency with those Infidels And more particularly it is observable how favourably they speak of Mahometism or Turcism they profess themselves forward to believe that Mahomet had no other design in pretending himself to be a Prophet but to restore the belief of the Unity of God which at that time was extirpated among the Eastern Christians by the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation Mahomet meant not his Religion should be esteemed a New Religion but only the Restitution of the true Intent of the Christian Religion Therefore the Mahometan Learned men call themselves the True Disciples of the Messias They further in the same place insinuate their approbation of the Mahometan Religion above that of Christianity they magnifie the Alcoran and the more plausible Sect of Mahomet as the Saracens call'd it and at the same time they represent the