sense of Scripture tho' never so contrary to the intention of God's Spirit therein and as said before never so Erroneous and Heretical only because it is according to a man 's own private Opinion and deluded Imagination which is to take away the Obligation whereby Conscience and the whole Soul are bound to believe the Truth of Scripture only and not false Interpretations Besides there is in Scripture some matters of Faith which are not so obvious to the Soul and to Reason as matters of Fact are to the Eye and Ear as also there are others not to be Interpreted according to the plain and literal sense as they seem to be Out of the number and variety of such afforded in the Word I shall bring only two Instances Can they think that this Consequence by our Saviour God is the God of the living and not of the dead therefore there shall be a resurrection of the dead is plain and obvious to any man or that this is true Paul is a robber of Churches because he said I robbed other Churches Hence appeareth the danger and inconvenience of allowing of such a particular free liberty of Interpreting Scripture seeing it can be and is so much abused We are taught in the word that we have received the Spirit of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God and which the Holy Ghost teacheth if human Reason were a sufficient Light for a Man to enable him to interpret Scriptures then Paul's Prayer that God would give the Ephesians the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledg of him the eyes of their understanding being enlightned c. The like for the Colossians were in vain for 't is frivolous to ask what one hath already and wants not at all this Liberty which they allow themselves every day to search and find out new Interpretations whereby the Minds of Men are tossed and never to be setled cannot consist with the true Faith revealed in the Word of God which we are commanded to be stedfast in and to be rooted and built up in Christ and stablished in the Faith and not carried about with divers and strange Doctrines Certainly that freedom of interpreting is herein forbidden and so are we forbidden to believe those false Glosses and Interpretations for saith the Apostle Beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they are of God the reason is this Because many false Prophets are gone out into the world who allow themselves a freedom of interpreting Scrpiture according to their own humour and fancy no ways allowed by the Laws of God and should not be by the Laws of Men a Curb ought to be put upon such wandering profane Thoughts at least upon the publishing of them The Adversaries who are so fond and conceited of their human Reason Learning and Wisdom might take notice how the Apostle hits them when he calls those who give false interpretations of and wrest Scriptures both unstable and unlearned certainly those Men are unstable who make use of a pretended Liberty ever to give Scripture new interpretations as suggested by their Reason so to day they may give one and the next another different from and contrary to it and is not this Change a Fickleness and Unstableness These unstable Men would make those different interpretations to be a part and proof of their Learning but far from that for Peter calls them unlearned whereby he gives a great blow to that Diana-Idol of theirs But as I hope hereafter by the Grace of God to have an occasion of enlarging upon this I shall for the present forbear saying any more to it What he brings in of Bonner and Latimer about the Interpretation of the Words This is my Body cannot answer his purpose that Instance indeed can shew how a Text may differently be interpreted and that one may happen wrongfully to suffer for a good Cause and how the strongest side and most supported is not always the best But this cannot prove that because one has unjustly suffered the other may not justly suffer that sort of Men who are always wholly bent to provide for their safety would infinuate how no Man should be called to account for any wresting of or putting false interpretations upon Scripture tho never so false blasphemous impious and heretical because he who doth so believeth them not to be such which is their own case it doth not follow that a Truth tho made doubtful because to day 't is supported and to morrow shall be oppressed must not be owned and a Restraint put upon those who oppose it The Merit of the Cause is impartially to be enquired into and when Truth is found out not only it must be exalted but also its contrary is to be kept under Tho Queen Mary supported a bad Cause and suppressed a good one it doth not follow but that Queen Elizabeth did well to suppress a bad Cause and support a good one Tho an innocent be brought to suffer yet the guilty must not go free for all that Because formerly innocent Blood was shed must not Justice now be executed upon Criminals 'T is not the Opinion of Men but the Truth of the Thing which makes any one guilty or innocent the Law is judge of it So in Matters of Religion 't is not the Interpretation of the Text nor the Opinion which the Interpreter hath of the Soundness of his Interpretation that makes it Orthodox and sound but the Word which explains it self for what in one place is dark is plain in some other and when some Men contrary to those Lights will set up heretical and blasphemous Opinions and therein grow obstinate only because they think to be in the right upon such account the Word of God authoriseth Men to enact such penal Laws as they shall think most conducing for the glory of God and to have them put in execution chiefly when the Parties against the known Laws of the Land do publish and in defiance of all at the Parliament Doors offer their heretical Books with words to this purpose I put a most excellent Book into your hand pray read it with attention and when you are Converted strengthen your Brethren thus profanely abusing God's most holy Word They are by no means pleased with my way of Writing but I like it the better for their disliking it They find fault first with the Matter Order and Expression secondly with my often using Scripture thirdly with my Sallying as they call it into sundry Metaphors The first of the two ironically talks of depth of Learning height of Fancy c. which is proper to Fantastical Men who would transform Fancy yea all Religion into Reason The other calls it A World of School Cant which now adays goes for deep Learning So both tho' in a different way talk of depth of Learning that People would have others like themselves to build upon
no Foundation but Humane Reason which is not allowable chiefly in things of the nature of those now in question what they call Cant is out of Scripture Writings of Antient Fathers and out of Schools which as I think are the proper Store-houses whence to draw our Materials but with them every thing is Cant which doth not suit with their Tunes those Men would have all Notions of things manner of Expression and Stile to be but one and the same but theirs to be the Original for others to go by which especially in Men who so highly pretend to Reason is as unreasonable as if one would have all features in the Face all shapes of the Body all humours and inclinations of the Soul to be alike a thing impossible For every man saith the Apostle hath his proper gift of God one after this manner another after that However these great Masters of Wit Learning and Reason find fault with the way of other Mens Writing if it be not as they would have it that they call Nonsense and what else they please for their Tongues and Pens are their own wherewith they will do what they have a mind to Their Ironical Expressions may well be retorted upon them yet they should know how Truth is better when naked and needs no painting as doth Falshood to Paint is the part of an Harlot not of a vertuous Woman I ask Is not Gold Gold still and good tho' it be not Enamel'd or otherwise curiously wrought If they have their way of Writing I have mine which they shall not put me out of but will keep to 't till I see a Law enjoining others to Conform to theirs I thank God my ways are different from and would not change them for theirs tho' they would set up for Censors and Reformers of other Mens Works but by what Patent I cannot hear nor see and if I could help it I would have nothing Common with them because their Plague is in the Head and to give them their due in what they say there is more of flashy Wit than of solid and sound Reason they prefer the Bark before the Body of the Tree and the Cloaths before the Person who wears them They dislike my Quotations or Fragments of Scripture as one of the two calls them and good reason they have for they are so many strong and destructive Batteries against them they would not see the Mouth of that Cannon which shatters their false Opinions to pieces If to Quote Scripture be a Fault they are not guilty of it they travel not much into that Country and when they do 't is with a Cup of Venom in their Hand if possible to poison the Springs Their Reason is the God-Idol for whose sake they slight Revelation but saith he those Fragments are ill applied I see you had more Curiosity than your Brother which of the two is Simeon and which Levi I cannot tell however one calls himself a Lay-man for you read the Book but what 's the reason you give not one Instance of these Fragments of Scripture being ill apply'd surely you are apt enough to take advantage if any was offered and I cannot believe you would have so much Charity as to spare me for by the sowrness and gall of bitterness which I find in the Letters I have cause to think so you cannot so soon have forgotten all those Portions of God's word ill apply'd I had been glad to have seen some named then upon a good account I could have said something to you but you give me cause to think those Misapplyings to be the Man in the Moon I mean your Humane Reason As for me about Matters in question Scripture is my Stong-hold and the Arsenal whence I draw both offensive and defensive Weapons which they would have us to throw away but they must pardon us for not complying with them they themselves cannot and will not do so for therein they would find their Condemnation We follow better Examples those of great Captains in this Warfare as Paul who in this same Cause reasoned out of the Scriptures and at another time he testified concerning Jesus Christ out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets from morning till evening He was not weary of it neither must we be let Socinians say what they will to the contrary And tho' he was immediately inspired by the Holy Ghost yet on all occasions he appealed to the Scriptures for a confirmation of what he said Thus when he affirmed that Christ died for our Sins he immediately addeth according to Scripture and in the 11th Verse he saith that he was buried and that he rose again still according to the Scriptures His Death Burial and Resurrection three Articles of our Faith he proves by Scriptures which is a Rule laid before us to prove his Divine Nature and Attributes which we ought to follow except we think we about such things know more than the Apostle And then Apollos whose great Commendation is that he was mighty in the Scriptures and that he mightily convinced the Jews publickly shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ So if we will convince Socinians that Christ is the true Natural Son of God we must do 't out of Scripture as out of the same Apollos did mightily convince the Jews that Jesus was Christ Besides we have the Example of a number of People I mean of Berea said to be more Noble than those of Thessalonica because they searched the Scriptures daily whether those things preached to them were so Thus we obey our blessed Saviours Command to Search diligently the Scriptures for they bear testimony of him And accordingly when he was with his Disciples he taught them out of the Law of Moses the Prophets and the Psalms all things written concerning him as after his Resurrection he put them in mind of it then he opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures without which no knowledge of him to be had and in these Matters the Question is about him his Person Besides that 't is usual as with Paul and the other Apostles so with the Evengelists out of Texts of the Old Testament to prove what they affirmed in the New nay in the Old we sometimes find one Prophet quoting some Texts of another and upon this very account of Sanctifying the Lord of Hosts the Messiah the Prophet sends the People to the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them without it their natural Reason is but Darkness I am blamed for using Sundry Metaphors called A Flourish of wild Rhetorick but if it was transplanted into their Garden it would be Natural enough there as indeed it would be in its proper center If sometimes I make use of Metaphors I wonder why they dislike it in some respect it may be called a Creature of their own for
did use the Superlative degree instead of the Positive But these are but Quibbles of your own which argues that seeing you stick at such things you have little else to say for your selves ye leave things for Words and like drowning Men lay hold upon any thing that lieth in your way to save a sinking Cause when no serious Man but would think it below himself to stay upon such things all your Observations and Inferences are an effect of a distemper'd Imagination and not of a sound Reason whereby you deserve the name of the Ridiculer ridiculed As well as you we know Essence to be one thing and Circumstance another but that were tolerable if ye did not as ye do jest with Holy things But I think to know where the Sore lieth ye do not like the words Essential nor Essence derivative nor primitive and tho' in the Schools of Divinity and Philosophy they be used yet ye dislike them because in so many Letters not to be found in Scripture but here you might see I use it not in a Religious but Civil account I own I am at a loss to find a way how to please such nice Spirits as ye are for of one side ye would not have us to use the words Essence Trinity Person because you say they are not in the word of God yet ye both find fault with me for making use of Scripture so much as I do against you in my Book So ye Gentlemen prodigies of Learning may now see which if you do not others do how ye sin against very common Rules what then will become of the four things you learned after you put your Wits to the rack to make others pass for Nonsensical Scriblers who hardly can write three words of good Sense Thus if your witty Premises do fall how can your learned Inferences stand These miserable Shifts which every solid Man would scorn to trouble his head with do tend only to shew how in you is an earnest desire but want of power to make others who differ from you to pass for Silly and Ridiculous so take to your selves what you had prepared for others But what 's all this to the Cause but a putting it off and running away from it Having shewed how when I penned my Epistle I thank God I was in my right Senses the next thing I must do is to prove my Charge against Socinianism which he calls false and disagreeing yet I make no doubt but it will stick First I call it Blasphemous and I shall prove it out of better Authority than that of the Polonian Knight or Bidle's or what the Reasons to the contrary of the Authors of both Letters can come to In order to 't I say there is a twofold Blasphemy one Positive when Men call or otherwise make God a Liar and to deny himself or the like and the other Negative when Men deny him to be Infinite Almighty or Eternal the first when God is made to be what he is not the second when he is deny'd to be what he is That Blasphemy is an abominable Injury directly against God's Nature Attributes or Works is so plainly and frequently set down in Scripture that I think unnecessary for me to prove it and if the same offence committed against God's Nature Attributes and Works be called Blasphemy and that committed against the Lord Jesus's Person be called Blasphemy it follows first that Jesus Christ is true God then secondly that whosoever denies Christ to be God in his Nature Attributes and Works he is a Blasphemer Now Socinianism denieth our Saviour Divine Nature and Essential Attributes of that Nature therefore Socinianism is a Blasphemous Opinion and Doctrine as much for denying Christ to be true God by Nature as by denying Divine Nature Almightiness and Eternity Now that the Sin called Blasphemy is sometimes committed against the Lord Jesus we learn it out of his own mouth upon the occasion of the Pharisees saying he did cast out Devils by Beelzebub the Prince of Devils this he called Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost the chiefest of all And when he was in the hands of the Jews the things by them done and spoken against him were by the Evangelist called Blasphemy and many other things spake they blasphemously against him Thus when the Jews spake against the things that were spoken by Paul and what were those things That Christ was the Son of God which to prove he made use of the words of Psalm 2. Thou art my Son c. in the proper Sense their speaking against this is call'd Contradicting and Blaspheming upon the same account in another place 't is said they opposed and blasphemed Thus Paul saith of himself he was before his Conversion a Blasphemer and compelled others to blaspheme that is to deny and speak ill of Christ so to say that Christ is not God of the same Nature and Power equal with the Father is as great a Blaspemy as to say he was or is a Sinner which any one that hath a religious Honour and Love for him and hopeth for Mercy at his hands when at the last day he shall appear in his Glory cannot and as much as in him lieth must not endure The next Charge against Socinianism is Atheism and Deism he doth couple them thinking to shew a Contradiction but there is none I say to worship the true God not in a true manner is Idolatry as well as to worship a false God Jeroboam for worshipping the true God in an undue manner is branded with Idolatry and provoked God as much as Ahab for worshipping Baal or a false God or else with Papists we must take away the Second Commandment In like manner I say not to know the true God in a true manner is Atheism as well as not to know him at all and the true way to know God is to know him in Christ without whom no true knowledge of God to that purpose the Apostle saith unto the Ephesians that at that time when they were without Christ they also were without God in the world That is they were Atheists and is it truly to know God in Christ only to know him there in a Creature seeing the very Heathens can tell us Praesentemque refert quae libet herba Deum and not rather as in him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily These fragments of Scripture please not Socinians for they not knowing God in Christ as his Eternal and Natural Father are thereby branded with Atheism As for Deism I take it in the Sense wherein it is taken now adays for a Deist is he who prefers Humane Reason before Faith and Revelation so you own my Charge is not a perfect Nonsense tho' in some degree you would have it still to be a Nonsense for you are pleased thus magisterially to decide Now I confess this sort of Charge is not so perfect a Nonsense as the other however I
great Thunder-claps which shall end like crackling of Thorns under the Pot. The ground of all this is my Humble Address to both Houses of Parliament that they would be pleased to take some care of the Cause of Christ and to put a curb upon his Enemies such I call those who would rob him of his Divine Nature and Attributes and attempt to overthrow the first Article of our Faith of One God in Three Persons There are some Men in the World that if one doth but look them in the Face they are apt to cry out Murther whether or not at that time a guilty Conscience flies into their Faces God knows That same may happen sometimes to disturb them so far as to make them grosly mistake in their Judgment as about Things so about Persons as they are very much in me who in my Heart and Opinion am as much against Persecution upon account of Religion and for a due regard to tender Consciences as any Man in the World When the Question is about indifferent and not very material things then for Peace and Charity 's sake Gentleness and Meekness ought to prevail but it must be otherwise when Fundamentals are not only shaken but overturned and when Religion it self is pulled up by the very root as 't is when humane Reason is made a standing Rule whereby to judge of Revelation when the Doctrines of the most Holy Trinity of the Satisfaction which the Lord Jesus hath by the Sacrifice of himself made for our Sins with other things thereupon depending and what Scriptures with the received Creeds of the Primitive Church do affirm about it and what our Church believes I say it ought to be otherwise when all these lie at stake and are blown up at oncâ— then or never 't is high time to speak out especially when we see how boldly and openly these things are carried on We use to say There is a difference between mad and stark staring mad People distemper'd in their Minds are dealt withal according unto the nature and degree of their Distemper some confin'd to their Chambers others to their Beds others bound and chained up The like we observe in the Distempers of the Politick Body he who rashly speaks ill of the Government deserves some Punishment but not so great as he who violently attempts to overthrow it or to destroy the Persons in whose hands God hath lodged the Power so it must be in spiritual Diseases which affect the Body of the Church and these several ways I mean when I speak of a true and proper Remedy whereof the applying depends upon the Skill of the Physician 't is not any effect of Cruelty to make Incisions and cut off dead Flesh out of a Wound to prevent a Gangrene nor to restrain People that have the Plague from coming among those that are free from it for fear of infecting them So 't is no Persecution to take care that Hereticks such all Orthodox Christian Churches take Socinians to be do not come in among those that are sound in the Faith This great Danger may in a due respect and humble way be represented to the superiour Power whose Office is to prevent and remedy Inconveniences This I humbly conceive to be a Branch of the Right of the Subject and it may not be called To prescribe them what to do they cannot be every where nor know every thing therefore stand in need of being informed this is the usual course of Justice for no Redress when no Complaint is made and I was so far from presuming to prescribe therein that in my Epistle pag. 18. I declare against it All that are no Socinians are agreed how their Tenets about the most holy Trinity are heretical and consequently contrary to the Doctrine of the Church as by Law established Now the Laws of the Land do forbid any thing to be published that is contrary to it it is known to all how Socinians do in Print and otherwise daily publish their blasphemous and heretical Opinions whereby they break the Law the Consequence is good to say they deserve to be punished as do all Law-Breakers and I hope they cannot pretend to come in within the Act of Indulgence tho they deny their Opinions to be heretical yet that 's not enough for them to be accounted innocent for 't is very rare to see a guilty Man when he is lyable to and sure of Punishment to confess his own Guilt yet his bare denyal doth not free him from it for if to deny was enough to clear no Man could be found guilty Both Authors of the Letters are very angry and much cry out against what I said about a Field of Honour which is in relation to the Cause to be defended against its Enemies and not to any capital Punishment which had been an imprudent thing of me and contrato my inclination to have suggested against Hereticks but these Gentlemen who often call me hot and fiery hastily skipp'd from the Second Page of my Epistle to the Seventeenth of the same to make the Field of Honour to be Smithfield These two things are written too far asunder to be joyned together as indeed there was in my thoughts nothing like Smithfield when I was insinuating that as God's Work is glorious so the occasion offer'd to promote it is as a Field of Honour as expressed in the place and what there I mentioned of one who for Socinianism suffered in Smithfield was not of my own but in consequence of a Citation out of Sir Thomas Ridley ' s View of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws where he saith Against such is provided Sentence of Death and there I gave two Instances how what he said had been executed Let any impartial Man peruse the places and they shall find it to be as I say and then may take notice how rash hasty and unjust are these Men who pretend to so much Calmness and Meekness of Spirit in making Reflections upon others who through God's Grace have a more Christian charitable frame of Spirit than themselves We indeed hate abominable Blasphemies and Heresies but neither Blasphemers nor Hereticks for some of them God if he pleases may shew Mercy and give Repentance unto their Conversion not their Ruin is wish'd for and also Endeavours are used to preserve others from being infected The true and short account of the business is this Things being in the state and condition as I represent in my Epistle and Preface I looked upon it as a Duty incumbent upon me as a Christian with what little strength God hath given me to lay it out in the Defence of the most just and best Cause in the World namely the due Honour of the most holy and adorable Trinity and the Divinity of our blessed Lord and Saviour and of the Holy Ghost which so many Legions of Martyrs have freely shed their Blood and gloriously laid down their Lives for I went not about to support it with enticing Words
already setled by Law you thereby introduce Confusion into the Church which may soon become Anarchy in the Government which to prevent in my humble Address to the Parliament I thought the Laws now in being about such things might be executed and if in their Wisdom they thought fit new ones be enacted What Papists believe or do as to Authority about Interpretation of Scriptures is no Rule nor Precedent for us there is a sad Experience in the World of the nature of the Spirit which they are acted by and of the Methods they have taken to support their spiritual Tyranny over the Consciences and Souls yea Lives of Men they made themselves Parties and Judges and would admit or hear of no Reasons contrary to theirs which were grounded not upon God's Word tho' in some things they pretend it but their own Traditions and Practice to their Church Now among us you find no such thing the Law is open for you if you take Scripture to be it whereof you sadly wrest the Words contrary to their natural Sense without giving any good Reason for it and you stand by your selves in defiance and opposition of the general Consent of the Universal Church which condemned those unsound Men when they appeared against the Person of our Saviour and Lord. And here I must say we no more than you receive the Authority of Antiquity or of Fathers upon their own bottom for we agree they were fallible when they said so and so but whether in so saying they spake truth is well worth enquiry into I will compare them with Scripture and if they agree with it I will agree with them And this is to me a strengthning Evidence that I am not singular seeing others as well as I could in the Word of God find those Truths which I do believe Wo be to him that is alone abounds in his own Sense and thinks he knows more than all the World besides for the application of Scripture Truths it may be every ones Right to direct himself by his own Reason enlightned by the Spirit as to the Explication a very great care ought to be had and still according to the Rule of God's Word with all the help he can get besides but when they have Opinions which they find are generally opposed People so modest so quiet and of the Character they give of themselves not to disturb others should keep it within themselves and not be so servent as ye are to spread it abroad whether your Zeal be without or against Knowledg And if every one who pretends to be a Member of the Church be so busie as ye are to promote their Opinions and no Curb be put upon Interpretations then no end of Heresie Blasphemy or of all sorts of the worst Opinions But before I proceed I think fit to pull down that Strong-hold of theirs as they take it to be tho' rather Sandy Foundation of a free liberty for every one to make what interpretations they please and that I shall the more willingly do tho' as briefly as I can because 't is a Matter controverted between them and us which I had no occasion to meddle with in my Book To begin I say as there is a Right so there is a false Interpretation of Scripture The Right is that which gives the true sense and meaning the False on the contrary Now if every private Man might Interpret Scripture what monstrous Interpretations would there be as we see it too much in the World and this is the ground of Heresy Blasphemy and Fanaticism which to prevent the Lord Jesus as St. Paul saith in those two places where he mentions the Offices in the Church hath settled Prophets and Teachers Every private Man may Read but not Interpret Scripture which in this Case is the first thing to be known For saith the Apostle knowing this first that no Prophecy of the Scripture is of any private Interpretation so the Interpretation must come from whence the Revelation came 't is but one and the same Spring therefore in the next Verse he clears the Matter For Prophecy came not in old time by the Will of Man but holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost which doth exclude as humane private Revelation so also humane private Interpretation And herein Paul joineth with Peter when he puts this Question Do all Interpret Which contains an Exclusive how all do not no more than all are no workers of Miracles Furthermore we must know how Scripture hath a binding Power not only directive but also decisive over the Conscience so that thereby the Conscience far from having that free liberty is tied and bound to the determination of the Word or else no Man that believes an Opinion contrary to sound Doctrine and never so heretical and blasphemous could be guilty of Sin But we are assured of the contrary for they who wrest the Scriptures do so unto their own destruction tho' a man must be very cautious not to go against his Conscience yet where there is a Competition between God and Man the Word of God and the Judgment of Man when each challenge of us a Consent we must give it the Word which certainly is true and infallible preferably before the Conscience which may be seduced and erroneous which happens often when 't is guided by humane Reason In Scripture is in matters of Faith a convincing and constraining Power which in Conscience we are bound to submit to in Humane things the Judge is not properly Judge except he Judges according to the Law for he hath no power to alter or corrupt but to declare the true sense of it The Interpretation of the Divine Law which the Question is now about may happen to be mistaken but the Law never for 't is Infallible as being the Word of the True and Infallible God hence is derived its Divine and Undisputable Authority beyond that of any thing else and it should work upon men more than Miracles even than raising from the Dead which may be called the greatest of all for they that hear not Moses and the Prophets will not be perswaded tho' one rose from the Dead The reason is because therein the Spirit of God speaks and thereby leads us into all Truth And indeed if Scripture was not the end of Debates in matters of Religion our Conscience could never be settled nor quiet for that same thing no Humane Reason Power or Judgment is able to effect but we aquiesce to rest and depend upon the Word of the God of Truth and if at the Bar of Conscience there was no such binding Rule but men were left to their own private Judgment none would be bound to believe Scripture but always live amidst Doubts Difficulties and Conjectures not to say singular Notions Fancies and Dreams and so we could never be at a certainty Besides that after this there were no Sin in any man to receive any
we do whence we conclude he is because he said so which if he were not he had asserted a Lye spoken Blasphemy and the Jews had been in the Right but seeing he said he was the Son of God he spoke the Truth which Socinians denying they bring the Lye and Blasphemy upon themselves and as good as say as the Jews did to Pilate He ought to die because he made himself the Son of God John 19 7. The other Text to prove how the Name Son of God when spoken of Christ signifies God is this Lazarus's Sickness was for the glory of God that the Son of God might be glorified thereby We may see how the word God is explained by that of Son of God So that whether the name God be taken Essentially or Personally still the Person of the Son is God for therein is but One Glory of God and of the Son of God the Father is glorified in the Son if they have one equal and common Glory then they have a common and equal Nature for we know the true and eternal Almighty God hath said My Glory will I not give to another In my Book I at large have asserted this Divine Filiation of the Lord Jesus with the manner of it and thereunto expected an Answer if they had been willing and able to give it That Divine and Proper Sonship and his Godhead John in several places of his Gospel and Epistles both as his own belief and in the very words of our blessed Lord in those Comparisons which he so often makes between himself and the Father lays it so clear that for an unprejudiced mind there is no ground left to doubt of it the Pronoun possessive My in the Singular number joined with Father which so frequently he makes use of doth denote the Singular Nature of his Sonship and distinguish it from every other Kind I shall mention only what when he was but Twelve Years old upon the occasion of his being found in the Temple asking the Doctors of the Law Questions and Mary having said Son why hast thou thus dealt with us He answered Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business The meaning of which they understood not as the Evangelist observes he thereby signified another kind of Filiation that what had any relation to Mary As according to the Flesh he was her true and proper Son because begotten of her own Substance so in relation to the Spirit and Deity he is God's own and proper Son because begotten of the Substance of the Father If there be any such as certainly there is and in the Chapter about his Eternal Generation I sufficiently proved it then ye Socinians cannot deny the Lord Jesus to be He and if he be not the proper Son of the Father as the Apostle affirms he is then God the Father is not properly a Father for the works of Grace do not properly make one a Father but it must be the work of Nature of Humane in Men of Divine in God Humane Nature may receive some Divine Gifts but only thus much as it is capable of within certain bounds and degrees or else it were to make Humanity to be Deity But Christ hath not the Spirit by Measure or by Grace but by Nature and Infinitely in him which no Finite being such is every Creature is capable of the reason is because in Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Thus he must necessarily be God primarily and not derivatively or in part only for Divine Nature is indivisible either wholly God with all Attributes of the Godhead or no God at all No Creature Man Angel or Arch-Angel can have all the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him because none of them is the Infinite God But since all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in the Person of Christ he must needs be God Infinite for all this fulness of the Godhead is a fulness of Nature of the Essential Attributes of that same Nature of Immensity Power Eternity and of any thing else proper to that Nature If in the whole Word of God there was no other Text but this to prove the Godhead of our Saviour it were sufficient to do 't it being so positive so full and so plain All is an Absolute word to be taken without any restriction or limitation whatsoever All Fulness What more can be said Of the Godhead What more Divine and Expressive But what upon the matter remains in the same place is this Whether a God and a God and a God do not amount to more than One God To take the thing as I ought and not as some others do I say that your Arithmetick in this doth fail and deceive you wherefore believe Revelation before your Reason which indeed may tell you how in humane and finite things One One and One make Three but Revelation which contradicteth not it self calls the Father God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God the same also saith there is but One God A Divine Nature common to Three Persons doth imply Three Persons but no more than One God which is One Divine Nature subsisting in Three Persons and Three Persons existing in One Nature Must I with Scripture conclude that Father Son and Holy Ghost are but One God or with your Arithmetick and Reason that they are Three Gods make but your Reason first agree with Revelation and then you and I shall agree so that the Dispute is more between your Reason and Scripture than between you and me But surely with me Gods Word is of greater Authority than your Reason ye must not suffer your Reason that Ignis fatuus to wander from the Rule Do you know what Solomon saith He that trusteth in his own heart is a Fool if you know it not I tell you and your Partner he speaks to you when he saith Cease from thine own Wisdom or Reason Now having done with this I must go back where I left and there shall find things of another nature you call Enemies to the common Rights and Liberties of Humane Nature Those who permit not every one a free liberty to make Interpretations and Inferences for themselves from Scriptures and this you ground on a false Supposition that Both the Word of God and the best means of understanding it are Originally and Vncontroulably given to every Man For Scripture and Experience convince us that every Man hath not the Word not Means to understand it and therefore 't is neither Originally nor Uncontroulably given to every Man this is a truth which elsewhere I made good and shall by Gods grace be ready again to do upon occasion But besides that it would require some time this is no place to do 't and I ever avoid going from the Question However this I say that ye go upon a Principle destructive to Order if every one must be allowed to believe and profess what he pleases tho' never so
still lay under the Lash for it is a silly Calumny as you say yet 't is no Calumny but a Truth and that no silly one I shall anon take notice of your Stile Deism is not only an absolute denial of all Revelation but also 't is a giving the preference to Humane Reason before Revelation which is done when you set up your own Reason to be a Judge of Revelation and here I hold you fast for else you would give the Slip. Tho' you have not the face to deny Christian Religion to be of Divine Institution yet your own Reason which your Brother calls the only Guide which God hath given us to Judge and Interpret that Revelation you exalt above it Is not this to set up a Tribunal over and above the Word of an Infallible God and to make your poor silly Humane Reason the Oracle or Revealer of the true Sense of that Revelation So I leave you to refute this Charge of Deism as well as you can the Racovian Catechism shall afford you no help except you mince it as you use to do other things which by and by I shall by the Grace of God take notice of A Deist we call him who makes a God of his own reason as you do that is sets up a false God now between such a one and an Atheist there is not the direct opposition which you imagine for in these Times Deist is taken in an ill Sense and in a way of Reproach but to believe a God is no Reproach and ought to be taken in a favourable Sense so 't is the use of the words that shews their signification Besides as there are two sorts of Atheists the one in Theory the other in Practice for as there is a Fool whom David speaks of who saith in his heart there is no God so there is a Fool that saith so in his Actions and lives as if there was no God The like we say of Deists some are Speculative such as believe as you do their own Reason to be the only guide in Matters of Religion others are Practical Deists who accordingly own no other Sense of Scripture but what is their own Interpretation And others through-paced I may add who are both Practical and Theorical Deists and I make no doubt but that ye know well where they live tho' you question much whether we have any of these Socinians in England Profaneness and Immorality follow next Profaneness I call a handling of Holy things without a due Respect which in a high degree is the guilt of Socinians as in several places of my Book I made it plainly appear how bold and sawcy are they with God's Word How contrary to the analogy of Faith the design of the Spirit of God and the natural usual and proper signification of the Words do they wrest Scripture to make it serve their own turn They irreverently use it as a Stalking-Horse to answer their ends and by forcing unusual and far-off-fetch'd Interpretations as much as in them lieth would make it contradict it self This and prefering Humane before Spiritual and Heavenly things like Esau whom Scripture calleth a profane person for selling his birth-right for a morsel of meat I brand with the name of Profaneness and shall not I call so the Preference which you give your Humane Reason above Divine Revelation when you make it to be the Judge of it In some places of your Letters your own Example is a proof of Profaneness attending on Socinianism let the particular of your Jesting at the Name of Christ's mystical Body to signifie the Church serve for all you cannot be but wilfully ignorant how in several places of Scripture an express mention is made of the Body of Christ whereof we are said to be the Members and Christ is called the Head of the Church and the Saviour of the Body This cannot be spoken of his Natural Body which now is in Heaven so it must be of another Body of his and that 's our being in him by Faith and he in us by his Spirit which Scripture calls a Mystery so in Scripture Phrase we may call that a Mystical Body without giving profane Men cause to Jest at it as you do God's Name saith David is Holy and Reverend but ye make bold to profane it As for Immorality it consists both in Words and Actions Carriage and Conversation so that tho' one was not an Immoralist either in every Kind or in every Degree if it be but in one 't is enough to denounce him an Immoralist As for Me who neither have nor desire to have any Society with the professed Enemies or false Friends of Christ I do not meddle with their Actions for 't is not my business but leave every one to God besides that I ever avoid as much as I can making or medling with Persons only with Things But I say that Profaneness is usually attended with Immorality for commonly Sins go by couples and he who is so profane as to Jest with God and his Word is soon drawn to that jesting foolish talking and filthiness which the Apostle joineth together And you may know how Paulus Samosatenus Bishop of Antioch one of your first and great Ringleaders kept young Wenches and allowed his Clergy to do the like Tho' the Persecuting Accuser as I am call'd have not the Wit of Machiavel nor of his Villains yet he hath Truth on his side which is better And the Negative Argument how neither the Racovian Catechism nor Socinian Author hath written so cannot put off the Blow indeed Men must wholly have forfeited common Sense and Reason who in their Writings and in the face of the Sun will set up for Champions of Profaneness Immorality Atheism Impiety Blasphemy or Idolatry But what they do not plainly express is often drawn by good and lawful Consequence in any of your Books you do not say ye are Profane but out of what you say in your Two Letters how that as to your selves you are the Judges of Scripture and that your Reason is your only Guide in giving such Interpretation as ye think fit is not this to make bold with Holy things Tho' I had no other Evidence which yet I am full of I say that only is a sufficient ground for me to conclude your Principles to be Profane which make you prefer your own Reason before the Teaching of the Holy Ghost out of that same Scripture and those who embraced your Principles are thereby led into Profaneness What you say about the Means used by some Men to promote Heresies by high pretences to Piety and Vertue may be true and what I say too every Bait is not proper for every sort of Fish so Men have several ways to get Proselytes according to the several Tempers of those whom they would draw to themselves do but find the predominant Passion of a Man and except God be pleased to strengthen him ye
thing we go about we are to call upon God for his help and the gracious influence of his Holy Spirit being sure that without it we can do no good and we be sufficiently taught in Scripture to trust to no strength or abilities of our own and when in the World we meet with Men of Principles contrary to these we find it not strange for we know that there must be also Heresies among us or those called Christians that they which are approved may be made manifest among us Wherefore as long as we have about these Matters such a Foundation as Paul the great Preacher of Free Grace hath laid we need not to care for all Exceptions or Cavils of Men or Devils These are such Truths as we hope through Grace never to be ashamed or afraid to own unto the end even to lay down our Lives as he did his for so Glorious a Cause The Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and his Grace are so linked together that no Man strikes at one but the other feels it tho' may be in a different degree they have a common Enemy so he who is against one is against both which I positively affirm of Socinians Grace and Truth saith the Evangelist came by Jesus Christ who coming into the World brought Grace along with him for he is the Spring of it which he manifested in framing and redeeming of his Church the Foundation whereof and of our Christian Religion lies in this great and fundamental Truth whereof Peter made a Confession how Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God upon the verity whereof there our Saviour declared that his Church should be built and at the same time signified that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it For this is the House built upon a Rock which tho' the Rain descendeth and the Floods come and the Wind blows yet it falls not for it is founded upon a Rock In that Promise of his the Lord Jesus declares two things First The Gates that is the Power of Devils in Hell would afterwards make some attempt against that fundamental Truth of his being the Son of the living God As indeed it hath from time to time raised its strongest Batteries against it as not long after his Ascension even in the life time of his beloved Disciple and after his death the Assaults began by Simon the Sorcerer Ebion Cerinthus Menander and afterwards by other Hellish Instruments But in Arius's time great strugglings happened with so prodigious a success that all the World was said to be Arian hence came the Saying All the World against Athanasius and Athanasius against all the World so afterwards for the same Cause against our Saviour's Divinity several fought under the Banners of Hell as now tho' more cunningly Socinians do having taken up the Cudgels and as those Blasphemous Opinions were exploded out of the World so shall be in God's due time those which are raging for the present notwithstanding all the Craftiness Malice and Power of Hell and all Antichrists of Devils and Men This my so positively speaking is grounded upon Christ's Promise how the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the truth of his being the Son of the living God which his Church is built upon and this is the Second thing not only deduced from but plainly contained in those words of the Lord Jesus whose Person is a fit Object of Adoration as his Grace is of Admiration These Truths one may abundantly be satisfied with out of Scripture which I much have made use of because some places prove a Truth directly others collaterally and others are brought in to illustrate and give a light to the thing so that Scripture is of several uses nothing therein without some use 't is of it as of the Rivers in the Garden of Eden they all did not run one and the same way But now to conclude I in the first place put you in mind to Answer my Book and then take this Occasion which you give me in case ye knew it not before to acquaint you how upon those Matters I have written a Book hitherto Unanswered if you have such an aversion for them as you express do but give us in Print your Thoughts about it 't is a fair Field I offer you but be not afraid for 't is not Smithfield but if ye can defend that Cause no better than the Socinian about the Holy Trinity and Person of the Lord Jesus then it will be in you but Time and Labour lost in vain And if you go about it be more Serious in a Business of so high a nature and less Virulent and Malicious For shame leave off Jesting with Holy things and let it be without giving ill Language for therein I yield you know to do 't more than my self and write like Scholars and Gentlemen without breaking the Bonds of Humanity with Arguments as hard as ye please but softer Words and make no more haste than good speed if ye come in that way then by the Grace of God I will fairly Answer you in the like manner and tho' already there is Work enough cut for you I doubt more than ye are well able to compass yet several new Arguments I have to bring in but if in the usual Scolding Reviling way I will leave you to chew your Cud May be your Bantering way of Writing hath succeeded against some but be not mistaken with others it will never do come with good Arguments and then I am for you however come which way you will I declare I shall not in the least care whether you come asunder or both together FINIS BOOKS Printed for J. Hartley THE Blasphemous Socinian Heresie Disproved and Confuted c. With Animadversions on Mr. Toland's Christianity not Mysterious Dedicated to both Houses of Parliament By J. Gailhard Gent. Verdicts of the Learned concerning Virgil and Homer's Heroic Poems Regular and Irregular Thoughts in Poets and Orators Page 18. Page 15. Page 4. Page 3. Gal. 4. 18. Rev. 3. 15. Page 3. Luke 16. 8. pag. 59. 1 Cor. 2. 4 5. Acts 15. Eccles 4. 10. * 1 Cor. 12. 28. and Ephes 4. ii 2 Pet. 1. 20 21. 1 Cor. 12. 30. 2 Pet. 3. 16. Luke 16. 31. Luke 20. 38. 2 Cor. ii 8. 1 Cor. 2. 12 13. Ephes 1. 16 17 18. Colos 1. 9. 1 Cor. 15. 58. Coloss 2. 7. Heb. 13. 9 1 John 4. 1. 2 Pet. 3. 16. Page 8. Page 4. 16 18. 1 Cor. 7. 7. Acts 17. 2. Acts 28. 23. 1 Cor. 15. 34. Acts 1â— 24 28. Chap. 17. 11. Luke 24. 44. Ver. 45. Isa 8. 20. Matt. 7 5. Pag. 6 7. Job 13. 4. Psal 74. 22. John 20. 31. pag. 6 8 pag. 11. Acts 2â— 3. Matth. 16. 17. John 14. 16 17. Chap. 16. 13 14. 2 Tim. 1. 7. Psal 119. 169. pag. 8. 2 Tim. 3. 16. 1 John 1 2. 1 Cor. 2. 15. 1 Tim. 3 16. Gal. 4. 4. Rom. 8. 32. p. 12 13. John 10. 33 36. John 14. 10. Chap. 11. 4. Isa 42. 8. Luke 2. 49. 50. Coloss 2. 9. Prov. 28. 26. Chap. 23. 4. p. 9 10. In 1565. and 1660. pag. 39. p. 6. 13. Page 14 2 Tim. 2. 25. pag 30. John 16 2 3. Joh. 8. 19. 1 John 2. 23. Matt. 3. 17. and 17. 5. Joh. 12. 28 Joh. 5. 37. Joh. 8. 43. Acts 3. 22 23. 2 Pet. 1. 16 17 18. John 10. 3 4 5. 2 Cor. 11. 13 14. page 17. pag. 19. pag. 18. Matt. 1â— 31. Luke 22. 65. Acts 13. 33 45. 1 Tim. 1. 13. Acts 26. 11. Ephes 2. 12. Coloss 2. 9. pag. 19. Psal 53. 1. pag. 22. Heb. 12. 16. pag. 25. Rom. 12. 5. 1 Cor. 6. 15. Coloss 1. 24. Ephes 5. 23 32. Psal 111. 9. Ephes 5. 4. pag. 20. Matt. 11. 27. Rom. 1. 21 c. John 8. 55. Chap. 14. 7. 2 Cor. 4. 6. pag. 21. pag. 18. 1 Pet. 4. 18. p. 22 33. p. 33. â—9 Rev. 2. 9. 3. 9. p. 7. p. 22. pag. 33. Lev. 5. 1. Deut. 19. 21. Lev. 24. 16 23. p. 25. p. 27. p. 18. p. 4. p. 27. p. 28. p. 29. p. 30. p. 30. Num. 16. 7. p. 31. p. 28. p. 33. p. 40. Rom. 2. 1. Coloss 4. 6. 1 Pet. 3. 15. pag. 42 43. Acts 19. 19. p. 31. Gen. 16. 12. Josh 7. 2 Sam. 21. 1. Joel 2. 25. Rom. 1. 32. Monday May 17. p. 36. p. 37. p. 14. p. 37. p. 38. p. 26 29. Acts 26. 11. p. 28. p. 35. p. 33. p. 41. p. 18. Phil. 4. 5. Luke 18. 11 12 13. Prov. 3. 5. John 1. 17. Matt. 16. 18. Chap. 7. 24 25. A Plea for Free Grace against Free-will * p. 9 20 33.