IT seems to me, that Mr. Ed­wards, printing his Causes of Atheism, whilst the Reasona­bleness of Christianity was newly publish'd, was put upon it by his Bookseller, to add some Ex­ceptions against that Treatise so much noted for its Heterodoxy; that so the Sale of his own Tract might be the more promoted: whence it comes to pass, that his Notes being writ in haste, are not so well digested as might be ex­pected from a Person of his Learn­ing and Ingenuity. In pag. 104. he takes notice of A PLAUSIBLE CONCEIT, which hath been grow­ing up a considerable Time, &c. but tells not his Reader what that Conceit was, till he hath charged it upon a very Learned and famous Author, whom he is pleased to call a wavering Prelate, and another of the same Order, and a Third of a lower Degree; but more particu­larly, fully and distinctly, upon the late Publisher of The Reasonable­ness of Christianity, &c. Here at length in his next Page, he tells us, That this Author gives IT us over and over again, in these formal words, viz. That nothing is required to be believed by any Christian Man but this, THAT JESƲS IS THE MESSIAH. I think if he had not been in haste, he would have ci­ted at least two or three of those Pages, wherein we might find those formal Words, but he has not one, and I do not remember where they are to be found; for I am almost in as much haste as Mr. Edwards, and will not seek for them. It's true, he says, That all that was to be believed for Justifica­tion, or to make a Man a Chri­stian, by him that did already be­lieve in, and worship one true God, maker of Heaven and Earth, was no more than this single Proposi­tion, That Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ or the Messiah. But then he takes to be included in this Proposition, 1. All synonimous Ex­pressions, such as, the Son of God; The King of Israel; The sent of God; He that should come, He of whom Moses and the Prophets did write; The Teacher come from God, &c. 2. All such Ex­pressions as shew the manner of his being the Christ, Messiah, or [Page 6] Son of God, such as his being con­ceived by the Holy Ghost and Power of the most High; his be­ing anointed with the Holy Ghost and Power; his being sanctified and sent into the World; his be­ing raised from the Dead, and ex­alted to be a Prince and Saviour after the time he was so, &c. 3. Such Expressions as import the great Benefits of his being the Mes­siah; as having the Words of E­ternal Life; his having Power from the Father to remit Sins, to raise the Dead, to judg the World; to give eternal Life; to send the H. Spirit upon the Apostles where­by they might work Miracles, and preach the Light of Life to Jews and Gentiles, and the like. For all those Quotations of Scripture which the Author (as Mr. Ed­wards observes) has amassed toge­ther out of the Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles, which take up about three quarters of his Book, for the proof of his Proposition, are in­deed expository of the meaning of that Proposition, and are in­cluded in it. Not that it was ne­cessary that every one, who be­lieved the Proposition, should un­derstand and have an explicite Faith of all those particulars: for nei­ther the Believers during the Life of Christ, nor the Apostles them­selves understood many of them, no nor presently after his Death and Resurrection; for they had still divers erroneous Opinions concerning the Nature of his Kingdom, and the preaching to the Gentiles, and other things. And in the beginning of Christ's preaching, though Philip believ'd that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, the King of Israel; yet he seems to be ignorant of his be­ing born of a Virgin, for he calls him the Son of Joseph, John 1. 45. But as he that believes that Wil­liam the 3d is the true King of England, &c. believes enough to make him a good Subject, though he understands not all the grounds of his Title, much less all his Power and Prerogatives that be­long to him as King: So he that believes upon good Grounds that Jesus is the Messiah, and under­stands so much of this Propositi­on as makes him, or may make him a good Subject of Christ's Kingdom, though he be ignorant of many things included in that Proposition, he has all the Faith necessary to Salvation, as our Au­thor has abundantly proved.

But Mr. Edwards says, This Gen­tleman forgot, or rather wilfully omit­ted a plain and obvious Passage, in one of the Evangelists, GO TEACH ALL NATIONS, &c. Mat. 28. 19. From which it is plain (says he) that all that are adult Members of the Christian Church, must be Taught as well as Baptiz'd into the Faith of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and then they must be­lieve it: and consequently more is required to be believed by Christian Men, than that Jesus is the Messiah. [Page 7] He infers from this, You see it is part of the Evangelical Faith, and such as is necessary, absolutely neces­sary to make one a Member of the Christian Church, to believe a TRI­NITY in Ʋnity in the God-head; or, in plainer Terms, that though God is one as to his Essence and Nature, yet there are three Persons in that Di­vine Essence, and that these three are really the one God. I must con­fess, that if Mr. Edwards's reason­ing be good, the Author is total­ly confuted, three quarters of his Book at least are writ in vain, and the old Systems must stand good; and the Bulk of Mankind will cer­tainly be damned, or it will be a wonder if any of them be faved. But give me leave to tell him I do not see, what he says we do see: that Text will well enough consist with our Author's Proposition. For I would ask him, whether the Apostles follow'd this Commission or not: If they obey'd it, then in Baptizing in the Name of Jesus the Messiah, and exhorting those to whom they preached, to be baptiz'd in the Name of the Mes­siah, after their preaching the Messiah to them, they did in ef­fect baptize in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, other­wise they did not pursue their Commission; for we never find them baptizing in those express Terms, but always in the Name of Jesus the Messiah, or the Lord Jesus, or the Lord, and the like. So that Mr. Edwards must either charge the Holy Apostles with Ig­norance of, or Disobedience to their Lord's Command, or ac­knowledg that they did really baptize in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, when they did but expres­ly baptize in the Name of the Son or Messiah; forasmuch as all that were so baptiz'd, did believe in the Father of that Son of God, as implied in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost, as the Anointing of the Son, and which also was given to those that were so baptiz'd. But as for his Inference, viz. That it's absolutely necessary to believe a Trinity in Ʋnity in the Godhead; or that God is one as to his Essence and Nature, yet there are three Persons in that Divine Essence, and that these three Persons are really the one God: This will condemn not only the Unitarians, and the Bulk of Mankind, but the greater part of Trinitarians, the Learned as well as the Vulgar. For all the real Trinitarians do not believe one Essence, but three Numerical Es­sences. Here Dr. Sherlock, Dr. Cudworth, the Bishop of Gl. the late Arch-bishop, Mr. H—w, and all that hold as the Council of Nice did, with that Council it self, and the whole Church (except some Hereticks) for many Centu­ries, are by Mr. Edwards expung'd out of the Catalogue of Christian Believers, and consequently con­demn'd to the horrible Portion of Infidels or Hereticks. The My­stery-men, [Page 8] or Ignoramus Trinitari­ans, they are condemn'd too; for they admit not any Explication, and therefore not Mr. Edwards's. There remains only Dr. South, and Dr. Wallis, and the Philosopher Hobbs, who (Mr. Edwards says) is the great Master and Lawgiver of the profess'd Atheists, pag. 129. and that Party which have the abso­lutely necessary Faith of three Persons in one Essence. But if you ask these Men what they mean by three Persons: Do they mean according to the common sense of Mankind, and especially of the English Nation, three singular in­tellectual Beings? No, by no means, that is Tritheism, they mean three Modes in the one God, which may be resembled to three Postures in one Man; or three ex­ternal Relations, as Creator, Re­deemer, Sanctifier; as one Man may be three Persons, a Husband, a Father and a Master. This is that Opinion of Faith, which the Antients made Heresy, and Sabellius the Head of it. Thus it is abso­lutely necessary to make a Man a Christian, that he be a Sabellian Heretick. But perhaps Mr. Ed­wards may be of Mr. H—w's Mind, for he says, These three Persons are really the one God; but then, no one of them singly is so, but eve­ry one a Third of God: If so, Mr. Edwards is indeed a Unitari­an, for he gives us one God only; but then he is no Trinitarian, for he has put down the Father him­self from being God singly, and so the Son and Holy Ghost.

As to what he says of being Baptized into the Faith and Wor­ship of none but the only true God, that has been answer'd a hundred times. He cannot look into any of the Unitarian Books, but he will find a sufficient Answer to that Inference. Were the Israelites bap­tiz'd into the Worship of Moses? but they were baptized into Moses, 1 Cor. 10. 2. Or when the Apo­stle Paul supposes he might have baptized in his own Name; Did he mean that he should have baptized into the Worship of himself as the most high God?

Then Mr. Edwards minds his Reader, that the Author had left out also that famous Testimony in Joh. 1. 1. In the beginning was the Word [Jesus Christ] and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Whence (saith he) we are obliged to yield assent to this Article, That Christ the Word is God. Here Mr. Edwards must mean that this is a Fundamental Article, and necessary to Salva­tion; otherwise he says nothing against his Author, who has pre­vented his urging any other Text, not containing a Fundamental, in his Answer to the Objection from the Epistles and other Scriptures. For (saith he) pag. 299. They are Objects of Faith—They are Truths, whereof none that is once known to be such may be disbelieved. But yet a great many of them, every one [Page 9] does, and must confess a Man may be ignorant of; nay disbelieve, with­out Danger to his Salvation: As is evident in those who allowing the Au­thority, differ in the Interpretation and Meaning of several Texts.—Ʋnless Divine Revelation can mean contra­ry to it self. The whole Paragraph ought to be read, which I have a­bridged. And if this Text of John 1. 1. be not one of those, that by reason of its difficulty and va­riety of Senses, may not be dis­believ'd in Mr. Edwards's Sense, then I will be bold to say, There's no such Text in the whole Bible. To it I say, 1. He dares not trust his Reader with the clear Text, but thrusts in his own Sense, In the beginning was the Word (Jesus Christ:) and then 2. Makes his Fundamental Article not from the Text, but from what he has in­serted into the Text thus, Christ the Word is God. But will Mr. Edw. stick to that? Is he of Socinus's Mind, that by the Word is meant the Man Jesus Christ, born of the Blessed Virgin, and anointed with the Holy Ghost? I think he is not. Or does he mean that Christ was the First-born of every Creature, as he is called, Col. 1. 14. The begin­ning of the Creation of God, Rev. 3. 14. By whom God made the Worlds, and is therefore a God? I think Mr. Edw. might be call'd an Ari­an, if that were his Sense. What then does he mean? He does not mean that either the Body or Soul, or both united to constitute a Man, or the Anointing of the Holy Ghost added to that Man, was the Word; though by reason of those he had the Name of Je­sus, and by reason of this he had the Name of Christ. He means by the Word, a second Person or Mode of God. Now how fairly he calls this second Person a Mode of God, Jesus Christ, when it was nei­ther Jesus nor Christ, nor any part of him, let his Reader judg. In the beginning was the Word] that is, (according to him) before the Beginning, and therefore from Eternity, God in a second Mode or Person did exist: and the Word was with God] i. e. God in the se­cond Mode was present with God, even himself in the first Mode or Person: and the Word was God] i. e. God in his second Mode was him­self; or otherwise, was the Father himself and the Holy Ghost; for he tells us before, that the three Persons [or Modes] are really the one God: but if the Word is really the one God, as Mr. Edw. understands the Term God in this Text, then the Word is the three Persons, or else he is not really the one God, which the three Persons only are. Now if this be a clear Text to build an Article necessary to Salvation, and the Worship of another Almighty and only wise Person upon, besides the God and Father of our Lord Je­sus Christ; let all that have any reverence for God or his Gospel judg! Besides, can he alledg one [Page 10] Text out of all the Old Testa­ment, or out of the three former Gospels, where ever by the WORD or Logos (as they love to speak) is meant any such preexistent e­ternal Person? If there be none such, it seems to be no little De­fect in the Holy Scriptures, that the World should be 4000 Years old, before any part of it heard any thing of a second personal God, equal to the First, and who had therefore as much Right to be known and worshipped as the First: Nay, and that that Person, the Word, should have no mention made of him in the Gospels or Sermons of Christ or the Apostles till above threescore Years after the Ascension; for it for it was so long (as Ecclesiastical Historians tell us) before the Gospel of the Apostle John was written, all the Churches and Believers we read of in Scripture, having been ga­ther'd and converted before.

Next Mr. Edw. tells us (p. 107.) there is added in verse 14. another indispensable point of Faith, viz. That the Word was made Flesh, i. e. That God was incarnate, the same with 1 Tim. 3. 16. God manifest in the Flesh.

One would have expected that Mr. Edw. undertaking in short to confute a Proposition, that the Author had spent three quarters of his Book (which consists of 300 Pages) in proving; and for which he had alledg'd perhaps an hun­dred clear Texts of Holy Scrip­ture, should have produc'd some clear Texts against him, and not such as need Explanations; and when he has explain'd them, leaves them far more difficult than be­fore. We have spoken already of the Word that was said to be God in the first verse of that Chapter; and now in the 14th the Word must signify God: but, 1. Are not the same Words and Terms taken in different sen­ses in the same Context, and that too, when they come nearer to­gether than at thirteen verses di­stance? Thus the word Light in ver. 5. signifies an impersonal Thing; but in the 7, 8, and 9th verses, it denotes a Person, which John was not, but Jesus was, to wit, the Revealer of the Word or Gospel. 2. The Father was God too, and if God was Incar­nate, how will it be avoided that the Father was Incarnate? And if it cannot, then Mr. Edw. will be a Patripassian Heretick. 3. It must be acknowledged, that Mr. Edw. has given a wonderful learned Ex­planation of the Phrase —was made Flesh; far more Learned than that of the old Justice —In­vasion is Invasion. The Vulgar and Unlearned may understand something, when it is said that one Thing is made another Thing, as when Water was made Wine: but I doubt they will stare and know nothing, when one tells 'em that a Person was Incarnate; much more when they read Mr. Edw. [Page 11] saying, That God was Incarnate, will they not gladly return from the Explanation to the Text? and then it will run thus, God was made Flesh. But was God indeed turn'd into Flesh, and ceased to be God, as the Water turn'd into Wine ceased to be Water? I'm sure Mr. Edw. never intends to make that an indispensable Point of Faith, as he calls this, That God was Incarnate. But this is a very hard case, that the generality of the World (which God so loved, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting Life) their Salvation or Damnation should still depend on the belief of, not only obscure Texts, but of much more obscure Interpretations of those Texts. Whether shall we go for the Sense of God was In­carnate? He sends us to 1 Tim. 3. 16. God manifest in the Flesh. But he might know that that reading of the Word GOD in that Text is a Corruption, and that instead of God was read which in the Council of Nice, as the accurate Examination against Mr. Milbourn has fully prov'd; however allow­ing that reading, has given a ra­tional Sense of it. Thus we are sent for the Sense of an obscurer Interpretation of an obscure Text, to a corrupt One. Whither shall we go next? It's very like that Mr. Edw. may next time send us to the Athanasian Creed, when the Scriptures fail him; That Creed saith, It is necessary to everlasting Salvation, that one believe rightly the INCARNATION of our Lord Jesus Christ,—That he is God and Man—perfect God and perfect Man—One Christ, not by Conversion of the Godhead into Flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God: So then the sense of the Word was made Flesh, will be this, God was Incarnate, that is, not by being made Flesh or Man, but by taking Man into God; that is, God is now perfect God and Man. Well, but since God is a Person, and Man ano­ther Person; perfect God and per­fect Man must unavoidably be two Persons: but this is the He­resy of Nestorius Arch-Bishop of Constantinople, An. Dom. 428. but how shall we help it? For to be­lieve God and Man not to be two Persons, we directly contradict our Belief of God's being perfect God and perfect Man. If we say with Apollinarius, An. Dom. 370. That God and Man are not two Persons but one, because the Man had no Human Soul or Under­standing, then we contradict God's being a perfect Man, and are con­demn'd to eternal Damnation, as Apollinarian Hereticks. And if for solving these Difficulties, we should think good to hold, that indeed there were two Natures in Christ when God was made Flesh, but upon the Union the Human was swallowed up of the Divine, and so there was one Nature made of two; then we incur the [Page 12] Anathema of the Eutichian Here­ticks.

‘And it follows (saith Mr. Edw.) in the same verse of this first Chapter of St. John, that this Word is the only begotten of the Father; whence we are bound to believe the Eternal, tho ineffable, Generation of the Son of God.’

Answ. Could Mr. Edw. be so weak as to think any Body but one deeply prejudiced, would ap­prove of either of his Inferences from that Clause? either the E­ternal Generation, or that we are bound to believe it as an Article necessary to Salvation? Does he not know that Jesus is the only Son of God, by reason of that Gene­ration which befel him in Time? Does he read of any other Son that God generated of a Virgin but Jesus? See Luke 1. 35. Did God ever sanctify and send into the World in such a Measure and Man­ner, any that were called Gods or Sons of God, as he did Jesus our Lord? See John. 10. 35, 36, 37, 38. and Chap. 3. 34. Did he ever give such Testimony to any other? Did God ever beget any other Son by raising him from the Dead to an immortal Life (Acts 13. 33.) by anointing him with the Oil of Gladness above his Fellows, Heb. 1. 9. By setting him on his Right­hand, making him to inherit a more excellent Name than Angels, even that of SON in a more excellent Sense, Heb. 1. 3, 4, 5. By glori­fying Christ, making him an High-Priest, saying unto him, Thou art my Son, this Day have I begotten thee? Is not Isaac call'd the only begotten Son of Abraham, though Abraham had other Sons? But for Mr. Edw's Eternal Generation, there is not one Tittle either in this Text, or in all the Bible; and yet he has the Confidence to bind the Belief of it upon Mankind, upon pain of Damnation: I wish he would not be so rash, but more reverent in so tremendous a Point.

Next, he finds our Author faul­ty in not taking notice, that we are commanded to believe the Father and the Son, John 14. 10, 11. and that the Son is in the Father, and the Fa­ther in the Son, which expresses their Ʋnity. Wonderful! Did our Au­thor indeed take no notice that we are commanded to believe the Father and the Son? when he all along in his Treatise makes the Messiah, Christ, Son of God, terms synonimous, and that signify the same thing; and cites abundance of Texts to that purpose; so that the belief of the Father & the Son, is required by him in the whole three quarters of his Book, which Mr. Edw. takes notice he spent in proving his Proposition. Did Mr. Edw. write these Remarks? Or did some body else add them to his Book of the Causes of Atheism? As for the Ʋnity of the Father and Son, exprest he says by these words, The Son is in the Father, and the [Page 13] Father in the Son; Does he think his Reader never read that Text in John 17. 21. That they [Be­lievers] all may be one, as thou Fa­ther art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, with ver. 23. Or that other Text, 1 John 4. 16. He that dwelleth in Love, dwelleth in God, and God in him? But for the word Ʋnity, which he uses, if he means by it any more than a close Union, it implies a contra­diction, that two should be one; that a Duality should be an Uni­ty. This (saith he) is made an Article of Faith by our Saviour's par­ticular and express Command. He must mean, that Mr. Edwards's own sense of that Text is com­manded as necessary to Salvati­on, else he says no more of that than the Author allows concern­ing both that and other Scrip­tures. If he means his own sense, then I think he's an inconsiderate and rash Man; for I have shew'd that his sense is contradictious.

Here Mr. Edw. calls in questi­on the sincerity of our Author, and, pag. 109. says, ‘It is most evident to any thinking and considerate Person, that he pur­posely omits the Epistolary Wri­tings of the Apostles, because they are fraught with other Fun­damental Doctrines, besides that one which he mentions.’

I will not question Mr. Edwards's sincerity in what he writes, but I question much his due considering what he writes against. Does not our Author make in effect the same Objection against himself, pag. 291. and answer it in four­teen pages, even to the end of his Book? but Mr. Edw. takes notice of very little of it. And the most of that he does take notice of, he answers with a little Rail­lery upon the Bulk of Mankind, the unlearned Multitude, the Mob, and our Author. His note upon these Phrases, is, Surely this Gen­tleman is afraid of Captain Tom, and is going to make a Religion for his Myrmidons.—We are come to a fine pass indeed; the venerable Mob must be ask'd what we must believe. Thus he ridicules the Doctrine of Faith, on which the Salvation or Damnation of the Multitude de­pends, and the Grounds of our Author's Design; who finding in Holy Scripture, that God would have all Men to be saved, and come to the KNOWLEDG of the Truth; the Gospel was preach'd to the Poor, and the common People heard Christ gladly; that God hath chosen the Poor in this World, rich in Faith; he concluded (when he had over­come the prejudices of Educati­on, and the contempt of the Learn­ed, and those that think them­selves so) that the Gospel must be a very intelligible and plain Doctrine, suted to Vulgar Capaci­ties, and the State of Mankind in this World destin'd to Labour and Travel; not such as the Writers and Wranglers in Religion have made it. To this Mr. Edw. answers (be­sides [Page 14] what I have noted above) and is forced to agree, That all Men ought to understand their Reli­gion: but then asks (as of a po­sitive thing not to be doubted) if Men may not understand those Arti­cles of Faith which he had mention'd a little before, pretended to be found in the Epistolary Writings, [which are generally form'd not in Scripture-Terms, and a­bout which there is such endless Contentions] when they be ex­plain'd to them, as well as our Au­thor's Article, Jesus is the Messiah? Nay he is confident that there is no more Difficulty in understand­ing this Proposition [The Father, Son and Holy Ghost, are one God or Divine Nature] than in that other of our Author (see pag. 120.) when yet the World knows to its Cost, that this Article has exer­cis'd all the greatest Wits of the Church these fourteen or fifteen hundred Years to understand the Terms, and take away the Con­tradictions: and at this Day the English Trinitarians have most fierce Contentions among them­selves about the meaning of it. The nominal Trinitarians agree with the Unitarians, that the Re­alists, that hold three real Per­sons, are Tritheists; and the Re­alists agree with the Unitarians, that the Nominals or Modalists destroy the Reality of the Eternal Son and Holy Ghost, and are Pa­tripassians or Sabellians. Besides, Mr. Edw. knows that each of these Parties are at vast difference a­mong themselves; they easily find Inconsistences or Contradictions in one anothers Explications; so that supposing there be but ten different Trinitarian Hypotheses, (I think there are more) every one has mine against him, all which he looks upon as faulty; and they on the other Hand do all reject his. They reject them I say, not, as the Bishop of Sarum, in his Let­ter to D. W. pag. 56. would paliate Matter, as having the same Acts of Piety and Adoration, though different ways of Explaining, either the Ʋnity of the Essence, or the Trinity of the Persons; but as having different Acts, except we can have the same Idea's when we worship three Gods, as when we worship one only; or when we worship one all-perfect Person, as when we worship three such; or when we worship one real Person, and two nominal Ones, as when we worship three Equals; or when we worship one self-existent God, and two dependent Gods not self-existent, as when we wor­ship three Self-existents, and the like. Again, Mr. Edw's Propo­sition is never once found in Holy Writ; but our Author's often expresly. He uses Terms in such a Sense as they are never us'd in Scripture, for Divine Nature is never put there for God; nor does the word GOD, or one God, ever signify Father, Son and H. Ghost, but always one singular Person; [Page 15] and throughout the Holy Scrip­tures from the Beginning to the End, God is spoken of, and spoken to, as one only Person, and by Terms and Pronouns that signify singularly, and never otherwise. God indeed does twice or thrice speak of himself Plurally, as Per­sons of Dignity and Dominion do often. But our Author both his Words in Form, and his Explica­tions are all taken out of Scrip­ture; and in the Days of our Sa­viour and his Apostles, there was no difficulty in understanding them. The most illiterate Fisher­men and Shepherds, and Women, knew what was meant by JESƲs, and what by Messiah: The only Question was, whether the Pro­position Jesus is the Messiah, was to be affirm'd, or denied. But notwithstanding all this, Mr. Edw. says, Truly if there be any Difficul­ty, it is in our Author's Proposition; why pray? For here is an He­brew word first to be explain'd be­fore the Mob can understand the Pro­position: But by his favour, the word Messiah is by our Transla­tors adopted into the English Tongue, and the common People, the Rabble (as Mr. Edw. is pleas'd to call them) understand it as well as they do the Christ or the Anointed, and also the Explicati­ons of those Terms, provided they use to read either themselves, or hear others read the Holy Scriptures. But the word Messiah was in our Saviour and the Apo­stles Time most common among the Jews: therefore our Au­thor designing to represent the Preaching and Faith of that Time, chose to use it more frequently than any other Term, see pag. 30. But I presume Mr. Edw. brought in this Objection, only as a Diver­sion. If he really think as he says, it's a sharp Reflection upon all the Learned Trinitarian Controver­tists upon this Point; except they take it more candidly for an Invi­tation to their Reverences and right Reverences, to come to the most Learned Mr. Edw. to inform their Understandings, and solve all the Difficulties that make them at so great Odds one with ano­ther: And it's to be hoped he will give such a clear Explication of the Trinity, as will satisfy the Myste­ry-men or Ignoramus-Trinitari­ans, that at length they may un­derstand what they now profess to believe without Understand­ing.

But to return, for all this will seem a Digression except the Reader please to remember it is for a Vindication of our Author from Mr. Edw's hard charge, of purposely omitting the Epistolary Writings, because fraught with o­ther Fundamental Doctrines besides that one which he mentions: Among those, Mr. Edw. reckons chiefly and more especially—The Doctrine of the ever to be adored Trinity, emi­nently attested in those Epistles. This Doctrine he has given us in his [Page 16] Proposition above discoursed, and has attempted to show (against Matter of Fact in all Ages, and especially in this present Time) that this Fundamental ought not to have been omitted because of its Difficulty or Unintelligibleness; for it is (he saith) less difficult than that of our Author, Jesus is the Messiah; but how successfully I leave to consideration. But if it be Unintelligible, or Contradicti­ous, at least to the Bulk of Man­kind, then it's impossible it should be a Fundamental Arti­cle; and therefore our Author needed not purposely to omit the E­pistolary Writings of the Apostles, for fear of finding it there, since Mr. Edw. himself cannot find it there, nor in the Bible.

But what says he to our Au­thor's full Answer to the Questi­on, about the Usefulness of the Epistles, though the Belief of ma­ny Doctrines contained in them be not necessary to Salvation? Our Au­thor answers, ‘1. That he that will read the Epistles as he ought, must observe what 'tis in them is principally aim'd at;—for that is the Truth which is to be receiv'd and believ'd, and not scatter'd Sentences in Scripture-Language, accommo­dated to our Notions and Pre­judices.’ What says Mr. Edw. to that? 2. [for I abridg] ‘There be many Truths in the Bible, which a good Christian may be wholly ignorant of, and so not believe; which perhaps some lay great stress on, and call Fundamental Articles, be­cause they are the distinguishing Points of their Communion.’ What says Mr. Edw. to this? ‘3. The Epistles were writ to those who were in the Faith, and true Christians already; and so could not be design'd to teach them the Fundamental Articles and Points necessary to Salvati­on.’ This he shows from the Address of all the Epistles, or something noted in them. ‘4. Their resolving Doubts and re­forming Mistakes, are of great Advantage to our Knowledg and Practice. 5. The great Doctrines of the Christian Faith are dropt here and there,’ [He has cited some such Passages in the Proof of his Proposition].— ‘We shall find those necessary Points best in the Preaching of our Sa­viour and the Apostles. 6. The Epistles, besides the main Ar­gument of each of them, do in many places explain the Funda­mentals, and that wisely, by pro­per Accommodations to the ap­prehensions of those they were writ to.’ Which he shows par­ticularly in the Epistle to the Ro­mans, and that to the Hebrews; also in the general Epistles. At length, ‘These Holy Writers (saith he) inspir'd from above writ nothing but Truth; and in most places very weighty Truths to us now;—But yet [Page 17] every Sentence of theirs, must not be taken up and look'd upon as a Fundamental necessary to Salvation, without an explicite Belief, whereof no Body could be a Member of Christ's Church, &c. For (saith he, pag. 299.) 'tis plain, the contending Par­ties on one side or t'other, are ignorant of, nay, disbelieve the Truths deliver'd in Holy Writ, as I noted before.’

This little I have transcribed out of our Author for the sake of those, who perhaps have not his Book, but have Mr. Edwards's, and that it may appear how unfairly (to say no worse) Mr. Edw. deals with our Author, saying, pag. 111. He passes by these inspired Writings with some contempt; also he sug­gests his insincerity to the Reader. But I have seen a Letter from a Gentleman of no ordinary Judg­ment, who says,— ‘Mr. Edwards has not only mistook Mr. Lock, but abus'd and belied him: for he says, Mr. Lock cites only the Gospels and Acts, but declares (or insinuates) his contempt of the Epistles, as if they were not of like Authority with the Acts or Gospels; but Mr. Lock has no where intimated any such Opinion. His Book (saith he) shows, He has read the Scrip­tures with very great Observa­tion, as well as Judgment; he suffers nothing to escape him, that belongs to the Subject he manages.’

He names our Author Mr. Lock, which I am assured he does by common Fame and Conjecture; he has no other Grounds for it, as neither have I, no more than Mr. Edwards. Whether we are mis­taken or not in his Name I know not, but I think I have proved that Mr. Edw. is much mistaken in his Judgment concerning his Book, or has perversly censur'd him and it. He is so far from con­temning the Epistles, (as Mr. Edw. accuses him) that whoever will take the Pains to reckon, he will find he has quoted them, and re­fer'd to them near FOURSCORE times. And Mr. Edw. is no less Injurious in his Censures upon other Writers: In the very Soci­nian Doctrine it self (saith he) there seems to be an Atheistical Tang. For proof, he cites the Considerations on the Explications of Doct. of Trin. pag. 5. Where (saith he) the Self-existence of God, which is the Pri­mary, Fundamental, and Essential Property—of the Deity, is peremptorily pronounc'd by them to be a CON­TRADICTION. It's strange a Man of Mr. Edwards's Under­taking, should give forth such a Calumny. His Ldp. of Worcester says, If God was from Eternity, he must be from himself. That Au­thor answers, that that is an E­spousing the Cause of the Atheists, and he gives this Reason; If God is from Eternity, he must be of none; neither of (or from) himself, nor from any other; not from himself, for [Page 18] then he must be before he was; and neither from himself, nor from any other, because all Origination of what kind soever is inconsistent with an Eternal Being. Is this now pe­remptorily to pronounce, that the Self-existence of God is a Contra­diction? or is it not to vindicate the Self-existence of God from a false Notion of it, occasion'd by the Bishop's words? But what will Mr. Edw. say to the Author of the XXVIII Propositions, &c. (who, they say, is the Bishop of Glouc.) who peremptorily denies, nay says, It is a flat Contradicti­on, to say that the second and third Persons (of the Trinity) are Self-existent? (Prop. 8.) Consequently neither of them is God: because (as Mr. Edw. says) Self-existence is the Primary, Fundamental, and Es­sential Property of God, which yet neither the Son nor the H. Ghost have. I wish Mr. Edw. would either reconcile himself to the Bi­shop, or the Bishop to him, be­fore he charges an Atheistical Tang upon the Socinian Doctrine, upon account of the denial of God's Self-existence, which he may see strongly affirm'd in the Reflecti­ons on the said Propositions, &c.

As for Socinus's denying the Praescience of Contingencies, I am not, nor is our Author con­cern'd in it; but which is more dishonourable to God, to be the Author of all the Sin and Wick­edness that ever was, or ever will be in the World; or to de­ny his Fore-knowledge of the cer­tainty of that which is not cer­tain. Socinus and Crellius have de­nied such an Immensity of God, which makes him to be essentially and wholly in every point of Space; because such Immensity would take away all Distinction between God and Creature, and has indeed an Atheistical Tang; for the greater part of Atheists hold the Universe to be God; hence Lucan, Jupiter est quodcun (que) vides, quocun (que) moveris. Which opinion, some of the Antient Fa­thers have wrote against; as Cle­mens Alexandrinus, and others. Mr. Edw. may charge them all with a Tang of Atheism if he please. As for God's Spirituali­ty, modest Divines confess it ea­sier to say, What it is not, than what it is. Mr. Edw. perhaps has at­tain'd to such a perfection of Knowledg in that Matter, as may make him able to teach them what they are now ignorant of: But So­cinus nor Crellius, nor any other of them ever denied, contrary to most express, and often repeated Scrip­tures, and common Reason, the most glorious Attribute of God's Ʋnity, which gives Excellency to all his other Attributes: for were Self-existence, Omniscience, Im­mensity and Spirituality, and all other Attributes common to more than One; where would the Ex­cellency and Majesty of God's Name be? How should we love and adore him with all our Hearts [Page 19] and Strength, when there are o­thers that require it and have as equal right to it as he? But Mr. Edw. will count himself highly in­jur'd, if I charge him with de­nying God's Unity: but hold a little, be not angry; If you be, Take heed it be not more for your own sake, than for God's sake: Do you not say, that the infinite Nature of God is communicable to three distinct Persons? pag. 79. and pag. 120. That the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one God, or Divine Nature? Are not these Terms convertible? namely, That one God is Father, Son and H. Ghost, that is, three Persons? and what are three Almighty and only wise Persons, but three Gods? The Father is one God, the Son is one God distinct from the Father, and the Holy Ghost is one God di­stinct from the Father and Son. Thus your Proposition amounts to this, That one God is three Gods, that the Unity of God is a Trini­ty of Gods. That Ʋnity or One­ness is no longer an Attribute of God, but Trinity or Threeness. But we cannot be heard, let us make out your Contradictions never so clearly: nay, you impute it to us as a heinous Crime, that we make it an Argument against the be­lief of your Trinity, that it can­not be understood without Con­tradiction. You impute to us most injuriously, that we are to admit of nothing but what is exactly adjusted to Nature's and Reason's Light, pag. 68. That therefore the Trinity is a Doctrine that can't be born, because it can't be understood, pag. 69. and that the English Ʋnitarians declare they cannot believe it, because Reason does not teach it, pag. 72. This is a Topick the Trinitarians do al­ways inlarge upon, and urge with a great deal of Pomp in them­selves, and Ignominy in the Uni­tarians, as Persons that prefer their own Reasonings before Di­vine Revelation how clear soever. And though this Calumny has been answer'd and wip'd away, and retorted upon them a hun­dred Times, yet Mr. Edw. will still confidently charge it. He cites the Letter of Resolution for proof of it, and therefore has read it, but passes by the Answer to this Imputation, which is to be found in the very first Page of it, where thus; ‘First, 'Tis not true, that we prefer Reason before Revelation; on the contrary, Revelation being what GOD himself hath said, either imme­diately, or by inspired Persons; 'tis to be preferr'd before the clearest Demonstration of our Reason.’ And in the Consider. on Explic. on 4 Serm. and a Sermon of the Bishop of Worcester, the Author says: ‘He utterly mistakes in thinking that we deny the Articles of the new Christia­nity, or Athanasian Religion, because they are Mysteries, or because we do not comprehend them; we have a clear and di­stinct [Page 20] Perception, that they are not Mysteries but Contradicti­ons, Impossibilities, and pure Non-sense.’

But now that the Trinitarians do most expresly prefer their Rea­soning, Consequences and wire-drawn Deductions before Holy Scripture; besides that it has been done in the Notes upon the Athanasian Creed, and other Tracts, I shall shew further from Mr. Edwards's Fundamental Do­ctrine, but now recited; if at least the Trinitarians will acknow­ledg him for their Orthodox Champion.

1. It's manifest he means by the one God, not one Divine Al­mighty Person, but three such; but nothing is more evident in Holy Scripture, than that God is one Person only. For proof of it, I have referr'd my Reader to the Scriptures from beginning to end, in more than twenty thou­sand Texts, even as often as God is spoken of, or to, or speaks of himself (except as I have said). But Mr. Edw. says expresly, that his God is three distinct Divine Persons, to wit, the Father of the Son, the Son of the Father, and the H. Ghost which proceedeth from the Fa­ther and the Son. 2. He says, that these three distinct Divine Per­sons, [each of which is God in the most perfect Sense] is the only true God, or the one God, or Di­vine Nature. The Proposition which he advances, as necessary to Salvation, and more easy to be under­stood than that Jesus is the Messiah, is, That the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one God, or Divine Nature. Whereby it's manifest, that by ONE GOD he means not one Per­son, but one Divine Nature; and by one Divine Nature he means such a Divine Nature as is com­municable to three distinct Persons, see pag. 79. So that his three Persons which are one God, are so one God as they communicate in one Divine Nature; in like man­ner as Peter, James and John are one Man, because they communi­cate in one Human Nature, as do also all the Men in the World. Now I shall cite some Texts of H. Scripture, which do expresly de­clare that God is ONE; and that cannot otherwise be understood than that he is one Person, or sin­gular intellectual Nature, Es­sence or Substance. Here let me premise first, How Equivocally Mr. Edw. and the Trinitarians ex­press themselves in this great and necessary Point, on which de­pends our Eternal Salvation; and whereby the Bulk of Mankind (for I think that's a far more decent Phrase than Mr. Edw's Rabble, or Captain Tom and his Myrmadons, or the venerable Mob) cannot e­scape being deluded. He and they confess also, that there is but one God, though three Persons in that one God; but by one God they do not mean (as I have shew­ed from Mr. Edw.) one singular in­tellectual [Page] Nature, Essence, or Sub­stance compleat, for that is a Person; and if they did, the Contradiction would presently ap­pear to every Capacity, to wit, that three Divine Persons are one Divine Person; but they (as Mr. Edw.) say, The Father, Son and Holy Ghost, or the three Divine Per­sons, are one God, or Divine Nature, Essence or Substance. Hereby they conceal from their poor honest Reader, thirsting after Truth, that God is one intellectual Per­fect Nature, Essence or Substance, and make him believe by that concealment, that though there are three Divine intellectual per­fect Natures, yet there is but one Divine Nature or God.

I am also willing to premise, that the Grecism of a solitary Ad­jective Masculine, or Article without a Substantive (where the Discourse is of intellectual Beings) doth frequently, if not always con­note PERSON; and our English Translators have in many Texts render'd it Person, as the clear Sense of the Greek Text, not as a word supplied in another Cha­racter to explain the Text, but in the same Character as a verbal Translation. Instances of this rendring are these among many others; Mat. 27. 24. Of this just [Person] Luke 15. 7. Ninety nine just [Persons] Acts 17. 17.—The devout [Persons] Eph. 5. 5.—un­clean [Person] 2 Pet. 3. 11. What manner of [Persons.] In these places there is nothing in the Greek to answer the word Per­son, but what is implied in the Adjective.

To come now to the Texts that assert the Ʋnity or Oneness of God, against Mr. Edw's Trinity or Three­ness; or that God is one intel­lectual Nature, or one Person, a­gainst Mr. Edws's one Divine Na­ture, or three Persons: see Jam. 2. 19. according to the Greek, Thou believest that God is ONE, thou dost well. Gal. 3. 20. But God is ONE. Mark 12. 29. The Lord our God, the Lord is ONE, saith our Saviour out of the Law, to the Scribe that asked him, which is the first Commandment of all? And Jesus answer'd him, the first of all the Commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart, &c. And in the 32d ver. The Scribe said unto him, Well Master, thou hast said the Truth, for God is ONE, and there is none other but he. And ver. 34. —Jesus saw that he an­swer'd discreetly. Our Bibles refer us to Deut. 6. 4, 5. whence our Lord takes this his Answer, and where we find the same Words, which by Ainsworth are also ren­der'd, The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Now in these Scrip­tures the Numeral Adjective Masculine, being without a Sub­stantive and Singular, it forces us to understand in every place Person. So that we nothing doubt [Page 22] but the Translators would have render'd every where God is ONE PERSON, if they had not been prepossessed with the Opinion of God's being three Persons; the like to which they have done in many other Places. But in that Answer of the Holy Jesus to him that called him Good Master, Mat. 19. 17. it's not possible to avoid it; 1. That God is a Person; 2. That he is but one Person; and 3. That he is GOOD in an emi­nent Sense above all other Per­sons whatsoever. For thus he says, Why callest thou me GOOD? None [or no Person] is good but one [Person] the God. How strangely perverse would it be to understand this Text in the Tri­nitarian sense, viz. None, or no Person is good but one, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost? or thus, None, or no Person is good but one, i. e. the Divine Nature?

Again, 2. Consider we these Texts, and see what sense we can make of them, if God be not one Person only, Mal. 2. 10. Hath not ONE GOD created us? must we say with Mr. Edw. Hath not ONE Father, Son and Holy Ghost [or one Divine Nature that is not a Per­son] created us? Rom. 3. 30. There is one God who justifies, &c. Trin. There is one Father, Son and H. Ghost that justifies, Zech. 14. 9. Hebr. In that Day the Lord shall be ONE, and his Name ONE. How should the Lord be one and his Name one, if the Lord be three distinct Persons, and his Name Father, Son and Holy Ghost? Isa. 37. 16. O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, thou dwellest between the Cherubims, thou art the God, e­ven thou alone, of all the King­doms of the Earth; thou hast made Heaven and Earth; Psal. 86. 10. Thou art great and dost wondrous Works, thou art God alone. 2 King. 19. 19.—That all the Kingdoms of the Earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even thou only. Isa. 44. 24. &c. I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretch­eth forth the Heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the Earth by my self. Nehem. 9. 6, &c. Thou even thou art Lord alone, thou hast made Heaven—the Host of Heaven worshippeth thee. Isa. 37. 20.—That all the Kingdoms of the Earth may know, that thou art the Lord, even thou only. 2 King. 19. 15. Jude 4.—denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Tim. 2. 5. There is one God, and one Mediator between God and Men, the Man Christ Jesus. Ephes. 4. 6. One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all, and in you all. Isa. 46. 9. For I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me. 1 King. 8. 23. Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee in Heaven above, or in Earth be­neath. —Ver. 60. That all the Peo­ple of the Earth may know that the Lord is God, and that there is none else. Isa. 44. 6. I am the [Page 23] First, and I am the Last, and be­sides me there is no God. Ver. 8. Is there a God besides me? yea, there is no God, I know not any. Isa. 45. 5. I am the Lord there is none else, there is no God besides me. Verse 6.—There is none besides me, I am the Lord and there is none else. Ver. 14.—Saying, surely God is in thee, and there is none else, there is no God. Ver. 21.—Have not I the Lord? and there is no God else beside me, a just God and a Savi­our, there is none beside me. Ver. 22. Look unto me, and be ye saved all the ends of the Earth, for I am God, and there is none else. Deut. 4. 35. Unto thee it was shew­ed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God, and there is none else beside him. 1 Chron. 17. 20. O Lord there is none like thee, nei­ther is there any God besides thee. Exod. 34. 14. For thou shalt wor­ship no other God, for the Lord whose Name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Deut. 32. 39. See now that I, even I am he, and there is no God with me. 2 King. 5. 15. Be­hold, now I know that there is no God in all the Earth, but in Israel. 2 Sam. 22. 32. For who is God save the Lord? See the same words in Psal. 18. 31. 1 Cor. 8. 4.—There is none other God but one. I con­clude with the first and chiefest of the Ten Commandments given from Mount Sinai, Exod. 20. 3. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me—I the Lord thy God am a jea­lous God: and that of the Lord Jesus, when himself was tempted, Matth. 4. 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. The meaning plain­ly is, I am a Jew, and subject to the Law of the Jews, I am com­manded therein to worship the Lord my God, and to serve him only.

These Scriptures do so clearly prove, that God is a Person, or a perfect intellectual Nature or Sub­stance, and that he is only one such; that to deny either of these Pro­positions, is to me to deny the Truth of Holy Scripture, not on­ly in some obscure and doubtful Text, but in the Current of it, and in the chief Fundamental of all Religion. And Mr. Edw. in asserting there are three such Per­sons in one Divine Nature, ren­ders in effect the whole Bible void and useless for the proof of any Proposition whatsoever it be. If this, that God is an absolutely perfect Being, and therefore a Person, (for Persons are the most perfect of Beings or Substances) and but one such, cannot be plain­ly and undeniably prov'd from Scripture, it's utterly in vain to attempt to prove any thing. For it's manifest that to assert THIS, is the chief Aim and Design of all the Holy Writers, and that they are most zealous and vehement in it. And herein lies the Contro­versy between the Trinitarians and the Unitarians; we assert with the greatest plainness, and [Page 24] fulness, and clearness of Holy Scripture, as ever any thing was or can be exprest, that God is ONE in the most perfect sense of Oneness, (which is by all Men that understand the Word) in a per­sonal Sense. But the Trinitarians do on the contrary contend, that God is not One, but Three in that personal Sense, and One in a less perfect Sense; which is not Per­sonal, but common to many: Which is a Sense that dethrones God, and makes him either a Third of the one God, or one of the Three, that created and go­verns the World, and is to be a­dor'd by Men and Angels. For they cannot deny but that in wor­shipping the Father our God, we worship one God; But they rage against us, because we do not wor­ship besides him, and distinct from him, the Son as perfectly God as he; as different from him as a real Son is from a real Father, and ano­ther Person as really God as ei­ther the Father, or the Son, and as really different from the Father and Son, as he that is sent is from him that sent him. And this is so evidently true, that (as I have observ'd) almost one half of the Trinitarians consent with the U­nitarians, in condemning the o­ther Party of Trinitarians as Con­fessors of three Gods.

But that I may give yet fuller Evidence of this Fundamental Truth of the Unity of the Per­son of God against the Trinity of Persons in him, I shall in the third place produce some Texts that a­scribe some Perfections to the Per­son of God singularly, and with exclusion of all other Persons in that Sense and Degree. Such are those, where the Holy Jesus says, None [or no Person] is good but one, the God, which I have urged before: and that in John 17. 3. where the Blessed Son in his Prayer to God, (wherein it were absurd to say that he pray'd to himself) calls him Father, and the only true God; and that in distinction from himself, whom he describes by the Names of Jesus Christ, him whom the Father hath sent. This Particle only, imports some Excel­lency in the Attribute of true, which is here given to God his Father, above and with exclusion of all others, or it signifies no­thing. Rom. 16. 27. To God only Wise be Glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen. Here again the Attribute of only Wise is ascrib'd to the Person of God in distinction from Jesus Christ as the Medium of the Glory which is given to the only Wise God. 1 Tim. 6. 15, 16. God is called, the blessed and ONLY Potentate, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; who ONLY hath Immortality, &c. which are all personal Titles, from which all other Persons are excluded by the exclusive Particle only: for there can be but one Potentate who is King of Kings in the highest Sense, and much more when only [Page 25] is added. When Christ is called King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, (Rev. 17. 14. and 19. 16.) it's manifest it's to be understood in a derivative Sense, because all Power in Heaven and Earth was given to him as the Lamb that had been slain; and therefore he is repre­sented as clothed with a Vesture dipt in Blood, in that 19 Chap. ver. 13. Who only hath Immortali­ty: that is, (as Dr. Hammond says) God is Immortal in himself, (not in three Selfs) and all Immortality of others is derived from him. In the same Sense is the Lord God Al­mighty called, in Rev. 15. 4. only Holy, because he only is Holy of himself; and as it is understood, 1 Sam. 2. 2. There is none Holy as the Lord. Now in these and such­like Passages of Holy Scripture, the Trinitarians and Mr. Edw. must understand by God three Per­sons; by Father, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost; by Thou, Ye; by Him, Them; by Himself, Them­selves; and those Words the Scripture hath in the singular Number, must be understood by them plurally. It's no marvel then that they call their Doctrine a Mystery, and that there is so much dissension among themselves concerning it, since it cannot be understood in any Sense, which is not either contradictious in it self, or so to the full Current of Holy Scripture.

In like manner, 4thly, all those Texts (which are not a few) in which God is named the most High, the most high God, the Lord the most High, God most High, the Highest; whether these Titles be Subject or Attribute, must all be under­stood, not of one Person, or a singular knowing and willing Sub­stance, but either of a Substance that is not a Person, or else of three equal Persons: And all this by virtue of that scholastic and unreasonable Distinction between Person and Essence; or as Mr. Edw. words it, The infinite Nature of God communicable to three distinct Persons, (Pag. 79.) which Distin­ction being absurd in it self when understood, they obtrude upon the World under the Name of MYSTERY and Incomprehensi­ble.

5thly. Besides, that the Holy Scriptures are so abundant in those Texts that clearly shew him to be one Person only, as I have fully ma­nifested; yet I may still urge from the same Texts and others, that the Father only, whom the Trini­tarians acknowledg to be but one Person, is that God, that God alone, that one God, that God who is One, the most high God, and no Person else besides him. I produced be­fore the Text in John 17. 3. to prove that the Perfection of being THE ONLY TRUE GOD, is ascrib'd to him as being one Per­son only. Now I urge from the same Text, that that Person is the Father of the Son, in express distinction from the Son and all [Page 26] others. Next, that Text in 1 Cor. 8. 5, 6. Though there be that are called Gods, whether in Hea­ven or in Earth, (as there be Gods many, and Lords many); but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom were all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. Which words do plainly assert, that that Person who is the one God of Christians in exclusion of all those that are called Gods, (and in some Sense may be so) is none but the Fa­ther; and in distinction from the Lord Jesus, who was made Lord and Christ in a most excellent manner, after his Resurrection. This Text must be understood by the Trinitarians thus; There is none other God but three Almighty Per­sons:—There are Gods many, and Lords many, but unto us [Christi­ans] there is but one God or Divine Nature, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost; each of which is the one God of Christians, and not the Fa­ther only. See next Ephes. 4. 4, 5, 6. There is one Spirit—one Lord—one God and Father of all. Where the one God and Father of all is clearly differenced from the one Spirit and the one Lord. Now see Mat. 24. 36. But of that Day and Hour knoweth none [or no Per­son] (for of necessity it must be so understood) no not the Angels of Heaven, but my Father only. St. Mark hath it —neither the Son, but the Father. These parallel Texts prove, 1. That the Person of the Father is the Person of God; for none but that Person could then know the Day and Hour of Judg­ment: And, 2. that the Father only is that Person of God in ex­clusion of all other Persons, both Angels and Men, and of the Son himself. What shall we say of them, who in flat Contradiction to this Scripture, and the Son him­self, assert, That the Son knew the Day and Hour of Judgment as well as the Father? Let us next compare that Passage in 1 Tim. 2. 5. (which I cited before) with 1 John 2. 1. The former saith, There is one God, and one Mediator between God and Men, the Man Christ Jesus. The latter says, If any Man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. By which consider'd together, it appears that the one God and the Father are the same Person, for only a Person is capa­ble of being interceded to, and the Mediator and Advocate the same: So that the Father is the Person of God, as well as the Ad­vocate is the Person of the Media­tor. But if the Reader desire to see this Point (viz. that the Father only is the most high God) fully and learnedly argued and defend­ed, let him read Crellius's two Books of One God the Father, out of which I have transcribed much. In what a many Places of Scrip­ture is Christ called the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit the Spirit of God? In every of which either [Page 27] God must be taken for the Father only, or Christ must be the Son of himself, and the Holy Spirit the Spirit of himself, both which are absurd.

Again, how many places of Holy Scripture are there, where some Prerogative is given to the Father above Christ, as John 14. 28. My Father is greater than I? How asham'd are the more inge­nuous Trinitarians of that An­swer, to this Objection against the Deity of the Son, which says, The Son was less according to his Hu­man Nature? John 10. 29. My Father is greater than all. It's ma­nifest from the Context, that the Son himself is included in that word ALL. 1 Cor. 11. 3. The Head of Christ is God. Christ is not the Head of himself, there­fore the Father only is God. How often do Christ and the Divine Writers call the Father his God? John 20. 17. I ascend to my Fa­ther and your Father, to my God and your God. In Rev. 3. 12. he calls the Father my God four times. Mat. 27. 46. and Mark 15. 34. he cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me! His God was only the Person of the Father, and not God the Di­vine Nature, which according to Mr. Edw. is common to three Per­sons. Ephes. 1. 17.—The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory. Heb. 1. 8. Where Christ is called a God, he is also said to have a God, who anointed him. Was he his own God, and the God that anointed him? or was the Father only? John 10. 18. This Commandment have I received of my Father. He only is God who gives Commandments to the Son. John 12. 49. The Father that sent me, he gave me a Command­ment what I should say, and what I should speak. John 14. 31. As the Father hath given me Command­ment, so I do. John 15. 10. As I have kept my Father's Command­ment, and abide in his Love. See Chap. 4. 34. and 6. 38. and 8. 29, 55. and 17. 4. and 18. 11. Add those places wherein it's clearly taught that Christ obey'd God, Rom. 5. 19. Phil. 2. 8. Heb. 5. 8. God calleth Christ his Servant, Isa. 42. 1. Mat. 12. 18. Isa. 49. 5, 6. with Acts 13. 47. Isa., 2. 13. and 53. 11. Ezek. 34. 23, 24. and 37. 24, 25. He is called —a Minister of the Sanctuary, Heb. 8. 2. All these Texts, and a hundred more (say the Trinitarians) are an­swered by the Distinction of a Di­vine and Human Nature in one Per­son, or the second Person of God his having a Human Nature: So you are to understand that this Person of God, who is here said to be a Servant, to receive Com­mands and obey them, &c. is yet as perfectly Great as he, from whom he receiv'd those Com­mands, who has no Prerogative above him. The Servant is as great as his Lord, and he that O­bey'd as he that Commanded, and [Page 28] he that is sent as he that sent him; yea, the same God is Servant and Lord, the Obeyer and Com­mander, the Sent and the Sender. When all these Prerogatives of the Father above the Son, and conse­quently above the Holy Spirit, will not prove the Father only to be the most High God; of what use can the Holy Scriptures be to us? What shall be the Difference between Holy Scriptures and pro­fane Writings? May not all the Greek Fables of their Gods, be justified by the same, or such like Distinctions? O Father of Mer­cies, enlighten their Understand­ings, and remove their Prejudi­ces, that they may no longer, de­ny thee the Glory due to thee a­bove all!

Neither is it to be passed by, that to the Father only is ascrib'd in Holy Scripture, the Creation of Heaven and Earth, to Christ never; though in a certain way of speaking, common to the Sa­cred Writers, many things, or all pertaining to the new Covenant or Gospel, are said to be created (that is, medelled or put into a new and better State) by him. So in that antient Confession of Faith, call'd, The Apostles Creed, the Cre­ation of Heaven and Earth is appropriated to the Father; and both in those Apostolical Times, and to this day, Prayers and Prai­ses are offer'd to the Father through-Christ, and the Gift of the Holy Spirit is begg'd of him; which clearly shews the Preroga­tive of the Father above the Son and Holy Spirit; and consequently that he only is that Person, whom we ought to understand by the Name of GOD.

In fine, The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of the Fathers, and the Father of Christ, are Descriptions of one and the same Person: So Acts 3. 13. —The God of our Fathers hath glorifi­ed his Son Jesus: and Heb. 1. 1. God who—spake in times past to the Fathers by the Prophets, hath—spoken to us by his Son. So that they who make the Son to be the God of the Fathers, make him to be his own God and Father.

But because I think it may give farther Light and Evidence to this great Point, wherein the Glory of God, even the Father, is so much concern'd; I will yet fur­ther show from many plain Texts, set so as they may give Light one to another; that the God of the Fathers, and the God and Father of Christians; or our God and Fa­ther, and the God and Father of our Lord Christ; our Heavenly Father and his Heavenly Father; his God and our God, is one and the same Person. I present them by Couples, the first speaking of Christ, the second of us.

See Rom. 15. 6. That ye may glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[Page 29] Phil. 4. 20. Now unto God our Father, be glory for ever and ever.

2 Cor. 1. 3. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Mercies.

Rom. 1. 7. Grace be to you, and Peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Col. 1. 3. We give thanks to God, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Eph. 1. 2. Grace to you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Cor. 11. 31. The God and Fa­ther of our Lord Jesus Christ knoweth that I lie not.

1 Thes. 1. 1. Grace be to you, and Peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Heb. 1. 8. Unto the Son he saith, Thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever. Thou hast loved Righ­teousness, and hated Iniquity, therefore God even thy God hath anointed thee with the Oil of Gladness above thy Fellows.

Phil. 1. 2. Grace be unto you, and Peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephes. 1. 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Tim. 1. 2. Grace, Mercy and Peace from God our Father, and Jesus Christ our Lord.

Eph. 1. 17. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give unto you the Spirit, &c.

Col. 1. 2. Grace be unto you, and Peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Pet. 1. 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Thess. 2. 16. Now the Lord Je­sus himself, and God even our Father, &c.

John 20. 17. Jesus saith to Ma­ry, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and to your God.

Gal. 1. 4. Who gave himself for our Sins—according to the will of God and our Father.

Mat. 27. 46. Jesus cried—say­ing, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Philem. 3. Grace be to you, and Peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rev. 3. 12. Him that overcom­eth, will I make a Pillar in the Temple of my God, and write up­on him the Name of my God, &c.

2 Thess. 1. 1.—Unto the Church of the Thessalonians in God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

John 17. 1.—Jesus lift up his Eyes to Heaven, and said—Fa­ther, Glorify thy Son.

[Page 30] Mat. 23. 9. One is your Father which is in Heaven. Psal. 115. 3. Our God is in the Heavens.

Thus we see there is one God and Father of all (Ephes. 4. 6.) both of Christ, and Believers the Children of God; the same Per­son is the God and Father of both. It's absurd to say, that Christ the Son is his own Father, or his own God; so it's plainly contrary to Scripture to say, that any other Person is our God or our Father (in the highest Sense) but the same who is Christ's God and Father. That it is so, I appeal to the se­rious Thoughts of every Man and Woman that reads the Scriptures attentively, without the preju­dice of Scholastick and confus'd Distinctions.

Now I shall further produce you many couples of Scriptures, which prove expresly, that the Name of GOD (when taken by way of Excellency) and the Name of FATHER (in Christ's Gospel) do signify the same singular Per­son. So that no one is or can be God, who is not also the Father; which Term is acknowledged to signify but one Person. This ap­pears from the Scripture, attri­buting the sending of Christ, or the Son, sometimes to God, some­times to the Father, and both fre­quently.

John 3. 34. He whom God hath sent, speaketh the Words of God; for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.

Chap. 14. 24. The Word which ye hear is not mine, but the Fa­ther's who sent me.

Acts 10. 36. The Word which God sent to the Children of Is­rael, preaching Peace by Jesus Christ.

John 5. 30. I seek not mine own Will, but the Will of the Father which hath sent me.

Acts 3. 26. God having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you.

John 12. 49. The Father which sent me, he gave me a Command­ment what I should say, and what I should speak.

1 John 4. 10. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins.

Chap. 4. 14. And we have seen and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the World.

Gal. 4. 4. God sent forth his Son made of a Woman.

John 6. 39. And this is the Fa­ther's Will that hath sent me. See ver. 44.

1 John 4. 9. In this was mani­fested the Love of God toward us, because God sent his only be­gotten Son into the World, &c.

[Page 31] John 5. 24. He that heareth my Word, and believeth on the Fa­ther that hath sent me.

Rom. 8. 3. God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful Flesh.

John 20. 21. Then said Jesus, As my Father sent me, even so send I you.

Joh. 3. 17. God sent not his Son to condemn the World.

Chap. 5. 23. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which sent him.

Joh. 6. 29. Jesus answered, This is the Work of God, that ye be­lieve on him whom he hath sent.

Chap. 17. 25. O Father, these have known that thou hast sent me.

John 17. 3. This is Life Eternal, that they might know thee (Fa­ther) the only true God, and Je­sus Christ whom thou hast sent.

Chap. 10. 36. Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the World, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?

John 16. 27. The Father him­self loveth you, because ye have—believed that I came out from God.

Ver. 28. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the World; again, I leave the World, and go to the Father.

Ver. 30. By this we believe that thou camest forth from God.

John 3. 16. God so loved the World, that he gave his only be­gotten Son—.

Chap. 8. 18. I am one that bear witness of my self; and the Fa­ther that sent me beareth witness of me.

John 8. 42. For I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of my self, but he sent me.

Chap. 5. 36. The Works that I do, bear witness that the Father hath sent me.

Hence it appears most evident­ly, not only that God and the Fa­ther are the same Person, and that the same is as plainly distinguisht from our Lord Christ, as the Sen­der is distinct from him that is sent; but that the Son is no more the same God that sent him, than he is the same Father that sent him.

If Christians will still suffer themselves to be impos'd up­on, under the Notion of MY­STERY, to believe that the Son of God is the same numerical God as his Father, who sent him to do his Will, (not his own) and to be the Propitiation (or Mercy-seat, Heb. 9. 5.) for our Sins; that the only begotten or well-be­loved Son, whom the Father (first) sanctified and (then) sent into the World, is the same God who san­ctified [Page 32] and sent him, that the mi­raculous Works which the Son did, did bear witness, not that the Father even God had sent him, but that the Son was that God, &c. they should no longer pretend, that their Faith concern­ing God and his Son Christ Jesus, in what is necessary to eternal Life, is clearly and plainly reveal'd in Holy Scripture, but that they have learnt it by Tradition from their Teachers, which yet they can no more conceive the mean­ing of, without contradiction to Scripture and Reason, than the Papists can their Transubstanti­ation, which they also believe un­der the Notion of Mystery. Let none say there is a wide Diffe­rence between the Faith of Pro­testants and Papists in these Ca­ses, because Transubstantiation is contradicted by Sense, the Tri­nity only by Reason; for I appeal to any Man of Sense, whether we may not be as certain that one Person is not three Persons, nor three Persons one Person, as that Bread is not Flesh. If Protestants think themselves excusable in that, let them not for shame blame the Papists in this. And if both Pro­testants and Papists are faultless in these Points, I see not but the Heathen Polytheists will be capa­ble of the same Charity.

The New Testament Scrip­tures are so full of those clear Distinctions, and opposite Relati­ons, and Works of God, from the Son of God, that a Man must in a manner transcribe the whole Vo­lume to present them all. I have given my Reader a great number of Texts already; I will yet point him to some more, which he may read at his leisure. See then 1 John 4. ver. 9 to 16. 2 Pet. 1. 17. Rom. 16. 27. John 6. 69. John 5. 26, 27. As the Father hath Life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have Life in himself, and hath given him Authority to execute Judgment also, because he is the Son of Man. The Son of God had not this Life in himself, till it was given him by the Living God his Father, not because he was God, but because he was the Son of Man. But what Ears can hear, that Life and Au­thority were given by the same God the Father, to the very same God the Son? Or that any Life and Authority could be given to him that was God, who had al­ways from all Eternity, all Life and Authority in himself, and could never be without it? But I am pointing you to some Texts of Scripture. Read also Rom. 1. 9. Chap. 8. 3, 29, 31. Chap. 5. 10. Ephes. 1. 3. 1 John 1. 5, 7. Chap. 3. 21, 23. Chap. 1. 3. Gal. 1. 15. Col. 1. 10, 13. 1 Cor. 1. 9. 1 John 4. 15. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God [not that he is that God whose Son he is] God dwelleth in him and he in God. 1 John 5. 9, 10, 11. Heb. 1. 1, 2. John 3. 16, 17. Acts 3. 26. 1 Thess. 1. 9, 10. John 5. 18. [Page 33] 2 John ver. 3. Gal. 4. 4. Acts 3. 13. These Texts do undeniably prove, that God is one Person only, to wit, the Father of the Son; and as the Son cannot be his own Fa­ther, so neither that God who is his Father. But I proceed, see Mat. 14. 33. and 16. 16. Luke 1. 35. Mark 1. 1. John 1. 34. and 20. 31. These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing ye might have Life through his Name. The Apo­stle John did not write his Gospel (as some pretend) to prove that Jesus was God, who was his Father, but that he was the Christ, or a Man anointed with the Holy Ghost and Power, the Son of that God who anointed him; and that so believing we might have Life through him. Mark 1. 11. Mat. 3. 17. Luke 3. 22. Mark 9. 7. Luke 9. 35. Heb. 1. 5. 1 John 4. 14. Mat. 11. 27. Luke 10. 22. John 1. 14. and 3. 18, 29. and 14. 28. and 15. 10. and 20. 17.

Against all these Scriptures, and many more that might be alledg­ed, it's urged that the Son is some­where called God [or rather a God] in Scripture. To which I answer, that both Angels and Men are called God, and Gods, and Sons of God in Scripture; see Exod. 7. 1. —I have made thee [Moses] a God to Pharaoh. Exod. 4. 16. compar'd with Chap. 3. 2, 5. an Angel is called Jehovah and E­lohim; in English, the Lord and God. Psal. 8. 5. Thou hast made him [Man] a little lower than the Angels; in Hebrew, than the Gods. And Judg. 13. 22. Manoah said—We shall surely die, because we have seen God; so he calls the Angel that appeared to him. But the word God taken by way of Eminency for the Father of all, signifies also the God of Gods, Deut. 10. 17. Joshua 22. 22. Psal. 136. 2, &c. The most high God, Gen. 14. 18. Heb. 7. 1. And the Lord Jesus being stoned and charged with Blasphemy by the Jews, for saying, that he and his Father were one, as we read John 10. 29, 30, &c. he vindicates him­self by the Authority of that Text, in Psal. 82. 6. where it's Divinely written, I said ye are Gods, speaking of the Judges and Princes, who receiv'd their Au­thority and Power from God; and all of you Sons of the most High: and argues from it thus, Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctifi­ed and sent into the World, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am THE SON of God? Which is in effect to say, I may with far great­er right than they, be called a God, or the Son of God, who have received from God far greater Authority and Power; being sanctified to such a Degree, and sent among Men to preach such a Doctrine and Work, such Mi­raculous Works, as plainly shew, that the Father is in me, and I in him; that is, there is such a close [Page 34] Union between us, as if the Fa­ther dwelt in me, and did the Works which I do, (dwelling as it were in him) and which cannot be done by any other Power. Whence I argue, that if in any Text of Scripture, Jesus is said to be God or a God, (tho he him­self never said he was God; Nun­quam seipse Deum dixit, as saith Lactantius) it is to be understood of that Godlike Power, Autho­rity and Glory, which God his Father has conferr'd upon him; for which he is to be honoured as the Father who sent him, who a­nointed him, who raised him from the Dead, and set him at his own Right Hand. So in Heb. 1. 8, 9. where in the Words spoken of Solomon, Psal. 45. he is called God, he is said to have a God above him, who anointed him. Let them consider who say, the Son is God in the same sense as the Fa­ther, how they can clear them­selves of Blasphemy. Such Per­sons look upon the Unitarians with Amazement and Horrour, because they will not take the term God in that Sense as themselves do: What! Deny Christ to be God, so expresly spoken of him in Holy Scripture! In the mean time, they do not reflect upon themselves, who make to themselves (by un­derstanding Scripture in another Sense than Christ understood it in) another God besides the Fa­ther, who only is the true God. The Unitarians acknowledg and celebrate one God the Father, the Trinitarians do so too, but they also acknowledg and celebrate two other Persons, each of which is God in the same sense as the Fa­ther, neither of which is the Fa­ther. Which of us are safer, and in less danger of being Blasphe­mers, and worshippers of more Gods than one?

There's nothing more manifest in Holy Scripture, than that the only true God hath given to the Son both his Being, and all what­soever that he enjoys; he has ex­alted him to his Right Hand, given him all Power in Heaven and in Earth, as Pharaoh exalted Joseph in Egypt; only in the Throne (saith he) will I be greater than thou. But the Trinitarians will not suffer the Father to enjoy that Privilege; They are asham'd of that Son of God (and his words) who is not as great as his Father; though he said, My Father is greater than I. They are asham'd of his words, who said, Of that Day and Hour—knoweth none, not the Son, but the Father only: and say in Contra­diction to him, The Son did know that Day and Hour as well as the Fa­ther, and not the Father only. They are asham'd of his Words who said, I can do nothing of my self; I came not to do my own Will, but the Will of him that sent me; my Doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me; I—do nothing of my self, but as the Father hath taught me I speak these things; I have not spoken [Page 35] of my self, but the Father that sent me, he gave me a Commandment what I should say, and what I should speak; The word that I speak, I speak not of my self, but the Father that abideth in me he doth the Works. These and many other Words and Sayings of the same kind, they seem to be asham'd of, and say, and contend for it, that he could do all things of himself, that he came to do his own Will, that his Doctrine was his own, that he had no need of the Father's teaching, &c. They are ashamed of those words of Christ's; Mat. 19. 17. Why dost thou call me good? none is good but one, the God; and say none is good but Three, God and God and God, or Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Here let me observe to the Rea­der (as I have hinted above) that there is a considerable Difference between that particle one in this Text, and the same particle one in that supposititious Text, 1 Joh. 5. 7. These three are one; for here one is of the Neuter Gender, as is manifest both in the Greek and Latin, and fignifies as the same word does in 1 Cor. 3. 8. He that planteth and he that watereth are one: but in the Text above, one is of the Masculine Gender, and must be understood of one Person (or intelligent Being) who is good, and none but he, to wit, the God. If they were not hinder'd by strong Preiudices, they might easily see, that whatsoever they attribute to the Son, be it eter­nal necessary Existence, Almigh­tiness, or Omniscience, &c. they take away from the Father there­by, not only the Glory of enjoy­ing those Divine Excellencies a­lone, but also the Glory of his free Goodness, and the Son's, and our Thankfulness for such un­speakable Benefits both to him and us, as he has been graciously pleas'd to give unto the Son, either in begetting him, or rai­sing him up in Time, or in re­warding him both for his and our Good. Nay, they make the Son uncapable of receiving those great and glorious Rewards, of all Pow­er in Heaven and Earth given to him, of an everlasting Kingdom, of a Name above every Name, of exaltation to the Right Hand of God, and the like, which the Scrip­tures are full of: For how could any of these Blessings be given to him that was God always, even from Eternity? Could God sit at the Right Hand of God in any sense whatever? These are the absurd Doctrines, which make the Trinitarians contend so fierce­ly one with another, and with us. God will judg the World, and be­tween them and us, by that Man whom he has ordained to be Judg of the Dead and Living.

But to return to the Considera­tion of those Texts that are al­ledg'd for the Son's being called God; that in John 1. 1. I have spoken of already, as also that [Page 36] in 1 Tim. 3. 16. That in Rom. 9. 5. is read without the word God in the Syriac, and in the Writings of St. Cyprian, Hilary and Chry­sostom; whereby it's probable it was not originally in that Text. But Erasmus acknowledges that for a good Reading, which points the Clause so as to render it a Thanksgiving to the Father thus, The God over all be blessed for ever, to wit, for his Benefits in raising up Christ of the Fathers, &c. And it seems to have been so read by some of the Antients, for they reckon it among the Heresies to say, that Christ was God over all, as Origen contr. Cels. and others. In 1 John 3. 16. The word God is not found but in very few Greek Copies; and if it be read there, admits of a good Sense, without making God to die, who only hath Immortality. As also doth that Text in Acts 20. 28. which may be render'd, Feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with the Blood of his own Son; but the truer Reading according to the Syriac, the Armenian, and most antient Greek Bibles, is, Christ instead of God. Most of the Antient Fathers read Christ or Lord. Those words in 1 John 5. 21. This is the true God, which some refer to the Son, are plain­ly to be refer'd to the Father, sig­nified by him that is true, through his Son Jesus. This [He that is true] (whose Son Christ is) is the true God. Lastly, They urge that in John 20. 28. where Thomas be­ing convinced by the clear Testi­mony of his Senses, that Christ was risen from the Dead, an­swered and said unto him, My Lord and my God: which words, whether they are words of Ad­miration, respecting God that raised him from the Dead, or him that was raised to be a Prince and Saviour (Acts 5. 30, 31.) a Lord and a God; the term God cannot signify in this latter sense, any o­ther than a God or Christ, made so by Resurrection. 'Tis a clear Case, that the Evangelist could not intend by these words, to teach us that Jesus was God, when he tells in the last Verse, that they and his whole Book were written, That we might believe that Jesus is the Christ the SON of God, and that believing we might have Life through his Name.

I have insisted long upon this Point of the Oneness of God, partly because it is a Matter of the highest Moment in Religion; partly to shew, that if our Au­thor had a Design (as Mr. Edw. says he had) to exclude the Belies of the Trinity (or Threeness of God) from being a Point necessa­ry to Salvation, it was a Pious and Christian Design; and that Mr. Edw. has been so far from of­fering any thing to prove that Faith to be so necessary, that he has not proved it a true Doctrine; but on the contrary, I have proved it to be false, and highly disho­nourable [Page 37] to the ever-blessed God and Father of Christ, contrary to the clear and full Current of Scripture, obscuring the true Glory of Christ, and very inju­rious to the Peace and Hope of Christians.

But after all, whether our Au­thor is of my mind in this Mat­ter; or whether he believes that the Doctrine of three coequal Al­mighty Persons is a Truth, but not Fundamental, I cannot determine: but methinks Mr. Edwards's con­cluding him all over Socinianiz'd in this Point, is done upon such Grounds, as will argue the Holy Evangelists to be also Socinians: for he says, This Writer interprets the Son of God to be no more than the Messiah: and I am much perswad­ed, that whoever shall read the Gospels with any attention, will find the Holy Writers to be of the same Mind; and our Author has fully prov'd it in his Book, but more particularly from pag. 48. to 61. and pag. 95. Yea the com­paring the Evangelists in the re­lation of one and the same Story alone may do it; for what in Matthew is exprest by, Thou art the Messiah the Son of the Living God, chap. 16. 16. the same is in Mark, Chap. 8. 29. Thou art the Messiah; and in Luke 9. 18. The Messiah of God. And if you com­pare 1 John 5. 1. with ver. 4, 5. you will easily see the Christ or Messiah, and the Son of God, are Terms of the same Import. Be­sides, the very word Messiah or Christ signifying Anointed, and so interpreted in the Margin of our Bibles, John 1. 41. is in the 49th verse, understood by Nathanael to be the Son of God, the King of Is­rael. For the Kings of Israel in the Letter and Type, were con­stituted Kings by Anointing; hence God is said to anoint David King over Israel, 2 Sam. 12. 7. and Psal. 2. 2. he is called the Lord's Anointed; but in verse 7. upon that very account, the Lord said, Thou art MY SON, this Day have I begotten thee. Now as the first and second verses of this Psalm, are by the Apostles and Believers, applied to God's Holy Child [or Son] Jesus, who as David is called the Lord's Christ, Acts 4. 25, 26, 27. so upon God's raising again of Jesus to be a Prince and a Saviour, the Apostle Paul does expresly apply to him that glorious Proclamation in the 7th verse, saying, As it is also written in the second Psalm, Thou art MY SON, THIS DAY have I BEGOT­TEN THEE, Acts 13. 33. And the Author to the Hebrews, Chap. 1. 4, 5. speaking of the Son's be­ing made better than the Angels, proves it from this, that God said not at any time to any of them, as he did unto Jesus, [in his Type David] Thou art my Son, this Day have I begotten thee; and in his Type Solomon, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son, 2 Sam. 7. 14. Moreover we have [Page 38] seen before, that our Lord vindi­cates to himself the Name of the Son of God, by a Text out of the 82d Psalm, where the mighty Judg­es and Princes are called Gods, and Sons of the most High, John 10.

These things consider'd, will I think justify our Author in inter­preting the Son of God to be no more than the Messiah, or will condemn the Divine Writers (if not the Messiah himself) in the same Crime.

Another Evidence of our Au­thor's being Socinian, is (accord­ing to Mr. Edw.) that he expounds Joh. 14. 9, &c. after the Antitrinita­rian Mode, whereas generally Divines understand some part of those words concerning the Divinity of our Sa­viour. He says, —generally Di­vines, &c. By this mark those Di­vines that do not so interpret, must be Socinians: the Socinians owe Mr. Edw. their thanks, for adding to their Number many Learned and able Divines; but I doubt those Divines will not thank him for it. But Mr. Edw. has Courage enough to call a most Learned and right Reverend Fa­ther, Wavering Prelate, and to bring in his Doctrine about Fundamentals, as favouring the Causes of Atheism, if he and those other Divines agree not with him in their Sentiments.

Another mark of Socinianism is, that our Author Makes Christ and Adam, to be the Sons of God—by their BIRTH, as the Racovians generally do. That they both make Christ to be the Son of God by his Birth, and that truly accord­ing to that Text of Luke 1. 35. cannot I think be denied by any that duly considers the Place; but that either the one or the other make Adam, who was never born to be so, in like manner by his Birth, is Mr. Edwards's Blunder, and not their Assertion.

I have not taken notice of the other Fundamentals which Mr. Edw. reckons in his System, (di­vers of which are not found in Holy Scripture, either Name or Thing, expresly, or by conse­quence) because he insists chiefly on the Doctrine of the Trinity; which however it is believed by Learned Men, to be in some sense or other (they cannot agree in what sense) a Truth; yet some of the most Learned of them do not believe it a Fundamental and necessary Truth, particularly Mr. Limborch (than whom this pre­sent Learned Age does not afford a more Learned and able Divine) could not defend Christian Reli­gion, in his most famous and weighty Disputations against the Jews, without waving that Point; one of which we have in his Ami­ca Collatio cum erudito Judaeo, &c. the ablest Jew (I presume) that ever wrote in Defence of Judaism against Christianity. Another Conference I am informed we may hope shortly to see, in his Reduction of an eminent Person, [Page 39] who was upon the Point of for­saking the Christian Religion, and embracing for it that of the Jews at Amsterdam, when first the a­blest Systemers had tried their ut­most skill and could not effect it. Perhaps Mr. Edw. means him for one, when he says, our Author's Plausible Conceit found reception (if it had not its birth) among some Fo­reign Authors besides Socinians, pag. 104. Indeed he had cause e­nough, for Mr. Limborch tells the Jew expresly (in the Book I na­med, Chap. 9. Pag. 218.) Quando exigitur fides in Jesum Christum, nusquam in toto novo Testamento exigi ut credamus Jesum esse ipsum Deum, sed Jesum esse Christum, seu Messiam olim promissum, vel quod idem est, esse Filium Dei; quoniam appellationes Christi & filii Dei inter se permutantur. ‘When we are requir'd to believe in Jesus Christ, we are no where in all the New Testament requir'd to believe that Jesus is the very God, but that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah, that was of old promised, or which is the same, that he is the Son of God; be­cause those Appellations of Christ and of Son of God are put one for another.’ So that in Company of Mr. Limborch and other eminent Divines, as well as our English Bishops and Doctors, our Author may still believe the Doctrine of the Trinity to be a Truth, though not necessary, ab­solutely necessary to make one a Christian, as Mr. Edwards con­tends.

But why does he make mention of only the Right Reverend Fa­thers, one Reverend Doctor, and the foreign Divines and Socinians, as Favourers of this Plausible Con­ceit, of making nothing necessary and Fundamental, but what is E­VIDENTLY contain'd in Holy Scripture as such; and so is accom­modated to the apprehension of the Poor, that hear and read the Scriptures, making them also ca­pable of being saved, though they are either ignorant of, or do not believe aright those Truths, which, though deliver'd in Scrip­ture, are yet either hard to be understood, or difficultly infer'd, or have no mark of Fundamental, either in themselves, or in Divine Revelation; and for those Rea­sons cannot be made evident to the despised common People, which the Lord Jesus came to save as well as the Learned? He might also have charg'd the sixth Arti­cle of the Church of England with this Plausible Coneeit, which has so much Evil and Mischief in it, tending to reduce the Catholick Faith to nothing, pag. 122. For that Article saith thus; ‘Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to Salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any Man, that it should be believed as an Article of Faith.’ Observe here, [Page 40] that every necessary Article must be read expresly, or at least proved thereby, and to whom is this Proof to be made? even to the WEAK­EST NODDLES of those that are requir'd to believe it. Absolute­ly there is not one Man or Wo­man of the venerable Mob, that (according to Mr. Edw.) can be saved, because they cannot pos­sibly have the Article of the three Persons that are one prov'd to them from Scripture; for it's evident the Learned, even of the Clergy, cannot prove it to one another, much less to vulgar Understand­ings. And Mr. Chillingworth (the ablest Defender of the Religion of Protestants, that the Church ever had) says (and ingeminates it) —The BIBLE, the BIBLE, I say the BIBLE only is the Religion of Protestants; whatsoever else they be­lieve besides it, and the plain IRRE­FRAGABLE and INDƲBITA­BLE Consequences of it, well may they hold it as a Matter of Opinion, but not as a Matter of Faith or Re­ligion; neither can they with consi­stence to their own Grounds believe it themselves, nor require the Belief of it from others, without most High and most Schismatical Presumption, Ch. 6. N. 56. Will Mr. Ed­wards say, His Fundamentals are such irrefragable and indubitable Truths, about which there are among Protestants such hot and irreconcileable Contentions? A­gain, that most judicious Author lays this as the unmoveable Foun­dation of his whole Discourse against the Papists, viz. That all things necessary to Salvation are e­vidently contain'd in Scripture; as the Church of England does, (see Pref. N. 30.) And he shows in the following Paragraphs, to N. 38. That all the Jesuits Ar­guments against Protestants are confuted by it. But that's not all, the same Author after Dr. Potter affirms, That the Apostles Creed contains all those points of Belief, which were by God's Com­mand of Necessity to be preached to all, and believed by all: And yet he says in the same Paragraph, That all Points in the Creed are not thus necessary; See Chap. 4. N. 23. Now what more or less hath our Author asserted in his whole Book? For I have shewed out of him, and it's evident to the Impartial; that his Proposition, that Jesus is the Messiah or Christ, does com­prehend or clearly imply all the Articles of necessary Christian Faith in the Creed. For, though it was sufficient to constitute a Believer during the Life of Christ, to believe him to be the Christ, although they had no explicite Belief of his Death and Resur­rection to come; yet afterwards those Articles were necessary, being undoubted Evidences of his being the Messiah, as our Author pag. 31. And therefore Mr. Edw. is very injurious to him, in representing his Proposition, as if it were only the believing the Man called Jesus [Page 41] to be the Messiah, an Hebrew word, that signifies in English Anointed, without understanding what is meant by that Term, see pag. 121.

But why should I expect that Mr. Edw. should have any regard to Mr. Chillingworth's Judgment, and all those, the Vice Chancel­lour, the Divinity-professors, and others that licensed and approv­ed his Book, when he has none for the Pious and Learned Bishop Jer. Taylor, and those others? Nay, when those numerous plain Testimonies, which our Author has quoted out of the Holy Scrip­tures themselves, do but provoke his Opposition and Contempt; though the Divine Writers add these Sanctions to the Belief of our Author's Proposition, or of those Words and Sentences that are of the same Import, and compre­hended in it, viz. He that believeth shall be saved, or shall never thirst, or shall have eternal Life, and the like: On the contrary, He that be­lieveth not shall be condemned, or shall die in his Sin, or perish, and the like. However I doubt not but my impartial Reader will consider both what my Author, and what my self have said in this Point.

Having thus made it appear, that the reducing of the Funda­mentals of Christian Faith to a few, or even to one plain Arti­cle deliver'd in Scripture expres­ly, and often repeated there, and in divers equipollent Phrases, easy to be understood by the POOR, and strongly enforcing the Obe­dience of the Messiah, (as is our Author's Proposition) is far from having any tendency to Atheism or Deism; I shall now retort this charge upon Mr. Edw. and show that on the contrary, the multi­plying of speculative and mysteri­ous Articles as necessary, which are neither contain'd in Scripture expresly, nor drawn thence by any clear and evident Consequence, but are hard to be understood, especi­ally by the common People, having no rational Tendency to promote a good Life, but directly to the high Dishonour of the one God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the subversion of the Hope and Peace of Chri­stians, as I have manifested in one and the chief of Mr. Edw's Fun­damentals, and of other Syste­mers: This I say has been, and is one great Cause, or chief occa­sion of that Atheism and Deism that is in the World.

1. Mr. Edw. himself tells us, That ‘Undue Apprehensions of a Deity join'd with superstiti­on, are the high road to Athe­ism, pag. 34.—Therefore im­posing of false Doctrines, con­cerning the Attributes of God, is very pernicious, for they are destructive of his very Being and Nature.’ But I have shew'd that the imposing of the Doctrine of three Almighty Persons, or per­sonal Gods, is a false Doctrine, and destroys one of the chief At­tributes [Page 42] of God, therefore is (ac­cording to Mr. Edw.) destructive of his very Being and Nature, pag. 35. Again, another of Mr. Edw's Fundamentals is, That full Satis­faction is made by the Death of Christ to the Divine Justice; which Do­ctrine does clearly destroy the At­tribute of the Divine Mercy: for every one may readily perceive, that full satisfaction to Justice by Punishment, cannot consist with Pardoning Mercy; when a Judg punishes according to full Justice, he does not at all forgive or shew Mercy. But that they may not be seen to destroy altogether the Mercy of God, they make him to inflict that Punishment upon himself in a Human Body and Soul. Will not these false concep­tions of the Deity expunge at last the Belief of the true one? Mr. Edw. says false ones will.

2ly. Another occasion, Mr. Edw. says, Atheists take from our Divi­sions, Broils and Animosities, from the many Parties and Squadrons of Sects that are in the World, to bid defiance to all Religion. And is it not manifest that those Divisions, &c. arise chiefly from those Do­ctrines that are Mr. Edw's Funda­mentals? I have intimated alrea­dy, there are many Divisions of Trinitarians, and how hotly they contend with one another, and upon Unitarian Principles. And whoever shall but peep into Ec­clesiastical History, may soon see that their Trinity has been such a bone of Contention as has exer­cis'd the Wits and Pens of Church­men these 1400 Years; for so long it is, and longer since Chri­stians departed from the simpli­city of the Faith, as it was preach­ed by our Lord Christ and his Apostles. And now when the Unitarians and our Author would bring Christians back to that sim­plicity, in which the Gospel was preached to the Poor, and they un­derstood it and receiv'd it; this pious Design is ridicul'd, and the Salvation of the Bulk of Mankind is set at nought; Mr. Edw. may well conclude that this conduct gives occasion to Atheistical Persons.

3ly. He says, pag. 63. When Persons observe that the very Divi­nity of our Blessed Lord and Saviour is toss'd and torn by rude Pens—what can they think of the other great Ve­rities of Christianity? But Mr. Edw. mistakes, it's not the opposition that is made to the supreme Di­vinity of the Son of God, but the asserting it, that inclines Men to disbelieve Christianity. Had ma­ny that are now Deists, been soon­er acquainted with the Doctrine of one God even the Father, and of one Man the Mediator between God and Men, it's very probable they would have continued Chri­stians; for there are some that of Deists have been reconcil'd to the Christian Faith by the Unitarian Books, and have profess'd much Satisfaction therein. But I must confess it's a very handsome re­buke [Page 43] Mr. Edw. gives to his own Party, when he blames the Anti­trinitarians, That they have provok'd some of them to an undecent sort of Language concerning these Holy My­steries: so that some of these latter have hurt the Cause, it may be almost as much by their Defending it, as the others have by their Opposing it. I must lay up this for a curious Fi­gure in Rhetorick: He cuts some dignified Persons through the Uni­tarians sides; and so whoever is in Fault, they must bear the Blame. But if the Unitarians have Truth, and necessary Truth on their side, then they are not faulty, even as Christ and the Apostles were not faulty, though they preach'd the Gospel which set the Son against the Father, &c. and produc'd not Peace but a Sword: And the Reformers were not faulty in vigorously op­posing the Popish Faith, even un­to Blood. But whoever will at­tentively consider it, may see it's the Nature of the Trinitarian Doctrine, that it cannot be defend­ed without being exposed, so that when the most Learned of the Party labour to defend it, they necessarily run into one Ab­surdity or other; which being perceived by the next Learned Man, he exposes him: and a Third sees the weakness of each of them: and a Fourth Man spies Flaws in every of them. This produces various Hypotheses, and makes them a Scorn to Atheists, and enclines others to Deism. For the obscuring of a Contra­diction will not take it away. Con­tradictions are stubborn Things, and will never yield to any Re­conciliation whatsoever. God will never be more than One real Person, and One Person will never be Three real Persons. And if Trinitarians will (as they do) make that a Fundamental of Religion, which contradicts the best Reasonings of Mankind, whereby they prove the Existence of God and his Unity, viz. That he is that Being which IS necessarily and by himself, and so consider'd not in Kind, but in Act; wherefore if you sup­pose more Gods, then you will necessarily find nothing in each of them why any of them should be. Grotius de ve­rit. Chr. Relig. in initio. And if the Trinitarians cannot explain their Doctrine to one another, so as to clear it from introducing more Gods than one, no marvel then that loose Men (who yet reason as the incomparable Gro­tius, and other Learned Men do) do thence deny there is any God at all. The Learned allow there is not necessarily any God, if you suppose more than one: The Trinitarians say he is more than one; Men who think it their In­terest there should be no God, conclude thence, it's equal in rea­son to believe there is no God as three. And Mr. Norris joins them with his Suffrage in the Point; I think it (saith he) a greater Ab­surdity, that there should be more [Page 44] Gods than one, than that there should be none at all. Reason and Relig. p. 59.

And if some Men take occasion from such reasonings as these to turn Atheists it may easily be con­ceiv'd, that Men that are more Sober, and find strong and irre­sistible Reasons for the Existence and Unity of God, but see clear­ly that Christians worship Three, and besides that, hold divers o­ther absurd Doctrines for Funda­mentals; such Men (I say) must of necessity forsake Christianity; and turn Deists. Thus it's most manifest, that the Unitarians take the direct Course to prevent A­theism and Deism, by letting the World see, that those Fundamen­tals are no Doctrines of Christ; but that the necessary Faith of Christ is a plain and short Doctrine, easy to be understood by the Poor, and clearly exprest in Scripture, most reasonable in it self, and most agreeable to the Unity and Good­ness of God, and other the Di­vine Attributes.

I shall now in the 4th Place shew how the Obscurity, Numerousness, and Difficulty of understanding Systematical Fundamentals pro­motes Deism, and subverts the Christian Faith, and that in a no­torious Instance. It's matter of Fact, and evident to the whole World, that the Quakers are a very numerous People, and form'd into a compact Body, in which they exercise strict Discipline, as to what concerns their Party. They will not own any other De­nomination of Christians or o­thers for the People of God, but themselves only; all others are of the World. They utterly disown the Scriptures as the Rule of Faith; they decry it as Letter, Carnal, Dust, &c. Their Principle is, that their Religion is taught them by Inspiration or Revelation of a Light within, whereof every Man has a Measure, but they only hearken to it, and obey it; They give the Scripture the place of bearing witness to their inward Light, as the Woman of Samaria to Christ. They turn the Gospel into an Allegory, and consequent­ly make use of the Words and Phrases of the Scripture; as that Christ is the Word, the Light, the Teacher, the Word in the Mouth and Heart; that Christ died, and rose, and ascended, and is in Heaven, and the like; but all in a mystical or spiritual Sense, as they call it. By all which things, and indeed by the whole Tenour of their Books, Preachings and Professions, they appear to be Deists and not Christians. George Fox's Book; titled, The great Mystery, will give full satisfaction in this Point. And they have all along been charg'd by other Denominations to be no Christians, and that Qua­kerism is no Christianity. However retaining still the Words where­in the Christian Faith is exprest, though in an equivocal Sense; and having some among them (as [Page 45] George Keith and others) who still believ'd the Gospel in the proper Sense, they made a shift to be re­puted generally Christians. And indeed this Conduct of theirs de­ceived even many of their own Party, which is manifest in Wil­liam Rogers of Bristol, Francis Bugg, Thomas Crispe, John Penny­man, and especially in George Keith; who having been a Quaker about 30 Years, yet did not till within these three or four Years discover the Infidelity of the Pri­mitive and true Quakers, who are deservedly call'd Foxonians, be­cause holding the Principles of George Fox their Author. But G. Keith living in Pensylvania, (where the Quakers were Governours, and might be free to open their Minds plainly) did then perceive they did not believe the Doctrine of the Apostles Creed, the summary of Christian Faith, which made him preach it and contend for it more earnestly. This provok'd the Foxonians so far, that it came to a Breach and Separation, and at length to Impeachment, Fines and Imprisonment. Then G. Keich returns to London, where the mat­ters in Contest between him and the Foxonians of Pensylvania, was taken into Consideration, and had divers Hearings by the general Annual Meeting of Quakers, 1694, who gave a kind of a Judgment in the Case, but no clearer Deter­mination of the principal Matter concerning Christ within, and Christ without, and the other Articles of Christian Faith, than their for­mer equivocal Expressions. The next Year 1695, at the like Ge­neral Meeting, they absolutely ex­communicate G. Keith, and make this the Ground of it, viz. that he had not given due observance to their former Order, and was trou­blesome to them in his Declara­tions, &c. For he had still conti­nued to preach frequently Christi­anity as before. See a late Book, titled, Gross Error and Hypocrisy detected, &c. The Reader I hope will excuse it, that I have de­tain'd him in this long Story, be­cause it was necessary for me first, to prove the Quakers are Deists, and then to proceed and shew,

Secondly, That the Obscurity, Ambiguity, and Numerousness of Systematical Fundamentals, is that which is the chief Cause of their being so: For not being able to satisfy themselves in understand­ing and determining the Truth and Certainty of those Funda­mentals, for the proof of which Scriptures were alledg'd; but those of so doubtful a sense, and vari­ously interpreted by opposite Par­ties, that they readily embrac'd George Fox's only Fundamental of the Light in every Man; that is in reality the natural Light, whereby we distinguish between Good and Evil in ordinary; whence it is that (as saith the Apostle Paul) We (as the Gentiles) are a Law to our selves, and our Thoughts accuse [Page 46] or excuse, Rom. 2. 14, 15. Which is in Truth an excellent Doctrine, and has great certainty and clear­ness in it. But G. Fox preaches this, not as a natural Principle, but 1. As a supernatural Revela­tion: And 2. Christ being call'd in Scripture, the Light that light­eth every Man, and the Light of the World, because be brought the Light of the Gospel into the World; George Fox applies these Terms and Phrases, and almost every thing that is spoken of Christ, to the Light in every Man, and so turns the plain sense of the Gospel into a Parabolical or My­stical Sense, and makes the Chri­stian Scripture to speak nothing but Deism. 3. G. Fox adds cer­tain Observances of giving no respect in Word or Gesture, or Title, nor speaking as others speak, nor saluting as others sa­lute, nor paying Tithes, nor using the Sword, nor swearing in com­mon Form, &c. and all as inspired Dictates, that so the only People of God might be separated from all the World, and they serve ad­mirably for that purpose. Now if you consider the experimented certainty of their Principle, the Light within, that accuses and ex­cuses, and their Perswasion that it was a Divine Inspiration, which al­so was confirm'd to them by their giving obedience to those Cere­monies which were so contrary and offensive to the World, and expos'd them to much Suffering; [All suffering for Religion, espe­cially for a clear Revelation from God, confirming the Sufferers in their Perswasion:] You may clearly perceive it was the Un­certainty, Obscurity, and Intri­cacy of their former Principles, which induced them to embrace G. Fox's Religion, which is all dictated by the Spirit of God in every Man. Whence it is, they upbraid other Professors with Doubtfulness and Fallibility; and e­very one of them counts himself as infallible as the Papists do the Pope. How can ye but delude Peo­ple (says G. Fox) that are not in­fallible? Myst. p. 33.

Lastly, The Obscurity, Uncer­tainty, and Multiplicity of Fun­damentals, is that which has given an Argument to Popish Priests and Jesuits, wherewith to seduce Protestants to Popery. For evi­dence of this, I shall mind you of a Paper written by a Jesuit, in the late King James's time, titled, An Address presented to the Reve­rend and Learned Ministers of the Church of England, &c. The pur­port of which is, That all things necessary to Salvation are not clearly contained in Scripture, as Protestants hold; because the Belief of a Tri­nity, one God and three Persons, is necessary to Salvation, but not clearly contain'd in Scripture. Then he goes about to shew, that the Scriptures commonly alledged for the Trinity, admit of another sense. He goes the same way in [Page 47] the Article of the Incarnation. Thus supposing these Articles to be necessary to Salvation (as Pro­testants hold) and not clearly con­tain'd in Scripture; it follows that the undoubted Certainty of them must be found in the Deter­minations of the Church; and then that Church which professes Infallibility is the only Refuge; and I believe as the Church believes, sup­plies all other Articles. No Cer­tainty any where else; but Cer­tainty must be had in these Points. Here the making of those Articles Fundamental, which cannot be clearly prov'd from Scripture, sub­verts the Sufficiency and Clearness of Scripture, and sends poor Pro­testants to Rome, for the Certain­ty and Infallibility of the Christi­an Faith.

They did so glory in the strength of this Argument, that the Jesuit-Preacher in Limestreet, read their Paper, and made the same Challenge in his Pulpit, where he had a great number of Protestants that went out of Cu­riosity to hear him.

Having thus (as I presume) vindicated our Author, and shewn the Mischiefs of Mr. Edw's Fun­damentals, I may now take my leave of my Reader. Only I am first willing to let Mr. Edw. know, that I have not undertaken this Defence out of any ambitious Hu­mour of contending with so Learned a Man as he is; nor would I have made opposition to him in any other Point of Learn­ing or Divinity: but Fundamen­tals every Man is concern'd in, and ought to know, and to be assured that he holds them all. Eternal Salvation is a greater thing by far than any Empire, and will there­fore justify and exact our utmost Care and Endeavour for the ob­taining it. So that in these Con­siderations of Mr. Edw's Excep­tions—I have done my Duty to my self; and that I have publish'd them, I am perswaded I have therein done a great Charity to my Neighbours, the Poor and Bulk of Mankind, for whose Salvation (I hope) I should not think it too much to lay down my Life, how­ever Mr. Edw. speaks so scoffingly of them, even where their eter­nal Happiness or Misery is deeply concern'd.