prove y' y Diocesses of ye primitive Bishops were not in Apostolical times, & but in few places long after, nor ought they to be now any greater than y' y people might have recourse to their Bishops and these to their people. I have asked some of about 60 yeares of age, & they have confessed that they never saw a Bishop in their lives, and yet I live not above halfe ye length of ye diocesse fro Peterbo'roy. I denie not Arch-B. & primates as magistrates or y King's visitours, needing no other ordination than his majesties commission, nor president BP. by consent of ye churches, for order's sake as there may be occasion : so likewise upon those words, Dic ecclesiæ, &c., 1 prove yt a Catholique governing Church is a Popish chimæra, impossible & contradictious, nor is there any such thing as national governing church, & to say, y people may not worship God, till whole nations are agreed in uniformity of doctrine, discipline, formes and rites, or no otherwise, is one of y most injurious & factious principles in ye world. It hath been ye sacrilegious practice of men to usurpe ye words Bishop & Church, & then to load their adversaries with these great names.

But to come to the errand of this paper, I see y both you & Dr. Still: make no scruple to reckon Socinians (as they are commonly called, who owne not Socinus for a master, but a fellow-servant,) with Turks, Atheists & Papists. You should doe well to consider of this point a little better than I doubt you have, before you censure so much: upon impartial search you may find them to be (as I believe they are) ye best sort of Xtians & ye best reformed, although Socinus had his errours, especially about God's prescience of future Contingents; & did not Luther erre fouly in the point of Consubstantiation? By such words you make people afraid to search into the

were mainly intended against Antinomian imputation or satisfaction, & little against such as eyther of you mantaine. I well remember y' in some of your bookes you say y many men are Antinomians, who would little be thought so. Dr. Stillingf: in a booke of the sufferings of X maketh a great bluster against them, after himselfe had yielded up ye maine fort contended for, himself denieing as to a rigorous legal satisfaction, both ye idem and tantundem. But St., you may remember what a hideous name an Arminian was lately, & now they are ye prime sonnes of ye Church of England, & very few are now offended for difference in those opinions: why might not a little more time, bring ye Socinians (who beleive in God through Xt as offering a sacrifice of suffering obedience for y sinnes of ye world & as an exalted Saviour,) into some tolerable favour, if such as you did not so stigmatize y? Some are so uncharitable or so ignorant as to say y Socinians are scarce Xtians, although they beleive Jesus to be ye Christ, and therefore in St. John's judgement are borne of God: they place ye divinity of Xt in his unction, not much opposeing humane additions but as they obscure this or seeme to be inconsistent with it, and therefore in Justin Martyr's opinion may be reckoned amongst orthodox Christians. I have gone under yt name I confesse, but upon fuller acquaintance, I have not found much dislike from ye better sort, nor would any of our ministers scruple to gett me to preach for y, & therefore sure had somewhat a better opinion of me than a Mahumetan or an Atheist. As for their opinion about ye Trinity, wch hath given ye most offence, as I remember your selfe in your former answer to D'. Still: doth dislike ye damnatory part of ye Creed of Athanasias, so doth Mr. Alsop in his answer, so doth Dr. Taylour in his Libertie of Proph:.

Stillingfleet.

England doe refuse to reade it. Can any thing be more certaine and evident than this, viz. yt ye Ffather is before ye Sonne and ye Sonne before ye Holy Spirit, who speaketh not of himselfe but what he heareth? Whatever quirks or scholastick niceties may be invented, such was y opinion of ye Antients, as a man so well versed

in Antiquitie as you are cannot but know, I meane before the Nicene councell; & after y', your selfe doth not approve ye episcopal discipline of ye churches, and I for my part place ye epocha of ye 1260 apocalyptique yeares there, reckoning by semitimes to Luther, by ye 42 moneths to Calvin, and by 1260 days, i. e. yeares, to Socinus, viz. an. 1586. I will not challenge you to dispute, else I could willingly have sent you a little writeing wherein by many arguments both negatively and positively I doe prove that when ye Holy Spirit is taken personally (I say when personally,) it is not taken for a person numerically consubstantial and absolutely equal to ye Ffather and ye Sonne, but antistoichially to the sense in which the unholy spirit is taken. It may be somewhat to my purpose what yourselfe hath proposd on those words, except you be converted,-whither there be not a sort of spirits above ye ordinary angels? You know they have all grounded ye third hypostasis upon procession, and yet there is but one scripture which mentions it, and Beza expounds y' of ye temporal mission of ye Holy Spirit. Now sublato fundamento, tollitur relatio; for my part I doe not question, but y' I can prove, yt yt Angel who would not suffer John to worship him was ye Holy Spirit. But I will dispute no further of this now. Many men have said with Curcellæus, in præfat: to Episcopius, y Athanasius himselfe did not hold a numericall consubstantialitie, but so it is urged now upon us from ye schoolemen. You cannot but have observed in your readeing of ye ffathers, who were bred up in schooles of false philosophie & rhetorique, & inclined to apostacy, what slight proofes would serve their turnes, for what they had a mind to, and upon what texts they at first chiefly grounded their opinion: as that, thou art my Sonne, this day have I begotten thee, quoted in the New Test: three times manifestly of ye resurrection and exaltation of Christ, as any one may easily percieve that will examine the places, Acts xiii.; Heb i. & v., and not of an essentiall generation before the world beganne. So here also, sublato fundamento, tollitur relatio: but they had a mind to make Christ better than he was and mend ye mys

terie of godlinesse, as Tyndall sth. Ever Anti-Xt will be ye best Xlian O say ye Papists, you make nothing of ye Sacrament of ye Aultar, nothing of holy Church, nothing of ye blessed Virgin, nothing of Christ: viz. to be God's Christ is nothing. Would we could be contented with God's ordinances as he appointed ym, and with God's Christ as an exalted Saviour, according to the whole current of ye Scripture, wch, whatsoever one or two texts (it may be not well translated or not from ye best copies) may seeme to require, ye whole current of ye Bible (upon which ye people who are no schollars must ground their fayth) doth distinguish ye Ffather from the Sonne, as God from X'., and God from ye Lord (grace be to you from God ye Ffather and our Lord Jesus X',) according to Peter's Sermons in ye Acts, by which he laid ye ministerial foundation of ye Christian Church, both as to Jews and Gentiles; & of whom therefore X'. said, Thou_art Peter, &c. Neither Peter nor Paul talke of nunc æternitatis, quite contrary to ye text, hodie (this day) ego te genui: i. e. ego te regem constitui, sayth Grotius upon yt psalme, so manifestly typical and prophetical of Christ's exaltation to his spiritual kingdom as head of ye new creation, all angels, authorities and powers being made subject unto him, I Pet. iii. ult. Peter said nothing of verbum mentis. You know how the antients expounded cor meum eructavit verbum bonum, proceeding from yt we now call Arrianisme to Homooussianisme, and from thence to numerical consubstantialitie: nor St John neither, in yt scholastical sense, who calleth Xt. ye word or speech, because he revealed ye will of ye Ffather, and God spake to us by his Sonne, as men doe to one another by their words. What beginneing is so suteable to an Evangelist as ye beginneing of ye Gospel, and so he expounds himselfe in his epistles. If there be a new creation (or constitution of things under Xt. as ye head,) as all doe now confesse, why should not an Evangelist speake of yt? I doe not remember yt ye Socinians doe use ye ffollowing argument, wche to me is a demonstration, viz. from ye anadiplôsis, when a sentence beginnes with yat word wch ended ye former. It is manifest yt ye Evange

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list doth affect an anadiplôsis; if so, those copies must needs be best weh, as Erasmus observes, reade thus, viz. that wch was made in him was life; and so Tertullian reades universally: but light & life are to be understood all over yt Gospel evangelically. Besides ye world yt was made or was making by him, v. 10, if it had not been long of themselves, was such as were capable of comprehending ye light, v. 5, of receiving him, v. 12, and knowing him, v. 11; ergo, ye Evangelist is not telling over againe ye glory of Moses his first creation, though he allude to yat weh was a type of this. As to ye word flesh, v. 14, was made flesh or was flesh, so Joach. Camerar". i. e. a mortal man, subject to humane infirmities and suffering in ye flesh that word is so used by ye same evangelist, 1 Joh: iv. 2, Every spirit who confesseth Jesus Christ who came in flesh (so ye words should be translated, meaning sufferings, weh ye Gnostiques refused to undergoe): it is well knowne yt epithets conteine some reason appertaineing to ye subject unto wch they are joyned, and ye scope of ye place; but see Gal. iv. 13, 14, and many other places, especially 1 Tim. iii. ult. great is the mysterie of Godlinesse which was manifested in or by flesh, (see ye Syriack and vulgar Latin, Grotius, &c.) viz. by Xt and his apostles, in much infirmitie of ye flesh, as appeares by ye opposition, viz. justified in spirit, viz. by infinite miracles; wh mysterie of Godlinesse, though it was gloriously received, yet ye spirit spake expressely + yt it should be supplanted by a mysterie of iniquitie, and be as

See ye Oxford Gr. Testam.

Sir, may I be so ffree with you as without censure of ffanaticism to tell you yt mostly since I saw you, with God's helpe, I have found out and given (as I am persuaded) very good proofe of very many types of this grand apostacy. I say in general that all the history of ye Old Test: is allegorical of ye great Providences of God concerning the church, symbolically as to things past, and so on typically to things future. Thus I say yt Samson with his three women were types of the apostolical, the imperial and the apostaticall states of ye church of ye New Test:. Gideon was a type of the apostles, and Abimelech of ye bishop of Rome so was Samson's companion,

basely deserted. And I thinke we are now upon a prime instance of apostacy, out of wch it must needs be hard to emerge till ye translations be amended. I say these words, Joh. viii. 58, should be thus rendred, before he be Abraham I am He, i. e. ye Messias yt should come into ye world, before ye prophecie conteined in Abraham's name concerning ye calling of ye Gentiles should be fulfilled; see ye use of y su in Joh. viii. 24, 28, & xiii. 19.

How doe people runne away with it yt ye second person tooke our nature upon him, from Heb. ii. 16, He tooke not on him ye nature of Angels, which should be rendered, as in the margin, he taketh not hold of ye Angels. Ye like may be said of many other places as to translations or copies, wch make it hard to gett out of this part of the Babylonick captivity & may render ye carnal part of ye Protestants, who wilfully shutt their eyes against all further reformation, as the number of ye Beast, acting over ye second part to ye same tune.

Sr, I have not written those things (wch may be had better from Socinus contra Vujekum, Schlictingius, Crellius, &c.) to you to challenge you now in your old age, after so long prepossession; I hope the Lord will forgive you, considering how you come by your opinion & what good service you have otherwise done ye church by your unwearied labours in many particulars, & I doubt not but from sincere & candid principles. I suppose you doc not intend to challendge my Lords ye Bishops, but only to apologise & mollifie them a little, as I would doe you, if it may not cast too great an odium upon you to be, it may be, but a charitable man to Socinians, of wych number yet I might perhaps fairly denie myself to be, I holding three persons in the Trinity, wch Socinus

Judges xv. 2. The two golden calves, of ye patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople. But to speake much, I cannot now; and to say a little is to spoyle all. When this mystical sense shall be throughly understood, farewell Pope. I do believe yt this sense of ye Old Test: will be ye greatest demonstration in ye world against all atheists, infidels and papists. However, let not these things be any prejudice against what I have said in this paper.

did not, & having in a little writing which I call Finalis Concordia, so explained the ends of Christ's death, & amongst others as an expiatorie sacrifice of suffering obedience, yt I beleive your selfe would hardly mislike it. And pray, sir, if Dr. Still: y' selfe and others may mend your opinion, why may not Socinians mend their's? For, indeed, I will not denie but that although ye Socinians doe acknowledge ye death of Xt as the slaying of the sacrifice to be offered in heaven, and the desert of sinne from thence to be gathered, yet that they doe speake too lankly & jejunely as to the immediate ends of Xi's dieing but they say not so much amisse as they who have (indeed, heretofore more than now) been always harpeing upon a rigorous legal satisfaction to vindicative justice to ye utmost farthing, & some said in Hell itselfe; insomuch as many of their hearers, of themselves have tooke it for a gravelling question, how that doctrine could consist with God's free grace, or ye necessity of man's Holynesse; & some have justified Socinus his chardge, runneing into downeright antinomianisme and libertinisme.

One word or two more I must crave. I am sorry to reade what you write so truly of ye ignorance of ye people, & take speciall notice of those passages in y Apol. p. 23 & 54. But for my part I could never hope to see things goe very well with ye meaner sort of ye people, who cannot spare much time, whilest their teachers stumble at ye threshold & stifle their Catechumens at ye beginning with odde and contradictory notions about ye trinitie, instead of teacheing yTM one God ye Ffather, one Lord Jesus Xt & one Holy Spirit. They are talkeing of essence, persons, consubstantial, relative properties, communication of idioms, weh is a figure or 5th trope in rhetorique y destroys all ye figures in logique, wch are quirkes not so fitt for parish churches as young sophisters, whom yet at another time their tutours will teach yt disparates cannot be predicated one of another; as to say a man is an Angell, or an eagle is a lion, and can flie as an eagle but not as a Lion.

Thus they can teach their people (as I have oft heard y",) how ye infinite God weh spannes ye heavens, was

once himselfe but a spanne long, how God may be finite and mortall & man may be infinite & immortal: but what absurdities will not downe with men when they have been brought up in false philosophie, as a trade upon wch when they have spent their moneys; they must goe on & subscribe to all & every thing, or live in poverty & disgrace, wch few can endure. It were well if ministers would keepe themselves in chatechizeing ye people to scripture expressions, upon wch account I must needs commend D'. Worthington's Catechisme. This I have found by experience yt people doe rather out of good manners, & by a kind of implicit fayth, say as their teachers and other Divines say, than understand what they say, & are confus'd in their notions & obstructed in their progresse.

How can they teach ye people tritheisme in more proper words than many divines doe, who, not contented with scripture-doxologies, say, Now to God ye Ffather, God ye Sonne & God ye Holy Ghost, &c. 1 heard one minister, who in catechizeing said, ye Ffather was God, ye Sonne was God (a god, he might have said) and ye Holy Ghost was God, and then askd a maid in church, how many Gods there were? & she said three. And, truly, what are three Divine persons so collaterally mentioned but three Gods in other words of the same signification? I have a booke of Zanchy's (whom yet Episcopius quotes, wth Basil, as not wel approveing yt collateralitie) de tribus Elohim: what's that in English but of ye three Gods? Much about ye same time, ye minister himselfe made an unhappy slip, viz. to whom with thee & God ye Holy Ghost, three Gods and one person, &c. Much about ye matter, for no doubt

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A god he might have said, speaking of ye Sonne; so appellatively, as Joh. i. 1, & apart, as a person of eminent honour and power, next unto God ye Ffather see Tertull. adversus Praxean c. 13, Si pariter nominandi fuerint Pater Christum Dominum nominem: solum auet filius, Deum patrem appellem et Jesum tem Christum potero Deum dicere, sicut idem Apostolus, ex quibus Xtus, qui est (inquit) Deus super omnja benedictus in yum omne. So Tertull. some thinke better, super omnes: see Grot. in loc.

but God is a person, and so spoken of in Scripture.

In ye same p. 23, you speake of original Sinne, wch as to ye corruption of nature or vitious inclinations, should be propounded rather as a curse than a sinne; as part of Gods curse for Adams transgression & ye wicked nesse of ye world, rather than so properly a sinne as our owne voluntary sinnes are. For ye cure of this, what odde doctrines doe the Lutherans & others teach their disciples, concern ing the sacrement of Baptisme con ferreing grace non ponentibus obicem; & therefore to all children baptized, who they say doe actually beleive and understand (all Tho: Aquinas his sumines, no doubt). Possibly it may be simply lawfull to baptize infants, as it may be done: (I think ye primitive Xtians did circumcise ym for a time:) but yt it is better and more scriptural, as ye 27th article sayth, I cannot subscribe: if ye subscription had been only negative, (as I have seen an Irish one,) possibly I might have been content to hold my tongue. I think I should in a matter of greater moment, when to speake would doe more hurt than good, as you very well say. I have askd some of ye old & best approved Xtians, whither when they have been tempted, whither (I say they have felt any efficacious checque from their baptismal vow in infancie, or what their Godfathers promised for y? and they have confessed yt they have not. What witches and ye Devil doe is not much to be regarded.

Tis said, Act. 2, they continued in ye Apostles doctrine, &c. "Till we have recovered the apostles' doctrine from all Babylonical mixtures, our Christian communion will be very lame. Some good may be done, but something will be so done as to be undone againe another time, and all our national agreements & combinations will be but conspiracies and confederacies, which must downe another time, except our magistrates and grandees would be persuaded to urge as a condition of ye publique ministry a subscription to but few articles & but in undoubted scripture expressions, with some test against Popery & complete indulgence to all reformed dissenters in things merely spiritual, where is no civil injurie, & not gra

tifie Atheists & carnal men who would undoubtedly subscribe to a hundred things more rather than loose their benefices: they will not be such fooles, as Camden sayth of ye Papists in Qu: Eliz: time, yt of 12000 beneficd men not above 80 would loose their preferments & some least ye Heretiques should gett ym. Such kind of subscriptions are Honey & nutts for ye Devill. I was reading yesterday Josias Nicholas, who much inveighs agst y", An: 1602, & Zanchy's letter to Qu: Eliz: agst ye Surplice.

S', I hope you will take this my Apologie in good part. God continue you in health & prolong your life. I hope y' selfe & all about you will be carefull of you. Good people challendge a title to ye longest day of your life, & pray heartily for you: so doe I, resting, S, your most heartie friend & humble servaunt,

SIR,

G. C.

N the preface to his Examination

of the Scotch faculty of Common Sense, Dr. Priestley expresses much surprise that a stanch Calvinist, like Jonathan Edwards, should believe and ably defend the doctrine of Philosophical Necessity, which he considers to be more closely allied to the creed of Socinus. I am well aware that Unitarianism and Calvinism are usually regarded as consisting of the most discordant elements, and that in the estimation of the generality, the antipodes of the opposite hemispheres are not more remote from each other, than the peculiar tenets of Calvin and Dr. Priestley.

But really upon a closer view of some of their opinions, I cannot discover that their variance is altogether so irreconcileable; nor can I avoid perceiving several striking points of resemblance between the systems of these renowned polemics. Thus the Calvinist affirms that while a small portion of mankind are predestined by the unalterable decrees of heaven to eternal life, the great majority are consigned to hopeless condemnation. The Unitarian likewise (whom I suppose to entertain the doctrine of Necessity) believes that comparatively few of the human race will so far comply with the injunctions of Christianity, as to entitle them to share in its promised rewards, and