inseparably and indivisibly one and the same in them all! They used these last words to express that which we now express by numerically one, or one in number; and they thought these words did it more effectually; because a thing may be one in number (as there is but one world in number) and yet not uncompounded, indivisible, &c. as God's essence is. In a word, to say that they sometimes used the instances of a specific unity is true; but to say that they pleaded for no more than that in the Trinity is false.

These answers and defences are necessary only in the case of those fathers, whose style is more loose and Asiatic, and so their words more capable of being perverted from their true meaning; but other fathers, as $t. Austin, St. Hierom, St. Ambrose, &c. who lived at the same time, and held the same faith and communion, being brought up to some use of logic, have placed their words concerning the numerical unity so, as that no file or tooth can touch them. This, Bishop Stillingfleet has shewn of St. Austin; and it is proved incontestably by these words of his (lib. 7, de Trinitate, c. 4) “ If the word essence were a specific name common to the three, why might there not be said to be three essences? →→→ as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are three men, the word man being a specific name common to all men; and a little after, Quia hoc illi est Deum esse, quod est esse, tam tres essentias quam tres Deos dici fas non est, — Since with him it is the same thing to be God, as it is to be, we must no more say three essences [or beings] than three Gods.' St. Hierom cannot well speak more home than he does in the place that I quoted on another occasion (ch. 3)" If any one by Hypostasis, meaning essence, does not confess that three is but one Hypostasis in three Persons, he is estranged from Christ." And St. Ambrose argues, *"How can the unity of the Godhead admit of plurality, when plurality is of number, and the divine nature admits not of number?" There would be no end of repeating the say

*Lib. 3, de Spiritu Sancto, c. 14

ings of these and other fathers, that are full and home

to this purpose.

What then can be done with these fathers? They are point blank against the Socinians; and they cannot be made Tritheists, but must be owned to be Unitarians in respect of God's essence: they must be blackened some other way. As for St. Hierom, he is proud, inconstant, &c. and the rest have other faults. What shall be said of St. Austin, whose piety, humility, and caution in writing, has obtained a great repute? Set Mr. Le Clerc upon him: he will prove him to be "one that has promoted some two doctrines, which have taken away all goodness and justice both from God and men,' and will find a way to lay the odium of that tyranny with which the French king persecutes his Protestant subjects, at his door. Upon what grounds? Because he held the doctrine of Predestination an inextricable point, in which good men in all ages have differed; and because he was convinced, by the unquiet and conten tious humour of the Donatists and Circumcellions, and by the good effect which the emperor's edicts afterwards bad upon them, that moderate penalties inflicted on turbulent schismatics are useful.

It is not only the Christians at the time of the Coun cil of Nice, and near before or after it, that have incurred the displeasure of these men, by their branding the Paulianists in the manner I mentioned: it is all the antients of whom we have any remains. Socrates ↑ tells how Sabinus, a writer of the Macedonian sect (these were akin to the Paulianists) found it for his pur pose to cast dirt on the fathers of the Nicene Council, making them a pack of ignorant and silly men; yet he left a handle whereby himself might be refuted; for he had acknowledged (as he durst not deny) that Euse bius was a man of great judgment and learning. So, crates, by producing Eusebius's testimony in com mendation of the rest, rebukes the falsehood of that

Supplement to Dr. Hammond's Annot. Preface. † Lib. 1, c. 8.

De Vità Constant. lib. 3, c. 9.

slanderer; but these have taken a more effectual course; they have put them all into the indictment, not leaving us one by whose evidence we might retrieve the credit of the rest. The reason is, They can find never a PauJianist among them.

The apostles chose the best men they could find to succeed them in the ministry; such as Timothy, Titus, Polycarp, &c. They also gave them this charge (2 Tim. ii. 2): The things which you have heard of us before many witnesses, the same commit you to faithful men, who may be fit to teach others also. They knew how much it concerned the good of the church, and the credibility of the doctrine in future times, to have it handed down by faithful, prudent, and judicious men. We have all the reason in the world to believe (unless the contrary could be proved) that this charge was obeyed by their deputies; and that the succession was for the first ages generally carried on in good hands. This race of men would persuade us the contrary; for they spare not any that are left of those that were nigh the apostles. Take Irenæus for example. He received the doctrine from Polycarp [67] who was chosen by St. John. He has left some books against the heresies that were then, and some other pieces; these were much valued by the men of the next ages. They call him the mauller of heresies and false doctrines; a skilful conveyer of the history and traditions of the church. We pick out of his works the completest catalogue by far of the books of the New Testament of any that is so aucient; yet, in so large writings he has here and there (as it happens to a man) some sayings and sentences of small force or weight; some particular observations of little moment, some arguings weak, and some mistaken. These they cull out, would have us judge of the whole garden by these flowers, that they may represent the man a silly and credulous fop, and his works not worth the pains of reading.

Next to the undervaluing the authority of the Scripture, there is no so mischievous way to undermine the Christian religion, as thus to vilify the ancient pro

fessors of it; for it is they that have handed down the Scripture, and the interpretation and confirmation thereof to us. It is from them that we know which books are canonical, or were truly the writings of such or such an apostle. One of the assurances that we have that the miracles recorded were really wrought, is that they who lived so near the time that they might easily enquire, did believe, and were really convinced of the matter of fact; and the more injudicious they are represented to be, the weaker that argument is; therefore, though we know them to be but men, and liable to mistakes, yet it is an unnatural impiety to make it one's business to represent them worse than they are.

But as their credit has held now so many hundred years in the Christian world, when all the books of those that have nibbled at them have been slighted and forgotten, so the attempts made by these men are too void of strength and truth, to give us any reason to fear that they should overthrow it. It is a poor piece of spite to one's self to be revenged on the credit of men dead 1300 or 1500 years since, because their words will not be brought to favour some alteration of the Christian faith that we would set up; and it is also an impious thing to be so far in love with such an alteration, as to go about to build it upon the ruins of the credit of Christianity in general; for what an ill face does this put upon the Christian faith, to maintain that it has been conveyed down to us by a church, made up of silly and credulous men, and such as believed there were three Gods!

After I had finished this chapter, there came over another book from Holland, written by the same spiteful enemy of the fathers, whose cavils against them I have been here answering; where he brings in St. Austin also among the Tritheists. He could not have taken a more effectual course to hinder any body from believ ing his slanders of the other fathers. He calls his book Bibliotheque Choisie, intending it for a continuation of of his Bibliotheque Universelle; and himself he styles

here John Phereponus; that is," One that takes a great deal of pains" to do mischief.

First, He labours by all ways to vilify St. Austin, as one that was no such linguist as Phereponus is:-"He understood (he says, p. 406) neither Greek nor Hebrew: he was not fit to expound the Scripture. His : reasonings popular, such as might please the Numidians, and other Africans, who were of all nations the most ignorant and most corrupt." This he says, though he knew that St. Austin was, not only for his preaching, but writings, the most celebrated bishop (as St. Hierom says) not only in Africa, but in the whole world; but he says 407)" The churchmen of this age were hardly any better in the other provinces of the Roman empire. The question Whether one that understands not Hebrew nor Greek (which yet is not altogether true of St. Austin) may not for all that be fit to expound the Scripture? we will let pass; but this is certain, that one that does not believe the divinity of our Saviour Christ, is not fit to write harmonies, annotations, or paraphrases on it, nor translations of it; and all that abhor that heresy will be careful how they read them.

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He proceeds (p. 410) to say, without any proof there given," That St. Austin, as well as the other fathers, has followed the doctrine of that time, which established a specific unity between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and a distinction of the numerical essence; so that, speaking properly, they believed three essences perfectly equal, and strictly united in will (which very mention of three essences is what St. Austin spoke of with abhorrence in the words I quoted just now). Then having mentioned a book written against himself by the abbot Faydit, entitled "A Defence of the Doctrine of the Fathers concerning the Trinity, against the Tropolatres and Socinians; or, the two new Heresies of Steven Nye and John Le Clerc, Protestants," he answers, that he "holds no heresy; be does not approve of the Tritheism of the fathers, &c.; and if it be said that the fathers were not Tritheists," then he refers to the authors he uses to