do: Petavius, Curcellæus, Cadworth (as if they had not been answered) and to the piece that I mentioned [The Life of Greg. Nazianzen] written by himself. Where does this man think the Catholic church was at that time? for he not only makes the fathers to be he Fetics (and Tritheists, which is indeed to be Pagans) but calls it also The Doctrine of that Time.

But to shew us from how envenomed a spirit all this rises, and how he employs himself, he tells us (p. 409) that "he has found a way to make a comedy of five acts, out of the stories of certain miracles done at Hippo, of which St. Austin speaks in his 322d Sermon, and the following." Now the things there related by St. Aus tiu, are (if not proper miracles in the modern sense of the word, yet) wonderful and gracious providences of God, which the word miracula well enough signifies, and which all pious men think themselves bound to lay to heart and commemorate, though this man makes a mock of them. This advertisement he gives, to see, I suppose, whether this copy too will yield any money; and whether, as he has found booksellers that would stand out at nothing, so he can find any players profane enough to act this his comedy; and if they be so inclined, it is pity but they should do it, that they may fill up the measure of their impiety; and that all Christian princes and states may follow the good examples of the French king in exterminating them, and of the king of Prussia in pro hibiting his books.

Since the first edition of this book, Mr. Le Clerc does, in an encomium which he writes on Mr. Lock (Bibl. Choisie, tom. 6) own, that he has seen Bishop Stilling fleet's Vindication of the Trinity; and after having passed a very slighting and contemptuous censure on what the bishop has there, and in some other pieces, written against Mr. Lock's notions, and on the other side, as much magnified his hero (the solidity of his doctrine, the exactness of his thought, &c. whereas Bishop Stillingfleet understood neither his adversary's meaning, nor the matter itself, and was never used either to think or to speak with any great exactness. See the

saucy arrogance of this critic). He pretends at last to be surprized to find there a confutation of Curcellæus's proofs of the Tritheism of the antients. He had reason to be surprized, if he had not seen it before; because he had, since the publication of it, cast vile reproaches on all the ancient Christians on the credit of those proofs, which he might see here all overthrown.

What does he do upon this surprize? Does he pretend to shew by any particulars, that Curcellæus had not mistaken the sense of his own quotations, as the bishop pretended to shew that he had? or if he cannot do this, does he acknowledge his own slanders? Neither of these; but, instead of vindicating those quotations from being wrested, he throws in one more of his own to them, which is more apparently wrested than any of them. It is out of St. Hilary de Synodis; "which book (he says) Mr. Stillingfleet had not read very carefully, or else did not remember distinctly; for there is hardly any book from which one may more plainly prove that the orthodox of that time believed one God in specie [i. e. as to the sort or kind of Gods] but three in number." Is not this horrid ? Three Gods in number! Did ever any Christian own this? Then he produces the passage.

It must be noted that St. Hilary there, in disputing against the Arians, does labour to shew the term ouśσioc, of one substance,' is the most clear, and the most significative of the Catholics' meaning; but yet that the term oμosios, of like substance,' as also the term of equal substance,' may be borne with and admitted, as being capable of being explained in an orthodox sense, and as being so explained and used by many Catholic writers; viz. that in divinis, likeness or equality, are all one with identity or sameness. Speaking thus,*"Si ergo [Pater] naturam neque aliam neque dissimilem. ei quem invisibiliter [1. indivisibiliter] generabat, dedit, non potest aliam dedisse nisi propriam. Ita similitudo proprietas est, proprietas æqualitas est," &c. If then he [God

* Prope sinem.

the Father] gave [or communicated] to him whom he, without any division, begot, a nature which is not ano"ther nor unlike, it must be so, that he gave him no other than his own; so likeness and sameness [own"ness] and equality, are all one;'-and then a few words after, comes the passage at which Mr. Le Clerc carps: "Caret igitur, fratres, smilitudo naturæ contumeliæ suspicione; nec potest videri Filius idcirco in proprietate Paternæ naturæ non esse, quia similis est; cum similitudo nulla sit nisi ex æqualitate naturæ, æqualitas autem naturæ non potest esse, nisi una sit: una non Personæ, sed unitate GENERIS:"So that there is no need, brethren, that you should suspect this phrase, likeness of nature, of any reproachful meaning; nor will the • Son seem not to have the Father's own nature for that reason, because he is said to be like him; whereas 'there is no likeness but by equality of nature; and equality of nature cannot [in this case, speaking of 'Divine Nature] be, unless it be one. One, not by 'unity of person, but of GENUS;" whereas Mr. Le Clerc observes here, that, supposing the numerical unity of the Divine Essence, it is not proper to say the nature of the Son is like or equal to that of the Father. It is true, If St. Hilary had not explained himself so, as by equality to mean identity; and whereas he ob serves that, by the word genus, St. Hilary shews his meaning to be of a generical or specifical unity only. This also would have some sense, according to the ordinary use of the word genus; but St. Hilary had de. clared in that very book in what sense he took the word; as at the beginning of the book, in these words: " But seeing I must often use the words essence and substance, we must know what essence signifies, lest we should use words and not know the meaning. meaning. Essence is that which a thing is, &c. ; and it may be called the essence, or nature, or genus, or substance, of any thing;"- and a little after," Whereas, therefore, we say that essence does signify the nature, or genus, or substance," &c.; and constantly afterwards he uses these words as synonymous; and accordingly Erasmus, in the Dedication

of his edition of St. Hilary's works, had said," Of the same essence, or, as St. Hilary often speaks, of the sa.ne genus or nature with the Father, which the Greeks express vμsorov;" so that to say, Unitate non personæ sed generis, is to say Not one person, but one substance;' or, as he himself expresses it in the page before, Nor persona Deus unus est, sed natura. God is not one

in Person, but in Nature.'

So unfair and pedantic a thing it is to catch hold of some single phrase or expression, whereby to account for an athor's meaning, through a whole book. The contrary appears by many passages in the book, particularly by this. He, as well as the other fathers, does often say, That he that should preach that the Son, as well as the Father, is unbegotten, and without any cause, fountain, origin, or principle [which the Greeks express ἀγέννητον καὶ ἄναρχον, unbegotten and unoriginated, or self-originated would inevitably make two Gods; or," that God is one by virtue of the innascibility; autoritate innascibilitatis Deus unus est. Because though there are three Persons, yet One only of them is the fountain and origin of the Deity; or, as Tertullian expresses it," They are all One, inasmuch as all are of One; that is, as to unity of substance." Contra Prax. c. 2.

Now, he that speaks thus, plainly denotes a numerical unity; for a specifical unity might as well or better be conceived between three co-ordinate ayevunta kai avaoxa, but a numerical unity cannot be conceived, without conceiving the Father as the Fountain of the Deity.

CHAPTER VI.

OPINIONS OF THE ANTIENTS CONCERNING THE FUTURE STATE OF INFANTS, OR THOSE WHO DIE UNBAPTIZED.

THE account of their opinion in this matter will be best given in these particulars:

1. All the ancient Christians (without the exception

of one man) do understand that rule of our Saviour (John iii. 5) Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man [it is in the original tav un ris, except a person, or except one] be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God, of baptism.

I had occasion, in the First Part, to bring a great many instances of their sayings: where all that mention that text from Justin Martyr [40] down to St. Austin [300] do so apply it; and many more might be brought. Neither did I ever see it otherwise applied in any ancient writer [1430]. I believe Calvin was the first that ever denied this place to mean baptism*. He gives another interpretation, which he confesses to be new. This man did indeed write many things in defence of infant baptism; but he has done ten times more prejudice to that cause, by withdrawing (as far as in him lay) the strength of this text of Scripture (which the ancient Christians used as a chief ground of it) by that forced interpretation of his, than he has done good to it by all his new hypotheses and arguments. What place of Scripture is more fit to produce for the satisfaction of some plain and ordinary man (who, perhaps, is not capable of apprehending the force of the consequences by which it is proved from other places) that he ought to have his child baptized, than this (especially if it were translated into English as it should be) where our Saviour says, That no person shall come to Heaven without it? meaning, at least in God's ordinary way. It is true, that Calvin does at other places determine this to be so, as I shall shew presently; but his dictate is but a poor amends for the loss of a text of Scripture. Since his time, those parties of the Protestants that have been the greatest admirers of him, have followed him in leaving out this place from among their proofs of infant baptism, and diverting the sense of it another way; which the Antipædobaptists observing, have taken their advantage, and do aim to shut off all the Protes

* Instit. lib. 4, c. 16.