"his last book (merely for the more consistent salving of "a metaphysical hypothesis) has, by a new and unheard "of fiction, without any shadow of evidence from any

66

one text of Scripture, in direct contradiction to the first "article of all the ancient creeds, without the testimony "of any one ancient (I had almost said, or modern) writer, 66 very presumptuously (and had he himself been an opposer of the hypothesis he defends, he would have said, "blasphemously)—reduced entirely to nothing," p. 23.

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Here seems to be something of sounding rhetoric in this paragraph; which had it been intended only for an exercise, or by way of specimen, might have been tolerable but it was wrong to bring it in here, in a grave debate, because there is not a word of truth in it.

To speak to the matter, all this hideous outcry against an innocent man means only this, as hath been above hinted; that I have been willing to think, and as willing to say, that God the Son and God the Holy Ghost have naturally no Governor, are not naturally subject to any Ruler whatever. This gentleman is here pleased to intimate that they are, and is very confident of it. Let me number up the many palpable untruths he has crowded into half a page. One about the foundation of the law of nature: a second, about the New Testament: a third, about every ancient creed: a fourth, about the first principle of religion, and every Christian writer: four or five more, about Dr. Waterland. There is not a syllable of truth in any of the particulars of which he is so positive. For neither does any law of nature, nor any text of the New Testament, nor any ancient creed, nor any Christian and Catholic writer, early or late, ever assert, or intimate, that God the Father is naturally supreme Governor over his own Son and Spirit; or that they are naturally under his rule or government. And as to Dr. Waterland, it is no new or unheard of fiction in him, to assert one common dominion to all the three Persons, and to deny that either the Son or Holy Ghost is naturally subject to (that is, a creature of) the Father. He has full evidence for his per

suasion, from innumerable texts of Scripture, from all the ancient creeds, as understood by the Christian churches from the beginning to this day: and he has neither blasphemously nor presumptuously, but soberly, righteously, and in the fear of God, stood up in defence of the injured honour of the ever blessed Trinity, grievously insulted and outraged by the Arians of these times; who when they have carried on their resolute opposition as far as argument and calm reasoning can go, and are defeated in it, rather than yield to conviction, come at length to such a degree of meanness, as to attempt the support of a baffled cause by the low methods of declaiming and railing.

VI. "When Dr. Waterland says, that many supreme "Gods in one undivided substance are not many Gods, for "that very reason, because their substance is undivided, he "might exactly with the same sense and truth have af"firmed, that many supreme persons in one undivided "substance are not many persons; for that very reason, "because their substance is undivided." p. 51.

Here I am charged with saying, that "many supreme "Gods are not many Gods." Let my own words appear as they stand. Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 331. "I assert, you say, many supreme Gods in one undi"vided substance. Ridiculous: they are not many Gods, "for that very reason, because their substance is undi"vided." Is this saying, that many Gods are not many Gods? No; but they, that is, the three Persons, supposed by the objector to be three Gods upon our scheme, are not three Gods, not many, but one God only. This gentleman appears to be in some distress; that, in order to form his objection, he is forced to invent words for me, and to lay them before the reader instead of mine. He seems however, in the same paragraph, to aim obscurely at an argument which the Author of the Remarks has expressed plainly, and urged handsomely enough, though with too much boasting.

• Remarks, p. 36,

The answer, in short, is this: though the union of the three Persons (each Person being substance) makes them one substance, yet the same union does not make them one Person; because union of substance is one thing, and unity of Person is another: and there is no necessity that the same kind of union which is sufficient for one, must be sufficient for the other also. There is no consequence from one to the other, but upon this supposition, that person and acting substance are equivalent and reciprocal : which the Author of the Remarks had acuteness enough to see, and therefore fixes upon me, unfairly, that very supposition. If he pleases to turn to my definition of person, he will find, that though I suppose Person to be intelligent acting substance, yet that is not the whole of the definition, nor do I ever suppose the terms or phrases reciprocal; any more than the asserting man to be an animal, is supposing man and animal to be tantamount, or to be reciprocal terms. I have taken this occasion of replying to the Remarks upon this head, to let the author see that I do not neglect his performance for any strength it bears in it. That which I have now answered is, in my judgment, the best and strongest argument in the whole piece and I believe he thinks so too.

VII. "When the Doctor affirms that the one supreme "God is not one supreme God in Person, but in substance: "what is this but affirming, that the one supreme God is "two supreme Gods in Person, though but one supreme "God in substance?" p. 51.

Let the reader see my words upon which this weak charge is grounded: they are in my First Defence, vol. i. p. 24.

"Father and Son both are the one supreme God: not "one in Person, as you frequently and groundlessly in"sinuate, but in substance, power, and perfection." I neither said, nor meant to say, not one supreme God in Person; but, not one in Person: the rest is of this writer's foisting in by way of blunder, first to make nonsense, and then to comment upon it, and add more to it. In the

mean while, it is some satisfaction to me to observe, that in a controversy where it is not very easy to express every thing with due accuracy, the keenest adversaries have not yet found any offensive or unjustifiable expression to lay hold on, till they have first made it so, by artifice and management.

VIII. "Another method whereby Dr. Waterland at"tempts to destroy the supremacy of the one God, &c.— "is by denying any real generation of the Son, either "temporal or eternal." Obser. p. 56.

Here are two false and injurious charges: one of my denying any temporal generation of the Son; the other of my denying any eternal generation. Every body that has seen my books knows that I assert, maintain, and inculcate three generations; the first eternal, the other two temporal: so that this charge of the Observator must be made out, if at all, by inference, or consequence only, and not directly and therefore he ought not to have expressed this article in such general terms as he has, but should have said, consequentially, implicitly, or the like, if he had not been exceeding prone to set every thing forth in the falsest and blackest colours.

What he advances in support of these two charges betrays such confusion of thought, and such surprising forgetfulness of ancient learning, (for I am unwilling to impute it all to formed, premeditated malice,) that I stand amazed at it.

1. One of his first blunders is, his attributing the words before all ages (@pò яávтwν a¡úvwv) to the Council of Nice : this he repeats, p. 67, 70. though every body knows that those words were not inserted by the Nicene Council, but the Constantinopolitan, above fifty years after. It is necessary to remark this, because part of the argument depends upon it. There can be no doubt but that the Constantinopolitan Council intended eternal generation: but as to the Nicene Council, it may be questioned whether they did or no. These two our writer, as his way is to

confound every thing, has blended together, and, I suppose, very ignorantly.

The use he makes of it is, bringing me in as his voucher (p. 67.) for the Nicene Fathers professing no more than a temporal generation, though they expressly say, it was @pò távτwv aiúvwv, before all ages. I do indeed offer such a conjecture about the Nicene FathersP; but then I know nothing of the wávτwv alóvwv which this gentleman puts upon them; nor do I allow that either the Nicene or Ante-Nicene Catholics understood that phrase in the limited senseq.

2. Another mistake, or rather gross misreport, is what he says of the writers before and at the time of the Nicene Council, that using the similitude of light from light, or fire from fire, they "always take care to express this 66 one difference in the similitude, that whereas light "shineth forth, and is communicated not by the will of "the luminous body, but by a necessary property of its 66 nature, the Son of God is, by the power, and will, and "design of the Father, his substantial image."

I do not know that any single writer ever expressed this, before Eusebius; if it may be said of him. If it be pretended, that they meant it at least; yet neither can that be proved, in the full extent of what is here asserted, of any one of them. All that is true is, that as many Ante-Nicene Fathers as went upon the hypothesis of the temporal ante-mundane generation, so many acknowledged such generation to be by will and counsel: but none of those writers ever used that similitude upon which Eusebius made the remark now mentioned; viz. that of light and splendor; but that of one light, or one fire of another, which has a very different meaning and applica

P Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 268. Compare Bull. D. F. sect. iii. cap. 9. But see also Lowth's note upon Socrat. Eccl. Hist. p. 24. ed. Cant.

4 See my First Defence, vol. i. p. 99, &c.

r See my Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 292.