"members to make such declaration concerning her doctrines, but

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positively insists upon every one's implicit submission to

them, in the sense that Church and her Councils receive them, "without examining them by the rule of Scripture; and (2.) "Because many of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, such as "the invocation of the Virgin Mary, and of saints, &c. with "the worship of images, can in no sense be reconciled, but "are directly contrary to it, as setting up other mediators instead "of Christ, and teaching men to apply to such beings as have "no power or dominion over them; whereas the invocation of "the Holy Ghost, and so of the whole Trinity, as used in the "Church of England, (some of the most suspicious of all the things allowed by him,) may be understood, and declared, to be only a desiring him to bestow those gifts upon us, in subordi"nation to the Father and the Son, which we are sure from Scripture it is his proper office, and in his power, to distribute: “if, I say, the Doctor shall make this reply, I must answer;

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"1. That I doubt, our Church does not properly allow her "members to make any such declarations, as is here intimated, "but expects their submission in that sense she and her synods "have imposed her doctrines and devotions: and though it be "not under the notion of implicit faith, and without examination, "yet as acquiescing in her judgment, interpreting the Scripture "according to the Articles and Creeds, and submitting to her authority in controversies of faith.

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66 2. That there are even in the Church of Rome few or no "such doctrines or practices, but persons well disposed to it can, "in some sense or other, reconcile them with Scripture; or at least "think they can, which is here almost the same case, without dreaming of setting up other mediators instead of Christ, or

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doubting of some degree of power and authority in the beings "so invocated. So that if we, without all sacred or primitive "command or example, may follow our Church in the invocation "of the Holy Spirit, and so of the whole Trinity, from some "uncertain reasonings of our own, I do not see how we can "condemn the Papists for following their own Church in "the invocation of angels, nay, hardly in that of saints also, "and of the Virgin Mary herself.

"Nor can any explications of forms directly against the known sense of words, and of the imposers, be other than protes"tatio contra factum; and so wholly unjustifiable.

"Nor indeed, if this were somewhat tolerable in some par"ticular cases of small moment, can it be at all so in the most "sacred Articles and Offices of religion.

"If this way be allowable, then is the offence of the cross "ceased; then the martyrs have commonly lost their lives "without sufficient cause; and those Jews who would die "rather than eat swine's flesh, and those Christians that would "suffer the like punishment, rather than cast a little incense on "the heathen altars, were very unfortunate, as having suffered "without necessity.

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"What will become of all oaths, promises, and securities among men, if the plain real truth and meaning of words be no longer the measure of what we are to profess, assert, or "practise; but every one may, if he do but openly declare it, put "his own strained interpretation, as he pleases, upon them? Especially if this be to be allowed in the most sacred matters of "all, the signing Articles of faith, the making solemn confessions "of the same, and the offering up public prayers, praises, and doxologies to the great God, in the solemn assemblies of his worship. This, I own, I dare not do, at the peril of my "salvation and if I can no way be permitted to enjoy the "benefit of Christ's holy ordinances in public, without what "I own would be in myself gross insincerity and prevarication, "I shall, I believe, think it my duty to aim to enjoy that benefit "some other way, whatever odium or sufferings I may bring upon "myself thereby."

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I have transcribed this whole passage from Mr. Whiston, being full and clear to my purpose, unanswered, and unanswerable and it may appear from hence that the hardest names which I have given to Arian subscription are in reality no severer than had been before given, by a known friend to the Arian cause: so that this writer may, with equal justice, charge Mr. Whiston also with slander, calumny, and persecuting principles, for his declaring such subscription to be gross insincerity and prevarication. The pious and candid Mr. Nelson, and the very judicious and learned Bishop of Oxford had both expressed their abhorrence of it, before I wrote; as the anonymous author of the Case of Addressing, &c. has also done since. And indeed, who is there of any tolerable measure of good sense, or breathing any thing of the true spirit of piety, that does not utterly detest it?

I have now done with this writer, and, I hope, with this cause too it is high time for those gentlemen, at length, to see their error, and correct it. They may succeed tolerably, for a while, in the Trinitarian controversy, which few, in comparison, understand thoroughly; and they may go on, for a season, in perverting Scripture and Fathers, without rebuke from the generality, who will not readily observe it, or be at the pains to search into it. But if they think to practise in like manner with our Articles and Liturgy, where every English reader can judge; or if they pretend to put off their sophistry in a plain point of morality, where every man, of any common discernment, can both detect and confute them; they will disoblige and disserve their own characters extremely; and will, at length, make but a very mean, not to say contemptible figure, in so wise and knowing an age. We did not indeed expect that any greater geniuses should rise up in the Arian cause, than had embarked in the same cause many ages upwards: but it was a reasonable presumption, that none would undertake the reforming of our faith, and the new stamping our whole system of theology, but such as would not (especially after notice given) betray a weakness and slowness of apprehension, even in the plain and selfevident principles of common honesty.

A

SECOND VINDICATION

OF

CHRIST'S DIVINITY:

OR, A

SECOND DEFENCE OF SOME QUERIES,

RELATING TO

DR. CLARKE'S SCHEME OF THE HOLY TRINITY,

IN ANSWER TO THE

COUNTRY CLERGYMAN'S REPLY.

WHEREIN

THE LEARNED DOCTOR'S SCHEME, AS IT NOW STANDS, AFTER

THE LATEST CORRECTION, ALTERATION, AND EXPLANATION,

IS DISTINCTLY AND FULLY CONSIDERED.

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Coloss. ii. 8, 9.

Quid tibi visum est, homo Ariane, tam multa dicere, et pro causa quæ inter nos agitur nihil dicere: quasi hoc sit respondere posse, quod est tacere non posse? Augustin. contr. Maxim. p. 677. ed. Bened.