370. Basil's also, no less full and express against the pretended natural dominion on one hand, and subjection on the other, is shewn in my Second Defence'.

375. Gregory Nazianzen's testimony I shall throw into the margin: the same will be a confirmation of the creed of Thaumaturgus.

380. Gregory Nyssen's doctrine may be seen in my Defences", very full to the purpose.

382. I conclude with Ambrose, having thus brought the doctrine low enough down. No doubt can be made of the Catholics all the way following to this very time.

:

These, after Scripture, are my authors for that very doctrine which the Observator every where, without the least scruple, charges upon me as my fiction and invention. Such is his great regard to truth, to decency, and to common justice such his respect to the English readers, in imposing upon them any the grossest and most palpable abuses. Let him, when he is disposed, or when he is able, produce his vouchers from Catholic antiquity, for the natural subjection of God the Son, or the natural superiority of the Father's dominion over him. He may give proof of a superiority of order (which I dispute not) or of office, which I readily admit: but as to there being any natural rule, or natural subjection among the divine Persons, or within the Trinity itself, none of the ancients affirm it; all, either directly or indirectly, reclaim against it. He may run up his doctrine to Eunomius, and so on to Arius, where it began. He, I believe, is the first man upon record, that ever allowed the preexistence and personality of the Logos, and yet made God the Son, as such, naturally subject to the dominion of the Father; appointing him a Governor, another God' above him: which was really Arius's sense, and is the plain sense likewise of his successors at this day.

1 Vol. ii. p. 401, 646, 751.

m Θεὸν τὸν πατέρα, Θεὸν τὸν υἱὸν, Θεὸν τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, τρεῖς ἰδιότη τας θεότητα μίαν, δόξῃ καὶ τιμῇ καὶ οὐσίᾳ καὶ βασιλείᾳ μὴ μεριζομένην, ὥς τις τῶν μικρῷ πρόσθεν θεοφόρων έφιXooopnoev. Orat. xxxvii. p. 609.

Οὐδὲν τῆς τριάδος δοῦλον, οὐδὲ κτι

στὸν, οὐδὲ ἐπείσακτον, ἤκουσα τῶν σοφῶν τινος λέγοντος. Orat. xl. p. 666.

n Vol. i. p. 443. Vol. ii. p. 401. o Non sunt enim duo Domini, ubi Dominatus unus est; quia Pater in Filio, et Filius in Patre, et ideo Dominus unus. Ambros. de Sp. S. 1. iii. c. 15. p. 686.

THE CONCLUSION.

HAVE nothing now to do, but to take my leave of these gentlemen for this time. If they are disposed to proceed in the way they have now taken, it will be no great trouble to me (while God grants me life and health) to do myself justice, as often as I see needful; and to support, with God's assistance, the cause I have undertaken, as well against calumnies now, as against arguments before. But I think, since the argument is in a manner brought to an end, it is time for these gentlemen to put an end to the debate too; lest, after exposing the weakness of their cause, they may meet with a more sensible mortification, by going on to the utmost to expose their own.

They have done enough for Arianism; and more a great deal than the best cause in the world (though theirs is a very bad one) could ever require. They have omitted nothing likely to convince, nothing that could be any way serviceable to deceive their readers. They have ransacked the Socinian stores for the eluding and frustrating the Catholic interpretation of Scripture texts. They have gone on to Fathers: and whatever they could do there, by wresting and straining, by mangling, by misinterpreting, by false rendering, and the like, they have done their utmost to make them all Arians. And, lest that should not be sufficient, they have attempted the same thing upon the ancient creeds, and even upon modern confessions; upon the very Articles and Liturgy of the Church of England. To complete all, having once found out the secret of fetching in what and whom they pleased, they have proceeded further to drag me in with the resta, into the very doctrine that I had been largely confuting.

They have spared no pains, or art, to disguise and colour over their wretched tenets, and to give them the best face and gloss that they could possibly bear. They will not call the Son a creature; nay, it was some time before they would say

a See Reply, p. 116. Second Defence, vol. ii. p. 537.

plainly, that he is not necessarily existing, till the course of the debate, and some pressing straits almost forced it from them; and that not till after some of the plainer and simpler men of the party had first blabbed it out. At last, they would seem not so much to be writing against the divinity of God the Son, as for the honour of God the Father. They do not care to say, they are pleading for the natural subjection and servitude of the Son, but it is for the natural dominion of the Father over him: and they do not commonly choose so much as to say that in plain and broad terms; but they hint it, and mince it, under the words "alone supremacy of the Father's dominion." And for fear that that should be taken hold on, and wrested from them, in due course of argument, they clap in authority with dominion ; that they may have something at least that looks orthodox, something that may bear a colour upon the foot of antiquity, as admitting of a double meaning. And they have this further view in confounding distinct things together, to make a show as if we admitted no kind of authority as peculiar to the Father when we deny his alone dominion; or that if we assert one, we must of course, and at the same time, assert both. To carry on the disguise still further, they represent their adversaries as teaching that the Father has no natural supremacy of authority and dominion at all; without taking care to add, (what they ought to add,) over the Son and Holy Ghost, to undeceive the reader; who is not perhaps aware what subjection they are contriving for two of the divine Persons, while they put on a face of commendable zeal for the honour of the first. Such is their excessive care not to shock their young, timorous disciples; not to make them wise at once, but by degrees, after leading them about in their simplicity for a time, with their eyes half open.

Besides giving a fair gloss and outside to their own scheme, they have next studiously endeavoured to expose and blacken the faith received. It is Sabellianism, it is Tritheism, it is scholastic jargon, it is metaphysical reverie, nonsense, absurdity, contradiction, and what not contrary to Scripture, contrary to all the ancients, nay, contrary even to moderns also: and, to make it look as little and contemptible as possible in the eyes of all men, it is at length nothing more than Dr. Waterland's own novel fiction and invention.

Now I appeal to all serious and thinking men, whether any thing can be done, that these men have not done. in favour of

their beloved Arianism; and whether they may not now fairly be excused, if they should desist, and proceed no further. A great deal less than this, though in ever so good a cause, might have been sufficient: and had they sung their liberavi animam some twelve months backwards, I know not whether any truly good and conscientious Arian could have thought them deserters, or have condemned them for it. Let the cause be ever so right, or just, yet who hath required it at their hands that they should pursue it to such hideous lengths? Their design, suppose, is to promote truth and godliness: let it then be in God's own way, and by truth, and truth only. There can be no necessity of deceiving, of betraying, of beguiling any man even into truth, (though this is not truth,) by disguises, by misreports, by making things appear what they are not, or not suffering them to appear what they really are. This is going out of the way, wide and far, and defending truth, (were it really truth,) by making fearful inroads upon simplicity and godly sincerity, upon moral honesty and probity.

In conclusion, I must be so just to myself as to say, that considering how I was at first forced, in a manner, into public controversy, and what kind of a controversy this is, and how often, and how anciently before decided by the churches of Christ; I was civil enough in engaging the men so equally as I did, and upon so fair terms. I expected, I desired nothing, but that they would make the best use they could of their own understandings, from which we were promised great things. I invited them to the utmost freedom, in discussing every point within the compass of the question; only not to exceed the rules of just and regular debate": that every branch of the cause might have a new hearing, and be reexamined with all possible strictness and severity. In a word, all I required was, to dispute fair, to drop ambiguous terms, or define them, to contemn every thing but truth in the search after truth, and to keep close to the question; at the same time binding myself up to a careful and constant observance of the same rules.

When their Reply appeared, I presently saw how far those gentlemen were gone off from just debate; and how little inclination they had to dispute fairly, or regularly. To prejudice the readers, they began with charges and complaints; all trifling,

most false; and some such as they themselves could scarce be weak enough to believe. I need not say what followed. When I found how the case stood, I reminded them of their misconduct, sometimes raised my style, and treated them with some sharpness, (though with less than they had me, with much less reason,) to let them know that I understood what they were doing, and that if I could not be confuted, I would not be contemned. As they had taken the liberty of charging me very often, and very unfairly, with things that they could not prove; I made the less scruple of charging them with what I could prove. And this, I hope, the impartial reader will upon examination find, that all the severity on my side lies in the truth of the things proved upon them; while theirs, on the other, lies mostly in invention, and abusive words, which, for want of evidence to support them, must of course return upon their own heads. They appear, in their last pieces especially, to be no great friends to ceremony so that I have reason to believe they will expect the less in return. I had hitherto been so tender of Mr. Jackson, as never to name him; though his own friends had done it at full length particularly the Author of the Catalogue, &c. and Dr. Whitby twiced, promising the world something very considerable from "the accurate pen of Mr. Jackson." Accuracy is a thing which I shall not complain of, but shall ever receive, even from an adversary, with the utmost reverence and respect. I wish this gentleman had shewn something of it; if not in his account of Scripture or Fathers, (which his hypothesis perhaps would not permit,) yet in his reports and representations, at least, of my words, and my sense; which might have been expected from a man of probity. Whether his writing without a name has been his principal encouragement to take the liberties he has, I will not be positive but it is highly probable; because common prudence, generally, is a sufficient bar against it, in men that have any character to lose, any reputation to be responsible for it. The just and proper views, or reasons, for a writer's concealing his name are, to relieve his modesty, or to screen himself from public censure; to be frank and open in debate, and to discuss every point of importance (though against the received opinions) with all due freedom and strictness, like a lover of truth. Had the gentlemen I am concerned with gone upon these views, or made

c See my Second Defence, vol. ii. p. 396. d Whitby's Second Part of his Renlv. p. 74, 122.