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have written, without any particular inspiration.

Deresting the Ditheism of the Arians, and equally distant from the error of Deists, and that of Tritheists, the faithful maintainers of the Catholic Faith worship the One Supreme Being, according to the three-fold display which he hath made of himself. Did we worship three Gods, (as some Deists suppose we do,) we should worship three separate Beings. But, abhorring Polytheism, we say with the scripture, Although there are Three that bear record in heaven," yet (ovrot OL TOEIC EV ELOL, Hi tres Unim sunt,) These three Divine subsistences are one substance: These three Divine Persons are one Jehovah : And we believe and affirm it, for the solid reasons which shall be produced. Never did we say or think, either that three Persons are one Person, or that three Gods are one God: These contradictions never disgraced our Creeds. We only maintain, that the one Divine essence manifests itself to us in three Divine Subsistences most intimately joined and absolutely inseparable. With the Scripture we assert, that, as these Subsistences bore each a particular part in our creation, so they are particularly engaged in the securing of our eternal happiness; the Father chiefly planning, the Son chiefly executing, and the Holy Ghost chiefly perfecting, the great work of our new crea. tion.

All the difficulty, with regard to this mys tery, consists, then, in believing a plain matter of fact; namely, that we are commanded to be baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; or, to take for our one God, the one Supreme Being, manifesting himself to us as our Friend and Father, in and through the Son, and by the Spirit. Jehovah, who is perfectly acquaint ed with our nature, our wants, and our dispositions, having seen, that, to win our love, and to inflame our zeal for his service, it was proper to inform us, that, in his adorable essence, there is a Trinity of Subsistences; each of whom is specially concerned in the stupendous work of our salvation, and each of whom now bears the most endearing rela. tion to mankind in general, and to the church in particular.

These Divine Subsistences, (for so we beg leave to call them, according to the most literal meaning of the word Hypostasis, used by St. Paul, Heb. i, 3) were soon called per sons by the Latin Fathers, as appears from Tertullian, a writer of the second century, who, in his book against Praxeas, frequently mentions the person of the Son, and the Divine Persons, (Personam Filii, divinas Personas, &c.)

The primitive Christians, finding it inconvenient to repeat always, at full length, the names of the three Divine Subsistences, as

our Lord enumerates them in his charge of baptizing all nations, began about the same time, both for brevity and variety's sake, to call them the Trinity; and if, by renouncing that comprehensive Word, we could remove the prejudices of Deists against the truth contended for, we should give it up, and always say, The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, which is what we mean by the Trinity.

In the mean time, if to worship the Son and the Spirit, as comprehended in the unity of the Father's Godhead, is to deserve the name of the Trinitarian, we glory in the appellation, provided it does not exclude that of Unitarian,-for we do not less worship the unity in mysterious Trinity, than the Trinity in the most perfect and unfathomable unity.

Hence it appears, that, if the word Unitarian means a maintainer of the divine unity against idolaters of every description, there are two sorts of Unitarians, who differ as widely, as the Catholic Faith differs from Socinianism :

1. The Christian, or Catholic Unitarians, who maintain the divine unity against all sorts of Polytheists, the Arians themselves not excepted; but who at the same time assert, that this unity necessarily includes the Father, the Word, and the Spirit; it being far more unevangelical to suppose, that the Father is the one Supreme Being in the universe, exclusively of his Word and Spirit, than it is unconstitutional to say, that the king is the one supreme legislative power in England, exclusive of the Lords and Commons.

2. The Jewish, or Socinian Unitarians, who not only confine the Father to a barren, lone some unity, but, so far as their influence reaches, tear from him his beloved Son, and even despoil him of his paternity: Nor is it surprising, that, when we consider them in this light, far from giving them the name of Unitarians, we are tempted to call them Dis. uniters, Dividers of God, and manglers of the divine nature.

Judge, candid reader, between these Unitarians so called, and us. Like the false mother, who, to deceive Solomon, gave up to the dividing sword, the child she claimed as her own; do not these dividers betray their want of love to the true, scriptural unity? And when they try to disunite God the Father from his beloved Son, with the sword they borrow from Caiaphas and Mahomet, do they not, before the judicious, attack the divine unity defended by St. John? And is not their attempt far more absurd and unnatural, than that of making a rent between the sun and its glorious effulgence?

Man is not only prone to leave the narrow way of truth, but to run from one extreme to the other. When the divine unity was chief

ly revealed, mankind madly ran into Idola

CHAP. II.

try: The Creator was forgotten; almost every A view of the sources, whence the philosophy of

But since the

creature was deemed a Gud.
creator has revealed, that, in the unity of the
divine essence, there are three divine subsist-
ences, human perverseness starts back from
that glorious discovery, and the philosohers
of this world, under pretence of standing up
for the divine unity, and for the dignity of the
Father, refuse divine honours to the second,
and to the third subsistences, without which
the deity cannot exist, and the Father can be
no Father.

Hence it appears, that idolatry and impiety are the two precipices, between which the Christian's road lies all the way to heaven. Dr. Priestley supposes that we are fallen into the former; and we fear that he and his ad mirers rush into the latter. Let us see who are mistaken. It is one of the most impor. tant questions that were ever debated. Either we are idolaters in worshipping that which by nature is not God, or the Socinians are impious in refusing divine worship to that which is really God; and what is more dreadful still, they worship a mangled notion of deity, and not the God revealed to us in the sacred Scriptures.

Not to worship the Word and the Spirit, when they were not explicitly and directly revealed, was more excusable: but what can be said for the baptized people, who set at nought the deity of two of the divine Hypostases so clearly revealed to them? If the Word and the Spirit partake of Godhead jointly with the Father, can those who deny them divine honours trust in them for salvation? Do they not take large strides to meet the danger which our Lord describes in these words, "Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father?" And does not a punishment, peculiarly aggravated, await those who perversely and finally sin against the Holy Ghost; as we fear, all baptized people do, when they deny his influences upon the soul, as well as his vitality and rationality? For it is evident, that, if the Word and the Spirit, have an essential place in the divine nature, by which we were created, to treat them as mere creatures, is far worse than not to render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's; for it is refusing unto God, that which is God's, it is slighting the proper Son of God, on account of that very humiliation, by which. he came to overcome our pride; and it is resist ing and grieving that Holy Spirit, which is to comfort us on earth, and to glorify us in hea

ven.

Having thus taken a general view of the Catholic Faith, let us now consider the arguments which the wise men of this world bring to make us ashamed of calling upon our itedeemer and our Sanctifier.

the age draw their popular arguments agains, the Catholic Faith.

THE Royal Academy of Paris having offer ed a prize to the man who should write the best copy of verses upon the divine nature, many wrote largely on the awful subject; but professor Crouzaz sent only two lines, of which this is the sense,-" Cease to expect from man a proper description of the supreme being; None can speak properly of Him but Himself:" And the judicious Academicians agreed to crown this short performance, because it gave the most exalted idea of Him, whose dazzling glory calls for our silent ado ration, and forbids the curious disquisitions of our philosophical pride.

"Canst thou, by searching, find out God? says Job. This knowledge is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? It is broader than the sea, it is deeper than hell: What canst thou know?" Job xi. 7. "As the heavens are above the earth, (saith the Lord,) so are my thoughts, (much more my nature,) above your thoughts," Isaiah lv. 9.-It is therefore one of the loudest dictates of reason, that as we cannot grasp the universe with our hands, so we cannot comprehend the Maker of the universe with our thoughts.

Nevertheless, a set of men, who make much ado about reason, after they have candidly acknowledged their ignorance, with regard to the divine nature, are so inconsist ent as to limit God, and to insinuate that He can exist only according to their shallow, dark, and short-sighted ideas. Hence it is, that, if He speak of his essence otherwise than they have conceived it to be, they either reject his revelation, or so wrest and distort it, as to force it to speak their pre-conceived notions; in direct opposition to the plain meaning of the words, to the general tenor of the Scriptures, to the consent of the Catholic Church in all ages, and to the very form of their own baptism.

Is not the learned Dr. Priestley a striking instance of this unphilosophical conduct? A great Philosopher in natural things, does he not forget himself in things divine? Candid reader, to your unprejudiced reason we make our appeal. With a wisdom worthy of a Christian Sage, he speaks thus in his disquisitions on matter and Spirit :-" Of the substance of the Deity, we have no idea at all; and, therefore, all that we can conceive, or pronounce, concerning it, must be merely hypothetical, P. 109, 110.-But has he behaved consistently with this reasonable acknowledgement? And may we not, upon his just concession, raise the following Query.

When a Doctor has granted that " we have

no idea at all of the divine substance, &c. is be not both inconsistent and unreasonable, if so far from pronouncing hypothetically con. cerning it, he absolutely declares, that the divine substance, of which he has no idea at all, is incompatible with the three divine subsistances, which the Scripture calls the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost?

But Dr. P. after having granted the former proposition in his disquisitions, abso lutely pronounces the latter in his corruptions, &c.; is not, therefore, Dr. P. both inconsistent and unreasonable?

We truly honour him for his parts, and sincerely love him for his many social virtues. But if he continually attack our Saviour's divine glory, (which is dearer to us than life itself,) he is too candid to refuse us the liber. ty of trying to defeat his attacks, by plainly pointing out the flaws of his arguments, and the errors of his polemical conduct.

The learned Doctor continuing to speak as a true philosopher, says, "We know there must be a first cause, because things do actually exist, and could never have existed without a cause, and all secondary causes necessarily lead us to a primary one. But of the nature of the existence of this primary cause, concerning which we know nothing, but by its effects, we cannot have any conception. We are absolutely confounded, bewildered, and lost, when we attempt to speculate concerning it. This speculation is attended with insuperable difficulties. Every description of the divine Being in the New Testament, gives us an idea of something filling and penetrating all things, and therefore of no known mode of existence." Disquisitions, p. 111, 146.

Upon these second concessions, we raise this second argument. A Doctor who grants that "we know nothing of the first cause but by its effects, that we have no conception of its nature, that it has no known mode of existence, and that this speculation is attend. ed with insuperable difficulties,-must have an uncommon share of assurance, or of inat tention, if he pretend to argue the Catholic Church out of the belief of the Trinity, because we have no (clear) conception of its nature, because it has no known mode of existence, and because (in our present state,) the speculation of it is attended with some insuperable difficulties.

But Dr. P. has made all these fair concessions in his disquisitions, and yet he preLeads to argue us out of our faith in the Trinity, because we have no clear conception of its nature, &c. Hath not, therefore, the Doctor an uncommon share of assurance, or of inattention ?

Continuing to speak like a christian philosopher, he says, "In two circumstances that we do know, and probably in many others, of which we have no knowledge at

all, the human and divine nature, finite and infinite, intelligence, most essentially differ, The first is, that our attention is necessarily confined to one thing, whereas He who made and continually supports all things, must equally attend to all things at the same time; which is a most astonishing, but necessary attribute of the one supreme God, of which we can form no conception, and consequently, in this respect, no finite mind can be com pared with the divine." Again, the deity not only attends to every thing, but must be capable of either producing or annihilating any thing: so that, in this respect also, "the divine nature must be essentially different from ours," p. 106. "There is, therefore, upon the whole, manifold reason to conclude, that the divine nature, or essence, besides being simply unknown to us, has properties most essentially different from every thing else," p. 107.-God is, and ever must remain the incomprehensible," p. 108.

Upon this set of unavoidable concessions made by Dr. P. we raise this third argument. A philosopher who grants that God is the incomprehensible, that the human and divine nature, (of consequence human and divine personality,) most essentially differ,- and that the divine essence has properties most essentially different from every thing else: a philosopher, I say, who publicly grants this, must be one of the most prejudiced of all men, if he rejects the sacred Trinity, into whose name he was baptized, because the Trinity is in some sense incomprehensible, and because he insists that three divine persons must be divided and separated like three human persons; just as if he did not himself maintain, that the divine essence, or personality, hath properties most essentially different from men, angels, and every thing else.

We could fill several pages with arguments equally demonstrative of the inconsistency and irrationality of the learned Doctor's at tacks upon the Catholic Faith: but not to tire out the reader's patience, in the second, chapter of this work, we shall produce but one more set of the philosophical concessions of which Dr. P. loses sight in his Theological Works.

"In the first place, (says he) it must be confessed, with awful reverence, that we know but little of ourselves, and therefore much less of our Maker, even with respect to his attributes. We know but little of the works of God, and therefore certainly much less of his essence. In fact, we have no proper idea of any essence whatever. It will hardly be pretended, that we have any proper idea of the substance even of matter, considered as divested of all its properties."Disquisitions, p. 103 and 104.

From these last concessions, and from the tenor of Dr. Priestley's corruptions, it ap

pears that men, who confess they know little of God's works, and little of his essence; and who have not even any proper idea of the essence of a straw, pretend, nevertheless, to know clearly what is inconsistent with the divine essence: insomuch, that setting up as reformers of the three creeds, they try to turn the doctrine of the Trinity out of the Church, and the Lamb of God out of his divine and everlasting throne.

Now is not this as absurd, as if they said to the Catholics, we have indeed been all baptized in the name of the God of the Chris tians, that is," in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:"But we new Gnostics, we modern reformers, who know nothing of the Father's essence, or even of the essence of an insect→→→ we are, nevertheless, so perfectly acquainted with the divine essence, as to decide, that it is absolutely inconsistent with the nature of the Father, to have a living Word, or a proper Son, and a rational Spirit; and, there fore, reforming our God himself, we strike the Word and the Holy Ghost out of the number of the divine persons, whom at our baptism we vowed to serve jointly for ever.

Oye philosophers of the age, can men of sense admire your philosophy, any more than men of faith admire your orthodoxy? May we not hope, that, when the blunders of your logic are brought to light, they will be a proper antidote for the poison of your errors? And will your admirers be still so inattentive, as not to see, that your capital objections against the Trinity are sufficiently answered by applying to them the short reply you make on another occasion, "This is an argument, which derives all its force from our ignorauce." See Disquisitions, p. 82.

But if the philosophers, who attack the Catholic Faith, cannot overthrow the doctrine of the Trinity by the arguments they draw from their avowed ignorance of the divine nature, they seem determined to make us give up the point, by arguments drawn from fear and from shame. Availing himself of our dread of Popery, and of our contempt for the Popish error of transubstantiation, the learned Doctor loses no opportunity to compare that pretended mystery, that despicable absurdity, with the awful mystery of the Trinity, exhorting us to reject them both, as equally contrary to reason and common sense. Thus, in his Appeal to the Professors of Christianity, speaking of the divinity of Christ, he says "The prevalence of so impious a doctrine can be ascribed to nothing but that mystery of iniquity, which be gan to work in the times of the Apostles themselves. This, among other shocking corruptions of Christianity grew up with the system of Popery. After exalting a man into a God, a creature into a Creator, men made a piece of bread into one also, and then

bowed down to, and worshipped the work of their own hands." And, in the Preface of his disquisitions, he writes, "Most Protestants will avow they have made up their minds with respect to the Popish doctrine of transubstantiation, so as to be justified in refusing even to lose their time in reading what may be addressed to them on it: and I avow it with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity."

As these comparisons are the second storehouse, whence the learned Doctor draws his arguments against our supposed Idolatry, it is proper to shew the unreasonableness of his method. For this, three remarks will, I hope, be sufficient.

1. The question between Dr. Priestley and us is, whether there are three divine subsistences in the one divine essence? Now it is plain, that to deny this proposition, as reasonably as we deny that bread is flesh, and that wine is human blood, we must be as well acquainted with the nature of the Divine essence, and of divine personality, as we are with the taste of bread and wine. But how widely different is the case, the Doctor himself being judge? Do not his disquisitions assert, that the divine essence hath properties most essentially different from every thing else that of God's sub. stance we have no idea at all-and that he must for ever remain the incomprehensible? Therefore, if God hath revealed, that he exists with the three personal distinctions of Father, Word, and Holy Ghost, the learned Doctor, after his concessions, can never deny it, without exposing at once his piety, his philosophy, his logic, and his common sense; unless he should make it appear, that he is the first man who can pertinently speak of what he has no idea at all, and who perfectly comprehends what must for ever remain incomprehensible. But,

2. The question between the Pope and us, with respect to transubstantiation, is quite within our reach; since it is only, whether bread be flesh and bones; whether wine be human blood; whether the same identical body can be wholly in heaven, and in a million of places on earth, at the same time; and whether a thin round wafer, an inch in diameter, is the real person of a man five or six feet high. Here, we only decide about things known to us from the cradle, and, concerning which, our experience, and our five senses, help us to bear a right judgment, agreeable to the tenor of the Scriptures. Therefore,

3. Considering that the two cases are diametrically contrary, and differ as much as the depths of the divine nature differ from a piece of bread; as much as the most incomprehensible thing in heaven, differs from the things we know best upon earth,- we are bold to say, that, when the learned Doetor

involves the Protestant worshippers of the Trinity, and the Popish worshippers of a bit of bread, in the same charge of absurd idolatry, he betrays as great a degree of unphilosophical prejudice, and illogical reasoning, as ever a learned and wise man was driven to, in the height of a disputation for a favour. ite error.

"Do what ye can, (replies the learned Doctor,)-you must either sacrifice the Unity to the Trinity or the Trinity to the Unity: for they are incompatible." But who says it? Certainly not our Lord, who commands all nations to be baptized into the one name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost and if Dr. P. says it, then he says it without knowing it: for, speaking like a judicious philosopher, he has just told us, that "probably the divine nature, besides being simply unknown to him, more essentially differs from the human in many circumstances, of which he hath no knowledge at all." To this sufficient answer, we beg leave to add an illustration, which may throw some light upon the Doctor's unphilosophical positiveness.

Modern physicians justly maintain the circulation of the blood, which being carried from the heart through the arteries, flows back to it by the veins. But a learned Doc tor, very fond of Unity, availing himself of the connexion which the arteries have with the veins in all the extremities of the body, insists that one set of vessels is more agree able to the simplicity of the human frame. What! says he, arteries! veins and lym phatic vessels too! I pronounce that one set of uniform, circulating vessels, is quite sufficient. You must therefore sacrifice the arteries to the veins, or the veins to the arteries; for they are quite incompatible. This dogmatical positiveness of the Unitarian An. atomist, would surprise us the more, if we had just heard him say, that there are many things in Anatomy, of which he has no know ledge at all, and assert that the minute ramifications, and delicate connexions of the vessels which compose the human frame, are, and must for ever remain incomprehensible to those who have feeble and imperfect organs.

From this simile, which, we hope, is not improper, we infer, that if positiveness on this Anatomical question would not become the learning and modesty of a Doctor in phy: sic, a like degree of peremptoriness and assurance, in a matter infinitely more out of our reach, is as unsuitable to the humble candour of a doctor in divinity, and to the cautious wisdom of a philosopher.

Having thus taken a general view of the principal sources, whence the philosophers of the age draw their popular arguments against the Catholic Faith; and having, (we hope,) by this means removed some preju

dices out of the way, the cautions reader will more candidly consider the main question, which is proposed in the next Chapter.

CHAP. III.

That according to the Scriptures, God the Father has a proper Son, by whom he made, governs, and will judge the world.

We cannot read the Divine oracles without finding out this capital truth, that God, con. sidered as Father, has an only begotten Son, called the Logos, or the Word, whom he loved before the foundation of the world, John xvii. 24.-" who is the express image of his person," Heb. i. 3.-" by whom he made the world, who was in the beginning with God, and was God," John i. 1.

We need only to consider the first verse of Genesis, to find an intimation of this capital truth. "In the beginning, (says Moses,) Elohim, the Gods, (in the plural number, or God considered in the distinctions peculiar to his nature,) He created the heaven and the earth." The learned know, that Elohim is a word in the plural number, siguifying more exactly Gods than God; and, accor dingly it is some times so translated in our Bible: "Thou shalt have no other Elohim, (no other Gods) but me:" Exod. xx. "The Elohim doth know, that ye shall be as the Elohim;" which is rendered by the Septua gint, and in our Version," God doth know, that ye shall be as Gods." Gen. iii. 5; a proof this, even to an illiterate Reader, that the very first line of the Bible gives us some notice of the mysterous distinctions in the divine nature, one of which is called the Spirit, in the very next verse: "And the Spirit of the Elohim moved on the face of the waters."

"In the beginning was the Word, (the Son, the second of the distinctions in the Godhead, says St.John,) and the Word was with God, (the Father,) and was God,” (partaking of the Divine Nature in union with the Father,) John i. 1.

Is man to be created, these Divine Subsistences consult together the Elohim says,

Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness:" and when man is fallen in attempting to be like the Elohim, God says, "Behold, Le is become like one of us,-to know good and evil.”

Light is thrown upon this mysterious language, where David, speaking of the Son manifested in the flesh, introduces Jehovah as saying to the Messiah, "Thou art my Son,-This day have I begotten thee." Struck with the awfulness of this decree, or Livine declaration, the Psalmist cries out, "Serve Jehovah with fear, kiss the Son," gave him the kiss of adoration by trusting in him as Jehovah-Saviour, kiss him, "lest ye perish" out of the way of saving faith," i

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