A Conference Between an Orthodox Christian AND A SOCINIAN. IN FOUR DIALOGUES. Wherein The late distinction of a Real and Nominal Trinitarian is Considered. By H. DE LUZANCY, B. D. Vic. of Dovere. and Harwich.  
LONDON, Printed by Tho. Warren, for Thomas Bennet, at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1698.   

THE PREFACE.  
IT is hard to determine which is the greatest misfortune, either to give an easy assent to whatever Doctrine is proposed to us, or value ourselves upon pretended difficulties, and deny incontestable Articles, because they are not altogether free from them? It seems to me as dangerous an error to disbelieve, as to believe every thing: The one being the effect of a prodigious weakness, and the other of an incredible presumption; both equally inconsistent with Reason, which cannot but be sensible, that as there are things visibly false to the meanest Capacity, so there are those which the greatest penetration cannot reach, and yet are certainly true.  
This carries so much evidence along with it, that it is granted in all our Moral and Philosophical inquiries. We are witnesses of innumerable events, the causes of which we guess at, but can give no clear account of. The springs of most transactions in the World are hid from Mankind, and lie in an unfathomable obscurity, plain to none but him to whom Darkness is as light as the Day. The same must be said of our search about natural objects. Nature so obvious every where, has yet secret recesses which all our sagacity cannot penetrate. We are agreed concerning its operations; but as for their principles they have been disputed of from the beginning, and will be to the end of the World. The Men of thoughts and reflection concluding daily, that there are on all sides mighty difficulties and never to be overcome.  
But it is strange that this should be granted with so much equity and freedom in that sort of Matters, and denied of Religion; which being of a higher and more abstruse Nature, and of a far greater Authority than all the Dictates of Men, should by its own weight silence all Objections, and put positive Mortals in mind that a transcendent Object ceases not to be, because we cannot take an exact view of it, and that a Divine Proposition loses not the Character of Truth, because we form difficulties against it.  
And yet this is the ease of Socinianism. The Gentlemen who have suffered themselves to be led into it, deny the Mysteries of Christianity, insisting on their unreasonableness, pretending that they are not obliged to believe that of which they have not a clear Notion; and with a sort of assurance which becomes no Man, and them least of all; charging the Sacred Doctrine with the scandalous imputations of contradiction and nonsense. This is the design of their last Collection of Prints; the perpetual descant in conversation, and a contrivance to keep the dispute alive, till that being ruined, they must of necessity set up something else.  
But indeed either we argue to give life to a party, or else we act sincerely, conscientiously, and with a design to find out and establish the Truth. If the first, God is greater than our Hearts, and knows all things. He will punish so mean and so sordid an end which does not vindicate, but prostitute Religion. But if the last, I must beg leave to say, that there is neither Truth, Piety, or Modesty in all that noise. Is it come to that, that I must call a Doctrine unreasonable, because my Reason is weak and cannot understand every part of it? Do I own my doubtfulness and ignorance in all other things, and am only secure and clearsighted in this? Or admit Mysteries in most of Nature's Operations, and exclude them only from Religion? Happy Man who can tie the Hands of his Creator, and force him to impose nothing on his belief but what is plain and intelligible!  
What high strain of good manners is this to call that Nonsense and Contradiction, which the Church of God from the very beginning of Christianity to this time, and in all the parts of the World where it is received, has so highly reverenced? As if our guides in Spiritual Matters had been no more than a company of Madmen, who have filled our Heads with crude, impertinent and contradictory Notions.  
This is so much the worse in these Gentlemen, because they cannot but be acquainted, that Philosophy was never, and is not to be appealed to in these disputes: The certainty of our belief depending on a nobler and more infallible Principle, even the Authority of God speaking in the Sacred Scriptures. The Fathers never doubted but that Difficulties would ever be raised in the treating of our Mysteries, but thought this sufficiently overruled by the very consideration of God's own determination in that Revelation which he has made of himself. Whether these Gentlemen will or no, this must be the last resolution of this great Controversy. Let them think of it in earnest, and they will agree with me that it cannot be otherwise.  
This method I followed and urged again and again to a Friend, for whose sake I writ and published the Four Letters. They seemed to me to have made some impression on him; and as he is a Person of Candour, he owned that it was beyond his Ability to Answer, but would expect what the Socinian writers had to say to them. After some time an Answer came out: But as I must do them the justice to acknowledge that they have used me in it with a great deal of civility, and showed that deep studies had not spoiled in them good breeding; a fault too too common in Learned Men! So I am forced to complain that they have not so much as touched any one part of my Book. But taking no care either of vindicating the unwary Assertions of their Authors, or answering those substantial Arguments which were laid before them; they served me as they had done others before, contenting themselves with a handsome declamation about their new and chimerical distinction of Real and Nominal Trinitarians; insisting on the incomprehensibility and contradiction of the Christian Doctrine; and, what is pleasant enough, arguing against its unreasonableness, without so much as examining any one of the plain Reasons given for it.  
My Friend then was armed with two new Topics. He would call upon me, and ask me whether I was a Real or a Nominal Trinitarian? He would maintain that his Reason could not yield to what is unreasonable, or be bound to assent to what is Contradictory or at best Incomprehensible. I thought then myself obliged for his sake in particular, and in general for the good of the Christian Cause, to which we are all debtors, to take a view of these two Engines of the Socinian make. This is the occasion of the following Papers, in which this distinction is examined, the dispute between them and us brought back to the true state of the question, viz. the Authority of the Sacred Writings, The nature of Faith and Reason, and the Superiority of the first over the last established, and the bounds of both assigned. I hope that having no other end in this but doing good, they will satisfy him for whom they are written, and work on those whom a mistaken Conscience has made to persist in so dangerous an error.  
All this is treated by way of Conference and Dialogues: A manner of Writing usual in the Primitive times, as appears by Justin Martyr, Theodoret, St. Jerom, etc. And famous amongst us by several late excellent Books of that kind. It has that advantage, that being properly an imitation of Conversation, all is easy and natural in it. A Reader is not put on the rack by that intense study, which a tedious Argument requires. And even the Repetitions and Digressions which in a Conference are unavoidable, have somewhat in them which is very taking. I have been as sparing as I could of citations, hard words, or any thing which might obscure or perplex the Subject. For besides the Solidity of our Reasonings, there must be an exquisite plainness, and familiarity in Dialogues, which if an Author can attain, nothing more is to be desired in that sort of Writing.  
But before I conclude this, I must say that of all Writers these Gentlemen ought not to value themselves, because they have raised a great deal of dust which their own prejudice hinders them from laying. They complain of difficulties, and at every word cry out Unreasonable, Contradictory, Incomprehensible: Whereas no People who attempted to put our Holy Religion out of doors, ever opposed to it a more Vereasonable, Contradictory, and Incomprehensible System than they have done.  
I will not speak of their Incomprehensible explications, such as are that of Joh. 1. that of Phil. 2. Coloss. 1. Heb. 1. etc. which no Man in his right senses can make any thing of, and are a direct Contradiction to the other part of the Divine Oracles. But I will only beg of them to reconcile their robbing Christ of his Divinity, to the adoring of him, praying to him, and making him an object of Divine Worship. I should be glad they would show us, how it is consistent with Reason, that A mere Man, A mere Creature, such as they make Christ to be, can offer himself a sufficient Expiation, a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the whole World. This the Author of the Brief History has granted. This is reported to have been acknowledged by Charitable Mr. F. at his death. This Mr. T. one of their writers so largely commended by the Author of the last Answer to My Lord of Worcester's late Vindication of the Holy Trinity, has plainly called an Extravagance. I am mistaken, says he, Christianity not Myster. pag. 25. if either the Socinians, or the Arrians can make their Notions of a DIGNIFYED AND CREATURE-GOD CAPABLE OF DIVINE WORSHIP, appear more reasonable than the extravagancies of other Sects, touching the Article of the Trinity.  
When they have justified all this, and a great deal more which may be objected to them; then, and not before, they may lay claim to, and stand by their pretended Inconsistencies. But till that is done, they must only be looked upon as a remarkable instance of humane infirmity, which not contented to rely on that solid Foundation, which the Redeemer of the World and his Apostles have left us, settles in a barren and dry Ground where no Water is. There is no Man but what can easier pull down, than build up. Let us but want Humility, and abound in our own Sense, which is as often our Sin, as our Misfortune, and we shall easily have objections in store against the Christian Faith. But then we leave the Rock to build on the Sand And when we have done all that we can by our fine discourses, it will be Sand still: The Structure will tumble to the ground, and great will be the fall of it.  
If these Gentlemen think fit to say any thing to these Papers, they are humbly entreated that they will not use them, as they did the Four Letters; that is, put out an Answer where nothing either directly, or indirectly is answered. If they only writ to satisfy me that they are Men of Learning, and Masters of all the Graces of Elocution, I am convinced of it already, and they may spare themselves that trouble. 'Tis not so much Language and Oratory, as Argument and Reason which we expect at their hands.   

Books Printed for Thomas Bennet, at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Churchyard.  
REmarks on some late Writings of the English Socinians, in Four Letters, done at the Request of a Socinian Gentleman. By H. de Luzancy, B. D. Minister of Doverc. and Harwich.  
The Inspiration of the New Testament asserted and explained; in answer to the Six Letters of Inspiration from Holland, etc. By Mr. Le Moth.  
A Conference with a Theist, in two Parts. By W. nichols, Rector of Selsey in Sussex.  
The Certainty and Necessity of Religion in General; or the first Grounds and Principles of Humane Duty Established. In eight Sermons at Mr. boil's Lecture for the Year 1697. By F. Gastrell, B. D. and Student of Christ-Church Oxon.  
Certain Considerations for the better Establishment of the Church of England; with a Preface by James Harrington Esq;  
A Sermon Preached before the Honourable House of Commons, on the Anniversary Fast, for the Martyrdoom of King Charles the first. By E. Langford D. D.  
A Sermon before the Lord Mayor, Judges, and Aldermen, at the Cathedral of St. Paul, on the thirtieth of January, 1697. By S. Estwick, B. D. and Chaplain of Christ-Church Oxon.  

In the Press.  
Twelve Sermons upon several Occasions. By Robert South. D. D. Never before Printed.  
Dr. Bentley's Dessertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris, etc. and the Fables of Aesop Examined. By the Honourable Charles Boil, Esq;    

A Conference Between an Orthodox Christian AND A SOCINIAN.  

The First DIALOGUE.  Socinian. 
WELL! I see, there is no end of disputing; and if that spirit once possesses Men, they have the misfortune never to know when to have done. Yesterday, at four in the afternoon the Doctor and your Friend entered the lists; It was Nine at Night, before they could be persuaded to sit down, and take their share of a Curious entertainment which Mr. N. at whose House they were, had prepared for them. Every thing was neat and fine, the Company select and good; and yet all this which makes Men Sociable and inclined to please one another, had no such effect on these two great Spirits. They had much ado to forbear breaking out; and if they had been let alone, I really believe that they would be disputing still.  Orthodox. 
Pray, what was the subject of this long dispute?  Socin. 
The great Controversy of the Age, Socinianism; That which the Church of England endeavours to run down with so much vehemency; and has been lately defended by several ingenious Men, whose Writings I am satisfied you are no stranger to.  Orthod. 
What could they say in all that time? They are both Men of Learning, and I suppose method too, without which Learning is of no use, and becomes only a large heap of rich Materials without beauty or strength, because without order or disposition.  Socin. 
All that I could perceive of both sides, was very little reason or Argument; But a World of heat and clamour; Perpetual reflections either on the Church or the Socinians, rude expressions, and an insufferable shifting and running from one thing to another.  Orthod. 
Truly, this is the misery of disputes, which for want of good and sincere management become a fatigue, and a labour not to be overcome. Books come as much short of it, as Conversation. The Writers and the Readers are equally unfortunate in this, the one not giving that which they promise, and the other being disappointed of that which they look for, and that is, Information.  Socin. 
For this very reason I have almost vowed to dispute no more. I will hate the very Name of Controversy; and no Book of that Nature shall find Room in my Library. Time may be spent much better than in endeavouring to understand an Author, who does not understand himself. An infinite Stock of Patience is necessary to bear with a dull, flat, and insipid Writer. Nor was I ever made to be a Witness, to all their heats and follies, who load their Adversary with ill Language, because he is not of their Opinion.  Orthod. 
I am not of your mind. That which is good cannot cease to be such because it is abused. Inquiry after Truth is the Noblest endeavour, as well as the most Natural inclination of Mankind. And disputing is the way which leads to it. It is by comparing Argument with Argument, and Reason with Reason, that at last it does appear. In the State of Weakness, that we are in, Thinking and Reflection are the only helps we have, and it is from striking the steal and the flint together, that the blessed fire breaks out, which improved removes our darkness. We have very few Self-Evident Principles; and from them, we do not always draw true, and exact consequences. The Mine must be opened and digged with a great deal of Labour; till we come to the precious Ore. But once found, it yields an inestimable treasure. In a word, it is by the opposition and difference of Men in their opinions, that we come to examine, reflect, inquire, and at last find out the Truth.  Socin. 
I grant all this: But when disputing is so wholly perverted as to become a sanctuary to Error: When two contending Parties are so obstinate as not to yield the least Point: and it is no more whether what I say is true, but what I say must be true: When Books are filled up and grow to large volumes and yet nothing to the purpose: When all degenerates into heat and passion; I think it time to have done, keep my sense of things to myself, and meddle no more with disputes.  Orthod. 
What you say is too true. We have a large experience that several have Writ of subjects which they never understood, and others have pretended to answer objections which they have wholly mistaken. Like those Translators, Who have assassinated several Authors, and disfigured many admirable and Original Pieces, for want of understanding both the Language out of which they translated, and their own, which they translated into. It is also evident that Divine Matters have been treated with very little piety; As if God was not to be consulted when Man presumes to speak of him, and the heart as well as the mind, was not to guide the hand of the Writer. But yet for all this, there are Books of this kind, which cannot be sufficiently admired. so clear they are and yet so concise; so eloquent and yet so grave; so Candid and yet so home, that it is hard to say, whether they are more commended by the present Age, or shall be more admired by posterity.  Socin. 
Pray where are those Phoenix's to be found? For they are so rare, that they really deserve that name.  Orthod. 
Not so very rare neither. What Curious Writings did the Reign of Charles the Second produce in Defence of the Unity and Peace of the Church? How was Popery treated in that of James the Second? With what solidity and clearness did our Divines argue with the Emissaries of Rome, never starting from the state of the question, or the main stress of the difficulty proposed? And in this of William the Third, when the Socinian Controversy which had slept some years began to awake again, and to promise itself some increase from the looseness of Men's principles, and from some other unhappy Circumstances unknown but to very few; How did the Church rouse up, and with what Zeal, what Learning, what success did they oppose the growing Heresy?  Socin. 
I own that some good Books have been written against the Nonconformists, and many excellent ones against the Church of Rome. But for your success against Socinianism, it is indeed much to be admired. Is it not notorious that all your Writings have not brought one over to a Recantation; and that though the Sect does not thrive much in the Country where Conversation is more rare, yet it visibly gets ground in the Town? There is scarce a Wit but what is a Socinian. If Socinianism is a rank Poison, I can assure you that the young Gentlemen swallow it with greediness. One whispered me not long since, that it is got even amongst some eminent Lawyers. Many of your Clergy themselves are not free from the aspersion. Socinianism is publicly disowned and hated; but privately much made of and caressed. I am afraid, if your Universities were searched, it would be found that the sinful Weed grows there too.  Orthod. 
What you say is that which we now exclaimed against, and that is Reflecting. But when all is done the trick is stolen, and not like to take. There never was yet so despicable a Sect in the World, but what was willing to insinuate that their numbers were far greater than what really they appeared A piece of Vanity laughed at every where by Men of Sense! But in this the Socinians are unhappy. For they are a Sect and no Sect, a Body and no Body. Some particular Persons have been Intoxicated with reading Socinus, Crellius, etc. They have corrected and improved many of their Notions. These they have put into several short, and truly Elegant Writings; and having had the happiness to be answered by Men every way Great, it gave a general curiosity to read what these Authors had said, which should arm so many famous Pens against them. This has persuaded them into a belief that they have a crowd of followers: And as formerly the Arrians in the disputes against Arrianism, so in these against Socinianism, they fancy that the whole World is become Socinian.  
But I will presume to say, that it is nothing but fancy. Men do not so easily part with the Faith in which they were baptised, and in which the hope of their Eternal Salvation consists. They may give some sway to curiosity, and the Gay Novelty may take for a while. But Conscience returns, and will not suffer them to shake off at once all the Principles of our Holy Religion.  
That the young Gentlemen greedily swallow the Poison, is a real mistake. I confess, and it is much to be lamented, that several amongst them are much debauched in their Morals, and that the rage of Lust, and that of Wine, have strangely obscured their understandings. But, believe me, profane and dissolute Persons are no Honour to any Profession whatsoever. If you are fond of such an Addition, take them and call them Socinians, I promise not to be angry at it.  Socin. 
What you say is true in a great measure, but give me leave—  Orthod. 
But give me leave yourself to make an end of speaking, to what you said of the Wits of the Town. I ever had a Notion of Wit different from that of the Wits themselves. They are careful to distinguish Wit from Sense. And with this poor Notion the Poets have courted, or angered the Pit these twenty years in their Prologues and Epilogues. As if he could be a Man of Wit who is not a Man of Sense. For Wit and Sense are inseparable. An Effervescency of imagination, breaking out into some sine Expressions is not Wit, but a sort of lucky Madness. He that thinks and speaks well, is exact and coherent, grave or florid according to his Subject, but always modest and inoffensive, is to me the Man of Wit. Pray tell me how many of these are Socinians.  
But for the Men of Sallies and unbounded Thoughts, who value themselves upon Writing a few Verses, and perhaps a small Pamphlet; who think as they live, and live as they think; that is, most irregularly; I abandon them to you. They shall be Socinians if you please: I promise once more not to be angry at it. What sort of Wit is that conscientious Spark, who writ lately an Apology for self-murder? What think you of the Author of Christianity not Mysterious? Or of the Writer of one of the two Epistles to Mr. Gailhard. I mean the second, which is as wild and ill written, as the first is modest and fine. Put these also into the Catalogue, and then boast of your Conquests.  Socin. 
I hope you are not of this Mr. Gailhard's mind, who is for sanguinary Laws to be enacted against us; and would have us meet at Smithfield, with the fate of Servetus at Geneva, and Valentinus Gentilis at Berne.  Orthod. 
I never heard of Mr. Gailhard, or of his design against you, till I read your Letters against him. But if there were such Laws, you would still be safe. For I dare say, neither you, nor your Friends, will ever be the Martyrs of Socinianism. But to speak seriously my thoughts, that Gentleman does not know what Spirit he is of. It is against that Religion of which Christ is the Author, to thirst after the Blood of any Man. The Church of Rome is admirably well acquainted with these methods of reclaiming People. Ours is a stranger to it, and takes a way much more agreeable, both to the nature of the Gospel, and the condition of a Rational Creature; and that is, to deliver the Truth which God hath trusted her with, adding to it all suitable Arguments of persuasion, and leaving the rest to the Mercy and Providence of God. In a word, if exhorting, disputing, arguing, persuading, will not do, I know no other way, except excommunication: It being highly just, that the Church should cut off an infected Member, which by an obstinate opposition to her Doctrine, is like to spread the contagion through the other parts of the Body.  Socin. 
It is not because I am a Socinian, that I acknowledge this to be a truly Christian temper: For it is the very Voice of Religion: But I hope you will not take it ill, if I tell you, that if you have no other way to assert, and propagate your Doctrine, than exhorting, persuading, disputing, I am afraid this design of yours, though good and honest, will at last prove unsuccessful.  Orthod. 
Why it should be so I cannot imagine: For with a Rational Agent, what can prevail more than Reason? And with Learned Men, what more than Learning? What can you prescribe besides disputing, to bring them to the acknowledgement of their Errors?  Socin. 
But you have disputed so long, and yet to so little purpose, that it shows a deficiency in your very Method. Not only your ordinary Divines have been concerned in the quarrel, but even Men of vast esteem amongst you, and yet what have they done? When I read their Books, and compare them with the Socinian Answers; or the Socinian Books with your Vindications and Apologies; Good God How clearly do I see the strength of our reasons! You keep always in a Cloud, afraid of being seen; Whereas all is clear and safe about us.  Orthod. 
It is so far from that, that with People of Ordinary equity the quite contrary will appear. The Socinian Controversy is certainly the greatest of all those which ever exercised the Church of God. The modern disputes you are perfectly acquainted with, and cannot but be sensible that though many and large volumes have been written about them, yet they lie within a very narrow compass. Rob the controverted Points between us, and the Church of Rome, of the Trappings of Discourse, Digressions, and Clamours of their Authors, they are brought to a very plain and short issue. Transubstantiation, worship of Images, Purgatory, praying to the Saints, the Divine right of the Pope's supremacy, and his pretended infallibility, are doctrines easily made to appear to be not only false, but even new in the Church of Rome itself. As the subject is absolutely within our reach, so are the Arguments for and against them.  
The same you must own of the unhappy differences between us and the Nonconformists; and though much has been written on both sides; yet at last whether the exceptions against the Public Liturgy are solid? Whether a Schism may be grounded upon the imposition of a few innocent Ceremonies? Whether disobedience to Episcopal Government can be justified, for which, without enquiring whether the institution is Divine, or not, there appears so Ancient, so Universal, and so uncontested a Tradition? Are questions of so easy a resolution, that if there was nothing but Religion at the bottom, that War would quickly be at an End.  
Read also the Catalogue of Ancient Heresies, as they have been left us by Ecclesiastical Writers; supposing them all to be Heresies, though indeed many are only Foolish and Simple Opinions; There is scarce one of any importance but as it relates some way or other to this great Controversy. The rest are trifles and dreams, which we now wonder how they could ever fall into, and busy Rational Men's heads, as Posterity will be amazed, when they come to examine the poor and silly differences of this quarrelling Age.  Socin. 
But what of all this?  Orthod. 
This is to show you that in our debates with the Socinians, as the dispute is, so are the Arguments of another nature, than those in that sort of Controversies, which we have been speaking of. The matter is abstruse and mysterious; We are not willing to speak more of God, than he himself has taught us. This you call obscurity and want of satisfaction: and because the Socinians are perpetually reasoning of an Increated and Incomprehensible Substance, as they do of Finite and Created Being's; and are never weary of applying their notions of what they understand, to what they understand not at all, and has no sort of proportion to it; Then you say, that their writings are clear. I appeal to yourself whether you are not highly unjust to us? Nay, whether any one Controversy in the World, was ever managed with so little Candour as this is by you?  Socin. 
But pray how have you managed it? Forgive me if I tell you that the Church never showed so much Weakness in any thing as in this very particular. You are angry with us for Reasoning too much: and you have Reasoned yourselves out of doors. You pretended to assert a Trinity, and cannot tell us what that Trinity is. You are Trinitarians indeed, but at the same time the sad Assertors of a Trinity which is too much, or too little: Degenerates into Tritheism, or Sabellianism; and if received according to some explications is Real, and Blasphemous; and if according to others, is Nominal, and signifies nothing.  Orthod. 
Truly, I wonder this was not yet come out. For you cannot now speak to a Socinian, but he brings in this right or wrong. The Author of the considerations of the several explications of the Trinity, made the best of it, and persuaded himself that he had given us the mortal wound. The Writer of the discourse concerning the Real and Nominal Trinitarians promises himself no less than the ruin of the Church if the fatal distinction is carried on, and improved as it ought to be. He that dawbs with untempered mortar, and calls himself a Prebyter of the Church of England, is of the same mind. The whole Church, say they, Condemns the Real Trinitarians; and the Nominals being rank Sabellians must of course be condemned too. Blessed discovery, which when truly examined is the greatest piece of unsincerity imaginable!  Socin. 
I must beg leave to interrupt you, and blame you for denying that which is clearer than the Sun. Where lies then the unsincerity? Is it in affirming that you will not tell us what your Trinity is? Or is it in distributing you into Real and Nominal Trinitarians?  Orthod. 
'Tis in every part of the Allegation. Can any thing be more unsincere, than for you to tell us, that we oblige you to believe a Trinity, and are not willing to tell you what that Trinity is? Pray, were you ever Baptised? Have you ever paid your Duty to God in the solemn use of our excellent Liturgy? Did you ever join in the Doxology, by which the Church in the Primitive Ages down to ours, put in the mouth of her Children a confutation of the Samosatenian, Sabellian, Arrian, Nestorian, and Macedonian Heresies? Did you ever make a profession of that Faith which you embraced in your Baptism, by reciting the Apostolical and Catholic Creeds? Did you ever read the Articles of the Church of England, or of any other Church in the World? For I positively aver that they do all and every one of them speak and assert the same thing.  Socin. 
True: They tell us of a Trinity, but do not tell us what that Trinity is.  Orthod. 
Do they not tell you that God is one, That in that one adorable and Divine Nature are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; That the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God; and yet not three Gods, but one God? This is to tell you that there is a Blessed Trinity, and what that Trinity is.  Socin. 
True again: But they do not tell us how God can be One and Three? How that Trinity and Unity are reconciled? How every Person is God, and yet but one God? and if they do not say this, in effect they say nothing.  Orthod. 
This is the arrantest Sophism that ever was, or can be used in a dispute. The Church asserts the thing because God has asserted it. He has not been pleased to reveal the manner, and therefore the Church says nothing to it. All is built upon the Divine Revelation. Must we not believe that a thing is, when God has affirmed that it is, because he has not thought fit to make clear to us how it is?  
Should I tell you that the Sun is a luminous Body, which by dispersing its Beams over all the Creation, gives Light and Colour to every thing; and that the earth is impregnated by certain qualities, which with an admirable luxuriancy cover it with Fruits and Flowers: Would you deny this, because I do not acquaint you, how that Body is luminous, how the impressions of light mix with all things, and show what they are? Would you deny the fruitfulness of the Earth, because I cannot explain those qualities by which it is impregnated?  Socin. 
This reaches not at all the difficulty. For these are things of sense, which I am satisfied to be, and to exist. Besides, I am capable of Philosophical inquiries, by which if I do not certainly know the How, I come at least very near it.  Orthod. 
But this not only reaches the difficulty but wholly resolves it. For your Philosophical inquiries are but inquiries, things for the most part uncertain. But that wherein the stress of the difficulty lies, is the degree of certainty, by which we are assured that such a thing is. And I say that the Divine Revelation, is infinitely more certain than the fullest testimony of Sense; and that if I am satisfied that God has revealed a Trinity, I am more assured that there are Three Persons in the Divine Nature, than I am assured that the Sun is a luminous, and the Earth a fruitful Body; though I could understand how the one shines, and how the other is actuated into so many several forms.  Socin. 
Then now the Church of Rome will give you thanks: For this is the very Topick used in the famous case of Transubstantiation.  Orthod. 
This is one of the Socinian Common Places. But not to spend time about so little an objection, which will carry the digression too far; let me tell you that a Topick may be good, but yet ill and falsely applied. In that dispute between them and us, we deny the Divine Revelation. We say, God has not revealed it. But to return:  
You make a mighty noise with your distinction of Real and Nominal Trinitarians, and pretend that it is the natural result of several explications of the Trinity. To overthrow this at once, it is enough to say, that the Church owns no particular explication of this Divine Mystery; nor concerns herself with what private Authors have said of it. The Church has spoke in general Councils, and National Synods. We have her Mind in her public Confessions of Faith. She is so far from espousing any sort of explication, that she ever thought that that great Mystery could not be explained.  
The Church suffers Men to write concerning these matters: St. Austin has given several considerable reasons for it, in his Books on this very Subject, and in that de utilit. credend. The opposing of Heresy, the improvement of Piety, the study of the Holy Scriptures, of which this makes so considerable a part, are the principal. But to think that the Church will stand by all the Opinions of private Writers, and own their errors and mistakes, is a prodigious inadvertency. What Church in the World can be safe, if made to answer for all the Authors of her Communion?  
What becomes then of the objection? It is all overthrown in this one word. The Church has nothing to do with those explications, which the Socinians fancy they have so much exposed. And as for the explications themselves, I believe that if the Judicious Hooker, and the Learned Cudworth were alive, you durst not so much as name them. The rest are Men of great abilities, who can arm in their defence, no better Pens than their own.  Socin. 
But do you put Bishops, and eminent Bishops too in the rank of private Persons? Who can best speak the sense of the Church, but those who are called by the Fathers, the Husbands of their Churches, the Keepers of the Canons, and the Successors of the Apostles? Some seem to be Tritheists, and others seem to be Sabellians.  Orthod. 
Truly you have used the Bishops in your Writings, as if they had been no more than private Persons; the reflections on their Lordship's having been so sharp and so many. His Grace the late Archbishop, whom by your own confession you ought to have reverenced, was not free from your aspersions. My Lord of Gloucester has had his share. In the latest answer to my Lord of Sarum, you forget the large Encomiums given him before. The Bishop of Worcester, for whom the Learned World has so just a value, met in the answer to his late Book, with the same way of Entertainment. But laying all this aside and answering your meaning; A Bishop, with all the respect due to the Sacred Dignity, is still a private Doctor. Nor can the Church be favourable to his explications if they are contrary to her Doctrine. But what of all this? Our Bishops are all Orthodox.  Socin. 
I do not know what you mean by Orthodox. There is no Orthodoxy but Truth. They who teach Three Gods cannot be Orthodox; and this is done by the Real Trinitarians. The Socinians believe and adore but one; and this is done by the Nominals. The greatest part of the Church goes, I confess, that way, and therefore it is Orthodox because Socinian. In short, we may talk till Dooms day, and never be the Wiser. The question at last must be this, are you a Real, or a Nominal Trinitarian? If a Real, than we shall never be reconciled; If a Nominal, than we are certainly agreed.  Orthod. 
What I have said already seems to me to be satisfactory: But since you are not contented with it, let us examine the several parts of your distinction. What is the meaning of Real Trinitarians? But let me beg of you to answer plainly and directly.  Socin. 
I will answer in the very words of the Author of the Discourse concerning them. He says, pag. 7. The Realists are denominated from their believing Three distinct Divine Spirits or Minds, who are so many Real subsisting Persons. Again p. 19 They are every day Challenged and impeached of Tritheism. And again p. 25. Themselves do sometimes almost openly and explicitly own and profess their Tritheism. Their doctrine of the Trinity manifestly implies Three Gods.  Orthod. 
What is the meaning of Nominal Trinitarians?  Socin. 
They are they who maintain a Trinity which Consists only in the several Names, Offices, Relations and Modes of Existence of the Divine Nature. This was first taught by Noëtus and Sabellius; embraced afterwards by the assertors of the Homoousios, and received by the Schools and Divinity Chairs ever since. This is the substance of what he says of the Nominals in the first part of the Discourse.  Orthod. 
And this you make the Foundation of that difference which you imagine to be in the Church, and has of late filled up all your Prints.  Socin. 
Yes indeed, and with a great deal of Reason. You are all afraid of the distinction. It is of your side so notorious a giving up of the Cause, that we have parted with all our Old Arguments, and retrenched ourselves there, as in a place from whence we cannot be driven.  Orthod. 
Then pray, set your heart at rest, and suffer yourselves to be forced from it. For I presume positively to aver that there is no such thing in nature as these Trinitarians of your own making. You pretended already to a God of your own making: You wished for a Scripture of your own making: To make a Trinity too, is a little too hard. I say then, and pray forgive the sharpness of the words, that all this is a mistake, a slander, and a calumny upon the Church.  Socin. 
How much must you abate of your assurance, when I show you in several late Writings, that the Three Persons of the Trinity, are Three distinct Infinite Minds, Spirits, and Substances? I appeal to yourself, whether this is not manifest Tritheism. For what is God, but an Infinite Mind, Spirit, or Substance?  Orthod. 
I have told you already, and tell you again, that such expressions are wholly unknown to the Church; and therefore cannot with any candour be fastened upon it. Oblige me so far as to show me a Church in the World this day, or formerly, which uses them; or else be pleased to own that you are guilty of a great deal of disingenuity.  
But though such a denial is sufficient, because it is of a thing which you cannot, and dare not undertake to prove; yet it will be much clearer, if you give yourself the trouble to consider, that such a notion in the Christian Church is impossible, and has not the least ground or appearance of truth. You are acquainted with the Sacred Writings of the New Testament, and no doubt have informed yourself, of the Confessions of Faith, of the Ancient Councils, the assertions of the generality of the Fathers, the doctrine of the Schoolmen, the sense of the Greek and Latin Church, even since the fatal separation; and in the division of so many Kingdoms, from the last in these two Ages, you know perfectly all the Articles which the Famous Societies of Protestants have declared to be the points of their belief. This supposed, I lay before you these plain and easy, but Substantial Observations.  
First, That the Church of God, has always asserted the Unity of the Divine Nature as the Foundation of all Religion. It has been its great and distinguishing Character. You will tell me that the Philosophers did so too; and that the Jews were witnesses to all the World of this Sacred Truth. I grant it. The Unity of God was the Fundamental Article of the Mosaical dispensation. Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Academics, have spoke admirably well to it. But I say that Christianity has been as far superior to them in this point, as they themselves exceeded the rest of Mortals. For the Jews kept this to themselves, without propagating it to others; and the wise Heathen confuting their doctrine by their practice, openly embraced Polytheism. None treated of God and his Divine Attributes, of which the Unity is the Centre, as the Holy Jesus and his disciples have done. This the Apostles spread through the World: This the Fathers taught indefatigably. One God, One Divine Nature, Spirit, Mind, substance has been the constant Voice of the Church. He is not a Christian who believes not that God is one, and can be but one. If it were not too tedious I would produce some of their Authorities.  Socin. 
It is altogether needless. This is our very Doctrine. I am fully persuaded of this, and infinitely pleased to hear you speak so home to it.  Orthod. 
I am afraid you will not be so well pleased with my second observation, and it is this. That the same Church of God, which so Zealously asserted his Unity, never did it without asserting at the same time a Trinity of Persons in that One Divine Nature. No matter of fact which depends from Testimony, can be made to appear more incontestably true than this. You have a large Collection of Books at home. Let us step to your Library, and I dare engage to convince you of this by the most exact induction of particulars, which can ever be made from the very Apostolical Creed to this time.  
I say once more, and presume to be positive in it, that the Church in delivering the Faith, ever taught the Existence of God to be necessary and Eternal, and his Unity so perfect and entire, that it transcends what notion soever we have of Unity; even that which we call Numerical coming much short of it: But at the same time she taught and professed to believe and adore in that Unity of Nature a Trinity of Hypostases or Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Thus run the Apostolical, the Nicene, Ephesine, and Constantinopolitan Creeds. Thus speak the Ante-Nicene, Nicene, and Post-Nicene Fathers. Thus all the Learning of the Schools, and all the now Churches in the World express themselves.  
Thirdly, But least the belief of a Trinity of Persons whose Coeternity and Coequality is asserted should affect the Unity of the Divine Nature, the Church has stated it in one and the same, indivisible and inseparable, simple and uncompounded Essence. They are Coeternal and Coequal, because Coessential. And they are Coessential because Subsisting in that Nature which cannot be multiplied.  
It is true to say of each Person that he is God; and yet it is false to say that they are Three Gods; The Trinity multiplying the Persons, but the Unity remaining the same, that is, the greatest and most unconceivable Unity in the World. And therefore the Sacred Councils and the Fathers have been careful to the utmost to distinguish the Personality from the Nature; as afraid of multiplying the one, as of confounding the other.  
You see then that the first member of your distinction is worth nothing. The charge laid against the Church in that particular is not only false but impossible. You have attempted to divide the Church of God into two Parties. The first you have accused of Tritheism, or of teaching the belief and Worship of Three Gods: Unfortunate in this, that the very exposition of the Doctrine of the Church, the very reading of any one Creed, is an open confutation of what you have pretended to make us guilty of!  Socin. 
I hope you will not take it ill, If I make some remarks as well as you. First, I confess that the Nicene and following Councils, spoke as you do, and that many of the Post-Nicene Fathers, the Schoolmen and the present Churches agree with you in this, but I deny it of the Apostolical Creed, which ought to have been the Form of all the rest. Where can you find there a Trinity in Unity? Where can you see Coeternity, Coequality, Coessentiality, and all those Famous Terms which the Church perserv'd ever since? For my part I can perceive no such thing. To this Creed we stand as to a rule left us by the Apostles themselves. Suffer us to keep but that, and take you all the rest.  
Secondly, I challenge the Ante-Nicene Fathers; we say they are strangers to your Doctrine. The Answer to Dr. Bull has made it invincibly appear. Have you taken notice how the Learned Author of that answer has discovered the impostures of Pseudo-Hermas, and the pretended Epistles of Barnabas and Ignatius? What clear account he has given of the nazarenes, Mineans, and Alogi? And what a plain proof he has brought against your Trinity, and the Divinity of Jesus Christ, out of the Epistle of Clemens of Rome to the Church of Corinth.  
Thirdly, Admitting all your allegations to be true; A Trinity in Unity, Three Gods in one God, is a thing wholly unaccountable.  Orthod. 
The question between you and me, is not whether it is unaccountable or not? The question is whether those whom you call Real Trinitarians, have departed from the doctrine of the Unity of God, and have actually and manifestly, as you speak, owned their Tritheism? The matter of Fact, and not the Reasonableness or Unreasonableness of the thing, is the Point in dispute. Your mistake is Palpable. For the Trinity in Unity, is not Three Gods in one God, a Language which the Church ever abhorred; but Three Persons in one God, Three Subsistences in one Divine Nature. Pray name me one Man in the Church, even of those who have most abounded in their own sense, and spoke most loosely in the explication of our Mysteries, who was not as Zealous a defender of the Unity of God as yourself can be.  
This is then the most unpardonable want of Candour imaginable. You call me a Tritheist. I deny it. You prove it, because I believe the Blessed Trinity. I own I do. Then you exclaim, I believe Three Gods, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I say, No! For though the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost God, yet they are but one God. For God can be but one. The Divine Nature is incapable of Multiplication, Division, or Augmentation. You may, and will urge again that this is very unreasonable. I hope to show you one day that it is highly Rational. But in the mean time I gain the point, and complain that you do me wrong, and are inexcusable in charging me with destroying the Unity of God.  
2ly. You are positive that the Ante-Nicene Fathers asserted the Unity, but not the Trinity. I suppose you mean in our sense of a Trinity, or else the mistake is not pardonable. Origen and other Antenicenes make out the Unity of God, in a Ternary of Persons, though they did not believe the Equality. Says the Author of the Answer to Dr. Bull, pag. 22. unjust in this to Origen, and the rest. I have some Remarks on that Answer which I design to make public. What the Author has said concerning the Epistle of St. Barnabas, and those of the Holy Martyr Ignatius, is far from invalidating their Authority. We must have more than suspicions and bare denials to illegitimate a Book. They are certainly works of great Antiquity, and acknowledged to be such by the succeeding Ages.  
But what must we say of a Person, of his great erudition, who pretending to answer a Book full of all the Testimonies which those early times could afford, quarrels only with two or three Authors, against whom he says nothing substantial; and is wholly silent to Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tatianus, Miltiades, Melito, Dionysius of Alexandria, Tertullian, Lactantius, etc. Is it enough to confute the Ante-Nicene Fathers to say as this Author, pag. 7. That all their Glory is wholly due to the vanity of Modern Learned Men; who quote these Books, not because they value them, but because being ancient monuments known to few, and understood by fewer, he seems to be a great Learned Man, who can drop sentences out of these antique Books. But this is mild and obliging, if compared with pag. 63. Where this Author, having said that Trinitarianism is not so much a Religion, as the Law of the Byzantine, or Constantinopolitan Emperors, styles the then Doctors of the Church, THE PARASITES OF THESE TIMES, whom now in regard of their antiquity we call Fathers. You are not insensible how this might be taken up and exposed? If Hosius, Spiridio, Paphnutius; If the Gregory's, the Basils, the Cyrils, the Theodoret's, the Chrysostoms', the Hieroms, the Hilaries, the Ambroses, the Augustine's were the Parasites of their times, where shall we find any Virtue, Piety, or Learning in this World?  
But I am willing to overlook those excesses, and tell you that it is a folly to wrangle with this or that passage; sometimes to inveigh against Platonicism, and sometimes to complain that those Writings are lost, which might have informed us better. To be plain, we have enough left, and from what remains of the times before the Council of Nice, it appears that the Unity of God, and the belief of a Trinity of Persons in that one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, was the belief of the Christian Church. The Arrians indeed might challenge some of the then Fathers, who spoke more obscurely, and were easier Misinterpreted. But Socinianism has not the least pretence to any. He must have forfeited all modesty who asserts it.  Socin. 
But what have you to say to the Apostolical Creed? Is it not an evidence beyond all other evidences?  Orthod. 
Of what?  Socin. 
Of the Unity of the Great God.  Orthod. 
And so are all our Creeds from the first to the last.  Socin. 
But it is an Evidence against your Trinity?  Orthod. 
Against that Trinity which you have falsely imputed to us, and that is, A Trinity of Gods: But not against a Trinity of Persons in one God. What is the first assertion of that Creed? I believe in One God. For you affirm that it was anciently thus read, Ans. to Doctor Bull pag. 16. What is the second, but an Explication of the first? This One God is the Father Almighty; His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, Three Persons in One God.  Socin. 
This is so dragged in, so strained, so unnatural, that to any unprejudiced Person, it will visibly appear not to be the Doctrine designed to be taught in the Creed.  Orthod. 
I am apt to think that I can substantially prove that it is. I believe the Creed to be truly Apostolical, notwithstanding what some learned Men have said against it; Not because it was made by the Apostles themselves, though nothing appears to the contrary, but by reason of its great Antiquity. Now when you and I dispute about the sense and design of that Creed, we have but one way to take, and that is, First to see what the Scripture teaches concerning its Articles, which indeed are no more than an Epitome, or Collection of the Principal Truths delivered by Christ and his Apostles. Secondly, To examine the Doctrine of the Fathers who lived before the Church thought it fit and necessary to make a larger Explanation of the Faith. Thirdly, To satisfy ourselves of the sense which the immediately following Councils gave to that Creed in their Decrees.  
All this is Highly reasonable. For if the Scripture which has taught so expressly God to be one, has also expressly taught the Father to be God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, than it is plain, that the sense of the Creed is such, and no other. The Authority of that Creed, or of any Creed whatever, is from the Scripture. It cannot therefore be contrary to it, and that excellent Rule must be brought to that Primitive Rule from whence it is derived. And alas! has not this been proved to you so often and so fully, that after a World of wrangling you have been driven from your new and unnatural Criticisms, and forced to shelter yourselves under the weak defence of your Philosophical disceptations?  
But if this Creed has no other sense but that which you put upon it, The Father only God, The Son only Man, and the Holy Spirit only an Energy or Operation; How come the Fathers of that time so openly to contradict it? I will not do again, what has been so excellently done by the Learned Dr. Bull, who has obliged the Christian Church with two Books, which indeed you may speak or discourse against, but can never substantially Answer. Has he not undeniably proved out of their Writings, that those Fathers believed the two Natures in Jesus Christ. The Divine and the Human? That they have asserted his Pre-existence, and if his Pre-existence, than his Eternity, and if his Eternity, than his Consubstantiality with the Father.  
If the second part of the Creed is to be understood of Christ only Man, How comes Irenaeus lib. 1. advers. Haeres. c. 2. in delivering the Belief of the Catholic Church, or as he speaks, of the Church all the World over, to call him Our Lord, Our God, Our Saviour, Our King, to whom every Knee ought to bow, etc. How comes Tertullian, who has delivered this very rule of Faith, to talk as we do of the Blessed Trinity, designedly and positively against Praxeas, and say, that he is warranted by the Apostle to speak of Christ as of him who is God, blessed over all for ever? If he believed the Holy Spirit to be only an Energy, How comes he to style him, Tertium Numen Deitatis, & tertium Nomen Majestatis, The Third Person of the Deity, The Third Name of Majesty and Power. Certainly Novatianus was acquainted with this Creed, and yet Lib. de Trin. c. 13. he tells you, that the Scriptures deliver so Manifestly Christ to be God, that several Heretics, Divinitatis ipsius magnitudine & veritate commoti, moved by the great sense and truth of his Divinity, have confounded him with the Father.  
But if we had no such proofs as these, there is still one which according to your late Principles you cannot oppose. I say, your late Principles, for you change every day.  Socin. 
No! You do us wrong; we are still the same.  Orthod. 
I may, at some time or other, have an occasion to prove the defection of the Outlandish Socinians from Socinus; of you from the Outlandish Socinians; and of yourselves from yourselves in your first and latest Prints. But let us not digress from the thing in dispute. The proof which I speak of is the great Council of Nice.  Socin. 
What? That Council which has published, Established, and infected the World with its infidelity. As the Answer to Dr. Bull, judiciously observes, pag. 25.  Orthod. 
That first Ecumenical Council which could not be ignorant both of the sense of the Apostolical Creed, and of the Fathers whom they immediately succeeded. A Council so venerable for its Antiquity, so reverenced for the number of Holy and Learned Men, who voted in it, so highily honoured by the following Ages to this day! Did they know the Apostolical Creed, or did they not? If you say, they did not, you overthrew all that you can pretend from it. A Creed can neither be Apostolical or Universal which the Nicene Fathers were not acquainted with. And if they did, than your sense of it is not that of these Primitive times. For they are so far from interpreting as you do, Jesus Christ to be only Man, and the Holy Spirit to be only an Energy, or operation, that you know how positively, how earnestly they assert them to be Consubstantial to the Father. I may be mistaken, but if this way of reasoning is not plain, I don't know what can be plain.  Socin. 
But what have we to do with the Council of Nice, or indeed with any Council whatsoever? We have innumerable objections against that and the following Councils.  Orthod. 
I confess you speak as a Socinian of the first edition. Thus Socinus and his first Disciples answered to those great Authorities. Thus did yourselves Writ in your first Prints. The World indeed stared at you. But however it had an air, if not of reason, at least of sincerity. But a Socinian of the second edition runs another way. I told you that you change every day. Pray open the Discourse concerning the Real and Nominal Trinitarians.  Socin. 
What then?  Orthod. 
There you may sinned your Condemnation in that particular out of your own mouth. Pag. 4. The Author speaking of the Great Lateran Council observes that a doctrine is not Heresy, because rejected by a great number of Learned Men, or by a National Council; But only when censured by a General Council. The Catholic Church is never understood to speak but by a General Council. pag. 5. Is not a General Council the Highest Court of the Church? Her Canons declare the Faith, her Anathema's Heresy. And pag. 16. A General Council is the last Tribunal on earth from which there lies no appeal. pag. 4. He call this an Incontestable Argument.  
Now pray deal sincerely and apply this to the Nicene Council. No body ever yet disputed its universality. It was assembled under and by the first Christian Emperor. It represented the whole Church. The Creed then of that Council determined the sense of any preceding Creed. Whatever you can say to the contrary is insignificant, because such a determination comes from the highest Tribunal on earth, from which there lies no appeal.  
Upon the whole the Church ever asserted a Trinity consistent with the Unity of God, and an Unity inseparable from a Trinity of Persons in one adorable and Divine Nature. Where is then again, the first part of your Distinction? You charge us with teaching a Trinity which infers Three Gods. We say this is false, this is impossible, not only from the Nature of the thing, but also from an Authority which you dare not reject, because you own yourselves, that it is the highest Tribunal on earth, from which there can lie no appeal.  Socin. 
This seems home indeed: But yet not without exception: For the Unity asserted by the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, was only an Unity of Monarchy: An Unity of love and agreement: An Unity of subordination, and subjection to him who is the first God. Such an Unity as is that of the Individuals of the same Species. This the Author of the Answer to Dr. Bull is positive in pag. 75. He charges the Fathers with this all over his Writing, and the greatest part of it is spent in the confutation of such strange Hypotheses.  Orthod. 
Pray learn to mistrust your Books. For I may say without breaking the Cartel of honour, and civility agreed upon amongst Writers, as this Author speaks both Pleasantly and Elegantly, pag. 77. that not one word of this is true; and that such an account of the Unity of God never came from the Church, but owes its birth to the School of Arrius. This Author, though a Person of great erudition, has suffered himself to be strangely mistaken; as any one may, who will take all the expressions, illustrations, resemblances used by the Fathers in treating of the Blessed Trinity, for an exact account of their Doctrine. For there is a great difference between speaking at large, and endeavouring to give some kind of a Notion of a Mystery, and writing dogmatically concerning it.  
I have a plain reason, which I humbly conceive is sufficient to overthrow all this: And that is, that the Fathers in explaining how the Three Persons are one God, never confined themselves to the Terms of Numerical or specific Unity. This last is merely Notional, and is no more than an act of the Mind, comparing and abstracting from several Individuals. It does not really exist. The first though never so expressive still comes short of the incomprehensible dignity and simplicity of the Subject.  Socin. 
What Unity then did they assert?  Orthod. 
An Unity which no Nature but the Divine is capable of, which transcends all expressions or imaginations. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; says the Council of Ephesus. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; says Justin Martyr; Hoc solum ex ea comprehendimus, quod comprehendi non potest; says St. Ambrose. Thus speak Basil the Great, Nazianzen, Gregory Nyssen, and the generality of the Fathers. And yet this Author has spent 13 pages, to tell us that they believed a specific Unity; and Unity of Monarchy and order, an Unity of love and agreement, a Consubstantiality like that of several pieces of Gold, and of a Star to another Star. As if these trifles deserved the name of Incomprehensible, and if we could say of any of them as Eulogius Patriarch of Alexandria, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Not bringing those things which are so far above our thoughts to the scrutiny of human Reasonings. Do all these Unities transcend the capacity of Human Nature? Are they above the reach of an inquisitive Philosopher, or a profound Divine?  Socin. 
I confess that you startle me, and I begin to have no great opinion of the first part of the distinction: I see you are no Tritheists, but than you must of course fall into Nominalism or Sabellianism, and that is as bad. I am afraid, that part of the charge will stick cruelly against you.  Orthod. 
The notion of Nominal Trinitarians is, if possible, more extravagant than the other. Can you think in good earnest that the Ancient or modern Church, if such an expression may be used, for the Church is always the same: Can you think, I say, that the Church in the first and in these last Ages, opposed Sabellianism, with so much Zeal and Vigour, that is, that very impiety which you fasten on her, and condemned it, with so unanimous a consent, and yet would make it the foundation of her Faith? The vast labours of the Fathers, and of all the Doctors who succeeded them, aimed at this, to assert a Real distinction of Persons against Sabellius, and their Consubstantiality, Coequality and Coeternity against Arrius. And you come resolutely to tell us, that for all that the Church is Sabellian, and teaches Sabellianism. How hearty would you laugh at a Man, who should come to tell you, that he has attentively read all the Socinian Prints, and finds at last that they believe the Holy Trinity and the Divinity of our Saviour?  Socin. 
Had they said so much for these two Articles as you have for Sabellianism in all your Books, I protest, I could not laugh at it.  Orthod. 
Let us see then what is Sabellianism, and if found in the Church, I promise to give up the cause. But if not, I expect that you will have the justice to own that to charge us with it, is a crying unsincerity. We cannot have the sense of Sabellius, better than from Dionysius of Alexandria, the other Dionysius of Rome, Athanasius, St. Basil, Nazianzen, Ruffinus, etc. You will Learn from them that Sabellius, owned the Divine Nature, but confounded the Hypostases or Persons and maintained one only Person, or Hypostasis the Father. And that when they objected to him the different operations of the Son, and Holy Spirit, he answered, that they were only denominations of the Father resulting from his several appearances, or offices to us. If you mistrust this account, take what the Author of the discourse says, pag. 16. In a word, says he, the Noëtians and Sabellians held that God is but one subsisting Person, yet that with respect to things without him he may be called, as the modern Nominals now speak, three Relative Persons. The one subsisting Person of God sustains the three names of Father, Son, and Spirit, which being the Relations of God towards things without him, he is so many Relative Persons in a Classical Critical sense.  
Now I will do more for you than you can expect. I will not confine you to our English Authors. But I dare you to produce any one Man in the Church of God, who ever understood those matters and spoke at this rate. But if you do not, as I am positive that you cannot, what becomes of your distinction, and with what face can it be used any more?  Socin. 
I will not go out of the Kingdom, no, not out of London for it. Dr. South shall be the Man. You will not deny that he understands the sense of the Church. He says himself animadvers. ch. 8. pa. 242. And this I affirm to be the current doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools concerning the Persons of the Blessed Trinity, and the constantly received account given by them of a Divine Person, so far as they pretend to explain what such a Person is. Pag. 240. He tells you, That the commonly received Doctrine of the Schools concerning the Blessed Trinity is this. That the Christian Faith has laid this sure foundation, that there is but one God. That there is no positive real Being strictly and properly so called in God, but what is God. That there can be no composition in the Deity with any such positive real Being, distinct from the Deity itself. And yet that the Church finding in Scripture mention of Three to whom distinctly the Godhead does belong, has by warrant of the same Scripture, Heb. 1.3. expressed these Three by the names of Persons, and stated their Personalities upon three distinct Modes of Subsistence allotted to one and the same Godhead, and these also distinguished by three distinct Relations.  
Then pag. 241. To explain these modes of Subsistence and these Relations, he tells you, That they are neither substance nor accident. That they are not a Being, but only the affection of a Being, and that they add no entity to it, such as are dependence, mutability, presence, absence, etc. And that they have no Existence of their own after a separation, or division from the things or beings to which they do belong.  
Having thus in general explained what a mode is, he applies it, pag. 242. And says that the Personalities by which the Deity stands Diversified into three distinct Persons are called and accounted Modes .... That every Person is properly the Godhead as subsisting with and under such a certain Mode or Relation.  
Now put all this together, and see whether this is not the very Doctrine of Sabellius. Did not Sabellius say, that God is one, even the Father acting under several Names, sustaining several Relations, by which he sometimes is the Father, and sometimes the Son? What does Dr. South say more? He must be very clear sighted who can perceive any difference between these two Hypotheses.  Orthod. 
There is as much difference as between affirming and denying; between Light and Darkness. Sabellius admits only one Person in the Divine Nature; Dr. South Three. When Sabellius by the great evidence of Scripture is forced to own Three Persons, and confess the Relations, He will have them to be Persons only in a Classical Critical sense, having no other but a Metaphorical being. He confounds the Persons, and makes the Son and the Holy Spirit to be the Father.  
Dr. South affirms them to be Persons in a Real Sense, by an Eternal Communication of the Divine Nature, and so really distinct, that the Son cannot be the Father; or the Holy Spirit, Father or Son; or the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.  
Sabellius makes the Relations to be wholly , as he sustains the Three Names of Father, Son, and Spirit, which being the Relations of God towards things without him, he is so many Relative Persons.  
Dr. South affirms pag. 242. the Relations to be Intrinsecal, founded upon those Internal Acts by which one Person produces another, or proceeds from another. He tells you, that God may sustain an  Relation founded upon some external act issuing from him, as Creation, Preservation, etc. Which adds to the Deity only an  denomination, as of Creator, Preserver, etc. But that this leaves an Internal incommunicable Character essentially inseparable from the Deity. That it may be said, that God might never have been a Creator: But that it cannot be said that he might never have been a Father; the former being only an effect of his will, but this latter the necessary result of his Nature. This you have, pag. 243.  
But that which sinks for ever this miserable imputation of Sabellianism or Nominalism, call it which you please, is the noble Principle which this Learned and worthy Man has laid down. Animadv. p. 245. in which as in the rest he has truly spoke the sense of the Church.  Upon the whole matter, in discoursing of the Trinity, two things are absolutely necessary to be held and insisted upon. One, that each and every Person of the Blessed Trinity entirely contains and includes in himself the whole Divine Nature The other, that each Person is incommunicably different and distinct from one another. 
I thought you looked dissatisfied when speaking of this famous distinction of Realists and Nominals, I used the words of slander, calumny, disingenuity; Let me now beg of you to give it a name.  Socin. 
Truly I must be forced to tell you, that I saw this distinction urged so often, our late Prints so full of it, and honest Mr. E. valuing himself so highly upon it, that I thought it was more solid than really it is. I will take time to consider of what you have said to it. When I have next the happiness to see you, you shall have my Thoughts of it. In the mean time ....  Orthod. 
No: I cannot leave you yet. I must before we part, complain of another injustice which your Friends have done us.  Socin. 
What is that?  Orthod. 
That which My Lord Bishop of Sarum calls in his Pastoral Letter, the heaviest of all imputations; that they submit to his Lordship's whole doctrine which differs in nothing from what the unitarians professed in all their Writings. That is to say in plain English, that he is a Socinian. A cruel and barbarous sort of a compliment to a Catholic, and an English Bishop! They do the same in effect to My Lord of Worcester, in their last Answer to his Lordship's Book, pag. 62. To the University of Oxford, to Dr. South, whom they call in derision Brother South, as they had done Dr. Wallis, Father Wallis. In the Answer to My Lord of Chichester they speak very plain, pag. 27.  It is, say they, by this Declaration of our meaning, that all our Books, Past, or to come, are to be interpreted. We never intent to oppose any Body in the Article of the Trinity, but the Tritheists, or Realists, who are Heretics to the Church as well as to us, nor in the Article of the Divinity of our Saviour, but the Eutychians, who make the Communication of Idioms to be Real, and not only Verbal, which is an Heterodoxy condemned in divers General Councils. 
That word, General Councils, which they esteemed so little before, is now of great value. They tell this very Bishop, that they do not in the least suspect that he will disown the Catholic Doctrine, and be of a Party of Heretics, who have been Condemned by so many General Councils.  Socin. 
Well: and where lies the injustice of all this? If the Socinians are become Orthodox, and embrace the Doctrine of the Church, is it not an honour to these Great Men to have reasoned them into this Submission? I remember that in some of our Prints, we have called the Bishop of Sarum the Eusebius of the Age. As the Famous Eusebius brought over many Bishops to the subscribing the Homoousion; Is it the heaviest of all imputations to his Lordship, that he has persuaded the Socinians out of their Errors? Must you yourself take it ill, that Persons, of whom I have heard you often give a great Character, should return to the Faith and Obedience of the Church? All that I dislike in those Compliments is, the Books past, or to come. For the Books past, speak no such thing, and I fear the Books to come will not much mend the matter.  Orthod. 
I did not expect that you would not be serious in so mighty a concern as this. I confess that it would be to me, and to all good Men, an incredible satisfaction to see an end of this Controversy. But I tell you, there is no sincerity in all this. They are no more returned to the Sense and Faith of the Church than you are. They build still upon that foolish distinction of Realists, or Tritheïsts, and Nominals, or Sabellians. The first is a Monster of their own making. 〈◊〉 other is a shelter to their Heterodoxy 〈◊〉 they maintain a Trinity which is no Trinity 〈◊〉 strive to advance error under her 〈…〉 the Pillar of Truth. In short; If the Trinity believed and taught by the Church is Sabellianism, they are your humble servants. It is that that they would cover Socinianism by. But how can they believe as the Church, when the doctrine which they pretend to return to, is that to which the Church is irreconcilable?  Socin. 
How must they do then to convince you that they sincerely desire a peace and are come over to you?  Orthod. 
By writing with that respect which is due to Bishops of whom in the Answer to Mr. Edward's, pag. 13. they own the institution to be of Divine right. Let them receive the Catholic Creeds, that of the Great Athanasius, the Doxology, and the Articles of the Church of Englang. Then and not before I will believe that they are sincere.  Socin. 
These are large strides. I am not for running so fast. Suffer me to take my leave of you. I will think on what we have discoursed, and then you shall hear from me. Adieu.   

The Second DIALOGUE.  Orthod. 
I had promised myself the happiness of seeing you before this.  Socin. 
Truly I designed it, but was resolved not to do it, till I had been as good as my word; that is, till I had considered what we discoursed of some days since. For whatever you may think of me I have a sense of Religion. I am fully convinced, that there is a God to whom I own all my service, and a future state of happiness and misery, on which I cannot reflect without a mighty concern. I am not so much an enemy to my own interest as to cheat myself of the one; and wilfully to fall into the other.  Orthod. 
What is the result then of your consideration?  Socin. 
To speak sincerely my Thoughts, I am come off from the distinction of Real and Nominal Trinitarians; and do you the justice to own that it appears to me to be ill grounded. Though I believe at the same time that he who first invented it, did it, bona fide; and had the occasion given him by the inadvertency of your own Writers. But there are still two difficulties in my way which I cannot overcome. I would not be thought to suspect your Learning, or Candour; But I am afraid you cannot resolve them.  
The first is this. If you are neither for a Real, nor a Nominal Trinity; than you are for no Trinity at all. For there is no medium between them. The second is, that in what sense soever you hold a Trinity, I cannot believe it. A Trinity of Persons of which every one is God, and yet but one God, is to me the most absurd notion in the World. I have studied the matter with as much application as I can. But to me it still appears to be a perpetual affront to Reason, and good sense.  Orthod. 
Give me leave to tell you that the first is no difficulty at all. The Church believes a Real Trinity; Not in that sense of Real, which your Friends have made so much noise about, and so unjustly imputed to us, which infers three Gods; But in that sense which in the asserting three Divine Persons, preserves still the Unity of the Divine Nature. To speak plainly, and prevent that wrangling to which obscurity generally leads Men; what the Church proposes to our belief consists in this.  
The Unity of God is so clearly proved both by Reason, and the Authority of the Sacred Writings, that there is not in the World a truer, or a plainer assertion than this. God is one, and can be but one. But the same Sacred Writings speaking of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and giving those Characters of them by which they appear incommunicably distinct from one another; It makes this second assertion. The Father is not the Son, or the Holy Spirit. Nor the Son the Father, or the Holy Spirit. Nor the Holy Spirit, Father, or Son. But the Scripture being express and positive in giving to every one of these Persons the Name, Nature, Attributes, and Operations of God, there arises a third assertion. The Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God. But the first of these propositions standing unmoveable, and God ceasing to be, if he ceases to be one; All at last are resolved into this Fourth; That in that ONE adorable and Divine Nature are Father, Son and Holy Spirit, every one God, and yet but ONE God.  
This is the Real Trinity which the Church believes; which the Apostles have taught; For which the Martyrs died; and notwithstanding all the oppositions of Heretics has obtained, and will obtain to the end of the World. I cannot read the Ecclesiastical History, but I adore the veracity of Christ, and see in that very particular the fullfilling of his promise to the Church, that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against Her.  
Your second difficulty is as easily resolved as the first. For how can that be an affront to Reason and good Sense, which God has commanded us to believe?  Socin. 
There must be a great deal more in it, than what you have laid down. Vast many Books have been written on this Subject. You are not ignorant how from the first and intermediate ages of Christianity to this time, it has been the ground of irreconcilable disputes. I do not speak only when the Emperors espoused the Cause, and this or that Opinion prevailed, because it was the Religion of the Court: But I speak of the retirements of the Schools, where the dispute was furious; and the Doctors more set one against another, than Marius and Sylla, Caesar and Pompey. This grand and Mysterious Contradiction, has given birth to infinite Contradictions, which like the Hydra's head, multiply daily without number. The Socinians in that Print of theirs, called A Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation, pag. 10. have charged this home upon you. The Author tells you roundly, that there is no fewer than fifteen divisions amongst you; each division consisting of two Parties at the least, some of them of four or five. So that they are in all, about forty Parties of them. A strong Argument by the way against the pretended Unity of the Church!  Orthod. 
What I have proposed to you, is the simplicity of the Revelation. God has revealed so much, and in that there is enough to satisfy ourselves. The disingenuity of the Author of that Letter appears in this, that he talks of divisions and Parties, and pretends to enumerate them; whereas there never was any about this.  Socin. 
Can you think that a Learned Person, as this Author is, durst have the confidence to assure such a thing, if he had not very good grounds for it?  Orthod. 
Call it what you please: I dare to aver that he has none at all. But to make this clear, I must needs tell you, that in a Revelation two things are to be considered. The one is the thing revealed; as in this case, the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, and yet not three, but one God. The other is the manner how these things are, which are revealed? How the Father is a Father, how the Son is a Son, how the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and Son? How every one of these is God, and yet but one God? I dare say that there has not been, nor can never be a more universal agreement than there has been in the first. Had we been contented to adore and believe, there had never been any Schisms or Divisions in that particular. But Man will be curious, pretend to unfold Mysteries, and clearly see into his Nature, who has made darkness his Pavilion round about him. He must of course receive the punishment due to his Presumption, and instead of that noble pleasure which results from knowing, meet with all the sad consequences of a confident ignorance.  
Any one moderately acquainted with Ecclesiastical Learning, will see that this has been the conduct of the Church, to stick to that first part as certain and undoubted, and not at all to meddle with the other as full of danger. This is visible in all the confessions of Faith of the Primitive Councils, which are full in asserting the Unity of God, and the Trinity of Persons, and all upon the certainty of the Divine Revelation: But pretend to no kind of explication of the HOW, or manner of it.  
I confess that private Doctors have done it, and that with heats not becoming the matter in dispute. The Schools have given way to a World of impertinent questions, and have been as impertinent in their resolutions as impertinence can be. They have commented upon one another, and still the Commentary has been obscurer than the Text. But when all is done, they have stuck firmly to the doctrine revealed, and unanimously agreed in this, though they disagreed in there explications about it.  
I should look upon it as the greatest Miracle that ever was done, if they had explained that which is inexplicable. Is there no such thing as the Heavens, because some Philosophers have maintained that they were Fluid, and others that they were Solid bodies? Is there no such thing as the Earth, because that sort of Men have wrangled about its figure and motion? The same may be asked of Form and Matter, and indeed of all the Phaenomena's of Nature, concerning which Authors have given us some good and solid Reasons, others nothing but fancies and dreams. This is the great weakness of Socinianism. The Gentlemen of that persuasion reject a most important Truth, in which all Christians but themselves agree, because they cannot understand the manner of it. We cannot tell, say they, how it is, therefore it is not. And they pretend to argue strongly when they affirm that there are divisions and subdivisions amongst us about it: Whereas there is really none but in the explication, our assent to the truth of the thing being firm and unmoveable. We said something of this Nature the other Day, but you have taken no notice of it.  Socin. 
This sine Discourse is all a grand mistake. We do not reject the Trinity because we understand it not; but because we understand it. We let the HOW, or manner alone. 'Tis the thing itself which we exclaim against. You worship you know not what. Did you give yourselves leisure to think, and not thwart the very first impressions of a Rational Soul, this very grand contradiction would stare you in the Face. Three that are but one! What need is there here of Reasoning? Three Persons every one God, and all but one God May not I tell you what Tertullian says in another case, Advoco te, O Anima, naturaliter philosophantem, non qualis erudita es in Philosophorum Scholis, etc. I appeal to thee, O Soul, not such as thou hast been taught in the Schools of Philosophers, but with those impressions which Nature has given thee! Are one, and one, and one, Three, or is it but one?  Orthod. 
Your citing of Tertullian puts me in mind of a passage of Boëtius brought in by the Bishop of Worcester in his vindication of this very doctrine, pag. 65. The Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity is this, says Boëtius, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, but they are not Three Gods but one God. And yet the Bishop pleasantly observes, that the Socinians may wonder at it; this very Man having written a Learned Book of Arithmetic. And so for all this eloquent exclamation of Tertullian, that Father was a Zealous assertor of the Trinity, that is, of one, and one, and one not being three, but one. So were a World of Learned Men in those days, who though cultivated by a Philosophical institution, had not yet for all that taken their leave of the first impressions of Nature. But to come to the point.  
If the difference between us were of numbers, or of any created substance, I would cry out contradiction as loud as yourself. I would call the first Man that I see in the street, and pray him only to tell. But this is quite of another Nature. It has no foundation on any thing that we know. The question is of the Nature of God, between whom and us there is an infinite disproportion. We cannot Reason of him, from any thing which we find in ourselves, or in our fellow Creatures. God is so far above our small and weak perceptions, that except he is pleased to acquaint us himself what he is; We must remain in our ignorance. If God then tells us that he is one and Three; If what we say of him, is that which he has said of himself; Must we presume to talk, or so much as to imagine any contradiction in it?  Socin. 
I admire your prudence, but I cannot commend your sincerity. You are sensible on what rocks they split, who pretended to prove the Trinity not contrary to Reason. I think that the B. of G. Dr. S. Mr. H. and others have sufficiently smarted for it. I will engage for them, that they will return no more to such kind of ratiocinations. You take another way, and resolve all into God's Authority. I grant that what God says must be true. Nothing is true but according to that conformity which it has to the mind of God. But God has said no such thing of himself that he is one and Three. Trinus & unus. I deny that he has.  Orthod. 
King Agrippa believest thou the Prophets? May not I ask you, do you believe the Scriptures. It is in that Sacred Book that God speaks to us. It is there that he asserts it.  Socin. 
I believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God, and as we have said in the brief Notes on the Athanasian Creed, a Divine, an infallible, and complete rule both of Faith and manners. But I deny that there is any such thing in the Scripture.  Orthod. 
I am glad to hear you speak so justly and so reverently of the Sacred Writings, which part will you have me to prove? The Unity of the Godhead, or the Trinity of Persons in that one Divine Nature.  Socin. 
You may spare your trouble in proving the first. We are the great Assertors of it. It is from thence that we take the name of unitarians; Though you are obstinately bend to call us Socinians.  Orthod. 
Your assuming that name is an invasion of the rights of all Christians. Nay it is an affront to all the wise and sober part of Mankind. You call yourselves unitarians, just as the Donatists in a poor little corner of Africa called themselves the Catholic Church. Will you then have me to prove that in the Scripture the Father is called God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God?  Socin. 
You may spare yourself that trouble too. I know all the places that you can allege. You have repeated them a hundred, and a hundred times. If you call this a proof, any thing in the World may be a proof.  Orthod. 
Pray let me lay them before you, and let us fairly see what exceptions you have against them. It is not Candid, no, it is not civil, to tell an Adversary that you know all that he has to say to you.  Socin. 
I may take the Liberty to be positive in that particular. I have an answer ready which I am sure you cannot take ill. I am sensible that you will produce several Texts; but as it has been urged again and again by us, and in particular against Mr. Luzancy, in the Answer to his four Letters, pag. 42. They are Texts clogged with abundance of uncertainties. 'Tis denied with great vehemence, by the ablest Critics of the Trinitarian Persuasion, that some of these Texts were originally so read as they are now Published in our common Bibles; Nay, some of them were not read at all in any Bible till five or six hundred years after the Decease of the Apostles, and other Sacred Penmen. But whether anciently read, or thus read, yea, or no; there is none of them, but is more fairly capable of a sense consistent with the Unity of God, as 'tis taught by the unitarians and Nominals, and is actually so interpreted by divers of the most allowed and celebrated Interpreters of the Church. Who sees not here that to introduce and believe Monstrosities on such a crazed foundation as this, is to give up common sense without a tolerable cause for it? Whereas indeed there can be no cause so great as may induce us to part with it. 'Tis to admit and defend contradictions, and that in a capital Article of Religion when we need not. 'Tis to Sacrifice the clearest and most important dictates of Reason, not to any necessity, but to our secular interests, or wantonness: And has not the Author of the Letter of Resolution told you plainly, that you have given up all your places of strength?  Orthod. 
There is in what you have said, Declamation and Argument. To introduce and believe Monstrosities on such a crazed foundation: To give up common Sense without a tolerable cause for it: To admit and defend contradictions, and that in a Capital Article: To sacrifice the clearest and most important Dictates of Reason to our secular interests, or wantonness. All this is Declamation. That sort of Embellishments are very rude and severe. As if Conscience were all of the Socinian, and none of the Church's side. I know how you would exclaim, if we talked to you at this rate. The rest seems to be Argument. But in this I must confess, that I admire at your vehemency, as you call it, when there is not a single word of Truth in the Allegation.  
Forgive me if I say that it is false, that those Texts are clogged with abundance of uncertainties. The Form of our Baptism in the name of the Holy and Blessed Trinity is clear, Genuine, Authentic; and so far from being clogged with uncertainties, that all the Fathers, all the Schoolmen, all the Modern Interpreters have acknowledged it. I wonder what you mean by the ablest Critics of the Trinitarian Persuasion. This is perpetually in your Writings. But you are very careful not to name any of them, and I commend you for it. I would beg it as a favour of you that in your next Print, you would name some of these ablest Critics, and show us what uncertainties they have found those Texts charged with. I am satisfied that if it had not been for Hugo Grotius, and one or two more, whom you have sadly misrepresented, your cause must have starved for want of such Authorities as these.  
It is false again, that the substantial Text which we allege to prove the Divinity of the Son, and Holy Spirit, were read at any time otherwise than they are now. You say that some of them were not read at all, till 5, or 600 years after the decease of the Apostles. This has as little Truth as the rest. There is but one and no more which you have pretended to dispute, and that is, 1 Joh. 5.7. and you cannot but know that it has been cited by St. Cyprian, and is in the famous Edition of the Bishop of Oxford, whom Father Simons, though of another communion, calls deservedly, the Learned Bishop of Oxford. It was in that of Pamclius. It is to be found in the Catalogue of the Texts, cited by the Great Athanasius, and Printed in the latest Edition of that Father. It had been used before by Tertullian against Praxeas. And both St. Ambrose, and St. Hierom complained that the Arrians had razed this Text out of all the Copies which they could come at. The last part of the verse, and these Three are One, not being capable of the petit novel interpretation of their agreeing in one, but being looked upon by the Ancients who were more sincere in their disputes than we are, as a direct proof of the consubstantiality of the Divine Persons.  
You say that there is none of them but what is more fairly capable of a sense consistent with the Unity of God as is taught by the unitarians and Nominals. I have convinced you already that there is no such thing in the Catholic Church as Nominal Trinitarians: and the exception is needless; since we maintain with all Christians that the Trinity of Persons is no contradiction to the Unity of the Divine Nature.  Socin. 
But supposing your Texts to be true; they are still contested Texts. They are not so clear as to be capable but of one sense. You give them one, and I give them another. Perhaps they may admit of a third. Thus you build demonstrations on things really very uncertain. Then you thunder in our Ears Scripture, Scripture, whereas at the bottom you say nothing, by using Texts capable of different senses. I commend you for resolving this great controversy into the Authority of the Sacred Writings; but then as it has been said to Mr. Luzancy, pag 42. The Revelation for it ought to be most clear: so clear that a fair and ingenuous Reasoner will not contest the positiveness and evidence of the Revelation. You understand a Text your way, and I do it mine, and so there is an end of your Method.  Orthod. 
You will not name us those ablest Critics, of whom you speak so much in your Writings. You keep them in the dark as the Deus in Machina of the old Heathens, that their sudden appearing may the more surprise. But I fear you are one of them, you come at once to impeach the Christian World, and tell this present age and those that are past, that the Texts used by them may be true, but they are contested and so worth nothing. Is the contesting then of a Text enough to have it rejected? Is my sense opposed to the sense universally received by the Church of God enough to turn that sense out of Doors. Whither will this wild way of arguing hurry a Man? Do you perceive the consequences of such a Principle? By this an Atheist, a Deist, or any Heretick-in the World is secure. It is but giving another sense to a proposition than what it naturally has. And when you argue with never so much clearness from Authority, he will tell you, there is no proposition in the World but what is capable of several senses. What you say may be true: But it is contested, and I contest it. This is your sense of the thing, but it is not mine.  Socin. 
You both mistake and misrepresent me. I have no such thoughts. By contestation, I mean such an opposition as is well grounded. It is not enough to say, 'tis not my sense; but I must have substantial Reasons to say so. I demand, as I have told you already, a Text so clear, that a fair and an ingenuous Reasoner will not contest the positiveness of the Revelation.  Orthod. 
That is, you demand no Text at all. For whosoever will contradict it, will think himself a fair Reasoner. Do not all the Socinians believe that they are the fairest Reasoners in the World. Are they not cried up by their party for Men of mighty Reason. Yourself are persuaded that you are a fair and ingenuous Reasoner. Those silly Criticisms which you have obtruded upon all the Texts of Scripture are looked upon by you, as great efforts of Reason. So that this can be no rule at all but is a shameful begging of the Question. Every Contester will call himself a fair Reasoner.  Socin. 
What! Is there no such thing then as fair reasoning? Is there not in Men an equitable disposition to judge of, and assent to the Truth?  Orthod. 
Yes certainly; but you have it not. There are vast many Texts produced to assert the Divinity of the Son and Holy Spirit. For we do not only allege one or two solitary places of Scripture. But we maintain also this to be the Foundation of Christianity, and taught in the Scriptures, Plainly, Frequently, Irrefragably. Which is the way to reason fairly in this case?  
First, It is to see the sense which offers itself in the Texts which we produce. Give me leave to bring in an instance or two, Rom. 9.5. St. Paul speaking of Christ, says that he is over all, God blessed for ever. The natural sense of the proposition is, that he is truly God. Over all, and Blessed for ever, being the Notion which we have of an Eternal Being. You cannot without an incredible violence make any other sense of that proposition. The same is Phil. 2.6. Who being in the Form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God. That which the proposition naturally offers is that Christ is God. None but a King can say that he thinks it not robbery to be equal with a King. None but he who is God can pretend an equality with God.  
Secondly, I must see whether that sense which offers itself so naturally to me, has the same effect on other People. It is a mighty confirmation to me that I take a proposition right, when the wise, the good, the inquisitive part of Mankind takes it as I do. Now our Texts have not only the advantage of a natural evidence; but they have also another, and that is the consent of the Christian Church. The Church of God has spoke as we speak, understood as we understand, believed as we believe. It is the Voice of the Sacred Councils in their Decisions, of the Fathers in their Writings, of the Universities in their Chairs, and of all Christians in their Praises, Prayers, and Adorations.  
You owned it to me, and you said that it was the sense of the Socinians, that the Scripture is an Infallible, Divine, and Complete rule of Faith, and Manners. But it can never be so, if there is not an universal sense in those propositions in which the Faith is delivered. For to whom is it a rule? even to all Christians. And how can Christians follow this rule if there is not a common sense in which they may be united? But what is that sense, but that which appears to the Church in the propositions, and become the sense of the Church? A sense of so much the more weight and Authority, because no Scripture is of private interpretation. This with all Men who pretend to any acquaintance in those Matters, is fair and ingenuous Reasoning.  Socin. 
I thanked you once for an Argument in the behalf of Transuastantiation, and now I do it for Tradition. The denial of it is a Protestant Principle.  Orthod. 
You are so pressed by the evidence of what I offered, that because you cannot answer, you would endeavour to divert it. Know then by the way, that Protestants deny, and that on very good grounds, Tradition to be the last and supreme judge of Controversies; But maintain Tradition and particularly so Universal and uncontested as it is in this particular, to be the ●●●test humane evidence in the World. The unanimous consent of the Church in a point of Faith is not to be opposed by any sober Christian.  
But to return. Let us see what is your fair and ingenuous way of reasoning? You are so far from the method proposed by me, that you reject the natural sense of the Texts. Some, you must give me leave to say it, you have openly falsified. As for instance, Rom. 9.5. You will not have it, God Blessed, but, God be blessed for ever, against the Faith of all Copies, against the Authority of all Writers. Some you have loaded with little Criticisms, as Phil. 2.6. Upon others you have trumpt new, unnatural, and incoherent explications, as Joh. 1.1. And followed Dreams of Yesterday, unknown to the Church of God, or to any one Writer in it. Others you have eluded with poor Allegories, as Col. 1.16. In a word, there is scarce a part of Scripture but what you have put to the Rack; and than you come to tell us of fair and ingenuous reasonings, of your elaborate Prints to prove the Unity of God, which not Christian ever denied. The Trinity of the Divine Persons appears so visibly in the Sacred Writings; that if you design to deal as a fair or ingenuous reasoner, you must either embrace the doctrine, or reject their Authority.  Socin. 
I will do neither, I am persuaded of the truth of the one, but not at all of the other. Observe what the ingenious Author of the Answer to Mr. Luzancy has said to him, pag. 44, 45, 46. I will put it in as few words as I can, and yet I hope without losing any thing of the force of the Argument. You charge that upon the Scripture, which is no Scripture at all, and you oblige us to believe as the word of God, that which is no word of God; but only your inferences from it. You draw conclusions, those conclusions you rest in, and though they are no Articles of Faith, because only the work of your reason, yet you propose them as Faith to us. I would fain ask whether your reason is more infallible than ours: Or whether you have a privilege which we have not of making inferences? The Trinity is no doctrine of Scripture but only an inference from it. May not I have the Liberty either to make a contrary inference to yours, or to review your deductions; to judge the consistency or contradiction of these inferences. I honour the Scripture, but I am not obliged to receive your Argumentations? These are not indeed his words, but I am sure it is his sense. Get out of this as well as you can.  Orth. 
But pray what is all this to the purpose? I ●an assent due to a plain and express proposition an inference? Or if you will call it an inference, is it not the natural result of that plain proposition? And must not whosoever has any share of understanding give the same assent to it which I do. What are all our perceptions but inferences, and all our talk and conversation but conclusions? The Ploughman does it as much as the Philosopher; and there are propositions of that evidence, that if offered to all Mankind; all Mankind will agree in them. The question is not here between your Reason and mine. Nor do I pretend to more infallibility than you in reasoning. But I say that Reason is so much the same in you and me, that a plain and express proposition being offered us, you and I must equally assent to it. If you do not, you wrong Reason, and are unjust to it.  
I confess that when that which is proposed is obscure, intricate, and capable of several senses; the conclusions may be different, and I cannot without injustice deny, that you should examine the consistency, or contradiction of my deductions. But I maintain that most of the propositions by which our Holy Faith is established, are of such plainness that no equitable Man can fix any other sense upon them, than what they offer themselves. That I may not give you any occasion of mistaking me, for your Friends are admirable at this, and if they can but lay hold on it, they presently expatiate and lose the question: I mean no more than as to the existence of the Revelation, that is, that there is such a thing revealed, though not as to the manner of the thing, the HOW it is in itself.  
Not to multiply instances, take the places already cited, Rom. 9.5. Whose are the Fathers, and of whom as concerning the Flesh CHRIST came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. What is that which the proposition offers? That CHRIST is a Man descended from the Fathers, and that he is God over all, God blessed for ever. It is a plain, and as plain a proposition as can be. But when I go further and say; Then there are two Natures in Christ Jesus; for as a Man he cannot be God; and as God he cannot be Man: He is Man because concerning the Flesh he came from the Father; He is God, because the Apostle says he is over all, God blessed for ever: I confess that this is an Inference; but it is an inference which results so plainly and so fully from the Nature of the proposition, that it is as clear and as undeniable as the proposition itself. Again Phil. 2.6. Who being in the Form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. There is a plain proposition that CHRIST is equal with God: and the inference is of the same nature and clearness as the proposition. Therefore he must be God. For none but God can be equal with God.  
1 Cor. 2.10. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. The Spirit knows all that God is, his Nature, his Perfections, even those depths unfathomable to any created Being. You will not quarrel with the proposition, and can you quarrel with the inference, which in effect is the same with the proposition, and that is, that he is God, since none but God perfectly knows himself? Pray what inference is there in Act. 5.3, 4. when Peter in his Apostolical Zeal asks Ananias why Satan has filled his Heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? Thou hast not lied unto Men, but unto God. If the Holy Ghost is not God, how could he lie unto God? You see the inference is drawn by St. Peter himself, and lies in the very Heart of the Proposition.  
How unreasonable is this noise about inferences will appear if you take notice of the beginning of St. John's Gospel. Is Verse the 14th an Inference? The Word was made Flesh, and dwelled among us, and we beheld his Glory, the Glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of Grace and Truth. Are the 1, 2, 3. Verses an Inference? The Word was with God, The Word was God, The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him there was not any thing made that was made. Is Joh. 20.28. an Inference? And Thomas answered and said unto him, my Lord, and my God Let us deal candidly; if you call the Incarnation and the Union of the two Natures in CHRIST JESUS an Inference; Is it not the plainest result of the plainest Propositions that ever were in the World.  Socin. 
You are launched into a vast Sea of Discourse.  Orthod. 
Oblige me so far as to suffer me to insist somewhat longer on this, and I will repay your Patience with a serious attention to what you have to say to it. Read 1 Joh. 5.7. There are Three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these Three are One. When we talk of a Trinity of Persons consistent with the Unity of the Divine Nature, is it an Inference or is it not? Is not the Trinity of Persons, and the Unity of the God head clearly expressed in the Proposition? You have made such a wonder at the word Trinity, and been so rude as to call Trinity in Unity Jargon, Contradiction, Nonsense. How can you reconcile all this with this noble Passage? Is not this a Trinity in Unity, not by way of Inference, but by a full and plain Assertion?  
But why should I be so earnest to prove this against the Socinians, when they themselves cannot deny it? For if our Doctrine consists in nothing but inferences and conclusions which we draw as we please; What has made them so earnest to dispute these very texts, and with poor and little Criticisms to endeavour to elude their force? If these Texts had not stared them in the face with an incontestable evidence, what should make them so indefatigable in granting and denying, adding Commas, changing or putting in particles, as if Truth wanted such mean helps?  
It short there are two sorts of inferences, the one near and immediate, such as I have given you some instances of, which naturally flow from the thing proposed and are of equal clearness with it. The other remote and not appearing so easily at first, but wanting the help of further inquiries and deductions. Concerning the first I may challenge your Reason of error. I may safely and truly say, you offer violence to Reason. I may appeal to all Mankind in the case. But for the other. I must not so freely affirm it, nor say that my Reason is more infallible than yours. When I am obliged to run through a long course of deductions I may mistake as much as you do.  
The Church never pretended to any inferences but of the first kind. If the Scripture proposes a Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead: If it represents these Persons incommunicably distinct from one another; Their Consubstantiality, Coequality, Coeternity, is a natural and a necessary consequence. If it teaches me that CHRIST is God and Man, the Union of the two Natures in one adorable Person is an inference of the same sort. If there is a Father from ever, and a Son from ever, and if a Spirit proceeds from ever; Eternal Generation, and Eternal Procession are necessary deductions from those great truths, and in a manner the same with the truths themselves. I tell you once more, you must either admit our doctrine or reject the Holy Scriptures.  Socin. 
I confess that what you have said is well put together; and has a very good face; But still I am far from being satisfied. There is nothing can make me believe a contradiction. Let it be found in Sacred or humane Writings, it is still a contradiction. A contradiction is that to which all the World cannot reconcile me. You say, Revelation, and a Revelation which I own to be the rule of my Faith, is for it. I say, my Reason is against it. Revelation and Reason cannot be contrary to one another. This would be a greater contradiction than the first. God cannot give me Reason in my Creation to be my guide, and unravel at the same time those very Principles which he has made a part of my constitution.  
Tertullian de poenit. c. 1. says truly and Elegantly, Res Dei Ratio; Reason is the business and work of God. It is by it that he has made us like him, after his own Image. And can it be so much as thought that that Divine and essentially Rational Being will contradict himself, defeat his own work, and reveal that which is contrary to the first impressions of Nature? You take a wrong way to convince me. You say God has revealed it, and therefore it can be no contradiction. You must first prove that there is no contradiction in the thing itself, before you can satisfy me that he has revealed it.  Orthod. 
God then must go out of his own ways, and his Thoughts are to be accommodated to yours, or else cannot be received? You will prescribe Laws to the Divine Majesty. It must be made to bow to your weak conceptions, and the all wise Creator must stoop to a poor ignorant Creature. Pray, is this Reason or obstinacy? You would fain struggle with a Principle of that mighty clearness and solidity, that it commands an assent from all Men, and is really the true and last resolution of all this great Controversy. If God has revealed it, you may cry out contradiction to the end of the World. There will still be none, and you will only show your weakness. Prove that it is not revealed, and then and not before the business is done, show that your Reason has that character of Authority and Infalliblity which the Scripture has, and then talk of contradictions. Had you ever known any part of the Mystery, if first it had not been Revealed? How then can you find out contradictions in that which does so much transcend all your conceptions; of which you know so little; and which does not lie within the reach of our little Argumentations, but rests wholly on the Basis of the Divine Authority?  
I beg of you to tell me, whether God cannot propose to us any thing to believe which is above Reason? And whether what is above our Reason can be said to be contrary to it? In resolving these two Questions, you answer yourself. The Trinity in Unity is a discovery made by God, which is above our Reason, and therefore cannot be contrary to it. The contradiction cannot come from the declaration of God: For God cannot contradict himself. The Alwise God cannot utter a contradictory Proposition. It is not seated in the thing itself; for there is no such thing as contradiction to be imagined in the Divine Nature. It comes therefore only from our weak Apprehensions. And how we can place a contradiction in an object infinitely above all the power and reach of our Reason, be yourself judge?  Socin. 
This is the common Subterfuge of your Writers. And this they are so pleased with, that they have made it a general Answer. Let them enjoy it to all intents and purposes. But I deny that God can oblige us to believe what is above Reason. This appears to me an Imposition unworthy of the thoughts which we have of God. To be plain: Whatsoever is above my Reason, is incomprehensible to me. That which is incomprehensible is nothing to me. I cannot believe what I cannot understand.  Orthod. 
'Tis because you cannot understand, that you must believe. Faith is to overrule your Reason. The way to understand is to believe as Isaias expresses it, ch. 7.9. according to the Septuagint. Faith is so far from being destructive of Reason, that of the contrary side it improves and perfects it.  Socin. 
I wish I could be satisfied of the truth of this.  Orthod. 
If the nature of Faith and Reason were truly established, I am apt to think that a very great part of our disputes would be at an end.  Socin. 
Pray let us endeavour at it with Candour and Sincerity. It is late now; but you must promise me the honour of your Company at a small Dinner to morrow; and after Dinner we shall talk fully to this.  Orthod. 
I hate afternoon studies, and afternoon disputes. The Body than oppresses the Mind. Nor are the Spirits capable of that intense application which the clearing a difficulty requires. I give all the forenoon to my thoughts, the middle part of the Day to myself, and the Evening to my Friends. At that time I will wait on you. Perhaps I may bring a Friend along with me.  Socin. 
If he is your Friend, he will have neither Pedantry in his looks, nor harshness in his manners. Do not fail.  Orthod. 
I will not.   

The Third DIALOGUE.  Orthod. 
YOU see I am come according to my Promise.  Socin. 
Not altogether; for you gave me some hopes that you would bring a Friend along with you.  Orthod. 
I designed it. But he had made an appointment which could not be dispensed with. Besides, he being wholly in my sentiments, it would have looked as if I had intended to over-match you, and oppose two to one.  Socin. 
I should not have been afraid of that. For I think that the defender of Reason has a mighty advantage. All Mankind is of his side. It is their Freehold; and if they part with it to believe impossibilities, they make a very foolish exchange.  Orthod. 
Christianity proposes no impossibilities, and is so far from being an Enemy to Reason, that it is the most Rational System in the World. Things which actually exist cannot be said to be impossible. Whatsoever it proposes is of that kind; and though a great part of it transcends our comprehensions; yet we ought not to deny it, but submit to it with an humble reverence: Expecting a blessed Life wherein we shall know, what we now believe, and clear perceptions, lucid and glorious thoughts shall make a part of that blessed state which God has promised.  Socin. 
I am persuaded that there will be such a state, and that those magnificent promises which God has made us, will be fully performed. We shall know then infinitely more than we do now: And if at this time, the finding out any Truth so sensibly affects us; how much more will it do so, when the glory of God shall be revealed in us, and Truth shall not appear in scattered and divided beams, or by intervals, but as it is in its ineffable Spring? But for all that, I cannot be sensible that I must enslave my Reason, and unman myself in running after incomprehensible objects, of which I can neither give, nor receive any tolerable account.  Orthod. 
You are so offended at things incomprehensible: Pray are you the happy Man who finds nothing of that nature in the World? Is it always day with you? Do you never feel the cold and darkness of the approaching Night?  Socin. 
No! I should be then an incomprehensible Creature myself. I own to my grief that there are abundance of that sort of things. I say, to my grief: For I would, if I could, know every thing. But when I find a bar which stops me from going further, than I make a stand, and cannot conceive that I am any way concerned in it. In a word as I have said before, what is incomprehensible is nothing to me.  Orthod. 
You put me in mind of a verse in Hesiod, wherein the old Mythologist says that Credulity, and Incredulity have equally undone Mankind. A thought more becoming a Christian, than a Heathen! From the first have sprung Superstition and Idolatry. Men have brought down their Adoration as low as their thoughts. They have worshipped Beasts and Plants, as irrational as the one, and as insensible as the other. The second has run them into other extremes. From Polytheism to Atheism; from believing every thing to the believing nothing at all. It has produced Deism, not such as was the Deism of the first race of the World, when Nature taught Men sincerely to serve their Creator; but such as lose and profane Persons have embraced, the better under that venerable Name to destroy Revealed Religion. Pardon me, if I say that Socinianism is another of its branches. Credulity has undone others, but Incredulity has ruined you.  Socin. 
You do us a double injury. First, In putting us with Deists and Atheists, whom you know we are no favourers of. Secondly, By charging us with Incredulity, when in all our Books, and Prints, we publicly profess to believe.  Orthod. 
That is, you assent to what comes within the compass of your Reason, but no further. You believe what you please, or how you please. What squares with your Thoughts shall be Faith. What does not must be rejected. You are then Believers at large, and such as St. Austin represents the Manichaeans, lib. de util. creden. who would have Faith to be nothing but Reason.  Socin. 
No, we distinguish them. The one is not the other. We are satisfied of the Truth of those things, which Reason could never have demonstrated. We acknowledge a Revealed Religion, and think it an infinite mercy of the Creator, to have sent the Lord Christ into the World to teach us the way to Heaven. But we are persuaded that Revelation contains nothing but what is Possible, Consistent with Reason, and easily understood. You have made Christianity Mysterious: That is, the plainest Religion in the World is become in your hands, obscure and intricate; and when you have nothing to say for yourselves, you appeal to Faith, as to the last remedy.  Orthod. 
Give me leave to show you the disingenuity, and weakness of this way of reasoning. You say that you are satisfied of the Truth of those things, which Reason could never have demonstrated. But at the same time you confine this principally to the matters of Fact related in the Gospel. Nay the Learned Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity, would unreasonably have confined it to the bare belief of CHRIST, being the Messiah. But is there nothing else besides matter of Fact in the sacred Writings? Are we not told what that Messiah is, as well as what he has done, his Nature as well as his Actions? Does not this matter of Fact depend upon a Series, or Concatenation of Divine Verities, which the Scripture has carefully attested? Does not the whole Oeconomy of the Gospel turn upon Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Are we not initiated in their Names to our Holy Religion? And does not that Religion teach us what they are in themselves, and what in relation to us?  
But you have an easy and possible way, and that is to maim and mangle Religion. When it is thus murdered and disfigured, than it is consistent with Reason, and easily understood when it has nothing to say. Thus Socinianism by pretending to remove Mysteries from our Holy Religion, becomes itself a Mystery. It takes away the greatest part of the Credenda. Let another Socinus arise and take away the Agenda too, and then the World will be sitted with a delicate System of Religion.  Socin. 
Now I see you grow hot.  Orthod. 
No? but would it not amaze any Man to see Christianity thus abused by Men who own themselves to be Christians, and under a pretence of making Religion plain, easy, and rational, remove out of the way the most substantial parts of it. May not I wonder to see you deny your assent to things, because you pretend that they are not comprehensible; when at the same time you believe things of which you can give no sort of account, and which you must at last, as well as we, resolve into the Authority of the Re●ciation.  Socin. 
Pray prove that.  Orthod. 
Y●● very easily. For instance amongst many things of this sort; you believe the Creation of the World; that is, you believe that the World and all that is in it was made of nothing. Now any thing to proceed of nothing, every thing to be made of nothing, is as great a contradiction 〈…〉 as one, and one, and 〈…〉, but one. O●● of nothing is made, is a 〈…〉 the most sagacious Philosopher. On this the Lycaeum built the Eternity of the World. Tertullian Apolog. c. 11. attributes it to Pythagoras, and Proclus to Plato, both I fear falsely. Others made matter to be eternally pre-existent. Others said that God was the World. I maintain, that though we can never conceive it; yet it is easier to imagine how Three Persons can subsist in one Nature, than that any one thing should be made of nothing.  Socin. 
No? I can easily conceive the Creation. The notion of an Almighty God producing all things, is neither arduous nor difficult. I may say with the Ancient, of whom Clemens Alexand. speaks, Str. 5. That when I contemplate this great Fabric of the World, I think I hear the Voice of God who commands it to Exist. That infinite Essence, in whose mind are reposited the Essences of all things, can give them their several Existences when he pleases. None but Moses spoke worthy of God, when he brings in the Almighty commanding all things out of nothing with a word of his mouth.  Orthod. 
I must beg leave to say that this does not reach the difficulty. For if you run to the power of God, and the relation made of it by 〈…〉 for it. But does it 〈…〉 comprehensible? Do you know 〈…〉, how something is 〈…〉 the contradiction the 〈…〉 as your Friend's ex●●● 〈…〉 not in the words only 〈…〉 thing itself. How would you 〈…〉 your very principle I should say, that the Revelation must be made consistent with Reason; that a possible sense is to be enquired after; that God is said to create, because he orders and disposes the eternally pre-existent Matter? Should I criticise, and as you have done in other places, altar particles in the Text of Moses, you would think that I am mad, and say, that when the Text is so plain, and the Revelation so express, what I imagine to be contradiction, is only the weakness of my Reason, which must not stand against the Authority of God.  
Suffer me to retort the Argument upon you. I propose the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity, and produce the Divine Revelation for it. You cry out Contradiction, Impossibility, Incomprehensibility; I say all this in the case of Creation. You justly overrule it by the Authority of the Revelation; why must I be denied the same privilege, and conclude that as I admit the one, so you ought to admit the other?  Socin. 
But than what signifies Reason, if it ought not to be judge in Religious Matters? And what Oppression must it lie under, if it is overruled by every thing which the Church will call Mystery.  Orthod. 
The Church calls nothing Mystery, but what is really such: Some sublime important Truth, which has an influence on Religion, and a perfect coherence with it: Of which we see some part, the rest remaining abstruse, and Reason being at a stand in its several inquiries about it. Thus 1 Tim. 3.16. And without Controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness; God was manifest in the Flesh. What is proposed to us is very plain, God assuming our Nature, and being made Man. This is a strong engagement to all the duties of Religion. And yet which way soever you take it; it is still a great Mystery. Reason is infinitely puzzled, and has innumerable questions ready to offer, which it can never be satisfied in, because God has revealed so much and no more. It's duty is to submit and make to the veracity of God a sacrifice of its curiosity.  
The same may be said of the Resurrection from the Dead, which St. Paul calls 1 Cor. 15.51. a Mystery. He shows clearly the certainty and advantage of a glorious coming to Life again. Yet it is still a Mystery. Take away the Divine Revelation; and Reason, humane Reason will charge the doctrine of the Resurrection with contradiction, nonsense, impossibility. The same pretended objections will lie against the Mystery of the Holy Trinity; only with this difference, that you are contented in the other points to bring your Reason to the obedience of Faith; but in this you will be refractory.  
It is strange to see Men's odd ways of managing Reason. In the study of Natural things when they can go no farther, than they enlarge upon the weakness of Reason, the misery of our Nature, the shortness of our sight, and the inability of our faculties. They a knowledge that God has hid abundance of objects from our eyes. But in the search after Mysteries, than Reason is strong; it soars as high, and can look on the Sun as steadfastly as the Eagle. Nothing ought to be Mysterious. Faith must not be our guide. It is no more the light of the Soul, but usurpation and tyranny.  Socin. 
You have a perpetual inclination to misrepresent us. We affirm, and we have affirmed it a thousand times, that we ought to be guided by Faith. But Faith must be rational. It is, says St. Paul, Rom. 12.1. our Reasonable service. If it is not such, it is neither worthy of God who requires it, nor of Man who pays that debt to him. I ought not to believe at random, or give my assent to every thing, which even the Scripture proposes. But I must examine how it is consistent with the principles of that Reason which he has given me: Thus far I must believe, and no further. Reason first and last is to be the judge.  Orthod. 
Pray let us avoid those perpetual Equivocations. Faith and Reason are always consistent. I do not speak of Reason as it is in us, but as it is in itself; with that admirable coherence of Principles flowing from one another, and concentring in God who is its Author. Had we Reason in that state, and to that degree, such I believe was that of innocent ADAM, I should be reconciled to all your noise of Contradictions. But Reason as it is in us, is obscure, apt to be entangled in the smallest thread, and uncertain where and how to fix itself. But let it be considered either of these ways, the consistency of Faith and Reason must be always understood in subordination of the latter to the former. What a monstrous attempt is this to determine Faith by Reason, and not Reason by Faith?  Socin. 
What a pleasant distinction is this of Reason considered in itself, or as it is in us? Of ADAM's Reason and ours? As if ADAM was not such another Man as I am; and Reason considered in itself could be different from what it is in me, and all Mankind!  Orthod. 
Yes indeed: Innocent ADAM just come out of the hands of his Maker, and taught immediately by that Infinite Spirit, who had given him his being, did Reason better than you or I. His perceptions were clearer: His apprehensions quicker: His abilities greater. Passion and Prejudice had not found the way to his Soul: Wine and Lust had not inflamed him: Ambition and the Thirst of Gold had not depraved him. In a word, he was little Inferior to the Angels themselves; both in Purity and Knowledge.  
And why may not Reason be considered in itself, in that Divine Relation which it has to the Supreme Truth; calm and free in its propositions; sincere and true in its inferences, without a desire of appearing what it is not, from what it is, when clogged with the impressions of a sinful Body, captivated by a corrupted Will, led into a thousand silly errors, ever seeking and never finding a place to rest in?  
These are the sad effects of the first Transgression. Man was made upright at the beginning, but they sought out many inventions, says one to whom the Scripture gives the character of the most Knowing of Men. I tell you, that in this crazy Age of the World, and in the great decay of Christianity, what we call Reason, are only the miserable relics of it.  Socin. 
You know by whom it is denied that ADAM's Transgression had any other influence on his Posterity, than to show them an ill example. For my part I believe, that the World is the same as ever it was, and that if ADAM had not sinned, we had still been subject to the same Infirmities. Your Doctrine of Original Sin is as Mysterious as the rest.  Orthod. 
It is so far from being Mysterious, that nothing discovers itself with greater clearness. All the Pride of Man cannot hid it. Our own unhappy experience contradicts our pretended demonstrations against it; and in this, our Heart evidently opposes our Mind. But we have lost the main question, let us return to it. I say then, that you give Reason too great a Scope, and that in our present state it ought not to determine Faith, but be determined by it.  Socin. 
But still we talk of Faith and Reason, and have not yet agreed what they are. Pray tell me what is Reason? But tell it me plainly. Let us have no Cartesianism, no Metaphysical Abstractions, no Notions, no Ideas. If I cannot walk in a smooth and open Path, I am resolved to stay at Home.  Orthod. 
I am myself of your Mind. I take then Reason to be a Faculty of the Soul, by which we endeavour to find out the Truth, either by way of Inference, or by a plain and simple Perception. What have you to Except against this?  Socin. 
Nothing at all. For I think that all our Knowledge comes these two ways. Yet if the word, Endeavour, falls upon the last, as well as upon the first part of the definition, it seems somewhat incongruous. For simple Perceptions offer themselves to us, and are almost the only things of which the Certainty is not disputed. But yet as it is by comparing the least Known, with the most Known Principles that we do Reason; and that every thing which we call a simple Perception, is not such, I willingly agree in it. Then go on and tell me what is Faith?  Orthod. 
Faith is the Gift of God, by which he Inlightens our Mind, and inclines our Heart to assent to what he proposes to us to believe.  Socin. 
This I do not like so well as the other. Though I know it comes from St. Austin, and is commonly received by the admirers of that Father. Faith is the Gift of God, as all things are in a general sense. But if by it you suppose an immediate Act of his Grace by which we believe; then Faith is no more our choice, or a favour offered to all Men, but confined only to few. How can it be said that God inlightens our Mind, when what you call Mysteries are as obscure and unknown after as before we believe? And for that expression of inclining our Will, it is not sufferable, it borders so much upon the Doctrine of Calvin, which you know the Church of England is not fond of. It shows an impossibility of believing in them whose Hearts are not inclined, and consequently it makes unbelief to be no Sin.  Orthod. 
The Definition is I confess of St. Austin: But I maintain that it is both Christian and Catholic. The Scripture has taught, and the Church embraced it. Joh. 6.4. No Man can come unto me, except the Father which has sent me draw him. Ibid. v. 65. No Man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. Phil. 1.29. To you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. Rom. 12.3. We are commanded to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every Man the measure of Faith.  
Hence the Church has expressed herself in these words Can. 7. of the Council of Aurange. If any thinks that by the strength of Nature he can think, or do any good thing relating to Salvation; or assent to the Truth revealed without the illumination, or inspiration of the Holy Spirit, HERAETICO FALLITUR SPIRITU, HE IS DECEIVED BY AN HERETICAL SPIRIT, not understanding this place of the Apostle, 2 Cor. 3.5. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to do any thing as of ourselves: But our sufficiency is of God.  
This does not hinder Faith from being our choice, any more than it does Virtue; the assistance of God helping, but not altering our Nature.  
The obscurity of Mysteries, even when we believe, is no objection against the enlightening of the Mind. For this supposes not a clear insight into the Nature of the thing, but only a conviction that there is such a thing revealed. 1 Cor. 13.12. For now we see through a Glass darkly, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in aenigmate, as in a riddle ... Now. I know in part, but then shall I know even as I am also known.  
But how can you give to the inclining of the will the name of insufferable and bordering upon Calvinianism; when you cannot but know that it is the Work of God, and the Prayer of Man to him? Psal. 119.27. Make me to understand the way of thy Precepts. v. 35. Make me to go in the Path of thy Commandments. v. 36. Incline my Heart to thy Testimonies. Prov. 16.1. The preparation of the Heart is from the Lord.  
The Church, you say, is not fond of Calvin's Principles. True, but our abhorrency from Clavinianism must not drive us to Pelagianism. I may detest an opinion inconsistent with the goodness of God, without throwing myself into an excess injurious to the Grace of CHRIST. The Definition than is good and safe, but because I am willing, if possible, to remove all your prejudices, I will put it in fewer words. Faith, then, is a Firm assent to what God has revealed to us.  Socin. 
I cannot quarrel with this. It is well that once at least you will be plain.  Orthod. 
It is well that there is something which you will not deny. This Definition, though not so exact as it ought to be, is enough to show you the insufficiency of Reason. For if Reason can embrace all that is necessary for a Man to know, there can be no necessity of Revelation. This of itself supposes and is a convincing proof of our ignorance. For if there are objects which Reason cannot reach, but must owe their discovery to a higher and more infallible Principle; then Reason is palpably weak and imperfect. There cannot be a more sensible Argument of its Deficiency.  
But there is another inconvenience as discernible as this. Reason not only cannot reach the object which Revelation presents; but also the object once presented, it cannot be conversant about it, nor examine the several parts or prospects of it. It cannot come to a view near enough to employ its Faculties in it. The account of which is very plain, and it is this: That as Reason with all its sagacity and penetration could never find out such an object, and knows only that there is such a thing because God presents it, and must rely for the truth of it upon God's veracity; so the nature of the object proposed must still remain obscure, because there is as great an impossibility in finding out the nature of the object, as the object itself.  
In natural things Reason meets with an object fit for its inquiry, and not only finds out the object, but even penetrates what can be known of it, because both are commensurate: Or, to avoid hard words, which neither you, nor I love, because there is a fair proportion between the object, and the powers and faculties of Reason. But in things supernatural, which word is enough to decide the difference, if you would but consider of it, there is so infinite a distance between the object proposed, and the weak perceptions of Reason, that if we are just to ourselves, and have any respect for the order which the Alwise God has established, we cannot so much as pretend to an inquiry into the Nature of the thing offered.  
This highly vindicates the wise and sober Answer of abundance of Learned Men amongst us, who in the disputes about the Blessed Trinity and Incarnation have told you, that these are Mysteries above our Reason: That we ought to rely upon the Divine Revelation, and not pretend to give an account of things Incomprehensible. This you have thought to be an evasion of all your pretended contradictions; you have derided it; and called it a Trinity of the Mob of ignorant and lazy Doctors. Whereas if you weigh the Principles laid before you, it will appear very firm and solid. For to state contradictions in an object Revealed, when that object is above all our Perceptions; when all that we know is that it is, and that too, because it is Revealed; but are altogether ignorant what it is. Reason then soars above its nature, and what you call contradictions are only the stumblings of Reason, which striving to climb up an inaccessible rock, is shamefully fling on its back and overthrown.  Socin. 
But than you make Faith the obscurest thing in the World, and what advantage is it to us, if our darkness is removed by a greater, even a darkness that may be felt? If what you say is true, I know little by the help of Reason, and much less by that of Revelation.  Orthod. 
I make Faith what God has made it. The things which he proposes exist and are certain. He is pleased to cast a veil over them, and we ought not to presume to take it off. It is he that has made us and not we ourselves; and in vain we strive to start out of the limits to which he has confined us. Nor is the homage and submission of our understandings consistent with clear Perceptions of things. It would no more be Faith but Knowledge. We should not be in via, as the Fathers speak, in the way which leads to Heaven, which is a state of obscurity, labour, humility, and the fear of God: But in Patria, in Heaven itself, a place of intuition, tranquillity, glory, and perfect love.  
But let me tell you that Faith has that mighty advantage, that if it is not the clearest evidence, it is at least the greatest certainty in the World. All our assurance in other things is humane. The very Principles of Geometry are no more. But Faith has a Divine Foundation, and that is, the Authority of God. St. Chrysostom was so persuaded of the truth of this, that Homil 21. in Epist. ad Heb. he did not doubt to affirm that he had no Faith who believed not more firmly the things revealed, than those which are daily the object of sense. You know the Famous saying of St. Ambrose de sacram. l. 1. cap. 5. Tolle argumenta ubi Fides quaeritur. Away with all your Reasons, where Faith is the question.  Socin. 
If you get amongst the Fathers, we shall have a Sea of Authorities which you know we have no very great esteem for. I wish you would lay them all aside. But if you will not, what think you of Lactantius, who Instit. l. 2. cap. 7. speaks thus. Oportet in ea re maxim, etc. Every Man is obliged, particularly in that wherein his own being is concerned, to trust to himself; and it is much better to endeavour with the best judgement and sense that we can, to find out the truth, than to suffer ourselves to be deceived by other People's errors; as if we were wholly Strangers to Reason: God having given all Men such a share of Wisdom, as to be able to search into those things which are unknown to us, and to examine those that are not. The same Principle Minutius Foelix makes use of against Caecilius. And this is the very Argument of Theodoret, in his first Discourse de curand graec. affect.  
It may be said of Lactantius his assertion, that nothing can be truer and better. It does justice to God, who is the Author and Giver of every good and perfect gift; and to Man, by owning his great and distinguishing Privilege. You have spoke of Faith very well and accurately. But for all that do you know what it is to blaspheme Reason. It is to wound Mankind in the most sensible part, and to put us out of a capacity of ever acting like Men. Reason is a light which comes down from the Father of lights. As the natural light discovers itself and all other objects; so Reason the light of the Soul discovers its native excellency, and is the trial of all other things. It's eagerness in the pursuit of Truth, is a proof that it is made for it, and capable of it. It looks much like Priest-craft, to desire me to shut my Eyes, and trust myself to another guide, whilst I can see my way as perfectly as any other.  
I had once a great respect for St. Austin, but I have lost it, since I read a passage of his, wherein he strangely abuses humane nature. It is lib. 2. c. 15. de serm. dom. in monte. Hominis anima rationalis lumine veritatis vel tenuiter pro sui capacitate illustratur, ut verum aliquid in ratiacinando sentiat. The rational Soul of Man receives as ●●ding to its capacity, small illustrations and glances of light, that by Reasoning it may feel something of Truth. Thus the Doctors of the Church run down Reason, and perceive not that they run down Mankind at the same time.  Orthod. 
You are in the right to lay the Fathers aside, for they are all against you. I should be glad to be rid of a witness, who I am sure will swear home against me. The Author of Christianity not Mysterious has invalidated their evidence to some purpose. He will not allow above five or six to have been Men of sense; and to show how contemptible they are, he flatters himself that some ages hence he will be looked on as a Father. I hope he is no Prophet, and does not see so much extravagance in the succeeding times.  
Lactantius every way an admirable Author, argues against Idolatry. He says very well that no Religion is to be taken upon trust, and that in so great a concern every one ought to judge for himself. Idolatry is so unreasonable a thing, that whosoever admits it, must be a stranger to Reason; God having given every Man such a measure of Wisdom as to reject that which is so openly bad, and look for somewhat better. But he never pretended that amongst Christians, who so unanimously submit to the Revelation, which God has made of himself in the Holy Scriptures; Man was to dispute against God, and Reason to struggle with Faith. Read the first Chapter of the first, and the greatest part of the third Book, and you will see that from the contradictions of Philosophers, he proves Reason to be insufficient to find out the truth, and that it is only to be met with in that Religion, where it is divinely Revealed.  
Minutius Foelix argues after the same manner. Caecilius pleaded a Tradition of Idolatry, in which he thought himself secure. Minutius answers, that he ought to appeal to his own Reason, which will evidently show him the folly and impiety of Polytheism. And all that Theodoret insists on is, that the simplicity of our Holy Faith wants not solid and rational arguments, by which it is confirmed. Such I take to be the Authority of the Revelation, which in strength and clearness is superior to any Argument whatsoever.  
But laying all this aside: When you have done all you can, and writ never so fine a Panegyric on Reason, the strength of it cannot be better judged of, than by its use. You will be ashamed of ever pleading for Reason, when you consider how the great Masters of it have been distracted! And you will say with Jesus Christ. Matt. 6.23. If therefore the Light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness?  
The first Men of the World, though so near their beginning, and the impressions of Reason, so much the stronger because nearest to their spring, yet generally run into Idolatry and Violence. You know how few they were who called upon the Name of the Lord. The Church was confined to the Family of Noah. The fury of the Flood was an eminent instance of a Reason, which had so far wandered from its Principles that it was passed recalling, and was fit for nothing but destruction.  
When the World after that was so far replenished, as to afford great Monarchies and numerous Nations; you see Reason as insufficient as before, and Men as obstinately bend to departed from their Creator. I will not run through their several Idolatries. The Egyptians so famous for their Learning, who thought themselves, and were looked upon by others as highly Rational Men, did debase Reason to that degree, as to make Gods of their very Roots and Plants. A happy People, says pleasantly Juvenal, who see their Deities grow in their Gardens! But you will say they were unthinking People who had not considered the matter, or enquired into the Nature of Reason. But what must you think of the Engrossers of Learning and Reputation, I mean the Greeks? Men who valued themselves upon being inquisitive, treated all the parts of Philosophy, and filled the World with Sects and Systems.  
Good God The Dogmatics thought Reason so clear as to be certain of every thing, and to doubt of nothing: An extravagance of which they had a confutation in themselves. These Socrates, the wise Socrates takes up, and is so far from taking Reason to be clear, that he professes that if any thing was certain, it was this, That he knew nothing to be certain. This Assertion Arcesilas and Pyrrho cannot be reconciled with; carry the doubt yet further, and find no certainty in that very Proposition, but make Hesitation, and Fluctuation the Principles of their Doctrine.  
They are not more lucky in their search about Happiness, Providence, the Being of God, and the Original of the World. There is a strange confusion in their Opinions, and an incredible weakness in their Arguments. They have verified the saying of Solomon, Eccles. 3.11. Mundum trad●●●t disputationi eorum. God has made the World the subject of their disputes. Or as our Translation reads it. He has set the World in their Heart, so that no Man can find out the Work that God made from the beginning to the end. And Eccles. 8.17. Though a Man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea further, though a Wise Man think to know it, yet he shall not be able to find it. This is the Reason which you cry up so much, and these are your Rational Men.  Socin. 
All this is a satire upon Reason and nothing else. Yet it cannot detract from its dignity. And it is a consequence ill drawn, That because some Men have Reasoned ill, therefore we cannot Reason well. Several People have had but one Eye, therefore we have not two. The Egyptians and Greeks have been delirious, therefore we must be so too. They did conclude at random in those days, because they wanted all the means of Erudition, which we have, and therefore we must talk at the same rate, though a long experience, innumerable Books, and accurate Methods in all Arts and Sciences have wonderfully refin'd our Notions. With you the dawning of the Day gives more light than the full Noon; and the Morning is wiser than the Evening of our Lives. Pray let us lay aside these common places, and come to a closer way of reasoning.  
Is there such a thing as Reason, or is there not? If there is not, than we are like the Beasts that perish, uncapable of either Reward or Punishment, because uncapable of Good and Evil. But if there is, than it must be given us for some end, and it must be fitted for the attainment of that for which it is given. You have granted in your Definition of Reason, that it is a Faculty of the Soul by which we endeavour to find out the Truth. Is Truth then attainable, or is it not? If it is not, than your Definition is worth nothing. If it is, than Reason is not only the instrument by which we find it, but also the judge of that Truth which we find. Not that I pretend that Truth is not greater than our Reason, and that Reason penetrates the whole extent of the Truth which it contemplates: But I maintain that as the object falls under the scrutiny of Reason, it must judge of it, and what it affirms or denies concerning it is true. I know that Men have not the same strength of Apprehension. That which seems a demonstration to me, will be justly called an impertinence by another. But I say that it is the touchstone of all that is proposed to us; and that nothing can be laid before us as Truth, in which we are concerned, but Reason must inquire into and judge of it.  Orthod. 
But what is all this, but what has been said a thousand times, and what you have offered to me already? Does this resolve at all the difficulty proposed. It were easy to me to show you that the Reason of this age is not better than that of the Greeks and the Romans: That 'tis not to Books or Experiments, but to Religion, that you own the improvement of your Reason, and that the best Christians ever made the best Philosophers. But granting all that you can pretend from that which you call close Reasoning what is it to the purpose? Admitting that you conclude right in all those things which are within the reach of Reason, which is not only disputable, but even false; is it not altogether Deficient in what is above it? Foolish and rash assertion, that because Reason knows some things, therefore it must know all things: And that because it can grapple with natural, therefore it may with supernatural Objects.  
These three things Men are guided by, SENSE, REASON, FAITH. We believe first our Senses. We see, hear, smell, taste, touch; from these we receive the first impressions. But because they are fallible, imposing, and like to make us draw false consequences, Reason comes to help us. It rectifies the mistakes of sense. The larger operations of the Soul embrace Principles of a greater extent, and with an incredible eagerness will search what they are, as well as what they appear. This is the ground of Philosophical inquiries. But Man is not contented with this. For besides that the way is painful, tedious, and yielding very often neither profit nor pleasure, he can fix no where. He finds in himself a desire of happiness, which no created being can procure. Supposing that he can measure the Heavens, understand luminous Bodies, be acquainted with the laws of Motion and Matter; this is still far from answering the vast capacity of a Soul, which distasted with inferior objects, aspires at the Knowledge of God's Nature, of his own Immortality, and of a future State after this Life.  
There is somewhat which he is sensible is wanting to the perfection of his own Being. He sees at a mighty distance great and venerable objects, but cannot draw near to them, being kept back by his inaccessible light of one side, and the obscurity and weakness of his Reason of the other. The merciful God will not discover himself plainly to him. If he did, he could not bear the Splendour; For no Man shall see God, and live. But he has ordained Faith as a Medium between the darkness of this Life, and the Glory of the next. He has commanded Man to believe, fixing thereby all the uncertainties, and rectifying all the mistakes of Reason. And has given him the greatest encouragement that can be, by assuring him that he shall know hereafter, what he now believes.  
Supposing that one should argue for Sense against Reason, as you do for Reason against Faith, you would say to him, that Sense in a Matter, which depends from Sense, is the best judge; but that in a Matter about which Reason alone is conversant, it has nothing to do, because the object is much above its reach. Should Sense reply, God has fitted me for some end, and that end is the apprehending of Truth, and consequently attainable, or else it is no end; and by this I am fitted to judge of such, and such objects; you would say to him, Sense is one thing, and Reason is another. Sense is to be so far from pretending to be the judge of Reason, that is has nothing to do with it. Pray be just and say the same of Reason. It will strive to inquire into the business of Faith. Faith will own that concerning things within the compass of Reason, there can be no fit judge. Reason will tell Faith, that it contradicts itself, that it proposes impossibilities, that it is every way incomprehensible. Faith will laugh at this, and ask how Reason can talk of contradictions, and impossibilities, and incomprehensibilities, where it has nothing to do, and has no sort of aptitude to see whether it is so or no. I am sure this is their Sense who ever pretended to understand those matters. St. Austin in his Book, the morib. Eccl. Cathol. In the third Book contra Acad. c. 19 .....  Socin. 
I have declared myself already against citations of the Fathers. Favour me so far as to bring in no more. 'Tis not what they say, but what you say, which I am willing to hear. What St. Austin tells Adimantus, Volusianus, Honoratus, is nothing to me. He was a Man of Sense, but I build no part of my Faith upon his or the Father's say. I like your way of speaking very well: Pray go on.  Orthod. 
What you require of me is highly unjust. For though I build my Faith no more than yourself upon the Fathers, but only upon the revealed word of God; yet I think their Authority to be great and considerable. As our Holy Faith is the same now as in the beginning of Christianity, because a part of its Character is to have been once delivered; so I conceive that it is now best defended by the same methods which the Christian Doctors used at first. When our Mysteries were proposed to the Heathens, they were as quick as you can be at objecting contradictions. They magnified Reason as much as any of you have done since. The Fathers did strenuously apply themselves to show its weakness and insufficiency, and by asserting the necessity of Faith overruled all their objections. When you have done all that you can, you must at last come to this; only with a far greater disadvantage of your side, because the Heathens rejected that very principle which you admit, and that is the Divine Revelation. You cannot oppose the Authority of the Fathers, without doing the Christian Church a vast injury, and robbing it of one of its greatest Ornaments. This very thing must be a prejudice against you, that you have renewed the old objections of the Heathens against this Sacred Doctrine, and despised those very ways which were used by the Fathers in the confutation of their errors.  Socin. 
You perpetually cry up the Fathers, and yet would not be bound in this very point to make good their Reasonings. Are there not three Faculties of the Soul, and yet but one Soul; the Root, Bark, and Branches of a Tree, and yet the same Tree; Peter, James, and John, three Men, and yet the same humane Nature; are not these and twenty more such instances delicate proofs of a Trinity in Unity?  Orthod. 
They are no proofs, nor ever were intended to be such. What can be made of them is, that they are Illustrations, faint Adumbrations, or Resemblances of the inexplicable Mystery. The Fathers required believing, and not reasoning. They affirmed Reason incapable of judging of Mysteries, and resolved all into Faith, that firm assent to what God has Revealed. You may see this Elegantly treated by Arnobius, who calls Reason blind, uncertain, weak, and owing to the Mercy of God, that himself has spoken to inform it.  
Lactantius is positive lib. 3. c. 1. that the knowledge and worship of God cannot be attained by Reason or Sense; and therefore that laying aside all these Masters of an earthly Philosophy, who have so contradicted one another, and have left nothing certain; we should look up to God, who Tradidit Sacramentum verae Religionis, ut revelatae divinitùs veritatis cognitionem consequamur, Has given us the Sacred Institution of the true Religion, that we may attain the Knowledge of that Truth which is Divinely Revealed.  
And in the same place; Divina tradita sunt breviter & nude. Nec decebat aliter, ut cum Deus ad hominem loqueretur argumentis assereret suas voces, tanquam fides ei non haberetur; sed ut oportuit est locutus quasi rerum omnium supremus Judex; cujus non est argumentari sed pronunciare verum. Divine things are delivered in a short and plain manner. Nor was it fit that it should be otherwise. As if God was not to be believed, except he gives Reasons for what he says. He has spoke as the supreme Judge of all things, whose part is not to dispute, but simply to pronounce what is true.  
Tertullian de anim. Cui enim veritas comperta sine Deo? Cui Deus cognitus sine Christo? Cui Christus exploratus sine Spiritu Sancto? Cui Spiritus accommodatus sine Fidei Sacramento? Who has been able to attain the Truth without God? Who has known God without Christ? Who has known Christ without the Holy Spirit? Who has known the Holy Spirit but by the sacred way of Faith?  
Gregory the Great Hom. 26. in Evang. assures that Fides non habet meritum cui Humana Ratio praebet experimentum. That Faith is of no value which is grounded upon the inquiries of humane Reason.  
St. Austin has treated this very argument in abundance of places with the utmost accuracy. The Greek are perfectly agreed in this with the Latin Fathers. It is the Divinity of Origen, of Theodoret, of St. Chrysostom. I will go further with you, and say that this is the sense of the generality of Divines; which has made that great Schoolman Aquinas lay this as a Principle in that part of his Works, which is much the best of all his Writings, and that 2 a. 2 da. qu. 2. art. 4. Ratio Humana in rebus Humanis est multum deficiens, cujus signum est, quia Philosophi de rebus Humanis naturali investigatione perscrutantes, in multis erraverunt, & sibi ipsis contraria senserunt.  ergo esset indubitata & certa cognitio apud homines de Deo, oportuit quod Divina eis per modum Fidei traderentur, quasi à Deo dicta qui mentiri non potest. Humane Reason is much deficient, even in Humane things, of which this is a proof, that the Philosophers in that search about them which they made by natural inquiries, have mightily erred, and contradicted themselves. And therefore to the end that Men's Knowledge concerning God might be certain and undoubted, it was necessary that Divine Matters should be delivered to them by way of Faith as spoken by God, who cannot lie.  Socin. 
Then we are no more Men, but Stocks and Stones. Our obedience to God is no more choice, but necessity. If Reason has nothing to do in matters of Faith, Men cease to be reasonable as soon as they Commence Christians. We are all obliged to you for divesting us of that by which we are like God. At this rate any extravagance will be called a Mystery; any little Priest will obtrude and defend it; and under the specious name of Faith overcome the clearest demonstrations of Reason. Once more this is Priest-Craft with a vengeance. Pray tell me what I must do with my Reason hereafter, and into what sort of Creature it shall transmigrate, since a Christian is no more capable of it.  Orthod. 
This is all heat and madness. I am for Reason as much as yourself. But I would have it kept within its due bounds. It is of great use in Religion, and I am not out of hopes to make you sensible of it.  Socin. 
When the Sea gives over ebbing and flowing, and not before. You have proved that in matters of Faith Reason is to be silent; and now you tell me that it is of great use. How can this be reconciled?  Orthod. 
We have spoken too long to enter now on a new discourse. Let us put it off till I have the happiness to see you. In the mean time let me beg a double favour of you. First, to consider impartially what has been said between us. Secondly, that in case you will not be persuaded, the difference of our Sentiments should not in the least alter our Friendship.  Socin. 
I should be too great a sufferer myself in denying any part of this. I was ready to ask it, but you prevented me. When shall we meet again?  Orthod. 
To Morrow if you will in My Lord Bishop's fine Garden. There is no Body now there. We shall not only be free, but also enjoy for some hours the prettiest Solitude I know about the Town.  Socin. 
Done.   

The Fourth DIALOGUE.  Orthod. 
I hope I have not tired your Patience. How long have I made you stay here?  Socin. 
A very little time, and that without any trouble; for this is really a very curious Place. Nature and Art have combined to make it fine. How large and firm are those Walks? What a plenty of excellent Fruit adorns these Walls? How proud is this Parterre of an infinite variety of Native and Foreign Flowers? But let us hasten to the end, where a small River calmly and silently runs; and stately Trees on both sides will scarce suffer the Sun to view the Water.  Orthod. 
In such places as this was Philosophy born. There speculative Men secure from the noise and vices of Towns, gave themselves to Contemplation. Their manners were innocent, and their way of living plain and unaffected. They adored the Author of all these things, and spent their time in serious and profitable inquiries.  
But these Men of thoughts grew fond of imparting their secrets, and brought Philosophy into Towns. There it became proud, vain, and full of Talk. It must come back again, or else it will never be what it was in that Blessed Age. But let us draw to that small Building at the end of this Walk?  Socin. 
We are going to it. It is a place consecrated to Solitude. There is written without in large Characters, NO PASSIONS CAN COME IN HERE. And within, NEVER LESS ALONE THAN WHEN ALONE. There we shall sit down, and you will discharge your Promise of giving Reason satisfaction for your violent Invectives against it.  Orthod. 
I never injured Reason. It would be an unsuccessful attempt. All that I have endeavoured to do, is to keep it within its due bounds. In our Disputes as well as in all other things we are apt to run into extremes. Our Thoughts of Reason are either too great or too mean. We give it too much or too little. And this comes from want of using ourselves to think soberly. Thus some believe themselves to be all Eyes, and obstinately run on with Notions of which they never had patience enough to consider every part, and which when examined, are not what they appeared to be at first. I have observed that most of us are more taken with probability than Truth. What is fine, smooth, and easy steals away our assent, which a further and closer inquiry would oblige us to deny.  
Your Books are all of that sort. You have espoused a Principle that Reason ought to be the Judge in Religious matters. This carries along with it a great deal of Probability, and insinuates itself the more easily, because it flatters our Pride. But when this comes to be throughly examined the objections against it are so many, that all that can be said of it is this, that it is only an Opinion which indeed appears probable, but is certainly false.  Socin. 
Pray sit down, and acquit yourself. Show the consistency of Reason with Faith and its great use in Religion. Or else I must accuse you of Non-performance.  Orthod. 
We cannot treat this with any Candour except you acknowledge, First, that as Reason has its Beauties and Excellencies, it has also its Deformities and Weaknesses. It is a light which God has given us to know him and ourselves. But that light suffers frequent Eclipses. It shines dim, and is often put out. We are not wise all the hours of the day. Sometimes our thoughts rise as the Sea when it overflows the neighbouring Shores; and sometimes again they sink into a small and contemptible Channel. We own and disown, admit and reject, are pleased this minute with a conclusion, and the next lay it aside; look upon those things as Errors which we formerly embraced as Truths, and take those for Truths which we once rejected as Errors.  Secondly, 
You must grant me that Reason is not the same in all Men; I mean as to its vigour and efficacy. In some a happy Nature with the addition of a careful Education, Reading, Conversation, and Experience, makes it quick and active. It is admirable to see how some Men will like lightning run through a mass of propositions, and understand a thing as soon as it is offered. But in others it is heavy and dull, oppressed by the matter in which it is enclosed, almost sunk; and as the Physicians say of Blood, incapable of circulating through the abundance of viscous humours, by which it is detained. The far greater part of Mankind is of this sort. Of the common Sailors, Soldiers, Labourers, Women, it may be said that the Body is truly the gaol of the Soul, from which it seldom breaks out, to exert any acts answerable to the dignity of its nature.  
Thirdly, I beg also that you would not deny, that though there is so visible a difference in the exercise of Reason, and some Men do almost as far exceed others, as these exceed irrational Creatures; yet there is some universal Principle fitted to every one's capacity, and in which all Mankind agree. Such is the search after Happiness. The grossest and most illiterate of the Sons of ADAM are as much convinced of this as yourself, whose erudition is certainly great. This is not learned from Books, or taken up upon the credit of Authors, but is an invincible inclination which every one finds in his own Heart.  Socin. 
I grant all this but your compliment to me.  Orthod. 
All this granted, I proceed, and presume to be positive that Reason can never show to Man the way to Happiness. For though it concludes very well from the Works of Creation that there is a God, who is the Author and giver of that happiness, and that the service of God is the way to obtain it; yet what we ought to believe of that God, how he is willing to be served, and which way we can appease his anger and secure his favour to us, is altogether above the reach of Reason. Rom. 11.13. His ways are past finding out.  
The Doctrine of a Covenant of Grace, of a Redeemer in whom we are pardoned and accepted, and who by the Sacrifice of himself should reconcile us to God, are Mysterious depths to which Reason, the most clear sighted Reason has not the least access.  
It was necessary than that Authority should supply that want, and God reveal what it was impossible Man should acquaint himself with. Revelation is that which informs our understandings, cures our ignorance, rectifies our mistakes, and by a short and infallible way leads us to happiness. This the Philosophers aimed at by the strength of Natural Reason, but very unsuccessfully. You know what Socrates and Plato, what the School of Epicurus, what Zeno and the Porticus said to it. Their Systems were vain, foolish, flat, and unpracticable. This important discovery was to be the work of him who had the words of Eternal Life. And the wisest and best Definition that ever was given of it, is Joh. 17.3. And this is Life Eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.  
I call this a short and an infallible way. It is infallible, because proposed by him who can neither deceive, nor be deceived. It is short, because it cuts off all the Ambages and uncertainties which Reason is entangled in, and rests upon a rock, and that is, the Authority of God. You make Faith so difficult a thing, and exclaim loud when we endeavour to bring you over to it. But for my part when I take a view of those Principles which Mankind rely upon, I find it much easier to believe than to reason. Can I be safer than when God himself is my Guide? Shall I find more truth any where than in what God proposes? Or are the Mazes or Labyrinths of humane Argumentations easier to run through, than the Asseverations of Scriptures. This has made St. Austin to say, de Trin. l. 14. c. 1. that many of the Faithful have Faith in a very high degree, though they have little or no Learning.  Socin. 
That is, it is easier to swallow any thing, than to inquire whether it is true or no?  Orthod. 
No: For if you Consider this Principle of the Authority of the Divine Revelation, you will find that it prevents all sorts of mistakes, and makes us give over reasoning and disputing, not because we design to avoid the labour and trouble of it; but because we are satisfied that here lies the Truth, and that it is impossible to find it any where else. That whatsoever God is pleased to reveal is true, is a proposition to which all Mortals in any capacity whatever give a most ready assent. There is none of us but what has in some measure or other Notions of God, agreeable to that Divine Being. In some they are more ripe and refined than in others, in Christian's most of all. But all agree that as he is Wise and Holy, so he is True; and that what he delivers to us has an indelible Character of Truth.  
This has not only been taught by us, but by the Heathens themselves. Homer and Hesiod have acknowledged it. Euripides owns in Helen, v. 1164. & seq. that he has found nothing certain amongst Men but this that the words of the Gods are true. And I think it is Porphyrius, a Man of mighty prejudice against Christianity, who comparing the ways of the Greeks, and of the Jews towards the attainment of the Truth, says that the latter who sought after it by Faith, that is, by the means of a Divine Revelation, were much more in the right than the former, who made use only of Reason to attain it. This once admitted, which indeed cannot be denied, I hope to let you see that I am not unjust to Reason. You will give me leave to consider it, before, in, and after the admitting of the Revelation.  Socin. 
Consider it which way you will.  Orthod. 
Faith then pre-supposes Reason. They must be Rational Creatures whom it is infused into, and without the one we are not capable of the other. Though the Almighty has an absolute power over us, yet he is pleased not to force our assent, but proposes the Faith and persuades us to it. It comes by hearing, says St. Paul, Rom. 10.17. that is, it is not imposed tyrannically without reasons or arguments to enforce its necessity and usefulness, but with all the proper methods to engage our assent. We believe because we have all the Reason in the World so to do. And Faith becomes our choice upon the noblest and strongest Motives that can be. I do Reason all the justice and honour which it can expect or deserve, by saying that our most Holy Religion is built on this most rational Principle, than which Man has none stronger, none more evident. Whatsoever God reveals is true, and therefore the Mysteries of Christianity are true, because God has revealed them. There is no exception against the first of these Propositions. In abundance of other things Reason is in the dark, but it meets with no sort of obscurity in this. The second than is its work and exercise, to which it ought to be applied. Reason must satisfy itself whether God has revealed what Religion offers? It is highly just that it should be so; or else every thing will be called Revelation, and every folly consecrated by pretending to have God for its Author. Men will see vanity and divine lies, saying, thus says the Lord, when the Lord has not spoken, Ezek. 22.28.  
Thus St. Paul exhorts the Thessalonians, 1 Thess. 5.21. to prove all things and hold fast that which is good. Compare all the Sects which have pretended to instruct Men in relation to a better Life. Try even those Systems which boast an infallible Judge. Let nothing that assumes the Name of Truth escape a severe inquiry. But when all is done, hold fast that which is good; to wit, that which we are persuaded cannot deceive us, even the Revelation of God. You see then a large Province for Reason to act in. And at the same time how easy is that task which brings us at last to the Author of our being to receive the Truth at his hands.  Socin. 
All this is well. But still vast difficulties present themselves. First, Where is this Revelation which you suppose? I know you will answer immediately, that it is to be found in the Sacred Writings. But than you make it to be the Province of Reason, to satisfy itself in the Truth of the Revelation. If by this you mean the certainty of the Divine Records, you plunge yourself in endless, and I will say, unsuccessful questions about their Inspiration. You will be forced to show which of them are inspired, and which are not? You will find them who have pleaded for the Gospels of Basilides, Apelles, and Tatianus. For that according to St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Thomas, etc. For the Acts of the Apostles, by St. Andrew, St. Philip, etc. For other Epistles of St. Paul than those which we have, and several Writings related by Saint Hierom de Scriptor. Eccl. in Luc. and censured by Gelasius, you will meet with Prochorus, and Abdias the Babylonian, and a world of spurious Writers pretending the Divine Revelation.  
Secondly, If you pass from the certainty of the Records, to the particular places by which you affirm that God has revealed your Doctrine, their sense will be still disputed. It will be said that God indeed has revealed them, but not in the sense which you understand them in. And it will be the same as if you had no Revelation at all.  
Thirdly, Supposing that Reason can effect all this, whose Reason must it be? Is it that, as you were pleased to speak, of the common Sailor, the Soldier, the labouring Man? Indeed the Principle will stand unmoveable, what God has revealed is true. But your Assertion that he has revealed the Mysteries of Christian Religion will be disputed, partly from the uncertainty whether the Records are truly Divine, partly from the doubt of the sense of the particular places which you allege. So that Reason in most Men will have nothing to do, because they are not capable of learned inquiries; and the few that are will wrangle with you to the end of the World.  Orthod. 
The first of your objections cannot be proposed by a Socinian. It is of some force in the Mouth of a Heathen, or of a Deist. Were I to argue against either of them, I ought not to take it ill, if they obliged me to prove the certainty and inspiration of the Divine Records. Nor is this so difficult as you imagine. Critics have made that a Controversy which is none in itself, and never was so before. So great and venerable are the Arguments by which the Divinity of the Sacred Writings is proved, that nothing has yet been said of any moment against it. It is to no purpose to insist on this with you, who own the Scripture to be a complete and infallible rule of Faith. Nor is it more necessary to make it appear that the Books in dispute in the Primitive Ages of the Church were spurious. For besides that we have nothing left of them but their Names, and that too with some diversity; and that they obtained very little, because the cheat was presently found out; it would not be fair in you to put one to the trouble of disproving Books which you disprove yourself. You admit with all the rest of Christians the Canon of the old and new Testament, Pag. 6. of the Answer to Mr. Edward's. Whereas Mr. Edward's, says the Author, would intimate that we reject divers Books of Scripture; on the contrary we receive into our Canon all the Books of Scripture that are received or owned by the Church of England; and we reject the Books rejected by the Church of England. So then all this difficulty is over.  
Your second objection is as easily resolved. When ever any thing is proposed as Faith, the business of Reason is to see whether it is to be found in those Writings wherein we all confess that God has revealed what we ought to believe? Thus the Beraeans, Act 17.11. at the preaching of Paul Searched the Scriptures daily, whether the things which he said to them were so? They sound his allegations true, and therefore many of them believed. Nor will this, as you insinuate, resolve itself into a dispute about the sense of the places alleged. For, as we have said before, those places are so plain, so uncapable of any other sense than what they offer; The deductions from them are so Natural and easy, that all disputing is wholly exciuded. For instance the Debate between you and me is about the Holy Trinity. You deny and I affirm it. We both agree upon a Medium to find whether it is so or no? And that is the Authority of the Sacred Writings. If in them there is a clear Revelation that God is one, and if I produce those Texts which plainly and naturally attributes those qualifications to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which are communicable to no created Being, and cannot be diverted any other way without changing the sense of the proposition, you must as the Noble and Candid Spirits of Beraea certainly yield.  
Against your third objection I say that the unlearned part of the World is as capable of this as the learned; Nay much more. For besides the plainness of the Revelation their perceptions in what they understand are more direct, and not clogged with subtleties as ours are. They have, I am afraid a more sincere respect for the Divine Revelation than we. Take an honest Countryman, and ask him who is he that is blessed over all for ever? He will answer immediately, GOD. Show him in the Scripture that this is said of Christ. He will immediately conclude that Christ is GOD. Object to him that if Christ is God, and the Father God, than there are two Gods. He will immediately reply, No, They are but one, For God is but ONE. You may puzzle him with your Ratiocinations. He may be at a stand and hear you cry till you are hoarse, that two cannot be one, and that he does his Reason an injury. He will tell you that it is so indeed when he takes an account of his sheep and horses, but in what concerns his Religion, his Bible in his Reason; It says so, and he believes it.  
The Learned will not wrangle to the end of the World, except by the Learned you mean only the Socinians. I am sure and you cannot but be so too, that for many Ages, and now in this very Age the Learned of all Societies agree in this. And though the Socinians are infinitely fond of their objections against our Mysteries, yet I despair not to see them come over to the Faith. They are Rational, and at one time or other will be equitable Men.  
But now let us see the Province of Reason, when it is satisfied that such, or such a truth is revealed.  Socin. 
I know what you are going to say, and it is this. That Reason having once satisfied itself of the certainty of the Revelation, it has no more to do; but its duty is to submit to what God has revealed. Let a proposition contain never such a gross or palpable contradiction it must be swallowed contentedly. But in good truth, can this be done? If this is Faith and believing who can believe?  Orthod. 
God can reveal neither contradiction nor error. There is a great difference between understanding the truth of a proposition, and the Nature of the thing proposed. God was manifest in the Flesh, and the Word was made Flesh, are propositions so vastly plain, that no other sense can be made of them but this. God has appeared in our Nature. There is no error, no contradiction in this. In a word we understand it. But the Nature of the thing proposed is so unknown to us, and so much above us, that it is rash and bold for us to inquire into it, or imagine error, or contradiction in it. I say then, that the Truth once proposed we ought to acquiesce in it: That Reason is to be silent, and give no way to further inquiries.  Socin. 
But can Reason be silent, when you impose on me the belief of that of which I have no kind of Notion?  Orthod. 
If by Notion you mean an insight into the thing Revealed, you are unjust. We have discoursed already that the Nature of Faith is to be obscure, or else it is no Faith. This can be no difficulty at all. It is enough for us that we understand that God has proposed such a thing, though we understand not at all the thing proposed. I cannot apprehend how God assumes our Nature and is manifest in the Flesh; But I apprehend that God tells it me in clear and express terms, and therefore I believe, and think not my poor ignorant Brain a competent Judge of God's Veracity.  Socin. 
But pray hold a little. Will you be satisfied of the deficiency of your method, if I show you that after you have attained the certainty of the Revelation, you must believe propositions, which are inconsistent with and destroy one another? You believe God to be one, and yet Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be every one God. Does not the first proposition destroy the second, and the second the first? How can he be one and three, three and one?  Orthod. 
This is still begging of the question. God can propose nothing Contradictory or Inconsistent. I confess I cannot understand how this is, but it is revealed, therefore certainly true, and on that account I believe it.  Socin. 
You believe that Christ is God and Man; Infinite and Finite; Immortal and Mortal; The Supreme, most High God, and yet suffering and Dying. He is God and he is sent; He is God and yet prays to God. He is God over all, and yet subject to him who put all things under him. If this is not inconsistent, I do not know what inconsistency is.  Orthod. 
If Plato, Aristotle, or any of the Sons of Men should tell me this, I would speak as you do. But God is true, and he says all this. I adore the Divine Oeconomy, though I understand it not. To be God and Man is no Contradiction. The Scripture represents Christ as God blessed over all for ever. It represents him also as a Man. Nothing can be more express than the declarations of his Divinity: Nothing more clear than those of his Humanity. Which part of the Revelation shall Reason overthrow? Convinced by the proofs of his Humanity you will say that he is no God. Another convinced by the proofs of his Divinity will deny that he is a Man. Thus Reason more inconsistent with itself than you fancy Revelation to be, will reject every part and destroy the whole.  Socin. 
No. Reason will reconcile all, and by an easy explication will make him an inferior, or a deputed God and also the greatest of Men.  Orthod. 
A Socinian Explication! But the misery is that our Texts are not capable of any. God Blessed over all for ever; The word was with God, The word was God, and twenty more such places admit of no explication. A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, in the Form of a Servant, humbling himself to the Death of the Cross, becoming Sin for us, and dying for Sinners, contradicts all your explications. Away with this obstinacy which really debases Reason! Take the Revelation as a Rational Man; as it lies in all its parts; as it comes from God, who in the fullness of time has sent his Eternal Son to assume our Nature and become a Sacrifice for us.  Socin. 
But you can never persuade me that Reason has not as much right to examine the truth of the thing proposed, as the proposition itself; and to reject it, if it is not agreeable to its Principles.  Orthod. 
But you can never prove that Reason is capable of examining that which is above Reason, and such are things revealed. Their truth indeed depend from the conformity which they have with the Supreme Reason, which is God. But in respect to us their Truth consists not in their agreeableness to yours, or my Reason: But wholly in the Authority of the Revelation. They are true, because they are revealed.  Socin. 
But is not my Reason a part of that Supreme Reason? Truth is but one either in the Creator, or in the Creature. Revelation cannot make that true which appears to me unreasonable.  Orthod. 
You will never be weary of urging the same things over and over again. Whatsoever God reveals is true. But you say, it does not square with my apprehensions. Nay, it contradicts them. Therefore it is not true. What a strange way of Reasoning is this. Truth in God is truth in Man. Granted. But is it in the same extent or degree? Do we know as much as God? A spark will pretend to be as Luminous as the Body of the Sun. I see as through a glass darkly, and I will judge of him who inhabits a fullness of light which no Mortal can come near unto, Job 10.4. He must have Eyes of Flesh, and see as a Man sees, or else I will not believe what he says. This is monstrous and not worth insisting upon. Let us therefore proceed.  
Reason then being satisfied in the truth of the Revelation cannot act like itself, except it receives with the humblest and firmest submission what God has revealed; and as, St. Paul expresses it 2 Cor. 10.5. casts down imaginations, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, REASONINGS, and every high thing that exalts itself against the Knowledge of God. And brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. It is a great part of a Christian's duty to correct the extravagances of Reason. For it is stubborn, restless and impatient of Government. It must be cast down and chained up, as one which, if let alone, will be outrageously mad. It will never want pretences to rise against its Sovereign, and in them it will obstinately persist.  
This is the ground of those frequent exhortations in Scripture to mistrust Men's inquiries, and give glory to the veracity of God. Rom. 3.4. Let God be true but every Man a liar. Rom. 4.20. Abraham is commended for not following the insinuations of Reason, but giving himself wholly to the conduct of Faith. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in Faith giving Glory to God. St. Paul would have us, Rom. 11.20. to stand by Faith, the Principles of Reason being too weak, but this standing unmoveable. Rom. 16.26. He tells us plainly and forcibly that Faith requires the obedience of our minds. According to the revelation of the Mystery which was kept secret since the World began, but now is made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the commandment of the Everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith.  Socin. 
But I must interrupt you, and tell you plainly and forcibly, that what colour soever the places which you have cited to prove Faith above Reason, this has none at all. You have found Mystery, and Obedience of Faith together, and it has deceived you. Read page 7. of that Print of ours called an impartial account of the word Mystery. The Author tells you that whatsoever is revealed is no more a Mystery.  Orthod. 
I wish it were not out of our way to give you some remarks on this same Print of yours. A perpetual Equivocation runs through the whole Work; and a wilful misunderstanding of the words Knowing, Delivering, Revealing, Making Manifest, which imply indeed a discovery, but not at all an explication of the Truth revealed. Never did I see a greater unsincerity in any Writing. This very particular Text he has confined to the Vocation of the Gentiles, which extends to all Christian Mysteries, which are indeed Revealed as to their existence, the quod sint, as Divines speak, but not the quid sint, what they are in themselves. He has not given one single instance of a Mystery made known, but after the Revelation is still a Mystery. The Creation, Resurrection, Incarnation, Trinity, though clearly revealed, are still Mysteries. The very Attributes of God, though not only made manifest in the Scriptures, but also in a great measure obvious to Reason, as Eternity, Immensity, etc. are still Mysterious and Incomprehensible. Let me beg of you then not to interrupt me with objections of that nature, which really make against you. But suffer me to go on in showing you how God in his word has established the dominion of Faith over Reason, and the submission and obedience of Reason to Faith.  Socin. 
I will not, on condition that you cite no Texts capable of being contested.  Orthod. 
I have not yet, and will not for the future. What can be plainer than 2 Cor. 5.7. We walk by Faith, not by sight? We trust not to our little Reasonings, which we are so weak as to call sight and demonstration, but rely upon a higher, nobler, and more infallible Principle, Faith in God. 1 Cor. 2.4, 5. St. Paul declares that his preaching has not been drawn from men's Arguments, or adorned with a vain ostentation of Eloquence; But in demonstration of the Spirit and power of God; that is by the Writings of the Prophets inspired by the Holy Spirit, by the voice of the Spirit itself, by the Miracles of CHRIST and his Apostles, as Origen expresses it, l. 5. contr. Cells. That your Faith should not stand in the Wisdom of Men, but of God. That your Faith should not rest upon Men's Arguments but the Authority of God. Colos. 1.23. He would have the Colossians to crush and suppress the suggestions of Reason and sense and continue in the Faith settled and grounded, and not be moved away from the hope of the Gospel. The same is urged 1 Pet. 1.7, 8. and indeed in very many other places which it would be too tedious to cite. But what has the Saviour of the World said himself in the case? Joh. 20.29. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.  Socin. 
Here I must interrupt you. This relates to the particular Fact of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: It does not infer at all the belief of a doctrine contrary to my Reason. You offer no violence to the mind, when upon a solid Testimony I am persuaded that such a thing or Person is or has been. I never was at Rome; But I believe as firmly as the Romans themselves that there is such a place. I never was blessed with the sight of my Saviour, or acquainted with the Glory of his Resurrection; yet I believe as firmly as any one that he was in the World, and risen from the dead. But what is all this to your Doctrines?  Orthod. 
Be not so injurious to a Noble Passage, which though occasioned by a particular matter of Fact, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, yet is a General maxim and of a vast influence on Religion. It holds not only as to the Resurrection, but also as to all Revealed Truths. Blessed are those who believe what they have not seen with the Eyes of the Body: and they also are Blessed who believe what they cannot see with the Eyes of the Mind! Happy in both, that they come to God with an absolute resignation of their Reason. Seeing must not be restrained to sense, but extended to whatsoever God proposes. Doctrines as well as Matters of Fact rely upon the Divine Authority.  
But let us see how CHRIST, the Light of the World, has done in the delivery of his Heavenly Doctrine. Has he courted our Minds to an assent by explaining the Nature of the Mysteries which he offers? Or after the manner of the then Philosophers, by disputing and endeavouring to remove the prejudices of Reason? Not at all, but first he establishes his own Authority, and then commands our belief. This grand point once settled, He tells us, Mark 16.16. He that believes shall be saved, he that believes not shall be damned.  
Once more CHRIST gives the Jews no liberty of examining his doctrine, or, as you Gentlemen of the Socinian persuasion are used to do, to admit or reject it, as you think it agreeable, or disagreeable to your Reason. He proves what he is by two undeniable Principles. The First, is the Prophecies accomplished in him. Act. 10.43. To him give all the Prophet's witness. The Second is the Miracles which he does. Joh. 10.37, 38. If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him. And before v. 25. the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. He had revealed to them a great Mystery, viz. his Unity with the Father, an Unity of Nature and Essence. v. 30. I and my Father are one. The Reason of the Jews stumbles at this, and even to that degree, that they take up stones to stone him. He uses no other Arguments; but will have them to obey and submit; and this upon the account of the greatest and most convincing demonstration that can be, even the miraculous works of God. To deal sincerely, can any thing be objected against this?  Socin. 
Yes truly. You know that we deny this to be an Unity of Nature, and appeal to v. 36. But not to insist on this, which we have often objected, and you pretend to have as often answered, and not start from the main question; I say that he proves nothing, who proves too much. You strain the point too high. You not only debase, but totally extinguish Reason. You leave it bare, naked, destitute, and like the Idols, Psam. 115.5. Which have Eyes and see not, Mouths and speak not. Have a care of v. 8. They that make them are like unto them.  
Is it to be imagined that we can renounce Reason? The will indeed is free and may embrace and reject. But the Mind is not capable of choice. It must necessarily assent or descent. It can never be brought to believe a contradiction. For my part, I openly declare, that against what part soever of myself I practise self denial, it shall never be against my Reason.  Orthod. 
How often have we said, and how often must we say it again, That nothing in Religion is contrary to the Principles of true Reason? That what you call Contradictions are not real, because God can reveal no contradiction: and that Reason overrules all its reluctancies by that most Rational Principle, that we own our assent to what God has revealed. This is not then to renounce your Reason, but only its irregularities and excesses; to divest it of its pride and folly; and bring it to all the purity and strength of which it is capable on this side the grave.  
But how can one hear without horror, that you will not practise self denial against your Reason, that is, you are resolved not to be a Christian? For he that is so, must, as we have said already, bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. There is a poverty of Spirit to which CHRIST has annexed a blessing. The living contentedly under the hard circumstances of want, and a willingness to part with our riches to become poor for CHRIST's sake is but one part of it. The other consists in robbing the mind of oppositions of science falsely so called, which puffs us up, and through the vain additions of Philosophy gives us a high opinion of ourselves. The various notions which we have of things, are the riches of our mind, which we must be ready to part with, when ever CHRIST commands it. Learning without Piety looks upon this as an injury to Reason; unwilling to stoop, and be overcome; But Piety with Learning puts the Servant of God in that humble frame of submission to what he reveals.  Socin. 
This is perfect Enthusiasm and Fanaticism all over. This the Priest persuades the people to, that he may command their Faith. That point gained, he will quickly dispose of the rest.  Orthod. 
If this is Enthusiasm and Fanaticism, than all the World, but the Socinians, have been Enthusiasts and fanatics. The first Men of the World lived altogether by Faith. The Apostle gives the same Character to the Patriarches, and Prophets. Whatsoever they did was the Work of Faith. Reason then was in subjection to it. But when Man substracted himself from the Service of God, and suffered himself to be guided by his own notions, than Reason grew proud, shook off the easy yoke, and gave birth to the opinions of Philosophers, whom Tertullian calls elegantly Haereticorum Patriarchas, the Patriarches of Heretics.  
Some of the wise Heathens themselves were not insensible how many errors this pretence of Reason threw them into. Tully lib. 3. the nat. Deor. makes Cotta to speak smartly to this purpose against Balbus the Stoic. I omit Socrates and Plato. Philostratus de vit. Apollon. lib. 5. c. 14. asserts that Philosophy is good to lead us into the Knowledge of Natural, but not at all of Divine Truths. And Jamblichus is positive that Man by the strength of Reason cannot understand Sacred and Religious matters.  
To increase the number of those Enthusiasts I dare to say that this has been the Unanimous sense of the Fathers. Hence that saying of St. Austin Epist. 3. so highly Reverenced by the succeeding Ages. Tota Ratio facti est potentia facientis. All the Reason which we can give of any thing that is done, is his power who does it. And the great Archbishop of Milan in Epist. ad Rom. Magni meriti est apud Deum, qui contra scientiam suam Deo credidit, non dubitans posse illum, utpote Deum, quod secundum mundi rationem fieri non possit. He is very dear to God, who believes God against all the Principles of his Reason, not doubting but that he can, as God, do that which cannot be done according to the Course and Reason of the World.  
You stare at this as very strange and unaccountable. But yet this is the Language of the Masters of the Church. Thus spoke these Primitive Bishops, and if we have any Zeal for Primitive Truths and Primitive Manners, we ought to speak so too. Nay, this Notion is so Universal, that of all them who ever professed a Revealed Religion, none but the Socinians have opposed it. The very Jews themselves were not without it. The Author of the ancient Book Cosri par. 4. c. 27. says that Abraham came first to the knowledge of God by Reason; but that after God had Revealed himself to him, he gave over all his Arguments to stick to the Revelation. And that the old Rabbins understood the 12. of Genesis v. 1. Get thee out of thy Country, and Gen. 15.5. And he brought him forth abroad, in an Allegorical sense; as if God by these Words had commanded him to go from himself, his humane way of apprehensions, his weak ratiocinations, and leave himself wholly to his conduct. I confess, the Allegory is more pious than solid: It has a tincture of Rabbinism all over. But still it is home to the point which I was to prove; that the Jews in this had the same notion with the Christians, that when Reason is satisfied that the Almighty speaks, it ought to submit, and stifle all its pretended contradictions.  Socin. 
If the Ancient Jews were so much for believing, how come the Modern to be so incredulous? They are as mighty sticklers as we for the Unity of the Great God. They deny CHRIST to be God. Yet to them were committed the Oracles of God. How comes it then that they are not affected with that Revelation of a Trinity which you pretend to be so plain and express?  Orthod. 
It will carry us too far out of our subject to lay down the Causes of their Incredulity. But yet it must be said that in their disputes with us, they have been more sincere than you, as to the main point on which this Controversy turns. For they have not pretended to Reason about this, or build their denial upon imaginary Contradictions, the weak efforts of a Reason at a stand; but they have rejected all the new Dispensation, and disowned CHRIST to be the MESSIAH. In a word they have disputed the Revelation: A Topick which you cannot pretend to, because you admit the Sacred Writings of the New Testament. I shall say no more to this, but dispatch the third consideration, and see the use of Reason after Faith is admitted, and put your patience to a new trial?  Socin. 
You command my attention.  Orthod. 
I say then that Reason thus resigned ceases not to act. The noble Faculty has still a large Field to exercise itself in. For though it supposes the Axiomata, the first Principles of Christianity, the Divine Mysteries to be so certain, as not to be capable of the least doubt, but to be admitted with the most humble adoration, and sincere and firm assent that can be; yet there are some Universal, and some Particular dependent, inferior Truths which it has the liberty to consider. There are things which we know by Faith alone, others by Reason alone, and others by Faith and Reason together.  
Of the first sort are the Mysteries of the Holy Trinity, Incarnation, Resurrection, etc. It is of these that St. Ambrose de vocat. Gent. says excellently, Magna est fortitudo consensionis cui ad sequendum veritatem Auctoritas sufficit etiam latente ratione. That assent has a great force, which, though we cannot see the Reason of things, yet makes us to embrace the Truth on the bare account of Authority. A doctrine so known, so reverenced in the Primitive Church, that St. Austin is so far from pretending that we can dispute about them, that when the Philosophers would argue against them who had embraced Christianity, he makes them answer thus Serm. 189. the temp. Accepto Baptismo, hoc dicimus, Fidelis factus sum, Credo quod Nescio. Having received Baptism we say this, I am become a Christian, I believe what I cannot understand. In this Reason has nothing to do, I am altogether determined by Faith. It is from thence that the Schoolmen have laid this as a Principle in their barbarous way of speaking, that Habitus Fidei non est discursious, sed animus unico actu fertur in objectum materiale propter formale. Which in plain English is this, that Faith depends not from Reason and Discourse, but that the Soul of Man by the same act embraces the truth proposed, a secondary sort of an object, upon the account of the first, which is God revealing it to us.  
Of the second sort is whatsoever is not of Faith, but only serves to illustrate and confirm, to defend and propagate it. All our Arguments are the product of Reason. There is a Divine Oeconomy and Coherence in the Sacred Writings which it perceives, and from which it draws inferences: An Analogy of Faith which by the concord and relation of the several parts make up the whole body of Divinity. It is a judicious observation of St. Austin, de Trin. lib. 14. c. 1. that as there are things which can never be understood except they are believed, so there are things which can never be believed except they are understood.  
And such are Prophecies, of which it is said 2 Pet. 1.19. We have also a more sure word of Prophecy, whereunto you do well that you take heed as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day Star arise in your Hearts. A Prophecy cannot be believed, except Reason has made way to Faith, by being convinced of its accomplishment. Thus CHRIST argued Luk. 24.44. These are the words which I spoke to you whilst I was with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me. For though Prophecy has the Sanction of the Divine Authority, and is to be assented unto, even as to its future accomplishment, because none of the Words of God can fall to the ground; yet when you tell me that it is accomplished, it is altogether the work of my Reason, to examine whether it is so, or no?  
God by his Prophets, and indeed by the two first Dispensations, that of Nature, and that of the Law, has promised that a MESSIAH should come for the Redemption of Mankind. The Prophecies concerning him are many, and express. Some describe his Nature, others his Person: Some his miraculous Works, others his Heavenly Doctrine: Some the time and place of his coming, others his Life, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, etc. All this is true, and Antecedently commands our belief, because God has spoke it. But whether this or that Person is the MESSIAH, must depend from an examination in whom all these things are fulfilled: Whether in this, or that Man. And this is certainly the Work of Reason.  
The same must be said of Miracles. There is not a more forcible Argument that the Author of Nature has Revealed a Doctrine, than when he altars or suspends its ordinary course to confirm it. But still I have a Liberty to try whether the Spirits are of God? Whether it is a real Miracle, and not an Illusion? Whether the Matter of Fact is true? Thus Act. 13.12. Sergius Paulus, who before is called a Prudent Man, seeing Elymas by the bare speaking of St. Paul struck with blindness, believed, being astonished at the Doctrine of the Lord. The Miracle was certainly the ground of his Faith. But he had not deserved the name of a Prudent Man, if he had not satisfied himself of the Truth of the Miracle.  
And in this Christianity appears Venerable to me beyond any thing that Men ever called Religion, that it is so far from restraining Reason where it ought to act, that it gives it the greatest scope imaginable. I am astonished at, or much better as the Latin Interpreter reads it, I admire that Doctrine of the Lord, which, though resolved into the Authority of him that reveals it, yet is embraced upon the most Rational Motives that can be.  
I am sure you will be pleased, when I tell you that Criticising is also the Work of Reason. I mean by Criticising that acute judgement by which we reject what is spurious, and take up what is genuine and certain, holding to the Purity and Sincerity of Ancient Copies, establishing true Readins, and making Translations as exact and as agreeable as can be to the Original. All that which facilitates the understanding of the difficult places of Scripture, must be put in the number. This has made Interpreters, Commentators, Annotators, and a world of Polemic Writers who have deserved well of Religion in general, and have been in particular the Glory of the Reformation. The Church of Rome is obliged to us for that sort of Learning, and indeed for all manner of Knowledge; there being no part of it but what has been revived by Protestants, and most of all by English Writers. Though of these last, the Learned World has just cause to complain, that so many incomparable Books have been confined to their own natural Language. I confess also, and that to my grief, that our great love and study of the Eastern Languages seems to forsake us, and go over to our Adversaries.  Socin. 
I am sorry for it too. But now you commend Critics, what do you think of Us as to that particular.  Orthod. 
I wish you would not oblige me to run out of my Subject. But since you will have me give you my sense of this, I beg of you to forgive me, if I say that you are the most lamentable Critics in the World. Your outlandish Authors, I mean them who are openly Socinians, except some tolerable good Latin, interlarded now and then with a Greek Phrase, are not worth reading. Those that keep behind the Curtain are much better. But when they come to the points in dispute, they are as weak and as insufferable as the other. Your English Writers are Men of much more digested thoughts, and a purer way of expression. As long as they keep within their pretended difficulties, they are like to impose. But when they are brought to the Test, that is, to the Sacred Writings, their Criticisms are so mean, so strange, so unsincere; their evasions are so many, so visible, so unnatural, what they have to say is so unsatisfactory, and so foreign to the thing, that of all Men I would not have you set up for Critics. But to return.  
There are things which we know both by Faith and Reason. Such is the existence of God. Rom. 1.19, 20. That which may be known of God is manifest to them: For God has showed it to them. For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his Eternal Power and Godhead. That Reason must strangely act against itself which denies the Being of God. But though this is so plain as to come within every Man's capacity, yet the Existence of God is also the object of our Faith. We may say the same of his Unity, Immensity, Omnipresence, Almighty Power, and his other Divine Attributes, particularly that Providence by which he governs us and the World, Heb. 11.6. He that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.  
I am also apt to think, that though Faith teaches us that in Adam all die; that we have all sinned and come short of the Glory of God, and that our Conversion to God is a new Creation, being Created in Jesus Christ unto good Works, yet Reason in a great measure may be acquainted with the corruption of our Nature. We cannot come out of the hands of God, with that darkness of Mind, that World of evil Inclinations, and that tendency to Sin which we have. There is that in Man which of one side convinces him of his Greatness and Excellency; and of the other, of his Baseness and Misery. We have an incredible desire of Happiness, and yet pursue those things which end in our ruin. So great a Contradiction cannot come from the Alwise and Merciful Creator. Answer me not that we Sin by Imitation. It is a poor and silly Notion, which leaves the Difficulty whole and unresolved.  
Reason also as well as Faith acquaints us with the Immortality of the Soul, and the certainty of a State of Rewards and Punishments after this Life. In this the generality of the Wise Heathens agreed. Cum de animorum aeternitate disserimus, says Seneca, Epist. 117. non leve momentum apud nos habet consensus hominum aut timentium inferos, aut colentium. When we dispute of the Eternity of the Soul, the Universal consent of Men who either fear or adore the Powers below, is of no small importance. I make use of that public Persuasion. And Macrobius de Som. Scip. l. 1. c. 14. Obtinuit non minus de incorporalitate animae quam de immortalitate sententiae. The opinion of the Souls Immateriality has been as generally received as that of its Immortality.  
But not to multiply any more instances, let us conclude with the Divinity of the Sacred Writings: They are received by us not only with the homage of an humble Faith, but also by strong convictions of Reason. I take it to be granted by all Christian Societies that the Holy Scriptures are divinely inspired. This is a point of their Faith, and indeed the foundation of all the rest. The Socinians themselves who have denied so many things, never controverted before, agree with them in this. But yet I am persuaded that Reason does not want several noble and substantial Arguments to prove it.  
That which Origen contr. Cells. Theodoret Praesat. in Ps. St. Austin, and the generality of the Fathers have used, seems to me Irrefragable. And that is, the vast number of Prophecies which we find to have received their accomplishment. For all Mankind assert Prophecy to be the Gift and Work of God, and only in his Power. Isa. 41.23. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are Gods. And Pacuvius in Gell. lib. 14. c. 1. Nam si qui, quae eventura sunt provideant, aequiparent Jovi. An Argument truly called by the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and by the Apostle 1 Cor. 2.4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the demonstration of the Spirit, to distinguish it from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the demonstration of Power, which consists in miraculous operations. And therefore that Record is truly divine in which God has left such splendid and lasting monuments of his Holy Spirit.  
But if a Book may truly be called Divine which transcends all Books whatsoever, that Collection which we have of the Sacred Writings justly deserves that name. For besides that it can be made to appear that all the Theology, all the Philosophy, all the Rites, all the Laws, all the Manners and Customs, all the Heroes of the Heathens, are derived from thence; and that this Truth is not unperceiveable, though oppressed and eclipsed with the interposition of innumerable Fables and Lies; pray what Book can compare with this for Antiquity, for certainty in the discovery of the Creation of the World, the formation of all things, the History of the first Ages; but above all for that vast number of Precepts of Morality, of excellent rules of Piety and Holiness, by which Man is acquainted with his duty to God and to his fellow Creatures, and has the promise of an Eternal State as a Reward of his Obedience.  
What Man ever spoke or could ever speak in the Style of the Sacred Writings? It is every where Inimitable, and does not surprise by a numerous train of pompous expressions, but by a natural and inward Majesty, which no mortal Oratory can personate. It speaks to the Heart as well as to the Ears, and converts as well as instructs us. God has showed himself no where better than in his Word. In his operations he acts, but in this he speaks like God. Whosoever reads attentively the Holy Scriptures, must needs upon the whole conclude that it is a Work which infinitely exceeds the most refined Reason, the most intense Capacity, and the vastest Industry of Man.  
I will say no more; only let me beg of you to lay this all together, and then tell me whether I am an Enemy to Reason, and whether it has received any injury from me.  Socin. 
Your way of speaking shows the Excellency of Reason, and you make an admirable use of it against itself. You leave me but one thing to desire, and that is, that I could be so far satisfied with what you have said, as to assent to it. But it is not in my power; Nor think I myself overcome, though I cannot answer your Arguments. For when all is done my Reason must be the Judge, and it will not suffer me to believe your Mysteries. I know that you will tell me that this is obstinacy, and that at this rate no Man will ever be convinced of his errors, but will make this his last refuge, that he cannot indeed contradict the truth offered, but that his Reason will not suffer him to submit. I grant all this: But still as long as I act sincerely in it, I may be pitied, but I cannot be blamed.  Orthod. 
You have often told me of your sincerity in this matter: But I am afraid you have not the true notion of it.  Socin. 
I understand by it a serious mind, willing to know the truth, and taking all the ways that it can to attain it. I have studied my own heart, and if I can pretend to any knowledge of myself, I think that I am in that very disposition.  Orthod. 
There is a great deal more in it than all this comes to. Self-love will turn itself into a thousand shapes and represent us to ourselves quite otherwise than really we are. Information indeed is the way to Truth; But other qualifications must be supposed without which it is not attainable. Bare arguing will never do. The Soul must be purified of those lusts which are so many clouds interposing between us and the Truth. I shall never believe a Man sincere in this, till a substantial Piety, with an uniform, humble, and mortified Life has made way to Divine Illuminations. I take the grand obstacle to Faith, not so much to consist in what we call Reason, as in the indisposition of the heart which resists the impressions of the Grace and Spirit of God. Sincerity in our obedience to CHRIST's holy precepts, is the Touchstone of that other which we pretend to. One may practise Religion though he understands it not; but it can never be understood, except it be seriously practised. As long as we live a life of sense and neglect the duties of Religion, we shall ever wrangle with the points proposed to our belief. Oblige me in not separating two things so wholly depending on one another.  Socin. 
I perfectly agree with you in this. But I believe that God is merciful; and that there is an allowance for invincible errors.  Orthod. 
I believe so too. But the error which you have espoused is certainly a damnable error, and is not Invincible. He who never had a revelation of the Gospel, and lives up to the light of nature, will no doubt find that the mercies of God are not so consigned as some Zealots have made them. But you have had it; and that too attested with the blood of Martyrs, and the voice of the Catholic Church, which at this very time from all the parts of the World exclaims against, and condemns you. How guilty is that confidence, which, under the pretence of contradictions and poor Criticisms, dares refuse an assent to God speaking in his Holy Scriptures, and to his Church, declaring her sense of those matters in all her decrees! Your error indeed is invincible, not because you cannot, but because you will not be overcome.  Socin. 
But who is a better judge than myself, whether I can or no?  Orthod. 
All this is trifling with God and yourself. Every Man will give the same Answer, and by this defend not only the most pernicious errors, but even the most sinful habits. However take the great help which God has provided in this case, and that is Prayer. Be never wanting in your public and private Adorations of God, to pour your Heart before him with humility and fervency; that he would open your Eyes and remove from you blindness and hardness of Heart. Alas, my Friend, the night of your Life and mine is far spent. The day is at hand. Few steps more and we launch into Eternity. Have pity on your own Soul, and hasten to secure yourself.  Socin. 
I cannot however but express my acknowledgement for your good and serious advice. I promise you that I will consider of it in earnest. But it grows late, and I fear we have no more time than what will serve to take another turn in this fine Garden, and then draw home.  Orthod. 
Besure to be as good as your word.  Socin. 
I will.  Orthod. 
Then I am almost confident that you will have done Socinianizing.   
FINIS.