mine the question for ever on the Arian side, and (as its very name implies) to expel the poison of orthodoxy, are nothing more than a quotation from Justin Martyr", and another from the Gentleman's Religion; the former a very obscure metaphysical comment, the latter a groundless and unsupported assertion. If we had not ocular demonstration for this, it would seem altogether incredible, that the saine author who has rejected all human comments, and set at nought all the councils in Christendom, should think himself secure under the shelter of that very authority, nay, under a small and insignificant portion of it, the whole of which he has made it his business to vilify and contemn. Had he been more consistent with himself, and proposed his quotation from Justin Martyr with the sobriety that might have been expected, I should then have attempted to shew, that it contains the indivisible union of the Son with the -substance of the Father; though blended, as I freely confess, with some perplexed and metaphysical reasonings, more reconcileable to the principles of Plato, than to those of the Holy Scripture. However, as he has introduced it in such a manner as to render it repugnant to his own principles, and therefore incapable of doing his cause the least service (be the doctrine of w P. 54 to 78. * P. 79 to 82. y P. 29. it this or that) I shall not try to give the reader any edification or amusement by a critical discussion of a very long passage, unlikely to afford either. But I must not throw his book aside, without giving some short account of his language; I mean, of his candour, humility, and charity; which virtues are as much disregarded in the Defence, (if that be possible) as they are recommended in the Essay. The gentlemen who have advised the Reverend author of the Essay to resign his preferment; that is, in effect, to appease his conscience, retract his subscription, and cease to disturb the peace of the church with his own private scruples; he upbraids with a spirit of persecution and ignorance 2: which is not more unkind than it is untrue and injudicious. For, on the contrary, those restless and discontented men, who have railed against the doctrines and authority of the church as an intolerable burden, and have undertaken to supplant its truth by a surreptitious introduction of their own errors, (whatever specious appearances of candour and moderation they might at first assume in proposing them) have in fact, when affairs have taken an unhappy turn, themselves proved the most lawless persecutors and merciless oppressors of all civil and religious liberty and I leave it to be z P. 52. considered, whether the spirit which has discovered itself in this Defence, were it permitted to have its full play, would not treat all its opponents with as little mercy as they did. Besides, how inconsistent is it, first to tell us that our doctrines and subscriptions are such as must drive all men of sense and honesty (such as the author is) out of the church; and then, when we ground a slight admonition upon his own principle, to turn short upon us with the stale pretences of popery! persecution! St. Dominic! Bishop Bonner! fire! faggot, &c. * ! Dean Swift he calls a Goliath of Gath, sent out (by the republication of his sermon in Ireland) to defy the armies of the living God; and thinks he has flung a few round pebbles of arguments so directly in his face, as to make him lie prostrate upon the ground. Which unnatural application of the Scripture-history gives us a taste of his vanity; and shews, that in his opinion the Arians are the elect people of God, the true Israelites, whilst all the opposers of their doctrine (which I hope includes every good christian in the nation) are uncircumcised Philistines, infidels, idolaters, and in professed rebellion against the living God. БР. 52. c Ibid.. d P. 21. and 53. The YOL. II. The orthodox Clergy in general, he reviles as a set of cloudy, bigotted, indolent men, who, if they can but preserve their subscriptions and good livings, care not what becomes of Christianity; because they have not wrote an answer (or had not at least when his book was published) to the late Lord Bolingbroke's objections; and unless he has written one himself, it is unfair to make this a pretence for insulting them. The learned gentlemen that have appeared in print against the Essay, he calls, collectors of cavils, orthodox gentry, men that neither understand the dispute, nor any thing else, their own trumpeters1, minor scribblers*, animals1, buzzing insects TM, hard heads", &c. &c. charges the grave and learned Dr. Stebbing with wilful nonsense, the whole church with blasphemy: then wipes his mouth, and humbly desires that if any body should undertake to answer the Essay on Spirit, they will do it with-Christian candour and moderation P! From this view of things, we cannot but conceive a proper opinion both of the talents and the spirit of this author; whom, in truth, it has given me much less pleasure to expose, than concern that there was occasion for it. And now, if this Defence was written by the author of the Essay, what an amazing change of character is here! In the Essay it is→→ Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto 2 That principle which directs us to use all men well, can never vindicate us in using any man ill1.— And again—were it not that experience convinces us of the matter of fact, it would be HARD TO BELIEVE that men's passions could carry them to that degree of animosity against each other, on account of opinions BARELY SPECULATIVE (such as the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity is supposed to be, and upon which the dispute has turned in this Defence) which we find practised in all countries, and almost in all ages'. There the ruling principle is an universal love and affection, making charitable allowances for every sect of men in the world; extending even to Hereticks, Infidels, Jews, and Mahometans; and lavishly dispensing, as from the papal chair, its indulgences to every error under heaven. But here (in the Defence) a very different passion is predominant; so far from making allowances in favour of error, that it cannot bear even the least degree of opposition from the sincere advocates of the truth; 1 Ded. p. 35 Ibid. € 2 Ibid. p. 33. but |