CONTAINING HIS

Correction of feveral Passages
in his Commentary on the
NEW TESTAMENT.

To which are added,

Five DISCOURSES.

Published by his express ORDER.

The SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:

Printed for JAMES and JOHN ΚΝΑΡΤΟΝ, αι
the Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard. 1728.

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C

را

THE

PREFACE.

I

T is rightly and truly observed by Justin Martyr (a) in the Beginning of his Exhortation to the Greeks'; That an exact Scrutiny into things ' doth often produce Conviction; ' that those things which we once ' judged to be right, are after a ' more diligent Enquiry into Truth,

• found to be far otherwise.

And truly I am not ashamed to say, This is my very Cafe. For when I wrote my Commentaries on the New Testament, I went on (too hastily I own) in the common beaten Road of other reputed Orthodox Divines: Conceiving, first, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in one complex Notion, were one and the same God, by Virtue of the fame individual Effence communicated from the Father. This confused Notion I am now fully convinced by the Arguments I have offered here, and in the fecond Part of my Reply to Dr. Waterland, to be a thing impossible,

(a) Orat. Cohort. ad Gracos, p. 1.

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and

WO RM 20JUN 3.

and full of gross Absurdities, and Contradictions. And then, as a natural Consequence from this Doctrine, I (fecondly) concluded that those Divine Perfons differed only ἐν τρόπῳ ὑπάρξεως, in the manner of their Existence. And yet what that can fignifie in the Son, according to this Doctrine, it will not, I think, be very easy intelligibly to declare.

That the Difference can be only Modal, even Dr. South hath fully demonstrated: And that this was the Opinion generally received from the fourth Century, may be seen in the close of my first Part to Dr. Waterland. And yet the Right Reverend Bishop Bull (a) positively affirms, That this is rank Sabellianism in these Words, 'A Person can't be conceived without Ef

' fence, unless you make a Person in Divine Matters to be nothing else but a mere Mode of Existence, • which is manifest Sabellianism. And the judicious Dr. Cudworth, (b) tells us, That the Orthodox • Anti-Arian Fathers did all of them zealously con• demn Sabellianism, the Doctrine whereof is nо о'ther but this, That there is but one Hypostasis, or fingle individual Effence of the Father, Son, and • Holy Ghost; and confequently that they were indeed but three Names, or Notions, or Modes, of one ' and the self same thing. Whence such Absurdities

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as these would follow, That the Father's begetting ' the Son was nothing but a Name, Notion, or • Mode of one Deity begetting another; or else the ' fame Deity under one Notion begetting it felf under ' another Notion. And when again the Son, or • Word is faid to be incarnate, and to have fuffered

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Death for us upon the Cross, that it was nothing ' but

(a) Addo ego, Personam fine Essentiâ concipi non poffe, nisi staueris Personam in Divinis nihil aliud effe quam merum · τρόπον ὑπάρξεως, quod plane Sabellianum, 1.4.P.439.

(6) Cud. System, ch. 4. p. 605.

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• but a mere logical Notion, or Mode of the Deity ' under one particular Notion or Mode only.

That the Doctrine of the Sabellians was exactly the fame with that of those who stile themselves the Orthodox, afferting that the Father, and the Son, are numerically one and the fame God, is evident from the Words of Athanafius (a) and Epiphanius; both (b) testifying, That to say the Father and the Son were μονούσιοι or ταυθούσιοι, of one and the fame Substance was Sabellianism. And furely, of Consequence to contend that this is the Doctrine of the Church of England, is to dishonour our Church, and in Effect to charge her with that Heresy, which was exploded with Scorn by the whole Church of Christ, from the third to this prefent Century.

In a Word, all other Notions of the Word Person, besides the plain and obvious one, signifying a real and intelligent Agent, have been already so excellently baffled and learnedly confuted * that I own I am not able to refift the shining Evidence of Truth: Nor am I ashamed to confess my former Mistakes and Errors in these Matters after such strong and irresistible Conviction, feeing, Humanum est errare, all Men are liable to Error. And as upon this Principle, I cannot but think it the most gross Hypocrisy, after fuck Conviction, to perfist in a Mistake; so without Question, it is the greatest Abuse of Humility and free Thinking, to attribute such open and ingenuous Acknowledgements to a wavering Judgment, or levity of Mind.

Neither

(α) Ὀυτὲ γδ υἱο πάτερα φρονοῦμεν ὡς ὁι Σαβέλλιοι μονούσιον. Εxpof.

Fidei p. 241.

(6) Καὶ ὀν λέγομεν ταυτούσιον, ἵνα μὴ ἡ λέξις παρά τισε λεγομένη Σαβελλίῳ ἀπεικασθῇ. Anomeorum Herefis, 76. N. 7. * See Dr. Clarke, Mr. Fackson, and others.

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