Page images
PDF
EPUB

the contempt of adversaries, and the silence of many who think rightly, but are afraid to speak. That you may always be mindful of those reasonable expectations, with which the friends of this church and government, at a very critical time, have given you such ample encouragement, is the hearty wish of your constant reader, and humble servant,

The Author of the Short Way to Truth.

Nov. 20, 1793.

FULL ANSWER

TO AN

ESSAY ON SPIRIT.

WHEREIN

All the Author's Objections, both Scriptural and Philosophical, to the Doctrine of the TRINITY; his Opinions relating to the Uniformity of the Church; his Criticisms upon the Athanasian and Nicene CREEDS, &c. are examined and confuted.

WITH

A Particular EXPLANATION of the Hermetic, Pythagorean, and Platonic TRINITIES.

AND

A PREFACE, giving some Account of an Author who published in Defence of the ESSAY.

PREFACE.

IT was not my intention to trouble or detain the Reader with a Preface; but some time after the following sheets were ready for the press, a pamphlet came forth with this title -A Defence of the Essay on Spirit; with Remarks on the several pretended Answers; and which may serve as an antidote against all that shall ever appear against it. If the book itself should really be able to support such a Title-page, and be found answerable to the latter part of it, my labour can avail but little. I think, however, that I may be pretty secure of its making any impression to my disadvantage, as the author of it, in the first place, does not seem rightly to understand the very scope and design of the piece he has undertaken to defend.

He tells us, that the author of the Essay's "whole book "seems only intended, not to enforce any explanations of "his own, but to shew how ineffectual all attempts to ex(6 plain this mystery (the doctrine of the Trinity) have been "hitherto*." Now, if he has enforced no explanations of his own, then it would be impossible for me to extract and produce them: but the substance of them, in short, is as follows:-The person of the Father, only, is the one supreme intelligent Agent: the Son, and Holy Spirit, are not really God, but called so, because by an authority communicated to them from the Supreme, they are commissioned to ACT AS GODS, with regard to those inferior beings committed to their charge +. And so far is the Essay writer from endeavouring to exclude every explanation, that his whole book is principally calculated for the support of this.

Let it also be considered, that in the dedication prefixed to

Defence, p. 5.

See chap. v. of the following Answer.

his Essay, he hopes that "his sentiments will by gentle de"grees come, by the blessing of God, to be made a part of "the established religion of the country *." If, therefore, as it is asserted in the Defence, he has enforced no explana tion of the Trinity; and it is nevertheless hoped in the Essay, that his sentiments will be made a part of the established religion; this is in effect to hope, that Nothing (by the blessing of God) will be established as a fundamental of the christian faith. So that this Gentleman, instead of defending the Essay, seems to have defeated its principal intention, misrepresented its author, and reduced his whole book to an absurdity.

Another method of this writer, almost as hurtful to the cause he has undertaken as the former, is to assert what he cannot possibly know to be true, even supposing it were so, and what the world must know to be false. Upon the publication of the Essay, and to prevent in some measure (as the Editor expresses himself) the evil effects of that treatise, a justly celebrated discourse on the Trinity, by the late Dean Swift, was reprinted in Ireland. This discourse, the author now before us has assaulted with a great degree of prejudice and animosity; and after he has sifted some absurd and contradictory senses out of its expressions, and treated his lordship of Orrery, and other able and learned gentlemen, with great contempt for not having skill enough to make the same discovery, confidently affirms, that he has "shewn the "Dean to have been an Arian in his heart +." Now, if the Dean has been so unhappy in his expressions, as to subscribe himself an Arian, while he meant to declare himself a Catholic, he must surely have wanted common sense, a defect, which (in his day) he was farther from than most men living: if in his expressions he appears to be orthodox, and yet was, in the secrets of his heart, an Arian; this author must pretend to some degree of omniscience in being able to find it out.

As a specimen of his comments upon the Holy Scripture, I may set down the evidence he has alledged in favour of angel-worship.

The Arians have always been greatly distressed to justify

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »