Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

FOURTH EXPOSTULATION.

PERMIT me, Sir, to fay one word more upon your laft, grand publication. Our Reformers had fufficiently proved, that the worshipping the Virgin Mary, Saints, and Angels, is an Antichriftian practice; and we, English Proteftants, for whom you chiefly write, had no need to be reclaimed from that Idolatry. If, then, you fpend fo much time and paper in expofing the Christian Idolatry, it is evident, that your chief defign is to attack the divine honours, which we pay to the LORD JESUS; and that your account of the Popish errors, &c. comes in only, by the bye,to mask the battery, from which you think you can attack our Faith more decently, and with greater advantage. Hence, through nine hundred pages,. you chiefly labour to prove, that our Saviour is a mere creature, and that the blood of the Son of God hath no more atoning, virtue than the blood of the fons of Zebedee.

Had you been as open, as you are prudent, you would at once have called your Hiftory of Corruptions, An Attempt to prove that all Chrif tians are curfed Idolaters, if they truft in Chrift for falvation; for it is written, Curfed is the man that trufleth in man for that falvation, which God. alone can bestow.

Your friend, Mr. Lindsey, to whom you dedicate your Work, may praife you for it; but, will you, Sir, have any thanks from HIM, who faid on the banks of Jordan, and upon the Holy Mount,, This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him with a believing confidence? Will you have any thanks from HIM, who faid, Ye believe in God (the Father) believe alfo in ME?-Will you be praised by St. Paul, who gloried in his being of the number of thofe who firft trufted in Chrift? Will you even. be exculpated by one of thofe Martyrs, Confeffors, or Believers, who for 1700 years, have. faid to Chrift, LORD, to whom shall we go? THOU haft the words of eternal life?

[ocr errors]

3

But

But how do you prove, Sir, that this cloud of godly witneffes is a company of Idolaters, who trufted in a mere arm of flesh, when they believed in Chrift? Truly, by three affertions, as paradoxical as the arguments, by which you would prove that we have no fouls, or only such as turn to a mephitic vapour when we die. The firft of those affertions is, that the doctrine of the Trinity is irrational; the fecond is, that the doctrine of our Lord's Divinity has no proper foundation in the Old Testamentthe Prophets fpeaking of the Meffiah only as of a man like themfelves; and the third is, that Chrift's Deity is likewife unfupported by the New Teftament- -the Apoftles never giving our Lord any higher title than that of a man approved of God.

In oppofition to the firft of thefe affertions, I here prefent you, Sir, with a Rational, as well as Scriptural, Vindication of the doctrine of our Lord's Divinity: and in oppofition to the two laft, (as my health fhall permit) I defign to prepare a Work which fhall, I truft, fully refcue the Prophets and Apoftles from the Anti-chriftian fervice, to which you continue to prefs them.*

In reply to the Hiftory, where you try to prove from the Fathers, that the doctrine of the Divinity of Chrift, and of his being any more than a man, is an innovation, and the dreadful corruption of Christianity, which has been the fruitful fource of many others, I defigned to add a fourth part; but confidering that you have already refuted your own error, (witnefs your quotations from Tertullian, p. 60.) I fhall fpare myfelf the trouble of doing it otherwife than indirectly.

Mr. Fletcher had proceeded a confiderable way in this work, and it is intended, by and bye, to prepare it for the prefs..

+ Corruption, p. 13. and Difquifitions, p. 51.

Though

.

Though I am conscious that all the Fathers are, upon the whole, against you, with regard to the charge of innovation, I choofe to meet you chiefly upon Scripture-ground, (1.) Becaufe having chofen it yourself, you nobly defend it against Deifts and Atheists: (2.) Becaufe being firm and holy ground, it can be fully trufted: (3.) Because it is a ground open to all our readers: the Bible is in every house, but the Fathers are in few libraries : (4.) Because this field hath proper limits, and a ftrong inclosure. The Works of the facred Writers are fhort and concife, but those of the Fathers are fo voluminous and diffufe, that an unfair difputant may turn, wind, and hide himfelf in them, as a fox in a great forest full of dens and lurking holes: (5.) Because the Fathers themselves, by their conftant appeals to Scripture, invite us to make choice of that folid and divine ground and laftly) Becaufe Dr. Horfley, and the Monthly Reviewers, who have entered the lifts against you, have already fufficiently expofed your mistake, with refpect to the Fathers.

If this little Work (which I infcribe to you, Sir, because you have been the occafion of it) do not foften your prejudices against what appears to me the capital doctrine of Christianity,

hope it will confirm fome wavering profeffors of the Chriftian Faith, and fettle the thoughts of candid enquirers after truth: it will, at least, give me an opportunity of thanking you for the fervice you have done to my Religion, by taking the part of Revelation against fome claffes of unbelievers; and of teftifying my esteem for you as a humane moralift, and a wife, indefatigable enquirer into the fecrets of Nature. And although I greatly differ from you, with regard to the fundamental principles of Chriftianity, yet, as I hope that (like Saul of Tarfus) you fin against the Son and Holy Ghoft out of a well-meant, but dreadfully-miftaken zeal for the Majefty of the FATHER; I am glad of an opportunity to affure you publickly, that, till we meet in the fulnef

and

and unity of the Faith taught by our Lord, (in reference to that part of it, which you have defended against fome bare-faced Infidels) I have the honour to be, with great truth,

Reverend Sir,

Your affectionate Brother,

And obedient Servant,

JOHN FLETCHER.

CHA P. I.

A General View of the CATHOLIC FAITH concerning the FATHER, the Son, and the HOLY GHOST, and of the great Question in debate, between the Catholics and the Deifts, of every defcription.

TH

HAT there is a fupreme, infinite, and eternal Mind, by which the world was made, is. evident from the works of Creation and Providence. Thofe works every where confirm Da-vid's obfervation, The heavens declare thy glory (the glorious existence) of God. The firmament magnificently difplays his wifdom, power and love.. Every leaf of the trees, which cover a thousand hills every fpire of the grafs, which clothes a thousand vales, echoes back the fame ravishing. truth-There is a God! But the peculiar mode of his exiftence, is far above our reach. Of this, we only know what he plainly reveals to us, and what we may infer, from what he hath planly revealed: For fooner fhall the vileft infect find out the nature of man, than the brightest man fhall, of himself, difcover the nature of God."

But if this adorable Being hath been pleafed to declare fomething concerning himfelf, it is arrogancy in the most exalted creatures to quarrel with fuch a declaration, under a pretence that, in their conception, He must have a different mode of existence. For common fenfe tells us, that God hath a clearer knowledge of himself, than

the

the deepest Philosophers, and the highest Angels, can poffibly have.

It is agreed on all hands, that the Supreme Being (compared with all other Beings) is One: One Creator over numberlefs creatures: One Infinite Being over myriads of finite beings: One Eternal Intelligence over millions of temporary intelligences. The distance between the things made, and Him that made them, being boundless, the Living God must stand for ever, far higher above all that lives, than the Sun ftands fuperior to all the beams it emits, and to all the tapers lighted at its fire. In this fenfe, true Christians are all Unitarians. God having plainly revealed his Unity by the Prophets, by the Apoítles, and by our Lord himself, there is no doubt about this point: And may the hand which writes these sheets, wither a thousand times over, rather than it should defignedly write one word against this glorious and ever-adorable Unity!

But if the Supreme Being is One, when he is compared to all created Beings, fhall we quarrel with Him, if he informs us, that, although he hath no Second in the universe of creatures, yet, in himfelf, he exifts after a wonderful manner, infomuch that his one, eternal, and perfect Effence subsists, without divifion or feparation, under THREE adorable diftinctions, which are called fometimes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghoft; and fometimes the Father, the Word, and the Spirit? Shall the thing formed fay to Him that formed it, Why haft thou made me thus or, Why doft thou exift after fuch a manner?

According to the Catholic Faith, three forts of people in our day, capitally err in this matter?

(1.) TRITHEISTS, or the Worshippers of three Gods, who fo unfcripturally diftinguifh the Divine Perfons, as to divide and feparate them into three Deities; and who, by this means, run into Polytheifm, or the belief of many Gods.'

(2.) DITHEISTS, or the Worshippers of two Gods. They are generally called Arians, from Arius,

« AnteriorContinuar »