faith admire your Orthodoxy? May we not hope, that, when the blunders of your Logic are brought to light, they will be a proper antidote for the poifon of your errors? And will your admirers be ftill fo inattentive, as not to fee, that your capital objections against the Trinity are fufficiently anfwered by applying to them the fhort reply you make on another occafion, " This is an argument, which derives all its force from OUR IGNORANCE." See Difquifitions, p. 82.

But if the Philofophers, who attack the Catholic Faith, cannot overthrow the doctrine of the Trinity by the arguments they draw from their avowed Ignorance of the Divine Nature, they feem determined to make us give up the point, by arguments drawn from fear and from Jhame. Availing himself of our dread of Popery, and of our contempt for the Popish error of Tranfubftantiation, the learned Doctor lofes no opportunity to compare that pretended mystery, that defpicable abfurdity, with the awful mystery of the Trinity --exhorting us to reject them both, as equally contrary to reafon and common fenfe. Thus, in his Appeal to the Profeffors of Chriftianity, fpeaking of the Divinity of Chrift, he fays,

The prevalence of fo impious a doctrine can be afcribed to nothing but that myftery of iniquity, which began to work in the times of the. Apoftles themselves.-This, among other fhocking corruptions of Chriftianity, grew up with the fyftem of Popery. After exalting a man into a God, a creature into a Creator, men made a piece. of bread into one alfo, and then bowed down to, and worshipped the work of their own hands." And, in the Preface of his Difquifitions, he writes, "Moft Proteftants will avow they have made up their minds with refpect to the Popish doctrine of Tranfubftantiation, fo as to be juftified in refufing even to lofe their time in reading what may be addreffed to them on it; and I avow it with refpect to the doctrine of the Trinity."

As

As, these comparisons are the fecond ftore. houfe, whence the learned Doctor draws his arguments against our fuppofed Idolatry, it is proper to fhew the unreafonablenefs of his method. For this, three Remarks will, I hope, be fufficient.

1. The Question between Dr. Priestley and us is, Whether there are three Divine Subsistences in the one Divine Effence? Now it is plain, that to deny this propofition, as reafonably as we deny that bread is flefh, and that wine is human blood, we must be as well acquainted with the nature of the Divine Effence, and of Divine Perfonality, as we are with the taste of bread and wine. But how widely different is the cafe, the Doctor himfelf being Judge? Do not his Difquifitions affert, that the Divine Effence hath properties most effentially different from every thing elfe-that of God's fubftance we have no idea at all-and that he muft for ever remain the Incomprehenfible? Therefore, if God hath revealed, that he exifts with the three perfonal distinctions of Father, Word, and Holy Ghoft, the learned Doctor, after his conceffions, can never deny it, without expofing at once his Piety, his Philofophy, his Logick, and his common Sense; unless he should make it appear, that he is the firft man who can pertinently fpeak of what he has NO IDEA AT ALL, and who perfectly comprehends what muft for ever remain INCOMPREHENSIBLE. But,

2. The question between the Pope and us, with refpect to Tranfubftantiation, is quite within our reach; fince it is only, whether bread be flesh and bones; whether wine be human blood; whether the fame identical body can be wholly in heaven, and in a million of places on earth, at the fame time: and whether a thin round wafer, an inch in diameter, is the real perfon of a man five or fix feet high. Here, we only decide about things. known to us from the cradle, and, concerning which, our experience, and our five fenfes, help

us

us to bear a right judgment, agreeable to the tenor of the Scriptures. Therefore,

3. Confidering that the two cafes are diametrically contrary, and differ as much as the depths of the Divine Nature differ from a piece of bread; as much as the moft incomprehenfible thing in heaven, differs from the things we know beft upon earth, we are bold to say, that, when the learned Doctor involves the Proteftant worshippers of the Trinity, and the Popish worshippers of a bit of bread, in the fame charge of abfurd Idolatry, he betrays as great a degree of unphilofophical prejudice, and illogical reafoning, as ever a learned and wife man was driven to, in the height of a disputation for a favourite error.

Do what you can, [replies the learned Doctor] -you must either facrifice the UNITY to the Trinity, or the TRINITY to the Unity: for they are incompatible. But who fays it? Certainly not our Lord, who commands all Nations to be baptized into the ONE name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghoft: and if Dr. P. says it, then he fays it without KNOWING it; for, fpeaking like a judicious Philofopher, he has just told us, that probably the Divine Nature, befides being fimply UNKNOWN TO HIM, more effentially differs from the human in MANY cireumftances, of which he hath NO KNOWLEDGE AT ALL. To this fufficient anfwer, we beg leave to add an illuftration, which may throw fome light upon the Doctor's unphilo- . fophical pofitiveness.

Modern Phyficians juftly maintain the circulation of the blood, which being carried from the heart through the arteries, flows back to it by the veins. But a learned Doctor, very fond of Unity, availing himself of the connexion which the arteries have with the veins in all the extremities of the body, infifts that one fet of veffels is more agreeable to the fimplicity of the human frame. What! fays he, Arteries! Veins! and lymphatick Veffels too! I pronounce that one set of uniform, circular veffels, is quite fufficient. You must

therefore

な

therefore facrifice the arteries to the veins, or the veins to the arteries: for they are quite incompatible. This dogmatical pofitiveness of the Unitarian Anatomift, would furprize us the more, if we had just heard him fay, that there are MANY THINGS in Anatomy, of which he has NO KNOWLEDGE AT ALL, and affert that the minute ramifications, and delicate connexions of the veffels which compofe the human frame, are, and muft for ever remain INCOMPREHENSIBLE to those who have feeble and imperfect organs.

From this fimile, which, we hope, is not improper, we infer, that if pofitiveness on this Anatomical question would not become the learning and modefty of a Doctor in Phyfick, a like degree of peremptorinefs and affurance, in a matter infinitely more out of our reach, is as unfuitable to the humble candour of a Doctor in Divinity, and to the cautious wifdom of a Philofopher.

Having thus taken a general view of the principal fources, whence the Philofophers of the age draw their popular arguments against the Catholic Faith; and having [we hope] by this means removed fome prejudices out of the way, the cautious Reader will more candidly confider the main queftion, which is propofed in the next Chapter.

CHAP III.

That according to the Scriptures, God the Father has a PROPER SON, by whom he made, governs, and will judge the world.

WE

E cannot read the Divine Oracles without finding out this capital truth, that God, confidered as Father, has an only begotten Son, called the Logos, or the Word, whom he loved be

fore

Fore the foundation of the world, John xvii. 24who is the exprefs image of his perfon, Heb. i. 3by whom he made the world, who was in the beginning with God, and was God, John i. 1.

We need only to confider the first Verse of Genefis, to find an intimation of this capital truth. In the beginning [fays Mofes] Elohim, the Gods, [in the plural number, or God, confidered in the diftinctions peculiar to his nature] He created the heaven and the earth. The learned know, that Elohim is a word in the plural number, fignifying more exactly Gods than God: and, accordingly it is fome times fo tranflated in our Bible: Thou shalt have no other ELOHIM [no other GODS] but me: Exod. xx. The Elohim doth know, that ye fhall be as the Elohim; which is rendered by the Septuagint, and in our Verfion, GoD doth know, that ye shall be as GODS: Gen. iii. 5. a proof this, even to an illiterate Reader, that the very first line of the Bible gives us fome notice of the myfterious diftinctions in the Divine Nature, one of which is called the Spirit in the very next Verfe: And the SPIRIT of the Elohim moved on the face of the waters.

In the beginning was the Word, [the Son, the fecond of the diftinctions in the Godhead, says St. John] and the Word was with God [the Father] and was God, [partaking of the Divine Nature in union with the Father] John i. 1.

Is man to be created, thefe Divine Subfiftences confult together: the Elohim fays, Let us make man in OUR image, and after OUR likenefs: and when man is fallen in attempting to be like the Elohim, God fays, Behold, he is become like one of us to know good and evil!

Light is thrown upon this myfterious language, where David, fpcaking of the Son manifeited in the fiefh, introduces Jehovah as faying. to the Messiah, Thou art my SoN-this day have I begotten thee. Struck with the awfulness of this decree, or Divine declaration, the Pfalmift cries out, Serve Jehovah with fear, kifs the SoN [give

him