Christian faith, if such learned and able men as Praxeas, Noëtus, Paul of Samosata, Photinus, Arius, Eunomius, Apollinarius, &c. had not been vigorously opposed, and expelled the Christian Church? Errors once entered have been sometimes kept in by the same methods, as truth hath been preserved; just as the banks intended to keep out the waters, if once overflowed, serve afterwards to keep them in which is yet no argument, I suppose, for having no banks at all, or for throwing all open to inundations. You add, "as if taking great pains-to find ❝out the sense and meaning of a doctrine, was calling in -66 question the doctrine itself:" which I have answered above. In your next words, you betray an unbecoming heat, which should be avoided always, if you desire to see clear. "Wonderful," you say, "that the very founda❝tions of all religion and of all truth should be thus "turned into ridicule by men of learning, without their

perceiving what they are doing!" A heinous and heavy charge; not upon me, not upon a few private men, but upon the Church of Christ in all ages, and upon the best men of it. For, what is it, I beseech you, that you are here so severely declaiming against, under the opprobrious name, of " turning all religion into ridicule?" I say, what is it, but the Church's acknowledging that there are fundamentals in religion, and her defending those fundamentals, in such a way as Christ and his Apostles have taught her, against all opposers? Be you ever so able or so learned, (which I dispute not,) yet we know, that if an angel from heaven comes to teach us any other doctrine than what we have received from Scripture, we have St. Paul's warrant for pronouncing an anathema upon that and him. You will say, no doubt, that you have truth and Scripture on your side. Well: that is saying something, if you can make it good: it is the very point which we are going to try. In the mean while, argue not against the properest methods of defending and preserving the truth, (which are undoubtedly right and

good, in the general,) but show, if you are able, that there is something particular in the present case, to put a bar to the general rule.

5. The last article of complaint is, my "artificially "concealing from the reader the true and indeed only "material point in question, and amusing him with mat"ters of a quite different kind." In this affected charge, (which, I am unwilling to say, you do not believe one word of,) I blame not so much the injuriousness of it, since it is too weak to do hurt, as the indiscretion. Might you not have been content to set out upon a new foot, and, as it were, silently and unobserved, to alter the terms of the question; but you must begin with laying your sin at my door, and charging me with the very fault which you are, that instant, committing? I will show you, first, that my manner of stating the main question was right: and I shall afterwards tell you what I have to say to yours; which in reality (when stripped of its ambiguity) is not different from mine. All my labour and endeavour was, to bring the dispute to this short question, whether the Son of God be a precarious being, that is, a creature, or nos. This was the only point I was concerned for; being that upon which all the rest turn. There therefore I laid the stress; making it my business to confute whatever I could find in Dr. Clarke's pieces, tending to degrade the Son of God into precarious existence, or to make a creature of him. If this point be but once secured, that the Son is no creature, but necessarily existing; the Doctor may go on talking of supremacy, and whatever else he pleases; they are incidental points only, and must either fall of course, or else be understood in a sense consistent with the resolution of the other question.

You are sensible of this yourself; and therefore you all the way resolutely dispute with me the point of the

See my Supplement, where I have shown nine several ways, from the writings of Dr. Clarke, and his disciples, that they do by immediate and necessary consequence make the Son a creature.

Son's necessary existence, as much as the other point of the Father's supremacy: you are as resolute in denying the Son to be one God with the Father; you are scrupulous as to calling him Creator, and never directly assert his creating of the world by his own power, or his coeternity. In short, you dispute every thing with me that is pleaded to exempt him from the number of precarious beings, or creatures. Were it not for this, you should be permitted to talk of the Father's supremacy as much as you pleased, and to make sense of it at leisure. Indeed, the determining of the point of supremacy, and how it is to be held, depends entirely upon the other question; which is therefore the main question betwixt us. Do but allow me, that the Son is no creature, that he exists not precariously, but necessarily, that he is one God with the Father, that he is properly Creator, and by his own power, with other the like things; and you shall then go on, without let or hindrance, in your talk of the supremacy. Now then, will you please to answer me : Do you understand the supremacy in a sense which you believe consistent with the points which I maintain, viz. the Son's necessary existence, uncreatedness, &c.? If you do, the dispute is ended; go on and prosper with so Catholic a notion of the supremacy. Or do you understand the supremacy in a sense not consistent with those other points which I maintain? If this be the case, (as I presume it is,) then do not pretend that those other points are not material; for, by maintaining them, I overthrow your pretended supremacy, as much as you, by maintaining the supremacy, design to overthrow the Church's faith and so it matters not, whether the main question be put into your terms or mine; since both, in reality, come to the same thing. Only there is this difference in the case; my way of stating the main question is plain and clear yours, obscure and ambiguous: mine is fitted to instruct and inform; yours, to perplex and confound a reader: mine is proper to bring the debate to a short and clear issue; yours, to protract and lengthen out a dispute: in a word,

;

mine is sincere and open, like that of a man that knows his cause is good; yours is fallacious and disguised, as of one that is diffident of his cause, and is retiring behind the curtain. You will have the question put thus: Whether the Father alone hath supreme authority, sovereignty, and dominion over all? When this is stripped of ambiguity and chicane, I suppose it will fall into mine. You determine in the affirmative. The Son then is naturally a subject of the Father, and the Father is his sovereign Lord and Ruler. He has an absolute right over him, to call him to account, to reward him, if he does well, to punish him, if he does amiss. This all men understand to be implied in supreme dominion; a right and power over subjects, to compel, constrain, and punish, as occasion serves; and in short, to bridle them at pleasure. Is this your meaning? Pray then, where is the difference between saying it, and calling God the Son a creature?

And, do you imagine that you have any the least syllable of proof of such alone dominion, either in Scripture or antiquity? Yet there is certainly no medium between this, and what I assert of the equality of Father and Son. They are either naturally and strictly equal; or else one is infinitely superior to the other, as God and creature. Well; be the consequences what it will, you are attempting to prove your point syllogistically, after this manner:

"If the Father never acts in subjection to the will of any other person, and every other person acts in sub66 jection to his will; then the Father alone is the one 66 supreme Governor of the universe.

"But it is fact that the Father never acts in subjec❝tion, &c. and that every other person acts in subjec❝tion, &c.

"Therefore, &c."

This is the wonderful demonstration; lame and deficient in every part. To prove that the Father alone hath supreme dominion, &c. you should show, not only that all other persons act in subjection, (for an equal may act in subjection to an equal, or even to an inferior, as our

Lord acted in subjection to Joseph and Mary, and washed his disciples' feet,) but that they are really subject, and under his absolute power and authority. Your reasonings therefore on this head amount only to what the Schools call ignoratio elenchi; proving beside the question, or talking wide of the purpose. And how easy is it for a man to fill a book with quotations, as you have done, that can be content with any thing, however foreign to the question? You have proved, that the Son acted sometimes a ministerial part, or that he submitted to an inferior office: this is all that you have proved; and it is no moré than I would have readily granted you, without quoting so much as a single Father for it. You are not advanced one tittle towards the proof of what you intend, that the Father and Son naturally have not one common dominion. I affirm that they have; and that at the very same time that the Son is executing any inferior office, he is still Lord of the whole universe, in common with the Father; and that their dominion over all is one and the samė undivided dominion, as they are one God and one Lord. You would gladly slip upon us supremacy of dominion, instead of supremacy of order, or office. Instead of saying that the Father alone has his supreme dominion from none, you pretend that he alone has supreme dominion; to make two dominions where there is but one. You play with the ambiguous word authority, that you may have something to blind the readers with: while you quote Fathers who affirmed it in one sense, and you intend it in another. Auctoritas is often no more than paternitas, with the Latin Fathers, as auctor is pater: but you are wresting it to the sense of dominion. The like use you make of the equivocal word dignity; which is of order, or office, or dominion, or nature; and you artificially blend and confound all together. None, I hope, can be imposed upon by such weak fallacies, but they that want their faculties of discerning. Let the reader carefully distinguish three things, and he will then be able of himself to unravel all your pretences, and to throw off that studied con