they were immediately enraged, and endeavoured to destroy him. So was it plainly, John viii. 56-59. Saith he, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him.' So also, John x. 30-33. 'I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.' They understood well enough the meaning of those works, I and my Father are one;' namely, that they were a plain assertion of his being God. This caused their rage. And this the Jews all abide by to this day; namely, that he declared himself to be God, and therefore they slew him. Whereas, therefore, the first discovery of a plurality of persons in the divine essence consists in the revelation of the divine nature and personality of the Son, this being opposed, persecuted, and blasphemed by these Jews, they may be justly looked upon and esteemed as the first assertors of that misbelief, which now some seek again so earnestly to promote. The Jews persecuted the Lord Christ, because he being a man, declared himself also to be God; and others are ready to revile and reproach them, who believe and teach what he declared.

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After the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus, all things being filled with tokens, evidences, and effects of his divine nature and power; Rom. i. 4. the church that began to be gathered in his name, and according to his doctrine, being by his especial insti

tution to be initiated into the express profession of the doctrine of the holy Trinity, as being to be baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, which confession compriseth the whole of the truth contended for, by the indispensable placing of it at the first entrance into all obedience unto him, is made the doctrinal foundation of the church, it continued for a season in the quiet and undisturbed possession of this sacred treasure.

The first who gave disquietment unto the disciples of Christ by perverting the doctrine of the Trinity was Simon Magus, with his followers; an account of whose monstrous figments, and unintelligible imaginations, with their coincidence with what some men dream in these latter days, shall elsewhere be given. Nor shall I need here to mention the coluvies of Gnosticks, Valentinians, Marcionites, and Manichees, the foundation of all whose abominations lay in their misapprehen sions of the being of God, their unbelief of the Trinity and person of Christ, as do those of some others also.

In especial there was one Cerinthus, who was more active than others in his opposition to the doctrine of the person of Christ, and therein of the holy Trinity. To put a stop unto his abominations, all authors agree that John writing his gospel, prefixed unto it that plain declaration of the eternal Deity of Christ which it is prefaced withal. And the story is well attested by Irenæus, Eusebius, and others, from Polycarpus who was his disciple, that this Cerinthus coming into. the place where the apostle was, he left it, adding as a reason of his departure, lest the building through the just judgment of God should fall upon them. And it was of the holy, wise providence of God, to suffer some impious persons to oppose this doctrine before the death of that apostle, that he might by infallible inspiration farther reveal, manifest, and declare it to

the establishment of the church in future ages. For what can farther be desired to satisfy the minds of men, who in any sense own the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Scriptures, than that this controversy about the Trinity and person of Christ (for they stand and fall together) should be so eminently and expressly determined, as it were immediately from heaven.

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But he, with whom we have to deal in this matter, neither ever did, nor ever will, nor can acquiesce or rest in the divine determination of any thing which he hath stirred up strife and controversy about. For as Cerinthus and the Ebionites persisted in the heresy of the Jews, who would have slain our Saviour for bearing witness to his own Deity, notwithstanding the evidence of that testimony, and the right apprehension which the Jews had of his mind therein; so he excited others to engage and persist in their opposition to the truth, notwithstanding this second particular determination of it from heaven, for their confutation or confusion. For after the more weak and confused oppositions made unto it by Theodotus Coriarius, Ar+ temon, and some others, at length a stout champion appears visibly and expressly engaged against these fundamentals of our faith. This was Paulus Samosatenus, bishop of the church of Antioch, about the year 272; a man of most intolerable pride, passion, and folly; the greatest that hath left a name upon ecclesiastical records. This man openly and avowedly denied the doctrine of the Trinity, and the Deity of Christ, in an especial manner. For although he endeavoured for awhile, to cloud his impious sentiments in ambiguous expressions, as others also have done (Euseb. lib. 7. cap. 27.), yet being pressed by the professors of the truth, and supposing his party was somewhat confirmed, he plainly defended his heresy, and was cast out of the church wherein he presided. Some sixty

years after, Photinus, bishop of Syrmium, with a pretence of more sobriety in life and conversation, undertook the management of the same design, with the

same success.

What ensued afterward among the churches of God in this matter, is of too large and diffused a nature to be here reported. These instances I have fixed on, only to intimate unto persons whose condition or occasions afford them not ability or leisure of themselves, to inquire into the memorials of times past amongst the professors of the gospel of Christ, that these oppositions which are made at present amongst us unto these fundamental truths, and derived immediately from the late renewed enforcement of them made by Faustus Socinus and his followers, are nothing but old baffled attempts of Satan, against the rock of the church and the building thereon, in the confession of the Son of the living God.

Now, as all men who have aught of a due reverence of God or his truth remaining with them, cannot but be wary how they give the least admittance to such opinions as have from the beginning been witnessed against, and condemned by Christ himself, his apostles, and all that followed them in their faith and ways in all generations; so others, whose hearts may tremble for the danger they apprehend which these sacred truths may be in, of being corrupted or defamed by the present opposition against them, may know that it is no other but what the church and faith of professors hath already been exercised with, and, through the power of him that enables them, have constantly triumphed over. And for my part, I look upon it as a blessed effect of the holy, wise providence of God, that those who have long harboured these abominations of denying the holy Trinity, the person and satisfaction of Christ, in their minds, but yet have shel

tered themselves from common observation under the shades of dark, obscure, and uncouth expressions, with many other specious pretences, should be given up to join themselves with such persons, and to profess a community of persuasion with them in those opinions, as have rendered themselves infamous from the first foundation of Christianity, and wherein they will assuredly meet with the same success as those have done, who have gone before them.

For the other head of opposition made by these persons unto the truth in reference unto the satisfaction of Christ, and the imputation of his righteousness thereon unto our justification, I have not much to say as to the time past. In general, the doctrine wherein they boast, being first brought forth in a rude mishapen manner by the Pelagian heretics, was afterward improved by one Abailardus, a sophistical scholar in France; but owes its principal form and poison unto the endeavours of Faustus Socinus, and those who have followed him in his subtle attempt to corrupt the whole doctrine of the gospel. Of these men are those amongst us who at this day so busily dispute and write about the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, and his satisfaction, the followers and disciples. And it is much more from their masters who were some of them men learned, diligent, and subtle, than from themselves that they are judged to be of any great consideration. For I can truly say, that upon the sedate examination of all that I could ever yet hear, or get a sight of, either spoken or written by them, that is, any amongst us, I never yet observed an undertaking of so great importance managed with a greater evidence of incompetency and inability, to give any tolerable countenance unto it. If any of them shall for the future attempt to give any new countenance or props to their totterin errors, it will doubtless be attended unto, by some