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casion to inquiring men to suspect the integrity of their priests and teachers, who, unwilling that the people should have a standing known rule of faith and manners, have, for the maintenance of their own authority, foisted in another of tradition, which will always be in their own power, to be varied and suited to their own interests and occasions.

J. L.

Q. Whether the Bramins, besides their book of Sandscrit, make use also of tradition, and so of others who pretend to a revealed religion?

UNITARIA.-The Fathers before the Council of Nice speak rather like Arians than orthodox. If any one desire to see undeniable proofs of it, I refer him to the Quaternio of Curcillæus, where he will be fully satisfied.

There is scarcely one text alleged to the Trinitarians which is not otherwise expounded by their own writers: you may see a great number of these texts and expositions in a book entitled Scriptura S. Trin. Revelatrix, under the name of St Gallus. There be a multitude of texts that deny those things of Christ which cannot be denied of God, and that affirm such things of him that cannot agree to him if he were a person of God. In like manner of the Holy Ghost, which of both sorts you may find urged and defended in the two books of Jo. Crellius, touching one God the Father, and abridged in Walzogenius Præpar. ad Util. Lection. N. T. 2, 3, 4, and also in the Brief History, let. 1, 5.

VITA ETERNA.-There was no particular promise of eternal life until the coming of Christ; so the Church of Christ have always understood it, as any one may be satisfied who reads J. Vossius's Answer to Ravenspergerus, c. 23, where he shows that the ancient Doctors, especially St Austin, looked upon the Old Testament as containing properly and directly the promises only of earthly and temporal things. Patrick, 657. Reade, b. 2.

LIBERUM ARBITRIUM.-Of the ancient philosophers who have written either professedly or incidentally of liberty and necessity, the chief of these Plato de Repub. 1. 2 and 3; Gorgia, Tim., Phædro, and often elsewhere; Plutarch de

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Fato; Hierocles in Aurea Carmina and de Fato; Maximus Tyrius an aliquid sit in nostrâ Potestate; Plotinus, 1. 1; Chalcidius Coment. in Timæum; Alexander Aphrodisiensis de Fato ad Imperatores Antoninos; Ammonius Herm. in Arist. de Interpret.; Chrysippus apud A. Gellium, 1. vi. c. 11. The Pharisees held freedom of choice, Josephus Ant. 1. xviii. c. 11; and all the Jews, Maimonides Duct. Dubit. part iii. c. 17 and 18. All the Fathers before St Austin held free-will; most Christian writers since deny it. That external objects and natural complexion, custom, &c. &c., are occasions of a great part.

TRINITY. The Papists deny that the doctrine of the Trinity can be proved by the Scripture; see this plainly taught and urged very earnestly by Card. Hosius de Auth. S. Script. I. iii. p. 53; Gordonius Hunlæius Contr. Tom. Cont. de Verbo Dei, c. 19; Gretserus and Tanerus in Colloquio Rattisbon. Vega. Possevin. Wiekus. These learned men, especially Bellarmin, and Wiekus after him, have urged all the Scriptures they could, with their utmost industry, find out in this cause, and yet, after all, they acknowledge their insufficiency and obscurity.

Curcillæus has proved, as well as anything can be proved out of ancient writings, that the doctrine of the Trinity, about the time of the Council of Nice, was of a special union of three persons in the Deity, and not of a numerical, as it is now taught, and has been taught since the chimerical schoolmen were hearkened unto.

Concerning the original of the Trinitarian doctrines, from whom they are derived or by whom they were invented, he that is generally and indeed deservedly confessed to have writ the most learnedly, is Dr Cudworth, in his Intellectual System.

TRINITY.-The Divinity of the Holy Spirit was not believed, or, as I think, so much as mentioned, by any in the time of Lactantius, i. e. anno 300, vide Lact. Inst. 1. 4, c. 29; Petavius de Trin. 1, c. 14, § 14, 21; Huet. Originian. 1. 2, c. 2, 9. 2, §.

MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS.

JUDGING-ELECTION-RESOLUTION.

JUDGING is a bare action of the understanding, whereby a man, several objects being proposed to him, takes one of them to be best for him.

But this is not Election ?

Election then is, when a man, judging anything to be best for him, ceases to consider, examine, and inquire any further concerning that matter; for, till a man comes to this, he has not chosen, the matter still remains with him under deliberation, and not determined. Here, then, comes in the will, and makes Election voluntary, by stopping in the mind any further inquiry and examination. This Election sometimes proceeds further to

Firm Resolution, which is not barely a stop to further inquiry by Election at that time, but the predetermination, as much as in him lies, of his will not to take the matter into any further deliberation; i. e. not to employ his thoughts any more about the eligibility, i. e. the suitableness, of that which he has chosen to himself as making a part of his happiness. For example, a man who would be married has several wives proposed to him. He considers which would be fittest for him, and judges Mary best; afterwards, upon that continued judgment, makes choice of her; this choice ends his deliberation; he stops all further consideration whether she be best or no, and resolves to fix here, which is not any more to examine whether she be best or fittest for him of all proposed; and consequently pursues the means of obtaining her, sees, frequents, and falls desperately in love with her, and then we may see Resolution at the highest; which is an act of the will, whereby he not only supersedes all further examination, but will not admit of any information or suggestion, will not hear anything that can be offered against the pursuit of this match.

Thus we may see how the will mixes itself with these actions, and what share it has in them; viz. that all it does is but exciting or stopping the operative faculties; in all which it is acted on more or less vigorously, as the uneasiness that presses is greater or less. At first, let us suppose his thoughts of marriage in general to be excited only by some consideration of some moderate convenience offered to his mind; this moves but moderate desires, and thence moderate uneasiness leaves his will almost indifferent; he is slow in his choice amongst the matches offered, pursues coolly till desire grows upon him, and with it uneasiness proportionably, and that quickens his will; he approaches nearer, he is in love-is set on fire-the flame scorches-this makes him uneasy with a witness; then his will, acted by that pressing uneasiness, vigorously and steadily employs all the operative faculties of body and mind for the attainment of the beloved object, without which he cannot be happy.

ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POWER, INDORSED EXCOMMUNICATION. Dated 1673-4.

There is a twofold society, of which almost all men in the world are members, and that from the twofold concernment they have to attain a twofold happiness: viz. that of this world and that of the other: and hence there arises these two following societies, viz. religious and civil.

CIVIL SOCIETY, OR THE
STATE.

1. The end of civil society is civil peace and prosperity, or the preservation of the society and every member thereof in a free and peaceable enoyment of all the good things of this life that belong to each of them; but beyond the concernments of this life, this society hath nothing to do at all.

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY, OR THE
CHURCH,

1. The end of religious society is the attaining happiness after this life in another world.

2. The terms of communion with, or being a part of, this society, is promise of obedience to the laws of it.

3. The proper matter, circa quam, of the laws of this society, are all things conducing to the end above-mentioned, i. e. civil happiness; and are in effect almost all moral and indifferent things, which yet are not the proper matter of the laws of the society, till the doing or omitting of any of them come to have a tendency to the end above-mentioned.

4. The means to procure obedience to the laws of this society, and thereby preserve it, is force or punishment; i. e. the abridgment of any one's share of the good things of the world within the reach of the society, and sometimes a total deprivation, as in capital punishments. And this, I think, is the whole end, latitude, and extent of civil power and society.

2. The terms of communion or conditions of being members of this society, is promise of obedience to the laws of it. 3. The proper matter of the laws of this society, are all things tending to the attainment of future bliss, which are of three sorts: 1. Credenda, or matters of faith and opinion, which terminate in the understanding. 2. Cultus religiosus, which contains in it both the ways of expressing our honour and adoration of the Deity, and of address to him for the obtaining any good from him. 3. Moralia, or the right management of our actions in respect of ourselves and others.

4. The means to preserve obedience to the laws of this society, are the hopes and fears of happiness and misery in another world. But though the laws of this society be in order to happiness in another world, and so the penalties. annexed to them are also of another world; yet the society being in this world and to be continued here, there are some means necessary for the preservation of the society here, which is the expulsion of such members as obey not the laws of it, or disturb its order. And this, I think, is the whole end, latitude, and extent of ecclesiastical power and religious so

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