A

LETTER

TO THE

COMMON PEOPLE,

IN ANSWER TO SOME

POPULAR ARGUMENTS against the TRINITY.

BEING AN

APPENDIX

TO THE

CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.

A

LETTER

TO THE

COMMON PEOPLE.

MEN AND BRETHREN,

AS Chriftians and members of the Church of England, you

have been taught, that the True God, whom you are bound to believe and worship, is a Trinity in Unity. In the Name of these three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, you have been baptized: and ́in the Litany are directed to pray to this Holy, bleffed, and glorious Trinity, three perfons and one God, that he would have mercy upon us miferable finners.

From the first propagation of the Gospel, there has been a fort of men in the Chriflian church, who had too high an opinion of their own knowledge and wisdom to submit quietly to this doctrine. They pretended it was contrary to their Reason and common sense, and impoffible in the Nature of Things, that the true God fhould be made manifeft in the flesh for the Salvation of the world; and hence they argued, that the Incarnation must either have been a delufion, a fact brought to pass only in fhew and appearance; or that the Perfon incarnate must have been fome created Being, far inferior in power and dignity to the divine Nature itself.

About three hundred years after the death of Chrift, when Paganism, or the worship of idols, was lofing its influence in the Roman empire, this Heresy, being come to its full growth, did immediately supply the place of it, and profpered to such a degree, that it overspread the greatest part of the East, and ended at laft in the imposture of the false prophet Mahomet; whofe doc

trine was readily embraced wherever Arianifm prevailed, and no where elfe among Chriftians; and his difciples do at this day moft zealously deny that Trinity which you worship.

When the Teachers of the Church found themselves disturbed, and their people corrupted, more and more by the daily increase of this herefy; upwards of three hundred Christian bishops, many of whom had been tortured and maimed in the heathen perfecutions, affembled together at the city of Nice, in Bithynia, and one Arius, a principal promoter of this wickedness, was fummoned to appear before them: his doctrine and writings were condemned; the Faith which thefe holy men had brought with them to the council was declared, and is now preferved in the Nicene Creed; which form we make use of in the church because it comprehends the fenfe of our faith in a few words. But we do not rest our belief upon the Authority of any human form, because the doc trine therein expreffed is fecured by the unquestionable authority of the Old and New Testaments.

The Evidence of this faith, as it is found in the Scripture, Í have endeavoured to extract and methodize in the best manner I could. The work was made public rather with an humble and charitable defire to affift the ftudies of the younger clergy, than to inftruct the common people; and therefore it was first printed at Oxford. Nevertheless, I am well perfuaded, that fo many of the arguments therein contained are level to all capacities, that an unlearned reader may thence be able to fatisfy himfelf, and inform his Christian neighbours. I fhall therefore have no occafion in this place to urge any new evidence from the Scripture, but only to refer to some of the old; it being the defign of this Addrefs to obviate a set of popular arguments, which have been made ufe of by fome nameless writers to turn your affections from the doctrine of the Trinity; most of which might be applied with as much propriety to prejudice you against any other article of faith in the Christian Religion.

I. You know, my dear brethren, that pride is a very prevailing paffion in human nature; and unless we are very much upon our guard, and are fortified with the true principles of Christian humility, we are all of us in danger of being enfnared by it. Men are proud of their clothes, and proud of their riches, and proud of *their titles; but, above all, they are proud of their understanding. Some men are endued with a ftrength of mind which enables them

to bear, up with cheerfulness under the common trials of fick nefs, and loffes, and disappointments; while, perhaps, the fame men cannot endure the thought of being cheated and impofed upon, because it is a reflection upon their understanding. Our adverfaries, therefore, hoping to make the ftronger impreffion, apply themfelves first of all to your pride, and inform you, that this doctrine of the Trinity is impofed upon your confciences by Church Authority'. But if the fact be laid before you, it will foon appear that no point of faith is thus impofed upon you by the Church of England. The points of faith which you are required to believe are interwoven with all the forms and offices of our public Liturgy. They are collected together for the younger fort of people in the Church Catechifm; and for all teachers, whether clergy or laity, they are drawn out more at large in the Articles of Religion, generally printed at the end of the Book of Common Prayer. So that all the articles of faith being impofed in the fame manner, it will follow, that they are all impofed by Church Authority, or none of them. Let us put it to the trial, and begin with the first article of the Creed-I believe in God the Father Almighty. How is this article impofed? Does the Church determine by her own authority whether there is a God or not? And fo for the reft. Does the Church determine whether there is a Chrift, or an Holy Ghaft? whether there, will be a refurrection of the dead, and a lite everlasting? Certainly the Church neither does nor can pretend to determine any of these things for us; because where any thing is determined by authority, fuch authority must be superior to what it determines: to fuppofe which, in this cafe, would be equally falfe and prefumptuous. Therefore the truth of the matter is this; that the Church does only declare that faith which it has received; and instead of her impofing, this faith is impofed upon the Church by the uncontrolable authority of God in the Holy Scripture, to which every private Chriftian is referred for the proper evidence of any particular doctrine, and for that of the Trinity amongst the rest. Thofe articles which are of a nature inferior to the Church itself, are the only fubjects of Church authority. Thus, as the body is more than the raiment that is worn upon it; fo the life and being of the Church is fuperior to thofe outward regulations, which ferve only to the order, decency, and well-being

See the title-page of a pamphlet called "An Appeal to the Common Sense of al "Christian People," &c. printed for Millar, in the Strand.