God, who is three persons. If the three persons, and one person, and the first, second, and third persons, are the same with God, (otherwise none of them could be God) they are the same with one another, only different words to signify the same being.

10th, If the persons are really distinct, and each is God, must not each be God distinct from the others? For all distinction that is more than nominal, supposeth at least a numerical difference and diversity; and if God the Father be not God the Son, nor God the Son God the Spirit, there must be a numerical difference between them, which every one that can number three must needs know are three Gods; for one God, and one God, and one God, none of which are the other, are three Gods.

11th, Is it not equally as absurd to suppose three infinite persons as three Gods? And the same arguments that demonstrate the impossibility of the one, equally demonstrate the impossibility of

the other.

12th, To suppose three all-sufficient

persons, is it not to suppose two persons to no end or purpose, because one allsufficient person as well as one God, is sufficient for all things whatever ?

If it be a perfection in God to be more persons than one, the more persons he is the greater his perfections are; and God who has infinity of perfections, would be infinite in persons; and an infinite number will no more destroy the unity of God

than three.

13th, There cannot be supposed in God more persons than one, without supposing an infinite number; for what reason soever moved the first person to create two persons equal to himself, the same reason (because their nature is the same) must move the others to create their equals, and so on to infinity.

14th, To suppose three all-sufficient persons in God, is to suppose God more than all-sufficient; for if there be in God three such persons, there must be in him three all-sufficiencies, which is sufficiently absurd.

15th, Is it not a contradiction to suppose three infinities of the same sort, be

cause it is supposing infinite addition to infinite? If it is absurd to suppose more than one infinite space, why is it not as absurd to suppose more than one infinite person?

16th, Either a divine person and God are or are not the same; if they are not the same, it is idolatry to pay divine worship to a person, because you pay divine worship to a somewhat that is not God; but if God and person are the same, the paying divine worship to the three persons is the worshipping of three Gods, because three Gods and three persons are the same.

THE DOCTRINES OF A TRINITY AND THE INCARNATION OF GOD, EXAMINED UPON THE PRINCIPLES OF REASON AND COMMON SENSE; WITH A PREFATORY ADDRESS TO THE KING. BY A MEMBER OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND FROM BIRTH AND EDUCATION, AND A SINCERE DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST FROM CHOICE AND RATIONAL CONVICTION. A. D. 1772.

Extracts from the Prefatory Address.

I apprehend your majesty will readily allow that the legislature hath at least as much power over the bodies, as over the minds of all your subjects; we will suppose therefore that a set of absurd or interested opticians had weight enough with the lawgivers of this country, to persuade them that to see objects with the naked eye, in all that glare of light which naturally surrounds them, is highly prejudicial to the eye-sight of your majesty's subjects, and the chief cause of blindness, which in its effects is a kind of loss of so many useful members of the community;

and that (as green being at an equal distance from the two extremes of the seven, is more agreeable and healthful to the eye than any other single colour) it is necessary for the lasting health and preservation of their eye-sight, that all your majesty's loving subjects should continually wear spectacles of green glass; which would at once defend their eyes from that excess of splendour which serves only to dazzle and weaken them, and also make every object appear tinged with that most refreshing and salutary colour green.

Let us suppose too, that induced by these sagacious eye-preserving arguments, the legislature should ordain that every subject of your majesty's dominions, from infancy to the maturest age, ought continually to wear spectacles of green glass ; and that no opticians should be suffered to sell spectacles without a license first obtained from your majesty, or from your majesty's college of opticians; nor should such license be granted to any man until he had bound himself by a solemn engagement, that he would at all times sell the true green spectacles, faithfully prepared