1694. which had perverted many, and continued still to do mischief; the arguments of it being translated also, and new dressed up in our own tongue, that the infection of it might spread here: upon which Dr. Bull undertook this labour, and hath acquitted himself to the satisfaction of all that are capable of weighing without prejudice what he hath written. This Dr. Zuicker hath published several other books, both in Latin and in High and Low Dutch, upon variety of subjects, but chiefly in defence of the Unitarians. He died at Amsterdam in the year 1678, aged sixty-six years and ten months. Now to say somewhat of his sentiments, and particularly his Irenicum.

An account

of some of

this doctor's

positions.

He pretended, that the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ, according as it was believed by the anextravagant cient Nazarens, was first corrupted by Simon Magus and his disciples: that the most primitive Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, believed in God the Father, as in the one only true God; and acknowledged not Jesus Christ in any other capacity, but according to his human generation only, till Platonism and Gnosticism crept into the church: that the disciples of this Simon first interpolated and changed the sound doctrine about God and Christ, which had been preached by the apostles of our Lord; and introduced another Christ, preexistent to, and distinct from him that was born of the Virgin Mary: that the eternal and divine generation of the Word was no better than a dream of the Simonians, destructive of the common notions of mankind, and of the truth of the Gospel, as built upon that man whom God hath anointed, and exalted to be a Saviour that the beginning at least of the

Gospel ascribed to St. John was never written by 1694. that apostle, but by some heretic out of the school of Simon that by the same Simonian heretics were forged certain verses under the name of Orpheus, making mention of the Voice or Word of the Father begotten by him before the world was created, and whom he consulted in the creation thereof; and that Justin Martyr, being imposed upon by these pretended Orphaic verses, as if they had verily been composed by Orpheus himself, and by him derived from Moses, had thence taken up his opinion concerning the generation of Christ from God the Father, before the foundation of the world, as the Mind, the Voice, the Reason of the Father, to the end the world might through his begotten Mind or Voice be brought forth, and that this divine offspring might descend to converse among men, and might at length become himself also a man: that besides the early perversion of the Gospel by the Simonian magic, and by the forgery of the Orphaic and Sibylline oracles, there were several other reasons that concurred to induce Justin and his followers to embrace so easily the opinion of the preexistence of Christ and his generation before all worlds; such as Justin's acquaintance with and affection for the Platonic philosophy, the memory of paganism not yet obliterated, some traces particularly in the minds of the Gentile converts, and prejudices in favour of the commonly received scheme for a plurality of gods not quite extinct; the ordinary custom of deifying great and extraordinary persons, and a sort of natural reluctance in all to the worshipping of any one who is no more than man. From all which he concluded, that the preexistence and divine generation

1694- of our Saviour was unknown to the apostles; and 1703. that it was an opinion which derived itself from Si

How Dr.
Bull was

b

mon Magus, but owed its growth and establishment to pagan philosophers embracing the Christian religion, and blending their philosophy with it; and therefore he laboured to expose to the utmost contempt the greatest man of his time among the heathen converts to Christianity, and one whose pen had served twice to stop the fury of two persecutions, by two famous Apologies which he wrote in behalf of the Christians; and to represent this very person who was of so great eminence among the primitive Christians and martyrs, and who lived in communion with the disciples of the apostles, as the principal corrupter of Christianity, and the intruder of a new Christ and a new Gospel, because he hath spoken so plainly of the preexistence and Godhead of Christ. Wherein he hath been followed by the author of the Judgment of the Fathers touching the Trinity, who hath taken out of his quiver the arrows which he hath shot against both the person and the doctrine of this blessed martyr; and by several others, who have written in defence of the ancient heretics and heresies, thereby to overthrow Dr. Bull's Defence of the Nicene Faith, and the authority of his Ante-Nicene witnesses.

LXX. No wonder therefore if Dr. Bull's zeal was kindled against such writers as these, when he found, what he verily believed upon the strictest examinaker, and tion to be the true apostolical and catholic faith, and

moved to write against Zuic

such as co

pied after the very pillar and foundation of the whole Gospel,

him.

b [Justin Martyr.]

1703.

to be thus by them blasphemed: to see the most 1694primitive tradition of the purest ages of Christianity, concerning the divinity of the Logos, and the preexistent spiritual nature of Christ before his assumption of the servile form of flesh, to be represented as no other than the very spawn of Simonianism and Cerinthianism, or as a relict of pagan polytheism: and to find those heretics who renounced the very principles of Christianity, and denied the lawfulness of calling upon Jesus Christ, confidently set up and ranked among the primitive witnesses of the Gospel; which some of them had never so much as once embraced, being contented to live in the communion of the synagogue, and hold their Jewish notions concerning the person of Christ; and from which others of them actually apostatized, denying the Lord that bought them; while at the same time the most substantial and venerable evidences of our holy faith are by pretended Christians set aside, and loudly cried down for no better than impostors and cheats; and while even two out of three of the heavenly witnesses themselves, that is, the WORD and the SPIRIT, are placed by them in the very same rank with those Baalims which the idolatrous Jews worshipped, together with the only true God, soon after the decease of Joshua,

C

Such as these were the provocations which made Dr. Bull so vehement in his charge against some of the modern Arians, and Samosatenians, or Socinians, as to give the former the name of Ariomanitæ, or the bewitched Arians, and to the system of the lat

C

Judgment of the Fathers, &c. p. 48, 49.

d [Dr. Bull did not invent this term it is used by Athanasius and Epiphanius.]

1694- ter, that of the atheistical heresy; at which the 1703. English Antitrinitarians, who about this time boasted very much of their strength and numbers, were so desperately incensed against him, that one in the name of all the rest declared, that no respect or tenderness ought to be shewn him by any Unitarian. They accused him of mad fzeal and bigotry, of supercilious malevolence and arrogance, yea, of barbarities towards them; they called him even an Hildebrand, for his uncourtlike treating of them; and for breaking the cartel, as they called it, of honour and civility that was thought to be agreed and established between persons of excellent learning or great abilities, when they happen to be engaged on contrary sides; they railed bitterly at him for his shewing so very little deference to the merit of their learning and penetration; for his contempt of their greatest champions, and for his exposing their arguments, as no better than mere sophistries, without the least degree of pity; they upbraided him with want of good manners; and they imputed his writing so warmly and heartily in defence of the Nicene faith, either to his fear or to his ambition, or to both, and not to any regard for the truth, or esteem for primitive and genuine Christianity; they pretended, that he was so apprehensive of the growing interest of the Unitarians in this kingdom, as almost to be afraid lest it might one day be strong enough to turn him out of his parsonage or prebend; and that this was one principal motive of his appearing

e The Judgment of the Fathers concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity, &c. Printed an. 1695.

f Considerations on the Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity, &c. 1694.