rather, I suppose, because the argument is learned, and must lose much of its force and strength on our side, when stripped of its additional advantages from history and antiquity: besides that the unlearned reader (especially in this controversy) may be easily imposed upon by little turns and fallacies; such as have been tried, and examined, and despised, long ago, by those that have been thoroughly read and conversant in these matters. But to proceed to what I design, by way of remark upon this writer and his performance: the sum of what he pretends to is contained in the following particulars.

1. That we have no sufficient grounds for charging the Arian doctrine with the belief or worship of two Gods. 2. Nor for our own doctrine that Father and Son are one God.

3. That we have no certain warrant for appropriating every kind and degree of religious worship to God alone. 4. That mediatorial worship may be due to Christ, though not true God, or supreme God.

5. That Dr. Waterland has, in effect, given up the

main of what the Arians contend for.

These several particulars (containing his sense, though, for brevity and perspicuity, expressed in my own words) must be examined in their order.

1. He pretends, first, that we have no sufficient grounds for charging the Arian doctrine with the belief or worship of two Gods. He has a particular fancy of his own, that the phrase two Gods signifies two supreme independent Gods, p. 32. And that a supreme God and a subordinate God are not two Gods, p. 34. I shall, first, examine his reasons for this; and, next, endeavour to convince him that it is neither true in itself, nor would answer his purpose, if it really were true.

He observes, from Matt. vi. 24. that two masters do not there mean a supreme and a subordinate master, but two coordinate or independent masters, p. 32. He could not have pitched upon an instance less to his purpose.

It

may appear somewhat harsh to put God and mammon so much upon the level, as to suppose them two coordinate or independent masters: but, waving that, it is very plain that the text is meant of two opposite or disagreeing masters, whether coordinate or subordinate. If two coordinate masters agreed perfectly together, it would be as easy to serve both as one. If this text be any rule for the common way of speaking, two coordinate or independent masters (provided they were but wise enough and good enough to agree constantly in every thing) could not be justly called two masters. The Trinitarian Tritheists, if there be any such, will, I suppose, be very thankful to our author for this discovery. Upon the hardest supposition that can be made, the doctrine of the Trinity, upon these principles, will stand perfectly clear of Tritheism: so that if the author has any way served his own cause, he has at the same time been extremely kind to his adversaries. But what hinders this text from being at all serviceable either to one or the other is, that the expression here, in St. Matthew, is somewhat particular and unusual; and can by no means be made a rule of speech, against the more general and current use of language.

This writer endeavours, next, to find some instances of a sovereign and a subordinate king, which together were not, or are not, two kings. He instances in David and Solomon; who were not, that I know of, each of them a king at the same time. He proceeds farther to the instance of Pharaoh and Joseph; that is, of a king and no king and he instances in a king of Great Britain and a lord lieutenant of Ireland; that is, again, a king and no king: so hard a matter is it any where to meet with two that are kings, and yet are not two kings.

:

He observes, next, that "one Saviour, one Master, one "Potentate, one Father, one Lord, one Shepherd, &c. "signify one supreme Saviour, Potentate, Master, &c. "and so two Gods must necessarily signify two supreme "Gods," p. 33. But, for any thing he knows, "one

"Saviour, one Master, one Potentate, &c." may as well signify one heavenly, or one adorable, or one necessarily existent Saviour, Master, Potentate, &c. one, in some distinguishing, emphatical sense, whatever it be; yet not excluding what essentially belongs to that one. Our blessed Lord is one Lord, (1 Cor. viii. 6.) and yet I hardly believe our author will construe it one supreme Lord, or one Lord in the highest sense. He is also our Saviour,

emphatically and eminently so styled; yet this writer will not from thence conclude that he is supreme Saviour, and all others (suppose the Father himself) subordinate to him. This author therefore has taken a very uncertain and fallible rule for the interpreting of emphatical appellations. Besides that if one God signifies one supreme God; then, since all but the supreme God are excluded from being Gods, in any religious sense, the consequence is, that an inferior God is no God; not that a supreme and an inferior God (were they really each of them a God) are not two Gods. This gentleman then, we see, is very far from proving his point. We may, in the next place, consider, whether it be not capable of a clear confutation.

I had before argued that one God and another God make two Gods, or else one of them is no God, contrary to the supposition: which reasoning is so plain and strong, that I thought it might be trusted with the meanest reader. But this serious gentleman (I know not why, except it be that he is not used to consider this controversy) suspects it all to be banter, p. 36. I will offer one argument more, which perhaps may take with him. The Pagans, though they professed generally (as is well known to the learned) one only supreme God, looking upon all the rest as subordinate ministers of the one supreme, yet stand charged with Polytheism by the Jews, by the ancient Christians, by the common consent of mankind. Thus Jupiter and Mercury (though one was supposed a subordinate minister of the other) were, by the

Lycaonians, spoken of in the plural number as gods; that is, two gods, Acts xiv. 11, 12. And this has been the common way of speaking, in all writers I have met with, sacred or profane, ancient or modern.

But what if the customary usage of language had been otherwise; does this writer imagine that the dispute is only about a name? If the changing of a name would set all right, I do not know any man of sense that would contend about such a trifle. To extricate this matter, Polytheism may be considered either in a stricter or a larger sense: it may either signify the belief of more Gods than one, in the proper sense of necessarily existing, supreme, &c. (in which sense there have been few, very few Polytheists; the Pagans themselves, generally, were not Polytheists in this sense ;) or it may signify the receiving more Gods than one, in respect of religious worship, whatever opinion of those Gods they may otherwise have. It is this kind of Polytheism which the first commandment has chiefly respect to: and it is the same that Pagans, Arians, and Socinians, stand justly charged with. Should any man alter the name, the thing would be the same still. For suppose we should not call it Polytheism, it would not appear at all the better, under the name of idolatry; which it really is, as well as Polytheism. I must observe farther, that though the Arians or Socinians, or other such Polytheists, do not believe in two supreme Gods, and so, in that respect, are not speculative Tritheists, or Ditheists; yet by paying worship, religious worship, (the incommunicable honour due to the supreme God only,) to two Gods, they do by construction and implication, though not in intention, make two supreme Gods; and consequently are practical Ditheists, at least, even in the highest and strictest sense of Ditheism.-Thus much may suffice for the first particular. This author has not cleared the Arian doctrine from the charge of receiving two Gods: nor if he had, would his cause be at all the better by changing the name from Polytheism, or Ditheism, to that of idolatry.

Not to mention that, upon his principles, it is the easiest thing in the world for the Catholics, admitting a subordination of order, to get perfectly clear of Tritheism, which is the grand objection: besides that, in his way of explaining the exclusive terms, the Catholics will easily answer every text he can bring to prove the Father only to be the true God: for it is only saying that he is so emphatically, or unoriginately, and the Son may be true God and necessarily existing notwithstanding: so that if this writer has at all weakened one of our arguments against the Arians, he has, at the same time, very kindly cut the sinews of all, or however of the most considerable arguments of the Arians against us; and so has really disserved his own cause, more than he has served it.

2. The second particular which I propose to examine, is his pretence that "we have not sufficient grounds to "conclude that Father and Son are one God." He does not undertake to examine or confute all we have to urge upon that head: but so much only as we urge by way of prooff of Christ's Divinity. We are used to plead thus: the Father is God, and the Son God, and yet God is one: therefore Father and Son are one God. This is the argument (though rather too briefly expressed) which he labours to confute for many pages together. We are now to see how he has performed.

He observes that God is the only Saviour, Othniel also a Saviour; and yet God and Othniel are not one Saviour,

• Just and wise is the reflection of a judicious Father on this head, in the following words. Μήτε τὸ τῆς τριθεΐας ἔγκλημα αἰσχυνθῆς, ἕως ἂν καὶ ἄλλος κινδυνεύῃ τὴν διθεΐαν. ἢ γὰρ συνέλυσας, ἢ συνηπόρησας, ἢ ὁ μὲν ἐναυάγησε μετὰ τῶν λογισμῶν καὶ θεότητα, σοὶ δὲ παρέμεινε θεότης, καὶ εἰ ὁ λόγος ἠσθένησε, κρεῖσσον καμεῖν ἐν τοῖς λογισμοῖς μετὰ τῆς ὁδηγίας τοῦ πνεύματος, ἢ προσχείρως ἀσεβῆσαι, Tùv paorávny diãxovra. Greg. Nazianz. Orat. xxiii. p. 422.

f N. B. Every argument which proves Christ to be God in the strict sense, proves him to be the one God, since God is one. But in that way Christ's Divinity is presupposed; and his being the one God inferred afterwards. The argument from worship proceeds differently, proving Christ to be God in the strict sense, because he is the one true adorable God.