poured out to testify that they were flour and water still? No man, surely; because this is a position, the proofs of which are fubmitted to all men, and a stronger degree of teftimony, than my stedfastness, may be and is borne to it by the senses of all mankind. Both fides of this question have had their bleeding advocates, and are they therefore both true? I will go yet farther and say, that were I to undergo the sharpest afflictions for entertaining the opposite doctrine to that of Mr. Lindsey, (and I would undergo them rather than depart from the belief for which I think I have so sufficient grounds) yet I should not conceive that I had added even the flightest proof of the truth of it. My fincerity the world would, I believe, allow, but what could my fincerity evince? I suffer for a position, and because I have believed it upon arguments seeming fufficient to me; if they be in fact sufficient, I have done well to adhere to them, and they were as valid before my suffering as afterwards; and if they are defective, my miferies cannot alter the conclufions following from them. Their truth or falsehood, the justice or injuftice of the inference are pre-exiftent to my teftimony, and so absolutely independent of my belief, or any proofs that I may give of the sincerity of my belief, and are so far from deriving strength from my suffering in behalf of them, that they would have been precisely the same though I had never been born, as if I had made my exit at a stake. I am anxious to establish this point, and therefore dwell upon it, for I fear that too easy credit may be yielded to a doctrine held forth by a claimant to martyrdom; the feal of blood has given a seeming validity to many a position, from which the affertors had before derived no glory; the stake, where it has been the only argument, has sometimes been considered as a very convincing one; and a departure in flames has been thought to have revealed

vealed the angel, where the precepts for which they are sustained had perhaps only shewed forth the contemptible man: But martyrdom is not now to be deduced from fincerity, which is all that can be concluded from ftrenuous suffering. The apostles indeed were martyrs, they bore teftimony to facts submitted to their senses, and had even a sensible perception of divine assistance, of which also they gave proofs to the world: They bore teftimony, and they would not recede from it; what they teftified they knew, and promulgated by ex traordinary aid, of which they were eminently confcious; what they knew, not what opinions they formed without divine assistance, was their doctrine; and from the teftimony of what they knew they would not be deterred; they suffered, and their constancy was a proof of their fincerity: But they were fincere, not in the maintenance of dubious controvertible doctrines, but in having teftified, that what they had preached they had known. As then they were fincere, and had proved themselves so, we must conclude that they did know what they had preached, and consider their stedfast adherence to what they had fet out with as an exceedingly strong teftimony borne to the truth of it; and such a testimony as this is what is properly called martyrdom. I hope that this may be sufficient to warn my readers from looking upon fincerity as a proof of the opinion fincerely believed; let it recommend the heart, but by no means the head, the errors of which may be as fincerely believed as the best established maxims.

The prodigious number of names, only pretending to human authority, which are produced by Mr. Lindsey to support his doctrines, might perhaps be well opposed by citing as great a multitude of eminent men, who have agreed with the church of England, and afcribed divinity to our blessed Saviour. Were it only to fatisfy fatisfy him, with whom, I fear, the authority of the scriptures will fignify but little, I would pursue this course of argument (if argument it may be called); but I fcorn any other foundation than that of God himself, whose written word, not seen through the medium of a comment, is alone evidence to me; let it not therefore be inferred, that I am unable to meet him upon his own ground, because I choose that which is better; for I could, to him, oppose as good human authority to maintain my belief as any ten Dutch women in Europe, however strenuously they might have sustained and fuffered for the doctrines of Anabaptifm,

The dispositions of mankind lean toward those who flatter their reafon, and endeavour to reduce all things to her comprehenfion, or to those who abet that pride with which she is defirous of rejecting whatsoever she cannot comprehend; from this principle it is that they who familiarly illustrate the most unfamiliar difficulties, or flatly deny the existence of that which tranfcends the faculties of man, are heard with partial ears. Againft this prejudice also, in favour of Mr. Lindsey, I am obliged to guard; for he has declared, that " our Saviour Christ teacheth no mysterious doctrines". As I have already faid, that the scriptures shall be my only appeal; to this denial of a mystery, nay to that ridicule with which the word Mystery is treated throughout Mr. Lindsey's book, I shall oppose the serious declaration of St. Paul, who, speaking of the gospel of Jefus Chrift and him crucified, and that not with enticing words of Man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit, that our faith might stand not in the wisdom of man, but the power of God, declares, "we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery"; and this he says he does " by the Spirit of God, by which alone the deep things of God are searched"; and he farther declares, that

that "the spirit compares spiritual things with spiritual; but that these things are foolishness to the natural man who receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." See Cor. ii.

Will Mr. Lindsey now perfevere to say, that the doctrine of Christ is not mysterious? The moral doctrines delivered by himself I grant, indeed, are not fo; but on the contrary most perfpicuously clear; but a manifeftation of him who delivered those doctrines, and a reve

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lation testifying of him, and setting forth who he was, and is, and shall eternally be, and that " in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," Coloff. ii .9. Is not this a mystery? " Now, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness; God was made manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory," I Tim. iii. 16. Let us then beware of the philosophy of the natural man, of the enticing words of man's wisdom, which St. Paul has warned us against, because he well foresaw that it would stand in the way and preclude " the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Chrift," Coloff. ii. 2. This warning to beware of the deceits of philosophy is given at such a time, and in context with fuch a doctrine, as makes it utterly aftonishing to me how any man in his fenfes should attempt to warp it to the purposes of overturning our Saviour's divinity: We are defired to beware of it, because it might be opposite to the declaration which immediately follows, that " in Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;" that " Christ is all in all;" that "Christ forgave us all;" that " of the Lord we shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for we serve the Lord Chrift;" that "whatsoever we do, we should do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto

man." In short, St. Paul has given us this warning in the midst of his epiftle to the Coloffians, to which I refer as a most explicit declaration of our Saviour's divinity throughout. Let us just confider now, whether this warning can have any other object in view. Mr. Lindsey's principal objection to the Godhead of Chrift, is, that it is not reconcilable to reason; St. Paul says, that the Greek requires wifdom. Mr. Lindfey says, that it is a doctrine fraught not only with impiety but abfurdity; St. Paul says, that it is to the Greek foolishness. Of what doctrines, of what philofophy now was St. Paul afraid? Will Mr. Lindsey say, that he feared that the Greeks would, from their demand for a reasonable doctrine, adopt a doctrine contrary to what he thinks reasonable himself? Or will he say that the apoftle apprehended, from their aversion to that which was foolish, their adoption of a doctrine which he himfelf declares to be foolish? If this be his mode of reafoning, it is so self-fubverted that it requires only to be read for its own confutation. His assertion, that the Trinity is an idea adopted from Plato, is full of impiety, and so extreamly weak, that I am forry to fee any man capable of promulgating it; and, were I not affured of this gentleman's fincerity, from the proof which he has given to the world, that upon the whole he disbelieves our Saviour's divinity, I should incline to conceive that he meant to impose this on mankind upon the faith of a martyr. I will now advance one of the like nature, and assure Mr. Lindsey that the idea of the Unity of God is derived from the philofophy of Socrates, who, notwithstanding his having been educated in a country where such a doctrine was esteemed impious, yet dared to preach this imagination of his own brain. How does this sound? Just as well as the other, and is advanced with fully equal truth. For my own part, I muft now declare to this gentleman, that (fo far from having