'phemy, and because that thou being a ' man makest thyself God.' They understood well enough the meaning of those words, 'I and my Father are one;' namely, that they were a plain affertion of his being God. This caused their rage. And this the Jews all abide by to this day; namely, that he declared himself to be God, and therefore they flew him. Whereas therefore the first discovery of a plurality of perfons, in the divine essence, confifts in the revelation of the divine nature and perfonality of the Son, this being oppofed, perfecuted, and blafphemed by these Jews, they may be justly looked upon and esteemed as the first asserters of that mifbelief, which now some seek again fo earnestly to promote. The Jews perfecuted the Lord Christ, because he being a man, declared himself also to be God; and others are ready to revile and reproach them who believe and teach what he declared.

After the refurrection and afcenfion of the Lord Jesus, all things being filled with tokens, evidences and effects of his divine nature and power, Rom. i. 4. the church that began to be gathered in his name, and according to his doctrine, being by his especial institution to be initiated into the express express profession of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as being to be baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, ' and the Holy Ghost,' which confeffion compriseth the whole of the truth contended for; and by the indispensible placing of it at the first entrance into all obedience unto him, is made the doctrinal foundation of the church; it continued for a feafon in the quiet and undisturbed poffeffion of this facred treafure.

The first who gave disquietment unto the disciples of Christ by perverting the doctrine of the Trinity was Simon Magus, with his followers; an account of whofe monstrous figments, and unintelligible imaginations, with their coincidence with what some men dream in these latter days, shall elfewhere be given. Nor shall I need here to mention the Colluvies of Gnostics, Valentinians, Marcionites and Manichees, the foundation of all whose abominations lay in their mif-apprehenfions of the being of God, their unbelief of the Trinity, and the perfon of Christ, as do those of fome others alfo.

In especial there was one Cerinthus, who was more active than others in his opposition to the doctrine of the perfon of Chrift, and therein of the Holy Trinity.

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To put a stop unto his abominations, all authors agree, that John, writing his gofpel, prefixed unto it that plain declaration of the eternal deity of Christ, which it is prefaced withal. And the story is well attested by Irenæus, Eufebius, and others, from Polycarpus, who was his difciple: That this Cerinthus coming into the place where the apostle was, he left it, adding, as a reason of his departure, lest the building, through the just judgment of God, should fall upon them. And it was of the holy, wife providence of God, to fuffer fome impious persons to oppose this doctrine before the death of that apcftle, that he might by infallible inspiration farther reveal, manifeft, and declare it to the establishment of the church in future ages. For what can farther be defired to fatisfy the minds of men, who in any fenfe own the Lord Jesus Christ, and the scriptures; than that this controversy about the Trinity and perfon of Christ (for they stand and fall together) should be so eminently and exprefly determined, as it were immediately from heaven?

But he, with whom we have to deal in this matter, neither ever did, nor ever will, nor can acquiefce or rest in the divine determination of any thing, which he hath stirred

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stirred up strife and controverfy about. For as Cerinthus and Ebionites perfisted in the heresy of the Jews, who would have flain our Saviour for bearing witness to his own deity, notwithstanding the evidence of that teftimony, and the right apprehenfion which the Jews had of his mind therein; fo he excited others to engage and perfift in their oppofition to the truth, notwithstanding this second particular determination of it from heaven, for their confutation or confufion. For after the more weak and confused oppositions made unto it by Theodotus-coriarius, Artemon, and fome others, at length a stout champion appears visibly, and exprefly engages a gainst these fundamentals of our faith. This was Paulus Samofatenus, bishop of the church of Antioch, about the year 272, A man of most intolerable pride, paffion, and folly; the greatest that hath left a name upon ecclefiaftical records. This man openly and avowedly denied the doctrine of the Trinity, and the deity of Christ in an especial manner. For although he endeavoured, for a while, to cloud his impious sentiments in ambiguous expressions, as others also have done (Eufeb. lib. 7. cap. 27.] yet being pressed by the profeffors of the truth, and supposing his party

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was fomewhat confirmed, he plainly defended his herefy, and was cast out of the church wherein he presided. Some fixty years after, Photinus Bishop of Syrmium, with a pretence of more fobriety in life and converfation, undertook the management of the fame design, with the fame fuccefs.

What ensued afterwards among the churches of God in this matter, is of too large and diffused a nature to be here reported. These instances I have fixed on, only to intimate unto persons, whose condition or occafions afford them not ability, or leifure of themselves, to enquire into the memorials of times past amongst the profeffors of the gospel of Christ, that these oppofitions which are made at present amongst us unto these fundamental truths, and derived immediately from the late renewed inforcement of them made by Faustus Socinus and his followers, are no thing but old baffled attempts of Satan, against the rock of the church and the building thereon, in the confeffion of the Son of the living God.

Now, as all men who have ought of a due reverence of God, or his truth, remaining with them, cannot be but wary how they give the least admittance to fuch