PREFACE TO " THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINEOF THE TRINITY. THE late controversies about the important Doctrine of the Trinity, have engaged multitudes of christians in a fresh study of that subject; and amongst the rest I thought it my duty to review my opinions and nay faith. In my younger years, when I endeavoured to form my judg- ment on that article, the Socinians were the chief or only popular opponents. Upon a,honest search ofthe scripture, and a comparison of their notions with it, I wondered how it was possible forany per- son to believe the bible to be the word of God, and yet to believe, that Jesus Christ was a mere man. So perverse and preposterous did their sense of thescripture appear, that I was amazed how men, who pretended to reason above their neighbours, could wrench and strain their understandings, and subdue their assent to such interpretations. And I am of the same mind still. But while I was then establishing my sentiments of the Deityof. the Son and Spirit by the plain expressions of scripture, and the as- sistance of learned writers. I was ledeasily into the scholatic forms of explication ; this being the current language of several centuries. And thus unawares I mingled those opinions of the schools, with the snore plain and scriptural doctrine, and thought them all necessary to: my faith, as thousands had done before me. When I lately resumed this study, I found that the refinersof the Arian heresy had introduced a much more plausible scheme than that of Socinus. While I read some of these writers, I was so much di- vested of prejudice, and so sincerely willing to find any new light, which might render this sublime doctrine more intelligible, that some persons would have charged me with lukewarmness and indifference. But I think my heart was upright in these enquiries. And as the result of my search, I must say, that I am a steadfast and sincere believer of the godhead of Christ still. For though these authors give a rational and successful turn to some places of scripture, which I thought once did contain a substantial argument for that truth, yet there was never any thing that I could find in these new writings, that gave mea satis- fying answer to that old, that general and extensive argument for the Deity of the Son and Spirit, which I have proposed in its clearest light in the eighth proposition. The expressions of scripture on that bead were so nurueroos, so evident, so firm and strong, that I could not with any justice and reason enter into the sentiments of this new scheme. But after a due survey of it, I was fully convinced, that the professors of it, who denied theSon and Spirit to have true and eternal godhead belonging to them, were so far departed from the christian faith. I render hearty thanks to God, -who hath soguarded the free- dom of my thoughts, as to keep them religiously submissive to plain revelation ; and has made these later enquiries a means to establish my faith in this blessed article : The Father, Son and Spirit, are three* persons and one God, and to confirm it by juster and brighter evidences, than I was possessed of before. * Let itbe ever remembered, that both in the title, the preface, and through. out the whole treatise, I take the word " person" tosignify no more than a suffi- cient distinction between the sacred Three, to sustain the distinct characters and cffioes assigned to them in scripture.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=