PREFACE To " THE ARIAN INVITED TO THE ORTHODOX FAITH." WHILE I was writing the little treatise of the " Christian Doctrine of the Trinity." the subject carried my thoughts away into several occasional sentiments, and incidental truths. These would have interrupted the thread of my designed discourse too much, if they hail been mingled with the seve- ral propositions to which they belong. I thought it proper therefore to throe them into distinct dissertations, several of which I had concluded before that treatise was made public. It was my design to have finished them all at that time ; but some pro- vidential occurrences broke off those studies, and 1 have been farther pre- vented by other requests of my friends, and my own promised engagements of various kinds, from resuming that subject again, till a fewmonths ago this last winter. A man who through long weakness of body is rendered incapa- ble of applying' himself above six or seven hours in a week to any peculiar study, distinct from his necessary work, may be well excused if he is slowin the publication of any thing upon such a controverted doctrine. I confess when I wrote that little -book, I had no purpose of engaging myself in controversy. My intention was only to exhibit the plain naked doctrine of the Trinity, viz. " That the Father, Son, and Spirit, are repre- sented in scripture under three personal characters, andyet as having commu- nion in one godhead," without entering into any particular modes of expli- cation, and without pretending to say new things on that article, either by way of position or argument. My chief view and design was toestablish plain, unlearned christians in the faith of that doctrine, by those scriptural evidences, which seemed to me strong and convincing ; and to lay a founda- tion for extensive charity, by making it appear that no particular mode of explication was plainly and evidently determined in the word of God : And that the scripture has made our salvation to depend on those offices which these divine persons sustain, and on the honours due to them according to those offices, rather than upon any deep philosophical notionsof their essence and personalities, any nice and exact acquaintance with their mysterious union and distinction. I presumed therefore that if any persons who disbelieved the properdeity of the Son and Spirit, had amind to signalize themselves by an opposition to the common faith, theywould have chosen some author of superior rank who hadentered more largely into the merits of the cause, and by a full. and particular explication of the scriptural proofs thereof, had vindicated that doc- trine in a more complete and controversial manner. But 1 found myselfmis- taken for seine months after my treatise appeared in the world, there was published a professed answer to it, bearing this title,. " A sober Appeal to a Turkor an Indian concerning the plain Sense of Scripture relating to the Tri- nity, being an Answer to Mr. I. Watts's late Book, intitled, The Christian Doctrine, &c." I have avery great disinclination to handle the saw of con- troversy, especially in matters so divine and sacred; andmy imperfect health does by nomeans permit me to lay sot many hours in such work. My lite itself, that is, all the useful moments of it, are so shortened and diminished hereby, that I find them all mach too few for the more agreeable parts of that service towhich Christ hascalled me ; and upon this account I shall not think
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