* l::ocin. ad Weik, cap. ix. p. 151 ; Smalc. Rcspon. ad lib. Sir.iglec. lib. i c:ip. i. p. 1.
1 4 THE PREFACE TO THE READER.
time wherein some of them acted their parts in tlie service of their master. "Wliat could possibly be more desired, for the safeguarding of any truth fi-om the attempts of succeeding generations, and for giving it a security above all control, than that, upon public and owned opposition, it should receive a confirmation by men acted by the Holy Gliost, and giving out their sentence by inspiration from God ? That, among other important heads of the gospel (as that of justification by faith and not by works, of Christian liberty, of the resurrection of the dead), this most glorious truth, of the eternal deity of the Son of God, underwent an open opposition from some of them above written, during the life of some of the apostles, before the writing of the Gospel by John, and was expressly vindicated by him in the beginning thereof, is acknowledged by all who have in any measure inquired into and impartially weighed the reports of those days. What could the heart of the most resolved unbeliever desire more for his satis- faction, than that God should speak from heaven for the conviction of his folly and ignorance? or what can our adversaries expect more from us, when we tell them that God himself immediately determined in the con- troversy wherein they are engaged ? Perhaps they think that if he should now speak from heaven they would believe him. So said the Jews to Christ, if he would come down from the cross when they had nailed him to it, in the sight and inider the contempt of many miracles greater than the delivei'y of himself could any Avay appear to be. The rich man in torments thought his bi-ethren would re])ent if one came from the dead and preached to tliem. Abraham tells him, " If they will not hear Moses and the projihets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Doubtless, if what is already written be not sufficient to convince our ad- versaries, though God should speak from heaven they would not believe, nor indeed can, if they will abide by the fundamental principles of their religion. Under this great disadvantage did the pei'suasion of the Soci- nians set out in the world, that Chiist is only -^l^iXhg avO^oj^rog, — by nature no more but a man; so that persons not deeply acquainted with the methods of Satan and the darkness of the minds of men could not but be ready to conclude it certainly bound up in silence for ever. But how speedily it revived, with what pride and passion it was once and again endeavoured to be propagated in the world, those who have read the stories of Paidus Samosatenus are fully acquainted, who yvij.r/i rfj xsZaXf, blas- jihemed the Son of God as one no more than a man. In some space of time, these men being decried by the general consent of the residue of mankind professing the name of Jesus Christ, and their abomination de- stroyed by the sword of faith, managed in the hands of the saints of those days, Satan perceiving himself at a loss and under an impossibility of pre- valency, whilst the grossnoss of the error he strove to diffuse terrified all sorts from having any thing to do therewith, he puts on it, by the help of Arius and his ibllowers, another gloss and apjiearance, with a pretence of allowing Christ a deity, though a subordinate, created, made, divine nature, which in the fulness of time assimied flesh of the virgin; — this opinion being, indeed, no less really destructive to the true and etei'nal deity of the Son of God than that of theirs before mentioned, who expressly affirmed him to be a mere man, and to have had no existence before his nati- \'ity at Bethlehem ; yet having got a new pretence and colour of ascribing something more excellent and sublime unto him than that whereof we are all in conuiion partakers, it is incredible with what speedy progress, like the breaking out of a mighty flood, it overspread the face of the earth. It is true, it had in its very entrance all the advantages of craft, fraud, and
THE PREFACE TO THE READER. 1 5
svibtilty, and in its carrying on, of violence, force, and cruelty, and from the beginning to its end, of ignorance, blindness, superstition, and profane- ness, among the generality of them with whom it had to deal, that ever any corrupt folly of the mind of man met Avithal. The rise, progress, cruelty, and continuance of this sect, with tlie times and seasons that ]>assed with it over the nations, its entertainment by the many barbarous nations which wasted, spoiled, and divided among themselves the Roman empire, with their parting with it upon almost as evil an account as at first they embraced it, are not, as I said, my business now to discover. God purposing to revenge the pride, ingratitude, ignorance, profaneness, and idohitry of the world, which was then in a great measure got in amongst the professors of Cliris- tianity, by another more spiritual, cruel, subtile, and lasting " mystery of iniquity," caused this abomination of Arianism to give place to the power of the then growing Roman antichristian state, which, about tlie sixth or seventh century of years since the incarnation of the Son of Grod, having lost all church order and communion of the institution of Jesus Chirist, fell into an earrhly, political, carnal condjination, authorized and animated by tlie s|)irit of Satan, for the ends of superstition, idolatry, persecution, pride, and atheism; which thereby ever since [have been] vigorously pursued.