All that have gone before him were knaves, fools, idiots, madmen. The proof of these assertions you are to expect. When a philosopher pressed Diogenes with this sophism, " What I am, thou art not ; I am a man, therefore thou art not," he gave him no other answer but, " Begin with me, and the conclusion will be true." Mr B. is a Master of Arts, and knew, doubtless, that such assertions as might be easily turned upon him- self are of no use to any but those who have not aught else to say. Per- haps Mr B. speaks only to them of the same mind with himself ; and then,
Kro'TTov yap, ti o auris a'Tifros, ii rourou koyoi 'iffcvrai ^iirrol. — Arist. Rhet. lib. iii.
cap. XV. > " Calumniare fortiter; aliquid adhsercbit."
TO HIS CATECHISM EXAMINED. 61
indeed, as Socrates said, it was no hard thing to commend the Athenians before the Athenians, but to commend them before the Lacedpemonians was difficult.^ No more is it any great undertaking to condemn men sound in the faith unto Socinians ; before others it will not prove so easy.
It is not incumbent on me to defend any, much less all the catechisms that have been written by learned men of the reformed religion. That there are errors in some, mistakes in others ; that some are more clear, plain, and scriptural than others, I grant. All of them may have, have had, their use in their kind. That in any of them there is any thing taught inconsistent with communion with Grod, or inevitably tending to the impairing of faith and love, Mr B. is not, I presume, such a (pi7^6- vovoi; as to undertake to demonstrate. I shall only add, that notwith- standing the vain plea of having given all his answers in the express words of Sei-ipture (whereby, with the foolish bird, he hides his head from the fowler, but leaves his whole monstrous body visible, the teaching part of his Catechism being solely in the insinuating, ensnaring, captious ques- tions thereof, leading the understanding of the reader to a misapprehen- sion and misapplication of the words of the Scripture, it being very easy to make up the grossest blasjjhemy imaginable out of the words of the Scripture itself), I never found, saw, read, or heard of any so grossly per- verting the doctrine of the Scripture concerning God and all his ways as those of Mr B.'s do ; for in sundry particulars they exceed those men- tioned before of Socinus, Smalcius, Schlichtingius, which had justly gotten the repute of the worst in the world. And for an account of my reason of this persuasion I refer the reader to the ensuing considerations of them.
This, then, being the sad estate of Christians, so misinformed by such vile varlets as have so foully deceived them and misled them, as above mentioned, what is to be done and Avhat course to be taken to bring in light into the world, and to deliver men from the sorrowful condition whereinto they have been catechised ? For this end, he tells the reader, doth he show himself to the world (©aog aero fLriyjxvrii), to undeceive them, and to bring them out of all their wanderings unto some certainty of re- ligion.^ This he discourses, pp. 4, 5. The reasons he gives you of this undertaking are two : — 1. " To bring men to a certainty;" 2. " To satisfy the pious desire of some who would fain know the truth of our religion." The way he fixes on for the compassing of the end proposed is : — 1. " By asserting nothing;" 2. " By introducing the plain texts of Scripture to speak for themselves." Each briefly may be considered.
1. What fluctuating persons are they, not yet come to any certainty in religion, whom ]\Ir B. intends to deal withal ? Those, for the most part, of them who seem to be intended in such undertakings, are fully persuaded from the Scripture of the truth of those things wherein they have been instructed. Of those, some, I have heard, have been unsettled by Mr B., but that he shall ever settle any (there being no consistency in error or falsehood) is impossible. Mr B. knows there is no one of the catechists he so deci-ies but directs them whom he so instructs to the Scriptures, and settles their fiiith on the word of God alone, though they labour to help their faith and understanding by opening of it; whereunto also they are called, I fear Mr B.'s certainty will at length appear to be scepticism, and his settling of men to be the unsettling ; that his conver-
' Ou y(^a.Xi'!roi 'Affttvcciuvs In ' A^fivaiois WaiviTv, uXX' iv Aaxt^aifcoviois. — Socrat. apud Plat, in Menexen. Git. Arist. Ehct. lib. iii. cap. xiv.
2 " Multa passim ab ultima vetustate vitia admissasunt, qua; nemopraeter me indicabit." — Scalig.
C2 THE PREFACE OF MR BIDDLE
sions are from the faith; and that in this very book he aims more to ac- quaint men -vyith his questions than the Scripture answers.^ But he says, —
2. Those whom he aims to bring to this certainty are "such as would fain understand the truth of our religion." If by " our religion" he means the religion of himself and his followers (or rather masters), the Socinians, I am sorry to hear that any are so greedy of its acquaintance.^ Happily this is but a pretence, such as his predecessors in this work have commonly used. [As] for understanding the truth of it, they will find in the issue what an endless work they have undertaken. " Who can make that straight Avhich is crooked, or number that which is wanting ?'' If by "our religion" he means the Christian religion, it may well be inquired who they are, with their "just and pious desires," who yet understand not the truth of Christian religion ? that is, that it is the only true religion. When we know these Turks, Jews, Pagans, which Mr B. hath to deal withal, we shall be able to judge of what reason he had to labour to satisfy their "just and pious desires." I would also willingly be informed how they came to so high an advancement in ovir religion as to desire to be brought up in it, and to be able to instruct others, when as yet they do not understand the truth of it, or are not satisfied therein. And, —