82 THE PREFACE OF MR BIDDLE
doubt not but it will appear to eveiy person Avhatsoever, in the process of this business, who hath his senses any thing exercised in tlie word to dis- cern between good and evil, and whose eyes the god of this woild hath not blinded, that the glorious light of the gospel of God should not shine into their hearts, that ]Mr B., as wise as he deems and reports himself to be, is indeed, like the foolish woman that pulls down her house Avith both her hands, labouring to destroy the house of God with all his strength, ])retending that this and that part of it did not originally be- long thereto (or like Ajax, in his madness, who killed sheep, and supposed they had been his enemies^), upon the account of that enmity which he finds in his own mind unto them.
The close of Mr B.'s preface contains an exhortation to the study of the word, with an account of the success he himself hath obtained in the search thereof, both in the detection of errors and the discovery of sundry truths. Some things I shall remark upon that discourse, and shut up these considerations of liis preface : —
For liis OAvn success, he tells us " That being otherwise of no great abilities, yet searching the Scriptures impartially, he hath detected many errors, and hath presented the reader with a body of religion from the Scriptures ; which whoso shall well ruminate and digest will be enabled," etc.
As for Mr B.'s abilities, I have not any thing to do to call them into question : whether small or great, he will one day find that he hath scarce used them to the end for which he is intrusted with them ; and when the Lord of his talents shall call for an account, it will scarce be comfortable to him that he hath engaged them so much to his dishonour as it will undoubtedly appear he hath done. I have heard, by those of Mr B.'s time and acquaintance in the university, that what ability he liad then obtained, were it more or less, he still delighted to be exercising of it in opposition to received truths in philosophy ; and whether an itching desire of novelty, and of emerging thereby, lie not at the bottom of the course he hath since steered, he may do Avell to examine himself.
What errors he hath detected (though but pretended such, which honour in the next place he assumes to himself) I know not. The error of the deity of Christ was detected in the apostles' days by Ebion, Cerinthus, and others,^ — not long after by Paulus Samosatenus, by Photinus, by Arius, and others;^ the ei*ror of the purity, simplicity, and spirituality of the essence of God, by Audffius and the Anthropomorphites ; the error of the deity of the Holy Ghost was long since detected by Macedonius and his companions; the error of original sin, or the corruption of our nature, by Pelagius; the error of the satisfaction and merit of Christ, by Abelardus ; all of them, by Socinus, Smalcius, Crellius, etc. What ncAv discoveries Mr B. hath made I know not, nor is there any thing that he presents us with, in his whole body of religion, as stated in his questions, but what he hath found prepared, digested, and modelled to his hand by his masters, the Socinians, unless it be some few gross notions about the Deity ; nor is so much as the language which here he useth of himself and his discoveries his own, but borrowed of Socinus, Ep. ad Squarcialupum.
We ha^'c not, then, the least reason in the world to suppose that Mr B. Avas led into these glorious discoveries by reading of the Scrij^tures, much less by "impartial reading of them ; " but that they are all the fruits of a deluded
1 Sophoc. in Ajace, fiximyof, 1. 25, 43, etc.
* Euseb. Hist. lib. iii. cap. xxi. ; Iraen. ad Hoer. lib. i. cap. xxvi. ; Epiplian. Hter. i. tom. ii. lib. i.; Ruf. cap. xxvii.
2 Euseb. lib. vii. cap. xxii.-xxiv. ; August. Haer. xliv. ; Epiplian. Hrer. i. lib. ii ; Sccrat. Hist. lib. ii. cap. xxiv., etc.
TO HIS CATECHISM EXAMINED. 83
heart, given up righteously of God to believe a lie, for the neglecc of his •word and contempt of reliance upon his Spirit and grace for a right un- derstanding thereof, by the canning sleights of the forementioned persons, in some of wliose writings Satan lies in wait to deceive. And for the " body of religion" which he hath collected, which lies not in the answers, which are set down in the words of the Scripture, but in the interpreta- tions and conclusions couched in his questions, I may safely say it is one of the most corrupt and abominable that ever issued from the endeavours of one who called himself a Christian ; for a proof of which assertion I refer the reader to the ensuing considerations of it. So that whatever pro- mises of success Mr B. is pleased to make unto him who shall ruminate and digest in his mind this body of his composure (it being, indeed, stark poison, that will never be digested, but will fill and swell the heart with pride and venom until it utterly destroy the whole person), it may justly be feared that he hath given too great an advantage to a sort of men in the world, not behind Mr B. for abilities and reason (the only guide allowed by him in affairs of this nature), to decry the use and reading of the Scrip- ture, which they see unstable and unlearned men fearfully to wrest to their own destruction. But let God be true, and all men liars. Let the gosjjel run and prosper ; and if it be hid to any, it is to them whom the god of this world hath blinded, that the glorious light thereof should not shine into their hearts.