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has your Catholick Church , or your Ghurch of England given them no characteristic k name ? Bish . Yes , after Patripassiauism arose , she called them persons as a test to discover them . Catech . But why then had
you not thus stated the sum of your received doctrine , that in God ' s unity of essence there are three persons ? For , if this were received before or since Patripassianism , 'tis received into your Christian confessions . Perhaps the Catholick Church may not
really mean that they really are what she calls them , that is , persons ; and hence your Lordship thought lit to omit it 5 I pray , my Lord , deal openly with me , is it so , or how is it ? Bish . Truly , sir , the church only means that one is not the other ; that is all
that is intended in the term person . Catech . This looks very catachrestical and inartificial ; but do not your Scriptures teach them to be persons ? Bish . No , they only call them by the
names of Father , Son or Word , and Holy Ghost . Catech . But do not your Scriptures and your churches teach , that the first of these is really a Father , and the second really his Son ? Bish . This is one of the three
opinions that the Scriptures do so teach . Catech . And is this the opinion your Lordship will explain to me ? Bish . Yea , sir . Catech . Are Father and Son then personal titles ? Bish . Yes , » h % among men . Catech . But arc they not so in the Deity ? Bish .
Sir , they are not called persons m Scripture * hut only Father , Son or Word * and Holy Ghost ; but we mean no more by persons , but that one is not the other ; there are three , sir , that you may depend on ; but 1 pray , sir , do not press me against liberty of conscience to call them
persons , for I cannot tell what they are , nor what to call them . Catech . But , I pray , my Lord , why did your Apostle blame the Athenian inscrip * tioit ' to tfee unknown God , " and pro * raise to deolare him unto them , if he taught no more notions of him than that there are three I know-not-whats
in the God-head ? I am in hope I shall find better information from your Fathers ; I pray , my Lord , what U your opinion of them herein > Bish . Perhaps * sir , they home gone beyond due bounds ^ contradicted each other and themtelve * ; they ns& mmny * impertinent
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similes , run out into much length and confusion * while they talk of things to others which they understand not themselves . Catech . My Lord , if you can teach me nothing of your faith in God , if you will reject the terms of your church , to which you have
sworn your unfeigned assent , if you dissolve the sense of your Scripture terms into nothing , and renounce the wisdom of your Primitive Fathers , you force me to retreat from my hopes , and to devote my soul to the society of the philosophers / ' Id . pp . 19 —22 .
It would be very difficult to render interesting a farther examination of this volume- In the second part , besides the defence of the Fathers , there is an occasional attack on Crellius , F , Soci-» u » , ( id . p . IS 69 ) and " our countryman Biddle , " who " was so convinced of
the errors of his Socinian Fathers , that he even scouts them , and roundly fells off to' the elder enemies of the Holy Spirit , with whom he passed for a created person . " Id . p . 137 . There is also a reference to " that impostor Sandius I" Id . p . 168 . It is mentioned ,
not to the Bishop ' s praise , that he had " exposed for doubted , in his Letter from Zurich , that passage of St . John , 1 Ep . v . 7 . " Id . p . 52 . There is also a passage quoted from " Dr . Burnet ' s Letter of Remarks upon the two
Strong Box Papers , " id . p . 170 , They were attributed to Charles the Second , and are mentioned in Mon . Repos . X . 226 . This Letter , by the Bishop , was not published till \ 6 SS . ( See Biog-Brit . iii . 36 . )
The Vindicator thus solemnly coneludes his labour : ** And now I am resolved to end , though his divinity affords much more corrigible matter . At the horror whereof I leave him to God ' s mercy and the Church's prayers ; but his writings of this . stamp , either to his own ingenuous recantation , or canonical censure . " Risum
teneatis P A simple priest thus reproving a Bishop , aad suck an one as Burnet ! ! This Vindicator surely knew not what spirit lie was of ; and it was
scarcely worthy of the Bishop to regard such a publication . Yet Wood 8 ay& that *• Bishop Burnet ; angry at tfans book , complains to the Bishop of London [ ComptonQ that his chaplain , R . Altham , late proctor of Oxford ,
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47 O Hill ' s Vindication of the Fathers .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1817, page 470, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2467/page/22/
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