A SUPPLEMENT

ΤΟ

THE CASE

OF

ARIAN SUBSCRIPTION

CONSIDERED.

WHEN I drew up the Case of Arian Subscription, &c.

I was apprehensive that so plain a charge, and so home pressed, might exasperate the persons concerned; though I took care to treat them with all the mildness and tenderness that the subject would bear; confining myself to the reasoning part, naming no particular men but such as I was obliged to quote, and candidly exempting the principal man of them, that the charge might be as general and inoffensive as possible; falling rather upon the thing itself, than upon this or that particular person. If the argument be provoking, I cannot help it: the same objection lies against the detecting or reproving any vice or immorality whatever. It is the proper business of a divine to state cases of conscience, and to remonstrate against any growing corruptions in practice, and especially in principles. If Arian subscription be really fraudulent and immoral, (which no considering man can doubt of,) it may concern those gentlemen rather to testify their sincere repentance, than to acquaint the world with their causeless resentments. I shall here say nothing to the abusive flirts of the nameless author, who has been pleased

still to persist in the defence of Arian subscription; except it be to remind him, that those assuming strains very ill become either so weak a cause, or such a guilty practice. I was once inclinable to take no notice of so mean a pamphlet; concluding that I had said enough, when I had said enough for men of sense and common ingenuity; and it is often not advisable to press things to the utmost. But since this is a cause of very great moment, wherein the very foundations of moral honesty, as well as of Christian sincerity, are deeply concerned; I think it incumbent upon me to proceed somewhat farther in it and if those gentlemen resolve to go on in maintaining an open fraud as long as it is possible to amuse or deceive, though only the weakest and most ignorant readers; I also must resolve (by God's assistance, and for God's glory) to go on in the defence of sincerity and probity, till the very meanest readers may sufficiently understand it. To come to the business.

The pamphlet lately published, is entitled, The Case of Subscription to the XXXIX Articles considered; occasioned by Dr. Waterland's Case of Arian Subscription. The author is but just, as well as modest, in not calling it an answer to mine: for indeed he has left the most material points untouched, without so much as attempting any thing like an answer. If you will take his bare word for it, the Articles of our Church, so far as concerns the Trinity, are general, indefinite, undeterminate; not particular, special, or determinate. He takes this for granted, and reasons all the way upon that supposition; which is very unaccountable: unless it were because I had demonstrated the contrary, beyond all reasonable reply; and so there was no other way left but to stifle the evidence, to protest against fact, and to bear the reader down with a false presumption. Such a management as this is, in effect, little else but a more untoward way of giving up the cause; where a man does the thing, but loses, all the grace and credit of it by his manner of doing it. But let us see how he goes on to give some colour,

at least, to his pretences. I had pressed the Arian subscribers with the Athanasian Creed, the Liturgy, and the Articles, to prove that our Church was particular and determinate in the points disputed. Not a single word has this writer to show, either that the Athanasian Creed or Liturgy is not determinate, as I represented : and as to the Articles, he seems to make no account of any but the first: of which he often intimates, that he has some way of evading it, but he does not care to tell us what, for fear he should be found faultering even there, and lie open to rebuke for it. The first Article alone, is, I am very certain, more than he can fairly deal with: but I must remind him farther, that the 2d and 5th Articles do also require his consideration; and then there is the eighth, which, unfortunately for him, carries all the three Creeds in the bowels of it: creeds which, as the Article says, (and as this writer says, if he subscribes to it,) "ought thoroughly to be received and believed; for they may be proved by most certain warrants of holy Scrip

"ture."

Well then, we have the Creeds wrapped up in the Articles; and the subscriber must be content to take in all or none: let us next see to the Liturgy. This gentleman thinks he has a fetch for that: he subscribes not to the truth of every particular, but to the use only, and that "it contains nothing contrary to the word of God." Now, says he, "I must freely own that I see no con"tradiction, no necessary absurdity, in the use of what a man may wish to have in some things corrected a " would be as favourable to this writer as possible. I do allow of his distinction, and that it may be proper and pertinent in some cases; but I can never allow that a man may use a solemn formal lie in his prayers, and often repeat it, under pretence that we may admit the use of some things which might be corrected. This is arguing from gnats to camels, and widening the rule beyond all

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⚫ Case of Subscription, &c. p. 46.

I

measure and proportion. This will best be understood in the sequel, when the reader comes to see what kind of things those are which this gentleman desires to use, without believing a syllable of them. I must observe farther, that the subscriber is tied up to believe that the Liturgy" contains nothing contrary to the word of God." Does not this pinch a little closer than this writer might wish? Has he nothing to object against any expressions in the Liturgy, but that they contain things seemingly contrary to natural reason? Have they nothing contrary to Scripture, to what he calls Scripture? I should be thankful to him for so obliging a concession. After all, I would advise this writer not to pretend to be wiser than Dr. Clarke. The Doctor had considered these matters much, and long: and I have not yet found any disciple of his that has endeavoured to refine upon him, but what has exposed himself in doing it. The wary Doctor was sensible that Articles, Creeds, and Liturgy, must all come into account, and all be reconciled (if possible) to his own hypothesis. He made no distinction between admitting the truth of this, and the use only of that; well knowing, that truth and use are coincident in a case of this high moment; and that he could not submit to the use of those prayers but in such a sense as he thought true. He took the only way of settling that matter for his purpose, had there really been any: but as his failed, the flaw in the architecture is never to be made up by common hands.

Having shown that Creeds, Articles, and Liturgy, must all come in, to determine in our present question; I would now proceed to cite passages from our public forms, and confront them with select sentences drawn from the writings of the new sect, that every common reader (for to such I now write) may have ocular demonstration of the truth of what I affirm, that the expressions of our public forms are special, precise, and determinate against the new scheme; not general, or indefinite, as this writer wishes, I can hardly say, believes. But I must first take notice of

a remark which he has page the 8th, that we are obliged to subscribe only the English Articles, not the Latin. I know not what uses he intends by it; though he intimates there may be some; keeping upon the reserve, as usual, when he suspects an advantage may be taken. Dr. Clarke, to do him justice, openly declared what evasions or salvos he had to justify his subscribing. He considered, I suppose, that without this, it would be subscribing with mental reservations; which is perfect Jesuitism. But this writer, perhaps, thinks there is no harm in it, that it is an innocent practice; and that so long as he can but invent some secret evasion to himself, he need have no concern about satisfying the world. To return to the matter in hand. As to the Articles, English and Latin, I may just observe, for the sake of such readers as are less acquainted with these things, first, that the Articles were passed, recorded, and ratified in the year 1562, and in Latin only. Secondly, that those Latin Articles were revised and corrected by the Convocation of 1571. Thirdly, that an authentic English translation was then made of the Latin Articles by the same Convocation, and the Latin and English adjusted as nearly as possible. Fourthly, that the Articles thus perfected in both languages were published the same year, and by the royal authority. Fifthly, subscription was required the same year to the English Articles, called the Articles of 1562, by the famous act of the 13th of Elizabethb.

These things considered, I might justly say, with Bishop Burnet, that the Latin and English are both equally authentical. Thus much however I may certainly infer, that if in any places the English version be ambiguous, where the Latin original is clear and determinate; the Latin ought to fix the more doubtful sense of the other, (as also vice versa,) it being evident that the Convocation, Queen, and Parliament, intended the same.

See the particulars proved at large in Dr. Bennet's Essay on the XXXIX Articles.

Burnet, Preface to the Articles, p. 10.