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A

BRIEF DECLARATION

AND

VINDICATION

OF THE

DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY:

AS ALSO OF

THE PERSON AND SATISFACTION OF CHRIST:

ACCOMMODATED TO THE CAPACITY

AND USE OF SUCH AS MAY BE IN DANGER TO BE SEDUCED; AND
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TRUTH.

VOL. X.

Search the Scriptures.-John v. 39.

2 G

Feb. 3, 1668-9.

IMPRIMATUR,

ROB. GROVE, R. P. D.

Episcop. Lond. a Sac. Dom.

TO THE READER.

CHRISTIAN READER,

THIS small treatise hath no other design but thy good, and establishment in the truth. And therefore as laying aside that consideration alone, I could desirously have been excused from the labour of those hours which were spent in its composure; so in the work itself, I admitted no one thought, but how the things treated of in it, might and ought to be managed unto thy spiritual benefit and advantage. Other designs most men have in writing what is to be exposed to public view, and lawfully may have so; in this I have nothing but merely thy good. I have neither been particularly provoked, nor opposed by the adversaries of the truth here pleaded for; nor have any need from any self respect, to publish such a small plain discourse as this; love alone to the truth, and the welfare of thy soul, have given efficacy to their importunity who pressed me to this small service.

The matters here treated of, are on all hands confessed to be of the greatest moment; such as the eternal welfare of the souls of men, is immediately and directly concerned in. This all those who believe the sacred truths here proposed and explained, do unanimously profess and contend for; nor is it denied by those by whom they are opposed. There is no need therefore to give thee any especial reasons to evince thy concernment in these things, nor the greatness of that concernment, thereby to induce thee unto their serious consideration.

It were well indeed that these

great, sacred, and mysterious truths, might without contention or controversies about them, be left unto the faith of believers as proposed in the Scripture, with that explanation of them which in the ordinary ministry and dispensation of the gospel is necessary and required.

Certainly these tremendous mysteries, are not by us willingly to be exposed, or prostituted to the cavils of every perverse querist and disputer; those σv2TMntai tov alvos TOUTOU; whose pretended wisdom, indeed ignorance, darkness, and folly, God hath designed to confound and destroy in them and by them. For my part, I can assure thee, reader, I have no mind to contend and dispute about these things, which I humbly adore and believe as they are revealed. It is the importunity of adversaries, in their attempts to draw and seduce the souls of men from the truth and simplicity of the gospel in these great fundamentals of it, that alone can justify any to debate upon, or iristically to handle these awful mysteries. This renders it our duty, and that indispensably, inasmuch as we are required to 'contend earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints.' But yet also when this necessity is imposed on us, we are by no means discharged from that humble reverence of mind, wherewith we ought always to be conversant about them; nor from that regard unto the way and manner of their revelation in the Scripture, which may preserve us from all unnecessary intermixture of litigious or exotic phrases and expressions, in their assertion and declaration. I know our adversaries could upon the matter decry any thing peculiarly mysterious in these things; although they are frequently and emphatically in the Scriptures affirmed so to be. But whilst they deny the mysteries of the things themselves, which are such as every way become the glorious being and wisdom of God, they are forced to assign

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