raised these mounts, will one day rend your tombs, open your graves, raise your dust, and place your immortal bodies upon mount Sinai that cannot be moved. There shall you shine as the sun in the innumerable company of angels, and in the assembly of just men made perfect: there brazen-faced scoffers, and rioters, who glory in their shame, will interrupt your devotions no more: and there, with unutterable transports of joy, and inexpressible ravishments of love, we shall meet again, to ascribe the glory of our present deliverance, and of an eternal salvation to him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever.

RATIONAL VINDICATION

OF

THE CATHOLIC FAITH;

BEING

THE FIRST PART

OF

A VINDICATION OF CHRIST'S DIVINITY;

INSCRIBED TO THE

REV. DR. PRIESTLEY.

“Unto what, then, were we baptized?” Acts xix. 8.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following work, in answer to Dr. Priestley's assertions that the doctrine of the Trinity is irrational, and that of our Lord's divinity without foundation in the Old or New Testament, was, unfortunately, left imperfect by the Author. He had intended it to be composed of three parts; the first containing a Rational Defence of the Catholic Faith, on those points; and the second and third a Vindication of the Prophets and the Apostles" from the antiChristian service to which the Doctor had pressed them." But he was suddenly called to his reward, when he had written no more than the Introduction, the Expostulatory Letter, and four Chapters of this part; which we here present to the reader, convinced that, however much its imperfect state is to be regretted, any attempt to supply the deficiency by another hand, would be vain and unsatisfactory.

INTRODUCTION.

1. THE Catholic Church is openly attacked in our day, by enemies 80 much the more dangerous as they are friends to some of her doctrines, and as to many things highly commendable in their moral conduct, putting to the blush the loose livers who acknowledge a Trinity. Thus they persuade the world, that their incessant attacks upon the distinguishing doctrines of Christianity, are directed by Virtue itself. 2. Those who cordially believe in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost, are publicly treated as gross Idolaters, because at the name of Jesus they bow the knee, and call for salvation upon the only name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved, Phil. ii. 10; and Acts iv. 12.- -We are even invited to come out of the Church of England, as if she were mystic Babylon, because she directs us to call upon the Son, as we do on the Father ; an act of worship, which the enemies of our Lord's Divinity consider as idolizing Christ, if we may judge of them by their learned Champion, who says, in his Appeal to the Professors of Christianity, “If the Trinitarians think it a point of conscience not to go to Mass in Popish Churches, because in their opinion it is idolizing a piece of bread, you ought to make a point of conscience not to worship with them, because in your opinion, it is idolizing a man, who is just as improper an object of worship, as a piece of bread." Thus the Lord of glory is put on a level with a piece of bread, and doing the chief work of a Christian, calling upon the Lord Jesus for salvation, is compared to the worshipping of an idol, which hath not so much life and sense as a dog.

3. So incessant have these onsets been of late, that we might fear for the Catholic Church, if the Lord had not promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her, and that all things shall work together for good to them that love Him. But, comforted and encouraged by these promises, we may be confident, that even the repeated attacks of Dr. Priestley against our Lord's divinity, will shew the strength of the rock of ages: as the billows, which incessantly upon a rock that breaks them all, shew their own weakness, and the solidity of the Rock against which they foam and dash them

beat

selves.

4. In the mean time, new modes of attack will render new methods of defence necessary; for God forbid that Christ's worshippers should be less ready to confess him as their Lord and their God, than the despisers of his Divinity are to degrade him into a mere man! The learned Archdeacon of St. Alban's, the Monthly Reviewers, the Rev. Messrs. Ryland and Shepard, &c. have already stood forth in defence of the Catholic Faith: and, in the Author's judgment, they have done it so effectually, that when he saw their publications, he laid these papers aside as needless: and if he now resumes them at the desire of some friends, it is merely upon considering, that Dr. Horsley and his judicious Allies having chiefly written for the learned, further remarks, suited to persons of all ranks and capacities, might have their use also.

some

5. The Lord needs no man's pen to support his Divinity, which supports the pillars of earth and heaven: nevertheless, as he once used the voice of an ass to check a Prophet's madness, and that of a cock to stop an Apostle's imprecations, he may, (if he condescend to bless these sheets) soften, by them, the prejudices of a Philosopher. But the principal end, which the Author proposes by sending them to the press, is to confirm his own faith, and that of the unprejudiced Reader, by scattering the mists of some growing errors, and by collecting the beams of Christ's divine glory, which lie sacred in the pages.

6. It is humbly hoped, that the friends of the pure gospel, will not (under pretence that they hate controversy) be afraid to increase their light, and to warm their devotion, at a fire made up of coals taken from the altar of Sacred Truth. No man's time was ever lost, no believer's love was ever injured, by reading St. John's Gospel or his Epistles, where our Lord himself, and his loving disciple, carry on against the Scribes and the Pharisees, against the Jews and the Gnosticks, the very same controversy, which we now maintain against the Unitarians and the Philosophers of the present age.

7. In the mean time, let no one be surprised that men noted for their learning and virtue, should be permitted to enforce their errors so publicly, and with such apparent sincerity: Providence has its wise ends. There must be heresies among us, that they who are approved may be made manifest.-Light and darkuess, truth and error, the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge, must be set before us, that we may stretch out our hand according to our choice, and be judged according to the works of our faith, or those of our unbelief Add to this, that, by God's over-ruling providence, error often whets the edge of truth, manifests its solidity, and makes its sparkling glories. break forth with greater advantage: thus, in a picture, the shades heighten the surprizing effect of the lights; and truth never appears so transcendently bright, as when the blackness of error, like a foil, sets it off in our sight. What is chaff to the wheat, before the winnowing fan? and what are thorns to the fire?

8. Truth is a devouring flame, and will one day consume all the bulwarks of wood, hay, and stubble, which are raised to stop its progress. Dr. Priestley pictures out this power of truth, in the fine frontispiece of his disquisitions. There he sets before us wooden scaffolds all on fire, while a temple of marble, adorned with pillars of silver, gold, and precious stones, stands the conflagration. The application of this scene (says he) is sufficiently obvious: for he fondly supposes, that his Philosophical and Historical disquisitions are the fire of truth, burning up the doctrine of the soul's immortality, of the divinity of Christ, and of the Trinity; which doctrines he compares to wood, hay, and stubble. Far from thinking as he does, about his frontispiece, to us it is sufficiently obvious, that the Catholic Faith is the fire, which, sooner or later, will burn up Materialism, Socinianism, aud Anti-christian Philosophy, like thorns, briars, and chaff.

9. Judicious Reader, come and see who mistakes in a point of such vast importance. Providence has given you two lights, Reason and Revelation; take the hint of the Doctor's frontispiece; bring them near, and use them instead of touch-stones. Touch the adamantire pillars of truth, and they shall shine. Touch the mountains of error, which bear the Socinian temple, and they shall smoke. Touch the