CHAPTER I.

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QUOTATION FROM PENN ON THE TRINITY.

"The Trinity of distinct and separate Persons in the unity of essence, may be refuted from scripture, and also from right "reason." (Penn, vol. i, p. 29.)

"If each Person be God and that God subsists in three Per46 sons, then in each Person there are three Persons or Gods, and "from three they will increase to nine, and so on ad infinitum.” (vol. i, p. 31.)

REMARKS.

The reasoning is of so very painful a character that I forbear making any further quotation on this subject. In a subsequent treatise, explanatory of the first, the author does not withdraw one of his previous statements, but acknowledges the divinity of the Son and Holy Spirit; from which it would appear that he was (perhaps unconsciously) a Sabellian, believing, not that there are three distinct Persons in the unity of the Godhead, but that there are three different manifestations of the same Person.

The scriptures declare the unity of God:-"Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord."

They declare that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit

are equally God. [See Isaiah vi. 3. (applied to the Son in John xii, 41,) and Acts v, 3, 4.]

They declare not that the Son sent the Father, but that the Father sent the Son: that the Father bruised, (Is. Jiii, 10.) raised, (Acts ii, 24.) glorified (Acts iii, 13.) the Son; saying, "Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool." (Heb. i, 13.) This last text strikingly shows the present distinction between the Father and the Son. And again, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on MY throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in HIS throne. (Rev. iii, 21.)

He shall not speak

Again, it is written, "I will pray the Father and HE shall give you ANOTHER Comforter, even the Spirit of truth, whom the Father will send in my name. If I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you. of Himself—He shall glorify ME, for He shall receive of mine and show it unto you." (John xiv and xvi.) It must be obvious how clearly these passages establish the distinct and co-existent agency of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. It is not the business of " right reason" (Penn) to measure these things, but if it cannot comprehend, to acknowledge that God has revealed them, and therefore to bow. This alone is true humility and true obedience, -obedience of mind to the teaching of the Lord; and in this sense as well as every other, "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.'

I am the more anxious to notice this heresy, because of the prevailing tendency in Quakerism to confound the offices of the Son and Holy Spirit, the one of whom maketh intercession in Heaven (Heb. ix, 24.)-the other on earth, being pleased to dwell in the bodies of those who believe. (Rom. viii, 26.) The now continued Priesthood in Heaven of the Lord Jesus, in its Aaronic character

CHAPTER II.

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PENN'S OPINION OF SOCINUS.

"As to my being a Socinian, I must confess I have read of one Socinus, of (what they call) a noble family in Sene, in

Italy, who about the year 1574, being a young man, voluntarily "did abandon the glories, pleasures, and honours of the great "Duke of Tuscany's court at Florence, (that noted place for all "worldly delicacies) and became a perpetual exile for his con"science; whose parts, wisdom, gravity and just behaviour, "made him the most famous with the Polonian and Transylvanian "Churches; but I was never baptized into his name, and there"fore deny that reproachful epithet; and if in any thing I

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acknowledge the verity of his doctrines, it is for the truth's "sake, of which, in many things, he had a clearer prospect than "most of his co-temporaries; but not therefore a Socinian any more than a son of the English Church, because I justify many "of her principles since the reformation against the Roman "Church."

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REMARKS.

When the scripture is speaking of a heresy far less extensive than that of Socinus, it is said, "Their word doth

as typified in Leviticus, is hardly recognized in the writings of the early Friends. Instead of this is substituted an inward High Priest (Penn, vol. I, folio 597.)-" Spiritual blood," (see chap. vi.) "inward atonement," "inward mediation" (Penn, vol. 1, 8vo. p. 254.)-notions which the scripture carefully excludes, as utterly false and delusive. I cannot find that William Penn ever expressed any sorrow for having published this Tract, and perhaps it may not be generally known, that it was defended in another, published so recently as the beginning of the last century, by Richard Claridge, one of the most esteemed writers of the Society.

eat as a canker." (2 Tim. ii, 17.) Socinus was one of whom it might be truly said, that he denied every thing which is characteristically distinctive of the gospel of Christ Jesus (see Buck's Theological Dictionary); yet is he said by William Penn, to have had a clearer view of truth than most of his co-temporaries, though he lived at the era of the German, Swiss, and English Reformers, many of whom laid down their lives in testimony to the efficacy of that "blood" which Socinus despised. I doubt not that William Penn felt far more unity with the writings of Socinus than with those of Melancthon or Cranmer.

CHAPTER III.

DENIAL OF THE NECESSITY OF CHRIST'S SATISFACTION TO THE FATHER.

"The vulgar doctrine of satisfaction being dependent on the "second Person of the Trinity, is refuted from scripture and right "reason."

"But if we should grant a scripture silence as to the necessity "of so satisfying His Father's justice, yet so manifest would be the "contradictions and foul the repugnancies to RIGHT REASON," &c.

REMARKS.

I intended to have copied come of the carnal reasonings by which these propositions are maintained, but I forbear, desiring rather that they should be for ever forgotten.

It is indeed true, that the sacrifice of Christ was the consequence, not the cause of the Father's love." He spared not His own Son." But it is also true, that this great sacrifice was necessary to vindicate the righteousness of God, in having remitted and in remitting sin. Scripture is NOT silent upon this. It is not only taught us throughout the Old Testament in type, as for example when it is said to Aaron, "Go quickly, make atonement, for wrath is gone forth," (Num. xvi, 46.) but it is also expressly enforced in a very important passage in the 3rd of Romans. We are there taught that the propitiation of the Son was for the shewing forth of God's justice! But why was this needful? because God had, in His forbearance, remitted many previously-committed sins-i. e. sins committed previously to the atonement of His Son, as in the case of Abraham and of all the saints whom He had forgiven; and now His justice, in having done this, was vindicated, that so He might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.*

If satisfaction is not dependent upon the second Person of the Trinity, then "Christ hath not given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice TO GOD for a sweet smelling savour."

If we merely take the words which are necessary to the present argument, they are these, "Whom God hath set forth to vindicate His righteousness, in consequence of His having remitted sin." Ala with the accusative should be rendered, "because of, in consequence of," in the New Testament, as in Rom. iv, 25 and Heb. ii, 9. Ephes. ii, 4. Ephes. iv, 18.