The Works of the Rev Daniel Waterland

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: you could have begged the main question, and have thereupon founded a charge against me, with the same, nay, greater justice, than I charge you with a plain matter of fact, no part of the main question between us. The question is, Whether the one true Godhead be common to Father and Son, or proper to the Father only ? You have determined for the latter; therefore you have struck the Son out df the one true Godhead, previously to our dispute 5 therefore you have denied his proper divinity: and the question now is, not whether you have denied it, (which is out of question, ) but, whether you have justly denied it? If you see no difference between the two cases, I can only pity your confusion. Whether divinity, strictly so called, can be common to more Persons than one, remains to be considered. In the mean while, it is evident that you, by making it proper to the Father only, have denied the divinity of all besides. 2. A second complaint is of a motto in my title page: I am Jesus whom thou persecutes : it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Now, I thought a writer might be at liberty to follow his judgment or fancy in such a trifle as a motto, without being so solemnly called to account for it. But, it seems, this must be now brought to the bar, and deliberately scanned. As if, say you, the not receiving Dr. W's notions in metaphysics was persecuting Christ. As if, say I, the abusing of metaphysics, to the destruction of a plain Scripture doctrine, and the undermining the Christian faith, were not, by a very easy figure, justly called the persecuting of Christ, crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting him to an open shame. Since I am called upon in this case, I will tell you, so far as I remember, what I principally intended by the motto, ...