[83] who have dared by such strained artifices to distort and abuse holy scripture, that they may impose these violent absurdities upon the gospel.
In 1707 our author printed two tracts; one entitled ‘The Supreme Deity of God the Father demonstrated, against Dr. Sherlock;’ and the other ‘A Vindication of the Bishop of Gloucester (Dr. Fowler) from the Charge of Heresy brought against him by Dr. Sherlock.’ In these tracts, which are written with great smartness, he very dexterously sets against each other the two opposite parties of Trinitarians, sometimes called the Realists and the Nominalists, who were at that time engaged in a very animated controversy, and who carried matters to such a length that it would seem as if each party was worse in the estimation of the other than even the Socinians were in that of either.
In the next year appeared three tracts, in reply to Mr. Leslie, on the same general controversy, but remarkable for a particularly sound and judicious view of the argument on what is called the ‘satisfaction to the Divine justice for the sins of men in the sufferings and death of Christ.’ The personal controversy involved in these pieces has long since lost its interest, and references to it interfere occasionally with the cause of the reasoning; otherwise there are few works which contain in a smaller compass a more distinct and satisfactory statement of the views commonly maintained by Unitarians on this subject. The only objection which presents itself, and which is equally applicable to the very acute and judicious review of this argument in the Racovian catechism, arises from the use which is made of the term sacrifice, and even expiatory sacrifice, in speaking
