In this they cunningly evade the acknowledgment of our Confession of Faith and Catechisms, decline to own the doctrine of the holy Trinity in unity, and do professedly adopt and avow the hypothesis of the famous modern Socinian, Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, anent the person of Christ.  According to which he is no more than “a glorious being, truly created by God before the world.”  This pre-existent creature they call a superangelic spirit; which spirit, coming in time to be united to a human body, makes according to them, the person of Christ.  A person neither truly God nor truly man, but a sort of being different from both.  The absurdity and blasphemy of this hypothesis needs no elucidation.  Thus they idolatrously worship another god than the Scripture reveals, and blasphemously substitute and trust in another savior than the gospel offers unto sinners.  In the same pamphlet they declare and publish their resolution to take some of their number under formal trials, whom, upon being approved, they might appoint and send forth to preach the gospel and administer the ordinances of it.  And all which they have accordingly done, to the great dishonor of God, reproach of religion, and the profession of it.

And now, from the above principles and practices, the reader may justly conclude how unworthily these Christians (if they may be called such) profess to stand up for the royal prerogatives of Christ.  What an arrogant and presumptuous invasion upon, and usurpation of, the powers and prerogatives of this glorious King, for any mortal to assume “to appoint and call men,” not to the work (which yet is all that the Church of Christ, according to the will of God, and her privileges from Christ her head, ever claimed), but to the very power and office of the holy ministry, “and to install them in it.”  Besides, that their doctrine as to Christ’s person, which denies his divine nature and sonship, saps the very foundations of that and all his other offices.  We would, therefore, yet beseech them, by the mercies of God, “to repent them of all their wickedness, and to pray God, if perhaps the thoughts of their heart may be forgiven them.”]

[Footnote 7:  It has been complained by some, that the sense of both the members of this particular paragraph is obscure, and not so intelligible as it should be to many readers; but this complaint seems rather to arise from the want of proper attention and consideration, than from any other cause.  As to the first branch of the sentence, Among—­“Such actions and things as are necessary, and in themselves just and lawful by a moral obligation”—­may be reckoned the payment of county tolls on highways and bridges, for the benefit of an easy and commodious passage—­keeping watch in cities which have no settled or regular guard, to prevent public damage by fire or otherwise.  In like manner, the payment of custom in public markets or fairs, or of town dues,