But I must hasten to the third stage of this intricate dispute, when, in 1695, Stephen Lobb, “the Jacobite Independent,” charged Williams with implicitly denying the commutation of persons between Christ and believers, because he had denied such a relation as Crisp maintained, who went so far as to declare Christ to be by imputation as sinful as man, and the believer to become through faith as righteous as Christ. This led to explanations too wearisome for notice. If anyone will take the trouble to look into what Williams wrote, he will be astonished to find a man, who went so far in his notions of the union between the Mediator and His people, suspected of not believing in the Atonement; and he will discover a signal instance of the intolerable demands which some will make upon others, in order to enlist from them a full amount of prescribed orthodoxy. The battle raged hotter and hotter. Williams was even accused of Socinianism, and not content with robbing him of all claim to orthodoxy, his exasperated opponents tried to filch from him his virtuous reputation. But he kept them at bay, and at last completely overcame them.[514] Towards the end, two distinguished Churchmen came upon the stage--Dr. Jonathan Edwards, Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and Bishop Stillingfleet--both of whom were appealed to by the disputants as to the doctrine of Commutation, and the charge of Socinianism brought against Williams. The Bishop, of course, contradicted Crisp’s absurd notion, and pronounced Williams innocent of heterodoxy. It is said that the number of Antinomians amongst Nonconformists diminished after the close of the controversy. CHAPTER XX.