But even this is scarcely tenable even as Greek. Had this been St. John's meaning, surely he would have said, [Greek: en theô], not [Greek: pròs tòn theón], in the nearest proximity that is not confusion. But it is strange, that Sherlock should not have seen that Grotius had a hankering toward Socinianism, but, like a 'shy cock', and a man of the world, was always ready to unsay what he had said. [Footnote 1: A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God, occasioned by the Brief Notes on the Creed of St Athanasius, and the Brief History of the Unitarians, or Socinians. and containing an answer to both. By Wm. Sherlock, London. 8vo. 1690.] [Footnote 2: The third General Council, that at Ephesus in 431, decreed "that it should not be lawful for any man to publish or compose another Faith or Creed than that which was defined by the Nicene Council." Ed.] * * * * * NOTES ON WATERLAND'S VINDICATION OF CHRIST'S DIVINITY. [1] 'In initio'. It would be no easy matter to find a tolerably competent individual who more venerates the writings of Waterland than I do, and long have done. But still in how many pages do I not see reason to regret, that the total idea of the 4=3=1,--of the adorable Tetractys, eternally self-manifested in the Triad, Father, Son, and Spirit,--was never in its cloudless unity present to him. Hence both he and Bishop Bull too often treat it as a peculiarity of positive religion, which is to be cleared of all contradiction to reason, and then, thus negatively qualified, to be actually received by an act of the mere will; 'sit pro ratione voluntas'. Now, on the other hand, I affirm, that the article of the Trinity is religion, is reason, and its universal 'formula'; and that there neither is, nor can be, any religion, any reason, but what is, or is an expansion of the truth of the Trinity; in short, that all other pretended religions, pagan or 'pseudo'-Christian (for example, Sabellian, Arian, Socinian), are in themselves Atheism; though God forbid, that I should call or even think the men so denominated Atheists. I affirm a heresy often, but never dare denounce the holder a heretic.