ls of the House copious extracts are
given from the work, from which the following may serve to
indicate what chiefly gave offence:--

"What do you conceive exceedingly profitable to be known of the
Essence of God?

"It is to know that in the Essence of God there is only one
person . . . and that by no means can there be more persons in
that Essence, and that many persons in one essence is a pernicious
opinion, which doth easily pluck up and destroy the belief of one
God. . . .

"But the Christians do commonly affirm the Son and Spirit to be
also persons in the unity of the same Godhead.

"I know they do, but it is a very great error; and the arguments
brought for it are taken from Scriptures misunderstood.

"But seeing the Son is called God in the Scriptures, how can
that be answered?

"The word God in Scripture is chiefly used two ways: first, as it
signifies Him that rules in heaven and earth . . .; secondly, as
it signifies one who hath received some high power or authority
from that one God, or is some way made partaker of the Deity of
that one God. It is in this latter sense that the Son in certain
places in Scripture is called God. And the Son is upon no higher
account called God than that He is sanctified by the Father and
sent into the world.

"But hath not the Lord Jesus Christ besides His human a Divine
nature also?

"No, by no means, for that is not only repugnant to sound reason,
but to the Holy Scripture also."

This is doubtless enough to convey an idea of the Catechism,
which was again translated in 1818 by T. Rees. Whether Bidle was
the translator or not, he must have been actuated by good
intentions in what he wrote; for he says of the _Twofold
Catechism_, that it "was composed for their sakes that would fain
be mere Christians, and not of this or that sect, inasmuch as all
the sects of Christians, by what names soever distinguished, have
either more or less departed from the simplicity and truth of
the Scripture." But these Christians, who preferred their
religion to their sect, Bidle should have known were too few to
count.

Far inferior writers to Bidle were Ebiezer Coppe and Laurence
Clarkson: nor, if religious madness could be so stamped out, can
we complain of the House of Commons for condemning their works to
the flames. The strongest possible condemnation was passed for
its "horrid blasphemies" on Coppe's _Fiery Flying Roll; or, Word
from the Lord to all the Great Ones of the E