Look next at the Socinian controversy. The Socinians, and their opponents, met in the field of reason, to debate about the fall, original sin, its guilt, the vindictive wrath of God, and the necessity of the incarnation, sufferings, death, and satisfaction, of Christ. These were the great points to be tried at the bar of reason. Now all these disputants stood upon the old ground; viz. that the soul of man, as well as all other things, was created out of nothing. And therefore they all stood absolutely excluded from every possibility of touching the true ground or reason of any one doctrine in debate. For the soul, created out of nothing, leaves no room to affirm, or even to suppose, that anything can be affirmed of the ground and reason of Christian redemption. For surely, if the soul of man is created out of nothing, it may and must with as much sense be affirmed, that it may be redeemed by nothing; and he that affirms the one, can have no pretense to deny the other.