lutarunt. Nam divinorum verborum loco, turpitudinem proferebat: pro gravibus verbis petulantiam; pro pietate impietatem; pro continentia scortationem, adulterium, mas culam venerem, furtum, escam et potum vitæ hominum utilia esse docens.' E. H. iv. 22.

But, to leave the profane scurrilities of the Alexandrians, and to return to what is serious, and very serious, let us hear the judgment of Erasmus: Quid cogitabunt (a fide Christiana alieni) si viderint rem usque adeo difficilem esse, ut nunquam satis discussum sit quibus verbis de Christo sit loquendum? perinde quasi cum moroso quopiam agas dæmone, quem in tuam ipsius perniciem evocaris, si quid te fefellerit in verbis præscriptis, ac non potius cum clementissimo Servatore, qui a nobis præter puram simplicemque vitam nihil exigit.' Epist. 329.

For these and such remarks, Erasmus was frequently accused of Arianism by his enemies. Erasmus,' as Le

Clerc observes,

Arianismi ab illius ævi monachis, aliisque non melioribus, insimulatus est; quasi nimio fuisset ingenio, quam ut orthodoxus esse posset.'

Scripture, say the Protestants, is the only rule of faith in matters pertaining to revealed religion, and they say well. There is no other Christianity than this; no other test of doctrines than this; no other centre of union than this. Whatsoever is not clearly delivered there, may be true, but cannot be important. HÆC MEA EST SENTENTIA, NEQVE ME EX EA VLLIVS VNQVAM AVT DOCTI AVT INDOCTI MOVEBIT ORATIO.'

If, when the quarrel between Alexander and Arius was grown to such a height as to want a remedy, the Fathers of the church had, for the sake of peace, agreed to draw up a confession of faith P in words of Scripture, and to establish the divinity of Christ in the expressions used by the apostles, every one might have assented to it, and the Arian party would most certainly have received it. The difference of sentiments indeed, and of interpretation, would not have ceased, but the controversy would have cooled and dwindled away, after every champion had discharged his

It had been better to have dropped and dismissed the question; but perhaps ti is was impracticable, in tantis animorum incendiis."

zeal upon paper, and had written to his heart's content. The Arian notion, that the Son was created in time,' and that there was a time when he existed not,' would probably have sunk, as not being the language of the New Testament; and the Macedonian notion, that the Holy Ghost was created in time,' would have sunk with the other, for the same reason; at least, these opinions would never have been obtruded upon us as articles of faith.

One remarkable difference may be observed between the creeds which were proposed upon this occasion. The Consubstantialists drew up their creed with a view to exclude and distress the Arians 9: the Arians had no design to distress the Consubstantialists, but usually proposed creeds to which Athanasius himself might have assented; so that, if the compilers were Arians, their creeds were not Arian.

The Semiarians agreed with the Arians in rejecting the word ooúros, but differed from them in carrying the perfections and the dignity of the Son higher than the Arians did, and in affirming that he was poloúσios, of like substance, and like to his Father in all things.

If Christ be God the Word, who had glory with the Father before the world was, who was in the beginning, who was before all things, by whom all things were made, &c. the coeternity of the Aoyos with the Father appears to be a natural and unforced consequence.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews seems to have been of this opinion: he uses a typical argument from the cxth Psalm, and draws a parallel between Melchisedec and Christ, intending perhaps to intimate, that what Melchisedec was figuratively or typically, that Christ was really and truly. Now Melchisedec had neither beginning of days, nor end of life,' nothing being recorded in Sacred Writ concerning his birth or his death: consequently the Son

Auctor ipsorum Eusebius Nicomediensis Epistolâ suâ prodidit dicens: Si verum,' inquit, Dei Filjum et increatum dicimus, homoousion cum Patre incipimus confiteri.' Hæc cum lecta esset Epistola in Concilio Nicæno, hoc verbum in Tractatu Fidei posuerunt Patres, quod viderunt adversariis esse formidini, ut tanquam evaginato ab ipsis gladio ipsorum nefandæ caput hæreseos amputarent. Ambrosius de Fid. ad Grat. 1. iii. 7,

of God hath in reality neither beginning of days nor end of life.'

Dr. Clarke judged it more reasonable to admit, than to reject, the eternity of the Son. • It cannot be denied, (says this excellent writer) that the terms Son and BEGET do most properly and necessarily imply an act of the Father's will. For whatsoever any person is supposed to do, not by his power and will, but by mere necessity of nature, it is not indeed He that does it at all, in any true propriety of speech, but necessity only. Nor can it intelligibly be made out, upon what is founded the authority of the Fa ther in the mission of the Son, if not upon the Son's thus deriving his being from the Father's incomprehensible power and will. However, since the attributes and powers of God are evidently as eternal as his being, and there never was any time wherein God could not will what he pleased, and do what he willed; and since it is just as easy to conceive God always acting as always existing, and operating before all ages, as easily as decreeing before all ages, it will not at all follow, that That which is an effect of his will and power, must for that reason necessarily be limited to any definite time. Wherefore not only those antient writers who were esteemed Semiarians, but also the learnedest of the Fathers of the contrary side, even they who carried up the generation of the Son the highest of all, did still nevertheless expressly assert it to be an act of the Father's power and will —

The notion of the eternity of the Son is not indeed clearly revealed in Scripture; but it seems most probable that God (o Пavronpaτwp) did always exercise, in some manner or other, his eternal power and will

Almost all the old philosophers who held the eternity of the world, did not thereby mean that it was self-existent,' &c.

.

See Clarke's Second Reply to W.' Obs. vii.

Le Clerc', who often declared a dislike both of the Arian

Le Clerc hath observed, that Christians, forsaking the notions of the Consubstantialists and of the Arians, had come by degrees to a right way of thinking concerning the unity of God, namely, that God is one in the strictest sense, of one simple, numerical, individual esgence, and that the Son and the Holy Ghost are not beings, or essences,

and of the Consubstantial system, thus delivers his opinion. of Clarke's Scripture Doctrine,' &c.

‹ Dr. Clarke's doctrine seems to be the same with that of the Nicene council, excepting that he uses not the word Consubstantial. It is not therefore to be wondered that he should have produced so many passages from the antient Fathers in favour of his hypothesis. They who pretend that the Nicene council should be the rule of our faith, ought by no means to censure Dr. Clarke, if they understand what that council meant.' Bibl. Chois. xxvi. 419.

It is affirmed by some learned writers in this controversy, that eternal generation, or derivation, implies a manifest contradiction. This was also the notion of Arius, who concluded, that because the Son received his existence from the Father, therefore there must have been a time when he was not. They who say so are obliged, by unavoidable consequence, to maintain this most unphilosophical assertion, That the Father and First Cause, who hath been what he is, supremely wise, good, and powerful, from all eternity, yet could not act, and exert his wisdom, goodness, and power from all eternity. But this is what they can never prove and the contrary opinion, namely the eternal agency of the Almighty, is far more reasonable, and is attended with no other difficulties than those which equally attend a past eternity.

The eternal generation of the Word is not found in Scripture, nor is he called the Son of God upon any a count antecedent to the incarnation.' So says Dr. Benne and so say some other writers on both sides of the contr versy. Yet there are expressions in the New Testamen from which, I think, it may be collected that our Saviou was Son of God before his earthly nativity. But (howsoever that be) since there is one God and Father and

or substances, but modifications, manieres d'être, of the Divine essence or substance.

The doctrine of a modal, nominal, ideal Trinity terminates unavoidably in the doctrine of one Divine Person variously manifesting himself. Whether Le Clerc saw and admitted this consequence, I cannot say. He seems to have fluctuated on this matter. See his Life of Eusebius.

First Cause of all, the difference between Son of God and Word of God is to us nominal and imperceptible, and both certainly imply a derivation.

St. John says that all things were made by the Word; St. Paul says that God made all things by his Son; whence it appears that the Word, and the Son, are one and the same person, receiving his existence from one and the same Father.

One of the texts on which the antients founded the generation of the Son before his incarnation, is in Psalm cx. 3. according to the LXX. Before the morning star I begat thee: a text which certainly is full to the purpose, if we admit this antient translation of it to be right, and our present Hebrew text to want emendation.

To settle the controversial bounds between the Arians, the Semiarians, and the Athanasians or Consubstantialists of those days, and to determine how far they agreed, and how far they differed, and how far they were or were not consistent with themselves, is, if not an impossibility, yet certainly a very difficult task. They were not to be blamed for their inquiries about this subject; their disputes with Jews and Pagans must have unavoidably led them into it: but they should not have reviled and persecuted one another, or required an assent, under pain of excommunication, banishment, infamy, and beggary, to expressions not used by Sacred Writers. Is this the reverence and respect which ought to be paid to the Holy Scriptures?

Our Saviour is represented as submitting to sufferings and to death for our sakes, and then exalted by his Father to the highest glory and dominion; and because, in a submission to transient sufferings so amply rewarded, there might seem to be no great example of compassion and condescension, and of that love which passeth knowledge,' therefore the writers of the New Testament have given us some account of his antecedent condition, and inform us that he who was rich became poor for our sakes, and quitted a state of splendor and happiness, and humbled and emp tied himself, εκένωσε καὶ ἐταπείνωσεν ἑαυτὸν, when he be came man. This leads us directly to inquire into the dig nity of his nature, concerning which, after all our inqui,