6

ries, we can know no more than the Holy Scriptures have told us; and from those passages it seems (to me at least) to be a fair inference, that the Son possessed, from all eternity, all that the infinite love and infinite power and infinite wisdom of the Father could communicate.'

But here it will be asked perhaps, What was the doctrine of the Nicene Fathers, and what did they mean by Consubstantiality?

It is impossible to answer this question without using logical and metaphysical terms.

By the word ouoovios, they meant, not of the same numerical or individual substance, but of the same generical substance or subsistences. As, amongst men, a son is μoooos with his father, that is, of the same human nature; so, in their opinion, the Son of God is μoooos with the Father, that is, of the same divine na

ture.

By this word, therefore, they intended to express the same kind of nature, and so far a natural equality.

But, according to them, this natural equality excluded not a relative inequality; a majority and minority, founded upon the everlasting difference between giving and receiving, causing and being caused.

They had no notion of distinguishing between person and being, between an intelligent agent, and an intelligent active substance, subsistence, or entity.

When they said that the Father was God, they meant that he was God of himself, originally, and underived; Θεος ἀγέννητος, and ο Θεός.

When they said that the Son was God, they meant

s That ὁμοούσιος means

of one substance in kind,' hath been showed by Petavius, Curcellæus, Cudworth, Le Clerc, Clarke, &c. and to prove it would be actum agere.'

· Ομοούσιος τῷ Πατρὶ κατὰ τὴν θεότητα, καὶ ὁμοούσιος ἡμῖν κατὰ Tηy ävaρwπÓTYTα of one substance with th Father, as to his divinity, and of one substance with us, as to his humanity.' Concil. Chalcedonense. So say the writers of the fifth century, who were called orthodox: but they who speak thus must have understood by duoooos, of one substance in kind,' if we suppose them to have had any ideas affixed to their words, and to have been consistent with themselves; which is more indeed than I would affirm,

that he was God by generation or derivation; ÒS YEVνητός.

The Unity of God they maintained, and they defended it, first, by considering the Father as the First Cause, the only Underived and Self-existing; secondly, by supposing an intimate, inseparable, and incomprehensible union, connection, indwelling, and co-existence, by which the Father was in the Son, and the Son in the Father; and thirdly, by saying that in the Father and the Son there was an unity of will, design, and consent, and one divine power and dominion, originally in the Father, and derivatively in the Son.

Such seems to have been their system; and my design is barely to represent it, and to do it justice.

In process of time Christians went into a notion that the Son was ταυτοούσιος and μονοούσιος, 6 of the same individual substance with the Father, and with the Holy Spirit ;' and they seem to have done this with a view to secure the doctrine of the unity.

The school-men took up the subject, and treated it in their way, which they called explaining, and which men of sense call impenetrable jargon.

Of all the modern writers upon this controversy, they who have undertaken to prove the doctrine of the Trinity by Cabbalism, have talked in the most singular manner; though, I doubt not, with very honest and upright inten

tions.

A notable specimen of this way of talking is produced in Clarke's Letter to Wells.' The author, whosoever he was, informs us, that Job xii. 12. with the antient is wisdom,' means With the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit;' that the maid' in Job xxxi. 1, 2. is the Virgin Mary;' that Christ sent himself,' and consequently prayed and returned thanks to himself, interceded with himself,' &c. that whilst he was upon earth the kingdom of heaven was held in commission, and managed by the angels,' &c. &c. He should have added to all his proofs the spurious text in 1 John v. 7. There are three that bear record,' &c. I call it spurious, since so much may be urged against it, and so little for it.

One Meyer wrote a book, De Mysterio S. S. Trinitatis ex solius Veteris Testamenti Libris demonstrato.' The text which he urges as the most clear and conclusive of all, is Deut. vi. 4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord:' in which he is not at all singular, many of his Cabbalistic brethren having made the same remark on the

same text.

Rabbi Judah hath preserved a tradition, that the antient Jews, in their liturgy, used this form of prayer; I and HE, save, I pray :' and this Galimatias is a mystical representation of the Trinity, according to some persons who were learned men, but too much addicted to Rabbinism. See Jac. Alting Gram. Heb. exerc. iii. and Vitringa in Jesai. xliii. p. 469.

The famous Postellus observed that there were eleven thousand proofs of the Trinity in the Old Testament, interpreted rightly, that is, ἐτυμολογικο μυστικοκαββαλιστικῶς.

Your friend (says Clarke to Nelson) being a sincere and sober-minded man, has entered only a little way into these traditionary explications of Scripture; but those who have gone far into them have given such visionary and Cabbalistical interpretations, especially of the Old Testament, as give too sad occasion for infidels to look upon all religion as enthusiasm, and particularly have caused the study of the Hebrew language, which of itself is a plain, easy, inartificial language, to be brought, by men of weak judgment abusing it, into the utmost contempt.'

Abbadie, a man of vivacity and of a warm imagination, wrote two Treatises: in the one he proved with much spirit and elegance the truth of natural and revealed religion, in the other he defended the divinity of Christ; but how? By laying down his own notion of it, and then arguing that if it was not true, our Saviour was what is too shocking to be named or thought of, and what no Mahometan would call him ".

Few controversies have been carried on with less temper and with less prudence than this.

Before the fourth century was ended, the Consubstan

This odious indiscretion hath been frequent amongst disputers of more zeal than judgment.

tialists differed and disputed amongst themselves, whether in the Trinity there were three hypostases, or one hypo stasis part of them held the first, and part the second opinion; and it hath been supposed by some, that they had notions directly contrary to each other: but the truth is, that they only misunderstood one another, and were in reality of the same mind.

For the word órтaris was ambiguous, and had two senses. In the first sense, hypostasis is the existence of a thing,' or the manner in which it exists;' in the second sense it is the existing thing,' or the substance itself."

Three human souls have only one hypostasis, in the first sense, that is, one and the same kind of nature, consisting of intelligence, activity, &c. but in the second sense, they are three hypostases, that is, three intelligent active beings.

The Consubstantialists, who said that in the Trinity there was one hypostasis, took the word in the first sense; and their brethren, who said there were three hypostases, took the word in the second sense; and thus the dispute was verbal, and as soon as they came to understand one another they were reconciled.

In the fourth century, the Consubstantialists began the persecution, by excommunicating and banishing their adver saries.

After the death of Constantine, Constantius persecuted the Consubstantialists; and the Arians under his protection (as afterwards under Valens) were guilty of many horrible outrages and cruelties, which must have hurt their cause greatly, and have made honest men hold them in abomination.

Julian gave liberty to all the contenders to fight it out in disputation, and recalled those whom Constantius had banished.

Jovian favoured the Consubstantialists during his short reign.

Valentinian, like a wise prince, kept an even hand between both parties, and would not be the tool of either. Valens at the same time persecuted the Consubstantialists in his dominions,

Gratian and Theodosius oppressed the Arians.

The Arians were also divided into sects which anathematized and plagued each other. But Arianism subsisted, and made a considerable figure for above three hundred years, and was at last destroyed by violence and persecution. See Bayle's Dict. Arius.

In the fourth century were held thirteen councils against Arius, fifteen for him, and seventeen for the Semiarians; in all forty-five.

How could the Arians, in the time of Constantius and Valens, bring themselves to such an unchristian persecuting temper? how could they oppress their fellow Christians, the Consubstantialists, who, supposing them to have been in an error, fell into it through a religious fear of ascribing too little to their Redeemer, and of not paying him sufficient honour? Can a man love his Saviour, and hate his brother for a mistake of this kind?

And how could the Consubstantialists persuade themselves that an Arian, who perhaps had suffered for professing Christianity in times of distress, who believed Christ to be his Maker, his Saviour, his King, and his Judge, would choose to detract from his dignity, and to offend him in whom he placed all his hopes of salvation? Human nature is not capable of this folly; and if the man were in an error, yet in such a person the error must have been involuntary, a mere defect of the understanding, and not a fault of the will.

A Christian, and a lover of peace, who lived in obscurity, and whose name I cannot tell, stood up, and said:

My brethren, The things to be believed are few, the things to be done are many; but you behave yourselves as if the reverse of this were true. St. Paul tells you, "The Grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men; teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearance of the great God, and (of) our Saviour Jesus Christ." Concerning the nature of Jesus you can dispute incessantly, and concerning the word Grace you will probably dispute no less; but the rest of the scr.