Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

pressions concerning the Divinity of our Lord. It is to Praxeas, who had charged the Christians with Tri-theism, that we are indebted for Tertullian's manly reply.

"When the Arians played on the word begotten, and consequently a time when the Word was not begotten, reasoning after the flesh; when they asked whether the Son was begotten by a consent of his will, or against his will, inferring, if the former, that the act of his will was antecedent to his existence, the orthodox again and again declared, that no such ideas of the Divine existence ought to enter the mind; that it was insufferable to understand the term begotten in any other sense than a manifestation or declaration, Thou art my Son;' and, that if the Arians played on this word to prove the non-eternity of the Word, they proved more than they wished; namely, that God the Father was not a Father till he had begotten the Word. The Arians had no ground to stand upon; they could not prove that any of the Fathers had asserted the creation of the Word, but on the contrary, all had maintained that the Father was always Aoyixos, with the Word; and never aλoyos, without the Word. Whatever variations they might have on these points, they had no dissent from the grand point, the Word was God.'

"Origen on the co-eternity of the Son with the Father, is very decided. Among many passages take the following :-'If he [the Son] is the image of the invisible God, then he himself is the image of that invisibility: nay, we will dare to add,

G

that seeing he is the similitude of the Father, there never was a time when he was not so; for when God, according to John, is called light, (for God he says is light) has he not the splendour of his Godhead? Who then will presume to ascribe a beginning to the Son, as though till then he had not existed? But when was he not the ineffable, the unnameable, the unutterable hypostatical image of the Father? He who shall presume to say within himself, that there was a time. when the Son was not, says, in fact, that there was a time when there was no wisdom, when there was no life.' Vide Bulli. Defen. 1. 172.

"4. Time forbids us to enlarge. Eusebius sums up the sentiments and pure faith of the fathers in the beginning of his ecclesiastical history, by saying, according to the version of Archbishop Parker, which is mostly followed here, There is in Christ a two-fold nature, the one resembling the head of the body, by which he is understood to be God; the other resembling the feet, by which he has put on our human nature, subject to like passions with us, to effectuate our salvation. But to declare the generation, dignity and essence of Christ, all language is utterly inadequate. Who shall be able to declare his generation? For the Father no man hath known but the Son; neither at any time hath any known the Son, but the Father. That light that shone before the world; that intellectual and essential wisdom that was before all ages-the living God -the Word, who was in the beginning with the Father, who but the Father can clearly and fully.

comprehend? He, who is pre-existent to every creature, and every work, whether visible or invisible, the first and only begotten Son of God; Captain Supreme of all the intelligent and immortal host of heaven; the angel of the high council, and executor of the secret pleasure of the Father; who after the Father is cause and author of all things: the true and only begotten Son of God; Lord, God, and King of all creatures, he received dominion and rule from the Father, together with Divine power and honour; for according to the mystical expressions of the Scriptures concerning him, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.' "Christians after this, shut your ears against impeachments of your glorious, your uncreated and eternal Redeemer r; shut all books, fraught with high treason, against the King of Glory.' 'Of a truth your God, is the God of gods, and the King of kings.' Daniel ii. 47. Of a truth the Lamb shall overcome all his enemies,

[ocr errors]

is Lord of lords, and King of kings.'

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

for he He wears

his thigh,

Rev. xvii.

the title, on his vesture and on King of kings, and Lord of lords.' 14: xix. 16. Christians, we give you charge in the sublime words of Paul to Timothy, we give you charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and Jesus Christ, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, that you keep this commandment (the pure faith of your fathers) without spot, and unrebukeable until the appear

ing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his own times, shall shew (the Elohim, the Theotes), the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light to which no man can approach, whom no man hath seen, nor can see. To whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen."

STRICTURES

ON THE

UNITARIAN WRITING'S

OF

LANT CARPENTER, LL.D.

In a Letter to the Author.

REV. SIR,

I have read several anonymous pamphlets which the booksellers vend under your name, and which you seem to justify by a similarity of words and sentiments in the third edition of your late work, intituled, "UNITARIANISM THE DOCTRINE OF THE GOSPEL." As we widely differ in opinion, you may possibly regard the present liberty as founded on an equal exercise of the liberty which your writings have taken with authors who coincide with me in sentiment. Like most others, in my early years, I believed the Christian religion to be true, being trained up in that belief. Since then, living in an age of unprecedented infidelity, I have deemed it imperative to read the Scriptures daily, and to have a good selection of the fathers always at hand. The church we regard as the pillar and ground of truth: her first bulwark is, "God was manifest in the flesh."-1 Tim. iii. 16. From Eusebius, and others, we learn that the first and

Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 7, 8, 9.

« PreviousContinue »