tian writers have affirmed. Such tales as these would not deserve to be mentioned, if they did not serve to show the fanatical spirit of those ages, and to take off our wonder at all the heresies that arose in the Christian church, by observing how easy it was to suppose a divine mission, or even to assume in opinion a divine nature. The appearance of false prophets, as well as their success in seducing, had been foretold; and it was the character of the times which encouraged one, and promoted the other.

These false prophets were very numerous, and their success very various. But there was no article of Christian faith and doctrine which admitted of so much doubt and dispute as the divinity of Christ first, and his rank in the godhead afterwards. Cerinthus denied his divine nature. Menander asserted that he was a true man. Saturninus that he was only the shadow and appearance of a man. Basilides that the Christ did not suffer, but that he took the form of another, of Simon of Cyrene, I think, who suffered under his form whilst he stood by and laughed at his own supposed crucifixion. Ebion maintained, like Menander, that Christ was a mere man, the son of Joseph. In calling him a good or a just man, he had the authority of St. Peter on his side, who calls him so in one place of the Acts, and even this he did not want; but in denying his resurrection from the dead, as he did when he affirmed that the body of Christ remained in the grave, though his soul went to heaven, he had this great apostolical authority against him.* In fine, and to fill up the measure of heretical phrensy, the Sethites held that the same person had been Seth first, and was Jesus afterwards; and the Ophitæ, as they were called, that he had been the serpent who tempted Eve; so that he, who redeemed mankind by his blood, had made redemption necessary by his wiles, according to these madmen.

That there were no madmen at the same time among the best and most orthodox Christians, if it may be said with truth that any orthodox belief was settled so soon, we must not believe. There were many such, and the proofs are at hand, both in their writings, and much more in the anecdotes concerning them. But that which deserves our particular observation is, that the madness of those who are reputed orthodox never ran so high, as it did after the orthodox belief on this great article had been settled; if propositions, the very terms of which are sometimes ambiguous and sometimes quite unintelligible, may be said to have been settled. Certain it is, that after this the orthodox fathers held such language about the incarnation of Christ, as many of those who were reputed heretics would have scrupled modestly and

Virum probatum à Deo, justum à mortuis suscitatum.

piously to have used. These words, the Son of God, were understood figuratively, I presume, and not literally in the case of Foe, who assumed this appellation in India a thousand years before the coming of Christ, and in the case of Zoroaster, who assumed it in Persia, perhaps, as anciently. They must have been understood even thus very falsely, in both those cases. But they might have been so understood, with some propriety of figure, in the case of Christ, who was at least the Messiah promised by God, foretold by the prophets, and sent in due time. If this had been the judgment of the church, the principal difficulties about his incarnation had been anticipated, as they were by the Nestorians, who held that there were two persons, and not two natures only, in Christ, and who denied that the Virgin was the mother of God. But the church having determined that these words, the Son of God, should be taken in their literal sense, it is astonishing to consider what profanations followed concerning this second generation of the son; for the first had been before all worlds, that is, from all eternity. These profanations collected from the most approved writers alone, to say nothing of the creeds that are so solemnly recited in Christian churches, would fill a volume. I shall mention a few only, which they, who are at all conversant in the writings of ancient and modern divines, will acknowledge to be fairly quoted.

It has been said then by the most orthodox,* piously and reverently too, as they and other divines assure us, "that the Father having chosen the Virgin Mary for this second generation of the Son, he loved her as his spouse; he employed the angel Gabriel, whom he made his pronubus or paranymphus, that is, his brideman, to procure her consent, without which there can be no lawful marriage; and having obtained it, his virtue overshadowed her, which he tempered so that her human nature might be able to support the divine embracement. In this private embracement, she conceived, the Holy Spirit flowing into her, and producing the effect of human seed. Thus the child partook of the two natures of his parents, the divine nature of his Father, and the human nature of his mother." In such gross terms, and under such gross images, has the mystery of the incarnation been explained. The words of St. Ambrose are too obscene to be translated. Take them in Latin, therefore. "Non enim,” says this modest archbishop, "virilis coitus vulvæ virginalis secreta reseravit, sed immaculatum semen inviolabili utero spiritus sanctus infudit." St. Austin softens the terms, and changes the image a little. But if he does not appear quite so obscene, he must appear at least as mad as the others. "God

* Eras. adv. ep. Lutheri.

spoke by his angel," says this saint, "and the virgin was got with child by the ear."* There were those who asserted that Christ did not assume his body in the virgin's womb, but that he brought it from heaven, and passed through her as water passes through a pipe.t They were called heretics for their pains, and yet surely that doctrine might have been sung or said in the churches, as decently and with as much edification, as those hymns were, in one of which it was said, that the virgin conceived, "non ex virili semine, sed mystico spiramine," and in the other, that the Word or Logos entered at her ear, "et exivit per auream portam."

Such extravagant and profane notions and expressions, as have been last mentioned, came into fashion chiefly after the Nicæan council, which Constantine thought it necessary to convene. How ill he judged, and how ill his successors judged on similar occasions, long and woful experience has manifested. What passed before his time showed, that attempts to explain divine mysteries must be of necessity endless; and what passed in and after his time, that it is to no purpose, at least to no good purpose, to impose any authorised definitions of them. What revelation leaves a mystery must remain such: and there cannot be a greater absurdity than to imagine that human authority, call it how you please, ought to determine, or will determine, to submission those who think that such definitions are not conformable to their true criterion, which is the revelation itself. The only difference is this. The men who dispute and wrangle on such points as these, wherein neither morality nor good government are concerned, cannot do much hurt, if they are left to dispute and wrangle among themselves; whereas, if public authority takes notice of them so far as to meddle in their quarrels, and to decide any way, civil disorders are sure to follow, and the blood of nations is spilled in wars and massacres, to extinguish a flame which some hot-headed priest, or delirious metaphysician, has kindled, and which it does not extinguish neither.

was so.

What revelation leaves a mystery must remain such: and if any thing was ever left a mystery, the doctrine of the trinity Christ had no where called himself God. His apostles called him Lord.‡ Peter had once declared him to be a man: and Paul preaching to the Athenians speaks of him rather as a man than as God. He makes no mention of the Son of God, nor of the Holy Ghost. These inconsistent writers talk often a

* Deus loquebatur per suum angelum, et virgo per aurem impregnabatur. † Aug. de Tem. Serm.

Eras. ubi supra.

different language on the same subject, and contradict in one place what they have said in another. How they came to do so in this case, let others account; but let them account for this conduct of the apostles better than the greatest ancient and modern divines have done. According to them, Peter was afraid of scandalising the Jews. The Jews believed one God, had never heard of the Son, nor Holy Ghost, and would have been revolted against Christianity more than they were, if they had heard the man, whom they had seen crucified and buried, called God.Paul was afraid of confirming the Gentiles in their polytheism, by preaching to them that Christ was God. The prudence of this method, by which the young in Christ were fed with milk, and those in riper years with solid food, for the whole mystery was revealed to them, has been extremely applauded by the most approved doctors of the church. I am unwilling, however, to take this for the reason of the conduct which the two apostles held. It savors too much of an outward and inward doctrine, the double dealing of pagan divines. It seems unworthy of men commissioned by Christ, inspired by the Holy Ghost, and able to enforce all they taught by miracles. It bears too near a resemblance to the unrighteous cunning of the Jesuits, who are said to conceal the humiliation and passion of the Saviour from their Neophites in China. But whatever reason the apostles had for it, which they who boast to be their successors have no right to determine, this was their conduct. The divinity of the Word grew by slow degrees into general belief among Christians: the divinity of the Holy Ghost by degrees still slower, and the coequality and consubstantiality of the three hypostases last of all. It fared with the Son, in the first ages of Christianity, much as it has fared since with the mother of God. Strong figurative expressions, which the apostles employed on some, which other doctors and saints employed on all occasions, and which were animated, doubtless, by the opposition of heathens, Jews and heretics, might contribute to exalt the Son at the expense of the Father's supremacy; as we know very certainly that by such means and on such motives as these the virgin acquired the title of deipara, to whom, if she is not a goddess avowed in express terms, divine honors are paid, and her intercession is implored with the father and the son. She is so plainly distinguished from both, that her intercession with either carries more propriety along with it, than the intercession of the son with the father; since these two consubstantial persons cannot be intelligibly distinguished from one another, and since it is of the utmost absurdity to advance that the same person intercedes with himself.

What has been said will appear evidently true, if we look into

the anecdotes of the apostolical and following ages; or if we consult, with due discernment, those who have made them their study. Many of the primitive Christians, struck with religious awe, had a very reasonable scruple of using any appellations which were not contained in the Scriptures. Many of them dared not to give that of the true God to Christ before the Nicean council, nor several after it: and even the most orthodox, who scrupled not to call him very God of very God, begotten not made, when the council had pronounced, were still afraid to give this appellation to the Holy Ghost. Nay from the time that the Macedonians were condemned soon after the Arians, in another council, and even to this hour, the Holy Ghost has not been deemed God by generation, but by procession or spiration, that is, by the breathing of the Father through the Son, or by joint breathing of the Father and the Son; of which difference in an identity of nature we must be content to say what Erasmus said, "satis est credere." In short, the orthodox doctrine of the trinity was never taught explicitly and positively by any divine authority. It was a vague opinion in heathen theology, which intended no more, perhaps, than to personify the wisdom and goodness of the supreme omnipotent Being. It has been a theological dispute in all ages among Christians, and the precise definition, according to which we are obliged to profess that we believe it, is founded on authority entirely human, and therefore undeniably fallible, imperial and ecclesiastical authority.

If it be said, that the decisions in favor of the second and third hypostases have been made by councils, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, I shall only say, the question is begged ridiculously, when the influence of the Holy Ghost is supposed to prove the very point in dispute, his divinity; and that they therefore, must have no small share of stupidity, of ignorance, and effrontery, who can insist on such an answer in this age. If it be said that the councils, which condemned the opinions of Paul of Samosata, of Sabellius, of Arius, of Photinus, and of other heretics, were guided, in the canons they made, and the anathemas they pronounced, by the unerring rule of Scripture and uniform tradition; I shall only ask what that Scripture was? It was not the Old Testament most surely; for there is no reason to allow that this Testament contains any notices of the trinity. Was it the New Testament? But we may defy the ablest chemist that ever worked on those materials, to extract from them such a trinity, as that is which the Christian church acknowledges. Passages that seem favorable to it, in part, may be, as they have been, produced. But then passages that are really inconsistent with it, in the whole, may be, as they have been, opposed to these: and the famous adjective homousios will