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"of speech, but necessity only. Nor can it intel

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ligibly be made out, upon what is founded the authority of the Father 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 ne"ver 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

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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 ancient " writers who were esteemed Sémiarians, but also the learnedest of the fathers of the contrary side,

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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 in"deed clearly revealed in Scripture; but it seems "most probable that God ( Пarloxpaтwp) did always "exercise, in some manner or other, his Eternal "Power and Will

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

" Dr

* Le Clerc hath observed, that Christians, forsaking the notions of the Consubstantialists and of the Arians, had come by degrees to

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"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 ancient 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, Chios. 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 rea

sonable

a right way of thinking concerning the unity of God, namely, that God is one in the strictest sense of one simple, numerical, individual essence, and that the Son and the Holy Ghost are not beings, or essences, or substances, but modifications, manieres de'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.

sonable, 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 ac◄ count antecedent to the incarnation, So says Dr Bennet, and so say some other writers on both sides of the controversy. Yet there are expressions in the New Testament, from which, I think, it may be collected that our Saviour was Son of God before his earthly nativity. But (howsoever that be) since there is one God and Father, and 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 ancients 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 ancient 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 Pa

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gans 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 emptied himself, εκένωσε καὶ ἐλαπείνωσεν ἑαυτὸν, when he became man. This leads us directly to inquire into the dignity of his nature, concerning which, after all our enquiries, 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 methaphysical terms.

By the word us, they meant, not of the same numerical or individual substance, but of the same * generical

*That poros means of one substance in kind, hath been shewed

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rical substance or subsistence. As amongst men, a son is oμcios with his father, that is, of the same human nature; so, in their opinion* the Son of God is μocios 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 giv. ing 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, Θεὸς ἀγέννητος, and ὁ Θεός.

When they said that the Son was God, they meant that he was God by generation or derivation, Otoc γεννητός.

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 incom prehensible

by Petavius, Curcellaus, Cudworth, Le Clerc, &. and to prove it would be actum agere.

say

* Ὁμούσιος τῷ Παρὶ κατὰ τὴν θεότητα, καὶ ὁμούσιος ἡμῖν κατὰ τὴν aropwoτnla. Of one substance with the Father, as to his divinity; and of one substance with us, as to his humanity. Concil. Chalcedonense. So the writers of the fifth century who were called orthodox: but they who speak thus, must have understood by μorios, of one substance in kind, if we suppose them to have had any ideas af fixed to their words, and to have been consistent with themselves, which is more indeed than I would affirm,

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