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"rational demonstration of what we profess it is suf"ficient demonstration of our doctrine, that we have a "tradition coming down to us from our father; a kind "of inheritance successively conveyed to us by the primi"tive saints from the Apostles themselves. They that "have changed those doctrines for the present novelty, "will have very great need of the succours of reason and "argumentation, if they mean to convince, not the gro"velling herd or giddy populace, but the grave and "staunch men, men of sobriety and firmness. While "they offer us discourses without any argument or de"monstration to support them, it is only playing the "fool, and is even brutishly stupid: as if greater regard "should be had to empty talk, void of all proof, than to "the doctrine of the Evangelists and of the Apostles, and "their successors, the lights of the Christian churches b."

Here we see with what confidence Nyssen appeals to constant tradition for the truth of the Athanasian doctrine so little did he imagine that the Ante-Nicene faith was any way different from, much less repugnant to, his

own.

I may next mention a famous case which happened in the year 383. The Arians, Eunomians, and Macedonians, were then formally and solemnly challenged by the Catholics, to refer the matter in dispute to the concurring judgment of the writers that lived before the controversy began: but they declined the offer; refusing absolutely to put their cause upon that issue. This is decisive in the case, that the Athanasians had all the assurance imaginable as to the faith of the primitive churches; and that the Arians were very sensible that their doctrine could never bear so fair and just a trial. The story is thus told in Socrates, lib. v. cap. 10.

"The Emperor (Theodosius) sending for Nectarius, "the Bishop (of Constantinople), conferred with him about "the properest method of putting an end to the dissen

b Greg. Nyss. contr. Eunom. lib. iii. p. 125, 126,

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"sions, and restoring the unity of the Church. He proposed to have the matter in dispute, which had divided "the churches, to be fully canvassed; that, removing the "causes of their differences, the churches might be re"duced to concord. Upon the hearing of this, Nectarius was under some concern: and calling for Agelius the "Novatian Bishop, of the same faith with himself, he acquainted him with the Emperor's design. He, (Agelius,) "though otherwise a very worthy man, yet having no "talent for disputation, recommended Sisinnius, his Lector, to engage in a conference. Sisinnius was a man of great wisdom and experience, well versed in Scripture, "and also in philosophy: but being very sensible that disputations generally are so far from healing differ"ences, that they rather foment and inflame them; he "suggested to Nectarius this method. He very well "knew that the ancients had ever avoided the ascribing

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any beginning of existence to the Son of God, believing "him to be coeternal with the Father: he advises there"fore to set aside all logical wranglings, and to produce "the testimonies of the ancients; leaving it to the Emperor to put the question to the heads of the several

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sects, whether they would make any account of the "Doctors of the Church who lived before the difference

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began; or whether they would reject them also, as "strangers to the faith of Christ. For if they should re'ject them, let them also pronounce an anathema upon "them: which if they should dare to do, they will be "immediately detested by the generality, and truth will "thus be manifestly victorious. But if they reject not "the ancient Doctors, then will it be our business to pro"duce the writings of the ancients, by which the truth of 66 our doctrine shall be attested."

Thus far Socrates: who farther relates that Nectarius and the Emperor well approved of the design, and immediately put it in execution. Whereupon the heads of the several sects were at first much confounded, and di

vided among themselves; some commending what the Emperor had proposed, and others not: but in conclusion, they all chose rather to rest the cause solely on logical disputation, than upon the testimonies of the ancients. Thus the design came to nothing. This we may learn from it, that at that time of day, when many primitive writings, since lost, were extant, the Athanasians were very willing and desirous to have their cause tried by the verdict of the ancient writers; being confident of victory in that method: and that the Arians, as being sufficiently sensible of the same thing, prudently declined it.

Mr. Whiston did not care to give more than short, general hints of this famous challenge, and the issue of it: but he endeavours to wind and turn himself every way to evade its force. He pretends, first, that the question between the Athanasians and their adversaries was not whether the ancients admitted the coeternity of the Son, but whether they admitted his existence to have been without any limitation of time: as if the Athanasians intended no more than that the ancients never assigned any particular point of time for the Son's beginning. But not to mention how silly such a challenge had been, and how unserviceable such a discussion to the Athanasian cause, which required a great deal more than that comes to; I say, not to mention this, Socrates' and Sozomen's account of that affair sufficiently obviate every such weak surmises or insinuation. Both say, that Sisinnius well knew that the ancients never durst ascribe any beginning at all to the Son: and why? because they thought or believed him to be coeternal with the Fatherd. The question then was not, whether the ancients had assigned any particular time of the Son's beginning to exist: but whether they

• Whiston's Reply to Lord Nottingham, Append. p. 63.

4 Εὖ ἐπιστάμενος ὡς οἱ παλαιοὶ ἀρχὴν ὑπάρξεως τῷ υἱῷ τοῦ Θεοῦ δοῦναι ἀπέφυ γον· κατειλήφεισαν γὰρ αὐτὸν συναΐδιον τῷ πατρί. Socrat. lib. v. c. 10. p. 273. Εὖ γὰρ ᾔδει, ὡς οἱ παλαιοὶ συναΐδιον τῷ πατρὶ τὸν υἱὸν εὑρόντες, οὐκ ἐτόλμησαν εἰπεῖν ἔκ τινος ἀρχῆς τὴν γένεσιν αὐτὸν ἔχειν. Sozom. lib. vii. c. 12. p. 292.

ascribed any beginning at all to him. And Sisinnius was ready to maintain that they ascribed no beginning to him, but believed him to be coeternal.

Mr. Whiston has another very extraordinary evasion, that the ancient Doctors appealed to were not those of the three first centuries, but only such as Father Eustathius, Father Marcellus, Father Alexander, &c. about or a little before the Council of Nice. A very likely matter indeed, that the Emperor should ask the Arians whether they would be tried by the verdict of those who had before condemned the Arians by name; or that the Arians should be at all afraid of pronouncing an anathema upon such as Father Eustathius or Father Marcellus, who had been deposed and condemned by the Eusebians or Arians before; one in a synod at Antioch, A. D. 329. the other in a synod at Constantinople, A. D. 335. Socrates observes, that the heads of those parties durst not anathematize those ancient Doctors, lest the people should abhor them for so doing; or as Sozomen expresses it, lest their own party should take offence, and desert theme: is it at all likely that their own party should take such offence in this case, or should pay any great respect and deference to the memory of Eustathius, Marcellus, &c.? Besides this, those ancient Doctors are styled oi maλail, a word not very proper for such as lived but about fifty or sixty years before; and some of them alive within twenty, nay within ten years of the time; as is particularly true of Marcellus, who died A. D. 374. Add to this, that Socrates and Sozomen are express that the ancient Doctors appealed to were those that lived before the rise of the differences, (as common sense also must tell us they ought to be :) and who could those be but the Ante-Nicene Fathers?

Come we now down to the next century, beginning

• Ὑπὸ τῶν οἰκείων ἐξελαθήσονται, Sozom. p. 292.

1 Τῶν πρὸ τῆς διαιρέσεως, ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησία προσαρμοσάντων διδασκάλων. Socrat. p. 273.

Πρὸ τῆς διαιρέσεως τῆς ἐκκλησίας, καθηγητὰς καὶ διδασκάλους τῶν ἱερῶν λόγων γενομένους. Sozom. p. 292.

with 400, where we find Ruffinus a strenuous advocate for the faith of the Ante-Nicene Church as conformable to

his own. The pretended Confessions, which are partially represented from him, amount to little more than this, that Origen's and the two Clemens's works were originally orthodox, but had been afterwards corrupted, and interpolated by heretics in some parts of them. This shows what Ruffinus really thought of the orthodoxy of the Ante-Nicene writers themselves, that they were of the same faith with the Athanasians. And though Jerome endeavours to expose Ruffinus's account with all the keenness and satire of an adversary; yet he himself was forced to allow it in the main, and almost to say the same thing. "It may be," says he, " that they erred in their "simplicity, or wrote with a different meaning, or that "their writings have been corrupted by little and little, by "unskilful transcribers; or however, that before the rise "of the meridian demon, Arius, they might speak some things innocently and incautiously."

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The pretended Confessions out of Jerome relate chiefly to Origen, whose case will be considered at large in the following sheets: and so I need not here say more of it. The like may be said of Theophilus.

We may now come down to St. Austin, who delivers his mind in the words here following, in his Treatise of the Trinity, finished in the year 416.

"All the Catholic interpreters of the Old or New Tes"tament, that I could read, who have wrote before me "on the Trinity which is God, intended to teach, in con

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formity to Scripture, that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost "do, by the inseparable equality of one and the same "substance, make up the Unity divines." Surely St. Austin must have reckoned the Ante-Nicene Doctors among his Catholic interpreters, of whom he gives this full and plain testimony. What he has said of Origen will be considered in another place.

* Augustin. de Trin. lib. i. cap. 3. p. 753.

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