into communion of substance. Justin, Athanasius, Hilary, Basil, Pearson, Bull, Payne, (seven more,) most of them, in the very passages which the Doctor cites; all of them, somewhere or other, are known to resolve it into Sonship, or unity of principle; either of which comes to the same with the former. None of these authors so understood the Father to be one God, as to exclude the Son from being one God with him in nature, substance, and perfection: nor would they have scrupled to call Father and Son together one God; most of them doing it expressly, all implicitly.

Origen, another of the Doctor's authors, resolves the Unity into communion of Godhead, in the 1passage cited. Oeórns is the word he uses; m generally, if not constantly, signifying substance in that very comment from whence the citation is taken; agreeably to the most usual sense of Oeds, in the Ante-Nicene writers; and of Divinitas, in Tertullian; and of Osórns, in other "authors.

Lactantius, the twelfth of the number, would have spoken fully to our purpose, in the very chapter referred to, if the Doctor would have suffered him. He would have told us, (however unhappy he may otherwise be in his explications of that mystery,) that Father and Son are one substance, and one God; so far, at least, contrary to what the learned Doctor cites him for. There remains only Eusebius, whose expressions are bold and free; and so far favourable to the Doctor, as they are different from those of the Catholics of his own time, or of the times

1 Comm. in Joh. p. 46.

m See ibid. p. 35, 133, 154, 228, 262.

Epist. Synod. Antioch. Labb. tom. i. p. 847. Eusebius Comm. in Psalm. p. 323, 592. et in Isa. p. 375, 382, 551. Athanas. passim. Epiphan. Hæres. lxiv. c. 8.

• Una utrique mens, unus Spiritus, una substantia est; sed ille quasi exuberans fons est; hic tanquam defluens ex eo rivus: ille tanquam sol; hic quasi radius a sole porrectus. Ad utramque Personam referens intulit, et præter me non est Deus; cum possit dicere, præter nos; sed fas non erat plurali numero separationem tantæ necessitudinis fieri. Lib. iv. c. 29. p. 403, 404.

before, and after. If they are really to be understood, so as to exclude the Son from being one God with the Father, they ungod the Son, and contain plain Arianism. But perhaps they may admit of such a favourable excuse as, PGelasius tells us, Eusebius, in effect, made for himself, in respect of any uncautious expressions, which, in the warmth of dispute, or out of his great zeal against Sabellianism, had dropped from him: "That he did not "intend them in the impious sense, (of Arius,) but had "only been too careless and negligent in his expressions." One may be the more inclined to believe it, since he admitted, at other times, (as I have observed above,) one God in three Persons: and elsewhere 9 speaks very orthodoxly of the holy undivided Trinity, illustrating the equality of the Persons by a very handsome similitude. But to return to the learned Doctor. In the close of this article he has a peculiar turn, which should be taken notice of. "The Scholastic writers," says he, "in later ages, have put this matter" (meaning the Unity of the Godhead) "upon another foot:" that is, different from what himself, and perhaps Eusebius in those passages, had put it upon. They have not, it seems, put it upon a real, proper numerical individuality, as the learned Doctor would have had them do. They do not make the Godhead μovongównos, one single hypostasis; which, in the main, is all one with the Sabellian singularity.

66

The reader should be told, that those Scholastic writers are as old as Tertullian, Irenæus, or Athenagoras; which brings it up almost to the middle of the second century. So early, at least, Father and Son together have been called, and all along believed to be one God. Let but the

• Οὐ μὴν κατὰ τὴν ἀσεβῆ ἐκείνου ἔννοιαν, ἀλλ' ἐξ ἀπεριέργου ἁπλότητος. Gelas. 1. 2. de Syn. Nic. c. i. p. 11.

9 Εἰκὼν δὲ ταῦτα μυστικῆς καὶ παναγίας καὶ βασιλικῆς τριάδος, ἡ τῆς ἀνάρχου καὶ ἀγεννήτου φύσεως ἠρτημένη, τῆς τῶν γεννητῶν ἁπάντων οὐσίας τὰ σπέρματα, καὶ τοὺς λόγους, καὶ τὰς αἰτίας, ἀπείληφε. Orat. de Laud. Constant. p. 511. ed. Vales.

Script. Doctr. p. 349.

66

reader understand, and take along with him, what I have now observed, and I shall not differ with you about names. Scholastic may stand for Catholic, as I perceive it often does with you also, if you think the Catholic faith may, under that borrowed name, be more safely or more successfully attacked. The Scholastic notion then, which has prevailed for fifteen centuries at least, is, that Father and Son are one God: yours, on the other hand, is, that the Father is one God, and the Son another God: and I am to convince you, if I can, that one God, and another God, make two Gods. You ask me seriously, "whether Herod the Great was not king of Ju"dea, though the Jews" (that is, when the Jews) "had no king but Cæsar?" I answer, he was not: for Herod the Great had been dead above thirty years before; and the Jews had really no king but Cæsar when they said so. However, if there had been one king under another king, there would have been two kings. The same I say for one God under another God; they make two Gods. You ask, next, "whether there were more kings of Persia "than one, though the King of Persia was king of kings?" I shall not dispute whether king of kings was titular only to the kings of Persia, or whether they had other kings under them. I shall only say thus: either the supposed kings of Persia were kings of Persia, or they were not if they were, then there were more kings of Persia than one: if they were not kings of Persia, they should not be so called. To apply this to our present purpose; either there are two Authors and Governors of the universe, that is, two Gods; or there are not: if there are, why do you deny it of either? If there are not, why do you affirm it of both?

66

After all, please to take notice, that I do not dispute against the notion of one king under another; a petty king under a supreme. There is no difficulty at all in the conception of it. But what I insist upon is this: that a

• Page 45.

great king and a little king make two kings; or else one of them is no king, contrary to the supposition. The same I say of a supreme and a subordinate God, that they make two Gods; or else one of them is no God, contrary to the supposition.

Texts proving an unity of divine attributes in Father and Son; applied

Whether the same characteristics, especially such eminent ones, can reasonably be understood of two distinct Beings, and of one infinite and independent, the other dependent and finite?

IN this sixth Query (for so I choose to make it, thinking that method most convenient, on several accounts) are couched two arguments for the Son's being the one true God, as well as the Father.

The first is; That the characteristics, applied to the one true God, are applied likewise to the Son: which consideration alone is of great force.

The second is; That the attributes here applied to the

Son, are such eminent ones, that we might safely conclude they belong to no creature, but to God only.

How shall we know who or what the one God is, or what honour, and to whom, due; but by such marks, notes, and distinguishing characters as are given us of him in Scripture? If those are equally applied to two or more Persons, the honour must go along with the attributes; and the attributes infer an equality of nature and substance to support them. In a word; if divine attributes belong to each Person, each Person must be God; and if God, since God is one, the same God. This is the sum of the argument: now let us see what answer you give to it.

:

You admit that the attributes, specified in the texts, belong to both only you observe, that "all powers and "attributes are said to be the Father's only, because they "belong to him primarily, or originally, as the self-ex"istent a cause." This I can readily admit, as well as you, provided only the word cause be interpreted to a just, sober, and catholic sense, (as the Greek writers especially have understood it,) and self-existent be interpreted, as it should be, negatively. You add, “Our Lord Jesus "Christ, having all communicable divine powers derived "to him, with his being, from the Father, is said to do "the same things which the Father doth, and to be, in 66 a subordinate sense, what the Father is."

Here are many things in this answer liable to just exception. First, your using the word divine in an improper sense. Angelical powers are such as are peculiar to angels; and divine powers such as are proper to God only but here you understand it in the same sense as one might call any kingly power or authority divine, because derived from God; and so any thing that comes from God is, in your sense, divine. In the next place, you clog it farther with the term communicable, telling us, that all communicable divine powers are derived to