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changes πρὸς αὐτοῦ into πρὸς αὐτὸν, without giving any notice of it, or reason for it; only to make a weak insinuation against the divinity of God the Son.

Page 75, 76. he has a citation from Methodius, part of which you may see above, (p. 102.) the remainder I have here set down in the margin. After giving a construction diametrically opposite to the intent and letter of the author, he breaks out into this expression; e" See "how he (Methodius) manifestly acknowledges the Son "to have been made, and before begotten," (that is all the sense that I can make of what he says,) "in spite of "the Bishop." He might have said, in spite of grammar and common sense: nothing can be clearer than that passage of Methodius for the eternal generation of the Son; which he does not only assert, but guards it against the objection from that text, ("This day have I begotten 66 thee,') explaining it, not of any temporal generation, (for he allows no such thing,) but of a temporal manifestation.

Page 97. you may see how he deals with a modern author, the learned Dr. Cave. He first applauds his great knowledge of ecclesiastical antiquity, (in which he is extremely right,) and then cites a passage from him, which, as represented, seems to say, that many of the earliest Fathers were against Christ's divinity. He had done this once before in his f Preface, so that one may see he is pleased with the discovery. I have given the passage at large in the 8 margin, including that part in

4 Τὸ δὲ ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε, ὅτι προόντα ἤδη πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων, λέγει, ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, ἐβουλήθην καὶ τῷ κόσμῳ γεννῆσαι, ὁ δή ἐστι πρόσθεν ἀγνοούμενον γνωρίσει. Ap. Phot. p. 960.

• En quam clare agnoscit Filium γεγονέναι et προγεγονέναι, factum et prægenitum esse, frustra præsule renitente. Modest. Disq. p. 76.

f Præf. p.

28.

Nævos, qui in scriptis ejus (Lactantii) notantur, de divinitate, de æterna Filii existentia [de animarum præexistentia et futuro post hanc vitam statu, de fine sæculi et mille annorum imperio, de adventu Eliæ multos ad Dei cultum conversuro] aliisque capitibus, de quibus obscure, incaute, quandoque etiam periculose locutus sit, excusabunt, apud candidos rerum

hooks which our learned Examiner has left out. The whole turns upon this; whether Dr. Cave, by in quibus, intended the same as in quibus singulis, in every one of the foregoing particulars, or rather in many, or most of them. It is impossible to prove that he meant it strictly of every one; and therefore no certain argument can be drawn from this passage: but I will give you a reason or two, why I think Dr. Cave did not, or could not so mean it. You will observe, that de divinitate stands by itself, as a distinct article; and very probably is to be construed of the Deity: Lactantius is known to have had very absurd notions of the Deity, supposing God to have had a beginning, and to have made himself. Dr. Cave could never mean that Lactantius had oμongous complures, many of his mind, in this article: and therefore could not intend in quibus, strictly, of every particular, but of the whole, and in the general. Then, as to Dr. Cave's judgment of the sense of the Fathers, in respect to the divinity of the Son and his eternal existence, it is so i well known, and so often appears in his writings, that he should not be presumed to contradict his declared and repeated sentiments, without a manifest necessity. Wherefore Dr. Whitby does a great injury to the memory of that good man, by taking an advantage of an ambiguous expression. To proceed.

æstimatores, sæculi quo vixit circa istas res imperitia, dogmata ipsa paulo abstractiora, nec dum a theologis dilucide explicata nec synodorum decretis definita, et in quibus iuofpovs habuit complures præcedentium sæculorum Patres. Cav. Hist. Liter. vol. i. p. 112.

h Lactant. Institut. 1. i. c. 7.

i Sancti Patres Catholicæ Fidei Nicænorumque dogmatum testes sunt inconcussi, vindices acerrimi; qui fidem ab Apostolis traditam, a majoribus acceptam, ad nos usque propagarunt, acceptam vita. Voce, etiam sanguine suo confirmarunt, invictisque argumentis contra omnia hæreticorum molimina sartam tectam conservarunt; quique nullis sophismatibus flecti queunt, ut in Unitariorum causam testimonium dicant. Hinc illæ lachrymæ, hæc fundi calamitas. Adeo ut de antiquitate ecclesiastica dici potest, quod de ratione alicubi habet Malmsburiensis philosophus; ubicunque ratio homini repugnat, hominem ipsi rationi repugnaturum. Cav. Epist. Apologet. p. 17.

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Page 60. he tells us, that the titles of Tou Tavros TOMτὴς, and τῶν ὅλων δημιουργός, (that is, Creator and Framer of the universe,) were such as the writers of that age (the second century) always distinguished the Father from the Son by. If he means that the Son had not then those or the like titles given him, it is a notorious untruth, (as you may see by the quotations above, from Irenæus and Clemens Alexandrinus ;) if he means only, that those and the like titles were eminently and emphatically given to the Father, that indeed is very true of the second century; and as true of all the centuries following, down to this present, as appears by our creeds; which, I suppose, is no great discovery.

In his Preface, (p. 32.) he misrepresents Basil as declaring against unity of essence, where the good Father intended nothing but against unity of Person. In the same page, he brings in 1Athanasius, and interprets what he said against the oμooúrov, as if it had been meant of the oμooúσov, betwixt which, that accurate Father always carefully distinguished. A little lower, he represents Athanasius as maintaining numerical identity; which (in the sense of the learned Examiner) is making him a Sabellian. Thus, it seems, he is to confute Bishop Bull, only by puzzling and confounding such things, as that incomparable Prelate had made plain and clear.

Page 9. he represents Barnabas's Epistle, v vodors, which he interprets spurious, (page 19.) neglecting and concealing in what sense m Eusebius had reckoned it in v vósos and what had been said by very n learned men in defence of it.

* Qu. xi. p. 134.

1 Vid. Athanas. tom. i. p. 767. compare tom. ii. p. 31.

Athanasius distinguished very particularly, more than Hilary and some other Fathers did, between the pooúrov and the pooσov. He thought that to say the Son was only like God, was as much as denying him to be God: as if we should say a thing is only like silver, therefore not silver; or only like gold, therefore not gold. This was his sense of the matter.

See Cave, Histor. Literar. vol. i. p. 11.

n Pearson. Vindic. p. 276, 282. Bull. D. F. p. 15. Pr. Trad. p. 3.

Page 23. he gives a partial account of the ancient doxologies. No one that has seen St. Basil, the eighth book of the Clementine Constitutions, Polycarp's Doxology, and the Church of Smyrna's, besides Clement of Alexandria's, and Hippolytus's, can make any reasonable doubt, whether to or with were not applied in doxologies to the Son or Holy Ghost, as well as by, through, or in, by the earliest Ante-Nicene writers. To pretend Athanasian forgeries in answer to all, is only giving up the point, with the ridiculous circumstance of appearing to maintain it.

His account of Justin Martyr is one continued misrepresentation, as may appear in some measure by comparing it with what hath been observed in these papers o.

Page 61. he takes occasion from the Latin version to misrepresent Athenagoras, and to insinuate that the Son is not like the Father. If the Greek words be rendered, as they signify, infecti, et facti, the equivocation upon genitus, and therewith the argument, is lost.

Page 62. he undertakes another passage in Athenagoras, a very famous one, and of singular use in this controversy; plainly showing the true and genuine sense of such Fathers as spoke of a temporal generation, and being of equal force both against Sabellians and Arians, as the P learned Prelate has judiciously and admirably demonstrated against Petavius, Sandius, and others. Sandius, being sensible of its weight and force, thought it the wisest way to say, that the place was corrupt; and being a man of wit, he invented something of a colour for it. Gilbert Clerke, afterwards, thought of a more plausible solution of the difficulty: but the learned 9 Bishop had too much acumen to let it pass. Last of all comes Dr. Whitby with a new device, which, I suppose, is entirely

• See my Answer to Dr. Whitby, p. 49. &c. where Justin Martyr is vindicated at large.

P Bull, Def. F. N. p. 204, 205.

P See Bull, Animadv. in Gilb. Cl. Op. Post. p. 1052, 1053.

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his own. You see the passage in the margin. The words oux ws yevóuevov, he construes thus; "not as eter"nally generated;" as if he had read yevvάuevov, supplying aidis by imagination. The sense and meaning of the word syevóμevov, signifying made, or created, is so fixed and certain in this author, that no doubt or scruple can be reasonably made of it. And that he intended to signify the Son's immutable, eternal, necessary existence, in this passage, is so manifest, that a man must be of a peculiar complexion that can so much as question it; especially considering the other high things said of the Son, by this author, in other places; some of which have been above cited. I mention not how the learned Examiner endeavours to elude them; putting off one with a jest, (p. 60.) pretending an interpolation for another, (p. 61.) and, for fear all should not suffice, retreating at length to his quibble upon the word numerical.

Page 108. he makes a ridiculous representation of Tertullian, as if that writer believed two angels to be as much one, as God the Father and God the Son are. I shall only transcribe the passage, and trust it with the intelligent reader.

Page 110, 113. you find him tampering with Irenæus ; first, insinuating as if that excellent u writer had supposed the "Son was our Lord and God, according to the

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Πρῶτον γέννημα εἶναι τῷ πατρὶ, ἐχ ὡς γενόμενον, ἐξ ἀρχῆς γὰρ ὁ Θεὸς, νοῦς ἀΐδιος ὤν, εἶχεν αὐτὸς ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὸν λόγον ἀϊδίως λογικὸς ὤν. Athen. Leg. c. x. p. 38.

• Ενα Θεὸν ἄγει τὸν τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς ποιητὴν, αὐτὸν μὲν οὐ γενόμενον, ὅτι τὸ ὂν οὐ γίνεται, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὴ ὄν—. Ρ. 21. Τὸ ὃν ἀεὶ, γένεσίν τε οὐκ ἔχον· ἢ τὶ τὸ γενόμενον μὲν, ὂν δε οὐδέποτε. Ρ. 67. Οὐ φύσει ὄντων, ἀλλὰ γενομένων. Ρ. 68.

t Et nos etiam sermoni atque rationi, itemque virtuti, per quæ omnia molitum Deum ediximus, propriam substantiam Spiritum inscribimus; cui et sermo insit prænuntianti, et ratio adsit disponenti, et virtus perficienti. Hunc ex Deo prolatum didicimus, et prolatione generatum, et idcirco Filium Dei et Deum dictum, ex unitate substantia. Nam et Deus Spiritus.— Ita de Spiritu Spiritus et de Deo Deus, ut lumen de lumine accensum. Tertull. Apol. c. xxi. p. 202. ed. Havercamp. Lugd.

" Irenæus, lib. i. c. 10. p. 48 ed Bened.

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