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ostom, be properly said to be one, xatà dúvaμw, in power. His interpretation then, being not only different but contrary to the Doctor's, should not have been represented in such a manner (by suppressing a part of it) as to be made to appear to countenance a notion which it clearly contradicts.

The learned Doctor b has put in an explanatory parenthesis to his translation of a passage of Irenæus. I have took notice above, that he had not done justice to Irenæus in that passage: and I am glad to find that the Doctor himself is now sensible of it. He has not yet come up to the full sense of the author; as you may perceive, by comparing what he hath said with what I have remarked above. But he has said as much as could be expected of him: the wiser way would have been, to have struck the quotation out of his book.

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Page 248. the learned Doctor criticizes a passage of St. Austin; which I am obliged to take notice of, having made use of that passage in these sheets d: I will give you the Doctor's own words, that you may be the better able to judge of the matter. After he had cited several passages out of Justin Martyr, where, probably, Justin was speaking of the temporary poéλeuσ15, or manifestation, or generation of God the Son, he proceeds thus. "Note: " in all these passages, the words κατὰ βουλὴν, and βουλῇ, "and Sexhoe, and duvάue, signify evidently, not volente, "but voluntate; not the mere approbation, but the act of "the will. And therefore St. Austin is very unfair, "when he confounds these two things, and asks (utrum "Pater sit Deus, volens an nolens) whether the Father "himself be God, with or without his own will? The an"swer is clear: he is God (volens) with the approbation "of his will; but not voluntate, not xarà ßovλǹy, not ßovañ, "Denσer, and duvajusi, not by an act of his will, but by "necessity of nature." Thus far the learned Doctor. This is strange misrepresentation. I pass by his miscon

b Page 94.

⚫ Page 305.

d Page 89.

struction of Justin Martyr, and his insinuation (grounded upon it) that the Son became God, by an act of the Father's will. Admitting it were so; how is St. Austin concerned in this matter, and how comes in the Doctor's therefore, where there is no manner of connection? Was St. Austin commenting upon Justin Martyr? The Doctor's thought seems to have been this: that St. Austin, having admitted that the Son was God by an act of the Father's will, and being pressed with the difficulty arising from that supposition, had no way of coming off, but by asking, whether the Father himself was not God by his own will. If this was not the Doctor's thought, it is at least what his readers, very probably, will have, upon the reading the Doctor's note. But to clear But to clear up this matter, I will tell you the whole case. The Arians, formerly, as well as now, being very desirous to make a creature of God the Son, set their wits to work to find arguments for it. They had a great mind to bring the Catholics to admit that the Son was first produced, or generated, by an act of the Father's will, (in the sense of free choice,) and the consequence they intended from it was, that the Son was a creature. The Catholics would not admit their postulatum without proof; and so the Arians attempted to prove it thus, by a dilemma. The Father begat his Son, either nolens, or volens ; against his will, or with his will it could not be against his will, that is absurd; therefore it must be with his will; therefore that act of the will was precedent to the Son's existence, and the Father prior to the Son. Here the Doctor may see who the men were that first confounded two distinct things, mere approbation, and an act of the will not the acute St. Austin, not the Catholics; but the Arians. To proceed: the Catholics, particularly Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Cyril of Alexandria, and St. Austin, (men of

• Athanas. Orat. iii. p. 610, 611. Gregory Nazianz. Orat. xxxv. p. 565, 566. Cyril. Alexandr. Thesaur. p. 50, 52. August. tom. viii. p. 626, 994. ed. Bened.

excellent sense, and who knew how to talk pertinently,) easily contrived to baffle their adversaries with their own weapons. Tell us, say they to the Arians, whether the Father be God, nolens, or volens ; against his will, or with his will. This quite confounded the men, and their dilemma; and they had not a word to say more. For, if they had said nolens, against his will; that was manifestly absurd: if they had said volens, with his will; then, by their own argument, they made the Father prior to himself. The Doctor perhaps might have helped them out. Let us see then: "The answer," he says, "is "clear." But what is clear? Does he imagine there was any difficulty in answering St. Austin's question, taken by itself? This required no Edipus; any man might readily answer it: but the difficulty was for an Arian to make an answer, which should not recoil upon himself. Let us take the Doctor's answer, and observe whether it could. be of use. "The Father," says he, "is God with the approbation of his will, (volens,) not by an act of his "will." But if an Arian formerly had thus answered St. Austin, it would have made the good Father smile. For he would immediately have replied: Well then; so the Father had his Son (volens) with the approbation of his will, and not by an act of his will: and now what becomes of your dilemma, and your nolens volens? What could the Arian have pretended farther, except it were to persist in it, that the Son was God by an act of the will? To which it would be readily answered, that this was begging the question: and so the whole must have ended. Judge you now, whether the Doctor or St. Austin had the greater acumen in this matter; and which of them is most apt to be very unfair, and to confound distinct things.

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