look to, as neceffarily flowing from your Premifes; which you pretend to found on Scripture and Reafon, without any ground or warrant from either. You are refolved, it seems, to difown the certainty of the Disjunction, (p.61.) fo afraid you are of determining the Son to be a Creature, & var. Let us hear what a Difputant may have to plead against a Thing as clear and evident as any Axiom in Geometry.

You fay, The Nicene Fathers thought the Son to be neither the vola Ty Targos, The Subftance of the Father, nor icon OVTEN, but en τῆς οὐσίας τῇ πατρός, from the Subftance of the Father. The Nicene Fathers explain their meaning, both in the Creed it felf, and in the Anathemas annex'd to it; determining the Son to be no Creature, nor a different God from the Father; but of the fame undivided Substance with Him, God of God, Light of Light, Confubftantial with Him, and a distinct Perfon from Him.

Next, you fay, you dare not determine that God produced all Things, or any Thing, ftrictly and metaphyfically speaking) out of Nothing. Extreme Modefty! That you dare not determine whether God has properly created any Thing; or whether all Things were not neceffarily exifting. Matter it felf may have been co-eval and co-eternal with God the Father; Any thing, it feems, but his own beloved and only-begotten Son: Or else why are you fo .*. See Dr. Clarke's Reply to the Convocation, p. 29.

fhy,

hy, at other times, of acknowledging His Eternity? Or why fo refolute in difputing against it? An eternal Son, methinks, is much better Senfe than an eternal Subftance, not divine, and a Son made out of it; which is what you must mean, or mean nothing. But to proceed: You add, How God brings Beings into real Exiftence we know not, because we know not their Effences. Therefore, I fuppofe, we know not, whether He brings them into Exiftence at all; or whether they had a Being before they were created: That's the Confequence you intend, if any thing to the purpose. You go on: Or whether it be a Contradiction to predicate Existence of them before their com ing into that State which they now are in, and which we call their Creation, we know not. Very Ignorant! And yet you can be pofitive in Things, which you know a great deal lefs of; prefuming to make the Generation of the Son of God Temporal; and determining it a Contradiction to predicate Exiftence of Him before His Generation. Such Things as thefe carry their own Confutation with them; and only show that Truth is too stubborn to bend. Let it be faid then plainly, and without difguife, that the Son of God is either Confubftantial with God the Father; or else a Creature. There is no medium, neither can there be any; confiftent with Scripture, and with the truth and reason of Things. This being fettled, our Difpute

*

* Pag. 51. 63.

may

may be brought into a narrower Compass; and we may hereafter difmifs doubtful and ambiguous Terms.

QUERY XIV.

Whether Dr. Clarke who every where denies the Confubftantiality of the Son, as abfurd and contradictory, does not, of Confequence, afirm the Son to be a Creature ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων, and fo fall under his own cenfure, and is Self-condemn'd?

I'

T hath been question'd by fome, whether Dr. Clarke has really given into the Arian Scheme, or no. From what He faith, in fome places of his Scripture-Doctrine, (particularly

Prop. 14 and 16.) one might imagine that He ftood Neuter; neither determining for, nor against the Catholick Faith, in that Article: But, from his declaring † exprefly against the Confubftantiality of the Son, whether Specifick or Individual, (between which He allows no medium) and from his reckoning the Son among the spyna (tho' He gives an artificial glofs to it ;) as also from his excluding the Son out of the One Godhead; from thefe Confiderations, to mention no more, it is exceedingly clear, that He has determin'd against the Church, and declared for Arianifm. He has, by neceffary Confequence, afferted the Son to

Script. Dotr. p. 276. 279. See Script. Doctr. p. 465. first Ed.

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be in vtov; which is the very Effence and Characteristick of Arianifm. By fo doing, He is Self-condemn'd (See Prop. 14.) unless affirming a thing exprefly be highly blameable; and affirming the fame thing, implicitely and confequentially, be just and good. It is unaccountable to me, how there comes to be fuch a charm in Words, that a Man fhould be blameable for faying a Thing of this Nature, plainly and directly, which He may affirm indirectly and confequentially, without any fault at all. Doth the Offence lie only in Sounds or Syllables? Or was Arius more culpable for faying, the Son was a Creature, and from nothing, than Another who fays, He is not Confubftantial with the Father, nor One God with Him, or the like; when it is fo very manifeft, and hath been proved above, that they are only different Expreffions of the fame Thing? I can think but of three Reasons (I fpeak not of particular Views, or Motives) why any Man fhould condemn Arius for declaring the Son to be x TV. Either because the Propofition is falfe; or because it is dubious; or because it is not, in express Words, contain❜d in Scripture.

If the Doctor believed it falfe, He could not, confiftently, difown the Confubftantiality and Co-eternity; If He thought it dubious, He muft have observed a Neutrality in this Controverfy; which He has not done: The Third Reafon would bear too hard upon many of the Doctor's Fifty Five Propofitions. The Conclufion,

which I draw from thefe Premises, pursuant to the Query laid down, is, that the learned Doctor, in condemning Arius, has implicitely condemn'd Himself. It was as necessary to take notice of this, as it is to take off Disguises, and to prevent a Reader's being misled by fair Pretences. Let Things appear what they really are, without Art or Colouring; and then, if you can make any Advantage of 'em, in God's Name, do fo; and, if your Cause be just, it will thrive the better for it.

*

QUERY XV.

Whether He also must not, of confequence, affirm of the Son, that there was a Time when He was not, fince God muft exist before the Creature; and therefore is again Self condemn'd, (See Prop. 16. Script. Doctr.) And whether He does not equivocate in faying, elsewhere, that the fecond Perfon has been always with the First; and that there has been no Time, when He was not fo: And lastly, whether it be not avain and weak Attempt to pretend to any middle way between the Orthodox and the Arians; or to carry the Son's Divinity the leaft higher than They did, without taking in the Confubftantiality?

I

Could have been willing to have had this, and other the like Queries, relating more to the Doctor Himself, than to the Caufe, drop'd. But Script. Dor. p. 438. first Ed.

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