AVING in the former chapter spoken

HAVING

concerning our faith in God the father; in this I come to consider in part, of that which relates unto the son: the beginning whererof is, "and in Jesus Christ;" wherein the first thing observable is, that the Nicene and more ancient Greek creeds read, and in one Jesus Christ" putting an emphatical force and energy upon the term One; as in one of the creeds of Irenæus, the Christian faith is not only terminated upon one God the father, but also upon one Jesus Christ; and where the said father exhorts his readers to a firm adherence under the faith, which the church received from the apostles, and distributes to her children, this is one article thereof, that there" is but one Christ the son of God:" which particular emphasis in the oriental creeds, was long ago remarked by Ruffinus, .who assures us, "that as they did all read in one God the father almighty, so also in one Lord Jesus Christ, in conformity, as he thinks, to the authority of St. Paul, that there is but one Lord and one God."..

But, as I conceive a more probable account of this emphatical expression may be fetched from the blasphemous and horrid imaginations of the Gnostics, Cerinthians, and others, who by dividing Christ from Jesus, denied the uni

ty of our Saviour's person; concerning the former of which heretics, Irenæus writes, "that they did not only endeavor to withdraw persons from their faith in one God the father almighty, but also from their faith in one Lord Jesus Christ," by separating Jesus from Christ, affirming them to be two distinct and different persons, and got one Christ Jesus, as the creed declares.

The general opinion of the Gnostics relating to this matter, seems to have been this,

that Christ was the son of their creator, whom they termed Demiurgus;" from whom he derived an animal life, as from his Grandmother Achamoth he received a spiritual one; that he passed through the Virgin Mary as water through a pipe; and that at his baptism, Jesus who lived with the thirty Eons within the Pleroma, descended into him in the form of a dove, and continued with him till his passion, when the said Jesus left Christ, and returned back to the Pleroma in an invisible and incomprehensible manner.

The blasphemies of Valentinus, a principal leader amongst the Gnostics, respecting this particular, are thus briefly expressed by Theodoret, that he asserted, "that the only begotten was one, and the word another; that

there was one Christ within the plenitude, and another Jesus; and again one Christ without the plenitude; affirming moreover, that Jesus was incarnated, but putting on the Christ that was without, and assuming unto himself a body of an animal substance: thus making Jesus and Christ to be two different persons. Which heresy was hatched before his time, in as much as we find it ascribed to Cerinthus, who affirmed Jesus to be a mere man, "the son of Joseph and Mary, into whom Christ descended after baptism, in the shape of a dove, from that principality which is above all, and then revealed the unknown father, and wrought miracles; but in the end, Christ fled from Jesus, and Jesus suffered and rose again, whilst Christ remained impassible, being spiritual." Against which error of Cerinthus, Irenæus assures us," St. John levelled his gospel persuading them, that it was not as they said, that there was one Jesus the son of the creator, and another Christ, who came from the Pleroma, who remaining impassible, descended into the foresaid Jesus, the son of the creator, and afterwards returned back to the Pleroma again."

Now if St. John designed his gospel for the confutation of this heresy, it is no wonder that the church in her most early days inserted in the rule of faith a proper antidote there

against, requiring all her sons to believe in one Jesus Christ, which was a direct contradiction to all the forementioned heresies; for, as Irenæus well reasons, "if these figments should be admitted, it would necessarily folJow, that there are two Christs; for, if one suffers, whilst the other is incapable thereof, and one is born, whilst the other descends ino him so born, and afterwards leaves him, itis most certain that they are not one, but two: which division and separation of our Saviour's person is such an intolerable blasphemy, that as the said father writes, "Christ Jesus shall judge the Valentinians for it, when he shall come to judge the world."

But, though the Eastern creeds did read in "òne Jesus Christ," yet in the West, where the churches were not so much infested and ravaged by the Gnostics, the creed, as our present one doth, expressed this article without the addition of the term "one," saying, "and in Jesus Christ, his only son our Lord, &c." In which words, our faith is declared in the son of God; wherein we have him first described by his name Jesus; and then by his office, that he is Christ; and afterwards by his natures both divine and human, with sev eral acts belonging thereunto: unto each of which I shall speak in their respective order.

And first of all, by the word Jesus, I suppose the designed sense thereof to have been no other than this, that hereby we must profess our belief, that without question or dispute there really was such a man living in the world as was called Jesus, or Jesus of Nazareth, to distinguish him from others of the same name; for it must be observed, that Jesus was a proper name, attributed and given unto oth ers besides our Saviour: [Heb. iv. 8.]" as Joshua the son of Nun was called Jesus ;" and besides him, we read [Colloss. iv. 11.]" of -Jesus who was called Justus," and [Acts xiii, 6.]" of Barjesus, or the son of Jesus;" it being an usual name amongst the Jews, and -like unto other names, imposed upon children at their circumcision: according to which St. Jerom tells us concerning our Saviour, "that as Christ was his common name denoting dig nity, so Jesus was his proper name, by the which," as Lactantius writes "he was called amongst men."

As for the exact time when this Jesus lived here on earth, it is not mentioned in this part of the creed, seeing in another part it is declared to have been in the days of Pontius Pilate; neither indeed was it necessary to be here expressed, since this article being co-eval with Christianity, it was a thing then universal