and several others, who are thought the Doctor's friends, believed of him as well as 1. I will not say what may be pleaded to make good the charge, from the Doctor's own books, from the whole drift and tenor of them, besides many particular passages, and what from this very piece wrote in his defence; nor how unaccountable his whole conduct relating to this controversy is on any other supposition; nor how needless it is to prove what hardly friend or foe makes any doubt of. Let it be so, that the Doctor has neither directly nor by necessary consequence denied either the consubstantiality or eternity. I am more willing to have it thought that the charge is false and groundless, than this author imagines; and gladly take this opportunity of acquainting the world that the Doctor has less to say against the received doctrine, than was once believed of him. I am always very averse to representing any man worse than he really is, especially such a man as Dr. Clarke, who may be a credit to our cause, as soon as it appears that he does not really differ

from us.

I am very unwilling that any man of sense and learning should be thought an Arian, (Arians generally have been men of a different character;) and if it can be made appear either that the Doctor never was such, or has ceased to be such, upon farther views, (his own good sense leading him at length out of it,) I shall very heartily rejoice at it, and acknowledge my mistakes or misrepresentations with infinitely greater pleasure than I could ever be supposed to make them. If the Doctor has really denied no consubstantiality that either the Ante-Nicene Fathers or the Council of Nice intended, (as this author says he has not, p. 27, 28.) I am very glad of it, and desire no more than that the Doctor do sincerely acknowledge the same, and abide by it: and I hope that those who pretend to have the Doctor's authority to countenance them in their opposition to the received doctrine, (the same which the Ante-Nicene Fathers and Council of Nice taught,) will take special notice of it. What is it

then that the Doctor and we differ about? This author will tell us: the Doctor's "three hundred texts were "brought to prove a subordination, not in mere position "or order of words," &c. p. 40. "The Son must be sub"ordinate to the Father in real order of nature and dig"nity, and not in mere position of words," p. 29. "The "subordination of the Son-is not a subordination merely "nominal, consisting (according to Dr. Waterland) in

mere position or order of words-but it is a real subordi"nation of the Son to the Father, in point of authority "and dominion over the universe. This is the main, the "true and only point," &c. p. 57, 58. Let us see then, if this main, this true and only point can be any way adjusted between us: for we are very desirous to have the learned Doctor on our side, as nearly as possible; or if he must be against us at last, the less the better, both for him and us. Perhaps the Doctor is with us in the main, only has happened unfortunately to mistake our principles; which is a very usual thing with disputants in most controversies. If he has the same notion which this author has, that D . Waterland makes the subordination to consist in "a mere position or order of words," it is a mistake indeed; and I cannot but wonder at his peculiar fancy. I always intended, always spoke of a real subordination: but then I considered the strict force and propriety of the word subordination, implying a difference of order only, while the nature is supposed equal. We do not say that things of a lower kind are subordinate, but inferior, to those of an higher. Brutes are not subordinate, but inferior to man; and creatures are not (in strict propriety) subordinate, but inferior to God. I allow all that is really, truly, and strictly subordination; excepting against nothing but inferiority, (which is more than subordination,) and division of substance, such as is between two human persons acting subordinately one to the other. But of this matter I had declared my mind fully and distinctly in my Defence, vol. i. p. 205, and therefore wonder the more, how I came to be so strangely mis

understood by this writer. If the Doctor will be contented with a real subordination, (admitting no inferiority, no inequality of nature,) he and I need not differ. But if he carries the point one tittle farther, I desire to know what sense or meaning he can possibly have in it, without making the Son of God a creature: which if he does, I hope I shall no longer be charged with calumny; and that the Doctor will think himself obliged, not to say, or to insinuate it only, but to prove it (if possible) from Scripture, reason, or antiquity. There will be no occasion to stand upon any nicety of expression. We shall apprehend his meaning, if he pleases only to say plainly, that the Son is not necessarily existing; which may be a softer way of saying, that he is a precarious being; which is another phrase for creature. The Modest Pleader, indeed, has spoke out; and a certain gentleman that calls himself a seeker after truth, and pretends to be in Dr. Clarke's interest, says, in the name of the whole party, that they are not backward to express their denial of Christ's necessary existence; but that they avowedly maintain, with the most ancient Fathers, (that is, so far as he knows any thing of the Fathers,) that the Son is not necessarily existing b. Had Dr. Clarke not been backward in saying this, or had he avowedly and plainly maintained it, it would have saved us some trouble: and I must then have insisted upon it, from that single consideration, that every tittle of what I charged him with was just and undeniable. He does indeed drop something very like it, (Reply, p. 230, 231.) but if that be really his meaning, (which however I charge him not with,) and if his propositions are to be interpreted accordingly; this author does very ill in pretending, that I have not attempted to refute the Doctor's principal propositions, when my whole book is directly levelled against that very tenet; and is (if I do not too much flatter myself) a full confutation of the Doctor's principal propo

sitions, supposing he meant necessarily existent by selfexistent. I was once of opinion (but let it pass for conjecture only) that the Doctor, having a mind to introduce the Arian heresy, thought to do it obliquely; not by calling the Son a creature, which is gross, but by denying his necessary existence, which comes to the same thing: and yet this was to be done covertly, under the name of selfexistence; a word with two faces, onet o oblige friends, the other to keep off adversaries. But this may be my fancy only. One thing however I must observe, that if the Doctor has any design against the necessary existence of the Son, he has not so much as one single text of Scripture to help him in it. He must be obliged to the Fathers, (whose verdict nevertheless he will not stand to,) even for so much as a colour to his pretences; as appears by his seventeenth proposition, which stands only on the authority of Fathers; though it is the most to his purpose of any that he has, and seems to come the nearest to the point in question. It will not be difficult to disable him from doing any thing with the Fathers: I have, in a great measure, obviated his pretences that way in my Defence of Query the eighth. It will be easy to show, that none of the Fathers looked upon God the Son as a precarious being, but asserted his necessary existence. This is certain and manifest even of those very Fathers who speak of a voluntary generation. We are not indeed to expect the word necessary existence, (a school term, and none of the most proper,) but the thing we shall find, in other words, fully and clearly asserted. This writer tells me, (p. 15.) that I have not been able to produce one single passage out of any one Ante-Nicene Father, wherein the Son is affirmed

This very artifice was made use of by the ancient Arians, who being ashamed to call the Son a creature, contrived to say the same thing, in other words, by denying his necessary existence. Πῶς οὐ δείκνυται τούτων ἡ πολυκέ φαλος πανουργία; ὅτι καταισκυνθέντες ἐπὶ τῷ λέγειν ποίημα καὶ κτίσμα, καὶ οὐκ ἦν πρὶν γεννηθῇ ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγος, ἄλλως πάλιν κτίσμα λέγουσιν αὐτὸν εἶναι, βούλησιν #goßaλλóμevos, &c. Athanas. Orat. iii. p. 610.

to have emaned, or been emitted by necessity of nature. He might have said likewise, that I could not produce any one Post-Nicene Father affirming the Son to have emaned, or been emitted by necessity of nature: that is, they never express it in those terms. 'Aváyxn in the Greek, and necessitas in the Latin, had not the same sense which the word necessity bears, when we say that God exists by necessity of nature. It shows but small acquaintance with ecclesiastical language, for Dr. Clarke to understand by ἀνάγκη φυσική, and φύσεως ἀνάγκη, (Script. Doctr. p. 252, 253.) the same that we understand by necessity of nature. The Fathers understood by it outward coaction, force, or compulsion; and what we express by necessity of nature, they expressed by the word nature: e. g. God is by nature good, he exists, or is God, by nature, (pure, or xaτà quo,) generates a Son by nature, and so on, in opposition to necessity, which (in their sense) could not be ascribed to God at all. Such as denied the Son's existing by necessity of nature, would, for the same reason, have denied likewise that God exists by necessity of nature. Necessary generation, (as we call it,) they expressed generally by Christ's being God by nature, or a Son by nature. Upon the whole, we may leave the Doctor either to give up the Fathers, or to abide by their authority, just as he pleases. If he gives them up, he has not one text of Scripture for his main position, (supposing it his,) that the Son is not necessarily existent: if he abides by the authority of the Fathers, they are, when rightly understood, plainly against him, (as may be easily made appear,) and

d Vid. Athanas. p. 611. Ambros. de Fid. lib. iv. cap. 9. p. 540. Damasc. de Fid. Orthod. lib. iii. cap. 14. p. 221. Hilar. de Synod. p. 1184. Basil. contr. Eun. ii. p. 56, 57. Cyrill. Thesaur. p. 53. August. de Trin. lib. xv. p. 993. Epiphan. Ancorat. n. 51.

See some other references in Petavius de Trin. lib. vi. cap. 8. p. 343. As to Ante-Nicene Fathers, if some of them supposed the generation, or goiλsvvis, of the Son to be properly voluntary, yet all of them supposed his existence to be necessary, (as we call it,) and expressed it in such terms as they expressed the necessary existence of the Father by.