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Valentinians, and Marcionites, who not only held that there was another superior to that God, who made the world, but that the God, who gave the law was only just, but not good; and that this superior God sent Jesus to annul what he had done.

Irenæus saith, they called him moreover, malorum fabricatorem,* "The maker of evil things." And that Jesus was sent by that Father, qui est super mundi fabricatorem Deum, "who was superior to God, the maker of the world, to dissolve the law and the prophets," et omnia opera ejus Dei qui mundum fecit, "and all the works of that God who made the world." And well might Irenæus say, that he that hath thus a superior, and is so far under the power of another, as to destroy all that he had done, and pronounces him a wicked being, can neither be truly God, nor a great king. But yet this hinders not, but that he who hath a power over all things committed to him from the Father, who acts by his authority, and always agreeably to his will, may be truly God; he being, as Eusebius truly saith, εἰκων τῆς πατρικῆς θεότητος, καὶ dim TOUTO DEòs, The image of the Father's deity, and therefore God.

*L. 4. c. 5. p. 278.

† L. 1. c. 29. p. 104. Cont. Marcel. L. 2. c. 23. p. 141. L. 1. c. 2. p. 61, 62.

SECTION IV.

On the Faith necessary for Salvation.

MOREOVER, the fundamental principle of the protestant religion is this, That the holy Scriptures contain a sufficient clearness in all things necessary to be believed, or done in order to salvation.

Whence it clearly follows, that what is not with sufficient clearness contained in the Scripture, cannot be truly deemed a necessary article of christian faith, or a doctrine necessary to be believed unto salvation.

Hence, therefore, I think it may rationally be inquired,

FIRST, Where hath the Scripture said, That the individual essence of the Father, hath been communicated to the Son, and Holy Ghost, or that they derive the same individual essence i ovoías roũ Пargos, from the essence of the Father, or have the same individual essence with him, and so are the same one God?

SECONDLY, Where hath the Scripture said, That the Son proceedeth from the Father by necessary emanation? Or,

THIRDLY, By an internal production within the essence of the Father; though that seems plainly necessary to be asserted by those, who call them

selves orthodox; since, if he be produced extra essentiam Patris, "without the essence of the Father," he must have another essence from that which is the Father's.

FOURTHLY, Where hath it any where spoken any thing of the wonderful emperichoresis of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which the Post-nicene Fathers speak of with so much confidence and assurance?

FIFTHLY, Where hath the Scripture plainly spoken any thing of the ἔνωσις υποστάτικη, or hypostatical union, broached first by Cyril of Alexandria, and by Theodoret pronounced to be a thing unknown to the Fathers that lived before him ?*

SIXTHLY, Where hath it said, That the Holy Ghost essentially proceeded from the Father and the Son ?

SEVENTHLY, Where hath it declared, That all, or any of these things are necessary to be believed in order to salvation, as the Pseudo-Athanasian creed doth? Or by what authority do men come after him, and declare that necessary, which God hath never made so? This being plainly to add unto God's word, and to usurp the authority of that one Legislator and Judge, "who is able to save,

* Τὴν δὲ καθ' ὑπόστασιν ἕνωσιν παντάπασιν ἀγνοῦμεν ὡς ξένην, καὶ ἀλλοφυλον των θείων γραφῶν, καὶ τῶν ταύτας ἡρμηνευκότων Πατερων. Reprehen. tom. iv. p. 709.

and to destroy." James iv. 12. What is this, but without divine authority, rashly to exclude men from heaven, and sentence them to hell; and to usurp the authority of that God, whom we are only to call Father upon earth, and of that Jesus, who is our only guide, and teacher, in opposition to all other teachers?

EIGHTHLY, Where doth the Scripture say, That the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, have only one, and the same individual will, or that all three in one complex notion, do one and the same individual action? The falsehood of which assertion, I have elsewhere proved. And,

NINTHLY, Where doth the Scripture say, That three persons can subsist in one numerical essence? This being in effect to say, as Dr. Waterland doth not blush to do, "that three intelligent agents may be one intelligent agent, and no more."* Had all these things been necessary to have been believed, surely they would have been, either in express words, or plain consequence, contained in the Holy Scripture. And if they cannot be found there, it must be granted, at least by all protestants, that they are not necessary to be believed, as not being contained in their rule of faith.

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In our discourses with the doctors of the Roman communion, we distinguish between such articles as

* Defence, p. 350.

we call positive, or affirmative, or which we do assert to be delivered in that Scripture which is our rule of faith; (and that these are contained in Scripture we own ourselves obliged to prove) and those, which we call negative, or such as we deny to be contained in our rule of faith; as that the Pope is Christ's vicar upon earth; that the host is transubstantiated into the real body and blood of Christ, united to his divinity, and therefore is to be worshipped with Latria, that is, with worship only due to the great God of heaven; that it is to be offered as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the living, or the dead; that saints, and angels are to be worshipped by mental, or oral prayers; that we are to bow down to, or worship images or crucifixes; that the sacraments of the New Testament are seven; that prayers are to be offered for the dead, to free them from the pains of purgatory; that prayers are to be administered in Latin, though it be an unknown tongue to the people; and lastly, that general councils are infallible; and that priests do formally forgive sins, and not declaratively only.

Now, as to these negative propositions, we declare we are not obliged to prove from Scripture, that it doth expressly deny them, but think it sufficient, that we do not find them contained in our rule of faith; because, whatsoever is of divine revelation, must be contained in these Scriptures, in which alone we have the mind of God revealed to us. From whence

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