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❝ with all our heart, &c. for HE faith in Isaiah, "This people honoureth me with their lips, but "&c." In conformity with this good Father's idea, we may ask, after the manner of St. Paul, is Jefus Chrift the God of the New Teftament only? Is he not alfo of the Old? Yea, of the Old alfo. In the conclufion of the epiftle, St. Clement exhorts the Corinthians to be vigilant, &c. " because we know "not the day of GOD's appearing ;" i. e. undoubtedly, the day when we must appear before the judgmentseat of Christ.

It is true, as the learned tranflator acknowledges, this second Epistle, was neither held in fo much reverence by the ancients, nor is fo generally received among the moderns, as the firft; and, it is certain, St. Jerome, Photius, and Archbishop Ufher after them, concur in endeavouring to represent it as a fpurious production. But I am apt to think every reader will be fatisfied with what the learned Prelate has advanced in its defence ; though, were the point ftill really controvertible, as the ground of the objections,

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raised by these illuftrious perfonages, does not lie in the doctrine fo explicitly contained in it, and at the fame time fo confonant to the sentiments of the apoftolical fathers, I see no manner of neceffity for retracting thefe quotations. Whoever the author might be, we have his clear sense of the matter.

The charge of credulity brought against many of the Fathers by a late celebrated Author, with vehemency of zeal, and in the dialect of virulence, even admitting it to be well founded, cannot justly be thought to affect in the least the validity of these primitive and plain teftimonies to the great truths of the Gofpel, as they are moft furely believed among us. There is not, I am confi1 dent, one circumstance to colour a charge of this nature against the Fathers from whom we have been drawing our evidence, except that of the Phenix, by which, as we shall fee, St. Clement illuftrates the doctrine of the refurrection. And ample fatisfaction will be given on that head in its proper place. (0)

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To these teftimonies we might fubjoin thofe of Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Irenæus, and a number of others; the weight of whofe collected evidence will be found infinitely to preponderate all that has perversely been alledged to its difcredit from writers of a subsequent date, and minor authority.(p) This in due time will fully appear.

Now, if in all this doctrine we can fee nothing like a formulary, or system, we see however from whence confeffions of faith may reasonably be fuppofed to have originated, and by what at this day they may be moft justly defended. Suppofing the first rule of faith to have been purely the baptifmal form; or, agreeing with Dr. Sykes, that the " very fhort Creed which at first "was deemed fufficient to entitle men to bap"tism, was no other than a faith in God the

Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, "and in Jefus Christ, his Son our Lord, and "in the Holy Ghoft;" even admitting this, we cannot furely have recourfe to better or founder authority than that which has been

laid before you, in order to know exactly what this faith implies. It will be hard indeed if the Apostles, and thefe Apoftolical Fathers, should be all along teaching herefy, while they perpetually and earnestly, though not formally or methodically, complain of, and expatiate against it.

But I have yet farther to obferve, that the fenfe of antiquity, and the faith of the primitive Church, may be inferred from fuch circumftantial evidence as has never, that I know of, been profeffedly produced, but yet, I truft, will be allowed to come little if at all fhort of demonstration.

The infamous reproach which was caft upon the whole Chriftian name by its first enemies, is a circumftance of a particular afpect to our purpose. Chriftianity was called emphatically THE ATHEISM. (g) Now I own I cannot help confidering this equally horrid and ridiculous imputation as neceffarily importing the primitive Chriftians to have worhipped Jefus Chrift as ONE with the Father,

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or as very God of very God" from all eternity. For nothing less than fuch worship will account for the charge either from Jews or Gentiles. It might naturally be confidered by both as a kind of dethroning of the ONE SUPREME GOD. But every modern unbeliever will readily agree with me, that the idea of inferiority and delegation, &c. is far from being irreconcileable with Jewish tenets, or with known principles of Polytheism. (r)

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According to the Apoftolical conftitutions, as we learn from an eminent author, it was customary for the priest, after amen folemnly pronounced by the communicants in the holy facrament, to cry out with a loud voice τα άγια τους άγιοιςHoly things belong to holy perfons; upon which the people answered, There is one Holy, one Lord Jefus Chrift.

The fame writer acquaints us from Vegetius, an heathen author, who flourished in the time of the younger Valentinian, that Christians in a military capacity were used

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