Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

ism, in a late excellent Essay m upon him, that one would think the advocates for it should, in mere prudence, give over alleging him. To invalidate Tertullian's evidence, our author repeats the old objection, that he was a Montanist, and had learned his doctrine of their Paraclete. He should have answered, if he were able, what bishop Bull", Dr. Berriman, and Mr. Welchman lately have replied upon that head. Tertullian, he says, "never pretends or "intimates it to have been the doctrine of the ca"tholic church :" which is not true; for he says he had (semper) always believed so °, and was only better instructed, or more confirmed by his new Paraclete, in the same doctrine which he had received before. "Nay, he owns that the catholics charged "his new doctrine with tritheism," p. 47; in which assertion there is, I am afraid, little more truth than in the former. Tertullian was not writing against the catholics, and says nothing of them; he spake of the Praxean heretics, who were not catholics P. Noetians and Sabellians afterwards repeated the same charge of three Gods against the catholics: from whence it is clear as the light, that the Holy Ghost (as well as the Son) was then owned by the church to be God. He comes next to what he calls the "famous romantic Creed of Gregory of Neoca"sarea," which he roundly pronounces "spurious." But here, again, he takes no manner of notice of what is pleaded for the genuineness of it by the authors re

m

Essay on Irenæus, by Mr. Alexander; printed in 1727.

"D. Fid. N. sect. ii. cap. 7. sect. 7. Berriman's Historical Account, p. 114. Welchman, Præf. ad Tertull. contr. Prax. p. 5.

&c.

• Contr. Prax. cap. ii. p. 5. ed. Welch.

P Ibid. cap. iii.

ferred to in the Importance, p. 233. If there be some romance in the circumstances, as to the manner of Gregory's coming at the Creed, that is rather an argument for than against its being his. Succeeding writers had a mind to magnify the matter; and, as is usual in such cases, affecting the marvellous, overlooked the credible. But why must this story deprive the good Father of his property? we must have better evidence before we dispossess him: yet this writer has nothing to offer but frivolous pretences, obviated before by bishop Bulls. Eusebius and Jerome, it seems, do not mention it: "Quasi sci"licet,” says that great prelate, "Eusebius et Hieronymus omnia veterum Patrum scripta et facta commemoraverint." Eusebius, by some means or other, says very little, in his History, of St. Gregory's praises; and Jerome follows him, Karà modas: so that their silence amounts to a very slender argument. And as to what our author says of the style of the Creed, and that "some parts of it savour of being later than the council of Nice;" it only depends upon his taste and skill in criticism; which I shall by no means go about to disparage, since he himself has been so good as to prevent any ill effects from this sort of reasoning. For, says he, "the

66

66

66

66

(ópoovoios) consubstantiality is not mentioned in it:" and again, "it contradicts the council of Nice in "one point," &c. which, to be sure, must make it

4 Bishop Bull, Fabricius, Dr. Berriman, Mr. Abr. Taylor. The reader may also see Dr. Waterland's Farther Defence, p. 120.

" It was fabled of Numa's ancile, that it fell from heaven; nobody believes that circumstance of the story, yet nobody questions its being his.

D. Fid. Nic. sect. ii. cap. 12. p. 153. ed. 1703.

very probable that it was drawn up after that council. The contradiction he speaks of amounts only to a difference in words; which however is a good presumption that this Creed is not later than the council of Nice. He seems at last to be aware that the Creed will still keep its ground, notwithstanding his surmises against it; and therefore he graciously gives the doctor leave to make his best of it. "Even "in this Creed the Holy Ghost is not styled God:" but he is described in such express characters of divinity, as no art can elude: which is better and stronger than the mere title of God would have been for the Arians have ways of equivocating with that high name. However, neither the consub"stantiality nor coequality of the Son and Spirit "with the Father are expressed or implied in it." What? are they not? let any one read the Creed, and believe his own eyes: and let this man answer what the Creed does say, and then observe what the Creed does not say. Surely it intimates the three divine Persons to be one God, when it calls them a perfect Trinity, undivided, unseparated in glory, eternity, and dominion."

66

66

66

We have now done with the Creeds; and if this writer would stand by the rule which he says he agrees to, viz. " that they are to be interpreted ac"cording to the mind of the church, and that the "mind of the church is to be learned chiefly from "the writings of the Fathers," the dispute would be at an end. But instead of regarding what the Fathers, alleged by Dr. Waterland, say, he only abusively calls them "a parcel of false and insufficient wit

[ocr errors]

See Dr. Waterland's Second Defence, p. 287. Third Defence, P. 23.

"nesses,"" engaged to support innovations mad "in the faith of the ancient church." But letting this pass, as the genuine effect and expression of E Christian Liberty, what has he to offer in bar their evidence? They are all, he complains, p. 4 Post-Nicene writers; whereas the doctor, he thinks should have proved his doctrine from the catholi writers of the Ante-Nicene church. What, must th doctor prove every thing, in every place? He has proved the truth of his doctrine from antiquity in his several Defences; which, we must still beg leav to say, remain unanswered. He had nothing to de here but to cite the oldest interpreters of creeds whether Post-Nicene or Ante-Nicene. If the author wants Ante-Nicene Fathers, Dr. Waterland has produced them even in this (vi.) chapter, to shew what they thought of the necessity or importance of faith in the ever blessed Trinity, the argument there under consideration. But, to shew how incompetent these Post-Nicene witnesses are, our author chooses to give a specimen in the famousest of them, Athanasius; whom he represents as ignorant of the doctrine of the primitive church, because he demanded of Arius, "from whom of the primitive saints he "learned his doctrine, that the Son subsisted by the "will of the Father?" He does not tell us, what "primitive saint" Arius was pleased to mention upon this occasion; and indeed he could not justly name one that asserted it in his words and in his sense, or that did not contradict and disclaim it, if so understood as to make the Son's real existence precarious or temporal. They might (some of them) say that the Son was generated by will; but where do they say that he subsisted (vπpe) by will? but this

whole matter is fully and clearly stated in the doctor's Second Defence ". He thinks that the Arians might very well have asked Athanasius, what primitive writer taught his doctrine of the Son's deriving his subsistence, not from the will, but from the nature of the Father? Yes, and have been laughed at for doing it. But they were too wise or too conceited to hearken to the ancients, and learn wisdom from them, resting their cause on logical subtilties*, as their followers do now on metaphysical. At the bottom of his page he refers us, for the concurrent sense of antiquity with regard to this point, to the notes which are added at the end of Novatian, published by Mr. Jackson; in reply to which I will only give him Mr. Welchman's words in his Appendix to the same author: "Nihil protulit Jackson, cui a ca"tholicis, Bullo præsertim Waterlandoque, jam du"dum non sit responsum satis, superque etiam,” p. 12. And now we have Hilary introduced and hardly used again: our author chops him up in the middle, scarce allowing him to give in half his evidence. "What thinks he" (Dr. Waterland)" of Hi

66

66

66

lary's saying, herein, more especially, The Son is "not compared or equalled to the Father, as being subject to him by a submission of obedience,—as being sent by him," &c. Why doubtless, sir, Dr. Waterland thinks, that, as to his office and mission, the Son is not equal to the Father. But he thinks at the same time, that if you would have suffered Hilary to say on, he would have said nothing to your purpose; nay, something destructive of your whole scheme. "This subjection of piety," continues

"Qu. viii. See also the Third Defence, p. 24, 25, &c. * See preface to Second Defence.

« AnteriorContinuar »