"God'." 2dly. He adduces Epiphanius, attesting Photinus to have said: "In the beginning was "the Word, but not the Son, which title was pro"inised and foretold, but did not belong to Christ, "till he was born of the Holy Ghost and Mary." 3dly, He adduces the historian Socrates, as relating "that Photinus asserted the præexistence of the

Logos, and inhabitation in Christ from his con"ception." And lastly, he adduces Hilary, as describing Photinus to have said, "that the divine "word, inhabiting in Christ, made him to be the "real Son of God." From all which, Bishop Stillingfleet concludes, that Photinus did not deny either the præexistence, or consubstantiality of the Logos, but only his being the Son of God, until Christ was born, in whom he dwelt.

This comports exactly with the account which Pope Leo, who flourished about the middle of the next century after Photinus, gives of him, as quoted by Bishop Pearson, in his Exposition of the Creed: viz. "that Photinus confessed Christ to be "true man, and of our substance, but did not be"lieve him to be "God of God begotten before all "ages."

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The language, which Athanasius here ascribes to Photinus, is exactly conformable to the well-known distinction of Aoy☞ sydialer, and Dog & #go‡cgix" the Logos internal, and the Logos external," to be met with in some of the Ante-Nicene writings; (I think in Theophilus of Antioch, for one), and which, I remember to have seen, many years ago, handled and explained very correctly, in a publication of Lord Monboddo's.

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ages." The accounts of this man's condemnation are no less various than those of his doctrine. The most authentic account, however, seems to be this that he was first condemned in that Synod, at Antioch, which condemned Athanasius; afterwards by the Council of Sardica, anno 347, (as Bishop Pearson and Dr Berryman inform us; although Bishop Stillingfleet says, it was by the Arian Separatists at Philippopolis), and again, by a Synod of Western Bishops, at his own city Sirmium. But this condemnation not taking effect, on account of his people's love and attachment to him', when the Arians, anno 351, had got the sole management of Constantius, another Synod was held at Sirmium, in which he was once more deposed, and forcibly driven out of the city.

It may prove of some interest to the reader, to be informed, how strangely this last condemnation of the bishop of Sirmium is spoken of by two writers of considerable repute, Dr Berryman and Bishop Pearson. Dr Berryman says, "The Arians them"selves were so offended at the grossness of his positions, that they deposed him, and confuted him in a

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I This attachment it is no difficult matter to account for, when we hear Vincentius Lirinensis, who was nowise friendly to Photinus, describing him as " et ingenii viribus valens, et doctrinæ opibus excellens, "et eloquio præpotens-a man of great talent, rich in learning, and of "powerful eloquence." Yet was he nick-named Scotinus by a certain class of wits, from scotes, “ darkness," instead of Photinus, from photos, "light!" Somewhat similar to Mr Whiston's corruption of Athanasius, viz. Sathanasius.

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"solemn disputation." Bishop Pearson says, "they "all agreed suddenly in the condemnation of him, Arians, Semiarians, and Catholics; and that, be"ing convicted by Basil, bishop of Ancyra, he was banished from Sirmium.” But the good bishop has omitted to inform his readers of one circumstance, agreed in by all contemporary historians, that this Basil, by whom Photinus was convicted, was a turbulent and truckling heretic himself—the oracle of the "homoiousians," or Semiarians, as they were now called. Now whatever inward sentiments they might have had of the proper Deity of the Son, the Semiarians openly denied the Deity of the Holy Ghost, and believed him to be merely a creature or quality. The bishop ought therefore to have made mention of this fact, that Basil of Ancyra, as much an Anti-trinitarian as Arius himself, had been placed in that See, by the prevalence of Anti-trinitarian, if not of Arian, interest, upon the violent and uncanonical thrusting out of Marcellus, its former bishop, whose scholar Photinus is said to have been'. It being presumable, that both

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I Marcellus was acknowledged orthodox by the Council of Nice, anno 325; but condemned as a Sabellian, by the Arians of Constantinople in 336. Having along with Athanasius fled to Rome, in 342, he was received and owned by Julius; was absolved and reponed, at Sardica in 347; but was recondemned by the heretics at Philippopolis ; nay, began to be suspected, and was at last shunned, by his fellow-sufferer Athanasius. For this, (in his Defensio), Dr Bull endeavours to account, by attributing Athanasius's regard for him to the man's cunning and dissimulation, and to his zeal against the Arians. No great com

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master and scholar were of one mind on the subject, which brought on both the same condemnation, without attempting to vindicate their characters or principles, I may be permitted to ask, What it could have been in the doctrine held by these two men, which rendered them so highly obnoxious to both Catholics and Arians, if it was not, that they carried the Deity of our Saviour to the highest pitch of eternity, equality, and consubstantiality, so provoking to the Arians: while, on the other hand, they attempted to account for that eternity, equality, and consubstantiality, in a style, and manner, different from what the catholics had now thought fit to adopt ; nor only so, but to fix, as the standard, in all time coming, both of faith and language.

Thus did something a-kin to the doctrine of eternal generation, procure a footing in the church, from this period, to the conclusion of the fourth century; founded upon a wrong translation of one single text of Scripture, taken up, on that ground, by Athanasius-by him strenuously urged in all his writings and after him, resorted to by three great champions of the catholic cause, Basil and the two Gre

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pliment to the sagacity of Athanasius, in permitting himself to be so long imposed upon by such a character; or to his probity, in countenancing any man, from such a motive. Unless from the of his professed antagonist, Eusebius of Cæsarea, we have no account of Marcellus's doctrines; and Eusebius, though a valuable historian, was, in his own time, and is to this day, suspected of swaying somewhat to the Arian side.

Gregories, in the disputations which they held with Elius, and his disciple Eunomius, the two ablest defenders of Arianism, who have ever appeared, and two of the most sophistical quibblers of that, or perhaps any other age.

The fifth century, however, gave birth to a new discovery in heretical science. For then started up that arch enemy of grace, the British Pelagius; against whose pestilential opinions the two bright luminaries of the Latin church, Augustine and Jerome, commenced a vigorous attack. After Pelagius, appeared Nestorius, whose absurd fancy, about the "two persons," joined to the more troublesome errors of Eutyches about the "one nature," occasioned the assembling of two General Councils-one at Ephesus, anno 430, against Nestorius; and another at Chalcedon, anno 451, against Eutyches. Suffice it then to say, that Pelagianism, Nestorianism, and Eutychianism, afforded ample scope for the polemical talents of all the literati and disputants of that age.

The succeeding century was agitated by one of the most extraordinary measures, which human ingenuity ever devised-no other than condemning the memory of three departed prelates, Theodorus of Mopsuestia, Ibas of Edessa, and Theodoret of Cyprus. To this measure was given the name of "the three chapters ;" and from it arose a fifth General Council, at Constantinople, anno