punged, because they difowned it, and how it crept into the creed afterwards it is almoft impoffible to fay, with any degree of certainty. It appears, by the arguments of learned men, plainly to have been in the creed prior to the Second General Council; and it appears as plainly not to have been in the creed at the time when the former council was dif felved. Eufebius appears alfo to have been very strongly attached to the article, notwithstanding his having fubfcribed the Nicene Creed, whence it was expunged; and, therefore, it is not at all improbable, but that he himself might have been inftrumental in getting it inserted in the Creed, after the council was diffolved. Certain it is, that he ufes language concerning our Lord, which neither the Creed nor the Scriptures will justify; and which, I suppose, was never used by any one, prior to himself, as may be feen in the first and fecond chapters of his Ecclefiaftical Hiftory, where he ftyles our Lord, wgwτόγονος ΛΟΓΟΣ: now the words, μονογένης and πρω TOTоxos are never any where in Scripture applied to the Aoyos, but folely to the os; and, if they had been applied to the Aoyos, the doctrine of Arius, I apprehend, ought not to have been objected to. The The doctrine of the Eternal Generation, if I may be permitted to speak my own opinion of it, ftrongly favours the caufe of Arianifm; for, if it is true, then CHRIST was always, as being a Son, fubordinate and inferior to the Father, then was he always alfo, as having the Divine Nature by neceffity, an inferior fubordinate God, which, I apprehend, was the doctrine of Arius. But the New Teftament holds forth no fuch language to us. The inferiority of CHRIST to the Father, if I may fo fpeak, was a fuperinduced inferiority, arifing from the voluntary humiliation of himfelf, when he united himfelf to man's nature, and became incarnate. But no where in Sacred Scripture am I acquainted with any thing which gives countenance to the doctrine of the Eternal Generation; and Eufebius, when he inferted the article in his creed, feems to have been aware, that it would be objected to, on account of its not being the doctrine of Scripture, by his introducing it with the words πρωτότοκον πάσης κλίσεως, words which, as I have already fuggefted, feem to fignify the pre-eminence, but not the priority, of his birth. For, if polonov here fignifies priority, in point of time or of existence, will it not be to blend JESUS CHRIST with the mafs of creation, to make him thereby the firft created of the works of GOD? which cannot be true of him, either as he was the Aoyos who exifted from all eternity with GoD, and was God; or as he was man, and born pofterior in time, by numerous ages, to the reft of the creation; and therefore in no refpect doth it feem applicable to him, except the word be taken in the fenfe of pre-eminence, a fenfe which St. Paul himself feems to annex to the word, even when he ufes it in the fente of firit-born, Coloff. i. 17. Os 5 an τραβίζικος εκ των νεκρών ένα γενήθαι εν πασιν αύτος πρω TEUGOV. If the doctrine of the Eternal Generation should really be the doctrine of the Scripture, I fee not how the opinion of Arius and his followers can be accounted herefy, for, the inferiority of fubordination as certainly attaches itfelf to the character of a Son as identity of nature; and, if what Baronius affirms is true, when he fays, Acta Nicana injurid temporis, & ARIANORUM CONATIBUS paffa effe naufragia, certum eft, it will not be either an unfair, or an improbable fuppofition, that we are indebted to the indefatigable industry of the Arians for the infertion of this article in the Creed, as well as for the total fuppreffion of the acts of the Nicene Council. But the whole of this bufinefs is involved in such a cloud of impenetrable obscurity, that it leaves room for nothing but conjecture. Certain, however, we are, that the article was not in the Creed of the Nicene Council, and that, although it was in the Creed prefented by Eufebius, yet that the Council rejected it; and certain alfo we are, unlefs I am in an 3 1 |