culars of the argument, that we may the more easily take into one view the whole strength and force of it.

The Apostle has here told us, in a very solemn manner, in the very entrance upon his Gospel, that the Aoyos, or WORD, was God; the very mention whereof, according to the Scripture-idea of God, and the prevailing notions of those who lived in and near St. John's time, carries with it, in its first and most natural conception, all that is good, great, or excellent: and so every unprejudiced man, upon the first reading or hearing the Apostle's words, would be apt to understand him. He has inserted no guard or caution to prevent any such construction; but, on the contrary, has hardly omitted any thing that might tend to confirm and enforce it. The WORD was God before he had any dominion, before he had acted as representative of the Father; God, in the beginning, before the world was, before there was any creature; God, by whom the world was made, and to whom every creature owed its existence; who coming into the world, came unto his own, who is Jehovah and Lord of Hosts, the same as Kúpios TavτongάTwp, the Lord Almighty, and God over all: in such a sense, and with these circumstances, the WORD is called God, in the very same verse where mention also is made of the Father, with whom he was, and who is there called God, in the strict and proper sense: all this put together amounts to a demonstration, that the Apostle intended no nominal or inferior God by the WORD, but the true and living God, one with the Father, coessential and coeternal. Thus the first Christians understood it; and thus the Catholic Church has believed: and this is the faith which we ought evermore earnestly to contend for, as being " once delivered to the saints."

I entreat your patience but a little farther, just to take notice of a late pretence of an Arian writer o.

The Jews, says he, and Gentiles believed in one God, understanding it of one Person only: our Saviour and his

• Modest Plea, Postscript, p. 318.

Apostles taught that Christ was the Son of that one God: when therefore Christ is also styled God, those among whom he was first so styled, would naturally understand it in the subordinate sense, as the word Elohim in the Hebrew, eos in the Greek, and God in the English frequently signifies.

This is the argument, and in this, the author says, "the sum of the whole controversy is briefly comprised." If this be really the case, the controversy may be brought to a short and clear issue. By subordinate sense of the word God, the gentleman means such a sense in which creatures may be gods, and have been called gods. I hope I have sufficiently shewn that St. John could never intend any such low sense, nor be so understood by any man of ordinary attention, or common discernment. As to the question, how it would be understood by those who first heard it, it has been already determined by plain evidence of fact. It appears certainly to have been understood in the strict and proper sense, as high as Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Irenæus, Athenagoras, that is, within sixty or seventy years of St. John's writing: and I will venture to add Ignatius P, which brings it up to the very time: for Ignatius had been well acquainted with St. John himself, having been once his 9 disciple.

As to Jews or Gentiles, whatever short or imperfect notions they had of God, (though it is a disputable point, whether they did not both admit of some plurality in the Deity,) they are to come to Christians to be more fully instructed; and we are not to be taught by them, how we are to understand a clear and plain Gospel. Hard must be our case indeed, if we are to be sent to Jews or Pagans to learn Christianity. However, Jews and Gentiles both

P Ὃς πρὸ αἰώνων παρὰ πατρὶ ἦν, καὶ ἐν τέλει ἐφάνη. Ignat. ad Magn. cap. vi. p. 22.

Ὅς ἐστιν αὐτοῦ λόγος αΐδιος, οὐκ ἀπὸ σιγῆς προελθών. cap. viii. p. 23.

Εἷς ἰατρός ἐστιν, σαρκικός τε καὶ πνευματικὸς, γενητὸς καὶ ἀγένητος, ἐν σαρκὶ γενόHevos Osos. Ad Ephes. cap. vii. p. 14.

Act. Martyr. S. Ignat. cap. iii. p. 49.

(as many as came over to Christianity, and did not side with heretics) then at least corrected (or rather filled up what was wanting in) their ideas of the divine Unity, by their faith in, and profession of one holy, undivided, and coeternal Trinity. We have seen then, first, how St. John ought to have been understood; and next, how he actually was understood by sober men, and those that were the most competent judges of his meaning. What can be desired more to cut off all farther controversy in this article?

To conclude: The Sabellians at this day, as well as formerly, are a standing evidence of the strength and force of those two or three first verses of St. John's Gospel. For as they reject the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, only because they think it repugnant to reason; so they reject also the Arian hypothesis, because they take it to be repugnant to Scripture, and particularly to the first chapter of St. John. They are sensible how absurd it is to suppose so much to be said of a creature, and said in that manner, and with those circumstances; and therefore they interpret the whole of God the Father himself. Thus they get over one difficulty, but unhappily split upon another; and the Arians have as plainly the advantage in the point of personality, as the other have in respect of the divinity of the WORD. Happy might it be for both, if, laying aside prejudice, they would contentedly submit their fancies to God's written Word; interpreting it according to its most obvious and natural meaning, without laboured subtilties, and artificial glosses: remembering always that, in case of doubt, there is no safer guide to take with us, than the concurring judgment of the ancients; nor any more dangerous than warmth of imagination, or a love of novelties.

Christ properly Creator:

OR

CHRIST'S DIVINITY

PROVED FROM CREATION.

The second Sermon preached October 7, 1719.

66

JOHN i. 3.

All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

I HAVE before took notice of these words of the Apostle, but so far only as was necessary to give some light to the words going before, whereof I was then discoursing. My design now is, to consider them distinctly, as containing a farther argument, independent of the former, to prove the real, essential divinity of our blessed Lord, by whom all things were made, and without whom was "not any thing made that was made." I have, in my former discourse, intimated the various interpretations given of this chapter, under the names of Socinian, Sabellian, Arian, and Catholic, suitably to their respective schemes. Accordingly, these words of the Apostle, in passing through those several hands, have been shaped and fashioned into so many several constructions; though one only can be the true one. The Socinian will tell us, that all things belonging to the Gospel-state were regulated and modelled by the man Christ Jesus; that the moral world was reformed and rectified by him; and that

the Apostle is not here speaking of a proper, but a metaphorical creation. Next comes the Sabellian, who thinks that the text is meant of the creation of the natural world, and all things in it; but then, not by the man Christ Jesus, nor by any Person really distinct from God the Father all things were made by reason or wisdom, figuratively put for God himself; so that the Apostle intended not here any real Person besides God the Father: thus far the Sabellian. After him succeeds the Arian, who admits of a proper creation of the natural, not the moral world; and admits also of a distinct Person, viz. the Aóyos, or WORD, himself a creature: and he does not deny him any hand or concern at all in the creation; but endeavours only to detract from him, more or less, with great uncertainty. For, as I have before observed, that sort of men are always fluctuating, hovering, and doubtful, not knowing where to fix upon any certain set of principles. Sometimes a you will find them pretending that God the Son, properly speaking, did not make or create any thing at all; but that the Father only was Creator, through him. At other times b they will not scruple to allow that the Son, by his own inherent power, created all things out of nothing; which is carrying the point as high as any the soundest Catholic can carry it: only they add, by way of lessening, that this was at the command of the Father, who had appointed him Creator ; which however might bear a sound and good sense. Betwixt these extremities of high and low (if I may so call them) amongst the Arians, there is a middle way, and that also with a latitude: some think it enough for the Son to have created some things only (suppose, what be

* Πολλάκις γὰρ ἀκήκοά τινας λέγοντας ὅτι ὁ υἱὸς ἐποιήσεν οὐδὲν, ἀλλὰ δι' αὐτοῦ iyśvero rà yɛvóμeva. Epiph. Ancorat. p. 33.

b Antequam faceret universa, omnium futurorum Deus et Dominus, Rex et Creator erat constitutus. Voluntate et præcepto (Dei et Patris sui) cœlestia et terrestria, visibilia et invisibilia, corpora et spiritus, ex nullis exstantibus, ut essent, sua virtute fecit. Serm. Arianorum apud Aug. tom. viii. p. 622. ed. Bened.