VI. τῆς μου LECT. God only is the First Principle of all things; distinguish one pasturage of doctrine from another. Be thou a good ναρχίας. agxias, banker, holding fast what is good, abstaining from all Vid. 1 appearance of evil. But if thou thyself wert even one of them, Thess.5, 21, 22. now that thou hast discovered thine error, abhor it. It will prove a way of salvation, to vomit it up; to hate it from thy heart; to shun them too, not with thy lips only, but with thy soul also; to bow down to the Father of Christ, the God of the Law and the Prophets; to acknowledge the Good and the Just, to be One and the same God. May He keep all of you, guarding you from fall and offence, stablished in the Faith, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. • riveu dóximos realirns. These words, which are frequently quoted in antiquity, are sometimes ascribed to our Lord, sometimes to S. Paul. Vid. Constit. Apost. ii. 36. Clementin. Hom. ii. 51. iii, 50 &c. Dionys. Alex. ap. Euseb. Hist. vii, 7. Origen in Joan. viii. 20. &c. Ussher, Valesius, &c. consider it taken from the Gospel according to the Hebrews. LECTURE VII. ON GOD, THE FATHER. EPH. iii. 14, 15. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family of heaven and earth is named. 1. Of God as the One Principle of all things I said enough gì s yesterday; enough, I mean, not in respect to the subject, (for χίας, mortal nature cannot reach this,) but in the measure of our of the weakness; and I trod the bye paths which have been variously God. Unity of struck out by profane heretics: now, shaking from us their foul and soul-destroying doctrine, and remembering it not to our hurt, but for their detestation, let us revert to ourselves, and receive the salutary articles of the true Faith, joining to the dignity of God's sole sovereignty, the attribute of Father, and believing in One God the Father. It is not enough to believe in One God: we must receive with reverence this also, that He is the Father of the Only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ. 2. For thus our view of religion will rise above the Jewish. (2.) For the Jews receive indeed the doctrine of the One God; (though they have often denied this too by committing idolatry;) but they deny that He is also the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, differing from their own Prophets, who say in Holy Scripture, The Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art My Ps. 2, 7. Son, this day have I begotten Thee. Even to this day they rage and gather against the Lord and against His Christ, Ps. 2, 1. thinking that the Father may be made their friend, apart2. from devotion towards the Son; knowing not that no man John 14, cometh to the Father, but by the Son, who saith, I am the 6. door, and I am the way. He then who declines the Way 9. which leads to the Father, and denies the Door, how shall he John 14, be vouchsafed entrance to God? They contradict too the 6. words of the eighty-eighth Psalm: He shall cry unto Me, Ps. 89, Thou art My Father, My God, and the rock of My salvation; 26. 27. a a i. e. Psalm 89. In the Greek and the Psalms are numbered differently from Latin Versions, as need scarcely be said, the English. John 10, 29. VII. LECT. also, I will make Him My first-born, higher than the kings of the earth. If they contend that these things are spoken to David, or Solomon, or some of their successors, they have to shew how the throne of him whom they consider to be the Ps. 89, object of the prophecy, is as the days of heaven, and as the sun before God, and as the moon stablished in heaven; and how 36. 37. is it they feel no awe about the text, From the womb, before Ps. 110, the star of dawn I begat thee: and again, He shall endure Ps. 72, with the sun, and before the moon, from generation to gene5. Sept. ration? To apply these things to a man, argues a mind utterly and entirely insensible. Ps. 89, 3. Sept. 3. But let the Jews, since they so will, be troubled with their accustomed sickness, and disbelieve these and such like Scriptures; but let us embrace the godly doctrine of the Faith, worshipping one God, the Father of Christ. For it Tois - were profane indeed, when He has given unto all the prerogative of parents, to deny to Him the like. And let us believe in One xa God the Father, that even before proceeding to treat of Christ, our previous discourse concerning the Father, may lay deeply in your hearts, not retard, faith in the Only-begotten. σε τὸ γεννᾶν μενον. (3.) 4. For the name of the Father, in its very utterance implies the Son as in like manner to name the Son, is at once to imply the Father also. For if He is a Father, plainly the Father of a Son; and if a Son, plainly the Son of a Father. Therefore, lest when we say, We believe," in one God, the Father Almighty; Maker of Heaven and Earth; and of all things visible and invisible," and then add," and in One Lord Jesus Christ," it should be irreverently thought, that the Only-begotten is second in rank to heaven and earth, therefore before naming them, we named God, the Father; that as soon as we think of the Father, we may also think of the Son, for between the Son and the Father no being whatever comes. 5. God then, though He is in an improper sense the Father of many things, yet by nature and in truth is Father of One only, the Only-begotten Son our Lord, Jesus Christ: not becoming so in course of time, but being from everlasting the Father of the Only-begotten; not first without Son, and then becoming a Father, by a change of purpose; but before Tá- all substance, and all intelligence, before times and all ages, hath God the prerogative of Father; and more honoured The Father of Christ, the God of the Old Testament. συμπλο κῆς ἀπ Jam. 1, 17. 27. 49. in this than in all the rest. A father, not by passion, not by rádu, ix union, not in ignorance, not by effluence, not by diminution, not by alteration": for every perfect gift is from above, and súcas. cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. He is a perfect Father of a perfect Son: who has delivered every thing to Him who is begotten; (for all things, He saith, are delivered Mat. 11, to Me of My Father:) and is honoured of the Only-begotten; For I honour My Father, saith the Son: and again, Even as John 8, I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love. Therefore we say like the Apostle; Blessed be God, 10. even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of? mercies and God of all consolation; and we bow our knees unto the Father, of whom the whole family in heaven earth is named, glorifying Him with the Only-begotten: he who denieth the Father, denieth the Son also: again, He who confesseth the Son, hath also the Father; J. C. knowing that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the added in Father. John 15, Cor. 1, 3. Eph. 3, and 14. 15. τοῦ Κ. for 1. and Xe of our Lord rec.text. 1 John 2, Phil. 2, 49. John 2, 6. We worship then the Father of Christ, the Maker of 22. 23. Heaven and Earth, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; 11. to whose honour the former temple also, over against us, was built in this place; without toleration of the Heretics, who sever the Old from the New Testament, and in submission to Christ, who says of the temple, Wist ye not that I must be Luke 2, in My Father's place? and again, Take these things hence; and make not My Father's house an house of merchandise; 16. which are plain avowals that the former temple in Jerusalem is His own Father's house. But if any one is so unbelieving as to require yet more proofs of the Father of Christ being the Maker of the World; let him attend to these words of his, in addition; Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? Mat. 10, and one of them shall not fall to the ground without My Father which is in heaven. And, Behold the fowls of the Targis b These ideas were introduced by the heretics of the Gnostic and Manichæan schools, and imputed by the Arians to the Catholic doctrine, and especially to the word ὁμοούσιον. Accordingly, explanations were given on the subject at the Council of Nicæa; as e. g. Constantine's, which is thus reported in Eusebius's let G 29. ἄνευ τοῦ μου τοῦ In ter to his Church ; αὐτὸς ἡρμήνευσε λέγων, ἐν οὐρά- your Fa ther. 82 Two senses of the word Father. LECT. air: for they sow not, neither gather into barns, and your VII. heavenly Father feedeth them. And, My Father worketh Mat. 6, hitherto, and I work. 26. 17. 17. John 5, 7. But in case any one, whether from simplicity, or perverse (4.) ingenuity, suppose Christ to be but equal in honour to righJohn 20, teous men, from His saying, I ascend to My Father, and your Father, it is well first to lay down, that though the Name of Father is one, its meaning is manifold. As understanding this, He said without hesitation, I go to My Father, and your Father: not saying, To our Father; but making a distinction, and using at first in its proper meaning, to My Father, which was by nature, and then adding, and your Father, which was by adoption. For though we have been allowed to say without qualification in our prayers," Our Father, which art in Heaven," this is a privilege from God's lovingkindness. For we do not call Him Father, because we were by nature begotten of the "Father which is in Heaven:" but having been translated from bondage to adoption, by the Father's grace, through the Son and the Holy Ghost, we are by ineffable loving-kindness allowed thus to speak. Deut. 32, 6. 8. And if any wishes to learn, how we call God, Father, let him hear Moses, the most excellent of elementary teachers; Is not He thy Father, he says, that hath bought thee? Hath He not made thee, and established thee? And Esaias Is. 64,8. the prophet; But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father: we are the clay, and we all are the work of Thy hand. In the plainest way has the Prophetic gift shewn, that not by nature, but of God's grace, and by adoption, we call Him Father. 4, 15. 9. Let Paul too explain to thee still more certainly, that in Holy Scriptures, it is not by any means the father according to the flesh only, who is called father; for he says, For though 1 Cor. ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for, in Christ Jesus have I begotten you through the Gospel. For not by begetting them according to avay the flesh, but in teaching and begetting them again according Tàu. to the Spirit, was Paul the Father of the Corinthians. Again, consider Job's words, I was a father to the poor. For he named himself a father, not as having begotten them all, but as taking care of them. And the Only-begotten Son of God νῆσαι και μα. Job 29, 16. |