tion. But it is not the Observator's talent to think or write accurately. I must farther add, that Origen, Theognostus, Dionysius of Alexandria, and Alexander, making use of the same similitude that Eusebius does, give no such account of its. And none that intended to illustrate eterna! generation thereby ever intimated that it was by will, design, or counsel, in opposition to what is natural or necessary, in our sense of necessary. 3. A third instance of this writer's great confusion, upon the present head, is his blending and confounding together what I had laid down distinctly upon different subjects. What I say of Post-Nicenes only, he understands of Ante-Nicenes too: and what I say of one Ante-Nicene writer, he understands of another; and thus, by the confusion of his own intellect, I am made to be perpetually inconsistent. It would be too tedious to repeat. All may be seen very distinctly, and with great consistency, set forth in my Second Defence; whither I refer the reader that desires to see the sentiments of every particular writer fairly considered t. 4. A fourth instance of this author's confusion, is his pretending that none of the Ante-Nicene writers ever mention any prior generation, any other ante-mundane generation, beside that temporal one before spoken of. It is true that many, or most of the Ante-Nicene writers were in the hypothesis of the temporal generation, mentioning no other: but it is very false to say, that none of them speak of any higher. Origen, and Dionysius of Alexandria, and Methodius, and Pamphilus, and Alexander, are express for the eternal generation, or filiation "; and Irenæus, and Novatian, and Dionysius of Rome may, very probably, be added to them. These together make eight, and may be set against Ignatius, Justin, Athena • See my Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 293. &c. Ibid. from p. 262 to p. 286. u See my First Defence, vol. i. p. 97, &c. Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 273, goras, Tatian, Theophilus, Clemens of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus, who make an equal number for the other hypothesis. And I have often observed, and proved, that the difference between these writers was verbal only, all agreeing in the main doctrines, and differing only about terms, whether this or that should be called generation *. 5. Another instance of his great confusion under this head, is his objecting to me again, as before in the Reply, my appealing to the ancients for the understanding of will in the sense of acquiescence and approbation, meaning by ancients, Post-Nicene writers. This I did to obviate Dr. Clarke's pretences from some Post-Nicene writers, such as Hilary, Basil, Marius Victorinus, and Gregory Nyssen. And, certainly, in expounding these writers, heed must be given to their way and manner of using their phrases. And as to calling them ancients, the Author of the Reply had done the same twice togethery. 6. This writer discovers his ignorance, or infirmity rather, in calling my interpretation of ἀνάγκη φυσικὴ ridiculous, as taken only from some later Christian writers. I proved my interpretation from Athanasius, Epiphanius, Hilary, and the history of the times in which the Sirmian Council was held, in order to fix the meaning of the phrase about that time, which is the first time we find it applied in this subject. And I fully answered all this gentleman's cavils, which he now repeats. 7. Another instance of his confusion, is his saying of the procession, or temporal generation, that it is no generation at all; and that "not one Ante-Nicene writer ever "was so absurd, as to call that a generation by which "the generated person was no more generated than he "was before." As to the fact, that the Ante-Nicene writers, in great numbers, called this procession genera - First Defence, vol. i. p. 113, &c. Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 76, 296. v See Reply, p. 256, 257. and my Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 286, z See my Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 276, 284. tion, I proved it at large; nor can any scholar make doubt of it. And as to the poor pretence, which he here repeats, I answered it before in these words, (Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 273.) "Though the Logos was the same essentially before and after the generation, he was not "the same in respect of operation, or manifestation, and "outward economy; which is what those Fathers meant." And I particularly proved this to be their meaning, from the express testimonies of Justin, Methodius, and Hippolytus a; and confirmed it by quotations from Zeno Veronensis, Hilary, Phoebadius, and others. And what does. it-signify for the Observator to set his raw conceptions and fond reasonings about the meaning of a word, against such valuable authorities? Can any thing be more ridiculous, than to sit down and argue about what an ancient writer must or must not have said, from pretended reasons ex absurdo? I assert it to be fact, that they said and meant what I report of them; and I have produced their testimonies the author may, if he pleases, go on with his dreams. This writer having performed so indifferently upon one part of the charge, will not be found less defective in regard to the other; wherein he charges me with denying eternal generation, or reducing it to nothing. He will not, I presume, pretend that I either deny it or destroy it, as he does, by pronouncing all eternal generation absurd and contradictory. If I deny it or destroy it, it is in asserting it however at the same time: and it must be by explaining it, if any way, that I reduce it to nothing. If it happens not to be so explained as to fall under this gentleman's imagination, it is, according to him, reduced to nothing. But before he comes to his metaphysical speculations on this head, he gives us a taste of his learning, in respect of the ancients; boldly asserting, that they never express the first (or eternal) generation of the Son, by filiation, or generation, or begetting, or by any other • Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 265, 295. equivalent term. This is a notorious untruth. For when Irenæus reproves some persons as attributing any beginning to the prolation of the Son, (prolationis initium donantes,) he uses a term equivalent to filiation, or generation b. When Origen declares there was no beginning of the Son's generation, he uses the very word, as also when he speaks of the only begotten, as being always with the Father. Dionysius of Alexandria expresses it by the word sysvs, eternally generated d; which surely is very express. When Methodius asserts, that he never became a Son, but always was so, what is this, but saying the same thing? And when other writers assert, that the Father was always a Father, this is at least asserting an eternal generation in equivalent terms. But this writer's knowledge of antiquity has been sufficiently shown. Let us see whether he can perform any thing better in metaphysics. He forms his attack thus: "Dr. Waterland"desires, you would by no means understand him to in"tend eternal generation indeed, but a mere coexistence "with, and not at all any derivation from the Father," p. 72. And certainly Dr. Waterland is very right in making eternal generation to be eternal, amounting to a coexistence with the Father, without which it could not be eternal. It is observable however, that this gentleman opposes derivation to coexistence; which shows what kind of derivation he intends; a derivation from a state of nonexistence, a derivation commencing after the existence of the Father, and because later than the Father's existence, infinitely later, as it must be if at all later. In short then, it is a derivation of a creature from his Creator this is the eternal generation he is contending for, in opposition to mine; while he is endeavouring to show that mine is not generation; as his, most certainly, is not eternal, nor generation, but creation. The sum of what he b See my First Defence, vol. i. p. 96. • Ibid. p. 102. : has to advance is, that coexistence is incompatible with generation; that an eternal derivation is absurd, and contradictory. No doubt but such a derivation as he is imagining (which he explains by a real motion of emission, and growth of one out of the other) is incompatible with coexistence. But what the primitive Fathers intended, and what the Scripture intended by eternal generation, implies no such motion of emission, no such growth of one out of the other, but an eternal relation or reference of one to the other as his Head. An eternal relation has no difficulty at all in the conception of it. All the difficulty lies in the supposition of its not being coordinate, though the Persons be coexistent. And when it can be shown that all priority of order must of course imply a priority of duration too, then the objection may have some weight in it. Till that be done, the notion of eternal generation will stand: an eternal Logos of the eternal Mind, which is the aptest similitude to express the coeternity and headship too; and is the representation given of it both by Scripture and antiquity. I proceed to a new charge. IX. "Another method by which Dr. Waterland en"deavours to destroy the supreme dominion, &c.—is his "labouring, by a dust of learned jargon, to persuade men "that the very terms one God mean nobody knows "what," p. 85. To this I answer, that one God means one necessarily existing, all-perfect, all-sufficient substance, or Being: which substance, &c. consists (according to Scripture account) of three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one Jehovah. This is one God. Let this gentleman disprove it, when he is able. I had said, f" If Scripture makes the three Persons one "God, either expressly or by necessary consequence, I "know not what men have to do to dispute about intelligent agents and identical lives, &c. as if they under"stood better than God himself does, what one God is, or "as if philosophy were to direct what shall or shall not 66 Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 66. |