appellation, and Christ himself could only have heard the appellation, to bestow, upon the unholy practice of plain necessity involved in it, a most severe and indignant and well-merited censure. But we find not, that the slightest vituperation escaped the lips either of Christ or of his delegated servants. On the contrary, the mode, in which the appellation is heard by the former and employed by the latter, clearly demonstrates, that, by an authority from which with Christians lies no appeal, the practice was deemed, not only justifiable, but even the bounden duty of every sound believer. Yet the religious invocation of a creature cannot but be idolatry: and idolatry, we know, is reprehended, in the very strongest terms, throughout Holy Scripture. Hence, on the principle so judiciously laid down by Dr. Priestley himself, it will follow: that The apostolically uncensured practice of the primitive Church involves, of very necessity, the reception of the doctrine of Christ's proper divinity'. 1 See above, book i. chap. 4. in init. Dr. Priestley, it will be recollected, not only made the positive assertion, that Christians did not at first pray to Christ, but prayed habitually to the Father ONLY: he also employed this positive assertion of an alleged notorious historical FACT, as the avowed basis of an argument against the doctrine of Christ's divinity. Numerous Antitrinitarians, who implicitly build, not upon their own personal researches, but upon the good faith of their teachers, have, I make no doubt, admitted Dr. Priest XVIII. Accordingly, as St. John, the last survivor of the Apostolic College, bequeathed to the Catholic Church, at the commencement of the second century, the practice of worshipping the Son conjointly with the Father and the prophetic Spirit so, in the last-written of the four Gospels, did he likewise bequeath to the Catholic Church the only sound and intelligible rationalè, on which the Son could be at all worshipped and invocated. Three years after the death of St. John, it was, by the lapsed, deposed before Pliny: that Christians, in the course of their religious worship, statedly recited hymns to Christ as to God. In exact harmony with this deposition, St. John teaches us that The Word, who became incarnate in the man Christ Jesus, was himself God with God, through whom the universe was created'. Whence it obviously follows: that Christ, as being God incarnate, was doubtless the proper object of that divine adoration, which the inspired Apostle both recorded and performed. With respect to the remarkable exordium of St. John's Gospel, the primitive Church Catholic understood it precisely as it is still understood by the Catholic Church of the present day. As the Church worshipped; so the Church, receiving her doctrine from the Apostles, interpreted. Her ley's historical FACT as a matter quite undeniable, and have thence credulously assented to his CONCLUSION from it. 1 John i. 1-18. practice and her exposition, originating from the same authority, perfectly corresponded. Justin, Hippolytus, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, Novatian, and Dionysius of Alexandria, all understood the passage, not as Mr. Lindsey or Dr. Priestley or Mr. Belsham would variously, each according to his own mere unsupported dogmatism, recommend us to understand it; but as, under the precise aspect of a rule of truth in the Church, it was expounded by the venerable Irenèus: and, through the single intervening link of his master Polycarp, Ireneus received his theology direct from the Apostle John himself1. For the above specified authorities in full, see below, Append. i. numb. 1. text 12. As the jarring interpretations of the exordium of St. John's Gospel, propounded by the mutually irreconcileable doctors of the modern Humanitarian School, rest severally upon a foundation not more solid, than the mere arbitrary dogmatism of their respective propounders: SO NOT ANY ONE of these interpretations, whether proposed by Mr. Lindsey or Dr. Priestley or Mr. Belsham, was, either known to, or received by, the primitive Church Catholic. In the writings of the early Antenicene Fathers, NOT A VESTIGE of any one of these recent unsupported figments can be discovered. See Lindsey's Sequel to Apol. p. 129-141. Priestley's Hist. of Early Opin. Introd. sect. v. Works, vol. vi. p. 42, 43. New Testam. in an Improv. Vers. by Belsham. in loc. Departing with a high hand from the recorded interpretation of the primitive Church quite up to the times of the Apostles, the doctors of the modern Humanitarian School cannot even agree among themselves what exposition they shall substitute in its place. Dr. Priestley is in one story : Mr. Lindsey, in another: and Mr. Belsham, in a third. Let their respective living admirers produce, if they be able, even a shadow of tangible evidence, that any one of the mutually discordant glosses, commonly received on the strength of mere dogmatism by our readily acquiescent Antitrinitarians, gives the real sense of the passage. Certainly, I could never yet discover any more cogent reason for adopting the interpretation either of Mr. Lindsey or Dr. Priestley or Mr. Belsham, than that each severally thinks his own interpretation to be the true one. Now this, so far as I can perceive, is mere naked unadulterated dogmatism. Where, that we should receive it, is the convincing force of an interpretation, which rests solely on the unsupported self-persuasion of its contriver? : Under the aspect of collateral evidence, I take this opportunity of stating that the Platonist Amelius, who flourished in the third century, exhibits himself, as understanding the exordium of St. John's Gospel precisely as it is now understood by all who receive the doctrine of the Trinity. To such a sense of the passage, this unprejudiced and unbiassed judge was doubtless conducted, partly by the obviousness of its natural import, and partly by finding that it was thus universally expounded by the whole Christian Church. Καὶ οὗτος ἄρα ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καθ' ὃν ἀεὶ ὄντα τὰ γινόμενα ἐγί νετο, ὡς ἂν καὶ ὁ Ἡράκλειτος αξιώσειε, καὶ νὴ δι' ὃν ὁ βάρβαρος ἀξιοῖ ἐν τῇ τῆς ἀρχῆς τάξει τε καὶ ἀταξίᾳ καθεστηκότα πρὸς Θεὸν εἶναι, καὶ Θεὸν εἶναι· δι' οὗ πάνθ' ἁπλῶς γεγενῆσθαι ἐν ᾧ τὸ γενόμενον ζῶν, καὶ ζωὴν, καὶ ὃν πεφυκέναι, καὶ εἰς τὰ σώματα πίπτειν, καὶ σάρκα ἐνδυσάμενον, φαντάζεσθαι ἄνθρωπον μετὰ καὶ τοῦ τηνικαῦτα δεικνύειν τῆς φύσεως τὸ μεγαλεῖον, αμέλει καὶ ἀναλυθέντα πάλιν ἀποθεοῦσθαι, καὶ Θεὸν εἶναι, οἷος ἦν πρὸ τοῦ εἰς τὸ σῶμα καὶ τὴν σάρκα καὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον καταχθῆναι. Amel. apud Euseb. Præp. Evan. lib. xi. c. 17. p. 317, 318. Lutet. Stephan. 1544. CHAPTER V. RESPECTING THE TESTIMONY AFFORDED TO THE FACT OF THE POSITIVE ANTIQUITY OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY AND THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST, BY ANCIENT APOLOGIES AND OFFICIAL EPISTLES AND OTHER PUBLIC DOCUMENTS OF THE EARLY CHURCH. AMONG the primitive Christians, nothing was more common, than to publish what were called Apologies or rather (according to the propriety of our english idiom) Defences. In the composition of these Works, some accredited champion of the common faith stepped forth : and, appearing as the acknowledged representative of his brethren, described and vindicated, in the general name of the Church, those doctrines, which, by common consent, were universally taught and believed. The evidence, afforded by such Works, seems perfectly unexceptionable. For, on the one hand, if either the whole Church, or an immense majority of the Church, differed radically in sentiment from the Apologist: they, clearly, would never have acknowledged the offi |