He says that the Father is indeed eminently God; but that the worship of the Son is not an inferior but a Divine worship: he applies the same expression to the adoration of Jesus Christ by the Magi, that he does to the worship of God; he speaks of the Father and the Son being jointly worshipped as one God; he admits the worship of the Son in his distinct individual character; attributing to him immutability, omnipresence, and other qualities which are characteristic only of the Most High; and calling him the Eternal Word, the Son and Power of the Eternal God. (0)

CYPRIAN, when arguing against the invalidity of heretical baptisms, inquires how the subject of such baptism can become the temple of God, saying, "If " he be thereby made the temple of God, I would ask "of what Divine person is it? Is it of God the "Creator? He could not be so, if he believed not in "him. Is it of Christ? Neither can he be his

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temple, while he denies Christ to be God! Is it "then of the Holy Spirit? But since the three are 66 one, how can the Holy Spirit have friendship with "him that is at enmity with either Father or Son?” (p) This Father abounds with passages in which the Divinity of Christ is asserted.

NOVATIAN expresses himself as follows: "If God "the Father save none but through God, then no one

(0) See Mr. F. Cunningham's Hulsean Prize Essay on the Books of Origen against Celsus, p. 40, 41. See also for some striking passages, Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. sec. ii. cap. 9; to which I may also add here, that even Celsus concedes that the true Messiah was to be the Son of God.

(p) Cyprian, Ep. 73 ad Jubaian.

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can be saved by God the Father, who does not con"fess that Christ is God; in whom, and by whom, the "Father promises to give salvation. Wherefore very "justly, whosoever acknowledges him to be God is in "the way to be saved by Christ who is God; and who"soever does not acknowledge him to be God forfeits "salvation, because he cannot otherwise have it than "in Christ as God." (q)

DIONYSIUS, bishop of Rome, after censuring Marcion's tritheistic doctrine as diabolical, says, "Nor are "they less to blame, who think the Son a creature, "and who suppose the Lord to have come into being,

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as if he were one of the things that were really "made." (")

His cotemporary, DIONYSIUS of Alexandria (both flourishing about A. D. 259), expressed himself thus: "The Father being eternal, the Son must be eternal 66 too, Light of Light.-The names mentioned by me "are undivided and inseparable: when I named the "Father before I mentioned the Son, I signified the "Son in the Father. If any of my false accusers sus66 pect that because I called God creator and former of "all things, I made him creator of Christ, let him con"sider that I before styled him Father, and so the "Son was included in him." (s)

The case of this Dionysius of Alexandria evinces very plainly of what great moment the belief of Christ's Divinity was reckoned in the middle of the third century. In controversy with the Sabellians, he

(9) Novat. c. 12. p. 36.

(r) Apud Athanas. vol. i. p. 231. (s) Dionys. Alex, apud Athanas. de Sententia Dionysii, p. 254.

expressed himself rather unwarily, and thence became suspected of leaning too far towards the opposite extreme, and of holding inadequate notions of the Deity of Christ. Such was the jealousy with which this doctrine was guarded, that the whole Christian world were thrown into alarm on account of the supposed heresy of so eminent a man as this Dionysius. Complaint was brought from Egypt as far as Italy: and though the Bishop of Rome had not at that time any authority over the Bishop of Alexandria, the aged prelate of the latter place made known to the whole world through the medium of the Bishop of Rome, that he never intended "the least injury to the Divinity "of Christ, or to his consubstantiality; but himself “believed them, as sincerely and fully as any other man could." (t)

That these were not the sentiments of a few individuals, but of the great body of the Christian church in the primitive ages, is evident both from the remarks which precede these quotations, and from the testimony of cotemporary heathen authors. (v) In a former

(t) See Waterland on the Trinity, p. 352, Ed. 1800. Consult also, (since I have been obliged to omit many quotations from Barnabas, Polycarp, Theophilus, Clemens Alexandrinus, &c.) for a more full account of the opinions of the Christians of the first three centuries respecting the Divinity of Christ, Abp. Wake's "Apostolical Fathers," Mr. Bingham's Origines Ecclesiasticæ, book x, ch. 4, and book xiii. ch. 2. Bishop Horsley's "Tracts in Controversy with Dr. Priestley, upon “ the Historical Question of the Belief of the First Ages in our Lord's "Divinity," and Mr. Badcock's deservedly celebrated articles in confutation of Dr. Priestley, in the Monthly Review for 1783.

(v) I might adduce the authority of Socinus himself, who assured his disciples that to worship Christ was the ancient and universal practice of saints and martyrs. Ad Matt. Radec. Epist. 3, p. 391.

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letter I laid before you two frequently cited passages from Lucian and Pliny; (w) from which it appears that the grand crime of the first Christians consisted in singing "hymns to Christ as unto a God." It was for their obstinate adherence to this idolatrous worship, as the heathens deemed it, that they were persecuted and brought to martyrdom. Now if this were a calumny, which, if they had not rendered Divine honours to Jesus Christ, it must have been, they would not have rested quietly under it, especially when its consequences were so dreadful. They would have reiterated again and again, We do not worship Jesus Christ, as you suppose: we celebrate his memory ' and his virtues, it is true; but we consider him as 6 merely a creature, and therefore never transfer to him 'the worship due to God alone.' The admirable apologists of Christianity, in the early ages, eagerly seized and refuted every the slightest calumny: yet upon this momentous point, in which, if Jesus Christ had not been God, their conduct would have been most odious and censurable, they attempted no defence. They, who could not be persuaded to bend to the statue of the Cæsars, justified by their silence the accusation of adoring a crucified malefactor. They would not offer incense to idols, but affirmed that "whatever was exalted above the standard of civil worship (or respect) in imitation of the Divine ex

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cellency was directly made an idol; "(x) yet they worshipped one who had died ignominiously; and,

(w) See vol. i. Letter ix.

(x) Vide Tert. de Idol. c. 15. Greg. Naz. Or, 38, in Nat. Chris.

confiding in strength which he would impart to them, despised the malice of their enemies, and the wrath of emperors, and cheerfully submitted to the most agonizing sufferings, terminated only by death, rather than attempt to wipe off the reproach of adoring the "malefactor Jesus." Admit that Jesus is "the Christ "the son of God," that though "dead he is alive for "evermore,” and that he is still "head over all things "to the church," "dwelling in all hearts by faith," and enabling his faithful disciples "in all things "to be more than conquerors through him that "loved them," (y) and the conduct of the martyrs of the primitive times is intelligible and defensible : deny it, and you reduce them to a level with idiots; and have moreover to account for the remarkable phenomenon of a church whose foundations were laid in error, which was supported by enthusiasm and folly, but opposed by learning, philosophy, and the strongest secular power, being "built up" notwithstanding, and becoming the "joy and rejoicing of the whole "earth."

Here, then, I beg to close the evidence, not because there is not more to produce, but because I regard the producing of more as totally unnecessary. The Jewish prophets foretold that the Messiah would be "the "Mighty God," "God with us,"-John the precursor of Jesus was the harbinger" of the Most High,"Jesus Christ himself asserted his equality with the Father, his apostles ascribed to him the works and attributes of Deity,-the great body of professing (y) Rom. viii. 35, 37..