"duced all things, or any thing, (strictly and metaphysi"cally speaking,) out of nothing." Extreme modesty! That you dare not determine whether God has properly created any thing; or whether all things were not necessarily-existing. Matter itself may have been coeval and coeternal with God the Father; any thing, it seems, but his own beloved and only-begotten Son: or else why are you so shy, at other times, of acknowledging his eternity? Or why so resolute in disputing against it? An eternal Son, methinks, is much better sense than an eternal substance, not divine, and a Son made out of it; which is what you must mean, or mean nothing. But to proceed. You add," how God brings beings into real existence we "know not, because we know not their essences." Therefore, I suppose, we know not, whether he brings them into existence at all; or whether they had a being before they were created. That is the consequence you intend, if any thing to the purpose. You go on: "or "whether it be a contradiction to predicate existence of "them before their coming into that state which they 66 now are in, and which we call their creation, we know "not." Very ignorant! And yet you can be positive in things, which you know a great deal less of; presuming to make the generation of the Son of God temporal; and determining it a contradiction to predicate existence of him before his generation. Such things as these carry their own confutation with them; and only show that truth is too stubborn to bend. Let it be said then plainly, and without disguise, that the Son of God is either consubstantial with God the Father, or else a creature. There is no medium, neither can there be any, consistent with Scripture, and with the truth and reason of things. This being settled, our dispute may be brought into a narrower compass; and we may hereafter dismiss doubtful and ambiguous terms.

i Page 51, 63.

QUERY XIV.

Whether Dr. Clarke, who every where denies the consubstantiality of the Son, as absurd and contradictory, does not, of consequence, affirm the Son to be a creature oux oνTWY, and so fall under his own censure, and is self

condemned?

IT hath been questioned by some, whether Dr. Clarke has really given into the Arian scheme, or no. From what he saith, in some places of his Scripture Doctrine, (particularly a Prop. 14. and 16.) one might imagine that he stood neuter, neither determining for nor against the Catholic faith in that Article: but, from his declaring. bexpressly against the consubstantiality of the Son, whether specific or individual, (between which he allows no medium,) and from his reckoning the Son among the drμoupynμara, (though he gives an artificial gloss to it ;) as also from his excluding the Son out of the one Godhead; from these considerations, to mention no more, it is exceeding clear, that he has determined against the Church, and declared for Arianism. He has, by necessary consequence, asserted the Son to be oux vTwv, which is the very essence and characteristic of Arianism. By so doing, he is self-condemned, (see Prop. 14.) unless affirming a thing expressly be highly blameable; and affirming the same thing, implicitly and consequentially, be just and good. It is unaccountable to me, how there comes to be such a charm in words, that a man should be blameable for saying a thing of this nature, plainly and directly, which he may affirm indirectly and consequentially, without any fault at all. Doth the offence lie only in sounds or syllables? Or was Arius more culpable for saying, the Son was a creature, and from nothing, than another who says, he is not consubstantial with the Father, nor one God with him, or the like; when it is so very manifest, and hath been proved above, that they are only different exSee Script. Doctr. p. 465. first ed.

a

Script. Doctr. p. 276, 279.

pressions of the same thing? I can think but of three reasons (I speak not of particular views, or motives) why any man should condemn Arius for declaring the Son to be i oux ovTwv. Either because the proposition is false; or because it is dubious; or because it is not, in express words, contained in Scripture.

If the Doctor believed it false, he could not, consistently, disown the consubstantiality and coeternity; if he thought it dubious, he must have observed a neutrality in this controversy; which he has not done: the third reason would bear too hard upon many of the Doctor's fiftyfive Propositions. The conclusion, which I draw from these premises, pursuant to the Query laid down, is, that the learned Doctor, in condemning Arius, has implicitly condemned himself. It was as necessary to take notice of this, as it is to take off disguises, and to prevent a reader's being misled by fair pretences. Let things appear what they really are, without art or colouring; and then, if you can make any advantage of them, in God's name, do so; and, if your cause be just, it will thrive the

better for it.

QUERY XV.

Whether he also must not, of consequence, affirm of the Son, that there was a time when he was not, since God must exist before the creature; and therefore is again self-condemned, (see Prop. 16. Script. Doctr.) And whether he does not equivocate in saying, a elsewhere, that the second Person has been always with the first; and that there has been no time, when he was not so: and lastly, whether it be not a vain and weak attempt to pretend to any middle way between the orthodox and the Arians; or to carry the Son's divinity the least higher than they did, without taking in the consubstantiality?

I COULD have been willing to have had this, and other the like Queries, relating more to the Doctor himself,

than to the cause, dropped. But since you have thought fit to publish them, presuming yourself able to defend the Doctor in every thing; you have brought a kind of necessity upon me, of showing how little ground you have for your assurance in this particular; and that the Doctor will still want some better advocate.

66

He condemns, in his b Scripture Doctrine, those "who "pretending to be wise above what is written, and in"truding into things which they have not seen, have pre"sumed to affirm, that there WAS A TIME WHEN THE "SON WAS NOT." Who would think, after this, that he should be the man who should presume to do it? Yet nothing is more evident than that he denies the eternity of the Son; which is the very same as to affirm, that "there was a time when the Son was not." He denies it, by plain consequence, in supposing the Son to be ioux Övtwv, as was shown under the last Query; and besides, he expressly says, in his comments on the Athanasian Creed, (which contain what himself subscribes to,) that "there 66 are not three eternal Persons." It must indeed be owned, that in his paper laid before the Bishops, July 2, 1714. he professes that the Son was "eternally begotten by the eternal will and power of the Father." But, after a friend of his had discovered some uneasiness at that

66

66

passage, as looking like a retractation of his former opinion, and as admitting the Son's eternity, he took care to explain it away, and to signify that, though he had said the Son was eternally begotten, he did not mean it in the strict and proper sense. "My intention," says he, was not to assert any thing different from what I "had before written; but only to show that I did not in any of my books teach (as had by many been industriously reported) the doctrine of Arius, (viz. that the Son "of God was a creature made out of nothing, just before "the beginning of the world,) but that he was begotten

Prop. vi. p. 279. alias 246.

Script. Doctr. p. 429. This part is left out in his second edition.
Letters, Numb. 8.

"eternally, that is, without any limitation of time, (axpóσε πως, πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων, προαιωνίως, πρὸ πάντων αἰώνων,) "in the incomprehensible duration of the Father's eter"nity." This is too plain to need any comment.

I shall only observe to the reader, how the Doctor singles out one particular point, wherein he differs from Arius; whereas it is justly questionable whether that was Arius's settled opinion or no. Any one that will be at the pains to read over Arius's Letters, extant in Theodorit and Athanasius, will easily see, that the principal thing which stuck with him was the τὸ ἀΐδιον, or συναΐδιον, the strict eternity or coeternity of the Son. As to other lesser matters, he would easily have compounded with the Catholics; and would never have scrupled in the least to carry the point as high as the Doctor does. He was content, for the most part, to say, "There was a time when "the Son was not," without defining the precise time of his generation, or creation. To make it the more clearly appear that he was perfectly of the Doctor's sentiments, in this particular, it is observable, that he uses nearly the very same words which the Doctor does: (5 ἀχρόνως, ἡ πρὸ χρόνων καὶ πρὸ αἰώνων, ἱ πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων·) words, though not exactly the same, yet full as high and strong as those which the Doctor explains his own sense of eternity by. So that the Doctor has no reason to disclaim Arius; or to endeavour to persuade the world that he differs from him in any thing material relating to this controversy. But to return. The words eternal, always, or the like, are plain English words, and should either not be used in this case at all, or used in their true and proper sense. apologize for it, as far as the matter will bear; but it would be wiser, and better, and more ingenuous, to give that point up. Let us hear, however, what you have to say.

You

e E. H. lib. i. cap. 5.

Epist. apud Athanas. p. 730.

f De Synod. Arim. p. 729.

h Athanas. ibid. Theod. cap. v. p. 21.

i Confess. Arii et Euz. apud Sozom. 1. ii. c. 27. p. 395.