portentous and horrid imagination of the Gnosticks, he immediately repeats as a proper antidote against the infection thereof, the apostles creed, by which we are obliged to believe in God the father; and having in his whole first book, related the extravagant fancies of these wild and distracted brains, and their blasphemous denials of God to have been the author and creator of the world, and of all things therein, he informs us in the beginning of his second book, he intended to prove therein, that the true and supreme God was the" alone creator, and the alone father."

But there may be also another sort of paternity included in the creed, viz. the peculiar relation wherein God stands to his son, that he is his father, that he hath begotten him; the manner whereof is peculiar, eminent and ineffable, and is not only impossible to be explicated by us, but such an attempt would be both perillous and arrogant: For, who can search out God to perfection? Secret things belong unto God, but revealed things unto us and our children. Wherefore, waving all searches or inquiries into the manner or nature thereof, and reserving what I have farther to say on this point, till I come to the generation of the son, contained in that article, "his only son," I shall only in this place endeavor to

prove, that this article was understood in this sense by the primitive church, and as such hath obtained a place in the creed.

St. Austin thus explains it; "observe," saith he," that when in the creed the name of God the father is conjoined, it is thereby declared, that he was not first of all a God, and afterwards a father: but without any beginning, he is always both God and father: when thou hearest the word father, acknowledge that he hath a son truly born, as he is called a possessor who possesseth any thing, and a governor who governs any thing: so God the father is a term of a secret mystery, whose true son is the word." To the same effect likewise, Ruffinus thus writes in his explication of this article," when thou hearest the title father, understand that he hath a son who is the image of his substance; for as no man is called a lord, unless he hath a servant or a possession, whom he lords it over; and no one is called a master, except he hath a scholar; so no one can in any manner be called a father, unless he hath a son: By this name therefore by which God is called a father, the son is also demonstrated to subsist likewise with him.” The same exposition is also given by Petrus Chrysologus, Maximus Taurinensis; and in a word, almost by all others, who have had oc

casion to mention this subject; and especially, since the appearance of the Sabellian and A. rian heresies, this interpretation hath been more largely insisted upon, and more curiously explained,

The next word to be explained, is, almighty, I believe in God the father almighty; the Greek word whereof is Pantokrator, which properly signifies the universal dominion of God over all his creatures, and his providential regency and gubernation of them; in which sense it is only in part to be understood in the creed and together with that to be enlarged to some other significations of the word, which were denied and opposed by some primitive heresiarchs.

In the first place therefore, this term almighty may be considered as a declaration of God's infinite power and energy, by which he made the world of nothing, without the assistance of angels, or any other help whatsoever; that his might and force is so great, that as he needed not any co-existent matter, whereon to shew the efficacy and operation thereof, but created all things of nothing; so neither did he lack the assistance of angels, or of any other principle whatsoever, to assist him in that which next follows in the creed, viz. "the making of heaven and earth:"

which by the way, shews us a good reason, why the word almighty is placed before the creation of the world in our rule of faith; for if it had only signified God's dominion and providence, its proper order would have been after the making of heaven and earth, the subject about which it is exercised: but, seeing it also signifies the omnipotency and irresistible efficacy of his power, by which he could form and produce all creatures without any previous matter, as also without the help of angels, or any other being, the present order of the creed seems to be most natural and unconstrained, that the profession of God's almightiness should precede the first and great demonstration thereof, viz. the making of heaven and earth,

Now that this was in part the designed sense of this word, I shall evince after I have shewn, who those heretics, and what their heresies were, which gave an occasion hereunto. Concerning the Valentinians, it hath been already proved, that some of them affirmed matter to have been co-eternal with God; out of which confused heap, he produced the world in the same order and regularity wherein it now is: and others of them, with several divisions and subdivisions of the Gnosticks, although they allowed not matter to have been coeval with

the first and original God, yet they affirmed its co-existency with, and even pre-existency to that petty inferior God, whom they consti tuted the creator of the world, imagining a most senseless and almost unintelligible manner, in which this stupendous and admirable: fabric was erected and raised; a clear and full relation whereof will yield a great light into the intended sense of this and the following clause of the creed: under which latter clause, I intend to give a succinct account thereof: and at present shall only touch on so much as is necessary for the explication of the point before us.

We must know then, that these monstrous heretics, in imitation of Hesiod's Pagan Theogony, imagined a copulation of thirty Aions, as they termed them; fifteen of which were male and fifteen female, begotten and generated one from another; twenty-eight whereof, either mediately or immediately, proceeded from Bythus, or Depth, the origin and first principle of all; and his wife Sige, or Charis, that is Silence, or Grace. These thirty Aions they fancied to lead an idle and unactive life, within an imaginary space, Pleroma, or fulness; and that Sophia, the last of the female ones, being not able to accomplish a passionate and affectionate desire which she had, brought forth G