want of insight into the true sense
of the Scripture texts. Indeed without detracting from the inestimable
services of the Fathers from Tertullian to Augustine respecting the
fundamental article of the Christian Faith, yet commencing from the
fifth century, I dare claim for the Reformed Church of England the
honorable name of [Greek: archaspistaes] of Trinitarianism, and the
foremost rank among the Churches, Roman or Protestant: the learned
Romanist divines themselves admit this, and make a merit of the
reluctance with which they nevertheless admit it, in respect of Bishop
Bull. [2]
Ib. p. 421.
It seems to me that if there be not reasons of conscience obliging a
good man to speak out, there are always reasons of prudence which
should make a wise man hold his tongue.
True, and as happily expressed. To this, however, the honest
Anti-Trinitarian must come at last: "Well, well, I admit that John and
Paul thought differently; but this remains my opinion."
Query XXVII. p. 427.
[Greek: Ton alaethinon kai ontos onta Theon, ton tou Christou patera].
--Athanas. Cont. Gent.
The just and literal rendering of the passage is this: 'The true God
who in reality is such, namely, the Father of Christ.'
The passage admits of a somewhat different interpretation from this of
Waterland's, and of equal, if not greater, force against the Arian
notion: namely, taking [Greek: ton ontos onta] distinctively from
[Greek: ho on]--the 'Ens omnis entitatis, etiam suae', that is, the I Am
the Father, in distinction from the 'Ens Supremum', the Son. It cannot,
however, be denied that in changing the 'formula' of the 'Tetractys'
into the 'Trias', by merging the 'Prothesis' in the 'Thesis', the
Identity in the Ipseity, the Christian Fathers subjected their
exposition to many inconveniences.
Ib. p. 432.
[Greek: Ouch ho poiaetaes ton holon estai Theos ho to Mosei eipon
auton einai Theon Abraam, kai Theon Isaak, kai Theon Iakob].--Justin
Mart. Dial. p. 180.
The meaning is, that that divine Person, who called himself God, and
was God, was not the Person of the Father, whose ordinary character is
that of maker of all things, but another divine Person, namely, God
the Son. * * It was Justin's business to shew that there was a divine
Person, one who was God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and was not the
Father; and therefore there were two divine Persons.
At all events, it was a very incautious expre
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