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positions, evidently containing Arian opinions, were selected from his book, and were censured by both houses of Convocation. A Treatise was soon after published by Dr. Samuel Clarke, entitled The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, the evident tendency of which was not to teach, but to subvert the doctrine of the Scripture. This performance was likewise censured by the Convocation, and was ably answered by Dr. Waterland. Mr. Henry

Taylor, Vicar of Portsmouth, in a work entitled Ben Mordecai's Apology, has brought all the assistance that his learning and ingenuity could supply, to support the cause of Arianism. Dr. Price, too, in his Sermons on the Christian Doctrine, has laboured to support the same system, with considerable pains and ability. Mr. Carpenter, of Stourbridge, has lately brought very respectable talents to the defence of the same doctrine.

Arius having denied the Supreme Deity of the Saviour, endeavoured to cover, as much as possible, the deformity of the system, by throwing over him the drapery of fine names, sonorous titles, and ornamental encomiums; but these studied panegyrics ill suit the uncrowned head, which the system places before us. The disciples of Arius, in modern times, like their master, heap their honours and throw them thick upon the name of Jesus, a name which they profess not only to honour and venerate, but also to adore and worship. But when they have stripped him of his proper Divinity, it can be of little avail to put upon him these purple robes. He is only a creature, though of the highest order, and is separated from the eternal Jehovah, by a height, a depth, a breadth, and a length, which must for ever remain immeasurable. Therefore, to offer him the honours due to the Most High, is only to rob the one, and to mock the other. Creature

worship of every kind is prohibited by the first precept of the decalogue, as well as by the whole spirit of Revelation. In this point of view, Mr. Belsham and his Unitarian friends, are infinitely more consistent than the disciples of Socinus and of Arius. In their several systems of belief, with respect to the Saviour's person, there is considerable discrimination, but in one point they all meet. They all consider him as a creature, and nothing more than a creature. It is evident, therefore, that they only are true to their system, that withhold that worship from a creature, to which, upon their own principles, he cannot possibly have a right. While we do justice to that cautious and measured language by which the writings of most Arians are distinguished, from the wild and almost Heaven-defying impetuosity which lours on the brow, and hangs on the lip of the Unitarian, we must do equal justice to the consistency of the latter, in denying worship to him, whom they both consider only a creature. Let the systems be compared, without any regard to the spirit in which they are defended, and it must be observed that Arianism has all the impiety without any thing of the consistency of Unitarianism. "The Arians," says a writer of the party,

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though they deny that Christ is the eternal God, yet they contend againt the Socinians for his PRE-EXISTENCE. The pre-existence they found on the two following passages, among many others:-" BEFORE Abraham was, I am." And the prayer of Jesus-" Glorify me with that glory which I had with thee BEFORE the world was."* These texts do indeed not only prove our Saviour's pre

• Mr. Evans' Sketch of the Denominations of the Christian World. Article, Arians.

The first of

existence, but they prove a great deal more. them we have already considered. Mr. E.'s second quotation is almost equally fatal to his system. It is from John, xvii. 5. Mr. E. has, though I hope not intentionally, mutilated the verse. The effect, however, is certainly to hide the force with which it concludes against his own doctrine. The words are, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." "Glorify me with thine own self," evidently refers to the participation, not of a glory inferior and derived, but of an equal glory with that of the Father.

"In modern times," says Mr. Evans, "the term Arian is indiscriminately applied to those, who consider Jesus simply subordinate to the Father. Some of them believe Christ to have been the Creator of the world; but they all maintain that he existed previous to his incarnation, though in his pre-existent state they assign him different degrees of dignity. Hence, the appellations, High and Low Arian." But the idea of subordination is utterly inconsistent with proper Divinity. To what can the infinite perfections of wisdom, of power, of justice, and of goodness, be subordinate? Subordination supposes the form of a servant, which is opposed to the form of God. But Christ is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person; and upholdeth all things by the word of his power.

Trinitarians never, for a moment, question the subordination of Christ as the Servant of the Father, in the accomplishment of our Redemption. But this subordination they insist, is the consequence of a compact. They distinguish the nature of the Son of God, from the offices of Jesus Christ, the Mediator between God and man. To the former they consider perfect equality as applicable :

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to the latter they admit the idea of subordination. The same distinction they admit between the glories of the nature of the Son of God, and the glories of the office of Christ, the Saviour of the world. The glories of the Son of God's nature, they believe to be equally incapable of addition and of diminution. But the glories of our Saviour's offices were, in a great measure, eclipsed, when he was found in fashion as a man; and now that in human nature he is exalted to the throne of the universe, they have received a wonderful accession of lustre.

To believe Christ to have been the Creator of the world, and yet to believe himself to be nothing more than a creature, is, in divinity, a contradiction of the most flagrant kind. It is to believe in a created Creator. He who can believe in such a being, does not surely renounce the doctrine of the Trinity, for want of credulity. The controversy which the Arians have with the Socinians and Unitarians, about the pre-existence of Christ, is one, the decision of which is of no great consequence, and pity it is these Gentlemen should fall out about a trifle. The only dispute is, about the Saviour's age. The Socinians and Unitarians teach that he is not yet quite two thousand years old, while the Arians insist that he has seen, nearly three times the number of revolving suns. There is indeed a considerable difference between their registers; but both of them equally contradict that of the Word of God, which makes him the Father of Eternity, or of the Everlasting age.

Of as little importance is the distinction of High and Low, among the Arians themselves, from the different degrees of dignity which they assign to the Saviour, in his pre-existent state. They all assign him the rank of a creature, and place him at an infinite remove from what

the Scripture declares him to be-" the Almighty God." "Proud reasoners," says Dr. Harvis in his History of the Church, "have moved downwards, through all the gradations and shades of distinction, between essential Deity and the mere man, Christ Jesus; but the difference is vastly less important than it appears. The infinite distance between self-existent, and created godhead, renders every subsequent gradation from a nominal god, to no god at all, inconsiderable. The first step is the essential heresy."

All the former Arians, like the Socinians, were worship

pers of Christ. Such were Whiston, Clarke, Emlyn,

Chandler, &c., but the writings of Dr. Price have now intercepted that tribute which the Arians were accustomed to offer to their Saviour, and fixed them in the resolution to present no more sacrifices of that kind. What opinion must they form of the prophets and apostles of their religion, whom their new principles teach them to consider as no better than idolaters? Or what must all pious Christians think of a system, which, like a quicksand, is for ever shifting; or like the chaff, in a state of perpetual motion? How can they excel, who are unstable as water? Our Saviour represents that man as wise, who built his house upon a rock. The man who laid the foundation of his house on a quagmire, he describes as a fool. The foundation of God ever has stood, and ever will stand sure. It consists in the equal worship of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Those who are called High Arians allow Christ to be the Creator, the Supporter, the Governor, and the Redeemer of the world, and yet they refuse to worship their Creator, their Supporter, their Governor, and their Redeemer!! Now, if these men would only condescend to

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