received her doctrine and practice from the Catholic Church of that yet earlier period which

the good angels are not God: therefore neither, in the opinion of Justin, can the prophetic Spirit be God.

(2.) It almost exceeds belief, that such an argument could ever have been constructed by a person, who had read the entire sentence even in its miserably perverted condition.

If the joint adoration of the angels and the prophetic Spirit will prove, that Justin did not acknowledge the divinity of the Holy Ghost; it will equally prove, that he did not acknowledge the divinity of the Father: for, even in the Historian's own adopted perversion of the passage, Justin and his contemporaries appear, as the joint worshippers of the Father and the good angels, no less than as the joint worshippers of the good angels and the prophetic Spirit.

2. But Justin, it seems, never says, in express words, that the Spirit is God in any sense.

(1.) Perhaps he may not happen to have used the precise term God; though, even if he had done so, we may be assured that Dr. Priestley would have quibbled respecting the import of the title, precisely as he quibbles respecting its import when it is confessedly applied to the Son: but, since, even in the present passage, Justin says, that, by himself and by the whole primitive Catholic Church, the Spirit was adored conjointly with the Son and the Father; he says, more expressly and less ambiguously than any use of the mere term could purport, that, in the very highest sense, the Spirit is God. For, unless this be admitted, in attesting the peculiar worship offered up by himself and by the primitive Church, Justin effectively testifies ; that even the Church, which had heard St. John, was nevertheless hopelessly idolatrous: because, in that case, he testifies; that this Church adored, conjointly with the Father whom all acknowledge to be the Supreme Deity, either a creature or a non-entity.

(2.) To

touched the apostolic age of St. John, was accustomed, in express opposition to the polytheistic

(2.) To the same purpose, he speaks in another place.

We worship the Creator of this Universe :-and, having learned that Jesus Christ is the Son of him who is truly God, and holding the Son in the second place, we honour also, in the third degree, the prophetic Spirit in conjunction with the Word.

Τὸν δημιουργὸν τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς σεβόμενοι,—Υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τοῦ ὄντως Θεοῦ μαθόντες, καὶ ἐν δευτέρα χώρα ἔχοντες, Πνεῦμά τε προφητικὸν ἐν τρίτῃ τάξει ὅτι μετὰ Λόγου τιμῶμεν, ἀποδείξομεν. Justin. Apol. i. Oper. p. 46, 47.

According to the plain construction of this passage when viewed connectedly with the other passage, what can we understand by the second place and the third degree, save that, in the economy of the worshipped Godhead, the Son and the Spirit are second and third with reference to the Father who is first?

For it were palpable idolatrous blasphemy to say that any two creatures are honoured in the second and third degrees with relation to the Creator, who, specially to these two creatures, holds the rank of the first degree.

IV. It may be proper to remark that the clause, which, for the sake of general perspicuity, I have inclosed within a parenthesis, is in itself ambiguous. For it may be translated: either Who taught to us these things and the army of the other good angels, or Who taught these things to us and to the army of the other good angels.

Scultet and Bishop Bull adopt the former of these two renderings Dr. Grabe prefers the latter. After attentively considering the clause, I have been led to take the version suggested by Dr. Grabe.

1. These things, Taura, refer, I apprehend, to the attributes of God, his justice and temperance and all other virtues, as mentioned above: and, such attributes of the Divinity, it is the

demonolatry of the Gentiles, to worship and to adore Christ the Son, in conjunction with the Father and the prophetic Spirit; while yet, though avowedly worshipping these three persons, she ever professed to acknowledge only one God, to whom she could legitimately offer up the sacrifice of prayer and praise and thanksgiving.

Whether she acted right, or whether she acted wrong, in paying, to the Son and to the Spirit conjointly with the Father, that divine worship

special office of the Son, in his character of the Word or Oracle of God, to teach or reveal both to men and to angels.

2. The other good angels, to whom as well as to men he is said to reveal the divine attributes, are styled other, äλλwv, in reference to the evil demons noticed above as worshipped by the Pagans under the aspect of gods: for I think it evident, that, by these evil demons, Justin means, whether he be right or whether he be wrong in his opinion, the fallen or wicked angels. These latter are mythologically characterised by actions, which even a morally virtuous man would abominate: but the other angels, who are contradistinctively good angels, follow or obey Christ the great prince of the heavenly host, and are made like unto him in all holy dispositions.

3. I may observe: that the superior excellence of Dr. Grabe's version is strongly shewn by a parallel passage in Ireneus, which sets forth the same doctrine of the Son being from all eternity the universal oracle of the Father.

Revelaverit, enim, non solum in futurum dictum est; quasi tunc inciperet Verbum manifestare Patrem, cum de Maria natus: sed, communiter, per totum tempus positum est. Ab initio, enim, assistens Filius suo plasmati revelat OMNIBUS Patrem. Iren. adv. hær. lib. iv. c. 14. § 6. p. 242.

which she refused to pay to the demon-gods of the Gentiles, I am not at present concerned to inquire: my business is exclusively with FACTS recorded by History.

Now one of these recorded FACTS is: that, Thirty years after the death of St. John, the Catholic Church, having been catechetically taught by the disciples of the Apostle and his subordinate contemporaries, worshipped Christ the Son in conjunction with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

XIV. The strict accuracy of Justin's record is fully established, not only by the teaching of Polycarp which has already been noticed, but likewise by the practice of his venerable fellowdisciple Ignatius who suffered martyrdom either in the year 107 or (as some think) in the year

116.

Immediately before his death, and when he was on the point of being led into the amphitheatre, this faithful servant of the Lord, kneeling down with all the brethren, PRAYED TO THE SON OF GOD, for the prosperity of the Churches, for the cessation of persecution, and for the prevalence of mutual love among all Christians1

1 Οὕτω, μετὰ γονυκλισίας πάντων τῶν ἀδελφῶν, παρακαλέσας τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν, ὑπὲρ τῆς τοῦ διωγμοῦ καταπαύσεως, ὑπὲρ τῆς τῶν ἀδελφῶν εἰς ἀλλήλους ἀγάπης, ἀπήχθη μετὰ σπουδῆς εἰς τὸ ἀμφιθέατρον. Martyr. Sanct. Ignat. § vi. Cotel. Patr. Apost. vol. ii. p. 160, 161.

The avowed, and indeed only legitimate, principle of this

XV. With the joint practice of Ignatius and the brethren at Rome, corresponded the practice of the Asiatic Christians before the end of the first and at the beginning of the second century.

What this practice was, we learn from the depositions of the unhappy lapsed Christians, as made with legal formality before Pliny in the year

103.

They affirmed in my presence, says he, in his official report to Trajan, that the sum total of their fault or their error was this. On a stated day, they were wont to assemble together before sun-rise and ALTERNATELY TO SING AMONG THEMSELVES A HYMN TO CHRIST AS TO GOD1.

Such an act as this was clearly an act of divine worship.

Nor was it merely a casual act, or a partial act,

prayer to Christ, was his divinity, here set forth, according to the interpretation of the primitive Church, under the phrase of The Son of God.

On the same principle, Ignatius, when he appeared before Trajan, styled himself Theophorus or The Bearer of God: alleging, as the reason of such peculiar language, that, according to the words of Scripture, he was spiritually The Bearer of Christ within him. Ibid. § ii. p. 158. According, then, to Ignatius, Theophorus and Christophorus, The Bearer of God and The Bearer of Christ, are terms equipollent and mutually convertible. Thus avowedly deeming Christ to be God, this primitive disciple of St. John consistently offered up prayer to Christ.

1

Plin. Epist. lib. x. epist. 97.