consubstantial, what is of a different nature is of another substance,' or not consubstantial.*

Such is the explanation which this celebrated champion of the Trinity gives of the meaning of the term as used by the Fathers of the Synod of Nice and by himself. Christ was by birth God, as man is by birth man. There is one species of divinity as one species of humanity, and as all men are of the same substance, that is, all human, so the Father and Son are of the same substance, that is, both divine. This, if we may believe Eusebius and Athanasius, is all which they meant by the term. We know that it originally bore this sense, and these two witnesses, one of whom was partial to its use, and the other opposed to it, tell us that it was used by the Fathers of the council in no other. It is needless to introduce further evidence.†

Specific sameness implies a sort of natural equality, yet the Father and Son might be relatively unequal, and were so considered. The one gave, and the other received; the one was without cause, unbegotten, God originally, and of himself, the other was a God by derivation, or birth, and not originally in and of himself. They were united however in will, purpose, and affection; there was but one original fountain of divinity, one supreme first cause, and therefore the unity of God, in a certain loose sense, was, as it was thought, preserved. So the preceding Fathers believed, and we have no proof that the Fathers of Nice entertained any other views. Their creed certainly teaches no other. It recognizes one unbegotten, uncaused Being, and one begotten, dependent, and inferior. Read the Nicene creed, and for the term 'consubstantial' substitute the phrase, 'having as the Son of God a divine nature,' which is equivalent to it as used by the Fathers of the council, and you have two beings

* Epist. II. ad Serap. de Syn. Arim. et Seleuc. - De Sentent. Dionysii.

We mean not to affirm that there was entire unanimity of opinion among the Fathers of the council on this subject. This we may presume was not the case. The term in question was obscure, and, in some sort, ambiguous; but it was all the better for that, provided it had the effect of stigmatizing the Arians, since it allowed a certain latitude of opinion among the orthodox Fathers. That the prominent idea conveyed by it, however, was such as we have stated, admits of no reasonable doubt.

such as we have described. We do not perceive that in sentiment they differed in any essential particular from the Fathers who went before them. If they used the term 'consubstantial' in the sense which afterwards obtained, however, they certainly did differ from them and were innovators. But we are convinced, as we have said, that they did not so use it. If we may believe their own statements, they certainly did not.

Some time after the council, however, and even during the life-time of Athanasius, the opinions of the orthodox began to undergo a real and important change, and the council undoubtedly contributed to this change, inadvertently, by the introduction of a term capable of a sense very different from that originally attributed to it by the Platonists and Platonizing Fathers. Thus the term, which, at the time it was adopted, was understood to express only specific sameness of nature, was afterwards employed to signify individual identity; and subsequent times, while they have retained the language, have departed widely from the sentiments, of the Nicene Fathers.

The principal points of difference between the views of the Fathers, who lived before the synod, and the assertors of the genuine Trinity afterwards, may be stated in few words. The former taught the supremacy of the Father, and the real and proper inferiority of the Son without qualification, making them in fact two beings. The latter asserted, not simply an equality of nature between the Father and Son, but their individual and numerical identity, though this was not originally the doctrine of Athanasius, nor of the church till some time after the middle of the fourth century. The for ́mer maintained generally that the Son was voluntarily begotten of the Father, not from eternity, but in time, that is, a little before the creation of the world; the latter, that he was necessarily begotten, from eternity. Whether they attached any ideas to these terms we will not undertake to say.

There was a very remarkable difference, too, in the manner in which the advocates of the orthodox doctrine, before, and some time after the council of Nice endeavoured to repel the charge urged against them by their adversaries, of introducing two Gods. The former in reply to the objections of Praxeas, Noëtus, Sabellius, and their followers, asserted 44

VOL. XII. -N. S. VOL. VII. NO. III.

that they worshipped the one only and true God, who is over all, supreme; that the Son was inferior, another, different, sometimes, different in essence, the minister of the Father, and in all respects subject to his will, and entitled therefore to only inferior homage. Of these and similar expressions, however, the Arians took advantage, and they were therefore gradually dropped. The ground of defence was changed. Instead of saying that the Son was a different being from the Father, and inferior to him, the orthodox began to allege that they were of one individual essence, and therefore there was only one object of supreme worship. There were many passages of Scripture, however, which pressed hard upon this doctrine, and which seemed at least to speak of the Son as inferior to the Father. It was at this time that the fiction of the two natures in Jesus Christ was introduced, and then all difficulties vanished. The Son, as God, was coëqual with the Father; as man, he was inferior: as God, he could send ; as man, he could be sent in his human nature he could pray to himself in his divine: as man, he could assert that he was ignorant of the day of judgment, which, as God, he knew.

The doctrine of the Trinity, however, was of very gradual formation. Huet, a Trinitarian, confesses that 'so late as the time of Basil,' who flourished after the middle of the fourth century,' and still later, the Catholics dared not openly acknowledge the divinity of the Spirit.'* The union of the divine and human natures in Jesus Christ is generally considered as having been first defined by the Fathers of the council of Chalcedon, A. D. 451, though, if they used language with consistency, even they taught not a numerical, but only a specific identity between the Father and Son. We have said that the Fathers of Nice did not greatly innovate in doctrine.† The divinity of the Son had in a cer

* Origeniana. L. ii. c. 2. Quæs. 1.

We believe we have made our views on this subject sufficiently plain; we will add one or two remarks, however, even at the hazard of being thought tedious, or of incurring the charge of repetition. The Fathers of Nice taught that the Son did not belong to the rank of creatures; that by virtue of his birth he was in some sort divine. That they did not believe him one, numerically one, with God, is certain. That they regarded him as equal, we have no evidence, and much to the contrary. With regard to the degree of inferiority they ascribed to him, we have no means of forming an opinion. The tendency of the controversy was to induce them to speak of him in the most exalted

tain sense been the doctrine of the orthodox long before. But these Fathers, as it has been expressed, 'converted what was before a scholastic subtilty into an article of the Catho

terms their sentiments would permit. From the habit of so expressing themselves, their views would gradually become more sublimated. It is not surprising that they soon came to talk of an eternal generation and perfect equality of the Son with the Father. It had always been the belief, as we have more than once said, of the learned Platonizing Fathers, that he existed from eternity as an attribute of the Father. By a very easy transition they would come to believe that he had from eternity a distinct personal subsistence. So a belief of his specific identity might very naturally pass into a belief of his numerical sameness with the Father. The former belief was necessarily abandoned; since, after the perfect equality of the Father and Son was asserted, it palpably made two Gods. The change was the more easily brought about as the term consubstantial,' which was originally used to express the former, was equally capable of expressing the latter. The precise time when these changes took place, it is not important to settle. It is sufficient to say that the Arian controversy gave the impulse. The equality of the Father, Son, and Spirit, three persons in one God, was asserted by the council of Constantinople, A. D. 381. The controversy about the incarnation, and divine and human natures of Christ, subsequently arose, and was determined at the council of Chalcedon, A. D. 451. Philostorgius tells us that Flavian of Antioch, in an assembly of his monks, was the first who 'shouted forth' the doxology, 'Glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit'; for before his time the usual form was, 'Glory to the Father through the Son, in the Holy Spirit,' though some said, Glory to the Father in the Son and Holy Spirit.'- L. iii. c. 13.

After all, the question, What is the true doctrine of the Trinity? remains unsettled. The orthodox or consubstantial faith was designed to occupy the middle ground between Sabellianism and Arianism. These were the Scylla and Charybdis the Fathers were so anxious to shun. In their solicitude to avoid Sabellianism, they came near being ingulphed in the vortex of Arianism. From the brink of this dreadful abyss, they started back with horror; and from that period to the present, the ' good ship' orthodoxy has been tossed about by uncertain winds, and when she has seemed to have found a safe anchorage, time has soon shown that she was moored upon shifting sands.

One word more. It has been said that the Nicene creed is Arian. If by Arianism be meant simply the doctrine which teaches the strict and proper inferiority of the Son to the Father, it is so; but if by Arianism be meant the doctrine which teaches that the Son was produced out of nothing, which was the distinguishing dogma of Arius, it is not Arian, for it does not recognise this doctrine, and the anathemas subjoined to the creed expressly condemn it. The creed may, with more propriety, be called Unitarian than Arian. The controversy between the Fathers and Arius did not involve the question of the inferiority of the Son; it related solely to the time and manner of his derivation. The council undoubtedly condemned all that was peculiar

lic faith,' and in doing this made use of a very flexible term which was capable of a signification entirely different from the received one. Other mischief they did,. from the consequences of which the world has not yet recovered. They encouraged, by their example, the pernicious practice of creed-making, and bequeathed as a legacy to after ages, the monstrous doctrine that error, or supposed error, of opinion may be lawfully punished as crime. The Arians, when they had the power, showed themselves too willing to tread in their steps. There was this difference, however, as Dr. Jortin observes, between the creeds of the Arians and those of the orthodox. 'The Consubstantialists drew up their creed with a view to exclude and distress the Arians: the Arians had no design to distress the Consubstantialists, but usually proposed creeds to which Athanasius himself might have assented; so that, if the compilers were Arians, their creeds were not Arian.'* So far the Arians showed a better spirit than their oppressors.

ART. III. - Sermons and Occasional Services, selected from the Papers of the late Rev. JOHN HINCKS. With a Memoir of the Author, by JOHN H. THOм. London. 1832. 8vo. pp. 516.

THIS Volume contains the life and remains of a young minister of more than common promise, who died at the age of twenty-seven. It is impossible to open it without a deep and melancholy interest. We sigh to think that a mind, endowed with so many interesting and useful qualities, should have been so early withdrawn from the world, and then console ourselves with the reflection that it has been called to a better service above. It strengthens our confidence in a future

in the doctrine of Arius; to say that its creed is Arian, therefore, is to use language without due precision. But it is clearly Unitarian, since it plainly recognises the doctrine that the Son is a distinct being from the Father, and essentially inferior. This we take to be the essence of Unitarianism, of which Arianism is a particular modification.

* Remarks on Ecclesiastical History.