to 7 (what is the fame) mine anointed Ones, and do my Bro. phets no Harm.* In Auftin's 49th Epiftle, infcribed, to Deogratias, he fays, " Although formerly, by Names and Signs [or ceremonial Inftitutionsl different from, thofe in prefent Tile, at firft more obfcure, and after- wards more explicit, and by fewer in earlier Times than in the later ; yet it was but one and the fame true Religion, which was declared and obferved." And, in his great Work De Civitate Dei, he expreffes the fame Opinion, and believes that true Worfhippers of GOD and Idolaters were never out of Being, finte Men had any Exiftence in the World.-j- llponius, an antient Chrif- tian Writer, who lived about the Year 68o,1 in his 6th Book upon the Canticles, concurs with Anilin in Opinion, that what was revealed by Types and Shadows in the Old Teftament, was but the fame Thing which was more openly expreffed in the New; and that the Doetrine of the Trinity, which glimmered under the Law, blazed forth, like the meridian Sun, under the Gofpel. 6° For inftance, (fays he) GOD fays by Mofes in the Book of Genefis ; In the BEGINNING, Gon created the Heavens and the Earth; and then juft afterwards, The SPIRIT moved upon the Face of the Waters. Here are three Perfons in one Power; the BEGINNING, Goo, and the SPIRIT: He, who made; He, in or by whom all was made; He, who gave Life to what was made. "§ Some of the old Jewifh Expofitors tranflate Beginning by Wifdom, and underftand by it, as Aponius does, a Perfon in the Godhead.11 Philafirius (Bifhop of Brixia in Italy, andCotemporary with ilmbroftus Mediolanenfis), whom Auftin mentions in his Traci de H.erefibus, fays, " That the Trinity of Chriftianity was afferted ab Ori- gine Mundi, from the Foundation of the World, and the Truth of Religion taught, ubique, every where [by * Pfalm cv. s. t De Ci . Dei. c. x. CAVE S. E. Hi/i. Liter. § LA BIGNE Biblipth. Patr. (Min.) Tom. iv. CHRIST 2Úh0 it the BEGINNING, COI. I. 18. Rev. I. 8. XXI. 6, XXii. 13. the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=