3I6 THE ARIAN INETTED TO ORTHODOX FAITH. SECT. VII-1ín Humble Attempt to Reconcile the DWI_ culties arising from the Various Expressions of the Fri- mitice Fathers. Whosoever reads all this variety of language concerning the Logos, in these two last sections, where he is represented in the sublime characters of true andeternal godhead, and in the inferior characters of a dependent being, must readily confess that there is some difficulty in reconciling them. From these dif- ferent expressions of the primitive fathers arises the controversy in the church in later ages, concerning their sentiments of the godhead of Christ. The Arians, and all the rest who imitate theiropinions, find- ing such a multitude of phrases, and forms of speech in these primitive writers, wherein the Logos is sunk below the dignity of godhead, they are tempted utterly to denythe trueand proper deity of the Logos. And either they interpret the most sublime and divine characters given to the Logos in a rhetorical way, and re- duce them to an inferior sense, by a hardand unreasonable strain of the words, or else they drop the sublimest expressions, as not belonging to Christ, or as inconsistent with the inferior charac- ters given him ; and then applying the inferior expressions only .to him, they claim these ancients entirely on their side, though I think, without just reason. The athanasians, together with the scholastic Trinitarians, and all their followers, reading the seve- ral glorious,, eternal, and divine characters, ascribed to the Logos, plainly find, that the ancients believed him to have true and proper godhead ; and I think they prove it with sufficient brightness and evidence. But they are sometimes hard put to it to find out methods of accounting, how all the inferior and crea- tural characters may be given to the self-same Logos. Were there not such a number of expressions in these an- aient writers which ascribe so different, and seemingly inconsis- tent characters, viz. both the properties of God, and a creature, to the Logos, wecan hardly supposethat modern writers of such sense and sagacity, such probity and great learning, could run into so different extremes, could maintain such warm contentions to defend their own opinions, which are so widely distant, and that each should alledge and believe the ancient fathers to be on their side. There seems to be so much darkness and perplexity amongst the fathers in this matter, ,as constrained Bishop Bull, that great and sincere defender of the deity of Christ, to call some of their expressions parum caute locutiones, durce, et incommode, tï'c. He makes a honest and ingenious com- plaint on this occasion, admir'a haec patrum dicta quis. non plana obstupescat ? Quo crome OceozaKe iglus modi ipsorum dicta sanare possunt ? Defensione fidei nicaenae, sectione iv. capite 3. § 4. And in the beginningof this chapter he mentions á particular set
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