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meant underived, which they held to be the preroga tive of the Father only.

In all this time the jewish chriftians, who were not tainted with the heathen philofophy, maintained the doctrine of the proper and fimple humanity of Christ. Athanafius himself was fo far from being able to deny this, that he fays all the jews were so fully perfuaded that their Meffiah was to be a man like themselves, that the apoftles were obliged to use great caution in divulging the doctrine of the divinity of Chrift. He fays, that the reason why Peters As ii. 22. only calls him a man approved of God, and why, on other occafions in the courie of that book and other parts of the New Teftament, he is fimply. called a man, was, that at first the apostles did not. think proper to do more than prove that Jesus was the Chrift, or Messiah, and that they thought it prudent to divulge the doctrine of the divinity of Chrift by. degrees. He likewife fays, that the jews of those times, meaning the jewish chriftians, being in this error themselves drew the gentiles into it. Athanafius greatly commends the apoftles for this addrefs in their circumstances. But what the apostles fcrupled to teach, we fhould be fcrupulous in believing. Chryfoftom gives the fame account of the fituation of the apoftles with respect to the jews.

It also clearly appears from ecclefiaftical hiftory, that the unlearned among the chriftians were exceedingly averse to the doctrine of the divinity of Christ,

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éven in the qualified fenfe above mentioned, oppofing, what they called, the fupreme monarchy of the Father, to the novel doctrine of the divinity of the fon; and the philofophizing chriftians were obliged to make laboured apologies to these early unitarians, acknowledging the perfect inferiority of the fon to the Father.

But at length these unitarians, who are exprefsly faid to have been the majority of christians in the third century, were overborne by the fuperior influence and popularity of their adverfaries, who, from believing Chrift to be God in' an inferior qualified fenfe of the word, came, in the natural course of things, to believe him to be God equal to the Father himself, and to have exifted from: all eternity independently of him. But it was feveral centuries before this doctrine was fully established. And the holy spirit was generally considered either as the fame thing with the power of God, that is, God himfelt (just as the spirit of a man is a man) or else a fupcrangelic being, inferior both to the Father and the fon, 'till after the council of Nice.

In the mean time, Arius and his followers, fhocked at the doctrine of Chrift being of the fame fubftance‹ with the Father, maintained that, though he had preexifted, and had been the medium of all the difpenfations of God to mankind, he was, like all other derived beings, created out of nothing; the opinion of all fouls having been emanations from the fupreme mind being then generally denied by chriftians.

Thus

Thus did it pleafe God, for reafons unknown to us, to permit the rise and general spread of the trinitarian and Arian opinions, as he permitted the rife and amazing power of the man of fin, and many corruptions and abuses of chriftianity utterly subverfive of the genuine purity of the gospel, 'till the full time for the reformation of this and other gross corruptions of christianity was come.

II. A CONCISE NISTORY OF THE DOCTRINES

OF GRACE, ORIGINAL SIN, AND PREDESTI

NATION.

It was a controversy about the nature and use of baptifm that occafioned the ftarting of the doctrine of the natural impotence of man to do what God requires of him, of the imputation of the fin of Adam to all his pofterity, and of the arbitrary predestination of certain individuals of the human race to everlasting life, while the rest of mankind were left in a state of reprobation; and this was fo late as four hundred years after Chrift. Before that time it had been the univerfal opinion of chriftians, and of Auftin himfelf, who first advanced the doctrines above-mentioned, that every man has the power of obeying or difobeying the laws of God, that all men may be faved if they will, and that no decrees of God will be the least obstruction in the way of any man's falvation.

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But Pelagius, a man of good understanding, and exemplary morals, in his declamations against fome abufes of baptifm, afferting, that baptifm itself does not wash away fin, as was then generally supposed (on which account it was the custom with many to defer it 'till near death) nor could have been appointed for that purpose, because infants, which have no fin, are baptifed; Auftin, in oppofition to him, maintained that, though infants have no actual fin of their own, they have the stain of original fin in which they were born; though he was far from afferting that Adam was the federal head of all his pofterity, and that his fin was properly imputed to them. This was an improvement upon the doctrine in after-ages. What Auftin maintained was, that men derive a corrupt nature, or a proneness to fin, from Adam.

Alfo, having been led, in the courfe of this controversy, to affert, that by means of original fin no man had it in his power to attain to falvation, he was obliged to maintain that it depended upon the will of God only who should be finally faved, and that he predeftinated whom he thought proper for that purpose, independently of any forefight of their good works, which it was not in their power to perform without his immediate affiftance, and in which he must be the first mover.

But notwithstanding this doctrine of the corruption of human nature, the neceffity of divine grace for the production of every good thought or action, and

the

the predeftination to eternal life without regard to good works, advanced by Auftin, prevailed in the weft, chiefly through the authority of his name; it was never received in the eastern church, and was much controverted, and held with various modifica

tions, in the western. Alfo together with this doctrine of grace, the divines of the roman-catholic church held the doctrine of human merit, founded on the right use of the grace of God to man. And the present doctrines of grace, original fin, and predestination, were never maintained in their full extent 'till after the reformation by Luther, who was a friar of the order of Austin, had been much attached to his doctrines, and made great use of them in oppofing the popish doctrines of indulgence, founded on that of merit.

III. A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF

ATONEMENT.

THE doctrine of atonement, or of the neceffity of fatisfaction being made to the juftice of God by the death of Chrift, in order to his remitting the fins of men, arose from an abuse of the figurative language of fcripture, as the doctrine of tranfubftantiation allo did. But for feveral centuries thefe figurative expreffions were understood and applied in a manner very different from what they now are.

We

It was granted by fome pretty early writers, that were bought (or redeemed) with a price; but

then,

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