voluntary gift or conceffion. It is fometimes, as here, afcribed to the Father, economically viewed as fuftaining the honour of deity in the work of our redemption at other times, to God effentially confidered, as in Col. i. 19. where no particular person is mentioned; It pleased, that in him all fullness fhould dwell.

46

With respect to the generation of the Son, our author inquires, "If, for any incomprehenfible reafon, this myfterious power of generation be peculiar to the Father, why does it not ftill operate? Is he not an unchangeable being? the fame now that he was from the beginning-? Why then are not more fons produced?" Thefe words contain their own anfwer. The Father ftill operates, not in producing more fons, but in the generation of this Son; because he is an unchangeable being. For we are not to conceive of this generation, as if it were an act properly paft, but as eternally prefent in the divine effence. Therefore it is thus expreffed, Pfal. ii. 7. This day have I begotten thee. It is fpoken of as paft, in condefcenfion to our weak apprehenfions, to denote its perfection. But as all the immanent acts of God, as they have been called, that is, those that are properly in God himself, which have no relation to external objects, are eternal; it is prefent, with respect to endless duration. For in fuch acts there is no beginning, progrefs or end. This generation, therefore, is eternally prefent in the one unalterable day, of God.

CHAP. V.

A confideration of the Argument against the Pre-existence of Chrift from the Doctrine of Materiality.

I HAVE formerly examined Dr P.'s objections to the

application of thofe texts which are brought to prove that the world was created by Chrift. He next proceeds

to reason against his Pre-existence in any fenfe, from the Materiality of man. He refers to his Difquifitions on Matter and Spirit; in which he pretends to have "fhewn that "there is no more reason why a man fhould be supposed "to have an immaterial principle, than that a dog should. "have one *." Had the wife man been as great a proficient in wisdom as our author, he might have given a far more emphatic representation of the advantage of life, than that which occurs in Eccl ix: 4. He undoubtedly would have said that “a living dog is better than a dead man.” Our author is certainly entitled to our acknowledgments, for the exalted ideas he gives us of our nature. And who can refuse that he does honour to his Maker, by giving fo flattering a picture of the image of God?

I shall not pretend to enter philosophically into this fubject, For I am not ashamed to confefs that I know not the way of the Spirit, any more than I know bow the bones grow in the womb of ber that is with child. The difficulty of imagining any connexion between the visible matter and the invifible powers of which a dog, a plant, or a magnet is poffeffed, is the reafon affigned by Dr P. for denying the existence of fouls. But as we do not deny these invifible powers, the effects of which are certain, because we cannot account for their connexion with visible matter; we can have no more ground for denying that the invifible power may, in fome inftances, be effentially different from the visible matter, yet fo connected with it as to be the fource of operation. Is it inquired, How are we to mark the difference? It is acknowledged that mere Philofophy leaves us greatly in the dark. But the Doctor's mode of reafoning feems to imply a refufal of any aid from Revelation. How much foever I may be at a lofs to account for the operations of irrational creatures, if Revelation informs me,

that

Vol. i. p. 84.

that the spirit of a beaft goeth downward, and that the beafts perish; while at the fame time it affures me, that, although the duft of man returns to the earth as it was, the Spirit Shall return unto God who gave it; I certainly ought either entirely to lay afide Revelation, or to believe that there is an effential difference between the frame of man and that of a beaft; nay, that, according to the diftinction made in the language of infpiration, two principles effentially dif ferent go to the conftitution of his frame. I had better deny Revelation at once, than difbelieve that there is an innumerable company of angels, and that the spirits of just men made perfect exist in a difembodied ftate. I cannot conceive, how God should say, I AM the God of Abraham, the God of Ifaac, and the God of Jacob, if these perfons, when this language was used, had no more existence than the duft of the earth; and far lefs, how Jefus could make this inference, God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, Mat. xxii. 32. For according to Dr P.'s principles, the inference, however little to the purpose, ought to have been; “God is not the God of the living only, but also of "the dead."

The Doctor, however, seems fully fatisfied that his reafoning" is conclufive against the doctrine of a foul, and "confequently against the whole fyftem of pre-existence. "If Peter, James, and John," he says, " had no pre-exist"ent ftate, it must be contrary to all analogy to fuppofe "Jefus to have pre exifted *." But there is one species of analogy, to which Dr P. finds it not a little difficult to prove that this is contrary. I mean the analogy of faith. It is to be feared, that this doctrine goes farther than he may be willing to confefs, even to the denial of the Father of Spirits. For if it be inconceivable that a spirit should exift diftinctly from matter, he must either deny the being of God, or affert that God is a material being.

Mm 3

The

Ibid. p. 85, 86.

The latter, indeed, is the natural confequence of the Socinian doctrine. For they afcribe thofe properties to God which belong to matter. They deny that he is a fimple or uncompounded Being. They deny that he is infinite, afcribing extenfion to the divine nature. Some of this per-fuafion have gone the length of attributing a bodily shape to God; as the learned Owen hath proved in his examination of Biddle's Catechifm*. This feems to have been fill a feature of the Unitarian herefy. For the author of the Clementine Homilies, who is claimed by Dr P. as an Unitarian, makes Peter exprefs his own fentiments concerning God in this manner: “He who truly exifts, is he whofe "form is borne by the body of man; on which account the “heavens, and all the stars, though more excellent in their “ nature, have continued in a state of fubferviency to him, "who is inferior according to effence, because of the form "of him who is fuperior," viz. God +.

On the other hand, Socinians have afcribed the effential properties of God to matter. It feems to be too wellfounded a charge, that they hold it to be eternal, in the fame fense in which they afcribe eternity to God. They go not fo far as the followers of Ariftotle, who afferted that the world exifted from eternity in a regular state. But for once they are Platonizing Chriftians. Here they have framed a very curious fyftem. Volkelius affirms that "God is faid to have created the world of nothing, because "he formed it out of Chaos." This is a Socinian Mystery. He made the world of nothing, becaufe he made it of fomething: He alfo fays that these words, The earth was "without form and void, defcribe the ftate of things before

* Page 61-72..

the

† Ο γαρ οντως ων υτος εσιν. * την μορφήν το ανθρωπο βασάζει σώμα, κ είνεκεν ο υρανο και παντές οι ασέρε, υπέκειναν δυλευειν κατ' υσίαν κρειττονες οντι τω κατ οταν χείρονι, δια την τε κρειττονος μορφην. Hom. 3. feet. 7. p. 630.

"the creation *" Dr P. infinuates fomething of the fame nature, when he says, that "what is called the Mofaic "creation was probably—the re-making, or re-conftituting "of the world, out of a former chaos †.

CHA P. VI.

Of the objection to the Doctrine, that it would be of no Use, although it were true.

D

R. PRIESTLEY Concludes this part of his work with an inquiry into the use of the doctrine of the Trinity. According to him, "all that can be faid for it, is that the doc"trine, however improbable in itself, is neceffary to explain "fome particular texts of fcripture; and that if it had not "been for those particular texts, we should have found no "want of it. For there is neither any fact in nature, nor any "one purpose of morals (which are the object and end of all "religion) that requires it t." He discovers no occafion for a three-one God; and there are many who would be pleafed that there were no God. But the wishes or opinions of either are of no weight in the scale of truth. If this doctrine be really "neceffary to explain fome particular texts," and Socinians have never been able to prove the contrary, it ought to be believed, although we should not otherwife difcern the use of it. There are many of the works of God, the utility of which we cannot perceive. Shall we, therefore, dare to fay that he hath made them in vain? This kind of reafoning has too much the appearance of calling God to give an account of his matters. Would it be great prefumption in the clay to fay to the potter, Why baft thou made me thus? And is it not unfpeakably greater prefumption to fay, Why art thou thus? Why doft thou M m 4

Lib. ii. c. 4. ap. Hoornbeck Socin, Confutat. 1. iii. c. 1.

exift

Famil. Illuftr. p. 44.

Vol. i. p. 87.