the importunity of prayer, which, as arrogated by men of widely differing persuasions, makes the Spirit of Truth contradict itself, the question is left still undecided. The ultimate reference is to the opinions of the first ages; and the private interpretation of Scripture must derive aid from the light of tradition. It is at least a strong presumption in favour of any particular views of Scripture, that they were prevalent in the times nearest to the age of the Apostles; as it is an equally strong presumption against any set of opinions, that they cannot be traced to any precedent of early antiquity.

The leading opinions of the first ages were, (1) The belief in the FATHER, as the ONE GOD; and in THE MAN CHRIST JESUS, as his son by election, anointed with his word or wisdom. (2) The mysticism of the Gnostics, who held the separate being and incorporeity of human souls, and their descent into mortal bodies from a previous and higher state of existence, and imagined a succession of Eons or divine emanations, of which Christ was one. (3) The Platonic doctrine, which supposed Christ to be himself the Word, the proper Reason of the Divinity; which personified itself in order to create the uniThis personified Word, or Logos, was the source of the created Logos of ARIUS, which had never been heard of till the fourth century.

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It was, therefore, a fair challenge of Alexander, at the Council of Alexandria, "Quis unquam talia audivit?" Who has ever heard of these things?' An appeal which might equally have been urged by the Unitarians of the age of Justin, in answer to the proposition of Christ's pre-existent agency.

Many of those, who had received as orthodox tradition the philosophical scheme of the Logos, began to feel inquietude respecting the duality of Gods, which was objected to it by the body of

unlearned Christians; and Sabellius of Africa seems to have been actuated by this dread of an infringement on the divine Unity, when he reduced the Trinity to three states or relations of the one person, JEHOVAH. The degrading the ETERNAL to the standard of a mortal man, staggered numbers who had hitherto acquiesced in the personification of the Logos; and, to avoid the dilemma of a division of the Unity on the one hand, or of Patripassianism on the other, they began to separate the essence of the Word from that of the Father, and to contemplate it in a distinct personal relation. In opposition to this, Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, affirmed that the Son was not only co-essential with THE FATHER, but that the FATHER did not precede him, in time, a single instant. This was true of the Word, considered as a necessary attribute of God; but false and absurd, as respected its investiture with personality.

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ARIUS charged this opinion with Sabellianism, and, disallowing the orthodox distinction between generation and creation, asserted that there was a time when the Son was produced ; there was, therefore, a time when he was not; that he was not consubstantial with THE FATHER, but was created by him out of "things not existing," or out of nothing, as the receptacle of his divinity, and his instrument in creation.

In order to prove that the Word was created, the Arians availed themselves of an argument of the Trinitarians for the pre-existence and creative agency of Christ, that the wisdom, or ropia, of Solomon, was the same as the Word, or 20705; the Arians reading the verse in Proverbs viii. 22, "The LORD created me in the beginning of his way," and the Trinitarians contending for the reading, as it stands in our common version, "the Lord possessed me."

This scheme gained proselytes from the Trini

tarians, who found themselves involved, by their personified Logos, in inextricable contradiction andabsurdity; and Arianism, maintaining a vigorous argumentative and political struggle, and often acquiring the ascendancy, was near descending to future ages as the orthodox faith.

It is observable, however, that Arianism made progress chiefly with the learned. The common people, still conceiving of the Word as really the power and wisdom of God, were more inclined to the Trinitarians; many of whom supposed the Word to be an attribute, which was drawn out, or prolated, from the divine glory, and re-absorbed into it, after having been united to the human soul of Jesus; whereas the Arians held that the Word supplied to Jesus the place of a human soul, as a spirit distinct from God; though, while they denied that he was the same with God, they at length conceded that he was like God; but their notion bore a greater affinity to Gnosticism than to the received doctrines.

The Trinitarians, by considering the Logos as the reason of God, appeared, on a first view, to entertain the same conceptions as the Unitarians; since they preserved, in some sort, the singleness of the divine nature; for it was only when they invested this Reason with a separate and permanent personality that they effected a division of the divine unity; but the Arians, though they upheld the unity of the Supreme God within himself, originated à divine nature out of God, and were thus more chargeable with direct Polytheism than their opponents. In introducing a creature-creator, they made a second God; and with this they were reproached by the Trinitarians.

Modern Arians are divided into High and Low Arians. The terms properly designate (1) Those who believe the agency of Christ in the creation of the world; (2) Those who retain the simple pre

existence, and regard Christ's executive office as purely spiritual. Others, who hold a mysterious supremacy in the Father, and a derived and dependent deity and procession in the Son, are sometimes called High Arians, but improperly; they may be better distinguished as Semi-Arians; though they, in fact, merely re-assert the Trinity of the early fathers. The only proper Arians are they who conceive of Christ as a created superangelic spirit, the first and most excellent of the works of God, and the link and limit between the Creator and his creatures.

The separate personality of the holy Spirit, as a creature above angels, co-operating with the Son, which was the notion of the ancient Arians, is generally abandoned by the modern, in favour of a divine attribute or quality. Some, however, still retain it, as did certain of the old Socinians. The created Sub-Creator, and the created illuminating Spirit, are equally destitute of the authority of ancient tradition and precedent, unless we seek for their parallels among the intelligences of the Gnostics.

HIGH Arianism incurs the suspicion of Ditheism. If Christ be the creator of the world, though only in an instrumental sense, such a being has powers and perfections, whether derived or not, which are only compatible with DEITY: he must still be strictly a God, though an inferior God, and, as such, is entitled to religious homage. In withholding worship from him who made the world, the Arians may justify themselves by the letter of Scripture, but not by the reason of the proceeding. They are Unitarians in letter, but not in spirit; for, though they formally acknowledge the unity and supremacy of " the only wise God," they divide his attributes.

Most Arians conceive that they render the creative instrumentality of their pre-existent Christ

more credible, by confining his agency to this world; but they are in this dilemma:-They who imagine that Christ is not only our maker, but the maker of all other beings, constitute a second God of such high prerogatives and extensive power, as inevitably to suggest a doubt whether there be any other God, as no other would seem necessary:-and they who limit his operations to this particular system, open the door to Polytheism; for if an intermediate agent was necessary for the formation of this globe or system, other similar agents must equally have been necessary for the construction of the rest; and thus we have a host of secondary Creators, who are, in fact, Gods. The former scheme, which supposes that Christ created the universe, though it erect a duality of Gods, is preferable to the latter, which, by analogy, multiplies Gods without number. If Christ created this system, he created all; for the uniformity discernible in all the parts of nature offers a sensible refutation of the strange capricious notion, that one system of planets and suns was formed by one Creator, and another by another. If Christ created all the worlds, why should the Arian hesitate to acknowledge that Christ is God supreme?

That no mention should be made of a subordinate Creator throughout the Old Testament, which yet perpetually alludes to the maker of heaven and earth, and the wonders of his hand, forms, of itself, the strongest presumption against the truth of the theory; and when both the Old and New Testament describe the renovated state of the world under the Gospel æra as a new creation, there can be no room for doubt that those passages which ascribe creation to Christ contain a spiritual sense, and have only an emblematic reference to the works of material nature.

Low Arianism is still more deficient in that sort of evidence which is derived from the indirect