LETTER VII.

Of Heretics, according to Irenæus.

MY LORD,

ANOTHER question between us is, Who were the heretics of early times? And I have shown by a series of quotations from the earliest writers to those of a pretty late date, considering the nature of the question, that the Gnostics only were considered in that light, as holding assemblies separate from those who called themselves the catholic church. I had said that Irenæus, though he wrote a large treatise against heretics, and expressed great dislike of the Ebionites, had not called them heretics. In one passage I said I had once been of opinion that he had applied that epithet to them; but that on reconsidering it I was of a different opinion, and I am so still, notwithstanding what your Lordship has advanced in reply to me.

I further added, that "if there was any other passage in which Irenæus called the Ebionites heretics, I had overlooked it." Such a passage, however, your Lordship now produces, p. 455, for among other heretics he there enumerates the Ebionites. But this is of no consequence to my argument; and if I had attended to the passage I should have produced it myself, as I have never failed to do with respect to every thing else that appeared to me to be of any consequence, whether it made for me or against me. But there is an evident reason why the Ebionites were pretty soon considered as heretics, and a reason which did not affect the Unitarians among the Gentiles. For the Jewish christians,

on account of their using a different language, held separate assemblies from those who used the Greek tongue; and besides, Jerom expressly says they were deemed heretics ONLY on the account of their attachment to the institutions of Moses.

I had further said, that it was contrary to Irenæus's definition of heresy to consider the Ebionites as he retics. To this your Lordship says, in your usual strain of politeness, when you think you have any advantage, p. 456, "he will confer a mighty obligation upon the learned world, if he would be pleased to give information in what part of the whole work of Irenæus that definition may be found."

I answer, that a strictly logical definition of heresy may not perhaps be found in Irenæus, for such definitions are not common in antient writers. But he repeatedly says that concerning all heretics, which does not in the least apply to the Ebionites, which is fully equivalent to what I said; and since you have not read my History of Early Opinions concerning Christ, and probably never will do it, I shall take the liberty to copy a few passages to this purpose from it, vol. i. p. 275, &c.

Irenæus considered Simon Magus as a person from whom all heretics sprung. But his doctrines were those of the Gnostics, and so opposite to those of the Uni tarians, that they were never considered as having the same source. Of all heretics, he says, that "they drew men off from him who made and governs the world, as if they had something higher and greater to show than he who made the heavens and the earth, and all things therein. They all agree," he says, the same blasphemy against the Maker of all things."

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"The doctrine of Valentinus comprehends all heresies; so that in overturning his system all heresy is overturned. They also blaspheme in supposing the Maker of all things to be an evil being, and they blaspheme our Lord by dividing Jesus from the Christ. There is a connexion," he says, " between all heresies, except that Tatian advanced something that was new." He speaks of all heretics as "having quitted the church," and as "taxing the holy presbyters with ignorance, not considering how much better is an ignorant person who is religious (idiota religiosus) than a blasphemous and impious sophist." He likewise says, that "all the heretics were much later than the bishops to whom the apostles committed the churches."

It would be losing my own time, and that of my readers, to show that none of these characters, which this writer applies to all heretics, belonged to the Ebi. onites, and therefore that, to have been consistent with himself, Irenæus ought not to have considered the Ebionites as heretics.

As to your Lordship's curious attempt to find an agreement between the Gnostics and the Ebionites, I shall leave it without any remark to the judgement of our readers. In some respects, no doubt, the Unitarians and Trinitarians are agreed; but it does not therefore follow that they would both be referred to the same class of christians. There were, as I have shown at large, Jewish Gnostics, and, being Jews, they might be called Ebionites; but they all believed that the supreme God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, both made the world, and gave the law by Moses; which are the very reverse of the doctrines that Irenæus ascribes to all heretics. I am, &c.

LETTER VIII.

Of the Origin of the Son from the Father's Contemplation of his own Perfections.

MY LORD,

THIS letter I shall devote to that most curious subject, the origin of the Son from the Father's contemplation of his own perfections, which your Lordship has thought proper once more to bring before the public; but which I should have thought a judicious friend would have advised you to keep as far as possible out of sight. You express yourself, however, with more diffidence than before; which is a thing unusual with your Lordship.

You justly say, p. 458, "In a subject so far above the comprehension of the human mind as the doctrine of the trinity must be confessed to be, in all its branches, extreme caution should be used to keep the doctrine itself, as it is delivered in God's word, distinct from every thing that has been devised by man, or that may even occur to a man's own thoughts, to illustrate or explain its difficulties. Every one who has ever thought for any length of time upon the subject cannot but fall insensibly, and involuntarily, upon some way or other of representing the thing to his own mind. In this manner, every one who meddles at all with the subject will be apt to form a solution for himself, of what seemed to him the principal difficulties. But since it must be confessed that the human mind in these inquiries is groping in the dark, every step that she ventures to advance beyond the point to which the clear

light of revelation reaches, the probability is that all these private solutions are, in different ways, and in different degrees, but all in some way, and in some degree, erroneous; and it will rarely happen that the solution invented by one man will suit the conceptions of another. It were therefore to be wished that, in treating this mysterious subject, men would not, in their zeal to illustrate what after their utmost efforts must remain in some parts incomprehensible, be too forward to mix their private opinions with the public doctrine. Nay, it should be a point of conscience," you add," with every writer to keep any particular opinions he may have formed as much as possible out of sight, that divine truth may not be debased with a mixture of the alloy of human error," &c.

This conduct, my Lord, would have been good policy: but in the pride of your understanding you were not able to observe it, and, in your imprudent forwardness to illustrate what is in itself so palpably absurd as to be incapable of illustration, (as much as it is of proof,) your Lordship produced a sentiment so supereminently absurd as to have contributed not a little to the entertainment of our common readers; and what your Lordship has now added on the subject will, if I be not mistaken, considerably add to their amuse

ment.

Your Lordship's original observation, to which you now, by abridging it, give a different turn, was as follows: Tracts, p. 55, "The sense," viz. of a passage in Athenagoras, " is, that the personal subsistence of a divine logos is implied in the very idea of a God; and the argument rests on a principle which was common to all the Platonic fathers, and seems to be founded