Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 454

416

Defense of un Essay, &r.

only Divinity, and therefore is 'the only true God."

Arg.

.So that the

notion of a Deity doth at last expressly signify a being or nature of infinite perfection; and the infinite perfection of a nature or being consisteth in this, that it be absolutely and essentially necessary, an actual being of itself; and potential or causative of all beings beside itself, independent from any other, upon which all things else depend, and by which all things else are governed." Exp of the Creed, p. 25. Archbishop Usher says, "We describe God by these properties, a spirit eternal. Or more fully, God is a spiritual substance, having his being of himself, infinitely great and good,........and hence we learn to acknowledge both our being and well-being from him, and from him alone;

and when we say that God is a substance, we mean that he is such a thing, as hath a being in himself, of him- self, and which giveth a being to all other things." Body of Divinity, p. 41.

Waterland, having expressed his views of what is included in the Scripture notion of one that is truly and properly God, as given above at page 361, in our quotation from his Works, says: "And if Scrip- ture has thus informed us what properties, attributes, and perfections (observe, not what relations) must be supposed to meet in one that is truly and properly God, our own reason must tell us that these attribu- tes, &c., must have a subject, and this subject we call substance; and therefore the Scripture notion of God, is that of an eternal, immutable, omnipresent, omniscient, almighty substance." Waterland's Works, Vol. II. p. 37.

to say,

Dr. Clarke, Waterland's great opponent, contended as Dr. Legge does, that the word God was a relative term, implying dominion; and to sustain this view quoted from Hippolytus a sentence that Waterland comments on as follows. "The words you chiefly value are wavloxpalup παρὰ παῖρος καλες λάθη Χριστός, Christ was constituted Ruler over all by the Father.' On occasion whereof, let me observe a thing to you, which you are not aware of; that though the ancients scrupled not that Christ was constituted by the Father Ruler or Lord, or even Creator, (according to Prov. viii.) or anything coming under the notion of office, (the Father ever being looked upon as the first in order, and in virtue thereof, the fountain of every office, according to his own voluntary appointment,) yet you will never find it said by the ancients, that the Father constituted Christ a God, or appointed him to be God, which observation is highly deserving your special notice; as it may discover to you a fundamental flaw in your hypothesis, and may show you that you have taken a great deal of pains with the ancients upon a