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imagine, because I have called God the Maker and Creator of all things, that I also call him the Maker of Christ, let him observe that I first had called him Father, in which the term Son is included." - And in the following chapter, he allows that he may have applied the word Maker to God, with reference to his Son; but he says that he used it "on account of the flesh, which the WORD assumed, and which was made."

Belsham. That Christ was a creature, made and born, is what the proper rendering of St. Paul to the Romans (ix. 5.) shows.

Court. Hand me both the Greek Testament and the common Version:— "Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." - Well.

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Belsham. My Lord, the sense and force of the passage is this: "Of whom, by natural descent, Christ came. God, who is over all, be blessed for ever!" In this sense it is probable that the early Christian writers understood the words, who do not apply it to Christ.2

Lindsey. Yes, my Lord; this clause was so read as not to appear to belong to Christ, for the

1 Ex Elench. et Apol. c. 10. p. 96.

See also Bull's Defen. Fid. sect. ii. c. 11.

See Burton, p. 365.

2 Belsham's Improved Version, Rom. ix. 5. and note.

three first centuries.1 Had the original stood as it now does, the early Fathers would have cited this clause in proof of the divinity of Christ: but neither Justin (I believe), nor Irenæus, nor Tertullian, have quoted it with this view.2

Court. Witness, what say you to this?

Witness. My Lord, I must confess that I cancannot show the contrary from Justin Martyr, for a very obvious reason, namely, that he never quotes the passage at all. Irenæus does quote the passage, and with this punctuation:-"Of whom according to the flesh Christ came, who is God over all blessed for ever;" 993 - a division which gives a very different sense from that offered by the Defendant's Improved Version. Irenæus must often have read this passage himself; he must often have heard it read: it is, perhaps, not assuming too much to say, that he may have heard it read by Polycarp himself, the immediate disciple of St. John. He must, therefore, have known the manner in which it was customary to read the sentence in the churches; and we have seen that he reads it, not so as to make the doxology at the end a separate and independent clause, but so as

Lindsey's Sequel, p. 204.

2 Jones's Analysis of the Epistle to the Romans.

3 Ex quibus Christus secundum carnem, qui est Deus super omnes benedictus in sæcula.

to affirm that Christ, who came of the Jews according to the flesh was also God over all, blessed for ever. So much for Irenæus: now for Tertullian. "If," says this writer, "the Father and the Son are mentioned together, for sake of distinction we call the Father, God, and Jesus Christ, Lord; yet, speaking of Christ singly, I can call him God, as Paul did,―Of whom is Christ, whọ, he says, is God over all, blessed for ever." And in the same treatise, referring again to the same text, he quotes it word for word, and stop for stop, the same as it is rendered in our version.1 Hippolytus, who wrote A. D. 220., begins his sixth chapter thus: "As to the Apostle saying, Whose are the Father's, &c., he declares the mystery of the truth properly and plainly. He who is over all, is God; for he thus says boldly, -All things are delivered unto me of my Father. He that is God over all is blessed: and, becoming man, is God for ever."2 Origen speaks the same thing.3

1 Sed apostolum sequar, ut si pariter nominandi fuerint Pater et Filius, Deum Patrem appellem, et Jesum Christum Dominum nominem. Solum autem Christum potero Deum dicere, sicut idem apostolus, Ex quibus Christus, qui est, inquit, Deus super omnia benedictus in ævum omne. Adv. Prax. c. 13. p. 507.

2 Καὶ ἄνθρωπος γενόμενος, Θεός ἐστιν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. Noët. 6. p. 10.

3 Comment. in Rom. vii. 13. vol. iv. p. 612.

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Cyprian quotes the same words, in the same way, from St. Paul to prove the subject of his chapter,"That Christ is God."-Novatian, who believed in the divinity of Christ, quotes this passage twice, to show, as Hippolytus did, that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and yet not two Gods, but one God.2-Dionysius of Alexandria, speaking of Christ, calls him twice, God over all, in allusion, we may suppose, to this passage, the only one in the New Testament where this expression occurs.3 And, lastly, the Council of Antioch, convened A. D. 269, against the heresy of Paul of Samosata, asserts this passage in proof that the Son is essentially and substantially God. So much for these words, which the Defendants state to have been so read, turned, and misapplied by the writers of the three first centuries as not to apply to Christ.5

Belsham. We have heard much of the writers of the three first centuries, and more of the belief which is reposed upon their authority. But what is there to claim respect in the spurious epistles of Clement, in the tissue of nonsense ascribed to Barnabas, or in the silly visions which pass under the name of Hermas, or in the interpolated epistles of those venerable martyrs Ignatius and Polycarp?

1 Test. contr. Jud. c. 6.
3 P. 246. and p. 248.

5 Burton, p. 83.

2 Ch. iii. and ch. xxx.
4 Reliq. Sacr.ii. p. 467.

And as for the Clementine Homilies, they are, as Dr. Jortin admits, as undoubtedly a romance as "Gulliver's Travels," and contain as much truth as Lucian's "True History:" but, at any rate, they are good evidence of the existence of Unitarianism in the second century.1

Witness. I beg, my Lord, to decline answering the Defendants any further questions. If this person speaks the sentiments of the Unitarians, and he has undoubtedly been invested with the honour of being their accredited organ, we are to understand that no confidence is to be placed in the general sense or opinion of the early Christian Fathers. Why, then, have the Unitarians challenged us to adduce the writings of these Fathers against their position, that Christ was solely a human being, by one saying, "It is absolutely necessary that the less learned should be told what, upon enquiry, will be found to be undeniably true, viz., that the Fathers of the three first centuries, and consequently all Christian people for upwards of three hundred years after Christ, till the council of Nice, were generally Unitarians?" 2 Another asserts that "the Unitarians have made it evident, from undoubted testimonies of the Fa

1 Belsham's Reply to the Bishop of St. David's, p.96.
2 Lindsey's Apology, p. 23, 24.

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