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imagination; and several Gnostic writers, when they attempted to give a philosophic view of Christianity, seem to have no further acquaintance with it, than to retain by rote some of the names and terms that most frequently occur in the Scriptures, for the purpose of mixing them up with the reveries of their ancient philosophy.

IV. The Jewish Ebionites and Nazarenes, and the Gentile Gnostics, who formed the great body of the early heretics, are not, strictly speaking, to be added to the number of Christians, even in profession. No one thinks of including the Jewish sect of the Essenes among the Greek philosophers, though they borrowed more from the philosophy of Greece than the Ebionites and the Gnostics did from Christianity. As the principal texture of the system of the Essenes was of Jewish origin, they are very justly included amongst the Jews. For the same reason, the Ebionites ought to be esteemed a Jewish sect also, and the Gnostics to be deemed Gentiles rather than Christians.

But after Christianity had long and widely prevailed, those who were acquainted with the revealed truths of Scripture, began, in many instances, to attempt to explain the deity of the Saviour, and of the Holy Spirit, sometimes by reasonings, but more frequently by the prevalent philosophy of the day; and when they failed to explain these doctrines, they next endeavoured to explain them away.

One of the earliest of these heresies appears to be the Sabellian, which is much older than Sabellius, whose name it takes, and which has survived many ancient errors, and still exists down to the present times. However, it has never retained any large body of followers; those who adopt these opinions generally proceeding further and joining other sects that are still more remote from the truth. In the first instance, they were denominated Patripassians, from maintaining that God the Father was so intimately united to the man Christ Jesus, that he partook of Christ's sufferings on the cross, while, by the same union, Christ partook of his divinity. But Sabellius, taking lower ground still, as is the usual descent of error; and to avoid the scoffs that were heaped upon Praxeas, and the earliest of these sectaries, for making God the Father suffer upon the cross, asserted that it was not God who was united to Christ, but a divine energy. By this subterfuge, Sabellius avoided some of the arguments that were directed against his predecessors, but at the same time made a nearer approach to the heresy which is now called Socinianism. To this low point Sabellianism was almost entirely reduced by Paul of Samosata, whose view of the person of the Saviour was little superior to that held by the elder Socinus himself. Such is ever the progress of error from bad to worse, each disciple in succession is emboldened by the hardihood

of his master, one truth after another is cast aside, and nothing is retained of Christianity but the

name.

Sabellianism differs from most other sects in not rising from any particular system of philosophy, nor did it consist in any strict union amongst those who held similar tenets. It is perhaps too vague and shadowy to form proper materials for a permanent heresy. But it is only on that account the more dangerous. Men of decided piety have often glided into it without being aware that they were departing from the truth which they had formerly maintained. Such was probably the case with Dr. Watts; and Doddridge, if in the latter part of his life he did not entertain similar opinions, was too little aware of their error and their danger. Still more recently, by adopting and promulgating the Sabellian views of Dr. Watts in his latter years, several who were formerly esteemed for their piety, gradually departed more and more from sound doctrine, and some appeared altogether to make shipwreck of the faith.

The radical mistake in all these systems, whether heretical or orthodox, which have embroiled mankind in so many scandalous disputes and absurd and pernicious opinions, proceeds from the disposition so natural in man of being wise above what is written. They are not satisfied with believing a plain declaration of the Saviour, "I and the Fa

ther are one." They undertake with the utmost presumption and folly to explain in what manner the Father and the Son are one; but man might as well attempt to take up the ocean in the hollow of his hand, as endeavour, by his narrow understanding, to comprehend the manner of the divine exist

ence.

V. An equally vain and still more hurtful attempt to accommodate the doctrines of Christianity to the pretended wisdom of this world, arose from a mixture of emanative philosophy with Christian doctrines. Origen, whose tenets are vague and diffusely spread over a multitude of works, but whose opinions may be considered as akin to Sabellianism, delivered, however, in a higher strain of expression, and modified by a loftier philosophy, maintained the Son to be the divine wisdom incarnate, and the Holy Spirit to be the divine Energy. The errors of Origen spread widely and quickly through the Christian world, and fell upon a soil well prepared to produce every noxious weed; for great already was the departure from the simplicity of the truth; and deep was the ignorance, both of the genuine spirit of the Scriptures, and of the just extent of the human faculties; and many were the vain dreams from philosophy, falsely so called, that were mingling themselves with the discoveries of revelation. The errors of Origen, as might have been expected from his genius, made a deep im

pression upon the age, and produced other errors both in those who received them and in those who rejected them. Arius, in opposition to the errors of Origen, maintained that Christ was distinct from the Father, and that he was only the first of creatures. The Arians, in their turn, gave rise to the Semi-Arians, with their miscellaneous collection of almost inconceivable absurdities, several of whom held, that though Christ was really a creature, yet that he became of the same essence with God by privilege. Amongst these Sectarians, Macedonius distinguished himself in heresy by his pertinacious opposition to the proper Deity of the holy Spirit.

All these heretics agreed in rejecting the absolute divinity of the Saviour, but agreed in nothing else; they showed the true nature of error, which has no consistency in itself, but whose very being consists in a continual departure from the truth. . Thus Arianism, which once distracted the Christian world, and ranked under its standard so many men of eminent talents, who agreed together in what they denied, but differed in what they affirmed, is now itself nearly extinct, and has given place to Socinianism; while Socinianism appears ready to pass over in name as well as in reality, to the avowed and undisguised enemies of Christianity.

VI. Heresies, however, are not confined to the heterodox. While the Arians and Semi-Arians were corrupting the truth by every subtilty of argu

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