Contrast between the Church and heresy. 77 at such a mouth? dost thou meet him and greet him at all with a kiss; and not rather, without reference to his other blasphemy, flee from this defiled teacher, from a man worse than dissolute, more loathsome than any haunt of profligacy? 34. These things the Church tells of and teaches thee, and touches mire, that thou be not bemired: she tells of wounds, that thou be not wounded. Suffice it thee to know the fact; attempt not to learn by experience.-God thunders, and we all tremble; but they blaspheme. God lightens, and we all bow down to earth; but they have blasphemous tongues concerning the heavens,-which are written in their books, and which we have read, disbelieving those who affirmed them: yes, for your salvation, we have closely inquired into their deadly doctrines". 35. But may the Lord deliver us from such error: and may (20.) you be vouchsafed enmity against the serpent; that as they watch the heel, so you in turn may trample on their head. Remember the text, What agreement is there between our matters and theirs? what hath light to do with darkness? 2 Cor. 6, 14. What the majesty of the Church with the abomination of the Manichees? Here is order, here is discipline, here majesty, irworý, here chastity: here even a wanton glance is condemnation. supr. InHere is marriage with seriousness, and perseverance in conti- trod. Lect. §. nence, and the angelical rank of a virgin life, feasting with 4. thanksgiving, and towards the Maker of the world an affec- Bewμátionate heart. Here the Father of Christ is worshipped; here is taught fear and trembling towards Him who sends us rain, Tim. 4, and praise ascribed to Him who thunders and lightens. 36. Fold thou with the sheep: flee the wolves; depart not from the Church. Nay, abhor those who at any time have come into suspicion of such things; and unless in the course of time thou ascertain their repentance, be not hasty to trust thyself with them. The truth is now delivered to thee, how * Κακεῖνοι περὶ οὐρανῶν τὰς δυσφήμους ἔχουσι γλώσσας. Ἰησοῦς λέγει περὶ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ. Ὅστις τὸν ἥλιον αὐτοῦ ἀνα· τέλλει ἐπὶ δικαίους καὶ ἀδίκους, καὶ βρέχει ἐπὶ πονηροὺς καὶ ἀγαθούς. κἀκεῖνοι λέγουσιν. ὅτι οἱ ὑετοὶ ἐξ ἐρωτικῆς μανίας γίνονται καὶ τολμῶσι λέγειν, ὅτι ἐστί τις παρθένος ἐν οὐρανῷ εὐειδὴς μετὰ νεανίσκου εὐειδοῦς, καὶ κατὰ τὴν τῶν καμηλῶν ἢ λύκων καιρὸν, τοὺς τῆς αἰσχρᾶς ἐπιθυμίας καιροὺς ἔχειν, un. vid. των μετ τοχή. 1 3. VI. Thess.5, LECT. God only is the First Principle of all things; distinguish one pasturage of doctrine from another. Be thou a good ναρχίας. banker, holding fast what is good, abstaining from all Vid. 1 appearance of evil. But if thou thyself wert even one of them, 21, 22. now that thou hast discovered thine error, abhor it. It will prove a way of salvation, to vomit it up; to hate it from thy heart; to shun them too, not with thy lips only, but with thy soul also; to bow down to the Father of Christ, the God of the Law and the Prophets; to acknowledge the Good and the Just, to be One and the same God. May He keep all of you, guarding you from fall and offence, stablished in the Faith, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. • Iivou dóximos rearilirns. These words, which are frequently quoted in antiquity, are sometimes ascribed to our Lord, sometimes to S. Paul. Vid. Constit. Apost. ii. 36. Clementin. Hom. ii. 51. iii, 50 &c. Dionys. Alex. ap. Euseb. Hist. vii, 7. Origen in Joan. viii. 20. &c. Ussher, Valesius, &c. consider it taken from the Gospel according to the Hebrews. LECTURE VII. ON GOD, THE FATHER. EPH. iii. 14, 15. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family of heaven and earth is named. · μοναρ χίας, Unity of 1. OF God as the One Principle of all things I said enough gì cño yesterday; enough, I mean, not in respect to the subject, (for“ mortal nature cannot reach this,) but in the measure of our of the weakness; and I trod the bye paths which have been variously God. struck out by profane heretics: now, shaking from us their foul and soul-destroying doctrine, and remembering it not to our hurt, but for their detestation, let us revert to ourselves, and receive the salutary articles of the true Faith, joining to the dignity of God's sole sovereignty, the attribute of Father, and believing in One God the Father. It is not enough to believe in One God: we must receive with reverence this also, that He is the Father of the Only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ. 2. For thus our view of religion will rise above the Jewish. (2.) For the Jews receive indeed the doctrine of the One God; (though they have often denied this too by committing idolatry;) but they deny that He is also the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, differing from their own Prophets, who say in Holy Scripture, The Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art My Ps. 2, 7. Son, this day have I begotten Thee. Even to this day they rage and gather against the Lord and against His Christ, Ps. 2, 1. thinking that the Father may be made their friend, apart from devotion towards the Son; knowing not that no man John 14, cometh to the Father, but by the Son, who saith, I am the 6. door, and I am the way. He then who declines the Way 9. which leads to the Father, and denies the Door, how shall he John 14, be vouchsafed entrance to God? They contradict too the words of the eighty-eighth Psalm: He shall cry unto Me, Ps. 89, Thou art My Father, My God, and the rock of My salvation; 26. 27. a i. c. Psalm 89. In the Greek and the Psalms are numbered differently from Latin Versions, as need scarcely be said, the English. 2. John 10, 6. 29. VII. LECT. also, I will make Him My first-born, higher than the kings of the earth. If they contend that these things are spoken to David, or Solomon, or some of their successors, they have to shew how the throne of him whom they consider to be the Ps. 89, object of the prophecy, is as the days of heaven, and as the sun before God, and as the moon stablished in heaven; and how 36. 37. is it they feel no awe about the text, From the womb, before Ps. 110, the star of dawn I begat thee: and again, He shall endure Ps. 72, with the sun, and before the moon, from generation to gene5. Sept. ration? To apply these things to a man, argues a mind utterly and entirely insensible. Ps. 89, 3. Sept. 3. But let the Jews, since they so will, be troubled with their accustomed sickness, and disbelieve these and such like Scriptures; but let us embrace the godly doctrine of the Faith, worshipping one God, the Father of Christ. For it rois - were profane indeed, when He has given unto all the prerogative σι τὸ of parents, to deny to Him the like. And let us believe in One γεννᾶν xagi God the Father, that even before proceeding to treat of Christ, our previous discourse concerning the Father, may lay deeply in your hearts, not retard, faith in the Only-begotten. μενον. (3.) σεως. 4. For the name of the Father, in its very utterance implies the Son as in like manner to name the Son, is at once to imply the Father also. For if He is a Father, plainly the Father of a Son; and if a Son, plainly the Son of a Father. Therefore, lest when we say, We believe, “in one God, the Father Almighty; Maker of Heaven and Earth; and of all things visible and invisible," and then add," and in One Lord Jesus Christ," it should be irreverently thought, that the Only-begotten is second in rank to heaven and earth, therefore before naming them, we named God, the Father; that as soon as we think of the Father, we may also think of the Son, for between the Son and the Father no being whatever comes. 5. God then, though He is in an improper sense the Father of many things, yet by nature and in truth is Father of One only, the Only-begotten Son our Lord, Jesus Christ: not becoming so in course of time, but being from everlasting the Father of the Only-begotten; not first without Son, and then becoming a Father, by a change of purpose; but before Tá- all substance, and all intelligence, before times and all ages, hath God the prerogative of Father; and more honoured The Father of Christ, the God of the Old Testament. 81 συμπλο κῆς ἀπ Jam. 1, 27. 49. in this than in all the rest. A father, not by passion, not by wálu, ix union, not in ignorance, not by effluence, not by diminution, s urnot by alteration": for every perfect gift is from above, and prúras. cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no 17. variableness, neither shadow of turning. He is a perfect Father of a perfect Son: who has delivered every thing to Him who is begotten; (for all things, He saith, are delivered Mat. 11, to Me of My Father:) and is honoured of the Only-begotten; For I honour My Father, saith the Son and again, Even as John 8, I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love. Therefore we say like the Apostle; Blessed be God, 10. even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of 2 Cor. mercies and God of all consolation; and we bow our knees Eph. 3, unto the Father, of whom the whole family in heaven and 14. 15. earth is named, glorifying Him with the Only-begotten: he who denieth the Father, denieth the Son also: again, He who confesseth the Son, hath also the Father; J. C. knowing that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the added in Father. John 15, 1, 3. TOU K. for '1. ἡμῶν ̓Ι. and xe of our Lord rec.text. 1 John 2, Phil. 2, 49. John 2, 6. We worship then the Father of Christ, the Maker of 22. 23. Heaven and Earth, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; 11. to whose honour the former temple also, over against us, was built in this place; without toleration of the Heretics, who sever the Old from the New Testament, and in submission to Christ, who says of the temple, Wist ye not that I must be Luke 2, in My Father's place? and again, Take these things hence; and make not My Father's house an house of merchandise; 16. which are plain avowals that the former temple in Jerusalem is His own Father's house. But if any one is so unbelieving as to require yet more proofs of the Father of Christ being the Maker of the World; let him attend to these words of his, in addition; Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? Mat. 10, and one of them shall not fall to the ground without My Father which is in heaven. And, Behold the fowls of the rargis b These ideas were introduced by the heretics of the Gnostic and Manichæan schools, and imputed by the Arians to the Catholic doctrine, and especially to the word poor. Accordingly, explanations were given on the subject at the Council of Nicaæa; as e. g. Constantine's, which is thus reported in Eusebius's let G 29. ἄνευ τοῦ |