spontaneous creature, not forced by any su perior agent, but freely determining himself to all his actions and operations: for judgment implieth a freedom and liberty in the person judged, as Justin Martyr writes, "that although the Christians believed that the holy prophets foretold future events, yet they did not thereby establish a fatal necessity, or a forcible predetermination to future actions, but altogether disowned and rejected it; it being contrary to that fundamental truth taught them by the prophets, that there should be punishments and rewards rendered to every man according to the merits of his works;" where he evidently declares, that in the opinion of that age, a righteous judgment, as our Lord's will be, did necessarily imply a liberty and freedom of every action that should be judged : for, as the said father continues farther to write in the same place, "if it be determined by fate, that this man shall be good, and the other wicked, then neither is the one to be commended, nor the other to be blamed: but, (saith he,) God hath not created man as trees and four footed beasts, who do nothing by choice and discretion; neither would man deserve a reward or praise, if he were made good, and did not of himself choose the good; neither if he were wicked, could he be justly

punished, except he voluntarily made himself

30."

And as the word judging supposeth the liberty of the person judged, so it also implies a rule by which the judgment is to be made, which the scripture affirms, is to be according to every man's deeds, that [Matth. xxv. 46.] "they who have done wickedly, shall be adjudged unto everlasting punishment, but the righteous unto life eternal:" so that when this article is repeated, it is thereby declared, that man being a free and voluntary agent, acting without constraint or force, shall at the general judgment-day receive a sentence from Jesus Christ, either of bliss or woe, suitable to the works which he did here on earth, whether of piety or wickedness, obedience or disobedience. But now both these necessary truths, the liberty of man, and his being judged according to his works, were denied by the Valentinians, Bassilidians, and others comprised under the general name of Gnostics: as I shall in the next place endeavor to shew, beginning first with the Valentinians, who were the chiefest sect amongst them; whose system concerning the nature and state of man is as follows: "they maintained that there were three kinds of men, spiritual, earthly and animal, whom they exemplified in Cain,

Abel, and Seth; of which, the earthly sort would be necessarily reduced to corruption; the animal should ascend to a place of rest if it did well, but should be reduced to the same fate with the earthly, if it did ill; and the spiritual should certainly be saved: those who were earthly or material, though they lived never so good lives, yet should necessarily perish, because they were not capable to receive any breath of incorruptibility," that is, they were not capable to receive any of the spiritual seed of Achamoth, which they affirm ed to be the alone cause of salvation, whereof I have already spoken under the article of maker of heaven and earth, unto which I refer the reader. The animal, who were the middle sort between the earthly and the spi ritual, should have their portion according to their inclinations and actions; if they did ill, they should have the same condemnation with the material; but if they did well, their souls should be hereafter received into the middle place, (as they called it) which they placed -between the imaginary seventh heaven and their plenitude, and there remain in rest and "quiet; from whence they should never pass into the plenitude, because no animal being can be admitted there. This animal sort of men, they affirmed to be the orthodox Chris tians; for whom, acts of piety and virtue were

absolutely necessary, that by them they might arrive unto the middle place, or the haven of their joy and happiness; which animal kind was again thus subdivided by them; some they said were evil, and others good by nature; of which the one remained good, being capable to receive the spiritual seed, and the other continued evil, being incapable so to do: the nature of nature, (as Tertullian expresseth it,) being esteemed by them to be immutable and irreformable."

"The spiritual kind of men, were they themselves who had received the spiritual seed from Achamoth, by which alone they affirmed, they should be saved, and not by their good works and actions; upon which account they exceeded in pride and arrogance, calling themselves perfect, and the seeds of election; asserting, that they should be saved by virtue of their spiritual nature alone: on which account, they esteemed good works, unnecessa

ry

for them, maintaining, that neither good actions could profit them, nor evil actions injure them; that as the material nature, though never so good in its actions, could not be sav. ed, so their spiritual nature, though defiled with never so many enormities, should never see corruption; for as a piece of gold, which is buried in the dirt and mire loses not

its beauty, but retains its nature that cannot be injured thereby, so in the like manner they affirmed, that they could not be harmed by any impious practices whatsoever, or lose their spiritual seed thereby; from whence the most perfect amongst them fearlesly perpetrated those sins of which the scriptures testify, that they which do them shall never enter into the kingdom of God, eating indifferently things offered to idols, not holding themselves to be defiled thereby, committing without any scruple or horror all manner of most execrable impieties, incests and villanies, most impudently avouching that they were not saved by good works, but by their spiritual seed; which spiritual seed being all perfected, their mothe Achamoth shall leave the middle place where in she hath hitherto lived, between the seventh heaven and the plenitude, wherein the ons dwell, and enter into the plenitude itself, and be joined or copulated with the Saviour, who was made by all the Eons; after which the spiritual shall in an incomprehensible and invisible manner, enter within the plenitude also, to be given for spouses to the angels that are about the Saviour; and those of the ani mal who did well, shall go into the middle, space which things being once transacted, a fire which now lies hid in the world, shall