contemned, two thousand two hundred and sixty-two, or rather two thousand two hundred and fifty-six. From the flood brought at that time upon the earth for the sins of men which polluted it, upon the birth of Abraham, the father of the faithful, not above ten generations, if so many, took up two hundred and ninety-two years according to the least, one thousand one hundred and thirty-two according to the largest account. Since which time the ages of men have been very much alike proportionably long; and it is agreed by all that there have not passed since the birth of Abraham three thousand seven hundred years. Now by the experience of our families, which for their honour and greatness have been preserved, by the genealogies delivered in the Sacred Scriptures, and thought necessary to be presented to us by the blessed evangelists, by the observation and concurrent judgment of former ages, three generations* usually take up a hundred years. If then it be not yet three thousand seven hundred years since the birth of Abraham, as certainly it is not; if all men who are or have been since have descended from Noah, as undoubtedly they have; if Abraham were but the tenth from Noah, as Noah from Adam, which Moses hath assured us then it is not probable that any person now alive is above one hundred and thirty generations removed from Adam. And indeed thus admitting but the Greek account of less than five thousand years since the flood, we may easily bring all sober or probable accounts of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Chinese, to begin since the dispersion at Babel. Thus having expressed at last the time so far as it is necessary to be known, I shall conclude this second consideration of the nature and notion of creation.

Now being under the terms of heaven and earth, we have proved all things beside God to be contained, and that the making of all these things was a clear production of them out

Τῷδ' ἤδη δύο μὲν γενεαὶ μερόπων ἀνθρώπων

Εφθίαθ', οἵ οἱ πρόσθεν ἅμα τράφει

ἠδ' ἐγένοντο.

* By the Greeks called yevɛal, which the sense of Homer. 'IX. A. 250. are successions of generations from father to son: as in St. Matt. i. 17. Indeed sometimes they take it for other spaces of time: as Artemidorus observes, for seven years. Kar' iviovg And I conceive that gloss in Hesyμὲν ἔτη ζ'. ὅθεν καὶ λέγουσιν οἱ ἰατρικοί, chius, Επὶ διαστήματος χρόνων τῶν μὴ τῶν δύο γενεῶν (not πρὸ τῶν, as Wol- κατ' αὐτὸ βεβιωκότων, to be far more fius and Portus would correct it) un- properly applicable to that place. But, δένα (not μὴ δεῖν, as Suidas) φλεβοτο- in the sense of which we now speak, μεῖν, τὸν τεσσαρεσκαιδεκέτη (not τεσσα- it is taken for the third part ordinarily PEσKaιdékαTOV, as Suidas transcribing of a hundred years; as Herodotus, him negligently) Aéyovreç. Sometimes mentioning the Egyptian feigned they interpret it twenty, twenty-five, nealogies: Kairo Toinкóoiai pèv åvor thirty years, as appears by Hesy- δρῶν γενεαὶ δυνέαται μύρια ἔτεα· three chius. And by that last account they hundred generations equalize ten thoureckoned the years of Nestor: Κατ' sand years: γενεαὶ γὰρ τρεῖς ἀνδρῶν ἐνίους δὲ λ'. ὅθεν καὶ τὸν Νέστορα βούλον- ἑκατὸν ἔτεά ἐστι. Euterp. c. 142. And Tai eis ÉVVεVÝKOvтa erη yeyovival. So after him Clemens Alex. Strom. I. i. Artemidorus and the Grammarians, c. 21. p. 145. Eis rà ikaròv trŋ rpεis Although I cannot imagine that to be ἐγκαταλέγονται γενεαί.

of nothing; the third part of the explication must of necessity follow, that he which made all things is God. This truth is so evident in itself, and so confessed by all men, that none did ever assert the World was made, but withal affirmed that it was God who made it. There remaineth therefore nothing more in this particular, than to assert God so the Creator of the World as he is described in this Article.

Being then we believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth, and by that God we expressed already a singularity of the Deity; our first assertion which we must make good is, That the one God did create the World. Again, being whosoever is that God, cannot be excluded from this act of creation, as being an emanation of the Divinity, and we seem by these words to appropriate it to the Father, beside whom we shall hereafter shew that we believe some other persons to be the same God; it will be likewise necessary to declare the reason why the creation of the World is thus signally attributed to God the Father.

The first of these deserves no explication of itself, it is so obvious to all who have any true conception of God. But because it hath been formerly denied (as there is nothing so senseless but some kind of heretics have embraced, and may be yet taken up in times of which we have no reason to presume better than of the former), I shall briefly declare the creation of the World to have been performed by that one God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

As for the first, there is no such difference between things of the World, as to infer a diversity of makers of them, nor is the least or worst of creatures in their original, any way derogatory to the Creator. God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good," (Gen. i. 31.) and consequently likely to come from the Fountain of all goodness, and fit always to be ascribed to the same. Whatsoever is evil, is not so by the Creator's action, but by the creature's defection.

In vain then did the heretics of old, to remove a seeming inconvenience, remove a certain truth; and while they feared to make their own god evil,* they made him partial, or but half the Deity, and so a companion at least with an evil god, For dividing all things of this World into nature substantially evil, and substantially good, and apprehending a necessity of an origination conformable to so different a condition, they imagined one God essentially good, as the first principle of the one, another god essentially evil, as the original of the other. And this strange heresy began upon the first spreading of the Gospel; as if the greatest light could not appear without a shadow.

'Inde Manichæus, ut Deum a conditione malorum liberet, alterum mali inducit auctorem.' S. Hier. in Nakum, c. 3.

+For we must not look upon Manes as the first author of the heresy, though they who followed him were called from him Manichæans. Nor must we

of Buddas, to whom Socrates and Suidas attribute them, but of Scythianus, whom St. Cyril and Epiphanius make the author of them. Neither can it be objected that they were not Manichæans before the appearance of Manes; for I conceive the name of Manes (thought by the Greeks to be a name taken up by Cubricus, and proper to him) not to be any proper or peculiar name at all, but the general title of heretic in the Syriac tongue. For I am loath to think that Theodoret and the author in Suidas were so far mistaken, when they call Scythianus Manes, as to conceive Cubricus and he were the same person: when we may with much better reason conclude that both Scythianus and Cubricus had the same title. For I conceive Manes at first rather a title than a name, from the Hebrew 2 or signifying a heretic. And although some of the Rabbins derive their from Manes, yet others make it more ancient than he was, referring it to Tzadock and Bajethos, called "NI

Whereas there is no nature originally sinful, no substance in itself evil, and therefore no being which may not come from the same fountain of goodness. "I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all these things," (Isa. xlv. 7.) saith he who also said, "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no god besides me." (Isa. xlv. 5.) Vain then is that conceit which framed two gods, one of them called Light, the other Darkness; one good, the other evil; refuted in the first words of the CREED, I believe in God, maker of heaven and earth. be satisfied with the relation of Socrates, who allots the beginning of that heresy, μικρὸν ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ΚωνστανTívov xpóvov, a little before Constantine; being, Epiphanius asserts, the first author of it, στέλλεσθαι τὴν πορείαν ἐπὶ τὰ Ἱεροσόλυμα περὶ τοὺς χρόνους τῶν 'Aπоσтóλov, to have gone to Jerusalem even about the Apostles' times. Hares. lxvi. §. 3. Manes then, formerly called Cubricus, (not Urbicus, as St. Augustin,) who disseminated this heresy in the days of Aurelianus or Probus the emperor, about the year 277, had a predecessor, though not a master, called first Terebinthus, after Buddas. For this Buddas left his books and estate to a widow, who, saith Epiphanius, ibid. Eμeive πoλλÿ †ÿ xpóvy ovτws, continued with his estate and books a long time, and at last bought Cubricus for her servant. This Buddas had a former master called Scythianus, the first author of this heresy. Beside these, between Scythianus and Cubricus there was yet another teacher of the doctrine, called Zaranes. Hy dè pò τούτου (Μάνητος) καὶ ἕτερος τῆς κακίας διδάσκαλος ταύτης, Ζαράνης ονόματι, ὁμόφρων αὐτοῦ ὑπάρχων. If then we insert this Zaranes into the Manichæan pedigree, and consider the time of the widow between Buddas and Cubricus, and the age of Cubricus, who was then but seven years old, as Socrates testifies, when she resolved to buy him, and discover the heresy to him; there will be no reason to doubt of the relation of Epiphanius, that Scythianus began about the apostolical times. Nor need we any of the abatements in the animadversions of Petavius, much less that redargution of Epiphanius, who cites Origen as an assertor of the Christian faith against this heresy; for though he certainly died before Manes spread his doctrine, yet it was written in several books before him, not only in the time

as a

'92 the first or chief heretics, who lived one hundred years before Christ. Wherefore it is far more rational to assert, that he who began the heresy of the Manichees was called heretic in the oriental tongues, and from thence Mávns by the Greeks (to comply with pavía or madness in their language), than that Mávŋc was first the name of a man counted a heretic by the Christians; and then made the general name for all heretics, and particularly for the Christians by the Jews.. Which being granted, both Scythianus and Cubricus might well at first have the name of Manes, that is, heretic. However, the antiquity of that heresy will appear in the Marcionites, who differed not in this particular from the Manichees. Duos Ponticus Deos affert tanquam duas Sym

But as we have already proved that one God to be the Father, so must we yet farther shew that one God the Father to be the Maker of the World. In which there is no difficulty at all: the whole Church at Jerusalem hath sufficiently declared this truth in their devotions. "Lord, thou art God which hast made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together." (Acts iv. 24. 27.) Jesus then was the child of that God which made the heaven and the earth, and consequently the Father of Christ is the Creator of the World.

We know that Christ is the light of the Gentiles by his own interpretation; we are assured likewise that his Father gave him, by his frequent assertion: we may then as certainly conclude that the Father of Christ is the Creator of the World, by the prophet's express prediction: "For thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens and stretched them out, he which spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles." (Isa. xlii. 5, 6.)

And now this great facility may seem to create the greater difficulty: for being the apostles teach us, that the Son made all things, and the prophets that by the Spirit they were produced, how can we attribute that peculiarly in the CREED unto the Father, which in the Scriptures is assigned indifferently to the Son and to the Spirit? Two reasons may particularly be rendered of this peculiar attributing the work of the creation to the Father. First, in respect of those heresies arising in the infancy of the Church, which endeavoured to destroy this truth, and to introduce another creator of the plegadas naufragii sui: quem negare non potuit, id est, creatorem, id est, nostrum ; et quem probare non potuit, id est, suum. Passus infelix hujus præsumptionis instinctum de simplici capitulo Dominica_pronunciationis, in homines non in Deos disponentis exempla illa bonæ et malæ arboris, quod neque bona malos neque mala bonos proferat fructus.' Tertull. adv. Marcion. l. i. c. 2. This Marcion lived in the days of Antoninus Pius, and as Eusebius testifeth, Justin Martyr wrote against him. Hist. l. iv. c. 11. Irenæus relates how he spake with Polycarpus bishop of Smyrna, who was taught by the apostles, and conversed with divers who saw our Saviour, l. iii. c. 3. Neither was Marcion the first who taught it at Rome, for he received it from Cerdon. ‘Habait et Cerdonem quendam informa

torem scandali hujus, quo facilius duos Deos cæci existimaverunt.' adv. Marcion. 1. i. c. 2. This Cerdon succeeded Heracleon, and so at last this heresy may be reduced to the Gnostics, who derived it from the old gentile philosophers, and might well be embraced by Manes in Persia, because it was the doctrine of the Persian Magi, as Aristotle testifieth. 'Apuoroτέλης ἐν πρώτῳ περὶ φιλοσοφίας καὶ πρεσβυτέρους (τοὺς Μάγους) εἶναι τῶν Αἰγυ πτίων, καὶ δύο κατ ̓ αὐτοὺς εἶναι ἀρχὰς, ἀγαθὸν δαίμονα καὶ κακὸν δαίμονα. Laert. in Proœmio, p. 2. And this derivation is well observed by Timotheus, presbyter of Constantinople, speaking thus of Manes: Hapà de Mapкiwvog kaì twv πρò έkɛívov aioxpoποιῶν καὶ δυσσεβῶν καὶ τῶν κατὰ Περσίδα μάγων ἀφορμὰς λαβὼν δογματίζει dúo ápxác.

World, distinguished from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. An error so destructive to the Christian religion, that it raseth even the foundations of the Gospel, which refers itself wholly to the promises in the Law, and pretends to no other god, but that God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; acknowledgeth no other speaker by the Son, than him that spake by the prophets and therefore whom Moses and the prophets call Lord of heaven and earth, of him our blessed Saviour signifies himself to be the Son, rejoicing in spirit, and saying, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth." (Luke x. 21.) Secondly, in respect of the paternal priority in the Deity, by reason whereof that which is common to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, may be rather attributed to the Father, as the first person in the Trinity. In which respect the apostle hath made a distinction in the phrase of emanation or production: To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." (1 Cor. viii. 6.) And our Saviour hath acknowledged, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do," (John v. 19.) which speaketh some kind of priority in action, according to that of the person. And in this sense the Church did always profess to believe in God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth.*

66

The great necessity of professing our faith in this particular appeareth several ways, as indispensably tending to the illustration of God's glory, the humiliation of mankind, the provocation to obedience, the aversion from iniquity, and all consolation in our duty.

God is of himself infinitely glorious, because his perfections are absolute, his excellences indefective, and the splendour of this glory appeareth unto us in and through the works of his hands. "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." (Rom. i. 20.) For "He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion." (Jer. x. 12. li. 15.) After a long enumeration of the wonderful works of the creation, the Psalmist breaketh forth into this pious meditation, "O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all.” (Psal. civ. 24.) If then the glory of God be made apparent by the creation, if he have" made all things for himself," (Prov. xvi. 4.) that is, for the manifestation of his glorious attributes, if the "Lord rejoiceth in his works," because" his glory shall endure for ever," (Psal. civ. 31.) then is it absolutely necessary we should confess him Maker of heaven and earth, that we

* Stabat fides semper in Creatore et Christo ejus.' Tertull. adv. Marcion. 1. i. c. 21. Non alia agnoscenda erit traditio Apostolorum, quam quæ hodie

apud ipsorum ecclesias editur. Nullam autem apostolici census ecclesiam invenias quæ non in Creatore christianizet.'* Ibid.