OP THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 323

sects who assume the name of his disciples. 1 * chapTheir tender reverence for the memory of Christ, XXI 'and their horror for the profane worship of anycreated being, would have engaged them to as-sert the equal and absolute divinity of the logos,if their rapid ascent towards the throne of hea-ven had not been imperceptibly checked bythe apprehension of violating the unity and solesupremacy of the great Father of Christ and ofthe universe. The suspense and fluctuationproduced in the minds of the Christians , by theseopposite tendencies, may be observed in thewritings of the theologians who flourished afterthe end of the apostolic age, and before the ori-gin of the Arian controversy. Their suffrageis claimed, with equal confidence, by the ortho-dox and by the heretical parties ; and the mostinquisitive critics have fairly allowed, that ifthey had the good fortune of possessing the ca-tholic verity, they have delivered their concep-tions in loose, inaccurate, and sometimes con-tradictory, language. q

ii. The devotion of individuals was the first Authoritycircumstance which distinguished the Christians church'from the platonists ; the second was the autho-rity of the church. The disciples of philosophy

p Carmcnque Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem. Plin.Epist.x, 97. The sense of Deus, etoc , Elokim, in the ancient languages, iscritically examined by Le Clerc (Ars Critica, p. 150-15G), and the pro-priety of worshipping a very excellent creature is ably defended by theSocinian Emlyn (Tracts, p. 29-36, 61-145).

i See DailI6 dc Usu Patrum, and Le Clerc , Bibliotheque nniversdle,tom. x p. 409. To arraign the faith of the Anti-Nicene fathers, wasthe object, or at least has been the effect, of the stupendous work ofPetavius on the Trinity (Dogm. Theolog . tom. ii); nor has the deepimpression been erased by the learned defence of Bishop Bull,