OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

each other.™ This pure and distinct equalitywas tempered, on the one hand, by the internalconnection, and spiritual penetration, which in-dissolubly unites the divine persons;" and onthe other, by the pre-eminence of the Father,which was acknowledged as far as it is compa-tible with the independence of the Son." With-in these limits the almost invisible and tremu-lous ball of orthodoxy was allowed securely tovibrate. On either side, beyond this conse-crated ground, the heretics and the demonslurked in ambush to surprise and devour theunhappy wanderer. But as the degrees oftheological hatred depend on the spirit of thewar, rather than on the importance of the con-jtroversy,the heretics who degraded, were treat-ed with more severity than those who annihi-lated, the person of the Son. The life of Atha-.nasius was consumed in irreconcilable opposi-tion to the impious madness of the arians ; p buthe defended above twenty years the sabellia-nism of Marcellus of Ancyra ; and when at last

m According to Aristotle , the stars were horaoousian to each other.

That Homoousios means of one substance in kind, hath been shewn by{t Petavins, Curcelleeus, Cudworth, Le Clerc, See. and to prove it, wouldu be actum agere This is the just remark of Dr. Jortin (vol. ii, p.212), who examines the arian controversy with learning, candour, andingenuity.

n See Petavins (Dogin. Theolog . tom. ii, 1. iv, c. 10, p. 453, &c).Cudworth (p. 55) ? Bull (sect, iv, p. 285-290, edit* Grab). Theor circvmvicessio , is perhaps the deepest and darkest cornerof the whole theological abyss.

* The third section of Bull's Defence of the Nicene faith, whichsome of his antagonists have called nonsense, and others heresy, is con-secrated to the supremacy of the Father.

p The ordinary appellation with which Athanasius and his follower®chose to compliment the arians, was that of ariomanites,

333

CHAP.

XXI.