of the self-originated First by derivation, as a son from a father: — if they were right, they either must have discovered some third distinct and intelligible form of origination in addition to
begotten
and
created
, or they had not and could not. Now the latter was notoriously the fact. Therefore to deny the
was implicitly to deny the generation of the second Person, and thus to assert his creation. But if he was a creature, he could not be adorable without idolatry. Nor did the chain of inevitable consequences stop here. His characteristic functions of Redeemer, Mediator, King, and final Judge, must all cease to be attributable to Christ; and the conclusion is, that between the Homoousian scheme and mere Psilanthropism there is no intelligible
medium
. If this, then, be not a fundamental article of faith, what can be?
To this reasoning I really can discern no fair reply within the sphere of conceptual logic, if it can be made evident that the term