2.
Numerous as were the heresies of the first two or three centuries of the Christian era, they almost all agreed in this;--that they involved a denial of the eternal Godhead of the Son of Man: denied that He is essentially very and eternal God.

This fundamental heresy found itself hopelessly confuted by the whole tenor of the Gospel, which nevertheless it assailed with restless ingenuity: and many are the traces alike of its impotence and of its malice which have survived to our own times.

It is a memorable circumstance that it is precisely those very texts which relate either to the eternal generation of the Son,--to His Incarnation,--or to the circumstances of His Nativity,--which have suffered most severely, and retain to this hour traces of having been in various ways tampered with.

I do not say that Heretics were the only offenders here.

I am inclined to suspect that the orthodox were as much to blame as the impugners of the Truth.