Theological Dissertation on the Theologoumena of Macarius Magnes

"Since," he says, "the matter of the coats of skins escapes the historical sense and demands a rationale of anagoge mystical ascension or higher meaning, etc." Furthermore, since there are many who, insisting on the footsteps of Porphyry, do not blush to assert that the Apostles, in explaining the Scripture of the Old Testament, accommodated themselves to the customs of their own age, in which allegorical expositions of the Scriptures were in high regard, and that they alluded in their proofs more to the words and the sound of the texts, considered without their circumstances, than to the genuine sense which the Prophets intended: to them, we oppose at least the remarkable speech of PETRUS CUNAEUS in his On the Republic of the Hebrews, Book III, Chapter 8. "For those who wish these things to be nothing but certain allusions, they surely do not understand that they are excusing the Apostles too coldly. For why do they cite the words of Moses and the Prophets? Certainly, if we love the truth, for this reason: to give credibility to their own writings. But what credibility will they give if they use the sayings of authors in bad faith? Finally, if they either twist or, what is worse, pervert their sense? Add that they themselves profess for the most part that they are citing them as witnesses, and that it happened, which they had formerly prophesied." It was well for this jurisconsult when he cast these words onto paper for the edification of Theologians, as CAMPEGIUS VITRINGA exclaims regarding this most notable passage in his Sacred Observations, Book III, Chapter XIX, p. 268.

§. V. The doctrine concerning God, and the true nature of divine Monarchy, against the Polytheism of the Gentiles.

From those sacred and uncorrupted fountains of divine Scripture, whose authority he constantly urges against the pagans, MACARIUS drew the sincere and orthodox dogmas of the Christian Religion, which occur throughout his own writings, handed down and explained. Thus, in the doctrine concerning God, he demonstrates with invincible arguments the infinitely perfect nature, eternity, unity, omnipotence, and provident care for all things of the Supreme Divinity, and explodes the vain opinion of the Gentiles concerning many Gods. Indeed, in the Second Fragment of his work Apocritica, he describes God most correctly as follows: that he alone is agenetos unbegotten/unoriginated and the master of those things that are generated, not born, and he has authority over those who are born; and explaining his mind a little later more clearly, he adds: "God alone, truly having rule and Monarchy, holds dominion over those things that are generated; existing as unbegotten, he holds power over the creatures, being uncreated and lacking a beginning, he leads not the similar, but the dissimilar, in his providence."