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TRACTS 
 
 IN CONTROVERSY WITH DR PRIESTLEY, 
 
 UPON THE HISTORICAL QUESTION, OF THE BELIEF OF 
 THE FIRST AGES, IN 
 
 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IX THE TEARS 1783, 1784, & 1786, 
 
 AFTERWARDS REVISED AND AUGMENTED, WITH A LARGE ADDITION 
 
 OF NOTES AND SUPPLEMENTAL DISQUISITIONS, 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR, 
 
 SAMl- ' BOF OF ST ASAPH. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED, 
 
 >c>^ 1 
 
 By The Rec. HENEAGE IIORSLEY, A. M. 
 
 PREBKXDART OF ST ASAPH, AND LATE STUDENT OF CHRIST'S CHURCH, OXON. 
 
 FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 n poi Soxw xai ^axe^ror d<puf>i<rfjLivov opctv tilof. 
 TTOHTI TOIC axxo/f aJ7f a'/7/ca^uor fjLiptai To pn xa7e/So7a r/, 
 iiltvcu X* w n^yreue/ Tra/lct, baa S/aKO/a 
 
 PLATO IN SOPH1STA. 
 
 BURLINGTON, N. J. 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY D. ALLINSON. 
 
 r 
 
Ht, 
 
TO 
 
 HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS 
 
 THE 
 
 Sir, 
 
 THE remembrance of the attention and 
 regard with which Your Royal Highness conde- 
 scended to honour, during the latter years of his 
 life, the Author of the following Tracts, first 
 suggested to my mind the wish of introducing, 
 under the sanction of Your High Patronage, the 
 present edition of them to the publick. 
 
 This wish received additional strength from 
 the reflection, that the republication of the Tracts, 
 being intended as an antidote to the dissemina- 
 tion of false doctrine, the success of the design 
 would be greatly promoted, were the work to 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 appear under the immediate auspices of Him, 
 whom the Church of England looks upon as her 
 
 legitimate Protector. 
 
 The ready and condescending manner, in 
 which Your Royal Highness hath been gracious- 
 ly pleased to accede to the petition expressive of 
 my wish, affords to the Church of England, at a 
 crisis, when " those who hate her wrongfully are 
 many in number and mighty" the high consola- 
 tion, that she finds in You what she hath ever 
 found in your Illustrious Father, not merely a 
 nominal, but a real Defender of her Faith while 
 the personal honour conferred upon myself, and 
 the expressions of regard with which Your Royal 
 Highness lias been pleased to speak of the me- 
 mory of the late Bishop of St. Asaph, must ever 
 be remembered with a sense of the deepest gra- 
 titude, and with feelings of unfeigned loyalty and 
 zealous attachment to Your Royal Person, by 
 His MAJESTY'S, 
 and your ROYAT, HIGHNESS'S 
 faithful Subject and Servant, 
 HENEAGE HORSLEY. 
 
 Dundee, 
 SOth March, 1812 
 
THE 
 
 EDITOR'S 
 
 IN the interval, between the time of Dr. Priestley's emi- 
 gration to America and the death of Bishop Horsley, the 
 exertions of the Unitarians appear to have lost much of their 
 wonted activity. * The patriarch of the sect (strange result 
 ofvictorij) had fled ; and the oracles and orators of Birming- 
 ham and Essex-Street were dumb ; or if they spoke, spoke 
 only to be disregarded."* No sooner, however, had happened 
 the melancholy event which deprived the church of England 
 of one of her most able champions, and, at the same time, 
 released the Unitarians from the fears which they had justly 
 entertained of their indefatigable opponent, than the party 
 again ventured forth from their hiding places. The columns 
 of the daily papers, were once more filled with their speeches 
 at publick meetings, and the press again groaned under their 
 pamphlets. At a meeting of the friends to the Unitarian 
 fund, held at the London Tavern, immediately after the 
 rejection of Lord Sidmouth's bill in 1811, one orator insisted 
 upon the necessity of diffusing the advantages of the Unita- 
 rian system among the poor ; another suggested the propriety 
 of instituting an academy for students between 18 and 25 
 years of age $ and a third, to raise the spirits of the party to 
 
 * See the Bishop of Rochester's Charge to the Clergy of his Diocese in the 
 year 1800. 
 
yj EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 the highest pitch of hope, did not scruple to declare, that so 
 far from Socinianism not becoming the religion of the 
 people, he expected to live to see the day, when, by means of 
 missions among them, and through the endeavours ot the So* 
 cinian's friend, Mr. JOSEPH LANCASTER, Roman Catholicks 
 would become good Unitarians.* Glorious aera, when all 
 errors in faith shall be for ever done away and abolished, by 
 the joint exertions of Socinian Missionaries, and Mr. JOSEPH 
 LANCASTER ! 
 
 His amor unus erat, pariterque in bella ruebant. 
 
 To give reality to such delightful hopes, the activity and 
 zeal of the writers of the party, corresponded with the vaunt- 
 ing language of their orators. A bold endeavour to over- 
 turn the faith of the Christian world, was first made, by the 
 publication of an improved version of the New Testament, 
 with a corrected text, and notes critical and explanatory ; in 
 which every text relative to the Divinity of our Lord, is either 
 expunged as a Trinitarian interpolation, or its genuine sense 
 frittered away by some allegorical or figurative interpretation. 
 This daring attempt, was quickly followed up by a work on 
 THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE CONCERNING THE PERSON or 
 CHRIST, the author of which introduces himself to the notice 
 of the publick in the attractive^ but in the present instance, 
 masquerade dress of a calm inquirer ; and to this calm inquiry 
 he affixes, what he presumes to call, a review of the controver- 
 sy between Dr. Horsley and Dr. Priestly. 
 
 Of that controversy, the part of which Bishop Horsley was 
 the author, has long been out of print ; and the CALM INOJTI- 
 RER, aware of this fact, has not scrupled to pervert the Bish- 
 op's reasoning, by partial quotations and prudent omissions ; 
 
 * Seethe Morning Chronicle for the 6th of June 1811. 
 
EDITOR'S PREPACK. yjj 
 
 presuming^ perhaps^ on the scarcity of the book, that he might 
 escape detection^ whilst he should thus destroy the authority 
 of the greatest modern champion of the Catholick faith ! 
 
 Under these circumstances, the Editor was strongly urged 
 by several of the clergy of the church of England, as well as 
 by many, both of the established and of the Episcopal church 
 in the country in which he now resides, to reprint the Bishop's 
 Tracts. With such a request he thought it his duty to com- 
 ply, and he sent an intimation of his intention to carry the 
 work immediately to press, to the British Critic for October, 
 1811. At the time when he made that communication, he 
 had by him only copies of the 1'racts as they were published 
 in separate pamphlets in the years 1783, 1784, and 1786. In 
 each of these pamphlets, and in the Editor's copy of Dr. 
 Priestley's part of the controversy, he found numerous 
 marginal notes in the Bishop's hand writing ; and this led 
 him, somewhat too hastily he confesses, to state that he was 
 in possession of new matter of the Bishop's, and to promise 
 the publication of it. But when he came to compare these 
 marginal notes with the copy of the Tracts published by the 
 Bishop himself in the year 1789, he found that the greater 
 part of them were already embodied in that edition, and 
 that in the substance of what remained, he was completely 
 anticipated by Mr. EDWARD NARES, Dr. LAURENCE, and 
 Mr. RENNEL, in their able remarks on the Unitarian version 
 of the New Testament. 
 
 When offering the present edition of the Tracts to the 
 publick, the Editor found himself called upon, by the most 
 imperious sense of duty, to vindicate the character of the 
 author of them, from the foul aspersions cast upon it by an 
 unfair and ungenerous adversary. That the task might have 
 fallen into abler hands, no one is more ready to admit than 
 the Editor himself : but moderate abilities are sufficient, to 
 vindicate truth against error and palpable misrepresentation ; 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 and therefore he trusts, that the vindication in the Appendix 
 will be found complete. 
 
 When the reader shall have become acquainted with the 
 arts of controversy, which the calm inquirer has employed to 
 make u the worse appear the better argument," and shall have 
 read the contemptuous abuse he has heaped upon the head 
 of Bishop Horsley ; when the object of that abuse, to use the 
 Bishop's emphatick words, was gone "to those unseen abodes, 
 where the din of controversy and the din of war are equally 
 unheard." he will perhaps think that he has discovered 
 ANOTHER PERSON to whom the terms of reproach, which in the 
 heat of debate fell from the pen of one of the original dispu- 
 putants, may now with greater propriety be applied, A FALSI- 
 FIER OF HISTORY, and A DEFAMER OF THE CHARACTER OF 
 THE DEAD ! 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A GENERAL view of the controversy between Dr. 
 Priestley and the Author of the tracts of which the ensuing 
 volume is composed, may not be unacceptable to such of its 
 readers, who, for want of leisure or of opportunity, or perhaps 
 of curiosity, to peruse the pieces on either side, as they were 
 first successively published in separate pamphlets, may be 
 supposed to be as yet unacquainted with the rise and progress, 
 and with the present state of the dispute. 
 
 In the year 1782, an open and vehement attack was made by 
 Dr. Priestley, upon the creeds and the established discipline 
 of every church in Christendom, in a work in two volumes 
 octavo, entitled, A History of the Corruptions of Christianity. 
 At the head of these, the author placed both the Catholick 
 doctrine of our Lord's Divinity, and the Arian notion of his 
 pre-existence in a nature far superior to the human, represent- 
 ing the Socinian doctrine of his mere humanity as the unan- 
 imous faith of the first Christians. It seemed that the most 
 effectual preservative against the intended mischief would be, 
 to destroy the writer's credit and the authority of his name, 
 
< PREFACE. 
 
 which the fame of certain lucky discoveries in the prosecu- 
 tion of physical experiments had set high in popular esteem, 
 by proof of his incompetency in every branch of literature 
 connected with his present subject, of which the work itself 
 afforded evident specimens in great abundance. For this 
 declared purpose, a review of the imperfections of his work, 
 in the first part relating to our Lord's divinity, was made the 
 subject of a Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Archdea- 
 conry of St. Alban's the spring next following Dr. Priestley's 
 publication. The specimens alleged, of the imperfections of 
 the work and the incompetency of its author, may be reduced 
 to six general classes. Instances of reasoning in a circle ; 
 instances of quotations misapplied through ignorance of the 
 writer's subject ; instances of testimonies perverted by artful 
 and forced constructions ; instances of passages in the Greek 
 fathers misinterpreted through ignorance of the Greek lan- 
 guage ; instances of passages misinterpreted, through the 
 same ignorance, driven further out of the way by an ignorance 
 of the Platonick philosophy ; instances of ignorance of the 
 phraseology of the earliest ecclesiastical writers. This dis- 
 course was received by the venerable body to which it was 
 addressed, with marks of favour and approbation, ever to be 
 remembered by its author with pride and satisfaction. At 
 their request, it was given with considerable enlargement to 
 the publick. It is the first tract in the present collection. The 
 first publication of this discourse, gave no small alarm to the 
 well-wishers and admirers of Dr. Priestley's doctrines. Dr. 
 Priestley however kept up the spirits of his party, by pro? 
 mising an early and satisfactory answer. 
 
 Per damna, per csedes, ab ipso 
 Ducit opes animumque ferro 
 
 was his vaunting language. He predicted that he should 
 rise more illustrious from his supposed defeat ; he promised 
 to strengthen the evidence of his favourite opinion by the 
 vqry objections that had been raised against it $ he seemed to 
 
PREFACE. x | 
 
 flatter himself, that he should find a new convert in his antag* 
 onist himself; and his new performance had scarcely made its 
 appearance, when he had the ridiculous vanity to boast, even 
 in print, of the shame and remorse with which he was confi- 
 dent his adversary must be penetrated. A controversy that 
 was in the meanwhile going on upon the same subject, be- 
 tween Dr. Priestley and the Rev. Mr. Samuel Badcock, the 
 author of a learned critique upon the first part of Dr. Priest- 
 ley's history, inserted in the Monthly Review for the month 
 of June 1783, gave Dr. Priestley the occasion of raising these 
 expectations in the public. It was late in the autumn of the 
 same year (1783) when the work which was to effect these 
 wonders, appeared in the form of Letters to Dr. Horsley* 
 These Letters gave occasion to the tract which is the second 
 in this collection, entitled, Letters from the Archdeacon of 
 St. Albon's in Reply to Dr. Priestley , which was first publish- 
 ed in the summer of the year 1784. Dr. Priestley, in his 
 Letters, expressed a great desire to draw his adversary into 
 a tedious controversy on the main question, the article of 
 our Lord's Divinity. His adversary knowing that question 
 to have been long since exhausted, and that nothing new was 
 to be said on either side, chose in his Letters in Reply to ad- 
 here closely to his own main question. He defended his 
 former argument, and he collected new specimens from Dr. 
 Priestley's new publication, of his utter inability to throw 
 light upon the subject. Thus a useless and endless conten- 
 tion upon the main question was avoided ; but many discus- 
 sions necessarily arose upon secondary points more or less 
 connected with it. The authority of the writings that go 
 under the name of the apostolical fathers the rise of the 
 two sects of the Nazarenes and the Ebionites the difference 
 between the two and the difference of both from the ortho- 
 dox Hebrew Christians these the learned reader will proba- 
 bly esteem the most interesting parts of the whole contro- 
 versy ; as, on the other hand, he will certainly judge the long 
 dispute, whether the word Jews means Jews, on Dr. Priest- 
 ley's part at least, to be the most frivolous. In these Letters 
 
x ji PREFACE. 
 
 in Reply, Dr. Priestley's antagonist declared himself resolved, 
 to give no answer to any thing that Dr. Priestley might find 
 to say further upon the subject. A declaration, in which at 
 the time he was much in earnest. 
 
 Dr. Priestley, mortified to find that his Letters had failed of 
 the expected success ; that his antagonist, touched with no 
 shame, with no remorse, remained unshaken in his opinion ; 
 and that the authority of his own opinion was still set at 
 nought, his learning disallowed, his ingenuity in argument 
 impeached ; and what was least to be born, finding that a 
 haughty churchman ventured incidentally to avow his senti- 
 ments of the Divine commission of the Episcopal ministry, 
 and presumed to question the authority of those teachers, who 
 usurp the preacher's office without any better warrant than 
 their own opinion of their own sufficiency, lost all temper. 
 A second set of Letters to the Archdeacon of St. Albarfs ap- 
 peared in the autumn of the year 1784, in which all profession 
 of personal regard and civility was laid aside. The charge 
 of insufficiency in the subject was warmly retorted, and the 
 incorrigible dignitary was taxed with manifest misrepresen- 
 tation of his adversary's argument ; with injustice to the 
 character of Origen, whose veracity he had called in question) 
 and with the grossest falsification of ancient history. He 
 was stigmatized, in short, in terms, as a falsifier of history ^ 
 and a defamcr of the character of the dead. 
 
 Under all this reproach, he continued silent almost eighteen 
 months : the character of Origen and an intricate question of 
 ancient history, upon which the charge of direct falsification 
 had been advanced against him, were indeed the only points 
 on which he felt the least desire to reply. A Sermon on the 
 Incarnation preached in his parish church of St. Mary New- 
 ington, in Surrey, upon the feast of the nativity, in the year 
 1785, which is the third tract in this collection, was the pre- 
 lude to a renewal of the contest upon his side, and was fol- 
 lowed early in the ensuing spring by his Jtemarks on Dr. 
 
PREFACE. xii ; 
 
 Priestleifs Second Letters to the Archdeacon of St. Albarfs^ 
 ivith Proofs of certain facts asserted by the Archdeacon. 
 This tract is the fourth in order in this volume. It consists 
 of two parts. The first is a collection of new specimens of 
 Dr. Priestley's temerity in assertion. The second defends 
 the attack upon the character of Origen, and proves the 
 existence of a body of Hebrew Christians at ^Elia, after the 
 time of Adrian, the fact upon which the author's good faith 
 had been so loudly arraigned. It also contains confirmation 
 of another fact which had been incidentally mentioned, the 
 decline of Calvinism among our English dissenters, and a 
 chapter on the general spirit of Dr. Priestley's controversial 
 writings. With this publication, he again promised himself 
 that the controversy on his part would be closed. But having 
 at last, yielded with reluctance to the solicitations of his 
 friends to republish these four tracts in the present form, he 
 hath taken this occasion to give Dr. Priestley's Letters a 
 second perusal ; and to many things which he had before pas- 
 sed unnoticed, he hath now replied, partly in notes occasion- 
 ally interspersed in the former tracts, and where the matter, 
 arising from any particular question, hath turned out to be 
 more than could be conveniently comprised within the com- 
 pass of a note, in Supplemental Disquisitions of considerable 
 length. The Remarks upon Dr. Priestley's Second Letters, 
 produced a third set of Letters from Dr. Priestley, upon the 
 two questions of Origen's veracity and the orthodox Hebrews 
 of the church of ^Elia. These too are answered, partly in 
 notes interspersed in the Remarks, and partly in the two 
 last Supplemental Disquisitions, which in all are six in num- 
 ber. It is conceived, that nothing of any consequence 
 in Dr. Priestley's three sets of Letters now remains unan- 
 swered. The author indeed is well aware, that Dr. Priest- 
 ley will charge him with one capital omission. That he 
 hath taken no notice of any thing that may be contained, 
 relating to the various points of this controversy, in Dr. 
 Priestley's History of Early Opinions concerning Christ f 
 that large work, in four volumes, the result of a -whole two- 
 
XIV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 years study of the writers of antiquity, which, as it hath been 
 published since Dr. Priestley's last Letters, may be supposed 
 to contain better arguments, or at least his old arguments in 
 a better form. The only apology to be made is, a simple de- 
 claration of the truth. Not conceiving himself obliged to 
 engage in the insipid task of reading so long a book, with- 
 out better hope of information from it than his past ex- 
 perience of the writer's knowledge on the subject gives, Dr. 
 Priestley's adversary is as ignorant of the contents of that 
 work, as he could have been had it never been published. It 
 is reported indeed, that the work, whatever may be its merits, 
 hath a very slow sale. Of consequence, it hath found but 
 few readers. The antagonist of Dr. Priestley, were he better 
 acquainted with its contents, would still disdain to do the 
 office of the midwife for this laborious birth. He would not, 
 by an unnecessary and unseasonable opposition to neglected 
 arguments, be the instrument of drawing four volumes, 
 fraught as the very title imports, with pernicious heretical 
 theology, from the obscurity in which they may innocently 
 rot in the Printer's warehouse. 
 
CHARGE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CLERGY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ARCHDEACONRY OF ST. ALBAN'8, 
 
CHARGE, 
 
 J/1 REVEREND BRETHREN 1 , 
 
 THE business of the Christian priesthood, like that 
 of every secular occupation, consisting in two branches, 
 the speculative and the practical ; if any of us, by a 
 particular blessing of Providence attending our temporal 
 fortunes, are released from the necessity, to which the 
 greater part submit, of a severe and constant toil in the 
 practical branch of the profession, as the labour by 
 which they have to earn their daily bread ; it seems to 
 be our particular duty to consecrate the leisure we enjoy, 
 if I may borrow an expression from the profane sciences, 
 to the theory of religion. And in the present state of 
 religious learning in this country, it should seem, that 
 the cultivation of that branch of it which is called sacred 
 criticism, and particularly the elucidation of the text of 
 the Old Testament, by a diligent use of the materials 
 which the unwearied industry of a learned critick, sup- 
 ported by the munificence of the best of Princes, hath 
 supplied ; is the study in which, of all others, our ta- 
 lents and our industry might be best employed. It is, 
 however, to be remembered, that the writings of the 
 
 3 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 Old Testament are only of a secondary importance ; for 
 the evidence which they afford of the trutli of our Lord's 
 pretensions, and for the light which they throw upon the 
 doctrines of the gospel, which is indeed so great, that 
 an inattention to these more ancient parts of the code of 
 revelation, is likely to be one principal cause of the 
 scepticism which unhappily prevails among our modern 
 sectaries, concerning the original dignity of the Redeem- 
 er's nature, and the expiatory virtue of his sufferings. 
 But in whatever degree the Jewish Scriptures may be 
 useful for the general confirmation of Christianity ; it is 
 from their relation to the gospel, to which, we have 
 been told by the highest authority, the Mosaick dispen- 
 sation was but a prelude or preparative, that they derive 
 the whole of the importance which they yet retain. A 
 profound and critical acquaintance with them, is useful 
 only, as means conducive to an end : and in this, as in 
 other cases, every solid advantage will be lost, that 
 might be reaped from the improvement of the means, if, 
 in the too assiduous pursuit of these, we lose sight of 
 the end to which they should be made subservient. The 
 theology of the Christian revelation, is the great object 
 to which every other branch of sacred literature is natu- 
 rally subordinate. To extract it from the writings of 
 the apostles and evangelists, connected with the earlier 
 revelations ; to assert and defend their genuine doctrine ; 
 to preserve it entire ; and to maintain it in its native 
 purity, unadulterated by the additions of superstition, un- 
 debased and undiminished by the refinements of philoso- 
 phy: this is the great business to which those of us, who 
 feel themselves at ease and in affluence, and masters of 
 the leisure which affluence affords, should consider their 
 talents and their studies to be solemnly devoted. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. ^g 
 
 2. My Reverend Brethren, I would be understood to 
 speak with sentiments of respect, of those whom I shall 
 take the liberty to call the labouring part of the parochial 
 clergy : of those whose lives are spent in a constant at- 
 tendance on the publick ceremonies of external worship, 
 or in the charitable and necessary business of instruct- 
 ing the people of the lower ranks, in the first principles 
 of the doctrine of Christ. Of these venerable men, of 
 their godly labours, and honourable occupations, I 
 would be understood to speak with reverence and re- 
 spect. Of all the departments of the sacred otjjce, the 
 business of that which it is their lot to fill, is perhaps the 
 most immediately conducive to general edification : and 
 for the zeal and ability with which it is discharged by 
 them, they arc justly entitled to the highest degrees of 
 veneration and esteem. It is matter of concern and 
 grief to every serious Christian, that their rewards in 
 this life should but seldom correspond, in any fair pro- 
 portion, with the worth of their characters, and the im- 
 portance of their services. Thanks be to Him, of whom 
 the whole family is named, their hope is full of glory. 
 It is felt, I am persuaded, by themselves, as the heaviest 
 inconvenience of their present situation, that their em- 
 ployment, useful and honourable as it must ever be con- 
 fessed to be, partakes in some degree of the nature of a 
 worldly business ; requiring a labour of the body, and 
 a distracting intercourse with the world, which leave 
 little opportunity for private study and solitary medita- 
 tion. In circumstances so unfriendly to literary im- 
 provement, it redounds highly to their praise that they 
 are so eminently well qualified, as they generally ap- 
 prove themselves to be, to discharge the plain duty of 
 Cat.erhi?t.*, with credit to themsclvcs ; and advantage to 
 
$0 A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 the church of God. To deliver the doctrine of the gos 
 pel in that plain and general way. which, if it were to 
 meet with no opposition from the disputers of the world, 
 might be sufficient to give it its full effect upon the heart 
 of the hearer. But occasions will from time to time 
 arise, when the truth must be not only taught, but de- 
 fended. The stubborn infidel will raise, objections against 
 the first principles of our faith : and objections must be 
 answered. The restless spirit of scepticism will sug- 
 gest difficulties in the system, and create doubts about 
 the particulars of the Christian doctrine : difficulties 
 must be removed, and doubts must be satisfied. But 
 above all, the scruples must be composed, which the re- 
 finements of a false philosophy, patronized as they are 
 in the present age, by men no less amiable for the gene- 
 ral purity of their manners, than distinguished by their 
 scientifick attainments, will be too apt to raise in the 
 minds of the weaker brethren. And this is the service 
 to which they, whom the indulgence of Providence hath 
 released from the more laborious offices of the priesthood, 
 stand peculiarly engaged. To them, their more occu- 
 pied brethren have a right to look up, in these emergen- 
 cies, for support and succour in the common cause. It is 
 for them to stand forth the champions of the common 
 faith, and the advocates of their order. It is for them 
 to wipe off the aspersions injuriously cast upon the sons 
 of the establishment, as uninformed in the true grounds 
 of the doctrine which they teach, or insincere in the belief 
 of it. To this duty they are indispensibly obliged, by 
 their providential exemption from work of a harder kind. 
 It is the proper business of the station which is allotted 
 them in Christ's household, and deep will be their shame, 
 and insupportable their punishment, if, in the great day 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. g.j 
 
 of reckoning it should appear, that they have received the 
 wages of a service which hath never heen performed. 
 
 3. You will easily conjecture, that what has led me 
 into these reflections is, the extraordinary attempt which 
 hath heen lately made, to unsettle the faith, and to break 
 up the constitution of every ecclesiastical establishment 
 in Christendom. Such is the avowed object of a recent 
 publication, which bears the title of "A History of the 
 Corruptions of Christianity;" among which the Catholick 
 doctrine of the Trinity, in the author's opinion, holds a 
 principal place. With what success he hath attacked 
 this fundamental article, and how far he hath been able 
 to invalidate the argument from early and uniform tra- 
 dition, this reverend assembly will he competent to 
 judge, from the brief view which shall be laid before 
 them, of the account which he attempts to give j)f the 
 rise and progress of the doctrine in the three first ages, 
 accompanied with specimens of the proofs by which his 
 pretended history, in this part of it. is supported. 
 
 I. 
 
 1. The opinion which he maintains, is in general the 
 same which was first, I think, propagated in the last 
 century by Daniel Zuicker, a Prussian physician of the 
 Socinian persuasion; and, upon the authority of that 
 writer, hath been current ever since among the Unitarians 
 of this country. "That the doctrine of the Trinity, in the 
 form in which it is now maintained, is of no greater an- 
 tiquity than the Nicene council : that it is the result of a 
 gradual corruption of the doctrine of the gospel, which 
 took its rise in an opinion first advanced in the second 
 century, by certain converts from the Platonick school ; 
 who, expounding the beginning of St John's gospel by 
 the Platonick doctrine of the Logo?, ascribed a sort of 
 
g$ A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 secondary divinity to our Saviour, affirming that he was 
 no other than the second principle of the Platonick Triad, 
 who had assumed a human body to converse with man : 
 that before this innovation, of which Justin Martyr is 
 made the author, the faith of the whole Christian church, 
 but particularly of the church of Jerusalem, was simply 
 and strictly Unitarian. The immediate disciples of the 
 apostles conceived our Saviour to be a man, whose ex- 
 istence commenced in the womb of the Virgin ; and they 
 thought him in no respect the object of worship. The 
 next succeeding race worshiped him indeed, but they 
 had however no higher notions of his divinity, than 
 those which were maintained by the followers of Arius 
 in the fourth century." In short, the first race of Chris- 
 tians, in Dr Priestly's opinion, were Unitarians in the 
 strictest sense of the word : the second, Arians.* As 
 Dr Priestley follows Zuicker in these extravagant asser- 
 tions, so the arguments by which he would support 
 them, are in all essential points the same which were 
 alleged to the same purpose, either by that writer, or 
 by Simon Episcopius. Episcopius, though himself no 
 Socinian, very indiscreetly concurred with the Socinians 
 of his time in maintaining, that the opinion of the mere 
 humanity of Christ, had prevailed very generally in the 
 first ages, and was never deemed heretical by the fa. 
 thers of the orthodox persuasion ; at least not in such 
 degree, as to exclude from the communion of the church. 
 The opinion, I believe, had its rise in no worse principle 
 than the charitable temper of the man, and his just 
 
 * See this brief statement ofDr Priestley's opinion defended against his objec- 
 tions to it, in the ISth of my Letters in Reply. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. %g 
 
 abhorrence of the spirit of persecution, with which Chris- 
 tians, of every denomination, were in his time much in- 
 fected : which is indeed itself, of all heresies, by far the 
 most malignant, being that most opposite to the general 
 philanthropy, which is the root of all social virtue, and 
 the highest ornament of the Christian profession. Epis- 
 copius wished, as every good man must wish, to see a 
 general toleration established ; which he thought could 
 not be more effectually recommended, than by the ex- 
 ample of the harmony which subsisted among Christians 
 in the earliest ages. The force of his example, he would 
 naturally think improved, in proportion as the idea of the 
 harmony was heightened, as the controversies of the first 
 Christians were magnified and multiplied. These sen- 
 timents, inclined him to credit as historians the same 
 writers, whom, as divines, he held in little estimation. 
 He gave easy credit to Unitarian writers, when they re- 
 presented the differences of opinion in the early churches, 
 as much greater than ever really obtained ; and the ten- 
 derness for sectaries, as more than was ever practised ; 
 and while he opposed their doctrine, he vouched their 
 story. The purposes of charity had been better served, 
 without injury to the cause of truth, had the talents of 
 this able writer been employed, to set the doctrine of 
 universal toleration on its only firm and proper basis : 
 to show, that although in dubious points of doctrine, the 
 judgment of antiquity, wherever it is clear, must be al- 
 lowed to be decisive ; yet the just severity of the primi- 
 tive church towards the refractory hereticks, whose vi- 
 sionary doctrines, joined with their contempt of apostolick 
 authority, disgraced the rising community, and obstruct- 
 ed the propagation of ihe truth; constitutes no example 
 for the control of fair inquiry, or for the punishment of 
 
^ A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 mere speculative heresy in these latter times ; by any 
 harsher means than the necessary exclusion of dissenters 
 from the honours and emoluments of national establish- 
 ments. Had the opinion which he chose to adopt been 
 true, Simon Episcopius, with his scanty knowledge of 
 ecclesiastical antiquities, was but ill qualified to main- 
 tain it. False and groundless as it was, his natural 
 acuteness enabled him to furnish the Socinians of his 
 time, whose cause in the doctrinal part he little thought 
 to serve, with the best arguments that have ever been 
 produced on the Unitarian side of the question. Our 
 modern historian, in support of his imaginary progress 
 of opinions tVom the Unitarian doctrine to the Nicene 
 faith, hath produced few, if any arguments, which make 
 directly for his purpose, but what are to be found in the 
 writings either of Zuicker or Episcopius. Nor is a 
 single argument to be found in the writings either of 
 Zuicker or Episcopius, which is not unanswerably con- 
 futed by our learned Dr George Bull, afterwards Lord 
 Bishop of St David's, in three celebrated treatises, 
 which deserve the particular attention of every one, who 
 would take upon him to be either a teacher or an histo- 
 rian of the Christian faith. The first, " A Defence of 
 the Nicene faith ;" the second, " The Judgment of the 
 Catholick church, in the first ages, concerning the necessi- 
 ty of believing that our Lord Jesus Christ is very God ;" 
 the third, " The Primitive and Apostolical tradition 
 concerning the true Divinity of Jesus Christ." 
 
 2. It seems very extraordinary, that any one should 
 presume to revive the defeated arguments of Zuicker and 
 Episcopius, without attempting to make them good against 
 the objections of a writer of Dr Bull's eminence. Nor is 
 it easy to conceive, what apology can be made, for what 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. .35 
 
 -should seem so gross an insult on the learning and dis- 
 cernment of the age ; unless it be, that Dr. Priestley 
 imagines, that although he hath abstained from a parti- 
 cular discussion of Dr. Ball's arguments, he hath in 
 effect answered them, by the new light which he per- 
 suades himself he has thrown upon the subject : that by 
 the evidence which he thinks he hath brought of the 
 truth of his own narrative, in every branch of it, he sup- 
 poses that he hath virtually replied to all objections : that 
 he hath confirmed the assumptions from which Zuicker 
 and Episcopius reasoned, which Dr. Bull pretended to 
 deny: and that, by confirming their assumptions, he hath 
 made good their arguments, although he may have taken 
 no notice of their learned antagonist. What new illus- 
 trations the subject hath received from Dr. Priestley's 
 labours, will best appear from specimens of the argu- 
 ments by which lie would support his three principal 
 assumptions : namely, that the first Christians were Uni- 
 tarians in the strictest sense of the word ; that the deity 
 of Christ was first taught by a Platonizing sect; and that 
 the doctrine which they introduced, was the very same 
 for which, in a later age, Arius was condemned. If 
 his proof of these fundamental propositions should be 
 found to rest upon precarious assumptions, perverted 
 history, misconstrued and misapplied quotations ; if his 
 facts should appear to be confuted by his own authori- 
 ties, and his conclusions to be defeated by his 1 own ar- 
 guments ; if the resemblance between the Christian and 
 the Platonick Trinity, should appear to be no mark of 
 corruption in the prevailing opinions; the Catholick 
 faith, which hath heretofore sustained so many rude as- 
 saults, will hardly find its mortal wound in the stroke 
 which Dr. Priestley imagines lie hath inflicted. 
 
gg A CHARGE TO THE CLERfcY. 
 
 3r*The first argument which is produced in support 
 of the first assertion, " that the faith of the first Chris- 
 tians was simply Unitarian," is built upon an assump- 
 tion, which, could it he proved to be true, would indf, ed 
 render the conclusion obvious and inevitable : " That 
 the doctrine of our Lord's mere humanity, is the clear 
 doctrine of the Scriptures, and that the apostles never 
 taught any other."* It will easily be granted, that the 
 apostles never taught the contrary of any doctrine that 
 is clearly delivered in their writings ; and that the faith 
 of the first converts, was a belief of neither more nor less 
 than the apostles taught. So that the sense of the 
 Scriptures in any article being once clearly ascertained, 
 the argument from the clear confessed sense of Scripture 
 to the preaching of the apostles, and from the preaching 
 of the apostles to the primitive faith, will be firm and 
 valid. But the professed object of our learned adversa- 
 ry's undertaking, requires an argument, that should go 
 the contrary way : from the primitive faith to the sense 
 of the Scriptures. It is the professed object of his un- 
 dertaking, to exhibit a view of the gradual changes of 
 opinions, in order to ascertain the faith of the first ages : 
 and he would ascertain the faith of the first ages, in 
 order to settle the sense of the Scriptures in disputed 
 points. He is therefore not at liberty, to assume any 
 sense of the Scriptures, which, because it is his own, he 
 may be pleased to call the clear sense, for a proof that 
 the original faith was such, as would confirm the sense 
 he wishes to establish. His sense of the Scriptures, 
 not being acknowledged by the majority of the Chris- 
 
 History of Corruptions, ?ol.i. p. 6, 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. $y 
 
 tiau church, whatever may be his own judgment of its 
 clearness, it can only pass for a particular interpretation. 
 When this particular interpretation is alleged, in proof 
 that the original faith of the church of Jerusalem was 
 such as might justify that interpretation ; the middle 
 term of the argument is no otherwise confirmed, than by 
 an assumption of the principal matter in debate : and so 
 long as the sixth page of the first volume of Dr Priestley's 
 history shall be extant, the masters of the dialectick art, 
 will be at no loss for an example of the circulating syl- 
 logism. To Dr Priestley, it may be very clear, that 
 when St John, speaking of the Logos, of which he had 
 already affirmed, that it was in the beginning, says, 
 " This person" (for that is the natural force of the Greek 
 pronoun ovrcr*) " This person was in the beginning with 
 God ; all things were made by him, and without him was 
 not any thing made that was made :" it may be very clear 
 to Dr Priestley, that St John, speaking of the Logos as 
 of a person who had been from the beginning, and had 
 done these great things ; means to affirm that the Logos 
 is no person ; nor is, otherwise than in a figurative sense, 
 to be called an agent in any business : that he means to 
 contradict those, who held that the Logos was any thing 
 more than an attribute of the Divine mind ; to silence 
 them; to extinguish their profane innovation, by his 
 definitive sentence upon the question : and that when he 
 speaks of eternity, as belonging to the Logos as a per- 
 son, it is, that this was the most explicit way, in which 
 he could give the Christian church to understand, that 
 eternity is only accidental to the Logos, the substance to 
 
 * See the third of my Letters in Reply, and the Appendix to the Letters, No. 2. 
 
S8 A CHARGE TO THE CLEfvGY. 
 
 which it properly belongs, being that inincl of which the 
 Logos itself is only another attribute.* It may be very 
 clear to Dr Priestley's apprehension, that when 3t Paul 
 affirms of Christ, that he is the " image of the invisible 
 God, the first born of every creature, by whom all things 
 were created/'" and explains in what extent the words 
 " all things" are to be understood, by an enumeration 
 of the constituent parts, and governing powers of the 
 universe ; *< things in heaven and things in earth, visible 
 and invisible, whether they he thrones, or dominions, or 
 principalities, or powers; all things were created by him 
 and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all 
 things consist ;"f it may be very clear to Dr Priestley, 
 that St Paul, in these expressions, w r ould be understood 
 to assert, that Christ was nothing more than a man, and 
 was no otherwise the creator of any thing, than as he 
 was the founder of the Christian church. All this may 
 be very clear to Dr Priestley's apprehension ; and equal 
 to the clearness of the apprehension, which he imagines 
 lie enjoys, that this was the doctrine of the apostles, will 
 be the confidence of his persuasion, that it w r as also the 
 faith of their first converts. But to others, who have not 
 the sagacity to discern, that the true meaning of an in- 
 spired writer must be the reverse of the natural and ob- 
 vious sense of the expressions which he employs, the 
 force of the conclusion, that the primitive Christians 
 could not believe our Lord to be more than a mere man, 
 because the apostles had told them he was the Creator 
 of the universe, will be little understood. 
 
 * Hist, of Corrup. vol. i.p 10, 12. 
 f Coloss. i. 15, 17. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. *>g 
 
 4. Another argument is built upon a pretended silence 
 of St John, about the error of those who maintained the 
 mere humanity of Christ,* in his first epistle : in which 
 he is supposed to censure those, who believed Christ to 
 be a man only in appearance, in the severest manner ; 
 but upon Uiose who believed him to be nothing more 
 than man, the apostle, as he is understood by Dr Priest- 
 ley, passes no censure. From which it is to be conclu- 
 ded, that the latter opinion is no error, but the very 
 truth of the gospel. 
 
 5. But here the question is, whether the opinion of 
 Christ's mere humanity is really passed over by St 
 John, as Dr Priestley supposes, unccnsured and unno- 
 ticed. This question will be differently resolved, ac- 
 cording as diilcrent interpretations of the apostle's ex- 
 pressions are adopted. This argument, therefore, is of 
 the same complexion with the former, and labours under 
 the same defect. A particular sense of the epistle is 
 alleged, in proof of a pretended fact ; which fact must 
 itself support the interpretation. "Every spirit," says 
 St John, " which confesses that Jesus Christ is come in 
 the flesh, is of God."f " That is," says Dr Priestley, 
 " every spirit is of God, that confesses that Jesus Christ 
 is truly a man."} But it should seem, that the propo- 
 sition that he was truly a man, if he was nothing more 
 than man, is very awkwardly and unnaturally expressed 
 by the phrase of his " coming in the flesh :" for in what 
 other way was it possible for a mere man to come ? The 
 turn of the expression seems to lead to the notion of a 
 
 * Hist, of Corrap. vol. i. p. 10, IS ; and vol. ii. p. 43 J, 
 
 t 1 John iv. 3. 
 
 i Hist of Corrap. vol. i. p. 13. 
 
30 A CHARGE TO T1IL CL 
 
 being, who had his choice of different ways of coining ^ 
 a notion which is implied in other passages of holy writ, 
 and is explicitly expressed in a book little inferior in au- 
 thority to the canonical writings ; in the first epistle of 
 Clemens Romanus ; in a passage of that epistle which Dr 
 Priestley, somewhat unfortunately for his cause, hath 
 chosen for the basis of an argument of that holy father's 
 heterodoxy. "The sceptre of the majesty of God," 
 says Clemens, " our Lord Jesus Christ, came not in the 
 pomp of pride and arrogance, although he had it in his 
 yower"* Clemens, it seems, conceived, that the man. 
 ner of coming, was in the power and choice of the per- 
 son who was to come. St John's expressions evidently 
 lead to the same notion. It should seem, therefore, that 
 St John's assertions, concerning the spirits that maintain 
 or deny that Jesus is come in the flesh, that the one are 
 of God, and the other of antichrist, were levelled, not 
 singly at the heresy of the Docetce, as Dr Priestley im- 
 agines, but equally at that and at another branch of the 
 Gnostick heresy, which divided Jesus Christ into two 
 persons : Jesus, who was supposed to be a mere man, 
 the son of Mary by her husband Joseph ; and the Christ, 
 a divine being, who was considered as the genius, or 
 tutelary angel of the man ; not however so united with 
 the man, as to constitute one person, or to partake of the 
 man's sufferings. The first epistle of St John, asserts 
 the doctrine of a true and proper incarnation, in opposi- 
 tion to the extravagancies of both these sects. The 
 apostle makes the acknowledgment of the incarnation, 
 in which both an antecedent divinity and an assumed 
 
 Chap. xvi. 
 
A CHARGE TO TUB CLERGY. gj 
 
 humanity are implied, the criterion by which the true 
 teachers are to be distinguished from the false. And in 
 the positive assertion of the incarnation, and the express 
 censure of the opposite doctrine as antichristian, he re- 
 probates the notion of Christ's mere humanity, in the 
 only sense in which we have any certain evidence that 
 he lived to see it maintained. It appears, therefore, 
 that to confess that " Jesus Christ is come in the flesh,"* 
 and to affirm that Jesus Christ is truly a man, are pro- 
 positions not perfectly equivalent. Dr Priestley indeed 
 hath shown himself very sensible of the difference. He 
 would not otherwise have found it necessary, for the 
 improvement of his argument, in reciting the third verse 
 of the fourth chapter of St John's first epistle, to change 
 the expressions which he found in the publick transla- 
 tion, for others which correspond far less exactly with 
 the Greek text. For the words "Jesus Christ is come 
 in the flesh," Dr Priestley substitutes these, "Jesus 
 Christ is come of the flesh."f That he is come in the 
 flesh, and that he is come of the flesh, are two very dis- 
 tinct propositions. The one affirms an incarnation ; the 
 other a mortal extraction. The first is St John's asser- 
 tion ; the second is Dr Priestley's. Perhaps Dr Priest- 
 ley hath discovered of St John as of St Paul, that his 
 reasoning is sometimes inconcltisive.J and his language 
 inaccurate : and he might think it no unwarrantable 
 liberty to correct an expression, which, as not perfectly 
 corresponding with his own system, he could not en- 
 
 * 1 John iv. 2. Lmr Xf/;ov V 
 f Hist, of Corrup. \ol. i. p. 10. line 15. 
 
 $ " . I think I have shown that the apostle Paul often rejuons inconciu- 
 
 Dr. P's. Hist, of Currup. yol. u. p. 370. 
 
32 A CHARGE TO THE CLEIU.V. 
 
 tirely approve. It would have been but fair to ad\ei- 
 tise his readers of so capital an emendation ; an emen- 
 dation for which no support is to be found in the, Greek 
 text, nor even in the varieties of any manuscripts. Wo 
 are informed indeed by Socrates the historian,* (and 
 liis testimony is confirmed by the Latin of the vulgate,) 
 of a very considerable variety of some of the ancient 
 manuscripts. But it is such as only serves to prove, 
 that the principal object of this epistle of St John, was 
 understood in the primitive church, to be the confutation 
 of the Cerinthian Gnosticks ; the sect which divided 
 Christ into two persons, of which they made Jesus a 
 mere man ; differing in this, essentially from the Docetce, 
 who made the body of the man Jesus a mere phantom. 
 
 0, And this view of St John's epistle, receives a 
 further confirmation from the genuine epistles of Ignatius. 
 In these, the error of the fiocetce, which Dr Priestley 
 supposes to be the sole object of St John's epistle, is 
 indeed particularly censured. But lest, in asserting the 
 truth of our Lord's humanity, he should be understood 
 to support the opinion of his mere humanity, the holy 
 Father hardly ever mentions Christ, without introducing 
 some explicit assertion of his Divinity, or without join- 
 ing with the name of Christ, some epithet in which it is 
 implied. 
 
 7. The mention of Ignatius having occurred, it were 
 unpardonable not to suggest to the recollection of this 
 learned assembly, one passage in particular in the epistle 
 to the Magnesians, in which the eternal existence of the 
 Word, as a distinct person from the Father, is asserted 
 
 Lib. rii. c. 52. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 33 
 
 in terms, which, though highly figurative, are perfectly 
 unequivocal : There is one God, who hath manifested 
 himself through Jesus Christ his Son, who is his eternal 
 Word, who came not forth from silence."* The name 
 of the Logos, led the early fathers to conceive the gene- 
 ration of the Son as an utterance ; or, at least, to speak 
 of it under that figure ; as on the contrary, the hereticks, 
 who denied the eternity of the Son, described the period 
 preceding his generation as a time of silence.f Under 
 that figure, Ignatius speaks of the generation of the Sou 
 in this passage : and he affirms, that no period of silence 
 had preceded the utterance of the eternal Word. Or, if 
 it should seem more reasonable to suppose an allusion, 
 in these expressions of Ignatius, to the Sige of the 
 Gnosticks, the consort of their Buthos, upon whom the 
 ^Eons were engendered ; and to understand the holy 
 father as maintaining the immediate connexion of the 
 Father and the Son, unbroken by the intervention of 
 any such intermediate intelligencies, as the impious the- 
 ogony of the Gnosticks interposed ; still the eternity of 
 the Son is asserted. For the passage, in this view of it, 
 amounts to this disjunctive proposition : " The Son's 
 existence holds not of the Father's by any such remote 
 relation as these fabulous genealogies describe ; but he 
 is the eternal Logos of the Paternal mind." According 
 to either interpretation, the passage contains an evident 
 assertion of the divinity of the Son of God. And this 
 assertion being found in the writings of Ignatius, tlie 
 
 I X^c<{ T* uat *(;? 
 &'* OLTS ftyw T04A^a>y. Ing. ad. Magn. sec. 8. 
 
 f So Marcelkis of Ancyra : U^ y&p TJJ f;ifti* 
 xoc, *v Ti && t Ac> O'VTCC. Euseb. contra MareH.j>. 3Q 
 
 
 
gijj A CHAKtiti 'JO THE CLBilGY. 
 
 familiar friend and companion of the apostles, who suf- 
 fered martyrdom so early as in the sixteenth year of the 
 second century, and had been appointed to the bishop, 
 rick of Antioch full thirty years before ; it is an unan- 
 swerable confutation of our author's confident assertions, 
 that " we find nothing like divinity ascribed to Jesus 
 Christ before Justin martyr,"* and "that all the ear- 
 ly fathers speak of Christ, as not having existed al- 
 ways ."f 
 
 8. We have seen the sort and fashion of the argu- 
 ment, which, in proof of his first assertion, Dr Priestley 
 builds on holy writ. Let us take a view of those which 
 he hath drawn from other writers. 
 
 9. One principal argument, " that the primitive church 
 of Jerusalem was properly Unitarian," maintaining the 
 simple humanity of Christ, is this;" Athanasius him- 
 self was so far from denying it," says Dr Priestley, 
 " that he endeavours to account for it, by saying," 
 " that all the Jews were so firmly persuaded that their 
 Messiah was to be nothing more than a man like them- 
 selves, that the apostles were obliged to use great cau- 
 tion in divulging the doctrine of the proper divinity of 
 Christ."* The latter clause of the sentence, which 
 contains what Athanasius is supposed to have said, is 
 marked with inverted commas ; which should seem to 
 intimate, that it is an exact translation of some passage 
 in the holy father's writings : and the lower margin of 
 Dr Priestleys's book, refers to Athanasius's celebrated 
 piece on the orthodoxy of his predecessor, Dionysiue. 
 
 * Hist, of Corrup. vol. i. p. 32. 
 
 f Ibid. vol. i. p. 42. 
 
 Hist, of Corrup, rol. \, p. IS. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERfcY. 3^ 
 
 3fow in this piece upon the orthodoxy of Bionysius, 
 Athanasius no where, I confess, denies that the primi- 
 tive church of Jerusalem was Unitarian. Nor, on the 
 other hand, do I recollect that Dr Priestley hath as- 
 serted it, in any part of his " History of Electricity." 
 The truth is, that in either of these valuable works, 
 the faith of the primitive church of Jerusalem never 
 comes in question. In the defence of Dionysius, not a 
 single passage is to be found, which may be fairly un- 
 derstood as a tacit confession, that the primitive faith 
 of the church of Jerusalem was Unitarian : much less 
 is there any attempt to account for its supposed hetero- 
 doxy. Athanasius says indeed of the Jews of the apos- 
 tolick age, that is, of the unbelieving Jews, (for Atha- 
 nasius is a writer who calls things by their names ; 
 and when he speaks of Jews, means not, as Dr Priestley 
 would persuade us,* Jewish Christians, except when 
 he sarcastically gives the Arians the name of Jews, as 
 resembling the Jews, in his judgment, in an obstinate 
 denial of the Lord who bought them; but otherwise, 
 when he speaks his usual, plain, unfigured language, 
 the unconverted Jews of the apostolick age are they, of 
 whom he says,) that they had so little insight into the 
 true meaning of the prophecies, as to look for nothing 
 more than a MAN in the promised Messiah. He says, 
 that this error of the Jews had been the means of spread- 
 ing the like mistake among the Gentiles ; meaning pro- 
 bably the proselytes of the Gate ; who, acknowledging 
 in some degree the divinity of- the Jewish Scriptures, 
 looked for the completion of the prophecies, and were 
 
 Hist of Cornsp. vol. U. p. 456. 
 
g * CHARGE TO THE 
 
 the first Gentiles to whom the preaching of the apos- 
 tles was addressed. These Gentiles, with something 
 of the Jewish faith, it may easily be supposed, had 
 imbibed many of the Jewish errors ; and among others, 
 as Athanasius imagines, the expectation of a Messiah 
 of mortal extraction. This general mistake, he says, 
 made it necessary, that the apostles, in their first pub- 
 lick sermons, should insist largely on the miracles of 
 our Saviour's life on earth, before they entered into a 
 detail of the particulars of the gospel doctrine, or ex- 
 plained what sort of person the promised Messiah was 
 to be, and Jesus was. For their doctrine upon that ar- 
 ticle was not likely to meet with credit, till their divine 
 commission to teach it was acknowledged, and their 
 Master's general claim to the character of the Messiah, 
 whatever that might be, previously admitted. The ex- 
 ample of the apostles' practice in this particular is alle- 
 ged, to show what prudence requires of every preacher 
 of the gospel ; who must allow himself to be determined 
 in the arrangement of his matter, the choice of his topicks, 
 and the composition of his language, by the degree of 
 previous knowledge, and the state of opinions, which 
 may actually obtain among those to whom his instruc- 
 tions are addressed. What the ignorant will most easi- 
 ly apprehend, must be first taught : those points, which 
 are supposed to be most generally misunderstood, must 
 be most particularly explained : and the truth must be 
 conveyed in that language, which may the most evident- 
 ly show its disagreement with any false opinions, to 
 which the hearer may be particularly addicted. Atha. 
 nasius contends, that upon these principles Dionysius 
 was to be justified, if he dwelt more on the topick of 
 our Lord's humiliation, than on that of his divinity : 
 
A CI1AKGE TO THE CLERGY. 37 
 
 the Sabellian heresy being the error with which Diony- 
 sius was engaged. The consideration that the Son 
 became man, afforded the most obvious proof that he 
 was not the Father: and the Sabellians were to be 
 convinced, that the Word was made flesh, gross, corrup- 
 tible flesh, before they could be brought to acknowledge 
 that he was God of God. Athanasius shows, that, in 
 the controversy with these hereticks, Dionysius was in- 
 evitably led to the use of expressions, which the Ariau 
 party interpreted in their own favour ; though Diony- 
 sius always disclaimed the sense, to which his words 
 were wrested. He contends, that to tax Dionysius 
 with a propensity to the Arian party, on account of 
 these expressions, were no less unreasonable and inju- 
 rious, than it would be to entertain the like suspicion 
 of the apostles themselves ; because they had found it 
 necessary to persuade the Jews, that Jesus had been 
 approved of God, by signs and wonders, as a man, 
 before they could hope to persuade them, that he was 
 so much more than man, that his being found in fashion 
 as a man, was really the most extraordinary part of his 
 history and character. It is in no other way than this, 
 that Athanasius speaks of the apostles, as teaching the 
 Jews the humanity of Christ. The holy father never 
 speaks of any caution which they used in divulging 
 the doctrine of his full divinity; unless an historian's 
 distribution of the matter of his narrative, or a master's 
 accommodation of his lessons to the previous attainments 
 of his pupils, is to be called a caution of divulging, 
 what, in the natural order of tradition, is to be the last 
 disclosed. Was it ever said of Livy, that he relates 
 the tragedy of Lucretia's death, from a caution of divul- 
 ging the expulsion of the Tarquia*? Of Porphyry, 
 
38 A CHARGE TO TUB CLERGV. 
 
 that he treats of the five words, from a caution of divul- 
 ging the doctrine of the Categories ? The beginning of 
 every story must be first told The easiest part of ev- 
 ery science must be first taught. Of the great ability 
 and judgment, with which the apostles conducted the 
 first preaching of the gospel ; of their happy art in tha 
 perspicuous arrangement of their lofty argument ; with 
 what readiness they led their catechumens on, from the 
 simplest principles to the highest mysteries ; of this con- 
 summate ability of the apostles in the capacity of teach- 
 ers, Athanasius speaks with due commendation. Their 
 caution he never mentions. On the contrary, the rapid 
 progress of their instruction, how they passed at once 
 from the detail of our Lord's life on earth, to the mys- 
 tery of his Godhead, is one principal branch of his en- 
 comium. 1 wish that Dr Priestley had produced the 
 passage, in which he thinks the apostles are taxed with 
 caution ; and of which he certainly imagines (he would 
 not otherwise have led his reader to imagine) he hath 
 given an exact translation.* 
 
 10. Nearly allied to this argument from Athanasius's 
 omissions to deny^ is another from Epiphanius's omission 
 io assert. " Epiphanius, in his account of the Naza- 
 renes makes no mention of any of them believing the 
 divinity of Christ in any sense of the word."f It is 
 granted. Epiphanius, in his account of these ancient 
 hereticks,f makes indeed no mention, that they believed 
 
 * See the passage produced and critical!)' examined, in the fourth of Dr Priestley's 
 first Letters to me, the eleventh of my Letters in reply, and the tenth of Dr Priest- 
 ley's second Letters; and in my remarks upon Dr Priestley's seeond Letters, 
 Part II. chap. i. sec. 11. 
 
 | Hist, of Corruy. vol. i, p. 8. 
 
 * Hres. 29. 
 
A CHARGE TO THK CLERGY. 39 
 
 the divinity of Christ in any sense of the word. But 
 what is this no-mention which Epiphanius makes, and 
 of what importance is it to our author's system? It is 
 only that Epiphanius confesses, that he had no certain 
 information, what the opinion of the Nazarenes might 
 be upon this article. He had described them in general 
 as a sect half Jew and half Christian : not Jews, because 
 they had something of a belief in Christ : not Christians, 
 because they lived in bondage to the ritual law. "But 
 concerning Christ," he says, I cannot say whether 
 they think him a mere man ; or affirm, as the truth is, 
 that he was begotten of Mary by the Holy Ghost."* It 
 is thus, and thus only, that Kpiphanius makes no men- 
 tion of the belief of the Nazarenes in Christ's divinity. 
 But he equally makes no mention of their disbelief. 
 And had it been Dr Priestley's point to prove, that tho 
 Nazarenes held the Nicene faith upon the subject of tha. 
 Trinity, he might have alleged, with equal fairness 
 and propriety, Epiphanius's no. mention of their hete- 
 rodoxy. 
 
 It. Indeed, that they were believers in our Lord's 
 divinity, were the fairer conclusion from the neutrality 
 of Epiphanius's evidence. It was little the temper of 
 the age in which Epiphanius lived ; it was lit le the 
 temper of Epiphanius, to think or to speak favourably 
 of those who w ere deemed hereticks. It was rather the 
 practice to aggravate and to multiply their errors, and 
 to vilify their characters : to charge them upon the 
 
 ef, tin u' 
 
 a, flit 
 
^0 A CHARGE TO THt CLERGY. 
 
 slightest grounds with every enormity, both in faith and 
 practice. It is very unlikely, that Epiphanius would 
 have been so tender of the reputation of these Nazarenes, 
 as to confess his want of information about their opinions 
 of the nature of Christ, had there been the least ground 
 to suspect, or had there been so much as a suspi- 
 cion current in his times, although it had been founded 
 only on a general bad opinion of the sect, that they 
 were heretical in this article. A general clamour, or 
 the bare assertion of an earlier writer, would have fixed 
 the imputation, without any nice inquiry into the evi- 
 dence by which the charge might be supported. And since 
 Epiphanius confesses, that he had no ground to say that 
 these Nazarenes held Christ to be a mere man ; the pre- 
 sumption is, that he ought to have said, that they affirmed, 
 as the truth is, that he was begotten of Mary, by the Holy 
 Ghost. But to affirm, " as the truth is, that he was begot- 
 ten of Mary, by the Holy Ghost," in Epiphanius's sense 
 of those words, was a full confession of his divinity. So 
 that, if the opinions of these Nazarenes be of any im- 
 portance for ascertaining the primitive faith ; and con- 
 jectures are to be drawn, concerning their opinions, from 
 Epiphanius's profession of his want of information ; the 
 fair conjecture, is the opposite of Dr Priestley's : namely, 
 that the Nazarenes homologated with the church, as its 
 opinions stood in the age of Epiphanius, when I suppose 
 he will allow it to have been far gone from the primitive 
 purity of his Unitarian faith ; with this corrupt church, 
 as Dr Priestley deems it, his friends, the Nazarenes, 
 homologated upon the article of Christ's divinity. 
 
 12. But after all, of what importance is the opinion 
 of these Nazarenes ? Or how may the Catholick tradi- 
 tion be affected by the singularities of a sect ? Of a sect 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. ^ 
 
 which lay under the censure of the church as heretical? 
 Attend, my Reverend Brethren. It is in this that ws 
 have been so long, I believe I ought to add, so fatally 
 mistaken. The Nazarenes were never censured ! They 
 were no sectaries ! They were the very first, and be- 
 cause the first, they were the purest, the very best of 
 Christians ! Nazarene was the ancient name of the 
 Jewish Christians !* Of the first members of the primi- 
 tive church of Jerusalem that original, parent church, 
 the mother of us all ; where James the brother of our 
 Lord was bishop ! In the opinions therefore of these 
 Nazarenes, we have the opinions of those first Chris- 
 tians, who received, not only the baptismal ablution, but 
 the illumination of the Spirit, at the hands of the apos- 
 tles ! You seem to ask me, by what evidence this im- 
 portant discovery is confirmed ? By no evidence. The 
 thing is not proved. It is asserted. In philosophical 
 subjects Dr Priestley would be the last to reason from 
 principles assumed without proof. But in divinity and 
 ecclesiastical history, he expects that his own assertion, 
 or that of writers of his own persuasion, however unin- 
 formed or prejudiced, should pass with the whole Chris- 
 tian world for proof of the boldest assumptions. The 
 Nazarenes, it is confessed, were the progeny of the first 
 Christians of the church of Jerusalem. But the name 
 of Nazarene, you will bear me witness, was never heard 
 of in the Christian church, as descriptive of the Jewish 
 Christians, before their settlement in the northren parts 
 of Galilee, upon the banishment of the Jews from Jeru- 
 salem, in the reign of Adrian.f The Hebrews, and they 
 
 the Nazarenes (and the Jewish Christiana never went by any other 
 same.) Hist. Corrup. vol. i. p. 8. 
 
 f See the last paragraph of the sixth of my Letters in reply, and the seventh of 
 those Letters, sec. 5, 
 
 6 
 
4 A CHARGE TO THE CLE1U.Y. 
 
 cfthe circumcision, were the earlier names, by which 
 the Jewish converts, who formed the church of Jerusa- 
 salera, had been distinguished from the Christians of the 
 Gentiles. Their descendants, the Nazarenes, were at 
 first perhaps heretical but in a single article ; in main- 
 taining the necessity of the observance of the Mosaick 
 law, for the attainment of salvation under the gospel : 
 whereas, their ancestors had indeed themselves adhered 
 to their old law, but had declared against the absurdity 
 cf exacting a submission to the ceremonial part of it, 
 from the Gentile converts. By degrees, however, these 
 Nazarenes declined so far from the pure faith of that 
 first race of Christians, from which they boasted their 
 descent, that in Jerome's time, they were become here- 
 tical in that degree, that Jerome considered them as a 
 Jewish sect rather than a Christian. " To this day," 
 says Jerome, ' l a heresy prevails among the Jews in all 
 the synagogues of the east, which is called that of the 
 Minsai, who commonly go by the name of Nazarenes : 
 who believe in Christ, the Son of God, born of the 
 Virgin ; and say that he was the person who suffered 
 under Pontius Pilate, and rose again ; in whom we our- 
 selves believe. But from a desire of being Jews and 
 Christians both at once, they are neither Jews nor 
 Christians."* 
 
 13. It is rather for the sake of general truth, than for 
 the attainment of victory in the present argument, that 
 I am desirous to maintain the distinction which was 
 ever made, till Zuicker attempted to confound it, be- 
 
 * Epist. &d Augustinum de disidio Petri et Pauli. torn. iii. fol. 155. B. edit. 
 Froben. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. ^g 
 
 tween the primitive church of Jerusalem and the sect of 
 the Nazarenes, its heretical offspring. In the Trinita- 
 rian controversy, the distinction is of little importance ; 
 or rather, it would be of advantage to the argument of 
 the orthodox party, if our faith needed other support, 
 than that which the plain sense of the Scriptures, and 
 the whole tenor of ecclesiastical history supply: it would 
 be of singular advantage to our argument, that Dr 
 Priestley should be able to establish Zuicker's extrava- 
 gant position, that these Nazarenes were no other than 
 the original members of the Hebrew church. Whoever 
 they were, their orthodoxy, in the article of our Lord's 
 divinity, is notorious. It is attested by most of the 
 writers of antiquity that mention them. It is acknowl- 
 edged by Jerome, at the very same time that he taxes 
 them with the grossest heresy in other points. And 
 were no express testimony to be produced, still it would 
 be the fair and probable conclusion, from that very pas- 
 sage of Epiphanius, upon which Dr Priestley would 
 build the contrary opinion. If therefore it could be pro- 
 ved, that these Nazarenes really were what Dr Priestley 
 hath been taught by Zuicker to believe, the first con- 
 verts of the circumcision ; we who maintan the full di- 
 vinity of Christ, should find, in the confession of the 
 Nazarenes, the verdict of those first Christians in our 
 favour. But since the fact is, that they were an hereti- 
 cal sect, which arose in the second century, from the 
 ashes of the church of Jerusalem ;* their opinions upon 
 any article are totally insignificant, and can in no way 
 affect the Catholick tradition. Still, therefore, the mo- 
 
 * See Letters in reply, vi. and vii. 
 
4$ A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 clern Unitarian would serve his own cause but ill, who 
 should be able to succeed in the attempt to prove, that 
 the mere humanity of Christ was a tenet of the Naza- 
 renes. 
 
 14. The neutrality of Epiphanius's evidence, is how- 
 ever, not the whole of the proof, by which our modern 
 historian hath taken the pains to support an assertion so 
 little to his purpose. It is alleged, only to corroborate 
 a more direct proof, which is very proper to be produ- 
 ced, as another specimen of the sort of argument upon 
 which our author's first proposition rests. 
 
 15. The Nazarenes and the Ebionites, he tells us, 
 were the same people, and held the same tenets.* By the 
 appellation of Ebionites, it is confessed, a certain sect, 
 which denied the divinity of our Saviour, was originally 
 distinguished . But how is it proved, that these Ebionites 
 were the same with the Nazarenes ? By a pretended 
 acknowledgement of Origen and Epiphanius.f It is of 
 great importance, for a just apprehension of the exact 
 force of any writers arguments, to catch the idioms of 
 his style ; and an attention to this circumstance, must 
 be particularly recommended to Dr Priestley's readers. 
 One of the most striking peculiarities of his language, 
 is a very singular use of the words acknowledge and ac- 
 knowledgment. Acknowledgment, in the usual ac- 
 ceptation of the word in controversial writing, signifies 
 a writer's avowel of a principle or a fact, which, as 
 making for his adversary's argument, it might have 
 
 * Hist, of Corrup. vol. i. p. 7. 
 
 j- both Origen and Epiphanius acknowledge, that the Nazarenes and 
 
 Ebionites were the suiue people, and held the same tenets." Hist, of Corruy. 
 vol. 5. p. 7. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 4,3 
 
 been for his purpose to conceal or to deny, but that the 
 evidence of the thing extorted the confession. But with 
 Dr Priestley, any expressions, which are capable of 
 being drawn by construction and refinement, to a sense 
 that may seem but indirectly favourable to his own 
 notions, are an explicit acknowledgment of the writer 
 who uses them, that things actually were, as Dr Priest, 
 ley is inclined to represent them. If such expressions 
 of one writer are quoted by another ; they amount to an 
 acknowledgment to the same purpose, on the part of 
 the writer who makes the quotation. On the other 
 hand, the acknowledgment of an original writer, may 
 sometimes be inferred from a negligent citation. Hath 
 Eusebius, complaining of a total disregard to truth 
 among the sectaries \\lio denied our Lord's divinity, 
 appealed, in confirmation of the charge, to a writer of 
 the second century ; who alleges it against the Unita- 
 rians of his own time, as an instance of the most harden, 
 ed effrontery, that they had the audacity to assert, that 
 their tenets had been originally taught by the apostles, 
 and were maintained by all the Roman bishops in suc- 
 cession, to the time of Victor?* This heavy accusa- 
 tion, thus supported by the testimony of an earlier writer, 
 is a plain acknowledgment^ on the part of Eusebius, 
 that the Unitarians constantly claimed this high antiqui- 
 ty of their doctrine. And what may seem more para- 
 doxical, this writer's appeal to "certain psalms and 
 
 * Euseb. Hist Eecl. lib. v. c. 28. 
 
 | " It is acknowledged by Eusebius, and others, " that the ancient Unitarians 
 themselves constantly asserted, that their doctrine was the universal opinion of the 
 Christian church, till the time of Victor." Hist, of Corrup. vol. ii. p. 486. Compare 
 >ol. i. p. 18, 19. 
 
46 A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 odes, the composition of faithful brethren in the first age, 
 which celebrate the divinity of the Christ, the Word of 
 God,"* is only a proof of Eusebius's inability to con- 
 fute the claim, which, by his own acknowledgment, 
 was set up.f Hath the learned Dr Samuel Clarke, in 
 an inaccurate citation of a passage in Origen, made 
 Origen speak of the Unitarians of his time as pious per- 
 sons? This is a candid acknowledgment,} on the part 
 of Origen, of the piety of those sectaries ; whereas 
 Origen says not that they were pious, but that they boas- 
 ted || tbat they were pious, or affected piety. Piety, 
 and the affectation of piety, belong to opposite charac- 
 ters. According to this enlarged use of the word ac- 
 knowledgment, it will indeed be very hazardous to 
 deny but that an acknowledgment to any purpose may 
 be found in any writer, or be drawn from any words. It 
 is necessary therefore to declare, that it is only in the 
 usual meaning of the word, that I take upon me to aver, 
 that no acknowledgment of the supposed identity of the 
 Nazarenes and the Ebionites, is to be found either in 
 Origen or Epipbanius.> Origen says, indeed, of the 
 Jewish Christians of hi& own time, that they were Ebi- 
 onites :[[ not meaning to make any acknowledgment in 
 favour of the proper Ebionites, as no worse hereticks 
 
 6'<r icau* ee'Ssu, a'cfexpav aV *%: v<vo irtton ymwau, TOV Xo>sv Tie. 
 S-* rov Xysov v'/mvxfi Sw^o}* >?*. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. v. c. 28. Compare Ephes. 
 V. 19. Col. iii. 16. James v. 13. 
 
 j- " .... in refuting their pretensions to antiquity, he goes no further back than 
 Irenaus and Justin Martyr " Hist, of Corrup. vol. i. p. 19. 
 
 $ " Origen candidly calls these adherents to the strict unity of God, pious per*-. 
 sons." Hist, of Corrup. vol. i. p. 57. 
 
 See Appendix. 
 1 Contra Cels. lib. 2. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. ^y 
 
 than the Nazarenes ; but rather to stigmatize the Naza- 
 renes with an opprobious appellation. And the only 
 c-.v> Vision which is to be drawn from this passage of 
 O.-is;en, is, that the word Ebionite had, in his time, out- 
 gro^a its original meaning; which it easily might do; 
 inasmuch as, by its derivation, it is not naturally des- 
 criptive of any particular set of opinions ; but barely ex- 
 pressive of the contempt, in which those who bestowed 
 it, held the knowledge and understanding of the party 
 on which it was bestowed. It was therefore likely to 
 be variously applied at different times, according as one 
 or another folly incurred the contempt either of any par- 
 ticular writer, or of the age in which he flourished. Ac- 
 cordingly, it appears from ecclesiastical history, that the 
 use of it was various and indefinite. Sometimes it was 
 the peculiar name of those sects, which denied both the 
 divinity of our Lord, and his miraculous conception 
 Then its meaning was extended to take in another 
 party ; which, admitting the miraculous conception of 
 Jesus, still denied his divinity, and questioned his pre- 
 vious existence And at last, it seems the Nazarenes, 
 whose error was rather a superstitious severity in their 
 practice than any deficiency in their faith, were inclu, 
 ded by Origen in the infamy of the appellation. It was 
 natural indeed for Origen, fond as he was of mystick 
 interpretations of the Jewish Scriptures, and possessed 
 with the imagination, that every particular of the ritual 
 service, and every occurrence in the Jewish story, was 
 typical of something in the gospel dispensation ; it was 
 natural for Origen, to think meanly of a sect who held 
 the observance of the letter of the ceremonial law, to be 
 an essential part of a Christian's duty. They certainly 
 had little apprehension of the free spirit of the religion 
 
4$ A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 they professed ; and this, with Origen, would be the 
 surest mark of a low and beggarly understanding. It 
 is in this reproachful appellation, which he alone of all 
 the writers of antiquity hath bestowed upon the Naza- 
 renes, that Dr Priestley hath discovered his acknowl- 
 edgment in favour of the Ebionites. For Epiphanius, 
 who is joined with Origen in this acknowledgment, he 
 describes the Nazarenes and the Ebionites as differ- 
 ent sects, maintaining different opinions ; except that 
 they agreed in retaining more or less of the Mosaick 
 service. * 
 
 10. Among other specimens of our author's happy 
 art of turning every thing, by a dexterous interpreta- 
 tion, to his own purpose ; it were injustice to the inju- 
 red memory of Eusebius, not to mention the attempt 
 that is made to shake the credit of his history, by re- 
 presenting the unfairness with which that candid writer 
 is supposed to treat the Unitarians ; where he says, "that 
 Theodotus, who appeared about the year 190, was the 
 first who held that our Saviour was a mere man ; when 
 in refuting their pretensions to antiquity, he goes no 
 farther back than to Irenseus and Justin Martyr, though 
 in his own writings alone he might have found a refuta- 
 tion of his assertion.''* It must be confessed, that any 
 one who should assert that Theodotus was the first who 
 taught a doctrine, which sunk our Lord into the rank 
 of mere man, might easily be confuted from the eccle. 
 
 * See this two-fold question, concerning the faith of the Nazarenes, and the 
 distinction between the Nazarenes and Ehionites, largely discussed in the second 
 of Dr Priestley's Letters to me, the sixth and seventh of my Letters in reply, 
 the third of Dr Priestley's second Letters, and my remarks on his second Let- 
 ters, Part II. chap. ii. and iii. 
 
 f Hist of Comip. vol. i. p. 19. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. ^n 
 
 iaatical history of Eusebius ; in which the Ceriuthians 
 and the Ebionites, who are taxed by all antiquity with 
 that impiety, are referred to an earlier period. The 
 truth however seems to be, that the doctrine of our Lord's 
 humanity, like all corruptions, had its stages ; that it 
 was carried by degrees to the height which it at last 
 attained ; and that Theodotus, in this article, so far 
 surpassed the earlier heresiarchs, that the merit of being 
 the inventor of the mere humanity, in the precise and 
 full meaning of the words, is with great propriety and 
 truth ascribed to him. When the Cerinthians and the 
 Ebionites affirmed, that Jesus had no existence previous 
 to Mary's conception, and that he was literally and 
 physically the carpenter's son; it might justly be said of 
 them, that they asserted the mere humanity of the Re- 
 deemer : especially, as it could not be foreseen, that the 
 impiety would ever go a greater length than this, of 
 ascribing to him an origin merely human. These here- 
 ticks, however, went no farther, as I conceive, than to 
 deny our Lord's original divinity : they admitted I know 
 not what unintelligible exaltation of his nature,* which 
 took place, as they conceived, upon his ascension, by 
 which he became no less the object of worship, than if 
 his nature had been originally divine. But when a 
 more daring (though, I confess, a far more consistent) 
 sect arose ; denj ing that our Lord in glory, is more than 
 a mortal man, raised, as all the just will one day be, 
 to immortality ; or that he is more the object of adoration 
 than Enoch or Elijah ; these younger hereticks, eclipsed 
 the glory of their timid ancestors, and might justly claim 
 
 See the fourteenth of my Letters ia reply, sec, 5. 
 
 7 
 
0Q A CHARGE TO THE CLEKGY. 
 
 the honour, of being the first assertors of the mere hu- 
 manity of Christ ; for they were indeed the first, who" 
 made humanity the whole of his condition. It was un- 
 doubtedly in this exalted sense, that the humanity of 
 Christ was taught by Theodotus ; for nothing short of 
 this might serve his purpose ; which, as we learn from 
 Epiphanius, was to extenuate the guilt of a renunciation 
 of his faith, which he had made under the terrors of 
 persecution, by setting up a plea, that, in renouncing 
 Christ, he had not renounced his God, but a man. This 
 plea could be of no service to Theodotus's cause, unless 
 Christ were a man, not only in his origin, but at the 
 time when Theodotus renounced him. It was therefore 
 that sublime doctrine, which is at this day taught in the 
 conventicles* of Dr Priestley and Mr Lindsey ; the doc- 
 trine of our Lord's mere undeified humanity ; which 
 Theodotus, the learned tanner of Byzantium, a deser- 
 ter of his Lord, and a fugitive from his country, broach- 
 ed at Rome, in the end of the second century. This 
 doctrine, Dr Priestley will perhaps find it difficult to 
 trace to any earlier period, or to any more respectable 
 origin. No injury, therefore, is done to the Unitarian 
 cause, when Theodotus is said to be the first author of 
 the Unitarian doctrine, in this exalted, finished, form. 
 But after all, this is not, what Dr Priestley imagines it 
 to be, the assertion of Eusebius. It is the assertion of a 
 
 * That the assemblies held by Mr Landsey, in Essex-Street, and by Dr 
 Priestley, at Birmingham, are strictly COJTFEXTICLES, in the genuine forensick 
 meaning of the word, see proved in the seventeenth of my Letters in reply, 
 sec- 8; and ray Remarks on Dr Priestley's second Letters, Part II. chap. iv. 
 sec. 6. And that Dr Priestley is, by his principles, disqualified to be the pastor 
 of any thing better than a Conventicle, see provd by his own confeswon, in the 
 seventeenth of his second Letters to we, 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLEttGY. 54 
 
 writer cited by Eusebius without any name. It should 
 seem that be was of the Latin church, and that his ex. 
 pressions are to be understood with particular reference 
 to the state of religion in the western world, especially 
 at Rome. Now it was probably true, that Theodotus 
 was the very first, who, at Rome, in any sense, taught 
 the mere humanity of Christ. For notwithstanding the 
 corrupt state of the Roman church in later ages, it is 
 notorious, that she was the last of all, infected with any 
 gross heresy. As for the pretensions of the Unitarians, 
 which it might be incumbent upon Eusebius to refute, 
 they were not simply pretensions to antiquity. The 
 antiquky of the Unitarian doctrine, in a certain form, is 
 confessed. Its antiquity is proved, by the express cen. 
 sure which is passed upon it in St John's writings, both 
 in his first epistle and in his gospel, as a dangerous 
 error which was in being when he wrote* But the pre- 
 tensions of the Unitarians, which Eusebius contradicts, 
 were pretensions to a prior antiquity : the pretence that 
 their own doctrine was original, and the doctrine of the 
 church, in the time of Zephyrmus, novel. And in refu- 
 ting these pretensions, the writer quoted by Eusebius, 
 goes back to the apostolick age : he goes back to those 
 psalms and odes, which seem to be alluded to in the 
 apostolick epistles, and to the books of holy writ.* 
 
 II. 
 
 I. By these specimens, a judgment may be formed, of 
 the arguments and of the facts by which our author's 
 first assumption is supported. By exposing the weak- 
 
 See this question about Theodotus, pursued in the eighth of Dr Priestley's 
 first Letters to me, the posstcript, sec. 4 ; aud the fourteenth of ixiy Letters ia 
 reply. 
 
58 A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 ness of our anther's arguments, and by the proof which 
 luith been produced from the writings of Ignatius, that 
 the divinity of the Bon, his full divinity, was acknowl- 
 edged by the immediate disciples of the apostles ; (a 
 proof, which, had not the work been long since done by 
 the learned Bishop Bull, might have been strengthened 
 with a copious collection of passages to the same pur- 
 pose from Ignatius. Barnabas, Clemens Romanus, Her- 
 nias, and the authentick acts of the martyrdom of Poly- 
 carp,) by the detection of the fallacy of the arguments 
 on the one side, and by the positive proof adduced on 
 the other ; our author's notion of the faith of the first 
 Christians, that it was purely Unitarian, is overturned. 
 And if this notion of the first Christians be overturned ; 
 the assertion, that the doctrine of our Lord's divinity 
 was an invention of the second race, falls with it. For 
 what was believed by the first race, could be no in- 
 vention of the second. Nor can any argument be 
 drawn, from any resemblance that may be imagined 
 between the Trinity of the Christian church, and the 
 three principles of the Platonists, that the doctrine of 
 the apostles was not rightly understood by their first 
 converts ; unless indeed it could be proved, (which is 
 the tacit assumption upon which this objection is found- 
 ed.) that the discoveries of revelation, and the investiga- 
 tions of philosophy, may never coincide. But why is it 
 supposed, that nothing can be a part of an inspired 
 teacher's doctrine, which had been taught before by 
 wise men, who were not inspired ? Were every iota of 
 the gospel doctrine to be found in the. writings of the 
 Greek philosophers, this would not be sufficient to set 
 aside the pretensions of the first preachers of Christianity 
 to a divine commission the just conclusion from so per- 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 53 
 
 feet an agreement would only be, that for the great im- 
 portance of these doctrines to the manners of mankind, 
 it had pleased God to make discoveries to all men by 
 revelation, to which a few only could attain by abstract 
 reasoning. The case indeed is far otherwise. It is 
 ever to be remembered, for the mortification of man's 
 pride, and to the praise of God's mercy ; that " when the 
 \vorld by wisdom know not God," when philosophy had 
 made its utmost efforts, not entirely without success, but 
 with little general advantage ; " It pleased God by the 
 foolishness of preaching," by a method of instruction, 
 which iii the article of religious information, hath abol- 
 ished the distinction between the philosopher and the 
 idiot, " to save them that believe." But had our sup- 
 posed case actually obtained, had revelation discovered 
 nothing more to all, than reason had previously taught a 
 few, still to teach all and to teach a few, is so different a 
 business, that the previous attainments of philosophers, 
 would have afforded no objection against the pretensions 
 of the first preachers of the gospel, sufficient to overturn 
 the evidence by which their claim to a divine commis- 
 sion is supported. Much less may a resemblance, more 
 or less exact, between faith and philosophy in single 
 articles, create a presumption, that those articles of faith, 
 of which certain philosophical opinions seem to carry a 
 resemblance, made no part of the doctrine which those 
 inspired teachers taught. The resemblance may seem 
 indeed a wonderful fact, which may justly draw the 
 attention of the serious and inquisitive. And if it should 
 be deemed incredible, as well it may, that reason, in her 
 utmost strength, should ever ascend so high, as to attain 
 even to a distant glimpse of truths, which have ever 
 teen esteemed the most mysterious discoveries of reve- 
 
g A CHARGE TO THE CLLRGV. 
 
 lation ; it will become a question of the highest curiosity 
 and importance to determine, by what means the Pla- 
 tonick school came by those notions of the Godhead, 
 which, had they been of later date than the commence- 
 ment of Christianity, might have passed for a very mild 
 corruption of the Christian faith ; but being in truth 
 much older, have all the appearance of a near, though 
 very imperfect view, of the doctrine which was after- 
 wards current in the Christian church. 
 
 2. The inquiry becomes more important, when it is 
 discovered, that these notions were by no means peculiar 
 to the Platonick school ; that the Platonists pretended to 
 be no more than the expositors of a more ancient doc- 
 trine, which is traced from Plato to Parmenides ; 
 from Parmenides to his masters of the Pythagorean 
 sect ; from the Pythagoreans to Orpheus, the earliest of 
 the Grecian Mystagogues ; from Orpheus to the secret 
 lore of the Egyptian priests, in which the foundations 
 of the Orphick theology were laid. Similar notions of 
 a triple principle prevailed in the Persian and ChaldsBan 
 theology ; and vestiges, even of the worship of a Trinity, 
 were discernable in the Roman superstition in a very 
 late age. This worship, the Romans had received from 
 their Trojan ancestors; for the Trojans brought it 
 with them into Italy from Phrygia. In Phrygia it was 
 introduced by Dardanus, so early as in the ninth century 
 after Noah's flood Dardanus carried it with him from 
 Samothrace, where the personages that were the ob- 
 jects of it, were worshiped under the Hebrew name of 
 the Cabirim. Who these Cabirim might be, has been 
 matter of unsuccessful inquiry to many learned men. 
 The utmost that is known with certainty is, that they 
 were originally three, and were called by way of emi- 
 
A CHARGE TO THB CLERGY, 0g 
 
 nence, the Great or Mighty Ones : for that is the import 
 of the Hebrew name. And of the like import is their 
 Latin appellation, Penates. Dii per quos penitus spi- 
 ramus, per quos habemus corpus, per quos rationem 
 anitni possidemus.* Dii qui sunt intrinsecus, atque in 
 intimis penetralibus cceltf. Thus the joint worship of 
 Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the Triad of the Roman 
 Capitol, is traced to that of the THREE MIGHTY ONES in 
 Samothrace f ; which was established in that island, at 
 what precise time it is impossible to determine ; but 
 earlier, if Eusebius may be credited, than the days of 
 Abraham. 
 
 3. The notion therefore of a Trinity, more or less 
 removed from the purity of the Christian faith, is found 
 to have been a leading principle in all the ancient 
 schools of philosophy, and in the religions of almost 
 all nations ; and traces of an early popular belief of it, 
 appear even in the abominable rites of idolatrous wor- 
 ship. If reason was insufficient for this great discovery, 
 what conld be the means of information, but what the 
 Platonists themselves assign eca-afaWoc 0Aoy*x. A 
 theology delivered from the gods," i. e. a revelation. 
 This is the account which Platonists, who were no 
 Christians, have given of the origin of their master's 
 doctrine. But from what revelation could they derive 
 their information, who lived before the Christian, and 
 had no light from the Mosaick ? For whatever some, 
 of the early fathers may have imagined, there is no evi- 
 
 * Macrob. Saturnal. lib. iii. c. 4. 
 
 f Varro apud Arnob. lib. iii. p. 123. Lugd. Bat. 1651. 
 
 } ' Tarquinius Demarati Corinthii filius, Samothraeiit mystici toabuttu, 
 ono templo ao sub eodem tecto, uuxoiua memorata eonjungit. Mucrob. Saturna!. 
 lib. Hi, o. 4. 
 
0|5 A CHARGE TO THE CLEUGY. 
 
 dence that Plato or Pythagoras were at all acquainted 
 \vith the Mosaick writings : not to insist, that the wor- 
 ship of a Trinity is traced to an earlier age than that 
 of Plato or of Pythagoras, or even of Moses. Their 
 information could be only drawn from traditions foun- 
 ded upon earlier revelations ; from scattered fragments 
 of the ancient patriarchal creed ; that creed, which was 
 universal before the defection of the first idolaters, which 
 the corruptions of idolatry, gross and enormous as they 
 were, could never totally obliterate.* Thus, the doc- 
 trine of the Trinity, is rather confirmed than discredited 
 by the suffrage of the heathen sages ; since the resem- 
 blance of the Christian faith and the Pagan philosophy 
 in this article, when fairly interpreted, appears to be 
 nothing less than the consent of the latest and the earli- 
 est revelations. 
 
 III. 
 
 1. Our author's assumption, that the doctrine of our 
 Lord's Divinity, was an innovation of the Platonick 
 Christians of the second century, being overthrown by 
 direct proof, that this pretended innovation was a part 
 of the faith of the first Christians ; all oblique and secon- 
 dary arguments, that might otherwise create a presump- 
 tion in our author's favour, are rendered wholly insig- 
 nificant To Dr Priestley, it seems a circumstance of 
 great importance, that these early writers " sometimes 
 drop the personification of the Logos, (which in his 
 opinion had been their first step towards the deification 
 
 * What Socrates said of him, what Plato writ, and the rest of the 
 
 heathen philosophers of several nations, is all no more than the twilight of re- 
 velation, after the sun of it was set in the race of Noah." Dry den's Preface 
 to llehgio Laid. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. $y 
 
 of our Saviour,*) and speak of it as the mere attribute 
 of God."f This he imputes to the difficulty, with 
 which new opinions lay hold upon the mind ; and to 
 the natural prevalency of good sense, which is such, 
 that it will in all cases often get the better of imagina- 
 tion. J Facts themselves should be established, before 
 consequences are deduced from them. Let us there, 
 fore consider the example by which this assertion is 
 supported. 
 
 2. Theophilus of Antioch says, " that when God 
 said, Let us make man, he spake to nothing but his 
 own Logos, or wisdom. " It must be confessed, that 
 the example is happily chosen. It is clear, that in this 
 passage of Theophilus, as it is expressed in Dr Priest- 
 ley's translation, the Logos is described as nothing but 
 the Wisdom of God : nothing but His own wisdom. 
 His own Wisdom must be that eternal Wisdom, which 
 is a power of his own Mind, a property of his own. 
 Person : and, to say that God spake to " nothing but 
 his own Wisdom," is to say, that he spake to no one 
 but himself. Dr Priestley, methinks, hath spared to 
 make the use he might have done of this passage of 
 Theophilus ; which seems not only to be, an instance iu 
 which Theophilus drops the personification of the Logos 
 in his own writings ; but to prove, that as far as the 
 interpretation of the Old Testament is of any impor- 
 tance, the authority of this learned and ancient bishop 
 of Antioch stands with the Unitarian scheme. This 
 
 Hist of Corrup. part i. sec. ii. 
 f Ibid. vol. i. p. 3S. 
 
 * Ibid. 
 i Ibid. 
 
 8 
 
53 A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 learned bishop tells us, that the writers of the old Tes- 
 tament, if ever they seem to allude to a plurality of per- 
 sons in the Godhead, speak figuratively, and are to be 
 understood accordingly. The allusion is perhaps no 
 where stronger, than in those words of Moses, in the 
 book of Genesis, " God said, Let us make." God not 
 only speaks, " God said;" but God speaks in the plu- 
 ral number, " Let us make ;" as though persons were 
 addressed, who were to take part with the speaker in 
 the business to be done. Theophilus, the celebrated 
 bishop of Antioch ; Theophilus, so respectable for his 
 antiquity, his piety, and his learning ; Theophilus cau- 
 tions us, not to be over-confident of the consequences 
 which we draw from this rigid exposition of the sacred 
 Writer's words. Theophilus affirms, that the expression 
 is purely figurative ; signifying only, that before man 
 was made, the purpose of making him arose ? and was 
 contemplated, in the divine intellect. The expression 
 describes an internal deliberation of the Divine Mind 
 concerning the intended work ; just as the private 
 thoughts and purposes of a man, are sometimes expres- 
 sed under the figure of a discourse passing within him- 
 self. All this, Theophilus affirms in Dr Priestley's 
 English. Nothing of this Theophilus affirms, speaking 
 for himself, in his own language,* ** a\*&> It nvi tym, 
 
 TLoiviau[jit.V) dx\ v\ ru ai// Aoyw, /.a* rvi fcat// 2o<p/a. The 
 
 " nothing but" of Dr Priestley's English, conveys quite 
 another idea than the *'* a\Ao> Tin a\\* J of Theophilus's 
 Greek. The Logos and the Wisdom, as different 
 names of one thing, are connected by the disjunctive or. 
 
 * Ad. Autolyc. p. 114. Oxon. 1684. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. $g 
 
 in Dr Priestley's English ; as names of different things, 
 they are connected by the copulative and, (K/,) in The- 
 ophilus's Greek. The exact rendering of Theophilus's 
 words is to this effect: "It was to no other person" 
 (that is the proper force of J* a\x6> T/K/, hand alii cuipiam) 
 "It was to no other person that he said, Let us make, 
 than to his own Word, and to his own Wisdom." TV 
 \aofl\t Aoyw xaJ r* sou/I* 50p*a. The repetition of the demon- 
 strative article with the pronoun, as well as the connec- 
 tion hy the copulative, clearly shows that Aoyoc and 
 209/a, the Word and the Wisdom, are different things. 
 Hath Dr Priestley written a history of the Corruptions 
 of Christianity, and hath he yet to learn, that in the 
 language of Theophilus, and of the best writers of his 
 age, the Word and the Wisdom, (Aoyoc and 2op<*,) are 
 used as proper names of the second and third persons 
 of the Trinity ? If his own reading in those early fathers 
 hath been so confined, that not one of the clear unequi- 
 vocal instances that occur in Theophilus himself, in 
 Origen, in Tatian, and Irenseus, hath ever fallen under 
 his own proper observation, lie might have been inform- 
 ed of this peculiarity of their style, from the notes which 
 accompany the text of Theophilus, in Bishop Fell's 
 edition, printed at Oxford in 1684; which, as it is inser- 
 ted in his catalogue* of principal editions, it is possible 
 he may have seen. Theophilus's assertion, that God 
 spake to no other person than his Word and his 
 wisdom, is an assertion, that he spake to persons of no 
 less dignity, than the Son and the Holy Ghost It is 
 
 * Dr Priestley's Preface, p. xxii. 
 
gQ A CHAKGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 an assertion of the Catholick exposition* of the text, 
 and of the consequences deduced from it, in opposition 
 to the Jewish expositors of that age ; who contended, 
 that this speech of God was addressed to the angels. 
 Theophilus therefore, in this passage, hath not dropped 
 the personification of the Logos; that is, he hath not re. 
 ceded from the assertion of the personality of the Word, 
 lie affirms not, that the Logos, so often mentioned by 
 himself and other writers as a person, is no person, hut 
 merely the Divine Attribute of Wisdom ; which, in the 
 usual language of grammarians, were rather to assert 
 the personificationf than to drop it : but by the names 
 of the Word and the Wisdom, he distinguishes two 
 different persons; saying, these were the persons to 
 whom God spake. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I. We have seen by what sort of arguments, our 
 authors two first assertions, That the faith of the 
 first age was Unitarian, and that the doctrine of our 
 Lord's divinity was an invention of the second," are 
 supported. If he hath succeeded no better in the proof 
 of his third assertion, concerning the Platonick Chris- 
 tians of the second age, the inventors, as he would have 
 it, of our Lord's divinity, that the divinity which they 
 set up was only of that secondary sort, which was ad- 
 mitted by the Arians, including neither eternity, nor 
 
 * That this is the true exposition, that the text describes a consultation which 
 passed between the persons of the Godhead, is shown with great brevity, but 
 with the highest degree of evidence and perspicuity, in Dr Kennicott's disser- 
 tation on the Tree of Life, p. 29, 30. Compare the same dissertation, p, 71 . 
 
 j- Of my misapprehension of the word personification, as used by Dr Priestley, 
 and how little it affects my argument, sec the thirteenth of my Letters in 
 in reply, sec. 25. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. Q 
 
 any proper necessity of existence, having the mere name 
 of diviuity, without any thing of the real form ; if the 
 proof of this third assertion should be found to be 
 equally infirm with that of the other two, bis notion of 
 the gradual progress of opinions, fiom the mere Unita- 
 rian doctrine to the Arian, and from the Arian doctrine 
 to the xVthanasiari faith, must be deemed a mere dream, 
 or fiction, in every part. 
 
 2. It must be acknowledged, that the first converts 
 from the Platonick school, took advantage of the resem- 
 blance between the evangclick and Platonick doctrine, 
 on the subject of the Godhead, to apply the principles 
 of their old philosophy, to the explication and the confir- 
 mation of the articles of their faith. They defended it 
 by arguments drawn from Platonick principles ; they 
 even propounded it in Platonick language : which, to 
 themselves and their contemporaries, was the most fa- 
 miliar and intelligible that could be employed, upon so 
 abstruse a subject. Nor was this practice to be con- 
 demned, so long as the Scriptures and the Catholick 
 traditions were made the test of truth ; so long as reve- 
 lation was not pressed into the service of philosophy, by 
 any accommodation of the pure evangelical doctrine to 
 preconceived opinions : but philosophy was made to 
 exert her powers in the defence of revelation, and to 
 lend her language to be the vehicle of its sacred truths. 
 These might be deemed the most promising means that 
 could be employed, for bringing over more converts 
 from the Pagan schools ; and the writers, who evangel 
 ized in this philosophical style, conceived perhaps, that 
 they had the sanction of an Apostle's example, " for 
 becoming all things to all men, that they might gain 
 some." 
 
63 A CHARGE TO THE GLEUGY, 
 
 3. But whatever might he the purity of their inten- 
 tions, they were guilty of an unpardonable deviation 
 from the primitive faith, if it he true, that they maintain- 
 ed the doctrine which Dr Priestley ascribes to them ; 
 namely, that the Son is the mere contingent creature of 
 the Father's will and power ; a production which hath 
 not always existed.* We have seen, that this was not 
 the belief of the first age ; and if it is ta be found in the 
 writings of the second, it could indeed be nothing better 
 than a corruption of religion by philosophy. 
 
 4. To judge of the truth of a writer's proposition, 
 and even to divine of what sort the arguments will be, 
 which he will allege in support of it, it is sometimes 
 sufficient that the precise tenor of it be clearly under- 
 stood. They were converts from Platonism, they were 
 Christians, who, with their Christianity, are supposed 
 to have retained their Platonism, to whom Dr Priestley 
 ascribes the notion of a Logos which had not always ex- 
 isted, but began to be, like other creatures, by an act of 
 the Father's will. After all that Dr Priestley hath 
 written, about the resemblance between the ecclesiastical 
 and the Platonick Trinity ; he hath yet, it seems, to 
 learn, that a created Logos, a Logos which had ever not 
 existed, was no less an absurdity in the academy, than 
 it is an impiety in the church. The converts from Pla- 
 tonism must have renounced their philosophy, before 
 they could be the authors of this absurd, this monstrous 
 opinion.f As the notion that this doctrine took its rise 
 with them, betrays a total ignorance of the genuine prin- 
 
 * Uist of Corrup. vol. i. p. 42, 44, 62. 
 
 | See more upon this subject in the eighth of Dr Priestley's first Letters to 
 me, and the tliirteenth of nay Letters in reply, sec. 8. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. gg 
 
 ciples of their school; it is easy to foresee, that the ar- 
 guments brought in support of it ? can only be founded in 
 gross misconstructions of their language. That this is 
 indeed the case, will be abundantly proved by a single 
 instance. 
 
 5. Athenagoras is one of the writers to whom Dr 
 Priestley refers for a proof of his assertion. The pas- 
 sage which he cites, as affording a proof that Athena- 
 goras believed not that Christ had always existed, or 
 that the Logos had always existed, otherwise than as 
 an attribute of the Divine Mind, happens to be one, in 
 which that Philosophick father asserts the eternity of 
 the Logos, as a distinct person, in the most explicit 
 terms ; and argues in support of it, from a certain rela- 
 tion of the Logos to the paternal intellect, which the 
 name, Logos, implies. " Athenagoras," says Dr Priest- 
 ley, "calls Christ the first production of the Father; 
 but says, he was not always actually produced ; for that 
 from the beginning, God, being an eternal mind, had 
 reason in himself, being from eternity rational."* But 
 let us hear Athenagoras himself, f " If/ 7 says he, u en- 
 dowed as you are with superior understanding," (he 
 addresses the Emperors Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 
 and Lucius Aurelius Commodus,) it should occur to 
 you to inquire, whence it is that he is called a Son, I 
 will explain it in a few words. (It is) that he is to the 
 Father (as) the first offspring. Not as something made, 
 (This is the true sense of the words, in which Dr Priest- 
 ley imagines that it is said that Christ was not always 
 produced) " Not as something made. For God, being 
 
 Hist, of Corrup. vol. i. p. SO. 
 
 | See the entire Greek passage, p, 62. 
 
(54 A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 an eternal intelligence, himself from the beginning had 
 the Logos in himself, being eternally rational." The 
 learned father undertakes to explain to the philosophi- 
 cal emperors, why the second person in the ever bles- 
 sed Trinity, is called the Hon. He tells them, that 
 this name is expressive of a certain relation, which the 
 second person stands in to the first, who is called the 
 Father ; which relation is that of the eldest born. But 
 lest the relation of primogeniture should lead to the no- 
 tion of a proper physical generation, which would sink 
 the Son into the rank of a creature, (for generation is 
 only a particular way in which certain things are made,) 
 he says, that the birth or generation of the Son, is not 
 to be understood as if he were something that had been 
 ever made ; as if his being had commenced, at any cer. 
 tain time, by the inducement of a form upon a pre-exis- 
 ting material. For that is the general notion of a ma- 
 king ; although in common speech it is usual to say of 
 those things only, that they are made, to which the 
 form is given at once by the hand of the artist. When 
 the form is gradually brought on by the plastick pow- 
 ers of nature, the secret process is called generation : 
 which is therefore but a sort of making, and differs 
 from that which is usually called a making, in the 
 means only by which the end is compassed. Athenago- 
 ras therefore gives the emperors a caution, not to under, 
 stand by the generation of the Son, a generation in the 
 literal sense of the word, which comes under the gener- 
 al notion of a making : not to understand by it any thing 
 like that natural process, by which the bodies of plants 
 and animals, and some other substances, are carried 
 forward from a potential to an actual existence. The 
 generation of the Son cannot be understood, he says, 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 5 
 
 of any such production, because his actual existence is 
 from eteruity. This, he says, is the necessary conse- 
 quence of the confessed eternity of the Father. The 
 Logos hath existed from eternity, in union with the Fa- 
 ther ; " because God, being eternally rational, ever had 
 the Logos in himself." -The sense is, that the personal 
 subsistence of a Divine Logos is implied in the very 
 idea of a God. And the argument rests on a principle 
 which was common to all the Piatonick fathers, and 
 seems to be founded in Scripture, that the existence of 
 the Son, flows necessarily from the Divine Intellect ex- 
 erted on itself; from the Father's contemplation of his 
 own perfections. But as the Father ever was, his per- 
 fections have ever been, and his intellect hath been ever 
 active. But perfections, which have ever been, the ever 
 active Intellect must ever have contemplated ; and the 
 contemplation which hath ever been, must ever have 
 been accompanied with its just effect, the personal exis- 
 tence of the Son. Athenagoras having thus proved, 
 that the generation of the Son can he only a figurative 
 generation, proceeds to explain the figure, by assigning 
 the particular transaction to which he conceives it to 
 allude : which is no commencement of the Son's exist- 
 ence ; not even that act of the Paternal Mind, in which 
 the existence of the Son originates; but the going forth 
 of the Son to exert his powers in the business of crea- 
 tion. " He is," says Athenagoras, to the Father as 
 the first offspring ; not as something that was ever made : 
 but that he went forth to be idea and energy in material 
 substances, which lay yet in chaos, unqualified and un- 
 distinguished ; the dense promiscuously mingled with 
 the rare, waiting the operation of the active spirit to jnv 
 
6(5 A CHARGE TO THE CLttlltiY. 
 
 pregnate them with fqrm."* Here, indeed, the 8011 of 
 God is called an idea, and an energy. But it is not, 
 that he is understood to be an unsubstantial idea, or en- 
 ergy, of the Paternal Mind ; but a living idea, energiz- 
 ing on the matter of the universe, to stamp it with the 
 forms of things. And his generation is affirmed to be 
 no commencement of his existence, but the first exertion 
 of his powers in the production of external substances : 
 or, to use a more Platonick phrase, the first projection of 
 liis energies. 7rpoo*n TUV htpyvpotlw. 
 
 6. If any thing be justly reprehensible in the notions 
 of the Platonick Christians, it is this conceit, which 
 seems to be common to Athenagoras with them all, and 
 Is a key to the meaning of many obscure passages in 
 their writings, that the external display of the powers of 
 the Son, in the business of creation, is the thing intend- 
 ed, in the Scripture language, under the figure of his 
 
 a-werem;, rx&vav v/xtv ttraw, o Trauf TI 
 va> v&ly, ax. *? yivopvcv' t *?%( >* 
 euro? tv Ui'jreu TOV Ao^ev' etiiimg Koyta^ or <*\x' c TM vKtuotv fu/<vr3iy',' 
 
 won^utvcev ftr-M, fxejuuyjjitvwv vctv Trct^ 
 
 i*& KAI t'.'tp^-tiA w*j Tr^ih&ow. Tliere seems to be some corruption in the 
 words nau yis, A learned clergyman of the archdeaconry of St. Alban's^ conjectures, 
 that >f should be TC. Nor can I devise any better emendation. The general 
 sense of the passage cannot but be very clear, to those to whom the imagery of the 
 Platonists is in any degree familiar. 
 
 A passage of Hermes Trismegistus, preserved by Snidas, awl Cedrenus, and 
 Melela, may somewhat illustrate this passage of Athenagoras. Hv pa; v;spcv Trp 
 HAI xfiv Clcfov w ' TX?^ tv&w * / tauJce uv, a.u -rai tx-Jlx vot x.xi Quit x*; 
 tvlat, mpK'/U' oc]o; T7 K' S'fo?, ttx. at* /i/,^ 1 , K jaUfAeev, an scr/x T/f &M>rxaiviav 
 yap xvfioff Kan 3iesf, asu ?r*7/>, nau vrAvl* VTT stvlx KOU sr etulu Ktv. o yatp Acyo; etvl* 
 Trawl t\ti& XAI yovifA 1 **/ JnfAtxftx tv ywifAte vfafli Trtroav* ty-xvov JTJWCTJ TO 
 
 * Malt-la has & liyiy.di <t-*/yu 7rwuv t for w 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. fjy 
 
 generation.* A conceit which seems to have no certain 
 foundation in holy writ, and no authority in the opinions 
 and the doctrines of the preceding age : and it seems to 
 have betrayed some of those who were the most wedded 
 to it, into the use of a very improper language ; as if a 
 new relation had taken place between the first and the 
 second person, when the creative powers were first ex- 
 erted. The indiscretion of presuming to affix a deter- 
 minate meaning upon a figurative expression, of which 
 no particular exposition can be safely drawn from holy 
 writ, is in some degree atoned by the object which these 
 writers had in view. It was evidently their intention, 
 to guard the expressions of Scripture from misconstruc- 
 tion. They thought to lead men away from the notion 
 of a literal generation, by assigning to the figure a par- 
 ticular meaning, which it might naturally bear, and 
 which, whether it was the true sense of it or no, seemed 
 not to clash with any explicit part of the revelation. 
 The conversion of an attribute into a person, whatever 
 Dr Priestley may imagine, is a notion to which they 
 were entire strangers. They held indeed, that the 
 existence of the Son necessarily and inseparably attach- 
 ed to the attributes of the Paternal Mind : insomuch 
 that the Father could no more be without the Son, than 
 without his own attributes. But that the Sou had been 
 a mere attribute, before he became a person ; or that the- 
 Paternal attributes were older than the Son's personal 
 existence, is a doctrine which they would have heard 
 with horror and amazement. With horror as Chris- 
 tians ; with amazement as philosophers ! 
 
 :he tliirteenth of my Letters in reply, sec. 12,. 15. 
 
Qg A CHARGE TO TITK CLEP/JV, 
 
 7- It is but justice to Dr Priestley, to acknowledge, 
 what indeed he ought to have acknowledged for himself, 
 that in this misinterpretation of the Platonick fathers, 
 he is not original : that he hath upon his side the re- 
 spectable authority of two very eminent divines of the 
 Roman church, Petavius and Huetius : which however 
 is no more than a single authority ; the pious bishop of 
 Avranches, upon this subject, being but the echo of the 
 very learned Jesuit. It is not the season to revive past 
 quarrels : one is therefore unwilling to recollect thfc 
 motives, which induced Petavius to belie his better 
 knowledge, and to charge the philosophical fathers of 
 the second century with errors, which he was too learn- 
 ed not to know no Platonist could entertain. But at 
 the time when Petavius wrote, the minds of the most 
 enlightened and liberal of the Romanists, were so ill 
 reconciled to the separation of the reformed churches from 
 their communion, that it was the fashion for the cham- 
 pions of the Papal superstition, in order to weaken the 
 support which they were sensible the Protestant cause 
 received, from the writings of the fathers of the three 
 first centuries, to take every method to derogate from 
 their authority. And this, it was thought, could in no 
 way be more effectually done, than by bringing them 
 under a suspicion of misbelief, in doctrines which the 
 reformed churches, and the Roman, hold in equal re- 
 verence. The learned Petavius considered not, that 
 he sacrificed the cause of our common Christianity to 
 the private views of his own church, in thus attempting 
 to corrupt the stream of tradition at the very fountain- 
 head. His arguments, which Dr Priestley hath at- 
 tempted to revive, are examined and confuted with 
 great erudition and ability, by the excellent Bishop 
 
A ClIAUGU TO THE CLKIIGY. gj) 
 
 Bull, in the third section of his "Defence of the 
 Nicene Faith. 
 
 8. The last specimen which 1 shall produce, of Dr 
 Priestley's manner of arguing from authorities, shall be 
 taken from his short account of the word TRINITY.* 
 This word, he says, first made Us appearance in the 
 writings of Theophilus, bishop of Antioch. But DP 
 Priestley thinks " it is not clear that by it he meant, a 
 Trinity consisting of the same persons that it was after- 
 wards made to consist of :" and he affirms, that it is cer- 
 tain, a Trinity of persons in the Godhead, was not 
 meant by Theophilus; and thus Theophilus for the second 
 time, is brought to give evidence against his own opinion. 
 But whence arises the certainty, that a Trinity of persons 
 is not meant by Theophilus? From no other circumstance, 
 that I can perceive, but that the word Trinity is expressly 
 expounded in the text of Theophilns, by God, his Word, 
 and his Wisdom. " The three days," says Theophi- 
 lus, " which preceded the creation of the luminaries, 
 were types of the Trinity ; of God, and of his Word, 
 and of his Wisdom."f It hath already been observed, 
 that God, his Word, and his Wisdom, in the phraseol- 
 ogy of Theophilus's age, were used for Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost. It is unnecessary, in this assembly, 
 to cite the numerous examples that occur in Theophilus, 
 Tatian, Irenseus, and Origen. It may be more useful 
 
 * Hist of Corrup. vol. i. p. 93. , . 
 
 J- uj-ituieif KJU* au T$C H/m^su (T& T< 
 e*, **/ TIC As> *yj, xsu' TC 2s<?w ajis. Theoph. ad Autolyc. lib. ii. p. 106. 
 O\o'.. 1684. I have token the liberty to insert the prepositioa rgj, the want of it 
 tr/lug evidently an omission. 
 
^(j A U1AUC11 TO THE CLKKGV. 
 
 to explain the grounds upon which, as I conceive, this 
 language was adopted. 
 
 9. We have seen that the Platonick fathers, although 
 they held the eternity of the second person no less than 
 of the first, imagined, that his generation signified a par- 
 ticular transaction, which took place at a certain time. 
 And it is probable that, although they held the eternity 
 of the Holy Spirit, yet they conceived, that the proces- 
 sion expressed some projection of his energies, which 
 took place at the same time with that, which they under- 
 stood to be the generation of the Son. They imagined, 
 that the second person was not properly a Son, before 
 that event, which they understood by his generation : 
 and they would equally imagine, that the third was not 
 properly the Spirit, before the event which they under- 
 stood by his procession. But they conceived, that the 
 second person had ever been the Word, and that the 
 third had ever been the Wisdom. Of the first they con- 
 ceived, that he was not properly a Father, before the se- 
 cond was a Son ; although he ever had been God. I 
 have already given my opinion of these subtle distinc- 
 tions ; for which the best apology (for an apology they 
 need) is the evident good intention of the writers, who 
 first maintained them. But upon these distinctions, 
 whether just or visionary, their phraseology seems to 
 have been founded. They thought the names of God, 
 the Word, and the Wisdom, which express of each of 
 the three divine persons, what each hath always been ; 
 were appellations to be generally preferred to those of 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; which express relations 
 only, which, according to their fancy, had not always 
 been. And this explains the reason, why they used 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. y^ 
 
 the word GOD, as the peculiar appellation of the Father. 
 It was not that they scrupled to ascribe an equal divin- 
 ity to all the three Persons ; but that, rejecting the sim- 
 pler nomenclature founded on relations, they desired to 
 call each person, by the name which they conceived to 
 be most descriptive of his essence : and of the essence of 
 the Father, they could find no name at all descriptive, 
 but the general appellation, God. 
 
 10. The three names therefore, God, the Word, and 
 the Wisdom, in the language of Theophilus's age, were 
 understood to be equivalent to Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost : and when Theophilus expounds the word TRI- 
 NITY, by God, his Word, and his Wisdom, it is just the 
 same thing as if he had rendered it by Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost. How this exposition may create a doubt, 
 whether Theophilus's Trinity consisted of the same 
 persons with the Trinity of later ages ; how it may pro- 
 duce a certainty, that Theophilus's \vas not a Trinity of 
 persons in the Godhead, it is not my business to explain. 
 Dr Priestley should have opened this mystery ; but he 
 hath not condescended to give his readers any farther 
 light than his own naked assertion, that the thing is, as 
 he would choose that it should be ; which in this, as in 
 other cases, he seems to think may pass for a sufficient 
 proof, of any of the paradoxes of his own party. 
 
 11. Perhaps his doubt about the real meaning of the 
 word, and his confident persuasion that it was no Trin- 
 ity of persons in the Godhead, have arisen from the ob- 
 scurity of which he complains, in the subsequent part of 
 the sentence, where the Word and the Wisdom are 
 mentioned again. It is indeed but reasonable to sup- 
 pose, that these words are used in the same sense in 
 both places. But in this second place, the Wisdom, 
 
A CilAKGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 Dr Priestley might imagine, could be no divine person. 
 For in Dr Priestley's English, the latter clause of the 
 sentence runs thus : The fourth day is the type of 
 Man, who needs light, that the Word may be God. and 
 the Man Wisdom." This passage, Dr Priestley ob- 
 serves, is " certainly obscure enough." You all, 1 am 
 persuaded, agree in the truth of his remark ; and you 
 \vill equally agree in mine, if 1 venture to say much 
 more of the latter clause : that it is certainly unintelligi- 
 ble in Dr Priestley's translation. But turn to the ori- 
 ginal the whole obscurity will vanish ; and instead of 
 it, you will find that striking perspicuity of language, 
 which is the characteristick beauty of Theophilus's style. 
 Having said, that the three first days of creation were 
 types of the Trinity, Theophilus adds, That the fourth 
 was a type of Man, who is in need of light. That there 
 might be, or, so that there is, God, the Word, the Wis- 
 dom, Man."* This last clause is nothing but an enu- 
 meration of all that had been mentioned, as typified in 
 the first four days of creation. To explain how these 
 days were types of what they are supposed to represent, 
 might indeed be difficult : but in the age of Theophilus, 
 the great art of interpreting the Old Testament, was 
 supposed to consist in making types out of every thing. 
 The sense, however, of the writer, is expressed with 
 the greatest perspicuity. It is evident from his own 
 exposition of the word, that he speaks of no other Tri- 
 nity than, Father, Son, and Roly Ghost. It appears 
 therefore, from the testimony of Theophilus, that the 
 
 fyy.viau, Tumi ttfftv T/JC T/)/*&r Ttc 
 
 ** T Ai} AlfliS, H.Ct.t T? 2W3tf A'JIX. Ttl*4l ft TVTc; 6?/V aty-^WTK' o' TTfwffM IK 
 
 tv& ' O;r, Acj-cc, 2c?, Av&pwret. AU Autolyc. lib. ii. p. 106. Oxon. 1684. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 73 
 
 was used at first in no other sense, than that which 
 it hath borne in later ages. The word hath not changed 
 its original meaning ; but in this, as in most of his as- 
 sertions, Dr Priestley is confuted by his own authori- 
 ties. 
 
 12. I feel no satisfaction in detecting the weaknesses 
 of this learned writer's argument, but what arises from 
 a consciousness, that it is a discharge of some part of 
 the duty, which I owe to the church of God. It is a 
 mortifying proof of the infirmity of the human mind, iu 
 the highest improvement of its faculties in the present 
 life, that such fallacies iu reasoning, such misconstruc- 
 tions of authorities, such distorted views of facts and 
 opinions, should be found in the writings of a man, to 
 whom, of all men of the present age, some branches of 
 the experimental sciences are the most indebted. 
 
 V. 
 
 1. May I be permitted to close this long address, 
 with a word of exhortation to the younger members of 
 the priesthood. 
 
 2. The actual state of things is such, that, to the 
 greater part of those who engage in it, our holy profes- 
 sion must furnish the means of a subsistence. The con- 
 sequence is, that we are obliged to enter upon it in an 
 early season of our lives, when it is well if we have 
 previously laid a good foundation in our minds, of the 
 very first principles of the doctrine of Christ : and a due 
 proficiency in the theological studies, must be the attain- 
 ment of future industry. To the novitiates therefore of 
 our order, considered as unfinished theologians, I take 
 the liberty to recommend the diligent study of the works 
 of Bishop Bull ; especially of his writings on the sub- 
 ject of the Trinity, with the annotations of Grabe. his 
 
 10 
 
y% A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 learned editor. In these, they will find an exact and 
 critical detail, of the opinions of the fathers of the three 
 first centuries. They will find the faith of the church 
 of England confirmed, and proved to be the original 
 faith, by a tradition, traced with certainty to the apos- 
 lolick age. And they will find every argument refuted, 
 which the Unitarian party have yet been able to form, 
 upon their own views, of the opinions of the earliest 
 ages. 
 
 3. The study of Bishop Bull, if leisure is not want- 
 ing, may be followed or accompanied with advantage, 
 by that of the ecclesiastical historians ; of the original 
 historians, I mean, Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, and 
 Theodoret. As for modern histories, the use of them, 
 without a previous acquaintance with the ancient writers, 
 is rather to be discouraged than recommended. By 
 those who are already learned in the subject, they may 
 be read indeed with emolument ; as commentaries on 
 the ancient text of history, as it lies in the original 
 writers, which may occasionally throw light upon dark 
 and doubtful questions. But, as books of elementary 
 instruction for beginners, they will generally be perni- 
 cious ; for it will too often be found to be the case, that 
 the narrative is accommodated, not through premeditated 
 fraud, but in the mere error of prejudice, either to the 
 private opinions of the writer, or to the interests of his 
 sect. Of this, Dr Priestley's work is a striking exam- 
 pie. No work was perhaps ever sent abroad, under 
 the title of a history, containing less of truth than his, in 
 proportion to its volume. 
 
 4. From ecclesiastical history, the student learns 
 what the faith of the church hath at all times been ; 
 and he is enabled to separate the pure doctrine of the 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. y^ 
 
 first age, from all later innovations : a matter at all times 
 of the highest moment ; bnt of particular importance in 
 the present juncture, when the whole ability and learn- 
 ing of the Unitarian party is exerted, to wrest from us 
 the argument from tradition. The importance of the 
 argument from tradition, rests upon the supposed infal- 
 libility of the first preachers. The opinion of their inr 
 fallibility, rests upon the belief of their divine illumina- 
 tion* The consequence of a divine illumination is,, that 
 their whole doctrine must have been not indeed ob- 
 vious to the human understanding not within the 
 reach of its unassisted power to discover but consonant 
 to the highest reason, nor too difficult, when propounded, 
 for the human apprehension ; and though aot free from 
 paradoxes, certainly not encumbered with contradictions. 
 No tradition therefore may avail to prove, that any 
 manifest contradiction; that a part, for instance, is equal 
 to the whole, or that the same thing in the same respect, 
 is at the same time one and many, was a part of the 
 apostolick doctrine ; if the inspiration of the apostles be 
 admitted. Or, if it should appear, from. the evidence of a 
 tradition which cannot reasonably be questioned, that 
 the apostles really required the belief of contradictions 
 under the name of mysteries ; their pretence to inspira- 
 tion will be refuted, and the credit of their doctrine 
 overturned. For as tho evidence of intuition is fur su- 
 perior to that of sense ; no external evidence may estab- 
 lish the belief of a contradiction ; since no testimony that 
 a contradiction is, should be allowed to overpower the 
 intuitive conviction that it cannot be. An inquiry, 
 therefore, into the reasonableness of our faith, as well 
 as just views of its history, is of great importance. 
 5. The reasonableness of our faith will be best un- 
 
y5 A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 derstood, from the writings of the fathers of the three 
 first centuries. And among these, those wicked Pla- 
 tonists of ther second age, who, in Dr Priestley's judg- 
 ment, sowed the seeds of the anticnristian corruption, 
 deserve particular attention ; for the great perspicuity 
 with which, in general, they expound the faith, and the 
 great ability with which they defend it. And as these 
 corrupters, brought with them into the church the Ian- 
 guage of their school, (I say the language, for its opin- 
 ions, except so far as they harmonized with the gospel, 
 they had the ingenuity to retract,*) the writings of the 
 Pagan philosophers, particularly the Platonists, will be 
 of considerable use to the Christian student ; as they will 
 bring him more acquainted with a phraseology, which 
 is used even by the Christian Platonists : nor for this 
 purpose only, but for some degree of light which they 
 will throw upon the argument. The error of the later 
 Platonists was, that they warped the genuine doctrine 
 of the original tradition, their OtoarafaSo/ec w*oy/a, to a 
 form in which it might be in friendship with the popular 
 idolatry. Their writings therefore are a mine, in which 
 the true metal is, indeed, mingled with a dross of hete- 
 rogeneous substances ; but yet, the richness of the ore 
 is such, as may well repay the cost and trouble of the 
 separation. Or, if leisure should be wanting, for a 
 minute study of a subject which may seem but of a se- 
 condary importance ; it will at least be expedient, I had 
 almost said it will be necessary, to know so much of the 
 opinions of heathen antiquity, as is to be learned from 
 those authentick documents, which the industry of the 
 
 * See the beginning of Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho; sin! Thcoph. 
 ad Autolyck, lib. ii. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. yy 
 
 indefatigable Cudworth hath collected and arranged, 
 with great judgment, in his Intellectual System. 
 
 6. The advantage to be expected from these deep 
 researches, is not any insight into the manner in which 
 the three Divine Persons are united ; a knowledge, 
 which is indeed too high for man, perhaps for angels ; 
 which, in our present condition at least, is not to be 
 attained, and ought not to be sought ; but that just 
 apprehension of the Scripture doctrine, which will show 
 that it is not one of those tilings that u no miracles can 
 prove/'* will be the certain fruit of the studies recom- 
 mended. They will lead us to see the Scripture doc- 
 trine in its true light : that it is an imperfect discovery, 
 not a contradiction. That the Catholick faith is not 
 properly compared with the tale of Mahomet's journey 
 to the third heaven ; his conferences there, while the 
 pitcher of water fell ; or even with the doctrine of tran- 
 substantiation :f that even the Athanasian creed, is 
 something very different from, a set '< of contradictions 
 the most direct which any person, the most skilled in 
 logick, might draw up"J a censure, which could 
 hardly have fallen from our learned adversary, Unita- 
 rian as he is, had he but known so common a book as 
 Dr Waterland's History and Paraphrase. In the opin- 
 ions of the Pagan Platonists, we have in some degree 
 an experimental proof, that this abstruse doctrine cannot 
 be the absurdity, which it seems to those who misunder- 
 
 * " They are things which no miracles can prove," says Dr Priestley, in his 
 .\ddress to Mr Gibbon, speaking of the doctrines of the Trinity, and th* 
 \tonement. See Hist, of Cqrrup. vol. ii. p. 861. 
 
 f Hist, of Corrup. vol. ii. p. 461. 
 
 * Ibid. vol. i. p. 87. 
 
1^3 A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. 
 
 stand it. Would Plato, would Porphyry, would even 
 Flotinus, have believed the miracles of Mahomet, or 
 the doctrine of transubstantiation ? But they all belie- 
 ved a doctrine, which, so far at least, resembles the 
 Nicene, as to be loaded with the same, or greater ob- 
 jections. By every one, who will thus combine the 
 studies of divinity and philosophy, the truth of Plato's 
 observation, I am persuaded, will be soon experienced: 
 that, to those who apply themselves to these speculations, 
 with a humble disposition to be taught, rather than with 
 the unphilosophical and irreligious habit, of deciding 
 hastily upon the first view of difficulties ; what at first 
 appeared the most incredible^ will, in the end, seem the 
 most evident and certain ; and maxims, which seemed at 
 first indisputable, will be discarded.* 
 
 7 An extensive erudition in Pagan, as well as Chris- 
 tian antiquity, joined with a critical understanding of 
 the sacred text ; is that which hath so long enabled the 
 clergy of the church of England, to take the lead among 
 Protestants, as the apologists of the apostolick faith and 
 discipline ; and to baffle the united strength of their 
 adversaries, of all denominations. God forbid, that 
 through an indolence, which would be unpardonable, 
 we should ever lose the superiority which we have so 
 long maintained. The acquisition of learning is indeed 
 laborious, but the fruit is sweet. The private satisfac- 
 tion that it must give, to every minister of the church of 
 England, to understand, that his engagements to the 
 establishment, are perfectly consistent with his higher 
 obligations to God and Christ; is alone sufficient, to 
 
 * Plato in Epist. ad Dionys. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY. ^g 
 
 repay the labour of the studies, which afford this com- 
 fortable conviction, and contribute to its daily growth. 
 But private satisfaction is not the end of our pursuits. 
 The nobler end is publick edification. It is a maxim 
 of Dr Priestley's, that every man, who in his conscience 
 dissents from the established church, is obliged in con- 
 science to be a declared dissenter. I honour the gene- 
 rosity of the sentiment. 
 
 ur. 
 
 It ought, much more, to be the sentiment of every one 
 \vlio stands with the received doctrine, to be a declared 
 churchman. If he would reap any solid advantage 
 from the purity of his faith, he must be an open and 
 avowed believer ; lest, if he confess not Christ, his God 
 and Saviour, before men, he should not be at last con- 
 fessed before the angels of heaven. If this confession 
 be the general duty of every man, who feels conviction ; 
 it is the particular duty of every man, who hath been 
 called to the evangelist's office. He holds the authority 
 of his commission for no other purpose, but to be a wit- 
 ness of the truth. A conviction that it is the truth, 
 founded on a deep investigation of the subject, will sup- 
 ply him with firmness, to persevere in the glorious at- 
 testation, unawed by the abilities of his antagonists, un- 
 daunted by obloquy, unmoved by ridicule : which seem 
 to be the trials which God hath appointed, instead of 
 persecution, in the present age, to prove the sincerity 
 and patience of the faithful* The. advocate of that 
 
80 
 
 A CUAKGfi TO THIS CLERGY. 
 
 sound form of words, which was originally delivered to 
 the saints, hath to expect that his opinions will he the 
 open jest of the Unitarian party : that his sincerity will 
 be called in question : or, if "a bare possibility of his 
 being in earnest"* be charitably admitted, the misfor- 
 tune of his education will be lamented, and his preju- 
 dices deplored. All this insult will not alarm nor dis- 
 compose him. He will rather glory in the recollection, 
 that his adherence to the faith of the first ages hath pro- 
 voked it. The conviction, which he will all the while 
 enjoy, that his philosophy is Plato's and his creed St 
 John's, will alleviate the mortification he might other- 
 wise feel in differing from Dr Priestley : nor suffer him 
 to think the evil insupportable, although the consequence 
 of this dissent, should be, that he must share with the 
 excellent Bishop of Worcester, in Dr Priestley's " pity 
 and indignation."! Not indeed that he will hold any 
 good man's good opinion cheap ; or esteem it a light 
 evil, that a conscientious attachment to the truth, should 
 embroil him with those, whose talents he will revere, 
 and whose virtues he will love. But he will esteem it 
 but a temporary evil : an evil which providence, in 
 mercy, hath appointed for the trial of his faith, and the 
 improvement of his habits of disinterested obedience : an 
 evil, therefore, which the spirit of a Christian will sup. 
 port ; suffering neither the misfortune to deject, nor the 
 injury to irritate. Adoring the wisdom of that myste- 
 
 * llist. of Corrup. vol. ii. p. 471. 
 
 j' " To see such men as Bishop Kurd in this class of writers, (the defenders 
 f the establishment,) when he is qualified to class with Tillofson, Hoadley, and 
 Clarke; equally excites one's pity and indignation." llist. of Corrup. vol. ii. 
 p. 471. 
 
A CHARGE TO THE CLEHGY. g 
 
 rious dispensation, which, to heighten human virtue, 
 ordains that it should often miss the reward, which dis- 
 interested virtue ever covets most ; of that dispensation, 
 which makes even error and rash judgment, a useful 
 part of the discipline of the present life : he will not 
 disgrace the cause which he should support, by any un- 
 charitable conclusions concerning the actual motives, or 
 the future doom, of those whose opinions he may think 
 it his duty to oppose. Nor, in the necessary asperity 
 of debate, will he hastily retaliate their unjust asper- 
 sions. He will admit much more than a possibility, 
 that Dr Priestley may be in earnest in all his misinter- 
 pretations of the Scriptures and the fathers, and in all hig 
 misrepresentations of facts. Appearances to the con- 
 trary, however strong, he will refer to the fascinating 
 power of prejudice, and to the delusive practice uf look- 
 ing through authors,* which the historian of religious 
 opinions ought to have read. Though truth, in these 
 controversies, can be only on one side ; he will indulge, 
 and he will avow, the charitable opinion, that sincerity 
 may be on both. And he will enjoy the reflection, that 
 by an equal sincerity, through the power of that blood, 
 which was shed equally for all, both parties may at last 
 find equal mercy. In the transport of this holy hope, 
 he will anticipate that glorious consummation, when 
 faith shall be absorbed in knowledge ; and the fire of 
 controversy for ever quenched. When the same gene- 
 rous zeal for God and truth, which too often, in this 
 
 * " I have taken a good deal of pains to read, or at least, look carefully 
 vhrough muny of the most capital works of the ancient Christian writers." Dr 
 Pries' If )' Preface, p. stii. 
 
 11 
 
g A CHARGE TO THE CLEUGY. 
 
 world of folly and confusion, sets those at widest vari- 
 ance, whom the similitude of virtuous feelings should 
 the most unite shall be the cement of an indissoluble 
 friendship ; when the innumerable multitude of all na- 
 tions, kindreds, and people, (why should I not add of 
 all sects and parties,) assembled round the throne, shall, 
 like the first Christians, be of one soul and one mind, 
 giving praise, with one consent, to Him that sitteth on 
 the throne, and to the Lamb that was slain, to redeem 
 them by his blood. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 WHILE these sheets were in preparation for the press 
 Dr Priestley was challenged by a writer in the Month- 
 ly Review, for June, (who the eritick may be, I know 
 not he appears to be learned in ecclesiastical history ; 
 and I am well pleased to find, that his views of Dr 
 Priestley's argument, in many particulars, agree with 
 mine,) Dr Priestley was challenged by this writer, to 
 point out the particular passages in Origen's writings 
 in which he had conceived an acknowledgment of the 
 identity of the Nazarenes and the Ebionites to be con- 
 tained. Dr Priestley's Reply hath already made its 
 appearance ; in which he is reduced to the necessity of 
 confessing, that he hath no such passage to produce.* 
 Still, however, he maintains, that the identity of these 
 sectaries, although not acknowledged by Origen, is to be 
 inferred from Origen, Epiphanius, and Eusebius.f But 
 
 See Dr Priestley's Reply to the Monthly Review, p. 5. 
 See Correqlioos and Additions, &tc. at the end of the Replj, 
 
$ APPENDIX, 
 
 this is still affirmed, without reference to the particular 
 passages, either of Origen or of Eusebius, from which 
 the inference is to be drawn : nor is the reader informed, 
 in which of Origen's works that description is to be 
 found, of the opinions of the Ebionites, which represents 
 them as the same opinions which others ascribe to the 
 Nazarenes ; and makes it appear, that Origen had no 
 idea of any difference between the two sects.* Dr 
 Priestley makes a reference indeed to the 13th tract of 
 Origen's Commentary upon St Matthew's Gospel ;f but 
 this is for another purpose : fur proof, of what needs 
 indeed no proof at all, that the Ebionites were of two 
 sorts ; the one admitting, the other denying, the miracu- 
 lous conception, while both rejected the divinity of the 
 Redeemer. What proof of this secondary proposition 
 is to be found, in the 13th of the Exegeticks upon St 
 Matthew's Gospel. I know not. I suspect an error of 
 the press ; and that the reference should have been to 
 the 16th of the Exegeticks, in the 3rd section, which 
 treats of the cure of the blind near Jericho. In that 
 transaction, as St Mark relates it, Origen imagines, that 
 the two divisions of the primitive church, the Gentiles 
 and the Jewish converts, are allegorized. Jericho is the 
 world The multitudes which follow our Lord from 
 Jericho, are the converts from Paganism to the true 
 faith ; who forsake the world, to follow Christ The 
 blind beggar is a half-converted Jew, addicted to the 
 Ebionsean heresy ; whose eyes are at last opened to 
 the truth of the gospel. If this be not the reference 
 
 * Reply, p. 5. 
 
 f Seu the References, p. 4, of the Reply. 
 
APPENDIX. 83 
 
 which Dr Priestley meant to make, let me advise him 
 to adopt it in the emended edition of his work, which 
 he seems to promise. Besides that, the very purport of 
 the exposition, which places the characteristick distinc- 
 tion between the Gentile and the Jew convert, in a be- 
 lief or disbelief of Christ's divinity, may seem to mill- 
 tate strongly for his favourite opinion, that the whole 
 Hebrew church was Unitarian ; he will find one sen- 
 tence in particular in this discourse, or a part at least 
 of one sentence, which, I am persuaded, he will think 
 worthy to be written in characters of gold. K*/ 
 tint rur O.TTO IvSa/WK mrtveSlw tie rov IV<TVV rw mpilv vG 
 yrinr, Hi ptv Ix Ma^/ac xai laxrup otoju.tvar aV/or wat crt pw ix. 
 Motf a? pwne xa; TV Si/* *T\VfU$f. f v ^uwr xai pilot ms TTI^I 
 
 aV/K 3eoxo>/<xf, o^n x. r. \. <c and when you 
 
 consider, what belief they of the Jewish race who believe 
 in Jesus, entertain of the Redeemer ; some thinking that 
 he took his being from Mary and Joseph, some indeed 
 from Mary only arid the Divine Spirit, but still without 
 any belief of his divinity ; you will understand, &c." 
 These expressions, taken by themselves, may seem to 
 intimate, that the sect of the Ebionites, in its two great 
 branches, embraced, in the time of Origen, the whole 
 body of the Hebrew Christians. But let the learned 
 reader attentively peruse the whole discourse ; let him 
 consider well the subject and the style ; and he will per- 
 ceive, that as the subject is not history, neither is the 
 style of the sedate historick kind. The object of the 
 discourse is to spiritualize a plain story : an attempt, in 
 which the imagination of the writer is always busier 
 than the judgment : and the style, even in allusion to 
 historical facts, is generally rather warm than exact; 
 and is apt to border on the vehement and the exagge- 
 
86 APPENDIX. 
 
 rated. This is in some degree the case in this discourse 
 of Origen's. His expressions are therefore to be inter- 
 preted, by the known tenor of ecclesiastical history : 
 ecclesiastical history is not to be accommodated to his 
 expressions. That the Jewish converts were remarka- 
 bly prone to the Ebionsean heresy, from which the Gentile 
 churches in general were pure, is the most that can be 
 concluded from this passage, strengthened as it might be 
 with another, somewhat to the same purpose, in thft 
 Commentaries upon St John's Gospel. But what if it 
 were proved, that the whole sect of the Nazarenes was 
 absorbed in the Ebionsean heresy in the days of Origen ? 
 What evidence would that afford of the identity of the, 
 Nazarenes and the Ebionites, in earlier times? And 
 even that identity, if it were proved, what evidence 
 would it afford, that the church of Jerusalem had been 
 originally Unitarian, under her first bishops of the cir- 
 cumcision ? 
 
 2. But however indecisive the pretended testimony of 
 Origen may be, Dr Priestley makes himself very sure 
 that Epiphanius is on his side. " Epiphanius expressly 
 says, that Ebion held the same opinion with the Naza- 
 renes.*" The only inference to be made from this as- 
 sertion, is this : that Dr Priestley hath never troubled 
 himself to read more of Epiphanius's account of the 
 Ebionites, than the first eleven words of the first sen- 
 tence. Had he read the first sentence to the end, he 
 would have found that Ebion, although he arose from 
 the school of the Nazarenes, and held similar opinions, 
 preached also other doctrines, of which he was the first 
 
 * Reply, p. 4. 
 
APPENDIX. y 
 
 inventor. Among these novelties, by the consent of all 
 antiquity, though not with Dr Priestley's leave, we place 
 the mere humanity of Christ, with or without the mira- 
 culous conception. 
 
 3. Still Dr Priestley triumphs in tle silence of He- 
 ^esippus, and the concessions of Justin Martyr. It 
 were not difficult, to show the insufficiency of his Reply 
 to the learned reviewer of his work, upon both these 
 articles : but I forbear to put my sickle into another's 
 harvest. But that it may not be thought strange, that 
 these cogent arguments should have been suffered to 
 pass unnoticed in my own animadversions, and that 
 the omission may not be imputed to the wrong cause ; 
 it seems proper to declare the true reason of it, which 
 was this : I wished to confine my strictures to those ar- 
 guments, in which the learned author seemed to me the 
 most original. In these two he is the least so. Both 
 are stale. The one is from Zuicker's mint ; the other 
 from Episcopius. Both have been canvassed vviili great 
 accuracy, and both have been effectually overturned, by 
 that excellent Divine whom I have so often found occa- 
 sion to mention, and who never must be mentioned with- 
 out praise, the learned and pious Bishop Bull. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 ARCHDEACON OF ST ALBAN'S. 
 
 in 
 
 REPLY 
 
 TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
LETTERS, 
 
 LETTER FIRST. 
 
 The Jlrchdeacon of St Jllban's declines a regular con- 
 troversy with J)r Priestley. Produces new instan- 
 ces of Dr Priestley's inaccuracies and misrepresen- 
 tations. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 WHEN", at the request of the Clergy of my arch- 
 deaconry, I published the discourse, in which I had 
 given them my thoughts of your late attack on the doc- 
 trine of the Trinity ; it was not at all my intention to 
 open a regular controversy with you upon the subject. 
 1 cannot think, that you have read my publication with 
 so little discernment, as not to perceive in it, a design 
 of quite another kind ; which yet, 1 fear, I shall find 
 it difficult to avow in explicit terms, without giving an 
 offence, which, were it possible, 1 would avoid. But 
 since you challenge me to a contest, in which it is my 
 resolution never to engage ; not from any distrust of my 
 own cause, nor from any dread of the abilities by which 
 
93 LETTERS IX REPLY' LV.T. I 
 
 \ should be opposed ; but from a persuasion, that a con- 
 troversy, in which so little new is to be said on either 
 side, could not terminate in the satisfaction of either 
 party ; it is necessary, that both yourself and the pub- 
 lick should be made to understand, upon what grounds 
 I conceive myself at liberty to decline a discussion, to 
 which you seem to think me pledged : and for this pur- 
 pose, I must declare in very plain language, what 1 
 would rather have left you to collect ; that my origi- 
 nal attack upon your history was such, as to lay me 
 under no obligation to prosecute the argument. My 
 attack was not so much upon the opinions, which you 
 maintain, however I may hold them in abhorrence, as 
 upon the credit of your narrative : and if I have succeed- 
 ed in overthrowing that, which the judgment of the 
 learned must decide, I am not at all obliged to go into 
 new arguments upon the main question. The objec- 
 tions, which were brought against you in my Charge, 
 all went to the proof of this single proposition. That, 
 on which ever side the truth may lie in the Trinitarian 
 controversy 1 have no doubt on which it lies ; but the 
 footing, upon which I put the dispute with you, leaves 
 me at liberty to suppose the matter doubtful ; with what- 
 ever metaphysical difficulties the Catholick doctrine may 
 be encumbered those difficulties, when the doctrine is 
 rightly apprehended, are in my judgment not great, but 
 I will allow you to say they are insuperable : whatever 
 ambiguity may be pretended in the expressions of holy 
 \vrit, in which the Divinity of the Son is generally sup- 
 posed to be asserted; in the greater part of the texts, I 
 perceive no ambiguity, but you may assume, if you 
 please, that not one of them renders a certain meaning : 
 whatever variety and disagreement is to be found iu the 
 
LET. L TO DK PRIESTLEY. 93 
 
 orthodoxy of different ages for the three first centuries 
 the opinion of the church upon this point was uniform, 
 but I give you leave to suppose it as unstable as the 
 \vorld of Heraclitus: whatever may be the intrinsick 
 difficulty of the doctrine of the Trinity, however defi- 
 cient the proof of it from holy writ, and however discor- 
 dant the opinions of different ages ; still I affirm, and 
 the proof of this was the whole object of my Charge, that 
 Dr Priestley, great as his attainments are confessed to 
 be in the profane sciences, is altogether unqualified to 
 throw any light upon a question of ecclesiastical an- 
 tiquity. 
 
 2. If the instances, which I have alleged of misinfor- 
 mation and inaccuracy, are only secondary oversights, 
 guch as affort not tho. main argument, and are incident 
 to the best writers in undertakings of such extent as 
 yours ; the attempt to depreciate a work of merit, by 
 uncandid censure, must redound to my own disgrace. 
 But whoever will take the trouble to compare your 
 work and mine, will find, that with all the illiberal zeal 
 \vhich you ascribe to me, I was not disposed to cavil 
 about trifles 1 fear it will be rather found, that I have 
 erred in the opposite extreme ; and, lest 1 should seem 
 too much inclined to censure, have passed over many 
 inaccuracies, which ought to have been pointed out. 
 
 3. Such, for instance, is your inversion of the order 
 of succession of the Roman pontiffs : when you mention 
 Victor as the successor of the bishop who came after 
 him.* 
 
 4. Such is your assertion,! that in the age of Tertul- 
 
 * Hist, of Corrup. TO!, i, p. 
 
 t ibid. p. ei. 
 
4? LETTERS IN REPLY LET. L 
 
 lian, it was not pretended " that the subject of the Tri- 
 nity was above human comprehension ;" when but a few 
 pages back* you had produced a passage from Irenseus, 
 in which the generation of the Son, which is a part 
 only of the subject, is mentioned as so wonderful a 
 thing, as to be understood by none " except the Father, 
 Who begat, and the Sou, who is begotten." 
 
 5. Such is your misrepresentation of the opinion of 
 Valesius, concerning the cause of the loss of Hegesip- 
 pus's history. Valesius, you say, " was of opinion, that 
 the history of Hegisippus was neglected and lost by the 
 ancients, because it was observed to favour the Unitari- 
 rian doctrine."! Valesius hath indeed expressed an 
 opinion, that the work of Hegesippus was neglected by 
 the ancients, on account of errors which it contained : 
 but what the errors might be, which might occasion this 
 neglect, is a point upon which Valesius is silent and 
 what right have you to suppose, that the Unitarian doc- 
 trine was the error which Valesius ascribed to Hegesip- 
 pus, more than to Clemens Alexandrinus, upon whose 
 lost work of the Hypotyposes he passes the same judg- 
 ment ? J 
 
 * Hist, of Corrup . vol. i. p. 37. 
 t Ibid- p. 9. 
 
 * Dr Priestley, in the nineteenth of his Second Letters, to extricate himself 
 from this question, endeavours to prove, that the Unitarian doctrines are the 
 only errors that can with probability be ascribed to Hegesippus, in his lost work ; 
 and that Clemens Alexandrinus, though he was himself no Unitarian, might, 
 for ought any one now knows to the contrary, have said things in favour of 
 Unitarians, in his lost work of the Hypotyposes. But whatever proof Dr 
 Priestley may be able to make out, that Hegesippus was an Unitarian, and that 
 Clemens Alexaadrinus spoke favourably of Unitarians, still I complain, that he 
 alleges the authority of Valesius for more than Velesius himself affirms: and 
 i maintain, that this inaccuracy, (for I have called it in this instance by no 
 
LET. I. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 95 
 
 6. Such another inaccuracy, to use no harsher word, 
 is your appeal to the testimony of Epiphanius, in favour 
 of Noetus ; to prove that he was wronged by his adver- 
 saries, when he was accused of the Patripassian heresy. 
 Noetus's confession, according to Epiphanius, was this : 
 " that he acknowledged one God, who was begotten, 
 who suffered and died." But suppressing, or in your 
 rapid glances having not observed, the latter part of 
 this acknowledgement, asserting the sufferings and death 
 of his one God ; you produce Epiphanhts as an evi- 
 dence, that " Noetus was simply an Unitarian, decla- 
 ring upon all occasions with great boldness, that he 
 neither knew nor worshipped any God but one."* (+) 
 Having thus vindicated the injured character of Noetus, 
 you proceed to inform your readers, how it came to pass, 
 that the Unitarians of that age fell under the imputation 
 of the Patripassian error. 
 
 7. Such another inaccuracy we have, in your relation 
 of the judgment, which the Roman Dionysius passed 
 upon certain injudicious antagonists of Sabellius : who, 
 to avoid his error, divided the Holy Trinity into three 
 persons unrelated to each other, and distinct in all 
 respects. E<V rf*/? Jcrcrows;?, trac ctXAwxwr. woLvlcnratrt 
 w oty/ax Tf;aSa. These are the 
 
 worse name,) in the allegation of authorities* is a circumstance that ought to 
 lessen his credit as an historian. 
 
 * Hist, of Corrup. vol. i. p. 74. 
 
 (+) In the nineteenth of his Second Letters, Dr Priestley acknowledge* that 
 he ought not to have exempted Epiphauiua from the impropriety of charging 
 Noetus with the Patripassian heresy. But he says, " this like the former," the mis- 
 quotation of Valesius, " is a circumstance of little consequence to the main argument.'* 
 Dr Priestley forgets, that the main argument with him and with me goi's tf> 
 different points. His point, is the antiquity and the truth of the Unitarian doc- 
 trine. Mine is, Dr Priestley's incompetency in the subject which he pretends to 
 treat. 
 
95 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. t 
 
 words, in which Athanasius states the opinion, which 
 Dionysius censures; and the censure of Dionysius upon 
 this opinion, Athanasius quotes with approbation, as well 
 indeed he might, for the opinion of three persons in the 
 Godhead, tmrelated to each other, and distinct in all 
 respects, is rank Tritheism ; because, what are unrela- 
 ted and distinct in all respects, are many in all respects ; 
 and being many in all respects, cannot in any respect be 
 one. But in your translation of the passage, by omit- 
 ting the very significant adjective em?, and the very 
 emphatical adverb na.v\ct.7r*<ji, you leave hardly any dif- 
 ference between the opinion which Dionysius censured, 
 and the Catholick faith, which Athanasius maintained : 
 and thus you procure yourself a fine opportunity of in- 
 troducing an oblique sarcastick stroke at Athanasius, 
 for concurring in a censure .upon his own opinions. 
 " Some persons, in opposing Sabellius, having made 
 three hypostases, which we render persons, separate from 
 each other ; Dionysius, bishop of Rome, quoted with ap- 
 probation by Athanasius himself, said, that it was ma- 
 king three Gods. ?? * Surely, truth, candour, and consis- 
 tency, are conspicuous in the writings of our modern 
 Unitarians ; and the Archdeacon of St Alban's is the 
 only writer of the age, who deals in sarcasms ! 
 
 8. These, and other inaccuracies, which might have 
 been remarked* without any impeachment of my can- 
 dour, and with advantage to my argument, I suffered to 
 pass unnoticed. I chose to rest the strength of my at- 
 tack, rather on the importance, than the variety, of the 
 matter of complaint. If the instances of mistake, which 
 
 Hht of Corrup. vol. i. p. 
 
LET. I. TO DU PRIESTLEY. ^y 
 
 I have alleged, be few in number, yet if they are singly 
 too considerable in size, to be incident to a well inform- 
 ed writer ; if they betray a want of that general compre- 
 hension of your subject, which might enable you to draw 
 the true conclusions from the passages you cite ; if they 
 prove you incompetent in the very language of the wri- 
 ters, from which your proofs should be drawn; unskilled 
 in the philosophy, whose doctrines you pretend to com- 
 pare with the opinions of the churcli ; a few clear in- 
 stances, of errors of this enormous size, may release me 
 from the task which you would impose upon me, of 
 canvassing every part of your argument, and of replying 
 to every particular quotation. A writer, of whom it is 
 once proved that he is ill-informed upon his subject, hath 
 no right to demand a further hearing. It is a fair pre- 
 sumption against the truth of his conclusion, be it what 
 it may, that it cannot be right, but by mere accident. 
 To be right by accident, will rarely happen to any mail 
 in any subject ; because in all subjects truth is single, 
 and error infinite. 
 
 9. Not long since, 1 was consulted about a new 
 opinion concerning the actual figure of the earth. I ob- 
 jected, that while the basis of the author's argument was 
 an assumption, that the figure of the meridian is an ellip- 
 sis ; in his inquiry after the particular species of the 
 ellipsis, he had assigned properties to the curve of the 
 earth's meridian, which the known nature of the ellipsis 
 would not admit. I was challenged to prove a certain 
 relation, which I asserted, between the rays of curva- 
 ture in different parts of the curve to prove the curva- 
 ture at the second, less than at the principal vertex and 
 at last I was challenged, to prove the property from 
 which the ellipsis takes ita name. Was I to blame, 
 
 13 
 
08 LETTERS IX RfcPLrt LET. I 
 
 that I broke off the conference that I refuse to con- 
 template another scheme, or to examine another com- 
 putation ? 
 
 10. Pardon me, Sir, if plain dealing compels me to 
 profess, that I think little less respectfully of this philo- 
 sopher's learning in the coriicks, than of your attain- 
 ments in ecclesiastical history. I make this avowal 
 with the less hesitation, because I find my opinion in some 
 measure j ustified by your own confessions. You con- 
 fess, that my late publication first brought you acquaint- 
 ed with the very name of Daniel Zuicker : that from me 
 you have received your first information of the conces- 
 sions of Episcopius ; and the first notice of the coinci- 
 dence of your own opinions, concerning the Platonizing 
 fathers of the second century, with those of Petavius 
 and Huetius : that you had never in your life looked 
 through the writings of Bishop Bull, till my frequent 
 references to them excited your curiosity ; as they gave 
 you to understand, what before you had never known, 
 that the author is in high esteem with the clergy of the 
 establishment. What is this but to confess, that you are 
 indeed little read in the principal writers, either on your 
 own side of the question or the opposite ? But as no man, 
 I presume, is born with an intuitive knowledge of the 
 opinions or the facts of past ages, the historian of Reli- 
 gious Corruptions, confessing himself unread in the 
 polemical divines, confesses ignorance of his subject. 
 The opinion therefore which I formed, upon a diligent 
 perusal of your work, is confirmed by your own ac- 
 knowledgments ; and my victory is already so complete, 
 that I might well decline any further contest. 
 
 11. My alarms (if I ever felt alarm) for the Catholick 
 faith, or for the national establishment, as in danger 
 
LET. I. TO DR PRIESTLEY. gg 
 
 from your attacks, must now be laid asleep ; and will 
 be no incentive to any very vigorous exertions against 
 a prostrate enemy.* But the truth is, that I never was 
 alarmed, and it is necessary that I should set you right 
 in that point. When 1 spake of your extraordinary at- 
 tempt, to unsettle faith, and to break up establishments,! 
 I spake of the end to which your wishes seem to be car- 
 ried, not of an event which I thought likely to ensue. 
 The utmost danger that I feared, was of an inferior 
 kind : a present danger, not to the church, but to the 
 more unwary of her members, who might be misled by 
 the justly celebrated name of Dr Priestley : a future 
 danger to myself, if I forbore to bear my witness to the 
 truth. For although we have a promise, that the gates 
 of hell shall not prevail against the church, yet the vi- 
 gilence of the priesthood, I conceive to be the ordi- 
 nary means, which God hath provided for its secu- 
 rity. I therefore thought it my duty, to prevent the 
 mischief which might arise to the unlearned and unsta- 
 ble, by demolishing the credit of your narrative, and in 
 these subjects, the authority of your name. 
 
 12. The letters which you have lately addressed to 
 me, give me no reason to alter my opinion or retract my 
 accusation. They only fix me in the persuasion, that 
 to prosecute the dispute with you, would be to little pur- 
 pose. You will therefore excuse me, if I declin* 1 a 
 controversy, to be carried on, for such I understand to 
 be the conditions of the challenge, " till you shall have 
 
 * "you seem to have taken a particular alarm T hoj>p you will exert 
 
 yourself wirh proportionable vigour to save a falling state." Letters to Dr 
 Horsley, p. 2. 
 
 j- Charge, sec. 3. 
 
LETTEUS IN REPLY LET. /. 
 
 nothing left, which you may think of consequence to 
 allege."* When I have shown the insufficiency of 
 the defence which you have now set up, and have col- 
 lected the new specimens of your historical abilities, 
 which this new publication supplies in great abundance, 
 whatever more you may find to say upon the subject, in 
 me you will have no antagonist. 
 
 I am &c. 
 
 * Preface to Letters, p. Ui. and XTIU, 
 
,ET. Tf. TO Dll I'UIESTLUY. 
 
 LETTER SECOND. 
 
 Jl recapitulation of the Archdeacon's Charge. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 IF I could adopt your heroick plan, of writing on 
 till I should have nothing left to say, our correspond- 
 ence would run to an enormous size : for I should have 
 more than a single remark to make, upon almost every 
 sentence of every one of your Ten Letters. But as we 
 both write for the edification of the publick, and yet 
 few, T fear, will be disposed to give a long or a close 
 attention to our subject, the ease of our readers, if we 
 mean to be read, must be consulted. You, 1 am told, 
 in defiance of your bookseller's sage counsels, despise 
 such considerations ; but they will have their weight 
 with me : I shall be unwilling, either to fatigue by the 
 length, or to perplex by the intricacy or obscurity of my 
 reasoning. To avoid the first miscarriage, I shall be 
 content to give you a sufficient, rather than a full reply ; 
 and to avoid the second, I shall endeavour so to frame 
 my argument, that my readers may perceive the force of 
 it, without the trouble and interruption, of frequent re- 
 course to our former publications. For this purpose, I 
 shall begin with a recapitulation of the substance of my 
 Charge ; that, before I enter upon particular discussions, 
 the points to be disputed may be brought at once in 
 view. 
 
 2. The general argument of my charge, was a critical 
 review of your History, in that part of it which relates 
 
10> l.r.iTKKS IX in-, PLY LET. Jf 
 
 to tlie doctrine of the Trinity in the three first ages. 
 This review consisted of two parts : a summary of the 
 account, which you pretend to give, of the rise and pro- 
 gress of the Trinitarian doctrine ; and a view of the evi- 
 dence, by which your narrative is supported, consisting 
 of nine select specimens, of the particular proofs of which 
 the body of that evidence is composed. 
 
 3. Of your account of the rise and progress of the 
 Trinitarian doctrine, I said in general, that it is nothing 
 new ; that it is in all its essential parts, the same which 
 was propagated by the Unitarian writers of the last cen- 
 tury, and, upon its first appearance, refuted by divines 
 of the church of England. Your answer to this part of 
 my Charge, is, as I have already had occasion to ob- 
 serve, complete. You repel the imputation of plagia- 
 rism, by the most disgraceful confession of ignorance, to 
 which foiled polemick ever was reduced. To this part 
 of your defence 1 have nothing to reply. 
 
 4. To your evidence, I made the same general objec- 
 tion, that it is destitute of novelty ; consisting of proofs 
 long since set up, and long since confuted : that if you 
 have attempted any thing new, it is only to confirm the 
 gratuitous assumptions of former Unitarians, by incon- 
 clusive arguments, and false quotations. The nine spe- 
 cimens of your proofs, by which this heavy accusation 
 was supported, were nothing less, than your principal 
 arguments, in support of your three fundamental asser- 
 tions : that the primitive church was simply Unitarian ; 
 that our Lord's divinity was an innovation of the second 
 century; and that the innovation was made by the 
 Platonizing Fathers. If your principal argu ments were 
 fairly adduced, as instances of weak, insufficient proof, 
 your whole notion of the gradual progress of opinions, 
 
LET. 11, TO DU PRIESTLEY 
 
 from the Unitarian doctrine to the Arian, and from the 
 Arian to the Nicene faith, is overthrown. Of this you 
 have shown yourself not insensible, by the great pains 
 which you have taken, to what purpose will soon ap- 
 pear, to answer my objections. 
 
 5. The nine specimens of insufficient proof were 
 these. 
 
 6. Two instances of the circulating syllogism. The 
 first, when you allege your own sense of Scripture as 
 the clear sense, in proof of your pretended fact, that the 
 primitive faith was Unitarian ; whereas the fact must 
 be first proved, before your particular interpretation 
 can be admitted. The second when, in like manner, 
 you allege the pretended silence of St John about the 
 error of the Unitarians ; in proof, that the Unitarian 
 doctrine is no error, but the very truth of the gospel. 
 The assumption, that St. John is silent upon this sub- 
 ject in his first epistle, is gratuitous and disputable. It 
 rests upon a particular interpretation of St John's ex- 
 pression, that " Christ is come in the flesh," which will 
 be admitted by none, who are not previously convinced 
 that St John's own faith was Unitarian. If St John's 
 faith was Unitarian, the phrase that " Christ is come 
 in the flesh," signifies only, that Christ was a man ; 
 and thus, we shall find no censure of the Unitarian 
 doctrine in St John's first epistle. But if St John 
 was no Unitarian, but a believer in the incarnation 
 and divinity of our Lord ; then, the phrase of Christ's 
 coming in the flesh, cannot but be understood to allude 
 to both these articles, as parts of the true faith ; and, al- 
 luding to both these articles as parts of the true faith, it 
 conveys a censure upon the Unitarian doctrine in every 
 form. The assumption therefore^ of St John's silence 
 
LETTERS IN UKl'Ll LET. Jl 
 
 concerning the Unitarian doctrine, presumes another 
 fact, that St John was himself an Unitarian. This is the 
 primary, though tacit assumption, on which this argu- 
 ment is built. This argument therefore, fairly analyzed, 
 is found to circulate like the former : for the conclu- 
 sion to be established, is the pretended fact, that the 
 faith of the primitive church was Unitarian the mean 
 of proof is the gratuitous assumption, that the faith of 
 St John was Unitarian. But to assume the faith of an 
 inspired apostle, is the same thing as to assume the faith 
 of the primitive church. 
 
 7. My third specimen, was an instance, in which you 
 cite a testimony which no where exists. The pretended 
 testimony is of no less a person than Athanasius. The 
 fact, to which Athanasius is made to depose, is the high 
 antiquity of the Unitarian faith. His testimony to this 
 fact, you find in his piece upon the orthodoxy of the 
 Alexandrine Dionysius ; in a certain passage in which 
 he affirms, that the Jews were firmly persuaded that the 
 Messiah was to be a mere man ; and alleges, as you 
 understand him, this persuasion of the Jews, as an 
 apology for a caution used by the apostles, in divulging 
 the doctrine of our Lord's divinity. The Jews of whom 
 Athanasius speaks, you preposterously imagine were 
 Christians, the first converts from Judaism. Whereas, 
 he speaks of plain downright Jews; and what you take 
 for his apology for caution in the apostles, is in truth a 
 commendation of the sagacity which they displayed, in 
 a judicious arrangement of the matter of their doctrine. 
 
 8. My fourth specimen, was your capital argument 
 for the antiquity of the Unitarian faith, founded on the 
 opinions of the Nazarenes : this argument, I maintain 
 to be lame and impotent in every part. It is built upon 
 
Ll'T. It TO UR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 two assumptions, of which the one is a mere gratuitous 
 assertion, of which no proof is attempted ; the other is 
 accompanied with a pretended proof, which arises how- 
 ever, from a forged testimony, and an ill-founded asser- 
 tion. The gratuitous assumption is, that the Nazarenea 
 and the Hebrew Christians, were the same people ; 
 whereas the fact is, that the sect of the Nazarenes, arose 
 after the extinction of the proper church of Jerusalem. 
 The other assumption is, that the faith of these Naza- 
 renes was Unitarian. This is proved by the testimony 
 of Epiphanius, and by an assumption, that the Naza- 
 renes and the Ehionites were the same. This assertion 
 is unfounded, and the testimony of Epiphanius is in fact 
 forged ; since it is drawn by torture from his words. In- 
 deed, it is not pretended to be more than this ; that 
 Epiphanius makes no mention " that the Nazarenes be- 
 lieved in the divinity of Christ;" and this no-mention is 
 only his confession, that he was totally uninformed, 
 whether they believed the divinity of Christ, or not. 
 Were both these assumptions true, the argument would 
 be complete. Both are false : and were either singly 
 true, yet the other being false, the conclusion would be 
 either the reverse of your's, or altogether precarious. 
 
 9. My fifth specimen, was your misrepresentation of 
 Eusebius, whom you charge with inconsistency, because 
 another writer who is quoted by him, speaks of Theodo- 
 tus, who appeared about the year 190, as the first who 
 held that our Saviour was a mere man ; when, in refu- 
 ting the pretentious of the Unitarians to antiquity, he 
 goes no further back than to Irenseus and Justin Mar- 
 tyr ; although the writings of Eusebius himself afford a 
 refutation of the assertion. But although the assertion, 
 as you choose to understand it, would be liable to refu- 
 
 14 
 
406 LETTERS IN JlEPLY LET. II 
 
 tation from the writings of Eusebius ; it admits an inter- 
 pretation, by which the seeming inconsistency is entirely 
 removed. The pretentious to antiquity, which it was in- 
 cumbent upon Eusebius, or the author quoted by him, to 
 refute, were not simply pretensions to antiquity, but to 
 a prior antiquity : and in refuting these, the author 
 quoted by Eusebius, goes back to the apostolick age. 
 
 10. Your objection to the doctrine of the church, 
 drawn from the resemblance which you find between 
 the Christian and the Flatonick doctrine, furnished my 
 sixth specimen of insufficient proof. I acknowledge the 
 resemblance; but 1 insist, that it leads to an inqui- 
 ry into the sentiments of heathen antiquity, which, 
 pursued to its just consequences, rather corroborates 
 than invalidates, the traditional evidence of the Catho- 
 lick faith. 
 
 11. Your proofs of your second assertion, that the 
 doctrine of our Lord's divinity was an innovation of the 
 second age, are all of an oblique and secondary kind : 
 such as, were they liable to no other objection, would 
 lead to no conclusion, without a distinct previous proof, 
 that the faith of the first age was Unitarian. One of 
 these arguments furnished my seventh specimen of in- 
 sufficient proof: it is an instance, in which you cite the 
 testimony of a Greek writer, to prove the very reverse 
 of what he says it is alleged by me as an instance of 
 your competency in the Greek language in general; and 
 of your particular acquaintance with the phraseology of 
 the early fathers. 
 
 IS. My eighth specimen, was taken from your at- 
 tempt to translate a passage of Athenagoras, at which 
 an abler philologer than you have shown yourself to be, 
 unread in the Platonists, might be allowed to stumble. 
 
LET. II. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 107 
 
 I produced it, to convict you of incompetency in the 
 language of the Platonists ; and to confirm a suspicion, 
 which the very tenor of your third assertion might cre- 
 ate, that you are ignorant of the genuine doctrines of 
 the Platonick school. Whence it is to be inferred, that 
 you are little to be trusted, when you take upon you to 
 compare the opinions of the first Christians, in which 
 you are not learned, with Platonism, in which you are 
 a child. 
 
 13. My ninth specimen was another instance of your 
 skill in the Greek language. A passage of Theophilus, 
 in which he expounds the word Trinity, by Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost, is produced by you to prove, 
 that the use of the word Trinity, to denote Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost, was unknown to Theophilus. Theo- 
 philus's words are so very clear, that the sense was 
 hardly to be missed, at first sight, by a school boy in his 
 second year of Greek. 
 
 14*. These are the nine specimens, by which I sup^ 
 port my general Charge of the inaccuracy of your nar- 
 rative ; and in these subjects, the insufficiency of its 
 author. To all of them, except the seventh and ninth, 
 you have attempted to reply. "With what success is to 
 be considered. 
 
 I am, &r. 
 
408 LETTERS IK REPLY LET. ///. 
 
 1ETTER THIRD. 
 
 In Reply to Dr Priestley's introductory, and to part of 
 his first Letter. His defence of his argument from 
 the clear sense of Scripture, confuted. Of the argu- 
 ment against our Lord's preexistence, to be drawn 
 from the materiality of man. Of the Greek pronoun 
 
 VTtff. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 TO remove the imputation of having argued in a 
 circle, when alleging your own sense of Scripture as the 
 clear sense, you infer, that the faith of the first ages was 
 exactly conformable to your own opinions ; you tell me, 
 that the clear sense of Scripture, and the historical evi- 
 dence, are collateral proofs* of the early prevalence of 
 the Unitarian faith 1 shall admit this, and shall retract 
 all that 1 have written, when once you shall have proved 
 to the satisfaction of the Christian world, that the Uni- 
 tarian doctrine is delivered in the holy Scriptures, taken 
 in their plain and obvious meaning. But while your 
 sense of Scripture is disallowed by the majority of 
 Christians, 1 must still contend, that you have no right 
 to call it the clear sense ; and that any argument built 
 on a supposition, that the Scriptures speak a sense not 
 generally perceived in them, rests at best upon a gratui- 
 
 * letters to Dr Horsley, p. 4-4. 
 
LET. Ill TO Dtt rRIESTLEY. i()Q 
 
 tous assumption. 1 confess, that an argument drawn 
 from a gratuitous assumption, is not necessarily an ar- 
 gument running in a circle, unless the only means of 
 reducing the assumption to a certainty, be a previous 
 proof of the conclusion to be drawn : but this, I affirm 
 to be the case in the instance under consideration. When 
 we speak of the clear sense of any piece of writing, this 
 Very expression admits a twofold interpretation. The 
 clear sense, may be either that which is clearly conveyed 
 in the words ; or a sense, which though it be not clearly 
 conveyed in the words, may be clearly proved, from the 
 context, or from other considerations, to be the sense 
 which was really present to the mind of the writer. If 
 you allege the clear sense of the Scriptures, in the first 
 sense of the expression, in proof that the primitive faith 
 was Unitarian; 1 ask, whether it be not the sole end 
 and purpose of the inquiry into the primitive faith, to 
 settle the differences of Christians upon points, in which 
 the Scriptures, if there be any ground in them for the 
 disputes which have arisen, are not clear ? You now as. 
 sume a sense, which you call their clear sense, upon 
 those very points, in order to ascertain the primitive 
 faith. This is to reason in a circle. 
 
 2. But in truth, the Unitarian doctrine will never be 
 proved to be the clear sense of Scripture, in the first 
 sense of clearness. On the contrary, if ever it should 
 be clearly proved to have been the sense of the sacred 
 writers; the just conclusion will be, that of all writers, 
 these have been the most unnecessarily, and the most 
 wilfully obscure. The Unitarians themselves, pretend 
 not that their doctrine is to be found in the plain literal 
 sense of holy writ ; on the contrary, they take the great- 
 est pains to explain away the literal meaning. They 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. 
 
 pretend, that the sacred writers delight in certain me- 
 taphors and images, which, however unnatural and ob- 
 gcure they may seem at this day, are supposed to have 
 been of the genius of the eastern languages, and of con- 
 sequence, familiar to the first Christians ; who, in the 
 greater part, were of Jewish extraction. By the help of 
 these supposed metaphors, the Unitarian expositors con- 
 trive, to purge the Scripture of every thing which they 
 disapprove, and make it the oracle, not of God's wisdom,, 
 but of their own fancies. When you therefore, as a 
 Unitarian, say, that your doctrine is the clear sense of 
 Scripture ; which, according to the scheme of interpreta- 
 tion which you follow, hath no clear sense at all ; you 
 can only mean, that this doctrine may be clearly proved 
 to be the sense intended by the inspired writers. Per- 
 haps, in my Charge, I was too negligent in the interpre- 
 tation of your expressions, when I pretended to expose 
 the infirmity of your argument. Be it so. This then is 
 your assertion. The Unitarian doctrine is clearly the 
 true sense of Scripture. But where is the proof? You 
 can bring no proof that will be generally convincing, 
 unless you can find it in the faith of the apostolick ages. 
 The faith of the first Christians, once clearly ascertain- 
 ed, must be allowed indeed to be an unerring exposition 
 of the written word. To prove therefore, that the Uni- 
 tarian doctrine is clearly the true sense of Scripture, 
 which is your assumption, you must first prove that the 
 primitive faith was Unitarian, which should be your 
 conclusion. Still this argument circulates, and was 
 not improperly alleged by me, as my first specimen of 
 insufficient proof." 
 
 3. But it is of no great importance to dispute, where 
 the particular infirmity of this argument may lie ; wheu 
 
LET. IJL LETTERS IN REPLY 
 
 you confess, that it is of such a sort, " that you could not 
 suppose it would have any weight with Trinitarians."* 
 While you condescend to employ your rare abilities, in 
 framing arguments, which will persuade those only 
 who are previously persuaded, you will do little harm. 
 Why should I disturb you in this innocent amuse- 
 ment? 
 
 4. To compensate for the confessed inefficacy of this 
 argument, you tell me of another, which you might have 
 urged, to disprove not only the divinity, but the preex- 
 istence of our Lord ; such an argument, it seems, might 
 have been drawn " from the doctrine of the materiality 
 of man, which has been sufficiently proved in your dis- 
 quisitions on matter and spirit ;"f in which, by an ana- 
 logical proof, you have refuted the vulgar error of the 
 immateriality of the human soul, and have in conse- 
 quence, overthrown the whole system of preexistence. 
 I believe. Sir, the opponents of the Unitarian scheme, 
 will not be displeased to understand, that it is at last, 
 to stand or fall with Dr Priestley's System of Materi- 
 alism, and Dr Hartley's Theory of the Mind. 
 
 5. As a striking instance of the conformity, between 
 the Unitarian doctrine and the clear sense of Scripture, 
 I produced the initial sentences of St John's gospel ; 
 in which, you know, you find a clear refutation of the 
 personality of the Logos : in rendering these sentences 
 iu English, I took occasion to remark, that the Greek 
 pronoun vrot naturally renders a person. You tell me, 
 " it may refer to any thing that is of the same gender, in 
 
 * Letters to DC Horaley, p. 5. 
 t Ibid. 
 
TO DR PRIESTLEY. LLT. UL 
 
 the Greek language, whether it be a person or not."* 
 I never meant to insinuate the contrary. Give me leave 
 to refer you to a letter which was published in the Gen- 
 tleman's Magazine, for November last, under the signa- 
 ture of PERHAPS : you will find it in my Appendix,! 
 and I now declare myself the writer of it. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 7. 
 f Appendix, No. 1. and 2. 
 
LET. IV. TO DH PRIESTLEY, 
 
 LETTER FOURTH. 
 
 In reply to Dr Priestley's first Letter. His defence 
 of his argument, from St John's first epistle, confu- 
 ted. The phrase "come in the fie sh," more than 
 equivalent to the word "to come." St John's asser- 
 tion, that i( Christ came in the fiesh," not paralled 
 u'ith St PanVs, that " he partook of fiesh and blood." 
 
 DEAR SIR. 
 
 YOUR argument for the antiquity of the Unitarian 
 doctrine, from St John's first epistle, the second among 
 my specimens of insufficient proofs, rests on a supposi- 
 tion, that in that epistle, the Unitarian doctrine is not 
 censured. I have shown,* that this supposition will 
 stand or fall, according as one or another interpretation 
 of the phrase of " coming in the flesh," shall be admit* 
 ted. That single expression, as it is generally under- 
 stood, reprobates the Unitarian doctrine, and overthrows 
 your supposition. You must therefore establish your 
 own sense of the phrase, before you can be permitted 
 to assume, that St John is silent about the Unitarian 
 doctrine. Now to make good this argument, you tell 
 me, that " you think," and that " it is your opinion," 
 that the phrase of " coming in the flesh," is merely an 
 
 * Charge, anil Letter ii. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. IV 
 
 assertion of our Lord's humanity.* Sir, I understood 
 from the first, that this is your opinion, and I doubt not 
 in the least your firmness in it : but I contend, that no 
 such authority belongs to your opinion, that the bare 
 notification of it, should command the assent of the 
 whole Christian world, in preference to other opinions, 
 which have more generally prevailed. You must jus- 
 tify that opinion, if you would give any colonr of plau- 
 sibility to your argument ; but the opinion cannot be 
 justified, unless it might be previously assumed, that St 
 John himself was an Unitarian. You will hardly say, 
 that any believer in our Lord's divinity and incarna- 
 tion, could employ the phrase of Christ's " coming in 
 the flesh," without an allusion, in his own mind, to both 
 those articles, as branches of the true faith. But such 
 an allusion, implies a censure of the Unitarians. Till 
 you shall have proved, therefore, that St John was an 
 Unitarian, the phrase of " Christ's coming in the flesh" 
 may be thought to contain a censure of the Unitarian 
 tenets 5 and your opinion, that no censure of them is 
 contained in St John's first epistle, will be disputable. 
 
 %. You say, that this phrase of coming in the flesh, 
 " refers naturally to the doctrine of the Gnosticks."* 
 I say the very same thing. But I say, that in the 
 sense in which the church hath ever understood it, this 
 phrase refers to two divisions of the Gnosticks : the 
 Docetse, and the Cerinthians ; affirming a doctrine, which 
 is the mean between their opposite errors. The Do- 
 cetae affirmed, that Jesus was not a man in reality, but 
 in appearance only ; the Cerinthians, that he was a 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsky, p. 8, 10. 
 t Ibtf, p. 9. 
 
LET. IV. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 mere man, under the tutelage of the Christ, a superan- 
 gelick being, which was not so united to the man as to 
 make one person. St John says, Jesus Christ is 
 come in the flesh ;" that is, as the words have been 
 generally understood, Jesus was a man, not in appear- 
 ance only, as the Docetse taught, but in reality ; not a 
 mere man, as the Cerinthians taught, under the care 
 of a superangelick guardian, but Christ himself come 
 in the flesh ; the word of God incarnate. St John says, 
 that whoever denies this complex proposition, is of anti- 
 christ. It surprises me, that you should find an impro- 
 bability, upon the first face of the thing, in supposing, 
 that the same expression should be equally levelled* 
 at two heresies, which you confess to be opposite. For 
 is it not always the case, that expressions which predi- 
 cate a truth, lying in the middle between two opposite 
 falsehoods, equally impugn both the false extremes? 
 If I say, that when Fahrenheit's thermometer, in the 
 open air, stands at 60 in the shade, the weather is 
 mild ; do I not equally deny that it is insufferably hot, 
 or insufferably cold ? " Gnosticism, you say, is certain- 
 ly condemned by the apostle, but not the doctrine of the 
 Ebionites, though it is allowed to have existed in his 
 time."f The doctrine of the original Ebionites, and 
 that of the Cerinthian Gnosticks, upon the point of 
 Christ's divinity, was the same. If the apostle con. 
 demns the one, he condemns the other, whether he 
 lived or lived not to see the rise of the Ebioaaean sect. J 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 10. 
 t Ibid. 
 
 t " You insist upon it," says Dr Priestley, in the fifth of his second Letters 
 ' that John does censure the Unitarian doctrine : \vhuli is curious enough ; when* 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. IV. 
 
 I shall hereafter have occasion to show, that the Ebio- 
 n&an sect was of a later date than you imagine. 
 
 3. It is perhaps, from something of a secret misgiv- 
 ing, that your interpretation of the phrase of " coming 
 in the flesh/' will, not be allowed to be its natural and 
 obvious meaning; that you are so desirous to retreat, 
 into the strong-hold of Jewish idioms. You think, the 
 phrase in question " is similar to other Jewish phrases,"* 
 which, you think, will be allowed to be merely expres- 
 sive of humanity. I fear, Sir, it hath been the custom 
 of late, to lay too much stress upon Jewish idioms, 
 in the exposition of the didactick parts of the New 
 Testament. The gospel is a general revelation.f If 
 it is delivered in a style, which is not perspicuous to 
 the illiterate of any nation except the Jewish ; it is as 
 much locked up from general apprehension, as if the 
 sacred books had been written in the vernacular gibber- 
 ish of the Jews of that age. The Holy Spirit, which 
 directed the apostles and the evangelists to the use of 
 the tongue, which in their day was the most generally 
 understood the Greek would for the same reason, it 
 
 according to yoitr account, there were no Ebionites or Nazarenes ; that is, none 
 who denied the preexistence of Christ, till long after the time of John." But 
 this is not according 1 to my account. My account is, that Cerintlms, who was 
 unquestionably contemporary with St John, denied our Lord's preexistence, and 
 was in this point the precursor of the Ebionites. And what if I had said, that 
 St John had censured a doctrine not taught till after his death ? Do not the 
 fathers perpetually refer to proleptick censures of late heresies in the sacred 
 writings ? Is no proleptick reprobation> of the late errors of the Roman church, 
 to be found in St Paul's epistles ? 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 8. 
 
 f " The religion of Christ was an universal religion, and the doctrines of the 
 gospel, were calculated for the western as well as the eastern hemisphere/' 
 See Mr Shepherd's Preface, to his Free Examination of the Sociiuan 
 of the prefatory verges of St John's gospel. 
 
tE'l\ 1?. TO Ell PRIESTLEV. 
 
 may be presumed, suggest to them a style which might 
 be generally perspicuous. It is therefore a principle 
 With me, that the true sense of any phrase in the New 
 Testament is, for the most part, what may be called its 
 standing sense : that which will be the first to occur to 
 common people of every country, and in every age : and 
 I am apt to think, that the difference between this stan- 
 ding sense, and the Jewish sense will, in all cases, be 
 far less than is imagined, or none at all ; because, 
 though different languages differ widely, in their refined 
 and elevated idioms, common speech is, in all langua- 
 ges, pretty much the same. 
 
 4. But what are those Jewish phrases, with which 
 you would compare the Jewish phrase of " coming in 
 the flesh ?" They are the word " to come," and the 
 phrase " partaker of flesh and blood." 
 
 5. The word " to come,'' is used by metaphor, I be- 
 lieve, in all languages, to signify, either a man's birth, 
 or first entrance into publick life. He came into the 
 world ; he came into life ; he came into business. I have 
 no where affirmed, that such phrases denote any thing 
 more than human, in any person to whom they may be 
 applied. But is the phrase " to come in the flesh/ 7 no 
 more than equivalent to the word to come 1" Are the 
 words in the flesh," mere expletives ?^-If they are not 
 expletives, what is their import, but to limit the sense 
 of the word, to come, to some particular manner of 
 coming ? This limitation, either presumes a possibility 
 of other ways of coming ; or it is nugatory. But was it 
 possible for a mere man to come otherwise than in the 
 flesh ?-^-Nothing can be more decisive for my purpose, 
 than this comparison which you have suggested, between 
 the word " to come," which is general, and the phrase 
 
I 8 LETTERS IN 1JEPLT LET. IT. 
 
 " to come in the flesh," which is spccifick. My thanks 
 are due to you, for this illustration of my argument ; 
 which may be rendered still more evident, by applying 
 the two phrases successively, to a farailar instance. If 
 some future historian of these planet-stricken times, 
 should say, " In the latter end of the eighteenth century, 
 came Dr Priestley, preaching the Unitarian doctrine," 
 no one will suspect any thing more, than that a man of 
 this name, preached this doctrine. But if the historian 
 should say, "Dr Priestley came in the flesh, preaching 
 this doctrine ;" if the writer, who may use this expres- 
 sion, shall have any credit in his day, a general curiosity 
 will be excited to know, whether Dr Priestley had it 
 in his power, to come in any way without his flesh, 
 "unuiariacled with membrane, joint, or limb:" and when 
 once it shall be found, that he had not ; the style of the 
 writer will be condemned, and his credit perhaps lessen- 
 ed. I leave you to make the application. 
 
 6. But you think, that St John's phrase, that " Christ 
 came in the flesh," may be expounded by St Paul's 
 phrase, that he was partaker of flesh and blood." The 
 passage to which you refer is this " Forasmuch then 
 as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also 
 himself likewise took part of the same."* As you have 
 only hinted, that some argument might be drawn from 
 this text, to confirm your sense of St John's phrase ; I am 
 left to divine what your argument might be. Perhaps 
 you would reason thus. In this passage, it is said of 
 men, that they are partakers of flesh and blood ; and this 
 expression is evidently descriptive, of the condition of 
 
 * Heb. A. 14. 
 
LET. IT. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 humanity. It appears therefore, that to be " a partaker 
 of llesh and blood," is a Jewish phrase, which signifies 
 44 to be a man." But in this same passage, it is said of 
 Christ, that " he likewise took part of flesh and blood." 
 It is said of Christ therefore, that he was a man like 
 other men : consequently, nothing more can be meant by 
 his " coming in the flesh." If this be your intended 
 argument, 1 reply that Christ was, indeed, a man like 
 other men : and this perhaps, is all that is implied in 
 St Paul's assertion, that he was " partaker of flesh and 
 blood." But it follows not, that this is all which is im- 
 plied in St John's expression, that "Jesus Christ came 
 in the flesh ;" which asserts indeed his humanity, but 
 with an evident allusion to a prior condition : and the 
 proper conclusion, from the comparison of St John's 
 expression with St Paul's, is this : that the two are not, 
 as you suppose, equivalent. 
 
 7. But I suspect, that you connect St Paul's expres- 
 sion with your own doctrine of materialism ; and that 
 you would argue thus. Since it is said of men, who 
 are flesh and blood, and nothing else, that they partake 
 of flesh and blood ; therefore, " to partake of flesh and 
 blood," in the Jewish language, and " to be flesh and 
 blood," in other languages, are equivalent phrases. 
 Therefore Christ, of whom it is also said, that he par- 
 took of flesh and blood, was mere flesh and blood ; a 
 man like other men, in whom the mental faculties were 
 the result of organization. Thus, you will say, the 
 notion of Christ's preexistence, much more of his divini- 
 ty, is overturned by the apostle's assertion ; and, what- 
 ever may have been imagined, no allusion to his pre- 
 existence or his divinity, was intended in any expres- 
 sions of the sacred writerg. The assertion therefore of 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. IV. 
 
 Christ's real manhood, is all that can be contained in 
 St John's expressions, that " Christ is come in the 
 flesh/' But in this argument, the conclusion results not, 
 from any evident parallelism, of the different phrases 
 used by St Paul and by St John ; but it is a conse- 
 quence, from a particular interpretation of St Paul'f 
 phrase ; which interpretation of St Paul, rests not upon 
 any thing in his expressions, but upon something quite 
 out of Scripture : upon your notion of the mere material-, 
 ity of man. To have shown the true foundation of this 
 argument, is to have confuted it. 
 
 8. I must remark, that in whatever form this argu- 
 ment may be drawn, it will rest solely on the translation 
 of the sacred text. For in the original, man's connex- 
 ion with flesh and blood, and Christ's connexion, are 
 expressed by different words : *e>cowyr>jxe and yuerfco^. 
 A difference, which, however slight it may appear to 
 you, was thought of sufficient importance to be preserved 
 in the Vulgate : communicaverant participavit.* 
 
 9. But, not to lay a stress, upon any critical refine- 
 ments upon single expressions, let me ask your opinion, 
 Sir, upon the general sense of the passage, in which this 
 phrase, to partake of flesh and blood," occurs. 1 
 would appeal to yourself, whether the conclusion, which 
 you would build upon that particular expression, is not 
 overthrown by the general sense of the passage. The 
 purport of the passage is, to assign a reason why the 
 Redeemer should partake of flesh and blood ; that is, 
 \vhy he should be a man : but a reason why a man 
 should be a man, one would not expect to find in a sober 
 
 That xc7,'*7i0 Is more than f^tk^v. See lamblich. de Myst. sec. 2. cap Y. 
 
LET. /r. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 man's discourse. For why any thing should be what it 
 is, rather than what it is not, is a question which few, I 
 think, would ask, and none would attempt to answer. 
 The attempt to as.sign a reason, why the Redeemer 
 should be a man, implies both that he might have been, 
 without partaking of the human nature, and by conse- 
 quence, that in his own proper nature he was originally, 
 something different from man ; and that there might 
 have been an expectation, that he would make his ap- 
 pearance, in some form above the human. It particu- 
 larly implies, that an expectation of his appearance ia 
 some higher form, might be expected to prevail among 
 the persons, to whom this reason is assigned ; so that 
 the manifest manhood of Christ, would be likely to be 
 an objection with them, to his claim to the character of 
 the Messiah. This, Sir, seems to deserve your parti- 
 cular attention. For the persons, to whom the apostl* 
 renders these reasons for the manhood of the Redeemer, 
 were the Hebrews; the first Jewish Christians; of whom 
 you say, that before their conversion at least, " they had 
 no idea that their Messiah was to come down from hea- 
 ven,' 7 * having never been taught by their prophets, to 
 expect " any other than a man like themselves, in that 
 illustrious character."! 
 
 10. Upon the whole, since the phrase of " coming ia 
 the flesh," must be more than equivalent to the word " to 
 come ; 1f since there is no evidence of its supposed paral- 
 lelism with St Paul's phrase, of " partaking of flesh and 
 blood;" since, in the discourse of any but an Unitarian^ 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 49. 
 | ilist. of Corrup. vol. i. t>. 9. 
 
 II 
 
LETTERS IN KEPLY LET. IV. 
 
 it must involve an allusion to the incarnation and divini- 
 ty of our Lord ; your defence of your argument from 
 St John's first epistle, is insufficient : the argument is 
 still to be considered as running in a circle, and it was 
 properly adduced as the second, among my specimens of 
 insufficient proof. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 N. B. The argument, which Dr Priestley has advan- 
 ced in the fifth of his Second Letters, in favour of his 
 own interpretation of the phrase " coming in the flesh," 
 from a passage in St Polycarp's epistle, is considered 
 and refuted in the first of the Supplemental Disqui. 
 sitions. 
 
LET. V. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 LETTER FIFTH. 
 
 The Archdeacon's interpretation of Clemens Eomanus 
 defended. The shorter epistles of Ignatius genuine. 
 
 DEAR SIR. 
 
 HAVING, to your own entire satisfaction, made 
 good your argument from St John's first epistle, against 
 my exceptions ; you proceed to reply to the testimo- 
 nies which I produced from Clemens Romanus, for the 
 preexistence and divinity of our Lord. 
 
 2. When Clemens says, " our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 came not in the pomp of pride and arrogance, although 
 he had it in his power," you say, that the coming allu- 
 ded to, was " no coming from heaven to earth ; and 
 that the pomp of pride and arrogance, in which our 
 Lord came not, stands for an " ostentatious display" of 
 the miraculous powers, which our Lord never made.* 
 To this it is sufficient to reply, that my interpretation 
 rests upon the literal sense of the holy father's words, 
 which you suppose to be figurative ; that you have 
 nothing to ohject to the literal interpretation, but that 
 it suits not with your own opinions ; whereas I have 
 something of great importance to say in its defence ; 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 13. 
 
TO DR PRIESTLEY. LET. V 
 
 that it is established by the context. " He came not 
 (says Clemens) in the pomp of pride and arrogance, 
 although he had it in his power, but in humility, as the 
 Holy Spirit spake concerning him." The pomp there- 
 fore of pride and arrogance, in which our Lord came 
 not, is that pomp, which is the proper opposite of the 
 humility, in which the Holy Spirit had foretold that he 
 should come For he came not in that but in this he 
 came. Now to determine what this humility is, Clem- 
 ens immediately goes on, to cite the prophecies, which 
 describe the Messiah's low condition. The humility, 
 therefore, of an ordinary condition, is that in which it ia 
 said the Messiah came. The pomp, therefore, of a 
 high conJition, is the pomp, in which it is said he came 
 not, although he had it in his power so to come. The 
 expressions therefore clearly imply, that our Lord, ere 
 he came, had the power to choose, in what condition he 
 Would be born. 
 
 3. In citing this passage of Clemens Romanus, I 
 dealt very liberally with you ; as I trust, indeed, that I 
 lave done in every part of the argument. I cited the 
 passage, as it stands in our modern copies. More an- 
 cient copies, those which Jerome used instead, of 
 " although he had it in his power," had 
 $wotptvo( 9 although he had all things in his power." 
 This appears from Jerome's translation of the passage, 
 which is in these words, " Sceptrum Dei, Dominus 
 Jesus Christus non venit in jactautia superbLE, cum 
 possit omnia."* Now with this emendation of the 
 
 * Hieronym. in Esaiam, eap. lit. 
 
LET. V. LETTERS IN REPLY 125 
 
 last clause, which it seems was an assertion of our 
 Lord's omnipotence, you are welcome to make what 
 you can of the preceding clause, by figurative inter- 
 pretations.* 
 
 4. No figurative interpretations will elude the force 
 of my citations from Ignatius but it is the particular 
 happiness of the Unitarian writers, that they are never 
 found at a loss for an expedient. All that I say of the 
 repeated assertion of our Lord's divinity, in the epistles 
 of Ignatius, you allow to be true, " according to our pre- 
 sent copies of his epistles. But the genuineness of them, 
 (you say,) is not only very much doubted, but generally 
 given up by the learned." And lest this assertion 
 should want that appearance of weight, which an air of 
 confidence gives, you even tax my ingenuity " for con- 
 cealing a circumstance, which, (you say,) I must have 
 known ;" and you challenge me to prove these epistles, 
 
 * Dr Priestley, to -whom it is a matter of equal ease, to bring the holy Scrip- 
 tares, or the fathers, upon all occasions to speak his own sentiments, findg no 
 assertion of our Lord's omnipotence in this clause of Clemens, thus rendered hy 
 Jerome : nothing more than an allusion " to the great power of which he became 
 possessed, after the descent of the Spirit of God upon him at his baptism." (See 
 the second -of Dr Priestley's second Letters to me.) That is, to affirm that a 
 person hath all things in his power, is, in Dr Priestley's apprehension of the terms, 
 r,o affirm, that at a certain time he had tome things in his power. Had any such 
 allusion been intended to the miraculous powers, the verb potsit in Jerome's Latin, 
 should have been in one or the other of the preterite tenses. By the use of 
 the present tense, Jerome describes a plenitude of power now enjoyed. This 
 plenitude of power now enjoyed, is alleged as what might have been exercised 
 by our Lord in time past, with respect to the manner of his own coming. It 
 n a plenitude of power therefore, ever present to our Lord, now and in time 
 past; and being allowed to be now present, is supposed of necessary conse- 
 quence, to be capable of effects in time past. But this describes nothing less 
 than the attribute of ompipotHee. But language b no key to " unlock the toiad 
 f a SocinSan " 
 
LETTERS IN RKPLV LET. V 
 
 " as we now have them, to be the genuine epistles of 
 Ignatius."! 
 
 5. Sir, if the genuineness of these epistles he general- 
 ly given up by the learned, my ignorance, not my inge- 
 nuity, is to be blamed, that I cited them as genuine. I 
 indeed knew nothing of this general giving up. But 
 since the testimony of Ignatius is allowed to be express, 
 if the epistles be genuine from which it is produced ; 
 permit me to tell you, in few words, what I know of 
 these epistles. 
 
 6. I know, that ancient writers mention seven epistles 
 of Ignatius, written upon his journey from Antioch, 
 where he was bishop, through Asia Minor ; for that 
 way his journey lay, when he was carried to Rome by 
 Trajan's order, to be exposed to wild beasts. Of these 
 epistles, six are said to have been addressed to the 
 churches of six different cities : Ephesus, Magnesia upon 
 Mseander, Tralles, Rome, Philadelphia, Smyrna ; and 
 the seventh was addressed to Polycarp. I know, that 
 besides some other epistles, confessedly spurious, two 
 editions, a longer and a shorter, are at this day current, 
 of seven epistles under the name of Ignatius, inscribed 
 to those to whom the real epistles of the blessed martyr, 
 according to the ecclesiastical historians, were addressed. 
 The longer epistles first appeared in print, in an old 
 Latin version, published by Father Stapulensis, in 
 1498 ; a corresponding Greek text was published by 
 Valentine Pacseus, from a manuscript in the Augustan 
 library, in the year 1557- The shorter edition likewise 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. IS. 
 
LET. V. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 made its first appearance in print, in an old Latin ver- 
 sion, published by Usher, from two manuscripts, in the 
 year 164-i. The Greek was published by Isaac Vos- 
 sius, in 164*6, from a manuscript in the Medicsean library 
 at Florence. The Medicsean manuscript being imper- 
 fect in the end, wanted the epistle to the Romans. But 
 a Greek text of this epistle, perfectly corresponding 
 with Usher's Latin version, was published at Paris, 
 from a manuscript of Colbert's, by Mr Iluinard, in the 
 year 1689. 
 
 7. It has been made a question, whether the shorter 
 epistles are from abridged, or the longer from interpola- 
 ted copies. The phraseology of the longer, seems in some, 
 parts accommodated to the Arian notions : that of the 
 shorter, is every where agreeable to the Catholick faith. 
 The shorter edition hath the suffrage of the fathers of the 
 five first centuries; their quotations, which are numerous, 
 every where agreeing with this text. William Whis- 
 ton, a man whose memory is more to be esteemed for 
 his integrity, and the extent and variety of his reading, 
 than for the soundness of his judgment; from pure at- 
 tachment to the Arian cause, maintained the authority 
 of the longer copies ; but his opinion hath found but few 
 abettors, and those of inconsiderable name, even in his 
 own party. The Presbyterian divines, desirous to get 
 rid of so great an authority as that of Ignatius, in favour 
 of Episcopacy, the rights of which are set very high in 
 these epistles, were unwilling to allow their authenticity 
 in either form. But with a majority of the learned, these 
 seven epistles are received as authentick ; and the short- 
 er edition is supposed to exhibit the genuine text. This, 
 at least, was the opinion of Isaac Vossius, Usher, Ham- 
 mond, Petavius, Grotius, Pearson, Bull, Cave, Wake, 
 
LETTEUS IN REPLY LET. T. 
 
 Cotelerius, Grabe, Pupin, Tillemont, Lc Clerc. On 
 the other side, stand no names to be compared with 
 these, except the three of Salmasius, Blondel, and 
 Callous. Perhaps you will add that of Bochart, But 
 the great Bochart's doubts, went to one only of the 
 seven,* the epistle to the Romans ; and they are found- 
 ed on a chronology of the word Leopardus, which Pear- 
 son hath proved to be erroneous. f 
 
 8. Mosheim holds a middle opinion. The question 
 of preference between the two editions, he thinks unde- 
 cided. Whichever edition be preferred, he thinks the 
 suspicion of interpolation and corruption cannot be en- 
 tirely removed. That these epistles are of great anti- 
 quity, he thinks certain. That they are not altogether 
 forgeries, so credible, that nothing can be more. But 
 how far they are sincere, he takes to be a knot which 
 cannot be untied.J At the same time he allows, what 
 with me entirely overturns his singular opinion, that the 
 authenticity of them would never have been called in 
 question, had they not contained, what the advocates of 
 Episcopacy knew how to turn to the advantage of their 
 cause ; which, when the Presbyterians and others, who 
 were for abolishing the privileges of the clergy, under- 
 stood ; they attacked them with a warmth, by which they 
 more harmed their own reputation than the authenticity 
 of those writings. || It is true, he taxes the writers on 
 the other side, but not so generally, with no less in- 
 temperance. But, in my judgment, the authenticity 
 
 * Hierozoic. P. I. lib. iii. cap. 8. 
 
 | Vimlicite Ignatianse, P. II. p. 9194. 
 
 $ De Rt'bus Chratianorud aate Coustantmum, p. 1CI, 
 
 D Ibid. p. 165. 
 
LET. V. TO DR PRIESTLEY, . 
 
 of ancient writings must be set very high, which could 
 never have been brought in question, but through pre- 
 judice. 
 
 9. With this preponderance therefore, of authorities 
 on the side of the epistles, and with this confession of 
 Mosheira against his own opinion, 1 shall take the liber- 
 ty to appeal to them, as they stand in the shorter edition, 
 as the genuine writings of the blessed martyr: not i v cc 
 indeed from those blemishes, which arise from the haste, 
 the carelessness, and the ignorance of transcribers ; but 
 upon the whole, not less sincere, than most other pieces 
 of the same antiquity. I shall appeal to them with the 
 less scruple, forasmuch as. the same sincerity, which I 
 ascribe to them, arid wliich is quite sufficient for my 
 purpose, is allowed by the learned and the candid 
 Larduer ; whose judgment must have been biassed by 
 his opinions, in prejudice of these writings, if any thing 
 could have biassed his judgment, in prejudice of the 
 evidence of truth. After suggesting in no very confident 
 language, that " even the smaller epistles may have been 
 tampered with by the Arians, or the orthodox, or both ;" 
 he addsj " I do not affirm, that there are in them any 
 considerable corruptions or alterations."* If no consi- 
 derable corruptions or alterations, certainly none, re- 
 specting a point of such importance, as the original 
 nature of Christ. I will therefore still appeal to these 
 epistles, as sufficiently sincere, to be decisive upon the 
 point in dispute. Nor, shall I think myself obliged to 
 
 These words of Dr Larduer, are cited by Dr Priestley himself, in his reply 
 to the Animadversions, in ihe Moiii'uly Review of June, 1783, i>. 36. They make 
 a. part of his proof, that these epistles are so corrupted, as not to be quoted with 
 *ifety. Sec reply to Animadversions, p. 35. 
 
 17 
 
LETTERS IN RF,PLY LKT. V, 
 
 go into the proof of their authenticity, till you have 
 given a satisfactory reply, to every part of Bishop Pear- 
 son's elaborate defence : a work, which I suspect you 
 have not yet looked through. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 P. S. To the authorities for the epistles of Igna- 
 tius, according to the shorter copies, 1 must add Fa- 
 bricius. 
 
LET. VJ. TO DR PRIESTLEY, 
 
 LETTER SIXTH. 
 
 In reply to l)r Priestley 9 e second. The difference of 
 the Ebionites and Nazarenes, no singular or new 
 opinion of the Archdeacon's. The same thing maz'n- 
 tained by Mosheim and other criticks of great name. 
 flr Priestley 9 s arguments from Origen and Eusebi- 
 us, not neglected in the Archdeacon's Charge. Dr 
 Priestley's conclusions from the several passages cited 
 by him from Epiphanies, confuted. The Nazarenes, 
 no sect of the apostolick age. Ebion, not contempo- 
 rary with St John. The antiquity of a sect, not a 
 proof of its orthodoxy. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THE citadel of your strength, is the argument from 
 the Nazarenes; to which, however, I have given a 
 place among my specimens of insufficient proof. You 
 find the attack upon this fortress, warm on every side ; 
 and your resistence is proportionally vigorous. So im- 
 patient are you for its defence, that you take it out of its 
 turn, passing by my third specimen the argument from 
 Athanasius; which you very properly consider as au 
 outwork, which will be indeed of little consequence, if 
 the citadel should surrender which however, must be 
 the case ; neither force nor stratagem can defend it. 
 
 2. Two points, you know, must be made out to save 
 this argument : the oue, that the faith of the Nazareuee 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. VI. 
 
 was Unitarian ; the other, that these Unitarian Naza- 
 renes were the Hebrew Christians, or the members of 
 the primitive church of Jerusalem. To prove the first 
 point, you abide by your original assertion, that the Na- 
 zarenes and the Ebionites, were one and the same peo- 
 ple, under different names. This assertion you attempt 
 to defend against my objections. We shall see with 
 what success. 
 
 3. You allow, " it has been imagined by some, that 
 there was a difference between the doctrine of the Ebi- 
 onites and the Nazarenes, concerning the person of 
 Christ."* Something of a difference, some half-witted 
 criticks have, it seems, imagined. But you take care to 
 insinuate in the next sentence, that none before me, ever 
 dreamed of so wide a difference, as I would put between, 
 them. It had only been imagined " that the Ebionites 
 disbelieved, while the Nazarenes maintained, the mira- 
 culous conception ;"f both concurring in the disbelief 
 of our Lord's divinity. " For as to any Nazarenes, 
 who believed that Christ was any thing more than man, 
 you find no trace of them in history."} And you think 
 it extraordinary, " that it should now be made a point, 
 to find some difference between the Nazarenes and the 
 Ebionites, inasmuch as you believe, no critick of any 
 name in the last age, pretended to find any."|| Indeed, 
 you may well be astonished. For, " the learned Jere- 
 miah Jones"> wrote a chapter to prove them the same 
 people. 
 
 4. Indeed, Sir, I must take shame to myself, and 
 
 Letters to Dr Uorsley, p. 14. f Ibid. t Ibid. 
 Itud. p. SS. Ibki. 
 
LET. VI. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 133 
 
 confess, that this learned Jeremiah Jones, is not of my 
 acquaintance. I find upon inquiry, that he is very much 
 unknown among my brethren of the establishment ; I 
 am informed, however, that he was not undeserving of 
 the epithet which you have coupled with his name, he 
 was, it seems, the tutor of the venerable Lardner, and 
 was thought, in natural ability, to excel his pupil. Ne- 
 vertheless, Sir, I conceive I may be pardoned, if I pre- 
 sume to dissent from the opinion of Jeremiah Jones, not- 
 withstanding the importance that may have accrued to 
 it from the approbation of Dr Priestley. That, Sir, 
 which you are pleased to call an imagination of some, 
 the notion of a difference between the Nazarenes and 
 the Ebionites, was the decided opinion of a writer bet- 
 ter known than Jeremiah Jones the illustrious Mo- 
 sheim. " This little body of Christians," says that 
 learned historian, " which coupled Moses with Christ, 
 split again into two sects, distinguished from each other 
 by their doctrines concerning Christ, and the permanent 
 obligation of the law ; and perhaps by other circum- 
 stances."* As a certain proof that they were two dis- 
 tinct sects, he observes, that each had its own gospel. 
 He says, that " the Nazarenes had a better and truer 
 notion of Christ than the Ebionites."t 
 
 5. It may be, Mosheim was the inventor of this dis- 
 tinction, since you have not found it in any critick of 
 
 Puaillum vero hoc Christianorum agraen, quod Mosen Christo sociabat, in 
 duas iterura dissiliebat sectas; dogmatibus de Christo, legisque necessitate, forte 
 aliis etiam rebus sejunctas. J\hsheim de Rebus Chriztianorum ante Constant^ 
 num. SKC. 2. sec. xxxix. 
 
 J- Nazarei nimirum et de Christo multe rectius et verius sentiebant quam 
 Ebionei. Ibid. n. * * *. 
 
LETTERS IN KEFLY LET. VI. 
 
 a uy name of the last age. Perhaps, Sir, you and I, 
 when we speak of criticks of any name, may not always 
 agree in the persons, to whom we would apply that des- 
 cription. May I then take leave to ask, what you think 
 of Hugo Grotius ? Was He a critick of any name ? 
 Vossius, Spencer, Huetius, were these criticks of any 
 name ? If they were, Sir, you must come again to your 
 confessions. For Hugo Grotius, Vossius, Spencer, and 
 Huetius* agree that the Nazarenes and Ebionites, 
 though sometimes confounded, were distinct sects ; and 
 they maintain the opinion, which I now maintain, of 
 the high orthodoxy of the proper Nazarenes, in the arti- 
 cle of our Lord's divinity. 
 
 6. But it may be, that the Nazarenes were Unitarian, 
 though they w r ere not Ebionites. For the doctrine con- 
 cerning our Lord's divinity, is not the only point, in 
 which the pretended difference is placed : and "as to 
 any Nazarenes, who believed that Christ was any thing 
 more than man, you find no trace of them in history ."f 
 You have then been less successful than Hugo Grotius, 
 Vossius, Spencer, Huetius : not to mention others of in- 
 ferior note. 
 
 7. You see, Sir, (our readers at least will see,) that 
 you had little ground to represent the opinion, which I 
 maintain, of a difference between the Nazarenes and 
 Ebionites, as singular or novel. Your attempt to set it 
 forth in that light, I cannot but consider as a stratagem, 
 which you are willing to employ for the preservation of 
 
 * Grotius in Matth. c. i. Vossius de genere Jesu Christi, cap. ii. sec. \. 
 Spencer in Origen contra Celsum, ad. p. 56. Huetiua in Origenis eommentan?., 
 p. 74. 
 
 | Letters to Dr Horslev, p. 14. 
 
LET. VI. TO DU PRIESTLEY 
 
 your battered citadel the argument from the Naza- 
 renes. In this stratagem, if I mistake not, you are com- 
 pletely foiled. In your sallies against the batteries 
 which I have raised, I trust you will be little more suc- 
 cessful. But as too much of stratagem is apt to mix 
 itself with all your operations, it will be necessary 
 that I watch very narrowly the manner of your ap- 
 proaches. 
 
 8. Your reply to my objections against the testimony, 
 which Epiphanius is supposed to bear to the identity of 
 the two sects, is opened with a complaint, that I have 
 said nothing " to the arguments from Origen and Euse- 
 bius."* Sir, either here is more stratagem, or you have 
 dealt by me, as you profess to do by the ancients. You 
 have only looked through my Charge. Had you read 
 it through, you could hardly have missed something that 
 I say to the arguments from Origen and Eusebius. I 
 flatly deny any direct testimony of Origen, in favour of 
 the identity which you would prove ; and I have shown 
 that the passages, from which you would draw the in- 
 ference, are little to your purpose.'^ The argument 
 from Eusebius, you will be pleased to recollect, made 
 no part of your original proof. It first appeared among 
 certain corrections and additions, which are annexed to 
 jour '< Reply to the Animadversions" of a learned wri- 
 ter in the Monthly Review. It was impossible there- 
 fore, that I should take notice of it in my Charge, which 
 had been sent to the press, and was in great part print- 
 ed, before I had any knowledge of the Reply, or indeed 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsier, p. 14. 
 
 t Charge I. sec. 15, and Appendix, sec. I. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. VI. 
 
 of the animadversions which occasioned it. But in the 
 Appendix to my Charge, which was written after I had 
 read your Reply, and in consequence of it I complain- 
 ed, that you had made no reference to the particular 
 passages of Eusebiug, upon which you would found 
 your argument.* 
 
 9. However, that I said something very material to 
 the argument from Epiphanius, you deny not. 1 said 
 indeed, that no man could allege, as you do, the testimo- 
 ny of Epiphanius to the identity of the Ebionites and 
 Nazarenes, who had read to the end, so much as the 
 first sentence of Epiphanius's account of the Ebionites. 
 And I still say the same thing : for in that first sentence 
 Epiphanius asserts, that Ebion made additions to th& 
 doctrine of the Nazarenes. Among these additions I 
 place, although you will not, the mere humanity of 
 Christ. 
 
 10. You tell me in reply, that if I had myself read 
 the second paragraph of this same chapter of EpiphanU 
 us, it would have shown me the errror of my own re- 
 mark ; for in that second paragraph, you say it appears, 
 that the difference between the Ebionites and the Naza- 
 renes, lay in other particulars, not in the doctrine of the 
 mere humanity of Christ. f You then produce that pa- 
 ragraph, with a string of other passages, confirming, as 
 you think, the assertion which you pretend to find in it, 
 of the agreement of the two sects upon the point in ques- 
 tion. Epiphanius tells us, as you think, in the second 
 paragraph of his first section about the Ebionites, " That 
 
 * Appendix to Charge, sec. 2. 
 
 f Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 1517. 
 
JLET. VI TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 Ebion borrowed his abominable rites (so you render 
 $t\vf>ot] from the Samaritans ; his opinion (ywp*?} from 
 tiie Nazarenes; his name from the Jews." In the 
 second section, as you understand him, he places the 
 whole difference between the Nazarenes and the Ebion- 
 ites, in a single circumstance, totally unconnected uith 
 the opinions about Christ. In the same section, you 
 say, he speaks of the two sects as inhabiting the same 
 country, and adds, that " agreeing together, they com- 
 municated of their perverseuess to each other."* 
 
 It. Now, Sir, in these quotations, I have to complain 
 partly of the want of critical discernment ; partly of 
 stratagem ; partly of unskilful interpretation : and I 
 affirm, that uot one of the passages alleged, is to your 
 purpose- 
 15. For the second paragraph of the first section, the 
 only clause in it of which you can a\ail yourself, is that 
 in which it is asserted, according to your translation, 
 
 that " Ebion took his opinion from the Nazareues."f 
 
 But here, Sir, is stratagem. Why is not the entire 
 clause produced ? Because the entire clause, would de- 
 feat the conclusion which it is brought to establish. 
 Does Ephiphanius say, that Ebion took his opinion 
 simply from the Nazarenes? He says it not; even if it 
 be admitted, that the word yropw is rightly rendered by 
 opinion. If opimon be indeed what is here signified by 
 7^*?, Epiphanius says that Ebion took his opinion 
 from the " the Oss&ans, the Nazor^ans, and the Nasa- 
 
 * Letter* to Dr Horsley, p. 15. 
 t Ibid. 
 
 18 
 
138 LETTERS IN REPL\ LET. VI. 
 
 raeans." The Nazorseans of Epiphanius, (Nfi) 
 were the Christian Nazarenes. But his Nasav^ans 
 were no Christians. They were a Jewish sect one of 
 the seven which were subsisting at the time of our 
 Lord's appearance ; the fifth in Epiphanius's enumera- 
 tion. The Ossseans, were the sixth of those seven sects 
 of Judaism. So that, if any thing is asserted in this 
 clause concerning the opinions of Ebion, it is, that they 
 were a mixture of the extravagancies of three sects ; two 
 Jewish, and one Christian. But his general assertion, 
 will never determine, to which of these three sources, any 
 particular opinion maintained by Ebion, is to be refer- 
 red. It will be probable, that this doctrine of our 
 Lord's humanity, was an accommodation of the old doc- 
 trine of the Nazarenes, to the prejudices of his Jewish 
 friends. For how will you prove, Sir, that Ebion, if he 
 taught the same opinions which you now maintain, was 
 not actuated by the same generous motives : a tender 
 charity for the Jews, whom he might propose, as you do, 
 to reconcile to the evangelick doctrine, by divesting the 
 doctrine of every thing properly evangelick ? 
 
 13. But I contend further, that the word ywpw, in this 
 passage of Epiphanius, is not rightly rendered by 
 opinion. It often indeed denotes opinion in good Greek 
 writers ; but it is not used in that sense here. That it is 
 not, appears from the subsequent part of the same sen- 
 tence ; in which ywpn is mentioned as something distinct 
 from yvuvic and o-yyxaraSwtf TQY tvoLyfiMw (perhaps we 
 should read euoyytMrwx) KI aVoroAWK nift Tr/riwf . " Ebion, 
 says Epiphanius, desired to bear the appellation of a 
 Christian, but not to adopt the practice of Christians, 
 nor their yvopn, nor their knowledge, nor their assent to 
 
LET. VL TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 to the evangelists and apostles, concerning the faith. 95 * 
 Now knowledge and assent concerning faith to the 
 evangelists and apostles, include religious opinion; 
 yvayof, therefore, being mentioned as distinct from these, 
 is not opinion. It seems to be rather used here, for 
 what is expressed in English by the word sentiment; a 
 thing which often modifies opinion, but itself is not opi- 
 nion. Of this use of the word, examples are not want- 
 ing. " Ebion, it is said, possessed the sentiments of 
 Ossseans, Nazarenes, and Nasaraeans." He resembled 
 these Christian and Jewish sectaries, in that illiberality 
 of sentiment, which inclined the Nazarenes, to think the 
 observance of the ritual law necessary to a Christian's 
 salvation, and disposed the Ossseans, and the Nasa- 
 raeans, to many senseless superstitions. But this re- 
 semblance is no proof, that he took his opinion of the 
 mere humanity of Christ, from the Christian Naza- 
 renes. 
 
 14. But if this passage is not sufficiently explicit, 
 the second section, you will tell me, is decisive. Un- 
 fortunately, the long passage which you have produced 
 from this section, wants to be set in order, before any 
 use can be made of it : and when we have made the 
 best of the present text, which I fear is too corrupt to be 
 perfectly restored without manuscripts, it will little serve 
 your purpose. Much indeed of the confusion arises, 
 from a false punctuation, which your own translation 
 sets in a most conspicuous light ; as a little remark which 
 
 yvawtv, xcu VM TOUT tuxyfoMev KJU V eMWfoAw mpi Trwus <rt/}>x.aikt.- 
 
LETTERS IN KEPLY LET. VI. 
 
 you have thrown in, points out the correction of it. 
 .... and first, he asserted that Christ was horn of 
 the commerce and seed of a man, namely Joseph, as 
 we signified above."* This assertion of Ebion's, had 
 not heen signified above : it is mentioned in this passage 
 for the first time. You remark, that these words, " as 
 we signified above," refer to the first words of the first 
 section : but in the first words of the first section, we 
 have no signification of Ebion's denial of the miraculous 
 conception, nor in any words previous to this clause of 
 the second section : and the reference cannot be to pre- 
 vious words, for that which no previous words contain. 
 The reference therefore, which is explicitly to some- 
 thing previous, can have no connexion, with the denial 
 of the miraculous conception, which is now mentioned 
 for the first time. It must connect however, with some- 
 thing in the writer's present narrative, or it hath no 
 meaning. Now in the words which immediately pre- 
 cede the clause, which regards Ebion's heterodoxy upon 
 the article of the conception, that is, in the initial clauses 
 of this section, Epiphanius actually repeats what he 
 had said before. With these clauses therefore, this re- 
 ference to the former part of his narrative is to be con- 
 nected ; and the intervening clause, regarding the con- 
 ception, should be set out as a parenthesis. I will now 
 present you with the Greek text properly pointed, ac- 
 companied with two translations ; your own on one 
 side, and mine upon the other ; that our readers, compa- 
 ring both with the original, may judge for themselves of 
 the propriety of each. 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 16. 
 
TO DR. PRIESTLEY. 
 
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1 [ :; LETTERS IN REPLY LET. Yl 
 
 15. The manner in which Ebion's opinion, concern- 
 cerning the conception of our Lord, is mentioned in pa- 
 renthesis, seems to exclude it from those principles, 
 which he borrowed from other sectaries. If those other 
 sectaries therefore were the Nazarenes, then this opin- 
 ion, as it should seem, was no principle with them ; 
 and this passage, like most of your quotations, contra. 
 diets what you have brought it up to prove. 
 
 16. You will perhaps object, that if Ephiphanius 
 meant to insinuate, that Ebion and the Nazarenes held 
 different opinions about Christ ; he would not have na- 
 med another thing, as the single point in which they 
 differed. Nor hath he done this. Having described 
 Ebion's doctrine, as a compilation of the extravagancies 
 of other sects, he says, he differed only in a single point. 
 That is, there was but a single point in his whole sys- 
 tem, in which he differed from all the sects from which 
 he borrowed : which was this, that his Judaism was of 
 the Samaritan cast. But it follows not from this, that 
 whatever he maintained besides, was to be found in the 
 doctrines of the Nazarenes, or of any other in particular, 
 of the various heresies of which the Ebionsean was 
 composed. 
 
 17. But, to deal sincerely, I must confess, that it is 
 not at all clear to me, that the Nazarenes are the sect 
 intended, in the beginning of this section, under the des- 
 cription of Ebion's contemporaries, from whom he bor- 
 rowed his principles. If they were not, this section 
 will neither afford any proof of your opinion, nor be 
 conclusive on the other side. The persons intended 
 are not named, otherwise than by the pronoun r7<yr : 
 and for this pronoun, if you examine the original text, 
 vou will be much at a loss to find an antecedent. This 
 
LET. VI. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 pronoun, used as it is here, as a relative, is generally to 
 be referred to the persons mentioned last before, in the 
 author's discourse. But in all the preceding part of 
 this discourse about the Ebionites, the Nazarenes are 
 no where mentioned, except in that sentence, in which 
 they are joined with the Ossseans and the Nasaraeans, 
 and at the very beginning of the chapter, where they 
 are intended by this same pronoun, as the sect described 
 in the chapter next preceding. The persons last men- 
 tioned in the present discourse, are the Jews and the 
 Samaritans : and of these the pronoun r*1*? may be red- 
 ditive. Ebion might be called their contemporary, if he 
 lived before the Jews entirely lost their consideration in 
 the world, as a religious sect ; and while the Samaritans 
 were yet subsisting as a distinct sect of Judaism ; he set 
 out from the same principles with them, because he 
 maintained the permanent obligation of the ritual law. 
 If this be the true exposition, of the two first clauses of 
 this section ; it is the purport of the parenthesis, which 
 follows them, to remark, that Ebion, even in that part 
 of his doctrine which could not be borrowed, either 
 from Jews or Samaritans, carried his desire of accom- 
 modating to Jewish principles, such a length, as to ac- 
 knowledge our Lord, for nothing more than a preacher 
 of righteousness. But this leads to no conclusion about 
 the faith of the Nazarenes. 
 
 18. 1 have sometimes thought, that the pronoun -role* 
 might be redditive, not of the Nazarenes singly, but of 
 all the sects which are mentioned in the preceding part 
 of the narrative, as furnishing the constituent parts of 
 Ebion's system ; namely, of the Jews, the Samaritans, 
 the Ossseans, the Nasarasans, the Nazarenes, the Cerin- 
 thians, and the Carpocratians. With all these, accord- 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. VI 
 
 ing to the confused chronology of this inaccurate writer, 
 Ebion, as a junior with an elder, was contemporary : 
 and he set out from the same principles with them ; in- 
 asmuch as all his principles were horrowed, some from 
 one of these sects, some from another : the only thing 
 which was peculiar to himself being this ; that the Juda. 
 ism which he practised, was of the Samaritan cast. In 
 this exposition of the pronoun T^WF, the importance of 
 the parenthesis must be to signify, that the mere human- 
 ity of Christ was made a principle by Ebion, although 
 it was no principle with those from whom he borrowed. 
 It was indeed a part of the Cerinthian doctrine, not as a 
 principle, but as a consequence from principles. The 
 principles of the Cerinthian doctrine were the principles 
 of the Oriental philosophy : and the denial of our Lord's 
 divinity, and of his miraculous conception, in the system 
 of Cerinthus, was a consequence of that cardinal princi- 
 ple of the Oriental philosophy, which put eternal enmi- 
 ty between God and every thing material. But with 
 Ebion, the denial of the miraculous conception, was 
 itself a first principle, independent of every thing else, 
 In this view of it again, the parenthesis leads to no con- 
 clusion concerning the Nazarenes. 
 
 19. Which exposition of the pronoun rvlw is to be 
 preferred, is a point upon which I can bring myself to 
 no fixed opinion. I very much suspect, as I have al- 
 ready observed, some considerable corruption of the 
 text : for, although Epiphauius is indeed a wretched 
 writer, the obscurity of this sentence, as it stands, is 
 more than mere bad writing Is apt to create. But ex- 
 pound the pronoun as you please, the passage will 
 be either against you, or at the best nothing to your 
 purpose. 
 
LET. VI. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 20. But in a subsequent sentence, Epiphanius speaks, 
 it seems, of the Ebionites, as inhabiting the same 
 country as the Nazarenes ;" and adds, " that agreeing 
 together, they communicated of their perverseness to 
 each other." It is true, that in the passage which you 
 have produced, Epiphanius speaks of the Ebionites, as 
 the near neigh hours of certain Nazarenes, and of a re- 
 semblance which the vicinity of situation produced but 
 the Nazarenes intended, were they the Christian Naza- 
 renes, or the Nasar^an Jews? They are called " the 
 lawless Nazarenes" [Naja^^c/ c< are/K0i]. The Chris- 
 tian Nazarenes, had nothing in their conduct, that might 
 render them deserving of this epithet. Their error was, 
 that they feared to use their liberty, not that they abused 
 it. The Nasaraan Jews, as Jews, were lawless in a 
 very eraphatick sense ; inasmuch as they renounced the 
 whole of the Mosaick law, except that they circumcised, 
 kept the Sabbath, and paid some regard to the stated 
 festivals. It was not, that they denied the authority of 
 Moses : but, by what may be gathered from Epipha- 
 irius's account of them, they pretended that the real 
 laws of Moses were lost, and that the Pentateuch of the 
 Jews was, in all but the historical parts, a spurious 
 work.* Upon these principles, they held themselves 
 released from all rites, but those which the history itself 
 confirmed. This sect was found chiefly in the region of 
 Basantis : and in a town called Cochaba, in the same 
 
 * This conjecture, which I formed from Epipbanius's account of this sect, I 
 have since found confirmed by Damascenus ; who says, that they held the Penta- 
 teuch of the Jews to be a spurious work, and pretended to have the original in 
 their own hands. T*,- ft TJI? rrttlaCltu^it x*$*c * avau \ltrtus fayfjuutfxfi, HAMK A, 
 Joan. Uamasctn. 
 
 19 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. VI. 
 
 region, Epiphanius places the original residence of 
 Ebion. These NasarJEans therefore, were neighbours 
 of the Ebionites, and they seem to be the people intend- 
 ed in this passage. 
 
 21. It may perhaps seem strange, that any resem- 
 blance should be pretended, between a Christian sect 
 which adhered to the Mosaick law, and a Jewish sect 
 which rejected it. But the first Ebionites, if Epipha- 
 irius is to be trusted in his description of them, retained 
 nothing more of genuine Judaism, than the Nasarseans. 
 Whatever more they had which looked like Judaism, it 
 was borrowed from the Samaritan superstition. 
 
 22. But whoever these lawless Nazarenes might be, 
 their agreement with the Ebionites, is an addition of 
 your own, founded on a misinterpretation of the origi- 
 nal. Epiphanius answers for nothing more, than some 
 general resemblance. His words are to this effect 
 " From hence he began to propagate his pernicious doc- 
 trine ; namely, from the same parts which it hath before 
 been said those lawless Nazarenes inhabited. For be- 
 ing contiguous, he to them, and they to him, each im- 
 parted to the other of his own particular impiety. And 
 yet, in certain things they differ; but in evil disposition, 
 they were counterparts one to the other."* What you 
 took for agreement is contiguity of situation ; and the 
 resemblance comes at last to nothing more, than an un- 
 defined general resemblance, with specifick differences. 
 
 01 ttvtfjt.it 
 
LET. VI. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 An entire likeness is not pretended in any circumstance, 
 but the common depravity of disposition. 
 
 23. To these passages from the chapter about the 
 Ebionites, you subjoin another, from the 7th section of 
 the preceding chapter, which treats of the Nazarenes. 
 He says, that they were Jews in all respects, except 
 that they believed in Christ; but I do not know whether 
 they hold the miraculous conception or not."* This 
 you say, " amounts to no more than a doubt, which he 
 afterwards abandoned, by asserting that the Ebionites 
 held the same opinion concerning Christ with the Na- 
 zarenes ; which opinion he expressly states to be their 
 belief, that Jesus was a mere man, and the son of Jo- 
 8eph."f I lameh^ Sir, that, in justice to my own cause, 
 I must here openly complain of the perverseness of your 
 translation. When you cite an ancient author, why will 
 you make him say more or less, than he hath said for 
 himself? Why not translate literally ? that your readers 
 might see, how far your account of things is supported 
 by express testimony, how far it is mere inference ; and 
 be enabled to estimate the degree of probability, with 
 which each inference is accompanied. " they be- 
 lieved in Christ ; but I do not know, whether they held 
 the miraculous conception or not." Is this a translation 
 of the words of Epiphanius ? It is not. It is an artful 
 substitution of an inference of your own, from the au- 
 thor's words, for the words of the author. I, Sir, in 
 my Charge had furnished you with a more exact trans- 
 latiou.J Why would you not adopt it; unless you 
 
 Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 17. 
 Charge I. sec. 10. 
 
148 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. V* 
 
 could have made a better of your own, or could have 
 shown its impropriety ? " Concerning Christ," says 
 Epiphanius, " 1 cannot say with certainty (or, I am not 
 informed to say, ** oil& tiVtjr) whether they too, carried 
 away with the impiety of the aforementioned Cerinthus 
 and Merinthus, think him a mere man ; or affirm, as the 
 truth is, that he was begotten of Mary, by the Holy 
 Ghost." To affirm, " as the truth is, that Christ was 
 begotten of Mary, by the Holy Ghost," in Epiphanius's 
 sense of those words, was to affirm much more than the 
 miraculous conception, in any sense in which an Unita- 
 rian might affirm it. It was to affirm our Lord's divi- 
 nity. Epiphanius's confession, that he had no ground 
 to assert, that the Nazarenes held the contrary opinion, 
 amounts to much more than a doubt. It amounts to an 
 unwilling confession of a base accuser ; who had not the 
 liberality to absolve in explicit terms, when he found 
 himself unable to convict. As you have not yet produ- 
 ced the passage, in which Epiphanius asserts, that the 
 Nazarenes and Ebionites held one opinion concerning 
 Christ ; your assertion, that he afterwards abandoned 
 this doubt, or this acknowledgment, is destitute of proof ; 
 and it is the fair conclusion from this passage of Epi- 
 phanius, that the Nazarenes were orthodox in their 
 opinions concerning Christ. This I showed at large 
 in my Charge.* You now attempt to elude my ar- 
 gument, by setting up an unfair and sophisticated 
 translation of the passage, upon which my reasoning 
 was founded, f 
 
 * Charge I. set. 10, 11. 
 
 f In the third of his Second Lett o roe, Dr Priestley has produced a pas- 
 sage from another part of Epiphanius's work, his chapter against the Arbus, 
 
LET. VL TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 94. Were the identity of the Nazarenes and Ebion- 
 ites clearly established, still you could turn it to no ad- 
 vantage, without making good your other assertion, 
 that the Nazarenes were originally the very same with 
 the Hebrew Christians, or the members of the primitive 
 church of Jerusalem. But of tliis I cannot find that 
 you have brought a shadow of proof, except what you 
 pretend to derive from the testimony of Origen ; which 
 I shall consider in my next letter. You talk indeed of 
 the antiquity of the Nazarenes you bid me observe, 
 " that they were prior to Ebion,"* of whom you say* 
 
 which clearly proves that the Ebionites nml the Nazarenes, in the judgment of 
 that writer, were different sects; in as much as Loth arc- separately mentioned. 
 Dr Priestley perhaps may say, that whatever distinction this passage may prove, 
 between the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, upon the whole of their doctrine ; it 
 clearly proves that they held one opinion concerning Christ, which is sufficient 
 for his purpose. It must be acknowledged, that, in this passage, the Nazarenes 
 are mentioned together with the Ebionites, as sects in error ia their opinions 
 about Christ, and confuted by the beginning of St John's Gospel ; still I maintain, 
 that, in that part of his work, where he professedly treats of the heresy of the 
 Naztrenes, Epiphanius expresses a doubt of their heterodoxy upon the article of 
 our Lord's divinity, in such terms, as ought to leave no doubt upon the mind of 
 his reader, of their orthodoxy in that particular. And what he says of them, 
 when they are only incidentally mentioned, ought to have much less weight than 
 what he says, or shows himself averse to say, in that part of his work, where the 
 errors of that sect are the immediate subject. 
 
 Dr Priestley, allowing Epiphanius to have been "in some things weak enough," 
 exults however, in the testimony which, in his chapter against the Arians, he 
 bears against the Nazarenes as a sect, which, together with the Ebionites, "held 
 the doctrine of the simple humanity of Christ." And he says, that in this Epipha* 
 nius "stands uncontradicted by any authority whatever." Dr Priestley is mis- 
 taken ; rashly venturing to assert, that where no authority is known to him, none 
 is extant. Epiphanius is in this contradicted, not only by himself, as I have already 
 shown, but by a writer of far superior credit; by Joannes Damascenus, who, in 
 his book De HxresibiiSy says expressly, that the Nazarenes confessed Jesus to 
 be the Son of God. Damascenus would not have said of Dr Priestley, or of any 
 one maintaining the simple humanity of Christ, that he confesses Josus to be 
 the Son of God. 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsey, p. 18, 
 
LKTTKIiS i\ KKFLY LKT. VI 
 
 that < c he was himself cotemporary with the apostle 
 John;"f an d you tell me, that in allowing that the 
 Jewish Christians were distinguished by the name of 
 
 Nazarenes from the time that they were settled 
 
 in the country beyond the sea of Galilee, I carry the 
 opinions of the Ebionites, as universally held by the 
 Jewish Christians, to the very age of the apostles."f 
 When you do me the honour to argue from my con- 
 cessions, I wish, Sir, you would report them with more 
 fidelity and exactness. I have allowed no such anti- 
 quity to the Nazarenes, as you would claim for them 
 upon the ground of my concessions. I said not, that 
 the Jewish Christians were distinguished by the name 
 of Nazarenes, from the time when the first settlements 
 were made beyond the sea of Galilee. I said, that the 
 sect of the Nazarenes first arose, when those of the 
 Jewish Christians, who pertinaciously retained their 
 Judaism, made their final settlement in those parts, in 
 consequence of Adrian's severe edicts, by which the 
 Jews were banished from the ancient site of Jerusalem 
 and the adjacent region. Thus, I carried not the opin- 
 ions of the Ebionites up to the apostolick age : but I 
 fixed the rise of a prior sect, to an epoch little earlier 
 than the middle of the second century. I maintain, 
 ed, that the Nazarenes, at that time, separated from 
 the main body of the Jewish Christians, and appeared 
 as a distinct sect. It is not allowed by me, that from 
 that time, or in any age of the church, the whole 
 body of the Jewish Christians were distinguished by 
 the name of Nazarenes." If any such concession may 
 
 Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 18. t lbid > P- 2l 
 
LET. VI TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 seem to be implied hi the expressions, in which I speak 
 of the Nazarenes in my Charge, (I. sec. 12. ) I disa- 
 TOW it. Appealing against your assertions, to the sense 
 of the learned and reverend assembly, which I had the 
 honour to address ; I rather sought expressions, which 
 might convey the general part of an opinion common to 
 us all, than such as might more precisely mark the par- 
 ticulars of my own. That the name of Nazarene was 
 descriptive of a heresy, I was confident none in that as- 
 sembly doubted. I was not equally confident but that 
 some might doubt, whether that heresy, from the time 
 the name was used, embraced not the main body of the 
 Jewish Christians. Whatever doubts might subsist 
 about the extent, 1 was confident there could be but 
 one opinion, in that assembly, about the chronology of 
 the name. But Ebion, you say, was contemporary with 
 St John. To that circumstance, when it is proved, I 
 shall be disposed to give great attention. I believe the 
 opinion hath no foundation, but in the foolish story told 
 by Epiphauius, of St John and Ebion in the bath. The 
 same is told by other writers, of St John and Cerinthus ; 
 and it hath altogether the air of fiction. But, suppose I 
 were to allow the highest antiquity to these Nazarenes ; 
 suppose that, with you, I were to place them in the 
 apostolick age ; would this oblige me to allow, that they 
 were the true members of the primitive church ? Had 
 not the apostolick age its schisms and its heresies? 
 The Simonians, the Nicolaitans, the Cerinthians : were 
 not all these contemporary with the apostles ? Were 
 they therefore sound members of the church of Jerusa- 
 lem? Be pleased, Sir, to consider this question. 
 
 T am, &c. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY ET. Vh 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 1. Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical TJieology, speaks 
 as if he thought the name Ebionites had been imposed 
 by the apostles themselves, upon those who disowned 
 our Lord's divinity ; which necessarily implies, that, in 
 his opinion, the sect and the name were of the apostolick 
 age. " Our Saviour's own first heralds," says Eusebius, 
 named those Ebionites -- who acknowledged 
 not the Godhead of the Son."* Our Saviour's own first 
 heralds, must be the preachers, it should seem, of his 
 own appointment ; namely, the apostles : and that they 
 are the persons intended, is the more probable, for the 
 distinction which seems to be made between these first 
 "heralds and Ecclesiastical fathers, who are afterwards 
 mentioned. Strenuously as you assert the antiquity of 
 the Ebionites, you have no where, that I remember, al- 
 leged this testimony. You were aware perhaps, that 
 were it good for the antiquity of the sect, it would be 
 equally good for the reason and origin of the name : for 
 my own part, I am not inclined to avail myself of it ; I 
 consider it as a hasty assertion of a writer, over zealous 
 to overwhelm his adversary by authorities : I mention 
 it only, to protest against any use, which you may here- 
 after be disposed to make of it, in a dearth of proof of 
 Ebion's antiquity. Should you urge me with any part 
 of this testimony, I shall have a right to insist, that 
 
 ltt ft 
 
 CMlr;)t5tXKv7? TK? fl/A fJLtV 8&V Afi>CV/*C tdtvctt, XA? TK oW^JJ TO ffCfft* ft* 
 
 , T;V ft TO UK Ziflrii*. /wi *T>7*?. Ecc. Theol. lib. i. c. 14. 
 
LET. VI. TO Dll PRIESTLEY. 
 
 you accept the whole Should you produce it in proof, 
 that an Unitarian sect existed in the apostolick age ; 
 you will be obliged to allow, that it is equally a proof, 
 that the Unitarian doctrine was expressly condemned 
 by the apostles. It will be no concern of mine, to 
 disprove the antiquity of Ebion, however I may dis- 
 believe it, so long as the very ground of his claim seals 
 bis condemnation so long as his pretentious to an 
 early existence, rest on a presumption, that he had the 
 honour to be the object of apostolical censure. 
 
 2. Upon the story of St John and the Hseresiarch, 
 in the publick baths at Ephesus, I passed judgment 
 hastily, when I spake of it as a foolish story, carry- 
 ing altogether the air of fiction. I ought to have re- 
 collected, that Iren&us* vouches strongly for so much 
 of it as he relates. He even cites the testimony of 
 Polycarp, in terms which may be understood to imply, 
 that he was himself one of many, still living when he 
 wrote, who had heard the story from the mouth of 
 Polycarp. The testimony of Ireu^us is hardly to be 
 disbelieved; the testimony of Polycarp is irresistible. 
 But the story, which Irenaeus relates after Polycarp, 
 he relates of St John and Cerinthus. It makes no- 
 thing therefore for the antiquity of Ebion. As re- 
 lated of him, with the addition of many improbable 
 circumstances not mentioned by Iren^us, it may be 
 deemed a fiction.f 
 
 * Lib. iii. 3. 
 
 t Dr Priestley, in the third of his Second Letters to me, to corroborate the 
 testimony of Epiphanius, alleges that of Jerome ; who he says, " mentions the 
 Ebionites, not only as a sect, but a flourishing sect, in the time of St John." But 
 Jerome makes no such mention of the Ebionites. He says, that St John wrote h*9 
 
 20 
 
LETTEUS IN REPLY LET. VII 
 
 LETTER SEVENTH. 
 
 Continuation of Reply to Dr Priestley's Second Of 
 the argument from Origen. That it rests on two 
 passages in the books against Celsus. The first 
 misinterpreted by Dr Priestley in a very important 
 point. No argument to be drawn from the two 
 passages in connexion. Origen convicted of two 
 false assertions in the first passage. The opinions 
 of the first age, not to be concluded from the opin- 
 ions of Origen. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 IN failure of all other proof of your supposed identity 
 of the Ebionites and Nazarenes, you still appeal to the 
 testimony of Origen. You have however, given a new 
 turn to this part of your argument. Your appeal was 
 originally* to a pretended acknowledgment of Origen's, 
 that the Nazarenes and the Ebionites were the same 
 people. But being made sensible,! how difficult it must 
 be to find an acknowledgment of this identity, in a 
 
 Gospel in opposition to Cerinthus, and other hereticks, and 'principally the doc- 
 trine of the Ebionites (not then flourishing, but) tune conturgens, then making 
 its first appearance. This I readily allow ; for what was afterwai-ds the doctrine 
 of the Ebionites, was first propagated by the Cerinthian Gnosticks. 
 
 * Hist, of Corrup. vol. i. p. 7. 
 
 t Se the Monthly Review for Juae, 1783, and for September, 1785. 
 
LET. MI. TO DR. PRIESTLEY. 
 
 writer who never once names the Nazarenes ; you aban- 
 don that project, and in the passages which were at first 
 cited to establish this supposed identity, you have at 
 last the good fortune to discover an immediate proof of 
 your main proposition, that the primitive faith of the 
 Hebrew church was Unitarian. Your method is, to 
 trace from Origen the faith of the Jewish Christians in 
 his age, and from their faith, to infer that of their an- 
 cestors. 
 
 2. The strength of this argument, lies in two passa- 
 ges in the books against Celsus ; which are very distant 
 from each other : for the one is in the second, the other 
 in the fifth book ; and yet they must be taken in con- 
 nexion, to give any colour to your reasoning. You set 
 it off indeed to great advantage, when, appealing to the 
 first of these passages, you say, that k appears, and that 
 I deny not that it appears, " that the unbelieving Jews 
 called all those of their race, who were Christians, by 
 the name of Ebionites, in the time of Origen ;" and that 
 " Origen's own words are too express, to admit any 
 doubt of this."* Truly, Sir, I was not likely to deny 
 a groundless assertion, before it was made by my anta- 
 gonist ; and you now make it for the first time ; at least 
 I remember nothing like it in your former publications. 
 I believe I was myself the first to bring forward this 
 passage from the second book against Celsus. In your 
 history, you have appealed to Origeu's acknowledg- 
 ment, of the identity of the Ebionites and Nazarenes, 
 without any reference to particular passages. I produ- 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 11 
 
156 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. VII. 
 
 ced this passage, as of all that I could recollect, the 
 most for your purpose.* I produced it in order to 
 show, that when it is rightly understood, it is nothing 
 to your purpose : for, although the Christians of the 
 circumcision, in general, are in this passage called 
 Ebionites, it is according to a peculiar definition of the 
 word, which includes not what by other writers, always, 
 and by Origen himself in other places, is included in 
 the notion of the Ebion^an doctrine ; namely, a denial 
 of our Lord's divinity. The Nazarenes therefore, might 
 be Ebionites, in the sense which is here given to that 
 word, although they doubted not our Lord's divinity, 
 and were quite another set of people than the proper 
 Ebionites. I acknowledge therefore, that in this pas- 
 sage, " Origen says of the Jewish Christians of his 
 own time, that they were Ebionites."t These were my 
 very words. But I said not, that they were the unbe- 
 lieving Jews, who imposed this name upon the convert- 
 ed : and now that you have been pleased to say it for 
 me, I deny it ; and I maintain^ that Origeu's words are 
 too express to admit a doubt, that you have mistaken 
 his meaning. The entire passage of Origenf is to this 
 
 effect " they of the Jews who believe in Christ, 
 
 have not abandoned the law of their ancestors ; for they 
 live according to it ; bearing a name, which corres- 
 ponds with the poor expectations which the law holds 
 
 * Charge I. sec. 15. 
 f Ibid. 
 
 ^ "O; CLTTO Jxfauav a? "[mmv Trtwjsvltt x.:tlKt\ot7raurt Toy TraflpKt vo/uoy @JKsrt 
 
 t^ luff etiflov, rraw/usi TC x*7c THV txfoxw 7f]ce%tktt TX vtfty ytytwfttvoi. f.iav tt 
 ^ 5r7c? Trap* Ixfojois xstAs/7at/, xou^ E&tcvouct %pxfAaOi?>iytv 01 CLTTQ IXJSUK'I TCV Iwsy 
 Origen in Celsum, p. 56. edit. Spencer. 
 
LET. rZT. TO DR PRIESTLEY 
 
 out.* For a beggar is called among the Jews, (that 
 is, in the Hebrew language,) Ebion And they of the 
 Jews who have received Jesus as the Christ, go by the 
 name of Ebion#:ans." The converted Jews went, it is 
 said, by this name; but where have you found that 
 the unbelieving Jews imposed it ? Not in Origen, Sir ; 
 but in the Latin translation of Gelenius. Attend to the 
 reasons assigned by Origen for the name, and you can- 
 not but perceive, that it could never be imposed by 
 Jews it was given in contempt : the objects of the 
 contempt were observers of the Mosaick law ; and the 
 cause of the contempt was, the mean opinion which was 
 entertained, by those who gave the name, of expecta- 
 tions built on legal righteousness. Could these, Sir, be 
 the sentiments of unconverted Jews ? 
 
 3. It would have been a circumstance of much ad- 
 vantage to your argument, which I doubt not you well 
 understand, that the unconverted Jews should have been 
 the coiners of the name : because it would have follow- 
 ed, that the name was originally common to the whole 
 body of the Hebrew Christians. Then since Origen, 
 in the other passage in the fifth book, makes, as you 
 observe, only two sorts of Ebionites, the one believing, 
 the other denying the miraculous conception, the de- 
 duction might have seemed not unfair, that Origen 
 knew of no Hebrew Christians that were not Uni- 
 tarians. 
 
 4?. You will say, perhaps, that since we have Ori- 
 gen's testimony for the universality of the name, the ar- 
 gument from the two passages, taken in connexion, may 
 
 * Literally, being named after the poverty of the few in expectation, 
 
f 38 LETTERS N REPLY LET. V1L 
 
 still proceed. If 1 could admit the universality of the 
 name upon Origeu's testimony, I should insist, that his 
 description of the twofold Ebionites, in the fifth book, is 
 not exactly what you take it to be. I should remark, 
 that the words, fyw&>{ j/jw, " in like manner as we do," 
 make an important branch of the character of the milder 
 sort '< these," says he, " are the double Ebion- 
 ites ; who either confess Jesus born of a virgin, in like 
 manner as we do, or think he was not born in that man- 
 ner, but like other men."* I should maintain, that the 
 words " in like manner as we do," are equivalent to the 
 words " as the truth is," in Epiphanius's description 
 of that belief in the miraculous conception, which he 
 says the Nazarenes, for aught he knew to the contrary, 
 might hold ; and I should contend, that Origen affirms, 
 but with less equivocation, of these better Ebionites, 
 what Epiphanius reluctantly confesses of the Naza- 
 renes, that they held the Catholick doctrine concerning 
 the nature of our Lord. And in this manner, the words 
 of Origen seem to have been understood, both by Gro- 
 tius and Vossius ; when they allow, that the Nazarenes, 
 though orthodox in this part of their faith, are included, 
 in this passage of Origen's fifth book, in the appellation 
 of Ebionites. I should contend, that if the former pas- 
 sage, proves the name general for the whole body of 
 the Hebrew Christians, the latter equally proves, that 
 the notion of an Unitarian was not necessarily included 
 
 * ECTV A TMC wau^ TOV IxffBV eWoJf^o^Woi, f Tr&ea. <n/?o Xysutvot ttv&t 
 irn ft [KX]A TOV IxJcuav voftov, u>; T& larfauax TTM&H, fiusv *3"eXov?r wot ft twit cf 
 
 a; Tf Xci^V? *y/M/TK' Tl TT 9).*MyUCC TO/J 
 
 y, 272. 
 
LET. V2L TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 in it. The connexion therefore of these two passages, 
 makes little for your purpose ; since the second serves 
 but to overthrow the argument, which might be built 
 upon the first. It justifies what I advanced in my 
 Charge, upon a presumption that the first, singly, would 
 be made the foundation of the argument from Origen ; 
 that the word Ebionite, in Origen's time, or at least in 
 his use of it, had outgrown its original meaning. 
 
 5. In this manner, I should combat your argument 
 from these two passages ; were it not that I think too 
 lightly of the testimony of Origen, in what relates to the 
 Hebrew Christians, to be solicitous to turn it to my own 
 advantage. Let his words be taken as you understand 
 them ; and so far as the faith of the Hebrew Christians 
 of his own time is in question, let him appear as an evi- 
 dence on your side 1 shall take, what you may thiuk 
 a bold step ; I shall tax the veracity of your witness 
 of this Origen : I shall tell you, that whatever may be 
 the general credit of his character, yet in this business, 
 the particulars of his deposition are to be little regard- 
 ed, when he sets out with the allegation of a notorious 
 falsehood. He alleges of the Hebrew Christians in 
 general, that they had not renounced the Mosaick law. 
 The assertion served him for an answer, to the invec- 
 tive which Celsus had put in the mouth of a Jew, 
 against the converted Jews, as deserters of the laws and 
 customs of their ancestors. The answer was not the 
 worse for wanting truth, if his heathen antagonist was 
 not sufficiently informed, in the true distinctions of 
 Christian sects, to detect the falsehood But in all the 
 time which he spent in Palestine, had Origen never con- 
 versed with Hebrew Christians of another sort? Had he 
 met with no Christians of Hebrew families, of the church 
 
400 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. VII. 
 
 of Jerusalem ? Was the Mosaick law observed, was 
 it tolerated, in Origen's days, in the church of Jerusa- 
 lem, when that church was under the government of 
 bishops of the uncircumcision ? The fact is, that after 
 the demolition of Jerusalem by Adrian, the majority of 
 the Hebrew Christians, who must have passed for Jews 
 with the Roman magistrates, had they continued to 
 adhere to the Mosaick law, which to this time they had 
 observed more from habit than from any principle of 
 conscience, made no scruple to renounce it, that they 
 might be qualified to partake in the valuable privileges 
 of the jElian colony, from which Jews were excluded. 
 Having thus divested themselves of the form of Judaism, 
 which to that time they had born, they removed from 
 Pella and other towns to which they had retired, and 
 settled in great numbers at JElia. The few, who re- 
 tained a superstitious veneration for their law, remained 
 in the north of Galilee, where they were joined perhaps 
 by new fugitives of the same weak character, from Pa- 
 lestine. And this was the beginning of the sect of the 
 Nazarenes. But from this time, whatever Origen may 
 pretend, to serve a purpose, the majority of the Hebrew 
 Christians forsook their law, and lived in communion 
 with the Gentile bishops, of the new modelled church 
 of Jerusalem ; for the name was retained, though Jeru- 
 salem was no more, and the seat of the bishop was at 
 AH this I affirm with the less hesitation, being 
 
 * See Dr Priestley's objections to this representation of facts, in the fourth of 
 his second Letters to me, ami my Defence, in luy Remarks oa his second Letters, 
 p. 2. c. ii. 
 
LET. VII. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 supported by the authority of Mosheim ;* from whom 
 indeed I first learnt to rate the testimony of Origen, 
 in this particular question, at its true value.f 
 
 6. It is in defiance therefore of the fact, and I fear of 
 his own knowledge of the fact, that Origen affirms of tha 
 Hebrew Christians in general, that they lived in the 
 observance of the Mosaick law : and it must be equally 
 in defiance of the fact, that he affirms, that they were 
 all in general called Ebiouitcs : for he pretends not that 
 this name generally belonged to them, otherwise than 
 as Judaizers. His expressions in the passage in the 
 fifth book, seem to imply a retractation of both these 
 assertions ; for there, he speaks only of some, who, with 
 the profession of Christianity, retained the practice of 
 Judaism. These some, he says, were the Ebionites ; 
 and, what is more, he describes these Ebionites, not 
 indeed as universally Unitarians, but as despicable 
 wretched here ticks, whose extravagancies could bring 
 no disgrace upon the Christian church, of which they 
 were no part. Were the Hebrew Christians, living in 
 communion with the bishop of Jerusalem, in the days of 
 Origen, no part of the true church of Christ ? If they 
 were a part of it, in Origen's own judgment they were 
 no Ebionites. " I wonld not believe this witness upon 
 his oath," says Mosheim ? " vending, as he manifestly 
 does, such flimsy lies.^f 
 
 * De rebus Christianorura ante Constantinum. Sxc. ii. sec. 38. Note.* 
 
 f See his Dissertation about Ebion, which is the tenth in order in the first VO- 
 
 lume of a Collection, entitled, Distertationet ad flistoriam EccletiasUcam per 
 
 tinentea. 
 
 $ Ego huic testi, etianui jarato, qui tarn manifesto fumos vemlit, me non 
 
 Crediturum ees confirmo. Mosheim de Ebione. src. x, See the Tecaeit of 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. Til. 
 
 7. I may now, Sir, without damage to my cause, 
 freely make you a present of the whole testimony of 
 Origen, not only as it is given by him, but as it is inter- 
 preted by you. As it is given by him, it states, that the 
 Hebrew Christians in his time, were generally Judaizers: 
 as interpreted by you, it states, that in his time, they 
 were generally Unitarian. But if this testimony were 
 more unexceptionable than it is, and this sense of the 
 testimony less doubtful, what evidence would it afford, 
 that the first Hebrew Christians were Unitarians in the 
 time of the apostles ? 
 
 8. You pretend not, that this would follow by neces- 
 sary consequence ; but you say, if the Jewish Chris, 
 tians were universally Ebionites in the time of Origen, 
 the probability is, that they were very generally so, in 
 the time of the apostles."* Whence should this pro- 
 bability arise ? From this general maxim, it seems : that 
 whole bodies of men, do not soon change their opin- 
 ion."! You are indeed, Sir, the very last person, who 
 might have been expected to form conclusions upon an 
 historical question, from mere theory, in defiance of the 
 experience of mankind in defiance of the experience of 
 our own country and our own times. How long is it, 
 since the whole body of dissenters in this kingdom, (the 
 single sect of the Quakers excepted,) took their stand- 
 ard of orthodoxy from the opinions of Calvin ? Where 
 shall we now find a dissenter, except perhaps among 
 
 Origen defended by Dr Priestley, and further impugned by me, in the fourth ef 
 Dr Priestley's second Letters to me, and iu my Remarks on the second Letters, 
 p. 2. c. i. 
 
 Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 21. 
 
 t IWd. 
 
LET. VII. TO UR PRIESTLEY. 163 
 
 the dregs of Methodism, who would not think it au af- 
 front to be taken for a Calvinist ?* 
 
 9. 1 now, Sir, take my leave of your argument from 
 the Nazarenes. I trust I have shown, that, although it 
 is the chief strength of your cause, it was well entitled 
 to a place among my specimens of insufficient proof, of 
 which it was the fourth in order. Before I proceed to 
 examine other parts of the evidence, by which you think 
 to establish the high antiquity of the Unitarian doctrine ; 
 give me leave to remind you, that, although you have 
 overlooked it, a very positive proof is at this day extant 
 in the world ; that the divinity of Christ was the belief 
 of the very first Christians. This shall be the subject 
 of my next letter. 
 
 I am, &e. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 A learned correspondent of mine, an eminent divine of 
 the church of Scotland, a Calvinist,f and by consequence, 
 a serious and devout believer in the Catholick doctrine 
 of the Trinity; hath remarked to me, that your assertion, 
 that the Nazarenes were the first Hebrew Christians, 
 might have had some colour given to it, from the history 
 of the accusation of St Paul before Felix, in the Acts of 
 the Apostles. St Paul was charged upon that occasion, 
 by Turtullus the orator, as he is called, as a ringleader 
 
 * Of the numbers of the Calvinists among the dissenters of the present dar, 
 seethe fourth of Dr Priestley's second Letters, and my Remarks, p. 1. c. iv. 
 
 f The persoa meant, was my maternal uncle, the Rev. Robert Hamilton, D.D. 
 maujr years professor of divinity in the college of Edinburgh. 
 
LL/ITER3 IN RKPLY LET. VlL 
 
 " of the sect of the JVazarenes :" whence it might have 
 been argued, that this was the name, which Christians 
 in general at that time bore. This argument, I think, 
 is far more specious, than any you have produced for 
 yourself ; but it is only an instance, by which it may be 
 seen how easy it is, to frame arguments, in that oblique 
 kind in which you so much delight, which may give a 
 false colouring to things, and impose upon the Ignorant 
 or heedless. It is for this purpose, 1 believe, that it is 
 produced by my learned and much honoured correspon- 
 dent ; not as a proof which, had it been set up by you, 
 would have convinced, or even staggered, either him or 
 me ; it only proves, that in the infancy of Christianity, 
 Christians, among the unbelieving Jews, who consider- 
 ed them as an heretical sect in their own religion, went 
 by the name of Nazarenes, as followers of the Naza- 
 rene ; for that was the appellation which, in contempt, 
 they gave our Lord himself, from the obscure village to 
 which his family belonged. But while the Christians 
 were called Nazarenes by the unbelieving Jews, they 
 were called among themselves TJie Brethren, They of 
 the Faith 9 and The Faith; till at length, when they 
 became more numerous, and received a large accession 
 of converts from the Gentiles, Christians became the 
 general name ; and the Hebrew Christians, who still 
 perhaps bore the name of Nazarenes among the Jews, 
 were distinguished among Christians by the names of 
 The Hebrews, and They of the Circumcision. 1 still 
 therefore abide by my assertion, that the name of Naza- 
 rene was never heard of in the church, that is, among 
 Christians themselves, as descriptive of a sect, (as a 
 general name for the whole fraternity of believers, it 
 was never heard of in the church at all,) but as descrip- 
 
LET. nr. TO DH PRIESTLEY. 
 
 tive of a sect, it was never heard of before the final de- 
 struction of Jerusalem by Adrian ; when it became the 
 specifick name of the Judaizers, who at that time sepa- 
 rated from the church of Jerusalem, and settled in the 
 north of Galilee. The name was taken from the coun- 
 try in which they settled ; but it seems to have been 
 given in contempt, and not without allusion to the earlier 
 application of it, by the Jews, to the Christians in gene- 
 ral : the intent of it was, to signify that these Judaizers, 
 who were for imposing the yoke of the Mosaick law 
 upon the brethren of the uncircumcision, knew so little 
 of the spirit of the gospel, that they were only to be 
 considered as a sect of Jews ; and were undeserving of 
 any more honourable name, than that by which the un- 
 believing Jews, of the apostolick age, had been accus- 
 tomed to express their contempt for the then new and 
 little family of Christ; that they could not be more 
 properly described, than as heretical Jews, living in the 
 poorest village of fhe poorest province. 
 
166 LBTTERS rif REPLY LET. 
 
 LETTER EIGHTH. 
 
 *3 positive proof still extant, that our Lord's divinity 
 was the belief of the very first Christians. The 
 Epistle of St Barnabas not the work of an apostle, 
 tut a production of the apostolick age. Cited as such 
 by Dr Priestley. The author a Christian of the He- 
 brews. A believer in our Lord's divinity. Writes 
 to Christians of the Hebrews concurring in the same 
 belief. 
 
 DEAR SIR. 
 
 I AM to produce a positive proof, that the divinity 
 of our Lord was the belief of the very first Christians. 
 Give me leave then to ask your opinion of that book, 
 which hath been current in the church from the very 
 first ages, under the title of The Epistle of St Barnabas. 
 It is quoted, you know, by Clemens Alexandrinus, not 
 to mention later writers, as the composition of Barnabas 
 the apostle. Take no alarm, Sir I shall not claim a 
 place for it in the canon I shall not contend, that any 
 apostle was its author I am well persuaded of the 
 contrary : but the reasons which persuade me, are such 
 as ought to have no weight with you, if you will be true 
 to your own principles. The style is indeed embarras- 
 sed and undignified ; the reasoning is often unnatural 
 and weak ; texts of the Old Testament, are drawn by 
 violence to allegorical senses, which are inadmissible : 
 
LET. rill TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 as when Moses, encouraging the Israelites to take pos- 
 session of the promised land, is supposed to exhort the 
 Jews to embrace the Christian religion ; and in the 
 description of Canaan, as a land flowing with milk and 
 honey, the land is our Saviour's body ; the milk and 
 honey, are the doctrines and promises of the gospel 
 the attempt to find evangelical types in the Jewish 
 rites, is injudiciously conducted ; the essential part of a 
 rite, which was of divine appointment, is often superfi- 
 cially treated ; and the supposed sense of subordinate 
 ceremonies, and those very often of human institution 
 and of no significance, is pursued with a trifling exact- 
 ness : thus, in the exposition of the red heifer, and in 
 that of the scape goat, the stress is principally laid upon 
 circumstances, about which the divine law is silent. 
 But what may least of all be reconciled with (lie apos- 
 tolick spirit, is that strange cabalistick process, by 
 which the name of Jesus, and the cross, are drawn from 
 the number of Abraham's armed domesticks ; and the 
 great credit which the author gives himself for such dis- 
 coveries. My notion of inspiration, will not allow me 
 to believe, that an inspired apostle could be the writer 
 of such a book, and be vain of having written it your 
 principles, leave you at liberty to be less scrupulous 
 you, who have convicted St Paul of reasoning to preca- 
 rious conclusions,* may easily admit, that St Barnabas, 
 the companion of St Paul, might reason from false 
 premises you, who think that one apostle " has strain- 
 ed his imagination very much/ ? f to find analogies be- 
 
 * Hist, of Corrup. vol. ji. p. 370, 
 | Ibid, vol. i. p. 24. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. VIII 
 
 tween the rites of Judaism, and something in Christian, 
 ity, may easily suppose, that another apostle, from the 
 same motive, a desire of reconciling the Jews to Chris- 
 tianity may have strained much more, to make the 
 analogy much more complete. I can therefore see no 
 reason, why you should not receive what is called the 
 Epistle of St Barnabas, extravagant and nonsensical a* 
 it is in many parts, for the genuine work of Barnabas 
 the apostle ; but this is much more than I desire, and 
 much more than is necessary to my argument. * I sup. 
 pose, however, that you will allow, what all allow, that 
 the book is a production of the apostolick age : in the 
 fifth section of your history of the doctrine of atonement, 
 you quote it among the writings of the apostolick fath- 
 ers I think it fair to remind you of this circumstance, 
 lest you should hastily advance a contrary opinion, 
 when you find the testimony of this writer turned against 
 you. 
 
 2. You allow him a place, then, among the fathers 
 of the apostolick age : and will you not allow, that he 
 was a believer in our Lord's divinity ? I will not take 
 upon me, Sir, to answer this question for you ; but I 
 will take upon me to say, that whoever denies it, must 
 deny it to his own shame. " The Lord," says Barnabas, 
 submitted to suffer for our soul, although he be THE 
 LORD OF THE WHOLE EARTH, unto whom he said, thfi 
 
 * Modica sunt, quse in eju3 gratiam, nee (ut puto) facile recusanda: ut uimi- 
 rnm, si non ipsis saltern annis ejus houos habeatur ; si non apostolum agnoscamus ; 
 eura tamen ecu patrera revereamur; et demum, si non in canoncm ilium recipi- 
 endum ducamus, saltern in classicis scriptoribus, pro dignitate quam olim obtinuit 
 apvid ecclesi scriptores antinuissimos, uumeremus. Pruefat. Editoris Oxoni* 
 tnsi*. 
 
LET. Till. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 day before the world was finished, Let us make man 
 
 after our image and our likeness."* Again, " for 
 
 if he had not come in the flesh, how could we mortals, 
 seeing him, have been preserved ; when they who be- 
 hold the sun, which is to perish, and is the work of his 
 hands, are unable to look directly against its rays."f 
 Compare Deu. xviii. 16. Exod. xxxiii. 20. Judges 
 
 vi. 23. and xiii. 22. Again " if then the Son of God, 
 
 being Lord, and being to judge the quick and dead, 
 suffered, to the end that his wound might make us alive ; 
 let us believe that the Son of God had no power to 
 suffer, had it not been for us."J And again, " Mean 
 while thou hast [the whole doctrine] concerning the 
 majesty of Christ ; how all things were made for him 
 and through him ; to whom be honour, power, and glory, 
 now and forever."|| He who penned these sentences, 
 was surely a devout believer in our Lord's divinity : 
 it is needless to observe, that he was a Christian ; and 
 almost as needless to observe, that he had been a Jew, 
 for in that age, none but a person bred in Judaism? 
 could possess that minute knowledge of the Jewish rites, 
 which is displayed in this book. In the writer there- 
 fore of the Epistle of St Barnabas, we have one instance 
 
 * Oominus sustiimit pati pro aiiimi nostrA, cum sit orbis terraruin domiuus, 
 cui dixit die ante constitutionera sieculi " Faciamus bominem ad imaginem ct 
 liimlitudinem nostrum." sec. v. 
 
 t "" E* >*$ f* >-^v <r*Qtl, new ety tra&H/ufv ti$pv7ru fatvoflK ettfov, o7f 
 
 7-sr /Mt>.Acv7 (AX tnau X*s;, t& ^uftev a-fix i^a^sy?*, K# /<r,^wcvy j/f 
 /. sec. v. 
 Ei ta o t//sf TX S-tt, otv Kuptss, XM f*t\\w xfivw Bavins JWM* 
 
 ft fjat fkt HKSL;. sec. vii. 
 
 H Habes interim de majestate Christi, quo modo omoia in ilium et per ilium 
 facta sunt: cut sit honor, virtus, gloria iiuuc et ia ^cuJa ssctuloraw, 9 t xvij. 
 
LETTERS IN HEPLY LET. Vlll 
 
 of a Hebrew Christian of the apostolick age, who be- 
 lieved in our Lord's divinity. 
 
 3. But this is not all. They must have been origi- 
 nally Jews to whom this epistle was addressed. The 
 discourse supposes them well acquainted with the Jew- 
 ish rites, which are the chief subject of it ; and indeed, 
 to any not bred in Judaism, the book had been uninter- 
 esting and unintelligible. They were Hebrew Chris- 
 tians, therefore, to whom a brother of the circumcision 
 holds up the doctrine of our Lord's divinity. He up- 
 holds it, not barely as his own persuasion, but as an ar- 
 ticle of their common faith : he brings no arguments to 
 prove it he employs no rhetorick to recommend it he 
 mentions it as occasion occurs, without showing any 
 anxiety to inculcate it, or any apprehension, that it 
 would be denied or doubted he mentions it in that un- 
 hesitating language, which implies that the publick opin- 
 ion stood with his own. So that, in this writer, we have 
 not only an instance of au Hebrew Christian, of the 
 apostolick age, holding the doctrine of our Lord's divin- 
 ity ; but in the book, we have the clearest evidence, 
 that this was the common faith of the Hebrew Christians 
 of that age, or in other words, of the primitive church 
 of Jerusalem. 
 
 4. This, Sir, is the proof which I had to produce, of 
 the consent of that church with the later Gentile chur- 
 ches in this great article. It is so direct and full, though 
 it lies in a narrow compass ; that if this be laid in the 
 one scale, aud your whole mass of evidence drawn from 
 incidental and ambiguous allusions, in the other, 
 
 " The Utter will fly up, and kick the beam.' 7 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
LET. IX. TO DR PR1ESTLE\ 
 
 LETTER NINTH. 
 
 The proof of the orthodoxy of the first age, overturns 
 Dr Priestley's arguments from Hegesippus and Jus- 
 tin Martyr. Hegesippus a voucher for the Trinita- 
 rian faith. Dr Priestley's own principles set aside 
 his interpretations of Justin Martyr. Dr Priestley 
 himself gives it up. Tertullian makes no acknowl- 
 edgment of any popularity of the Unitarian tenets in 
 his own time. 
 
 SINCE it is proved of the first Christians of the cir* 
 cumcision, that they were believers in our Lord's divin*. 
 ity f what becomes of your two arguments to the contra- 
 ry, from Hegesippus and Justin Martyr? 
 
 3. The argument from Hegesippus, rested on a pre- 
 sumption that Hegesippus himself was an Unitarian ; 
 that Hegesippus himself was an Unitarian was presumed, 
 because he was a Christian of the Hebrews ; and the 
 Christians of the Hebrews, were supposed to be gener- 
 ally of that persuasion : but now that the reverse is pro- 
 ved of the Hebrew Christians, the presumption must be 
 reversed concerning Hegesippus. Hegesippus must be 
 deemed no Unitarian, and all consequences deduced 
 from the contrary supposition, must be reversed, or at 
 least, they will vanish, 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. /A". 
 
 3. You remark indeed, that Hegesippus, enumerating 
 the heresies of his time, makes no mention of the Ebio- 
 HJEan."* But this, I suppose, is mentioned, only as a 
 circumstance that might seem to corroborate the infer- 
 ence, from the supposed prevalency of the EbionjEan 
 tenets in the ancient Hebrew church, if that supposition 
 might be allowed to stand. It will hardly be pretended, 
 that this circumstance alone, will amount to a proof, that 
 Hegesippus was a dissenter from what hath been shown 
 to be the prevailing opinion of his church. Of the five 
 books of his Ecclesiastical Commentaries, nothing more 
 survives, than a few sentences, cited by Eusebius in dif- 
 ferent parts of his history ; which all brought together, 
 might perhaps fill two pages and a half in a folio of 
 a middling size. In these fragments, no mention occurs 
 of the Ebionaean heresy Is it therefore to be concluded, 
 that the Ebionites were not mentioned, or not mention- 
 ed as hereticks, in the entire work? Or where is the co- 
 gency of this argument? In certain fragments of the 
 work of Hegesippus, the Ebionites are not mention- 
 ed as hereticks ; therefore the author was himself an 
 Ebionite. 
 
 4. Scanty as these fragments are, Providence hath so 
 ordered, that clear evidence is to be found in them, that 
 Hegesippus was no Ebionite ; and that his testimony is 
 to be found in them, in favour of the Catholick faith. 
 That he was no Ebionite, appears with the highest evi- 
 dence, from a little circumstance incidentally mentioned 
 by Eusebius, which those who only look through an- 
 
 Hist, of Corrup. *ol. i. p. . and vol. ii. p. 48C. Ileply to Monthly Review 
 for June, p. 8. Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 143. 
 
l.KT. At. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 cient writers, may be very apt to overlook. Eusebius 
 relates, that Hegesippus cited the proverbs of Solomon, 
 by a title which implied his acknowledgment of the 
 book :* whereas, the Ebionites acknowledged no part 
 of the Old Testament but the Pentateuch, nor the whole 
 of that.f His testimony in favour of the Catholick faith, 
 is contained in his declaration " that he found in all 
 the churches which he visited, in his journey to Rome, 
 that faith maintained, which was agreeable to the law, 
 the prophets, and the doctrine of our Lord/'J Hegesip. 
 pus, in this declaration, bears his testimony to the faith 
 of all the churches at this time, that it was the faith 
 which Christ had taught. But what faith the churches 
 at this time maintained, let Irena-us and Justin testify : 
 and where is the Unitarian who will have the forehead 
 to affirm, that the faith, described as the faith Catholick, 
 by Irenaaus and by Justin, was any other than the Tri- 
 nitarian ? 
 
 5. So much for Hegesippus Now for Justin Martyr. 
 Your argument from his supposed apology for his own 
 opinions, as contrary to the general and prevailing, rests 
 on a particular interpretation of certain expressions, 
 which in themselves perhaps, are not free from am- 
 
 * Euseb. Ecc. Hist. lib. iv. e. 22. 
 
 j- Dr Priestley, in the third of his Second Letters, questions this fact : that the 
 Ebionites acknowledged no part of the Old Testament but the Pentateuch ; and I 
 must confess that his objections carry some weight. He remarks in particular, 
 that Irenxns says of them, that they were over-curious in the exposition of the 
 prophecies ; and that Grabe mentions fragments, which he had seen, of an expo- 
 sition of prophets, ascribed to Ebion. Still, that Hegesippus was no Ebionite, is 
 evident from the favourable testimony which he bears, to the general doctrine of 
 the church in his own time. 
 
 t Ruaeb. Eco. Hist. lib. iv, o. 23. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. 7X. 
 
 biguity. But this interpretation, Sir, rests on your 
 assumption, that the first Christians were Unitarian. 
 This being now disproved, I will reason against youv 
 interpretation, from your own principles, and, with lit- 
 tle variation, in your own words ; and from the contra- 
 ry interpretation, I will deduce the contary conclusion. 
 
 6. Justin wrote, you know, " about the year 140, 
 2. e. about eighty years after the time of the apostles. 3 '* 
 If we consider the state of opinions in their time we 
 can hardly doubt, whether Justin asserts it or not, that 
 the doctrine of our Lord's divinity^ must have been 
 the prevailing one in bis time. ?? f For we have certain 
 evidence, || that it was the opinion of the church in the 
 age of the apostles ; and it is not likely, that so impor- 
 tant a doctrine should be generally abandoned, " in so 
 short a time as fourscore years. And if we take in 
 another well authenticated circumstance, we shall be 
 obliged to reduce this short space to one still shorter. 
 
 Hegesippus says that the church of Jerusalem con- 
 
 tinued a virgin, or free from heresy, till the death of 
 Simeon, who succeeded James the Just, that is, till the 
 time of Trajan,T[ or about the year 100 or perhaps 110. 
 
 Knowing therefore, (from another evidence, that of 
 
 Barnabas,) what this purity of Christian faith was, and 
 what Hegesippus must have known it to be ; we have 
 only the space of forty, or perhaps thirty years, for so 
 
 * Reply to Monthly Review for June, p. 17. 
 
 } Dr. Priestley's words are the simple humanity of Christ. 
 
 $ Reply to Monthly Review for June, p. 17. 
 
 11 See my last Letter. 
 
 Reply to Monthly Review for June, p. 17. 
 
 ^ Euseb. Ecc. Hist. lib. iii, c. 32. 
 
LET. /JT. TO DR PRIESTLEV. 
 
 great a change. So rapid at that particular period must 
 have been that movement, which we find by experience, 
 to be naturally, one of the very slowest in the whole 
 system of nature, viz. the revolution of opinions in great 
 bodies of men. Can it then be thought probable, that 
 the generality, either of Jewish or Gentile Christians, 
 or both considered as one body, the / WM/J-O/, should 
 have abandoned the doctrine of our Lord's divinity* in 
 the time of Justin Martyr ?"f Certainly not. The 
 Words therefore, *S '? 01 7r\e/ro/ Ma pti Sa<ra/Jcc ilnoM 
 could not be intended to convey the sense, which you 
 and your vindicator would impose upon them. On the 
 contrary, they must be understood as an assertion, or at 
 least as an insinuation, that the opinion of our Lord's 
 mere humanity, was generally condemned. 
 
 7. I once thought, to have entered minutely into every 
 part of the argument, which you and your vindicator 
 have framed from this passage of Justin. But I find 
 myself excused from that task, by your candid acknow- 
 ledgment, in the sixth article of your postscript, that you 
 are influenced in your construction of this passage, by 
 your own particular opinions ; and that another person, 
 Laving a different persuasion concerning the state of 
 opinions in that age, will naturally be inclined to put a 
 different construction upon it."J A passage, which may 
 bear one or another construction, according to the previ- 
 ous persuasions of the reader, can be of little avail on 
 either side. You are welcome to all the proof of that 
 
 * Dr Priestley's words are, t/ie simple humanity of Christ. 
 f Reply to Monthly Review for June, p. 18, 19. 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 130. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. IX. 
 
 sort, which you will take the trouble to amass. You 
 seem, Sir, not insensible of its insignificance. Perceiv- 
 ing, at last, that the expressions of Justin, when you 
 have made the most of them, are but ambiguous, you 
 are inclined to lay but little stress upon the passage : 
 you resume the consideration of it, with a declaration, 
 that you are not " solicitous about trifles."* I must re- 
 mark however, that expressions, which in themselves 
 might be very ambiguous, may receive a definite sense 
 from the kno\vn history of the writer's times. This is 
 the case in this passage of Justin his words, consider- 
 ed by themselves, are ambiguous ; but, connected with 
 the opinions of the writer and of his age, they afford a 
 decisive testimony against you. 
 
 8. But you think, if Justin Martyr and Hegesippus 
 fail, you have still the positive testimony of Tertullian, 
 to oppose to my conclusions, from the faith of the first 
 Christians. Tertullian, who was little younger than 
 Justin, complains, that in his time the Unitarian doc- 
 trine was the general persuasion. The simple, the 
 ignorant, and the unlearned, who are always a great 
 part of the body of Christians, because the rule of faith, 
 transfers their worship of many gods to the one true 
 God ; not understanding that the unity of God is to 
 be maintained, but with the economy; dread this 
 economy."! I must confess, Sir, here seems to be 
 a complaint against the unlearned Christians, as in 
 general unfavourable to the Trinitarian doctrine ; but 
 the complaint is of your own raising Tertullian will 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 127. 
 f Hist, of Corrup. vol. i. p. oS. 
 
LET. AT. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 vouch but for a very small part of it. " Simple per- 
 sons,* says Tertullian, (not to call them ignorant, and 
 idiots,) who always make the majority of believers, 
 because the rule of faith itself, carries us away from 
 the many gods of the heathen, to the one true God ; 
 not understanding, that one God is indeed to be be- 
 lieved, but with an economy (or arrangement) of the 
 Godhead ; startle at the economy. They take it for 
 granted, that the number and disposition of the Tri- 
 nity, is a division of the Unity. They pretend that 
 two, and even three, are preached by us, and ima- 
 gine that they themselves, are the worshippers of one 
 God. We, they say, hold the monarchy. Latins have 
 caught up the word monarchia, Greeks will not un- 
 derstand ceconomia." Let the author's words be thua 
 exactly rendered, and you will find in them neither 
 complaint, nor acknowledgment, of a general preva- 
 lence of the Unitarian doctrine, among Christians of 
 any rank. Tertullian alleges, that what credit it 
 obtained, was only with the illiterate ; nor with all the 
 illiterate, but with those only, who were ignorant and 
 stupid in the extreme. To preclude the plea of num- 
 bers, he remarks, that the illiterate will always make 
 the majority of believers. " Some simple people, he 
 says, " take alarm at the notion of a plurality of 
 persons in the unity of the Godhead. Simple people, 
 snui I! I should have said, ignorant and dull 5 who have 
 
 * Simplices enira (nee dixerim imprudentes et idiotx) quse major semper 
 eredentium pars est, quouiam et ipsa reguta fidei, a pluribas diis sieculi, &e 
 non intelligcnte? uricum quidera, sed cum suu wconoruiu eredendmn, e 
 ad oeconomiam. 
 
 23 
 
LETTEUS IN REPLY LET. IX. 
 
 never been made to comprehend the true sense of the 
 apostle's creed ; which speaks of oiie God, in oppo- 
 sition only to a plurality of independent gods, wor- 
 shipped by the heathen, without any respect to the 
 metaphysical unity of the Deity. When it is consi- 
 dered, that persons of mean endowments must always 
 be the majority of a body, collected, as the church 
 is, from all ranks of men; it were no wonder, if the 
 followers of the Unitarian preachers, were more nu- 
 merous than they really are." This, Sir, is the na- 
 tural exposition of the passage, which you cite, as 
 Tertullian's testimony of the popularity of your fa- 
 vourite opinions, in his own time. It is no such testi- 
 mony. It is a charge of ignorance against your party ; 
 of such ignorance as would invalidate the plea of num- 
 bers, if that plea could be set up. The argument which 
 you build, npon the rank and condition of Tertullian's 
 Unitarians, who were common or unlearned people, can 
 be of no force, unless it could be proved, that the Uni- 
 tarian opinion was general in this rank of Christians. 
 The common people, who will be the last to depart 
 from the opinions of their ancestors, when they are 
 left to themselves; will, on the other hand, be the 
 first to be staggered with difficulties, and, for that 
 reason, the first to be misled. Whatever therefore, 
 might be the novelty of the Unitarian doctrine, in the 
 age of Tertullian, it is no wonder that it should find 
 admirers, among the most iguorant and stupid of the 
 common people.* 
 
 See the Second of the Supplemental Disquisitions. 
 
LET. IX. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 9. You must search, Sir, for some clearer testimo- 
 ny, than any that is to be found in Tertullian, Justin 
 Martyr, or the few surviving fragments of Hegesip- 
 pus, to oppose to my proof from the epistle of St Bar- 
 nabas. 
 
 I am, #c, 
 
 
180 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. X 
 
 LETTER TENTH. 
 
 In reply to Dr Priestley's third letter, in which he 
 would prove, that the primitive Unitarians were not 
 deemed hereticks. His arguments from Tertullian, 
 Justin JMartyr, and Irenceus, confuted by the Month- 
 ly Mviewer.The insufficiency of Dr Priestley's re- 
 fly. The arguments from Clemens Mexandrinus, 
 and from Jerome, confuted. 
 
 J)EJR SIR. 
 
 IT should seem, that you have some secret mistrust 
 in your own heart, of the proof which you pretend to 
 bring, that the Unitarian doctrine was orthodoxy in the 
 first age ; or you would have been less solicitous to show, 
 that the primitive Unitarians were not deemed hereticks. 
 For a proof, that confessed orthodoxy was not deemed 
 heresy, or in other words, that the orthodox did never 
 excommunicate themselves, might have been spared. 
 This however, is the subject of your third letter. Your 
 arguments from the apostles' creed, as it is stated by 
 Tertullian ;* from the little severity with which Irenseus 
 speaks of the Ebionites ;f and from the respect with 
 which Justin Martyr treats those blasphemers 5 J for 
 
 Letters to Dr Horsky, p. 27, 28. 
 Ibid. p. 32. t Ibid. p. 31. 
 
LET. X. TO Dtt PRIESTLEY. 18 i 
 
 that is the appellation by which his regard for them is 
 expressed, have been already so completely answered 
 by my good and able ally,* the Monthly reviewer,! 
 that little is left for me to say on the subject. 
 
 2. I must take this occasion to declare, that you arc 
 perfectly right, in your conjecture,} that I entertain an 
 high opinion of that gentleman's learning in ecclesiasti- 
 cal history. Indeed, my opinion of his learning hath 
 been gradually rising, while yours hath been going 
 down :|| and what you predicted, is at last come to pass; 
 1 think myself happy in the alliance of that able critick. 
 I am informed by your last publication,^ that my val- 
 uable ally is the Rev. Mr Samuel Badcock, a dissent- 
 ing minister at South Molton, in Devonshire. To what 
 ever denomination of Christians my worthy fellow-la- 
 bourer may belong, he is learned, and an able advocate 
 of the faith which was at first delivered to the saints, 
 and his alliance will not be disgraceful, though he choo- 
 ses to fight in a reviewer's armour. Indeed, I cannot 
 see for what reason the alliance of a Christian divine, 
 although he be a reviewer by profession, should be less 
 creditable than that, which you, Sir, so obsequiously 
 court, with Jew, Turk, heretick, and infidel. You 
 seem to think it unfair, that your antagonist should 
 avail himself of the prodigious advantage, which the 
 review gives him, of a cheap and immense circulation: If 
 
 * Dr Horsley considers this writer as learned in ecclesiastical history, and 
 may \ish to have him for an ally." 
 | In the Monthly Review for January, 1714. 
 4 See note (*). 
 
 j Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 159. 
 
 Remarks on the Monthly Review of the Letters to Dr Horsley, &.c. 
 ^ Preface to the Letters to Dr Horsley, p. xxL 
 
183 LETTERS IN RKPLY LET. X. 
 
 this complaint, Sir, really comes with an ill grace 
 from you ; who are every day diffusing your dangerous 
 doctrines among the common people, in pamphlets pub- 
 lished for their benefit, in an ordinary form, to be pur- 
 chased at the easy price of sixpence, a groat, and even 
 twopence. Some reserve on our part might be proper, 
 if any were observed on yours : but while you invite 
 the most illiterate of the laity to take a part in the dis- 
 pute, it is our duty to guard them what we can, from se- 
 duction ; to take advantage of every mode of cheap and 
 general circulation, that the antidote may be as widely 
 spread, and as easy to be had, as the medicated phials. 
 I return to my subject. 
 
 3. Justin Martyr's respect for the Unitarians of his 
 time, you collect from certain passages, in which, 
 speaking of here ticks, with the highest indignation, he 
 makes no allusion, as you conceive, to the Unitarians. 
 My learned ally replies,* that in one of these passages, 
 Justin Martyr expressly alludes to the Unitarians, un- 
 der the very honourable character of blasphemers of the 
 Christ, whose coming had been announced by the pro- 
 phets. He remarks, that in this passage, Justin couples 
 the name of Christ, with the title of " God of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob," in a manner which, as it must bring 
 to every learned reader's recollection, other passages of 
 the holy martyr's writings, in which Christ and the 
 God of Abraham, are described as the very same per- 
 son; clearly defines the particular blasphemy, which 
 was the subject of the accusation. My learned ally 
 complains, that your translation of this passage is so 
 
 * Monthly Review for January, 1784, p. 61, 62. 
 
LET. X. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 managed, as to conceal this allusion to the Unitarian 
 heresy ; and to convey no idea of distinction, between 
 the Maker of the world, and the God of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob." He might have added another 
 complaint : that in your translation, you have suppres- 
 sed another clause in the same period, in which certain 
 persons are treated with great severity, fc< who, instead 
 of worshipping Jesus," [instead of paying him divine 
 worship, for that is the proper force of the verb tir J 
 " confessed him only in name." Your reply* is, indeed, 
 very extraordinary It consists of three parts : An apol- 
 ogy for the omissions ; a defence of your argument ; a 
 flat denial f that you have made the omissions, for which 
 however you have condescended to apologize. 
 
 4. Your apology is, that the omissions were made to 
 shorten a long Greek quotation ; J but, Sir, the omis- 
 sions are in your English translation ; and the Greek, 
 which is given at length at the bottom of your page, is 
 nothing shortened by them if the passage was to be 
 shortened, either in Greek or in English, why was this 
 shortening effected, by the omission of those clauses in 
 particular, which might seem at least adverse to your 
 argument ? Your defence is, that the omitted passages, 
 affect not the argument either way : for the whole of 
 Mr Badcock's remark is answered, you say, at once, 
 by observing, " that it is to no sort of purpose, who it 
 was that Justin meant by the God of Abraham, Isaac, 
 
 * Remarks on the Monthly Review of the Letters to Dr Horsley, sec. L 
 t Appendix to the Remark?. 
 
 4 Remarks, p. 14. 
 
 5 Ibid. p. 13. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY Z,T. JT. 
 
 and Jacob ; but who it was, that the hereficks he is 
 speaking of, meant by the person so described, and 
 whom they meant to blaspheme : and this certainly was 
 not Jesus Christ, but another being, the supposed ma. 
 ker of the world, the author of the Jewish dispensation, 
 and the introducer of much evil, which they said Christ 
 was sent to rectify." Sir, I apprehend, and my learn- 
 ed ally, I believe, will be of the same opinion, that the 
 true, not the supposed, maker of the world, was the 
 person blasphemed, by the introduction of the fabulous 
 Demiurgus of the Gnosticks. Of the same opinion was 
 Justin. You cannot, Sir, know so little of his language 
 as to imagine, that by the title of xmlm; TW oxr, the 
 Maker of the Universe, he describes the Gnostick De- 
 miurgus, not the true Creator, the Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. But how is it that you maintain, that Je- 
 sus Christ was not blasphemed, by those whom Justin 
 accuses ? Justin describes those whom he would accuse, 
 as blasphemers of Jesus Christ. This is, in part, the 
 matter of his accusation that you should attempt to 
 deny it is extraordinary, Sir, when you confess, that 
 you omitted it " to shorten/' it appears, however, that 
 your arguments rest entirely upon a supposition, that 
 the blasphemy of Jesus was no part of Justin's accusa- 
 tion : you took therefore, that method of shortening, 
 which might best serve your purpose. 
 
 5. But you insist, that " they were Gnosticks only, 
 not Unitarian Christians, that Justin was reflecting upon 
 or alluding to."* Sir, will you take upon you to define 
 on whom Justin would reflect, in contradiction to Justin's 
 
 * Remarks, p, 13. 
 
LET. X. TO DR. PRIESTLEY. 
 
 own declaration? I think with you, that the phrase 
 yet? *OL] *hKov Tf*ov is distributive ; introducing, not the 
 mention of any new sect, but a specifick enumeration of 
 the sects which had been already mentioned, under the 
 general description of " those, who taught men to say 
 and to do, many impious and blasphemous things." 
 But the force of the objection, which my learned ally 
 hath brought against your argument, depends not on 
 the exact sense of this phrase it is sufficient for our 
 purpose, that a blasphemy of Christ, by denying his di- 
 vinity, and refusing to honour him with divine worship, 
 is a part of Justin's description of the heresies to which he 
 alludes ; whence it is manifest, that his reflections al- 
 lude to other hereticks beside the Gnosticks ; unless 
 indeed you will choose to gay, that some of the Gnosticks 
 had a principal share in this Unitarian blasphemy : 
 which, if you should affirm, you will in me have no an- 
 tagonist. It is indeed my opinion, that the Cerinthian 
 Gnosticks were the first who denied the divinity of our 
 Lord Cerinthus was much earlier than Ebion; and Ebi- 
 on, in his notions of the Redeemer, seems to have been 
 a mere Cerinthian : but if you concur with me in these 
 opinions, it is little to your purpose to insist, that Justin 
 Martyr's reflections are levelled only at the Gnosticks ; 
 since in the Gnosticks, according to this view of their 
 opinions, he censures the Unitarians : if you deny, that 
 our Lord's mere humanity was a doctrine maintained 
 by any branch of the Gnosticks, still Justin express- 
 ly censures the Unitarians. If the Ebionites are not 
 mentioned by name, are you sure they are not in- 
 cluded among the [A*O* aA* oro^ar/] others of va- 
 rious denominations," thus generally mentioned after 
 an enumeration of the principal Gnostick sects ? The 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. JT. 
 
 Ebionjcan heresy was at this time in its infancy, and 
 probably too inconsiderable to deserve particular no- 
 tice. 
 
 6. Such, Sir, is your apology for your omission, and 
 such is your defence of your argument. After this apo- 
 logy, and after this defence, comes in your appendix a 
 flat denial of the omissions, for which you have apolo- 
 gized. A friend has told you, that the passage of Jus- 
 tin is entire, and in its proper place in your letters to 
 me, page 31.* It is true, Sir, the passage is entire, in 
 the Greek, in the margin of your book : but has your 
 friend told you, that it is entire in your translation ? My 
 learned ally complains, and indeed, Sir, with too much 
 reason, that you write for the unlearned The entire 
 passage, as long as it appears not in your translation, 
 lay innocently enough in the Greek, at the bottom of 
 your page. 
 
 7. To your argument from the apostle's creed, as re- 
 cited by Tertullian,t it might, Sir, be a sufficient reply, 
 that Jesus Christ is mentioned in it as the Son of God ; 
 a title which, in the sense in which it was constantly ex- 
 pounded and understood, reprobates the Unitarian he- 
 resy ; but my learned ally refers youj to another creed, 
 produced by Tertullian in the book, De Prcescriptione, 
 Sfc. in which the divinity of Christ is more explicitly 
 asserted. This you say is not simply a creed, but an 
 exposition of the creed, || and expresses no more than 
 
 * Appendix to Remarks. 
 
 f Letters to Dr Horaley, p. 27, 28. 
 
 * Monthly Review for January, 1784, p. 
 H Remarks, &c. p. 18. 
 
LET. X f TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 Tertullian's own faith :"* Tertullian himself, Sir, " was 
 of another opinion He calls this exposition, a rule of 
 faitli appointed by Christ he says, it expressed the 
 general faith, which was disputed by none but here- 
 ticks." After this, Sir, will you say, that " Tertullian 
 did not consider Unitarians as excluded from the name 
 and assemblies of Christians ?"f 
 
 8. Clemens Alexandrians, who makes frequent men- 
 tion of hereticks, hath been very silent, you think, about 
 the Ebionites ; hence, you seem desirous to infer, that 
 Clemens thought them not heretical. "Almost the 
 whole," these are your words, Almost the whole of 
 his seventh book of Stromata, relate to that subject 
 [heresies]. He mentions fourteen different heresiarchs 
 by name, and ten heresies by character ; but none of 
 them bear any relation to the Ebionites, or any species 
 of Uuitarians.":j: Indeed, Sir, it was not without rea- 
 son, that I complained in my former publication, of the 
 peculiarities of your style : I hope, that the great work 
 which you are preparing upon the subject of our present 
 controversy, will be accompanied with a glossary, ta 
 explain the words of the English language, upon which 
 you shall be pleased to impose new senses ; and that in 
 particuliar, you will not omit to inform your readers, 
 how much of a thing may be meant by the WHOLE in 
 your new phraseology. 
 
 9. I find, Sir, by the best computation I can form 
 upon a single example, which I am sensible must be 
 liable to great inaccuracies, I speak therefore under the 
 
 Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 21, 
 Ibid. p. 27. * Ibid. p. 118. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. AT 
 
 correction of your authoritative decision but by the best 
 computation 1 can form, the WHOLE may be any part of 
 a thing not less than a forty-eighth ! 1 beg your pardon 
 I had written this, when turning back to the errata, at 
 the beginning of your book, I there find, that you have 
 been yourself, very properly, shocked, at the extravagant 
 hyperbolism of your own expressions ; and for the words 
 almost the whole, you advise the reader to substitute these, 
 a great part. Sir, a reluctant and imperfect retraction, is 
 more unseemly, than the first error, be it ever so enor- 
 mous : if you would not be thought to impose upon your 
 reader's ignorance, or to presume upon his inattention, 
 you must correct again ; and for a great, bid him read 
 a very little part. The seventh book of the Stromata, 
 in Syiburgius's edition, which I use as most convenient 
 for my present purpose, because the pages, not incum- 
 bered with notes, all contain equal quantities of text ; in 
 this edition, the seventh book, Greek and Latin, fills 48 
 pages the general subject of the book is, the excel- 
 lence of Christian Knowledge in preference to Philoso- 
 phy : this argument fills more than 38 pages of the 48, 
 that is, more than three-fourths of the whole book, 
 without any mention of hereticks ; then, the author an- 
 swers an objection to the certainty of Christian know- 
 ledge, taken from the differences of opinion that subsis- 
 ted among the different sects : this introduces a gene- 
 ral invective against hereticks, and a dissuasive of he- 
 resy, drawn from general topicks, not from the enor- 
 mities of particular sects ; which fills eight pages more : 
 the dissuasive of heresy, leads to an argument for the 
 authority of the church upon the footing of antiquity ; 
 and this introduces the names of some remarkable he- 
 resies, which are mentioned for no other purpose, but 
 
LET. JT. TO Dll PItlESTLEY. 
 
 189 
 
 to show that the very denominations which they bore, 
 argued a late origin, singularity of opinion, and sepa- 
 ration from a more ancient society. This list, with 
 many interspersed remarks upon the origin of each 
 sect, and assertions of the unity of the true church, 
 fills perhaps three-fourths of one of the two remaining 
 pages of the book : for the last page is taken up with 
 a whimsical explanation, of the Levitical marks of 
 clean and unclean beasts ; which are supposed to be 
 types, of the good and bad qualties, of true Christians 
 and of hereticks. Thus it appears, that that great part 
 of the seventh book of the Stromata, which you had 
 well nigh mistaken for the whole, is somewhat less than 
 one part in forty-eight. 
 
 10. But the Ebionites have no place in that long list 
 of hereticks, which occupies almost the whole, or, to 
 speak more accurately, a great part, or, to speak exact- 
 ly, almost a forty-eighth part of the seventh book of the 
 Stromata.* I think indeed they have not, unless they 
 be included, which I suspect may be the case, among 
 the Peratick hereticks ; but I will grant that they are 
 omitted : is it, Sir, a consequence, that Clemens thought 
 their opinions indifferent? I cannot see the necessity of 
 this conclusion, unless indeed it had been of importance 
 to the argument of Clemens, that he should make an 
 exact enumeration of all the sects, which he deemed 
 heretical but this was not the case : a few instances 
 sufficed for the illustration of his reasoning ; and these, 
 in a discussion with Greek philosophers, he would 
 
 * Letters to Dr Hcrsley, p, 218, 
 
90 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. X. 
 
 naturally select from those heresies, which, for some- 
 thing of subtlety and refinement in their doctrine, were 
 the most likely to have attracted the notice of the 
 Gentiles. A sect, which lived in obscurity in the north 
 of Galilee, of no consideration for number, learning 
 or abilities ; was likely to be the last that he would 
 mention. 
 
 11. It is another circumstance which you urge, Sir, 
 In favour of the early Unitarians ; that it is confessed 
 by Jerome, that the Ebionites were anathematized, not 
 for their Unitarian opinions, but for their rigid adhe- 
 rence to the Mosaick law,* propter hoc solum a 
 
 patribus anatliematizatt sunt, quod legis ccerimonias 
 Christi evangelio miscuerunt. 
 
 2. I shall frankly confess, Sir, that if nothing more 
 were known, either of the Ebionites or Cerinthians, 
 from ecclesiastical history, than what might be gather- 
 ed from this sentence of Jerome, I should be apt to 
 conclude, that the single error of either sect was this : 
 that they Judaized the words however are capable 
 of another meaning ; namely, that the Judaick super, 
 stition, was a thing so criminal in the judgment of the 
 primitive Christians, as to constitute, by itself, one 
 very sufficient reason for the excommunication of the 
 sects which were addicted to it. For it is to be ob^ 
 served, that the Ebionites are coupled in this passage 
 with the Cerinthians. It is said of both, that "for 
 this single thing they were anathematized, that they 
 mixed the ceremonies of the law, with the gospel of 
 
 * Letters te Dr Horsley, p. 34. 
 
LET. X. TO DR PRIESTLEY, 
 
 Christ." This being said of both without distinction, 
 must be said of either, in some sense, in which it may 
 be true of both : and if it aquit the Ebionites of here- 
 sy, except in the single article of their Judaism, it 
 equally acquits the Cerinthians : if it he to be conclu- 
 ded from these expressions of Jerome, that to deny 
 our Lord's divinity was no heresy in the Ebionites ; it 
 is equally to be concluded from these same expressions, 
 that to deny that God was the Creator of the universe, 
 Was no heresy in the Cerinthians. If this passage of 
 Jerome, be no testimony in favour of the Cerinthian 
 doctiine about the creation, it is no testimony in favour 
 of the Ebionsen doctrine about our Lord it is lame 
 and defective, like every other testimony \yhich you 
 have produced to the same purpose ; and your opinion, 
 that the primitive Unitarians were not considered as 
 hereticks, I must still, Sir, in defiance of all your tes- 
 timonies, take the liberty to place among the extra- 
 vagant assertions of Daniel Zuicker, of which Simon 
 Episcopius, was the charitable, but insufficient advo- 
 cate. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 YOU are pleased, Sir, to say, in the conclusion of 
 your third letter, that the Unitarian doctrine, even in 
 its most obnoxious form, existed in the very time of 
 the apostles. I deny that the Unitarian doctrine existed, 
 at that time, in the most obnoxious form. Produce 
 your indisputable evidence. Observe, that by the most 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. X. 
 
 obnoxious form, I understand that form, which ex- 
 cludes the worship of Christ. 
 
 N. B. In answer to Dr Priestley's argument, from 
 the writings of Irenseus in particular, see the third of 
 the Supplemental Disquisitions. 
 
LET. XI TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 LETTER ELEVENTH. 
 
 In, Reply to J)r Priestley's fourth, in which he de* 
 fends his argument from a passage in Athanasius. 
 The sense of the words '<?/* ev\cyc mistaken by DT 
 Priestley. The sense of the word wcw mistaken by 
 JDr Priestley. Prudence and caution not synony- 
 mous. The matter offact 9 as represented by Jlthan- 
 asius, mistaken by l)r Priestley. His grammatical 
 argument refuted. That Athanasius speaks of 21/2- 
 converted Jews, proved from a comparison of the two 
 elauses in which Jews are mentioned. The Gentiles 
 not uninterested in questions about the Messiah. 
 Of deference to authorities. 
 
 BEAR SIR, 
 
 A SUPPOSED testimony of Athanasius made fc 
 principal branch of your original proof, that the faith of 
 the first Christians was Unitarian : and this, with other 
 principal branches of your proof, found a place among 
 my specimens of your evidence, of which it was th& 
 third in order. For this testimony of Athanasius, you 
 refer your reader to Athanasius's defence of the Alexan- 
 drine Dionysius, where you think you find a confession 
 of two very important circumstances : that the apostles 
 used great caution in divulging the doctrine of the pro- 
 per divinity of Christ 5 and that the occasion, of this. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XL 
 
 caution, was the pre valency of a contrary persuasion 
 among the first Hebrew Christians. 
 
 2. In opposition to this, I took upon me to assure the 
 Reverend assembly which I had the honour to address, 
 that no mention of the caution of the apostles, or of the 
 heterodoxy of the first Jewish Christians, is to be found 
 in the defence of Dionysius- I believe I might have 
 added, in any part of the writings of Athanasius. 
 
 3. You have now, Sir, in your fourth letter, produced 
 the passage from the defence of Dionysius, in which 
 you conceive that these important secrets are betrayed : 
 this passage, you say, you " only abridged before" * 
 (I am sorry, Sir, to remind you, that the manner in 
 which your abridgments are managed, has appeared in 
 other instances.) You abridged it before, but now you 
 *< give a larger portion of it at full length :" not the 
 whole, by your own confession ; " for the whole is much 
 too long to transcribe." Pardon me, Sir, if I add, that 
 the whole, were it transcribed, would justify the sum- 
 mary which 1 have given of it in my Charge : it would 
 prove, that the example of the apostles is alleged for 
 the purpose which I assign, and in the manner which I 
 mention : it would prove, therefore, that this " larger 
 portion," which you have given, " at full length," is 
 nothing to your purpose. But to bring the matter to a 
 short issue, I will set the general scope of the discourse 
 quite out of the question : I will take the particular 
 portion, which you have produced, by itself, as you de- 
 sire it should be taken : and 1 will show, that even 
 thus taken, it will give no support to your assertions., 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 39. 
 
XL TO DR PRIESTLEY. 95 
 
 without a singular construction of certain words and 
 phrases, which cannot be admitted. 
 
 4. The apostles, it is said, spake of Christ as a man ; 
 a man of Nazareth ; a man obnoxious to sufferings. 
 Was it, that the apostles were in the sentiments of Ari- 
 us ? No such thing. " But this they did, as wise mas- 
 ter-builders and stewards of the mysteries of God ; 
 and they had this specious pretence for it -- ."* 
 Stop, Sir, a moment what do I hear? A specious pre- 
 tence for it ! For what? For doing as wise master-buil- 
 ders and stewards of the mysteries of God Are spe- 
 cious pretences needed then for wise conduct? Or were 
 the apostles men to make pretences ? Surely this is the 
 language of Dr Priestley, not of Athanasius. He 
 thought more reverently of the apostles let him speak 
 for himself. K/ *w a'/W ix*<*" wwyor* Is pretence 
 the sense of aVji? The true Greek word for iiretence 
 is ^fopow's-, and even had this word been used, the 
 adjective tuxoyoc would have carried it away from that 
 base meaning, which is inseparable from the English 
 words specious pretence : for euxoyor is not specious in 
 the English sense r it may be applied to any thing in 
 quo species cernitwr honesti ; but it is not mere seem- 
 ing had Athanasius meant to say, that the apostles 
 had a specious pretence only for their conduct, the 
 adjective must have been ^S-arac. He must have said, 
 act/ *fo<p&<TH rtvct '^X or ^'^w or, xa/ ** aVftduiw mot 
 
 5. The word a*V hath two principal senses ; a phil- 
 osophical and a popular : either of the two may suit 
 
 Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 39- 
 
196 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XL 
 
 this place : amongst the philosophers, it signifies a 
 cause, in any one of the four kinds of causes ; the ma- 
 terial, the efficient, the formal, or the final : hence it 
 comes to signify a motive, motives being final causes, 
 considered in their relation to the mind of a rational 
 agent. Thus Plato, speaking of the Creator's motive* 
 for a particular arrangement of the heavenly bodies, ret. S" 
 xx.a, ot Sn not! Si* ac *AIT1A2 /SfUTaJo- t'T/c iTTtZiot Trcurar &c. 
 in Timteo. Again, S/a h m AITJAN xa/ TOY hoyurpot 
 
 tovli iv OKQV i% cLTrou/lw mnVaTo. in Timceo. A mo- 
 tive may be either good or bad, but a<V tv^oyw can be 
 only good it must be a wise and honourable motive ; 
 or, in plain English, a good reason. 
 
 6. A/If*, in the rhetorical or popular sense, answers 
 to the English word cause, in its forensick meaning : 
 it signifies an action or suit at law, or a criminal indict, 
 ment : in this sense a/Jia i yxoyoc is a cause fairly defen- 
 sible, upon a just and honourable plea I am inclined 
 to prefer this sense of the word, in this place, because 
 the verb t^yt is in the present time, when the preceding 
 and the following, are in the past : " if the conduct of 
 the apostles should be at any time questioned, they have 
 a fair and substantial plea." This may still be expres- 
 sed in English by a good reason. This therefore is the 
 proper English phrase to convey the holy father's 
 meaning, whether ai1z be taken in its philosophical, or 
 in its popular sense. 
 
 7. Now, Sir, if for specious pretence you will be 
 pleased to substitute good reason ; you will find that 
 this passage, even in your own translation, will afford 
 no ground for the inferences you would build upon it : 
 Athanasius proceeds to show what this good reason 
 
IET. XI. TO Dlt PRIESTLEY, 197 
 
 was ; and he commends the great sagacity which was 
 displayed, in the conduct of the apostles. 
 
 8. The deficiencies of your translation, I must 
 however confess, are abundantly compensated in your 
 comment ; " I now have produced the passage," you 
 say, " and have pointed out a word, viz. mmric, which, 
 in the connexion in which it stands, can bear no oth- 
 er sense than caution, and great caution ; /ula Troxxn? 
 
 ffm <r ilBr .* Sir, may I ask in what lexicon (you 
 
 must excuse me, if I suspect that you are used to 
 take the senses of Greek words from ordinary lexi- 
 cons ) in what lexicon, good or had, have you found 
 that <rvn<w in any connexion, may stand for caution? 
 It is literally the meeting or coming together of differ- 
 ent things : and applied to the mind, it is properly that 
 faculty, or that act of the mind, by which it brings 
 things together, and compares them, and forms a tea- 
 dy judgment of fitnesses and discongruities. It is ex- 
 pounded by the ancient Greek lexicographers, who best 
 understood their own language, to be the " knowledge 
 of comparables and incom parables ; or a ready follow- 
 ing of the mind, quickly bringing together the notions 
 of things, readily discovering what is proper and beseem- 
 ing to each."t Plato says more concisely, wnuot* 
 means that the mind goes along with things. J Sagacity 
 is the English word, which most nearly renders the 
 same idea Prudence, the word which you have used 
 in your translation, may be born ; but the idea which it 
 gives, is rather similar, than the same. You have 
 
 Letters to Dr Horslrv, p. 45. 
 
 t See Phavorinua. t la Cratjl*. 
 
498 LfcTTKUS IN REPLY LET. XL 
 
 shown, you say, < c from the whole tenor of the dis- 
 course, that Athanasius could have intended nothing 
 else than to describe their prudence, or extreme cau- 
 tion."* Prudence, or extreme caution ! Do you really 
 think, Sir, that prudence and caution in the English 
 language are synonymous ? If that be your opinion, I 
 must beg that one or both of these words may go into* 
 the glossary,! and be declared equivalent. Caution is 
 indeed sometimes used abusively for discretion ; but in 
 its proper sense, it carries with it the notion of some 
 dishonest art : and caution, in a teacher or disputant, 
 always denotes an artful provision by some dishonest 
 reserve, for the success of doctrine or of argument. In 
 the present case, if you use the word without affixing 
 to it the notion of concealment, it will not serve your 
 purpose ; but nothing of concealment is implied in the 
 Greek word Athanasius extols the sagacity of the 
 apostles : their caution he never mentions. 
 
 9. Btill you will insist, that he describes the thing, 
 though he may not have called it by its proper name : 
 " He evidently, you say, does not represent them a 
 deferring the communication of the doctrine of the di- 
 vinity of Christ, on account of its being more conveni- 
 ently taught afterwards, as part of a system of faith ; 
 but only, lest it should have given offence to the Jews ;"{ 
 I cannot read this sentence without astonishment, when 
 I turn back to the quotation, and find that you have 
 fairly produced the passage, in which Athanasius, in 
 your own translation, as well as in the original, affirms 5 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 45. f See page 187. 
 
 i Letters to Dr Horsier, p. 45. 
 
. XL TO DR PRIESTI..E> 
 
 that what related to our Lord's humanity, was taught 
 jirsty for no other reason, but that the doctrine of his 
 divinity might be taught afterwards, with more effect. 
 The desire of instructing the Jews, not the fear of offen- 
 ding them, was the motive with the apostles, for pro- 
 pounding first what was the easiest to be understood, 
 and the most likely to be admitted. 
 
 10. But whatever the motive may have been with 
 the apostles, for their conduct, you insist that the fact 
 was, that the doctrine of the Trinity was not divulged 
 by them : and of this you think you find a proof in this 
 passage of Athanasius 5 in which you think it is con- 
 fessed, that the apostles, in the opening of their minis- 
 try, were very reserved upon this article ; and you ob- 
 serve, and I think not improperly, that the reasons for 
 that reserve (if they ever subsisted) would operate till 
 within a short time of the dispersion and death of the 
 apostles. Whence you conclude, that if ever they di- 
 vulged this doctrine, it must have been at so late a pe- 
 riod, that the church, in consequence of their former 
 silence upon the subjest, must have been fixed in the 
 contrary persuasion.* 
 
 11. But what if the foundation of this whole argu- 
 ment should be rotten ? What if the whole should be 
 built on a misinterpretation of Athanasius ? Athanasius 
 affirms not, that the apostles, in any period of their 
 ministry, kept the doctrine of our Lord's divinity a 
 secret ; or that they were reserved upon this, or any 
 article of faith, with those who were so far converted as 
 to be catechumens. In their first publick sermons, ad- 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horslev, p. 4244. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XI 
 
 dressed to the unbelieving multitude, they were content 
 to maintain, that Jesus, whom the Jews had crucified, 
 was riseu from the dead ; without touching his divinity 
 otherwise, than in remote allusions : but to suppose, that 
 they carried their converts no greater length, is to sup. 
 pose that their private instruction was not more parti, 
 cular than their publick : for this, you will find little 
 support in Athanasius ; or in Chrysostom ; who is cal- 
 led upon, to corroborate the argument from the conces- 
 sions of Athanasius. 
 
 13. But whatever the doctrine of the apostles might 
 be ; or whatever opinion Athanasius, or Chrysostom, 
 might entertain concerning it ; Athanasius, it seems ac- 
 knowledges, that the first Jewish Christians were Uni- 
 tarians. Oi roll IttSflt/oi, " The Jews of that time," or, 
 " The then Jews," is the name, by which the persons 
 are described, who are said to have holden the errone- 
 ous belief of the mere humanity of the Messiah. Now, 
 Sir, if "The then Jews/' O* rolt !$/<>/, may denote 
 Jewish Christians, will you be pleased to inform me, 
 what more precise expressions the holy father might 
 have found, in the whole compass of the Greek' lan- 
 guage, to denote genuine Jewish Jews, had he had oc- 
 casion to mention them? But the verbs, it seems, " in 
 that part of the passage which mentions, Christ being 
 come of the seed of David, and the word being made 
 flssh, are not in the future tense. 9 '* In this remark, 
 Sir, 1 cannot but admire the singular caution of the ex- 
 pression, " The verbs are not in the future tense." 
 
 It is true, they are not : but the most important of these 
 
 Letters to l)r Horslev, p. 42. 
 
XL TO DR PRIESTLEY. ff>0j[ 
 
 rerbs, in that part of the passage which mentions the 
 Messiah's coming, although it be not in the future form, 
 carries a future signification it is in the infinitive mood 
 of the present tense ; which often denotes an instant 
 futurity, but never denotes time, either long since, or 
 just now, past : this obtains in all the Greek verbs, 
 but particularly in the verb *f>xP at J which, not only by 
 use, but naturally, involves a notion of futurity even 
 in the present tense. Er^/^or rov X^/ror >J//xcr artyutrof 
 
 povov j>xt$i. "They thought the Christ was a- 
 
 coming as a mere man only." This expression re- 
 fers to the Messiah not as come, but as coming : ano- 
 ther verb, I confess, which relates to the incarnation of 
 the Word, is in a preterite tense, *&* n *oyoe e*ft iym% 
 tTnriyor. " Neither believed they, that the word was 
 wade ttesh." 6 Koyoc <r&fi tyertja, '* the word was made 
 flesh," these are Ue words in which St John mentions 
 the incarnation. The holy father, it is likely, chose to 
 se the very words of the evangelist, in speaking of this 
 mystery ; and for that reason, he may have sacrificed 
 somewhat of the accuracy of his syntax to the exactness 
 of his quotation. The passage should be printed thus : 
 *St " on b Aoyor <rct$ iyiH% iTrirwov. In this grammatical 
 argument, your prudence appears, not only in the very 
 guarded expressions, in which you have stated it; but 
 in the declaration, with which it is prefaced, that you 
 desire to lay no great stress upon it. What you have 
 respect to in this passage, " is the obvious general tenor 
 and spirit of it :"* indeed, Sir, you would do well to 
 be cautious, upon all occasions, how you handle these 
 
 * Letters te Dr Horsley, p. 42 
 
 26 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XI. 
 
 briars of criticism : lt us return then to the general 
 tenor of the passage. 
 
 13. You know, Sir, that Jews are twice mentioned 
 in it. " The Jews of that age being deceived them- 
 selves, and having deceived the Gentiles." And again, 
 
 " the blessed apostles taught what related to 
 
 the humanity of our Saviour to the Jews." Is it your 
 opinion, Sir, that they are the same, or different persons, 
 who are mentioned under the name of Jews, in these 
 two different clauses ? If they are different persons, I 
 desire to know, what circumstance or note of difference, 
 you find in the author's expressions? If you find none, 
 on what is your opinion of a difference founded ? Or, not 
 to entangle you again in grammatical disquisitions, I 
 will for a moment suppose the persons different, and 
 desire you to show me, what will then be the sense or 
 coherence of the writer's argument? If you allow, that 
 the same persons are designed in both places under the 
 same name ; I must desire you to remark, that the 
 Jews, mentioned in the second instance, were persons 
 who were " at any rate to be persuaded (a* any rate, 
 that is the force of oxw; which you have erroneously 
 rendered by the word fully) at any rate to be persua- 
 ded, from the actual state of things, and from the evi- 
 dence of the miracles which had been wrought, that the 
 Christ was come.*" Could these, Sir, be converted 
 Jews ? Could they be already Christians, in whom this 
 general persuasion, " that the Christ was come," was 
 yet to be wrought ? Wanting this persuasion, they wera 
 
LET. XI. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 203 
 
 clearly Jews, whose conversion was not yet began ; and 
 of the same description, since they were indeed the very 
 same persons, were the Jews, to whom it is imputed, 
 that they held the erroneous belief of the Messiah's 
 mere humanity, and that they spread the like error 
 among the Gentiles. 
 
 14. But the Gentiles, you say, who were thus misled, 
 must have been Christian Gentiles ; and by consequence 
 the Jews, who misled them, were Jewish Christians.* 
 But, Sir, whence is the certainty that Christian Gen- 
 tiles were intended by Athanasius ? It hangs upon this 
 principle, that to any other Gentiles, the whole doc- 
 trine of a Messiah must have been uninteresting.f 
 Have you forgotten, Sir, have you never known, or 
 Would you deny, what is not denied by candid infidels, 
 that the expectation of a great deliverer, or benefactor 
 of mankind, was unh crsal even in the Gentile world, 
 about the time of our Lord's appearance ? Jf you ac- 
 knowledge this, where is the improbability, that the 
 general opinion concerning this personage, should be 
 modified by the opinions which prevailed in Judea, 
 which was the centre of the tradition ? especially when 
 it is considered, that the proselytes of the gate, made 
 an easy channel of communication, between the Jews 
 and the idolatrous Gentiles ! but whatever you may 
 be disposed to grant, or to deny, this argument is easily 
 inverted, and turned against you. It hath been shown, 
 that none but Jew Jews can be intended by Athanasius, 
 when he speaks of the Jews as misleaders of the Gen- 
 
 * Letters to Dr Henley, p. 41. 
 
LETTEK8 IN REPLY LET. XL 
 
 tiles they were Gentile Gentiles, therefore, who were 
 tousled ; for, from unbelieving Jews, Christians of tha 
 Gentiles would hardly take instruction. 
 
 15. Your last resource is, to flee for shelter to the 
 authority of Beausobre. " The leariied Beausobre, a 
 Trinitarian, and therefore an unexceptionable judge in 
 this case, quoting this very passage, does not hesitate 
 to pronounce, that they were believing Jews, who were 
 intended by. the writer."* It is for you, Sir, to judge, 
 what deference is due from you to the authority of Beau- 
 sobre, for my own part, I shall not affect a modesty 
 which I feel not, when the sense of a Greek sentence is 
 the thing in question, if I have the writer upon ray own 
 shelf, or can find him upon my friend's, it is not much 
 my practice to stand bowing at a distance to authorities ; 
 unless indeed it be the authority of a Casaubon, a Sea* 
 liger, or a Bentley : but these men would laugh, or 
 they would storm, at your attempts to construe Greek, 
 with Beausobre at your elbow. To construe Greek ! 
 I fear, Sir, they would think but lightly of your Latin 
 erudition, after the specimen which you have given of 
 it, in your attempt to wrest from my learned ally, his 
 strong argument for the difference which we assert, in 
 articles of faith, between the Nazarenes and the Ebion- 
 ites. The feats of criticism which you have performed 
 for this purpose, upon certain plain words of Jerome,f 
 to draw them from the only meaning of which they 
 are capable, had you been a "Westminster man, were 
 enough to bring old Busby from his grave : but, alas ! 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 42. f DM* P- 153158. 
 
LET. XI TO Dtt PRIESTLEY. 805 
 
 Sir, you are not to be persuaded, though one should 
 rise from the dead. I trust our readers are persuaded, 
 that the argument from Athanasius* was, with great 
 justice and propriety, placed among my specimens of 
 insufficient proof. 
 
 I am, Sfc. 
 
 * Of the testimonies of other writer*, by which Dr Priestley attempts to con- 
 firm his argument from Athanasius, see the tenth of his second Letters to me, 
 and my Remarks upon his second Letters, Part U. e. i, sec. 1014. 
 
306 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. Xll. 
 
 LETTER TWELFTH. 
 
 In Reply to Dr Priestley's fifth ; in which he moves 
 certain chronological difficulties. Himself chiefly 
 concerned to find the solution. His question divided. 
 The divinity of our Lord, preached from the very 
 beginning, by the apostles. St Stephen a martyr to 
 this doctrine. His dying ejaculations justify the 
 worship of Christ. Christ deified in the story of 
 St Paul's conversion. The divinity of Jesus ackow- 
 ledged by the apostles, from the time when they ac- 
 knowledged him for the Messiah. Notions of a 
 Trinity, and of the Deity of the Messiah, current 
 among the Jews in the days of our Saviour. 
 
 DEAR SIR. 
 
 IN your fifth letter, you call upon me to assign the 
 particular time, when the knowledge of our Lord's di- 
 vinity, which, in the persuasion, that the apostles were 
 taxed by the fathers with a reserve upon the subject, 
 you are pleased to call " the great secret of Christ be- 
 ing not a mere man, but the eternal God ;"* you call 
 upon me to assign the time, when this great secret u was 
 communicated first to the apostles, and then by them to 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsle^, p. 55. 
 
LET. XII. TO DR. PR1ESTLET. 20? 
 
 the body of Christians."* You " request my opinion" 
 upon this question, with a certain air of triumph, which 
 eems to imply, that, in your apprehension, I must be 
 much at a loss to frame an opinion upon it, which may 
 be consistent with my creed. But the truth is, that 
 you are yourself the person most concerned to find the 
 solution. Or, to express myself more accurately, the 
 question splits into two, of which, the one concerns not 
 me, and the other concerns not either of us. 
 
 2. YV hen was the doctrine of our Lord's divinity, first 
 published in the church by the apostles ? 
 
 3. When was the knowledge of the thing, first con- 
 veyed to the minds of the apostles themselves ? 
 
 4. These, Sir, are two distinct questions. Of the 
 first, it is your concern, not mine, to seek the solution : 
 for since 1 have clearly traced the belief of Christ's pro- 
 per deity up to the apostolick age ; unless you can as- 
 sign the particular epocha of the publication, 1 have a 
 right to conclude, that it was a part of the very earliest 
 doctrine : nay, if you should even be able to assign 
 some later time of its commencement, yet since that time 
 must fall within the compass of the apostolick age, to 
 which you are limited, by virtue of my proof from the 
 epistle of St Barnabas, a question might indeed arise, 
 which might be of difficult resolution why was this 
 doctrine, for a certain time, kept back ? But this diffi- 
 culty would not shake the credit of the doctrine ; for 
 since there is no reason to suppose, that any of the 
 apostles, having once received the light of inspiration, 
 were, in any future period of their lives, deprived of il, 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horslef, p. 55. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XII. 
 
 any doctrine published by them, claims implicit credit, 
 whatever might be the time of its first publication. A 
 discovery that St John had made, in the last moments of 
 his life, had been equally to be believed, as any thing 
 that St Peter preached, in his first sermon, on the day 
 of Pentecoast. You will therefore choose your own 
 epocha, for the discovery of " the great secret." Place 
 it, where it best may please you in the apostolick age ; 
 I will hold no argument with you upon the subject : In 
 my own congregations, I shall think it my duty to bear 
 my witness, that, from the very beginning of the gospel, 
 the thing had been no secret : for proof from holy 
 writ, I shall have recourse to those very passages of the 
 apostolick history, from which you draw the contrary 
 inference. 1 shall remind my hearers, that in St Peter's 
 first publick sermon, when it was reasonable to keep 
 to the general assertion, that Jesus was the Messiah, 
 rather than to enter into the particulars which that cha- 
 racter might involve; allusions are nevertheless used, 
 which discover, that the mind of the speaker was strong. 
 ly impressed with notions, which it was his policy to 
 conceal. I shall particularly desire them to remark, 
 that it is said of our Lord Jesus, that " it was not pos- 
 sible that he should be holden of death :"* the expres- 
 sions clearly imply a physical impossibility : I shall bid 
 them observe, that the great miracle of that day is said 
 to be, an exertion of the power of Jesus exalted by 
 God's right hand :f and I shall maintain, that the three 
 persons are distinctly mentioned, in a manner which 
 implies the divinity of each, " Jesus being by the right 
 
 * Acts u. 24. Ibkl - " 3Z > 33 - 
 
LET. SIT. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father 
 the promise of the Holy Ghost"* of the Father n*f<* 
 r* ir*l$K TJie Father: the substantive, with the article 
 prefixed, describes a person, whose character it is to be 
 the Father Paternity is the property, which indivi- 
 duates the person : but from whom is the first principle 
 thus distinguished ? From his creatures ? From them he 
 were more significantly distinguished by the name of 
 God. Not generally therefore from his creatures, but 
 particularly, from the two other persons mentioned in 
 the same period Jesus and the Holy Ghost. And 
 since this is his distinction, that he is the Father of that 
 Son, from whom, together with lmnolf, flip Holy Ghost 
 proceeds ; it follows, that the interval, between him and 
 them, is no more than relation may create ; that tlm 
 whole difference lies in personal distinctions, not in 
 essential qualities. Thus I will ever reason, Sir. for 
 the edification of my own flock, but with little Lope of 
 your conviction from St Peter's first sermon. 
 
 5. I shall always insist, Sir, that the blessed Stephen 
 died a martyr to the DEITY of Christ. The accusation 
 against him, you say, was " his speaking blasphemous 
 tilings against the temple and the lawf" you have for- 
 gotten to add the charge of blasphemy " against Moses 
 and against God."J The blasphemy against the tem- 
 ple and the law, probably consisted in a prediction, that 
 the temple was to be destroyed, and the ritual law, of 
 course, abolished : the blasphemy against Moses, was 
 probably his assertion, that the authority of Moses was 
 
 Acts ii S2, 33. f Letters to Dr Howley, p. CO. 
 ActtYi. 11. 
 
 27 
 
210 LETTBR8INREPJA LET, XlL 
 
 inferior to that of Christ : but what could be the bias- 
 phemy against God ? What was there in the doctrine 
 of the apostles, which could be interpreted as blasphemy 
 against God, except it was this, that they ascribed di- 
 vinity to one, who had suffered publickly as a malefac- 
 tor that this was the blessed Stephen's crime, none 
 can doubt, who attends to the conclusion of the story. 
 He " looked up stedfastly into heaven," says the in- 
 spired historian, " and saw the glory of God," [that is, 
 he saw the splendour of the Shechinah, for that is what is 
 meant, when the glory of God is mentioned as some- 
 thing to be seen,] and Jesus standing on the right hand 
 of God"* He saw the, man, Jesus, in the midst of this 
 divine light : his declaring what he saw,f the Jewish 
 rabble understood, as an assertion of the divinity of 
 Jesus : they stopped their ears ; they overpowered his 
 Voice with their own clamours ; and they hurried him out 
 of the city, to inflict upon him the death, which the law 
 appointed for blasphemers.} He died, as he had lived, 
 attesting the deity of our crucified Master. His last 
 breath was uttered in a prayer to Jesus, first for himself, 
 and then for his murderers. "They stoned Stephen, 
 calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus receive my 
 spirit and he cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not 
 this sin to their charge." || It is to be noted, that the 
 word God is not in the original text, which might be 
 better rendered, thus ; They stoned Stephen, invoca- 
 ting and saying, &c." Jesus therefore was the God, 
 whom the dying martyr invocated in his last ago* 
 
 * Acts vii. 55. f lbid - S6 
 
 * Ibid. 57, 58. II Ibid. 59, 60. 
 
LET. Ztt TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 nies ; when men are apt to pray, with the utmost seri- 
 ousness, to him whom they conceive the mightiest to 
 save. 
 
 6. It seems the holy Stephen, full, as we are inform- 
 ed he was in t those trying moments, of the Holy Ghost, 
 was not in the opinion which you are pleased to impute 
 to me ; but you will observe, that I disclaim it, that 
 "the proper object of prayer, is God the Father."* 
 This, you tell me, 1 cannot but acknowledge. That 
 the Father is a proper object of prayer, God forbid that 
 ever I should not acknowledge : that he is the proper 
 object, in the sense in which you seem to make the as- 
 sertion, in prejudice and exclusion of the other persons, 
 God forbid that ever I should concede : I deny not, that 
 there is an honour personally due to him as the Father; 
 there is also an honour personally due to the Son, as 
 the Son ; and to the Spirit, as the Spirit : but our 
 knowledge of the personal distinctions is so obscure, in 
 comparison of our apprehension of the general attributes 
 of the Godhead ; that it should seem, that the Divinity 
 [the rt Siw] is rather to be generally worshipped, in the 
 three persons jointly and indifferently, than that any 
 distinct honours are to be oflered to each separately. 
 Prayer, however, for succour against external perse- 
 cution, seems addressed with particular propriety to 
 the Son. 
 
 7. When you deny, not only that any precept, but 
 that any proper example is to be found in Scripture to 
 authorise the practice ;f you seem to have forgotten, be- 
 
 Letters to Dr Horsley, p. tl. 
 t 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XII. 
 
 side many other passages, the initial salutations of Sfc 
 Paul's epistles : St Stephen's " short ejaculatory ad- 
 dress" you had not forgotten ; but you say, " it is very 
 inconsiderable :"* but, Sir, why is it inconsidera- 
 ble ? Is it because it was only an ejaculation ? Eja- 
 culations are often prayers of the most fervent kind ; 
 the most expressive of self-abasement and adoration : 
 Is it for its brevity that it is inconsiderable? What 
 then is the precise length of words, which is requisite 
 to make a prayer an act of worship ? Was this peti- 
 tion preferred on an occasion of distress, on which a 
 Divinity might be naturally invoked ? Was it a peti- 
 tion for succour, which none but a Divinity could grant? 
 If this was the case, it was surely an act of worship. 
 Is the situation of the worshipper, the circumstance which, 
 in your judgment, Sir, lessens the authority of his ex- 
 ample ? You suppose perhaps some consternation of his 
 faculties, arising from distress and fear the history 
 justifies no such supposition : it describes the utterance 
 of the final prayer, as a deliberate act of one who knew 
 his situation, and possessed his understanding: after 
 praying for himself, he kneels down to pray for his 
 persecutors ; and such was the composure with which 
 he died, although the manner of his death was the most 
 tumultuous and terrifying, that, as if he had expired 
 quietly upon his bed, the sacred historian says, that 
 " he fell asleep."! If therefore you would insinuate, 
 that St Stephen was not himself, when he sent forth 
 this " short ejaculatory address to Christ," the history 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 81. 
 f Acts Tii. 60. 
 
LET. X1L TO DR PRIESTLKY. 
 
 refutes you. If he was himself, you cannot justify his 
 prayer to Christ, \vhile you deny that Christ is God, 
 upon any principle that might not equally justify you, 
 or me, in praying to the blessed Stephen. If St Ste- 
 phen, in the full possession of his faculties, prayed to 
 him who is no God ; why do we reproach the pious 
 Romanist, when he chaunts the litany of his saints ? 
 If the persuasion of Christ's divinity prompted the holy 
 martyr's dying prayer ; then there is no room to doubt, 
 but that the assertion of Christ's divinity was the blas- 
 phemy, for which the Jews, hardened in their unbelief, 
 condemned him. 
 
 8. Another instance, to which I ever shall appeal, of 
 an early preaching of our Lord's divinity, though it 
 may not conduce to your conviction, is the story of St 
 Paul's conversion ; in which, as it is twice related by 
 himself, Jesus is deified in the highest terms. I know 
 not, Sir, in what light this transaction may appear to 
 you ; to me, I confess, it appears to have been a re- 
 petition of the scene at the bush, heightened in terror 
 and solemnity Instead of a lambent flame, appearing 
 to a solitary shepherd amid the thickets of the wilder- 
 ness ; the full effulgence of the Shechiua, overpowering 
 the splendour of the mid-day sun, bursts upon the com- 
 missioners of the Sanhedrim, on the publick road to 
 Damascus, within a small distance of the city : Jesus 
 speaks, and is spoken to, as the Divinity inhabiting 
 that glorious light : nothing can exceed the tone of au- 
 thority on the one side, the submission and religious 
 dread upon the other : the recital of this story, seems to 
 have been the usual prelude to the apostle's publick 
 apologies ; but it only proved the means of heightening 
 the resentment of his incredulous countrymen. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. Xft. 
 
 9. These instances, Sir, will bear me out in the as- 
 sertion, that our Lord's divinity was preached from the 
 very beginning, till you can fix the first discovery to 
 some later epocha : I am, therefore, not at all concern- 
 ed in the solution of your first question. 
 
 10. The second, " when was the knowledge of our 
 Lord's divinity first imparted to the minds of the apos- 
 tles?" is wholly insignificant, and uninteresting to all 
 parties : it concerns not me ; because, with my notions 
 of inspiration, I am obliged to believe what the inspired 
 apostles taught, however late the time might be when 
 they themselves received their information : it concerns 
 not you ; because, with your notions of inspiration, you 
 are at liberty to dispute what the inspired apostles 
 taught, whatever pretensions they may have to the 
 earliest information. If the knowledge was infallible 
 which they received from inspiration, it matters not how 
 late ; if not infallible, it matters not how early they re- 
 ceived it : if no positive proof were extant, that the 
 deity of Christ was an article of faith among the first 
 Christians ; the difficulty of assigning the precise time, 
 when the apostles were first made aquainted with it, 
 might be something of an objection against the anti- 
 quity of the doctrine, and against its truth ; but in oppo- 
 sition to direct proof, the objection, were it founded, 
 could have no weight. 
 
 11. Upon this question therefore, as the former, you 
 must not take it amiss if I leave you to yourself. Choose 
 any time, within the compass of each apostle's life, for 
 the epocha of his illumination : I will hold no argument 
 upon the subject ; although I have an opinion upon the 
 question, as upon the former, which 1 ever shall inculcate 
 in my own congregation : and this, Sir, happens to be the 
 
LET. XII. TO DR PR1ESTLBY. 15 
 
 very reverse of that, which you imagine I must allow, 
 You must allow," you say to me, that at first the 
 apostles were wholly ignorant of this."* At Jlrst in- 
 deed, before their acquaintance with our Lord, or at 
 least with the Baptist, they were ignorant, I believe, of 
 every thing ; but from their first acknowledgment of our 
 Jjord as the Messiah, they equally acknowledged his 
 divinity : their faith, I believe, was but unsettled, as 
 their notions of the Messiah's kingdom were certainly 
 very confused, till the descent of the Holy Ghost ; but 
 so far as they believed in Jesus as the Messiah, in the 
 game degree they understood and acknowledged his di- 
 vinity : the proof, which I have to produce of this, from 
 holy writ, consists of too many particulars, to be dis- 
 tinctly enumerated in the course of our present corres- 
 pondence ; I shall mention two, which, to any but a 
 decided Unitarian, will be very striking : Nathaniel's 
 first profession, and Peter's consternation at the miracu- 
 lous draught of fishes. It was in Nathaniel's very first 
 interview with our Lord, that he exclaimed, " Rabbi, 
 thou art the Sou of God ! thou art the king of Israel !"f 
 and this declaration was drawn from Nathaniel, by 
 some particulars in our Lord's discourse, which he 
 seems to have interpreted as indications of Omniscience. 
 When Simon Peter saw the number of fishes taken, at 
 a single draught, when the net was cast at our Lord's 
 command, after a night of fruitless toil ; *' he fell down 
 at the knees of Jesus, saying, depart from me, for I am 
 a sinful man, O Lord."J Peter's consternation was evi- 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horaley, p. 5Q. 
 + John i. 49. * Luke r. 8. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LEY. XT/ 
 
 clently of the same sort, of which we read in the wor- 
 thies of earlier ages, upon any extraordinary appearance 
 of the light of the Shechinah, which was founded on a 
 notion, that a sinful mortal might not see God and live. 
 These, and many other passages of the evangelical histo- 
 ry, discover that our Lord's associates, although it was 
 not till after his ascension, that the Holy Ghost led 
 them into all truth ; had an early apprehension, of some- 
 thing more than human in his character. Nor indeed 
 were early intimations of it wanting : in the first annun- 
 ciation of his birth, by the angelick host ; in the Bap- 
 tist's declarations ; and in our Lord's own assertions of 
 a power to forgive sins, and of an authority to dispense 
 with ordinances of divine appointment ; and in his claim 
 to be the proper Son of God, which the unbelieving 
 Jews ever understood, as an express deification of his 
 own person. 
 
 12. But Judas Iscariot, you think, " could not possi- 
 bly have formed a deliberate purpose of betraying our 
 Lord/'* had the belief of his divinity been general 
 among the apostles, before his crucifiction : or, had 
 any such pretension been set up, which had not gained 
 belief, Judas would have taken advantage of the impo- 
 sition, and would have made a discovery of it to the 
 prejudice of our Lord. It should seem, Sir, that you 
 think your own cause almost desperate, if you would 
 desire that Judas Iscariot should be admitted as an evi- 
 dence for you, or as an advocate but, what if your 
 cause should turn out to be, what Judas Iscariot him- 
 self would scruple to undertake? I would not willingly 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 58, 
 
LET. X1L TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 be the apologist of that traitor ; but I am inclined to 
 think, that, traitor as he was, his intentions went not to 
 the mischief which he effected : it was rather perhaps 
 his meaning, to cheat the chief priests of their money, 
 than actually to sell his Master's life. When he bar- 
 gained to lead them, for a certain sum, to the place of 
 our Lord's retirement ; he thought, perhaps, that ha 
 might safely trust to his Master's power, to repel any 
 attack upon his person. This is very consistent with a 
 belief of our Lord's divinity ; as the most dishonoura- 
 ble designs are often found, to consist with the truest 
 speculative principles : that he meant not the mischief 
 \vhich ensued, may be presumed, from the remorse 
 which followed, arid the vengeance which, in despair, 
 he executed upon himself. But I care little about his 
 testimony, only, T think, that, with the devils he might 
 believe and tremble, and trembling, might be still a 
 devil. 
 
 13. After all, Sir, I might have spared so particular 
 an answer as I have given to your fifth letter ; in the 
 conclusion of it, you furnish me with a short reply, of 
 which I might have availed myself. " Had there beeu 
 any pretence," you say, " for imagining that the Jews 
 in our Saviour's time had any knowledge of the doc- 
 trine of the Trinity, and that they expected the second 
 person in it, in the character of their Messiah, the ques- 
 tion I propose to you would have been needless." * 
 Then, Sir, the question which you propose to me, is 
 needless. The Jews, in Christ's days, had notions of 
 a Trinity in the Divine nature : they expected the sec. 
 
 * Letten to Dr Horsley, p. 64. 
 
 28 
 
LBTTEUS IN KKl'Lt L&T. XII 
 
 ond person, whom they called the Logos, to come as 
 the Messiah : for the proof of these assertions, I refer 
 you to the work of the learned Dr Peter Allix, entitled, 
 The Judgment of the Ancient Jewish Church against 
 the Unitarians, a work which, it is to he hoped, Sir, 
 you will carefully look through, before you send abroad 
 your intended view of the doctrine of the first ages con. 
 cerning Christ* That you will be convinced by Dr 
 Allix's proof, I have indeed little hope ; I shall produce, 
 however, another authority, to which you will perhaps 
 be more inclined to pay regard : the authority of a 
 learned Unitarian of the last century, who wrote in 
 vindication of a former Unitarian work, of great fame, 
 called TJie Naked Gospel. The Naked Gospel, you 
 know was printed at Oxford, in the year 1690, and was 
 burnt the same year, by order of the convocation. The 
 anonymous author of the Historical Vindication, was 
 supposed to be Le Clerc ; he it is, who says in his pre. 
 face, that the platonick enthusiasm crept first into the 
 Jewish, afterwards into the Christian church then he 
 tells his readers, how the Jews picked up their Platon- 
 ism, of which, he says, the principal doctrines were two : 
 the one, that of the preexistence of souls ; the other, that 
 of the Divine Trinity. These, he says, were the opin- 
 ions of the Jews in the days of our Saviour and his 
 apostles : and hence, perhaps, it hath come to pass, 
 that, as the learned have observed, certain Platonick 
 phrases and expressions are to be found in the New 
 Testament, especially, in St John's Gospel. You, Sir, 
 and this Unitarian brother, seem to agree but ill in your 
 
 * Preface to Letters, p. xvlii. 
 
LET. XII. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 notions of the doctrine of the first ages. He thought the 
 doctrine of the Trinity one of the ancient corruptions of 
 Judaism ; which, in laying the foundations of Christian- 
 ity, the heaven-taught builders, some how or other, for- 
 got to do away : you have discovered, that every no- 
 tion of the Trinity, whatever may be fancied with res- 
 pect to more ancient times, was obliterated from the 
 minds of the Jews, in our Saviour's time.* I believe, 
 Sir, I shall never sit down to the task, which you de- 
 sire me to undertake, a translation of the works of 
 Bishop Bull :f for as his argument is not for the un- 
 learned, the labour would be thrown away a work 
 which might be more generally edifying, and in which 
 I might engage, if it were not that I really grudge every 
 moment which 1 give to controversy, would be, a har- 
 mony of the Unitarian divines* 
 
 14s, You will ask me, whence was the offence, which 
 the assertion of our Lord's divinity, by my own confes- 
 sion, gave the Jewish people, if divinity made a part of 
 their own notion of the Messiah's character ? I answer, 
 the deification of the Messiah was not that which gave 
 offence, but the assertion, that a crucified man was that 
 divine person : and before his crucifixion, the meanness 
 of his birth gave an offence, less in degree, but of the 
 same kind. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 * Letters to Dr llowley, p. 64. 
 
 T IVid, p. 113. 
 
LETTERS IK REPLY LET. Xlll. 
 
 LETTER THIRTEENTH. 
 
 In Reply to Dr Priestley's sixth. Dr Priestley's ig- 
 norance of the true principles of Platonism, appears 
 in his disquisitions concerning matter and spirit. 
 T7ie equality and unity of the three principles of the 
 Platonists. Dr Priestley's peculiar sense of the 
 word personification, not perceived either by the arch- 
 d&acon, or the reviewer. The outline, however, of 
 Dr Priestley's work, not misrepresented by the arch- 
 deacon. The conversion of an attribute into a sub- 
 stance, differs not from a creation out of nothing. 
 Never taught by the Platonists. The eternity of the 
 Logos, independent of any supposed eternity of the 
 world. Not discarded therefore by the converted 
 Platonists. J)r Priestley's arguments, from the 
 analogy between the divine Logos and human reason, 
 answered. TJie archdeacon abides by his assertion, 
 that Dr Priestley hath misrepresented the PlatonicJc 
 language. The archdeacon's interpretation of the 
 Platonists rests not on his own conjecture, but on the 
 authority of Jlthenagoras. Confirmed by other au- 
 thorities. Dr Priestley's quotations from Tertullian 
 considered. From Lactantius. 
 
 DEAR SIR. 
 
 YOU must forgive me, if I confess to you, that so 
 long since as when I first read your disquisitions con- 
 cerning matter and spirit, I formed no very high opinion 
 
LET. XIII TO DR. PRIESTLEY. 
 
 of your learning in the Platonick philosophy. What 
 gave me my first suspicion, as I well remember, was a 
 surprise which you express, that a certain French wri- 
 ter should speak of the idea of a circle, as itself, not 
 round 5* and of the ideas of extended things, as not ex- 
 tended. Your apprehension, that ideas could not be 
 divisible, unless they are extended,! heightened my 
 suspicion, which became something more than suspi- 
 cion, when I found you speaking of the soul's need 
 of a repository for her ideas,$ especially during sleep ; 
 as if ideas were things to be locked up, with our china, 
 in a cupboard. Dr Priestley, I said to myself, confounds 
 ideas with the impressions of external objects, on the 
 material sensory : which impressions arc, in truth, as 
 much external to the mind, as the objects which make 
 them : what pity, that he hath not been more conversant 
 with the Platonists ! These previous indications, of your 
 deficiency in this branch of learning, in some measure 
 prepared me for what I was to find, in your History of 
 the Philosophical Doctrine concerning the soul ; inso- 
 much, that 1 read your assertion, that " Plato's philoso- 
 phy was the oriental system, with very little variation,"|| 
 without indignation ; because 1 considered it, as the re- 
 proach of an enemy, whom better information might 
 make a friend. I was indeed surprised at your want of 
 information in this particular instance; because Mo- 
 sheim, whose authority as an historian, you seem to 
 I/old in due respect, indisposed, as he is in general, to 
 //>e partial to the Platonists, hath however so far done 
 
 * Disquisitions, p. 39. f IbJ(1 - P- 37 
 
 \ Ibid. p. 79. OT 1 Ibid p. 274. 
 
LE 1 1 EltS IN REPLY LET Jf///. 
 
 them justice, as to point out the total discordance, in 
 principle at least, between the sober philosophy of Plato, 
 and the extravagancies of the Gnosticks ; whose princi- 
 ples were those of the oriental system. After this, Sir, 
 it gives me no surprise at all, that you should now as- 
 sert, " that it was never imagined, that the three com- 
 ponent members of the Platonick Trinity, are either 
 equal to each other, or, strictly speaking, one."* They 
 are, Sir, more strictly speaking, one, than any thing in 
 nature of which unity may be predicated. No one of 
 them can be supposed without the other two. The se- 
 cond and third being, the first is necessarily supposed ; 
 and the first (A.y*5ot) being, the second and third, (N*c 
 & VVXH) must come forth. Concerning their equality, I 
 will not say, that the Platonists have spoken with the 
 same accuracy which the Christian fathers use; but 
 they include the three principles in the Divine nature, 
 in the TO 0i/ox ; and this notion implies the same equali- 
 ty, which we maintain ; at the same time I confess, that 
 the circumstance of their equality, was not always strict- 
 ly adhered to by the younger Platonists, for reasons 
 which I have explained.f 
 
 2. The want of perspicuity, is a fault in writing, of 
 which indeed, Sir, you are little guilty ; it is the more 
 extraordinary, that your personification of the Logos, 
 should not be distinctly understood, either by myself, or 
 by my learned ally : for my own part, I confess, 1 had 
 not the least apprehension, that you used the word jper- 
 sonification in any other than its usual sense ; till, in 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 99. 
 f See Charge V. sec. 5. 
 
1ST. Xlll. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 your reply to the animadversions of my learned ally, 
 you distinguished between the personification of the 
 Logos, which you impute to Justin, and the earlier doc- 
 trines of the Gnosticks.* By personification, I had no 
 suspicion that you meant any thing more than a gram- 
 matical prosopopeia ; which you seemed to think had 
 been used both by Plato and St John, in speaking of 
 the divine attribute of wisdom. Certainly, Sir, you 
 express yourself in your history, as if you thought, that 
 a literal acceptation of such figured language was the 
 occasion, that a mere attribute was mistaken for a real 
 person, first in the academy, and afterwards in the 
 church : and that this error led to another, still founded 
 on a literal interpretation of figurative expressions : the 
 expressions in which St John describes, as you conceive, 
 the extraordinary degree in which wisdom and power 
 were conferred on Christ, being understood as assertions, 
 that Christ was that very person, which was supposed 
 to have been previously described by the evangelist, as 
 a branch of the Divinity. 1 thought, Sir, that you con- 
 ceived that a mere grammatical prosopopeia had been, 
 in this way, the first step towards the deification of 
 Christ : upon looking again into the second section of 
 your history, I see no great reason to be ashamed of my 
 mistake I believe, Sir, that, without the assistance of 
 the comment, which your Reply to the Monthly Re- 
 viewer furnishes, no reader of your work would disco- 
 ver any other meaning in your expressions. It seems, 
 however, that the word personification, is a new term 
 of theology, invented by you, for a doctrine which is 
 
 Reply to Monthly Review for /une, see. 5, 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. X1IL 
 
 also of your own invention, though you are pleased to 
 give the credit of it to the Platonick fathers : the doc- 
 trine of the conversion of an attribute into a person ; 
 which was supposed, you say, by its first advocates, to 
 take place immediately before the creation of the world, 
 but being afterwards " carried farther back, namely, to 
 all eternity, it led to the present doctrine of the Trini- 
 ty."* The distinction between this personification of 
 the Logos, and the earlier doctrines of the Gnosticks, is, 
 it seems, an important feature in the great outline of 
 your work. The outline of your work, as sketched by 
 yourself, is briefly this. The exaltation of the person 
 of Jesus Christ began with the Gnosticks, who main- 
 tained the preexistence of human souls : When their 
 errors w r ere exploded, the personification was adopted 
 the Arian doctrine was subsequent to this ; and it was 
 after all these, that, from improvements upon the doc- 
 trine of personification, the present doctrine of the Tri- 
 nity was brought out.f It is a heavy accusation against 
 niy learned ally and me, that we have not sufficiently 
 attended to these distinctions ; and the omissions shows, 
 that " we have never formed a right conception of what 
 we undertook to exhibit.";): 
 
 3. Every w r riter, must be allowed to be the best in- 
 terpreter of his own expressions : but in the sense in 
 which 1 am now taught to understand the personifica- 
 tion of the Logos, I cannot perceive, Sir, with what pro- 
 priety it is called the first step towards the deification 
 
 * Reply to Monthly Review for June, p. 34, 35, 
 
 t Ibid. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 35 ; and Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 36. 
 
LE7\ X11L TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 of Christ ; since the doctrines of the Gnosticks, which 
 you maintain to be more ancient, had, in your judgment, 
 the same tendency I am sometimes inclined to suspect, 
 that you are apt yourself to fluctuate between your own, 
 and the vulgar sense, of personification. 
 
 4. But although 1 should allow, that I missed the 
 sense of a particular expression ; I am not sensible, that 
 I misconceived, or misrepresented, your account of the 
 ancient opinions : you certainly make the Unitarian doc- 
 trine, the general opinion of the first Christians In the 
 second age you allow, that something of divinity was 
 ascribed to Christ ; but you think it was a divinity of an 
 inferior kind, including neither necessity, nor eternity, 
 of a distinct personal existence : I therefore misrepre- 
 sented not the great outline of your work, when I said, 
 that the first race of Christians were, in your opinion, 
 Unitarians in the strictest sense of the word; the second, 
 Arians:* this is the sum of your account, stated, not ia 
 your words, but in ray own. You complain, however, 
 that I " have misconceived your idea"f you inform 
 me, that " the Platonizing Christians were not Arians ; 
 that it is well known that they weve not Ariaus, but the 
 orthodox who Platonized."J 
 
 5. Sir, I am very sensible, that the Platonizers of 
 the second century, were the orthodox of that age I 
 have not denied this : on the contrary, I have endea- 
 voured to show, that their Platonism brings no imputa. 
 tion upon their orthodoxy. The advocates of the Ca- 
 tholick faith, in modern times, have been too apt to take 
 
 * Charg* I. see. t . f Letters to Dr Honley, p. SO. 
 
 i llii.J. 
 
 29 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XIII 
 
 alarm at the charge of Platonism : I rejoice and glory 
 in the opprohrium 1 not only confess, but I maintain, 
 not a perfect agreement, but such a similitude, as speaks 
 a common origin, and affords an argument in confirma- 
 tion of the Catholick doctrine, from its conformity to the 
 most ancient and universal traditions. Nor is this the 
 only article, in which heathen antiquity, however you 
 may slight the argument, by the vestiges, which are to 
 be traced even in idolatrous rites, of the patriarchal 
 history and the patriarchal creed, bears its testimony to 
 revelation. But, Sir, I well know, that these Platoni- 
 zers of the second century, were far more ancient than 
 Arius : nor did I mean to charge you with the absurdity 
 of maintaining a contrary opinion ; I thought that the 
 notion which you express, of what was orthodoxy in the 
 second century, was conveyed in a single word ; when 
 it was said, that you represent the Christians of the 
 second race as Arians ; that is, as Arians in belief; be- 
 cause the divinity which you suppose to have been ascri- 
 bed by them to Christ, was only of that secondary sort, 
 which Ariui and his followers, in a later age, allowed. 
 But to convict me of an error in this representation of 
 your opinion, you now set up a distinction, between the 
 opinions which you would ascribe to the early Plato- 
 nists, and the Arian tenets : " The Logos of the Plato- 
 nizers, you say, was an attribute of the Father, and not 
 any tiling that was created out of nothing, as the Arians 
 held Christ to have been."* However, when this dis- 
 tinction hath served the purpose of convicting me of one 
 error, it is cleared away again to convict me of another : 
 
 * Letters to Br Horsier, p. 6$. 
 
LET. X1U. Ta DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 ibis Logos of the Platonists, I am told, " was originally 
 nothing more than a property of the Divine mind, which 
 assumed a separate personal character in time."* This 
 is the same notion which is expressed in your history, 
 in these words. " All the early fathers speak of Christ, 
 as not having existed always, except as reason exists in 
 man, viz. as an attribute of the Deity."f And the as- 
 sumption of a personal character, seems to be the same 
 thing, which in your history you call " the conversion 
 of a mere attribute into a thinking substance :" J indeed, 
 it is not easy to conceive, how a personal character may 
 be assumed, otherwise than by being made a person 
 now, what the difference may be, between a making out 
 of nothing, and the conversion of a mere attribute into 
 a substance ; or how a person made out of an attribute, 
 may differ from a person made out of nothing I would 
 rather, Sir, that you than 1, should take the trouble to 
 explain : if this was th difference between the doctrines 
 of the early Platonizers and the Arians, and this is the 
 whole difference which you put between them, they 
 might pass, I think, for the same : and your account of 
 the Platonick orthodoxy, was not misrepresented by me, 
 when 1 said, that you made it the same thing, the same 
 in form, not in time, with Arianism. 
 
 6. But, Sir, I maintain, that this is an erroneous and 
 injurious account of the Platonick Christians : this con- 
 version of an attribute into a substance, was never taught 
 by them ; nor by any, except the Sabellians, and those 
 earlier visionaries described by Justin Martyr, who 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 72. 
 
 | Hist cf Gorrup. p. 42. * Ibid. p. 40. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. X11L 
 
 imagined occasional emissions and absorptions of the 
 Divine Logos ; " which opinion (you say) was not very 
 remote from the Unitarian doctrine."* I am happy, 
 Sir, to be informed by you, that the Unitarian doctrine 
 approaches to opinions so mysterious : I thought, that to 
 be clear of mysteries, had been its particular recommen- 
 dation ; I now find, that were 1 even to turn Unitarian, 
 I should have mysteries to digest : and mysteries much 
 too hard for my digestion : I will, therefore, adhere to 
 my creed, in which I know no mystery to be compared 
 with this notion, of a thing which may be a person, and 
 no person, by fits and starts. But for any production of 
 the Logos, by a conversion, either permanent or occa- 
 sional, of an attribute into a thinking substance ; I still 
 maintain, that, were the thing conceivable, the Platonists 
 were likely to be the last to adopt it : because a created 
 Logos, to use my former expression, had been no less 
 an absurdity in the academy, than it is an impiety in the 
 church : and the notion, that this doctrine took its rise 
 among the Platonists, betrays an entire ignorance of the 
 genuine principles of their school."f 
 
 7. You tell me, that I discover in these animadver- 
 sions, a total ignorance of what you have asserted. 
 That you have nowhere said, that either the Platonists, 
 or the Platonizing Christians, held, that the Logos was 
 created, or that it had ever not existed.":}: What then 
 have you said ? You said in your History, that * All 
 the early fathers speak of Christ, as not having existed 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 73. 
 | Charge IV. sec. 4. 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 72. 
 
LET. xin. TO DH PRIESTLEY. 229 
 
 always, except as an attribute of the Deity :"* that 
 
 they taught * 6 the conversion of this attribute into a sub- 
 stance"! and what is it you say now ? You say now 
 that the Platonizing Christians held, that "whereas 
 the Logos was originally nothing more than a property 
 of the Divine mind, it assumed a separate personal 
 character in time."J Be pleased, Sir, to explain the 
 difference between this conversion of attribute into sub- 
 stance, or property into person, and a creation out of 
 nothing. 
 
 8. You admit, however, that the eternity of the Logos 
 was a doctrine of Platonism : but you attempt to as- 
 sign a reason, why the converted Platonists, when they 
 entered into the church, must have parted with this 
 opinion : " the Logos (you say) of the Platonists, had, 
 in their opinion, always had a personal existence, be- 
 cause Plato supposed creation to have been eternal ; but 
 this was not the opinion of the Platonizing Christians, 
 who held, that the world was not eternal ; and thefore, 
 retaining as much of Platonism, as was consistent with 
 that doctrine, they held, that there was a time when the 
 Father was alone, and without a Son."|| Sir, if I 
 thought proper to deny your assertion, that Plato sup. 
 posed creation to have been eternal ; it would require 
 much more skill in the Platonick philosophy, than is to 
 be gotten at second hand, from modern authors, who 
 pretend to give an account of it, to confute the proof 
 which I might bring to the contrary, from Plato's own 
 writings. But as the younger Platonists generally, held 
 
 * Hist of Corrup. p. 42. f Ibid. p. 40. 
 
 * Letters to Dr Hcrsley, p. 72. !j Ibid. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. X1IL 
 
 the eternity of creation ; and Plato, in sonic parts of his 
 writings, seems to favour that opinion, notwithstanding 
 what he says to the contrary in the Timseus; I shall 
 take no advantage of the uncertainty of your assumption : 
 indeed, it would be sufficient for your purpose, were 
 your argument sound in other parts, that the opinion of 
 the world's eternity was current in that school, in which 
 the Christian Platonists were trained, and was probably 
 entertained by them all, before their conversion : still 
 your conclusion will not stand, unless you can prove, 
 that the Platonists, whether Christian or Pagan, held 
 the Logos to be a part of the world, or thought the eter- 
 nity of the Logos, a consequence only of the world's 
 eternity ; whereas, neither the one nor the other of these 
 principles would have been allowed, even by those Pla- 
 tonists who deemed the world eternal. The eternity of 
 the world seemed to them, a consequence of that eternal 
 activity, which they ascribed to the Deity ; that is, to 
 the three principles of Goodness [ T'ayafor ], Intelli- 
 gence [N<], and Vitality [Yt/;^] : an( ^ chiefly to the 
 two last : for to the first principle, they ascribed indeed 
 an activity, but of a very peculiar kind ; such as might 
 be consistent with an undisturbed immutability. He 
 acts, ptwv w eat/7* v$iiy by a simple indivisible unvaried 
 energy ; which as it cannot be broken into a multitude 
 of distinct acts, cannot be adapted to the variety of ex- 
 ternal things ; on which therefore the First Good acts 
 not, either to create or to preserve them, otherwise fchan 
 through the two subordinate principles. The eternal 
 activity therefore of the Deity, and by consequence, the 
 existence of Intellect and the vital principle, in which 
 alone the Divine nature is active upon external things, 
 was necessary in this system to the eternity of the world ; 
 
LET. XIII. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 and this eternal activity, was supposed to be the conse- 
 quence of that goodness of the Deity, which could not 
 suffer that to be delayed, which, because he hath done 
 it, appears to be fit to be done : the world therefore, 
 however the fact may actually be, might or might not 
 have been eternal : if it hath been eternal, it hath been 
 such, not by its own nature, but by the choice of a free 
 agent, who might have willed the contrary. But intel- 
 lect and the vital principle, have been eternal by neces- 
 sity, as branches of the divinity these therefore must 
 have been eternal, even if the world had never been, 
 although the world could not be without them; and 
 this, upon the principles of those philosophers, who 
 deemed the world eternal. The converted Platouists, 
 therefore, when upon the authority of revelation, they 
 discarded the notion of the world's eternity, would not 
 find themselves obliged to discard with this the eter- 
 nity of Intellect, or the Logos : for that stands upon 
 another ground, and is indeed eternity of quite another 
 kind. 
 
 9. But whatever they might be at liberty to do, you 
 are confident of the fact, that the eternal existence of the 
 Logos, as a person, is a notion which was discarded by 
 the Christian Platonists, when they became Christian. 
 Your proof is drawn from the analogy which some 
 of them imagined between the Divine Logos, and the 
 reason of the human soul, or, between the Logos and 
 human speech ; and from the doctrine of the conver- 
 sion of an attribute into a substance, which you per- 
 suade yourself, they deliver in the most unequivocal 
 language. 
 
 10. " That the Logos of the Father, the same that 
 constituted the second person in the Trinity, exactly 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XIII. 
 
 corresponded to the Logos, or reason, or word of man, 
 was the idea of Athanasius himself :"* in proof of this 
 assertion, you bring a passage from Athanasius, in 
 which, to prevent, as it should seem, a conclusion which 
 the unwary might draw from the agreement of the name, 
 instead of the exact correspondence which you may 
 imagine ; he shows the great difference between the 
 Divine Logos and human speech. Tertullian, in a pas- 
 sage cited in your history, f sets up something of an 
 analogy between the Divine Logos and the human 
 reason : this analogy, if I mistake not, hath been pur- 
 sued by the schoolmen, with their peculiar subtlety ; 
 and, as far as it obtains, is well explained by the learn- 
 ed Dr Charles Leslie, in his dialogues, entitled, The 
 Socinian Controversy discussed : Tertullian, to prevent 
 the very conclusion which you draw from this analogy, 
 that the Logos was at some time or another a mere at- 
 tribute, remarks, that nothing empty and unsubstantial 
 can proceed from God ; for the Divine nature, admitting 
 neither quality nor accident, every thing belonging to 
 it must be substance. This argument is ably stated in 
 the work just mentioned, the dialogues of the learned 
 Dr Leslie. 
 
 11. For the conversion of an attribute into a sub- 
 stance, I abide by my assertion, that it is the offspring 
 of your own imagination, and can only have arisen from 
 a misapprehension of the language of the Platonick 
 fathers : it is true, that they speak of the Son's gener- 
 ation as taking place at a particular time, as commen- 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 69. 
 t Hist, of Corrup. i. 38, 
 
LET. XI1L TO DR PRIESTLEY. 333 
 
 cits indeed with the creation : But by this genera- 
 tion, they understood not any beginning of his personal 
 existence, but the projection of his energies; the dis- 
 play of his powers, in the production of external sub- 
 stances. 
 
 i2. You reply, " that any mere external display of 
 powers should ever be termed generation, is so impro- 
 bable, from its manifest want of analogy to any thing 
 that ever was called generation before or since, that 
 such an abuse of words is not to be supposed of these 
 writers, or of any person, without very positive proof; 
 and, in this case," you say to me," you advance noth- 
 ing but a mere conjecture, destitute of any thing that 
 can give it a colour of probability."* This sentence, 
 Sir, only finishes the proof, if it was before defective, of 
 your incompetency in the subject. It shows, that you 
 have so little acquaintance with Platonism, that your 
 mind cannot readily apprehend a Platonick notion, 
 when it is clearly set before you : what you take for 
 my mere conjecture, is the express assertion of Athena- 
 goras, in the very passage which you have quoted : and 
 Athenagoras, I should think, might be a sufficient evi- 
 dence of his own meaning he says, that the Son was 
 called the Son, as being the first offspring of the Father 
 not because he was ever made, but because he went 
 forth to act upon material substances. | He explains 
 the generation of the Son, by declaring first what it 
 signifies not ; then, what it signifies. A making, it sig- 
 nifies not : a going forth, according to Athenagoras ; it 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 70. 
 t Charge IV. sec. 5. 
 
 30 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XIII 
 
 signifies. That the generation of the Son of God is 
 something figuratively called a generation, will hardly 
 be denied Athenagoras declares what he understood 
 by the figure ; and the interpretation which he puts upon 
 it, seems to have been general among the writers who 
 came from the same school it rests not however upon 
 any conjecture, but upon his authority : the fault, Sir, 
 is not in me, if you cannot perceive his meaning when 
 it is rendered in our own language. You object a want 
 of analogy, between the figure, and the thing which it 
 is supposed to represent : this, I think, with an Unita- 
 rian, should be but a slight objection ; since the whole 
 language of the New Testament, in their view of it, is 
 made up of figures, in which analogy is wanting : but 
 the question is not, what may be the natural sense of 
 the word generation, when it is applied to the Son of 
 God, or what may be its true sense when it is so applied 
 in Scripture ; but in what sense it was accepted by the 
 Platonizing Christians : I affirm, upon the authority of 
 Athenagoras, that it was understood by them, when 
 they speak of it as taking place at a certain time, not 
 of a beginning of the Son's existence, but of a display 
 of his powers : to confute this assertion, instead of criti- 
 cal reasoning upon the propriety of the language, you 
 must produce some better authority upon your own 
 side, than that of Athenagoras, whose testimony is ex- 
 press and full, on mine. 
 
 13. But, for the sense which these Platonists put 
 upon the word generation, I am not solicitous to defend 
 it I have spoken of it in my Charge as a conceit ; and 
 I have spoken of the attempt, to put a determinate sense 
 upon a figurative expression, of which no particular 
 exposition can be drawn from holy writ, as highly 
 
JLET. XIIL TO DR. PRIESTLEY. 
 
 presumptuous;* still, Sir, the Platonists are not with- 
 out a defence, against what you have found to object 
 to the propriety of the expression, in the sense in 
 which they understand it You say to me, " Since 
 according to your hypothesis, the Logos was always 
 an intelligent person, he must have exerted his intel- 
 lectual faculties, in some way or other from all eter- 
 nity, as much as the Father himself :"f It is true, Sir. 
 But it was not an exertion of his faculties in some ivay 
 or other, but the first exertion of them on external things, 
 that the Platonick fathers understood by generation. 
 This was the exertion in which the Son came forth. 
 Before this, he energized only within himself : he lay, 
 as it were, unissued in the bosom of the Father. You 
 go on " was the exertion of the faculties of the Fa- 
 ther in the creation of the world, ever called a genera- 
 tion of the Father? and yet, according to you, this 
 
 language must have been equally proper with respect 
 
 to the Father/'J Not according to me, Sir. I hold 
 
 with the Platonists, that the Father's faculties are not 
 exerted on external things, otherwise than through the 
 Son and Holy Ghost : these two persons being, as it 
 were, the two faculties, in which alone the Divine nature 
 is active on created things : although I approve not ths 
 attempt to determine the meaning of a figure, which the 
 holy Scriptures leave undetermined ; yet I cannot allow, 
 that the language, in that interpretation of it which I 
 ascribe to the Platonists, is as improper of the Son as it 
 would be of the Father : I perceive indeed no impvo- 
 
 * Charge IV. sec. 6. 
 
 | Letters to Or Hcrsley, p. 71. * Ibid. 
 
236 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XIII. 
 
 priety in it, as applied to the Son ; I only complain of 
 the want of authority from holy writ. 
 
 14. Still I maintain, that the thing in question is, 
 not the propriety or impropriety of an expression ; hut 
 the fact, how an expression was used and understood by 
 certain writers : it were endless to accumulate authori- 
 ties ; but if the single testimony of Athenagoras is not 
 sufficient, I will produce two more ; to one of which, at 
 least, 1 expect that you will pay some regard, because 
 it is given by hereticks. The first, is that of Constan- 
 tine the Great the emperor may be numbered among 
 the Platouizing Christians ; because, as you have your- 
 self observed, he alleges the authority of Plato, in sup- 
 port of the Catholick doctrine : now Constantino the 
 Great, in his epistle to the Nicomedians, written after 
 
 the Nicene council, uses these expressions " he was 
 
 begotten, or rather he himself came forth (being even 
 ever in the Father) for the setting in order of the things 
 which were made by him.' 7 * Here the emperor ex- 
 pounds generation, by coming forth : he thinks, ts that 
 he came forth," the more significant expression : and he 
 asserts the eternal coexistence of the Son and Father. 
 The other testimony, on which I should more rely for 
 your conviction, if I could hope that any testimony 
 might produce it, is that of Arius the hseresiarch, and 
 the priests and deacons of his faction. In their common 
 letter to Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, (the seat you 
 know of the Platonick school,) stating what they be- 
 lieved, and what they disbelieved ; among the arti- 
 
 ?ra.vl& w TO natt oy, vr? TW 
 
LET. XIII. 
 
 TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 837 
 
 cles which they disbelieved is this : " that the Son, 
 previously existing, was afterwards begotten :"* And it 
 is remarkable, that this stands last in a list of articles 
 of disbelief. In the preceding articles, their disbelief is 
 justified, by a reference of the rejected propositions to 
 certain hereticks, as the first authors of them : of one to 
 Valentinus, of another to Manes, and another to Sabel- 
 lius : but this article, is not referred to any heretick ; 
 which argues that they were conscious, that this was 
 the opinion of the church : it is true, they immediately 
 subjoin, that " Alexander himself, had often publickly 
 declared against those who introduced such things ;" as 
 if this had been one of the things, which Alexander con- 
 demned : but the falsehood of this insinuation appears, 
 from another epistle of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia, 
 to whom as a friend, the heretick may be supposed to 
 write without art or disguise. In this epistle he men- 
 tions the proposition, ''that the Son is coexistent with 
 God, without generation," f as one of the articles of 
 Alexander's publick doctrine, to which he could not 
 give assent. You will find both these epistles, in Epi- 
 phanius's account of the Arians. 
 
 15. From these testimonies it is indisputable, that 
 the early Platonists, by the generation of the Son, when 
 they speak of ir iking place at a particular time, 
 understand not beginning of his existence : and it 
 appears that it ,<ts the language of the orthodox, at the 
 time of the Nicene council, that the existence of the 
 Son, was prior to his generation, and independent of it ; 
 
 TOV oi7* 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. 
 
 coeval indeed with the eternal Father's. Later writers 
 distinguish three generations : the incarnation ; the going 
 forth to the business of creation ; and an eternal genera- 
 tion ; which last, is only a name for the unknown man- 
 ner, in which the Son's existence is connected with the 
 Father's, Tertullian, in the passage which you have 
 quoted in your History,* which you call upon me so 
 particularly to consider,*!* only speaks the language of 
 his times, and never dreamed that he should be under- 
 stood to assert a beginning of the Son's existence, when 
 he said, " that the nativity of the word was perfected, 
 when God said, Let there be Light." 
 
 16. You now, Sir, produce another passage of Ter. 
 tullian, to prove " how ready the Platonizing Chris- 
 tians were, to revert to the idea of an attribute of God, 
 in their use of the word Logos :"J but the passage, in- 
 stead of proving this readiness of the Platonizing Chris- 
 tians, proves the readiness of the Pagan philosophers, to 
 apply this same name to a person \ even to the Maker of 
 the Universe. 
 
 17- You call upon me to consider also a passage cited 
 in your History, from Lactantius, whose orthodoxy, you 
 tell me, I cannot question. || Sir, you are not more in- 
 accurate in your citations from the ancients, than unfor- 
 tunate in your divinations about the principles of your 
 contemporaries, and the concessions which they will be 
 willing to make to you : the orthodoxy of Lactantius I 
 shall question, I shall deny : he had not perhaps the 
 dispositions of an heretick he did not set himself to 
 
 * Vol. I. p. 3840. f Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 6f. 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 76. J Ibid. 
 
LET. XIII. 
 
 TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 239 
 
 oppose, what he knew to be the approved doctrine of the 
 church but his talent was eloquence, which he posses- 
 sed in a high degree, and his learning was in mytholo- 
 gical antiquity: in philosophy, his information was 
 small ; in divinity, he was a child : the common places 
 of morality and natural religion, he touches with ele- 
 gance ; and he inveighs against the Pagan superstition, 
 in a masterly strain : but in his attempt to philosophize, 
 or to expound articles of faith, he is contemptible : in 
 the seventh chapter of his first book, he ascribes a be- 
 ginning to the existence of the eternal Father no won- 
 der then, that he should ascribe a beginning to the Son's 
 existence : you are welcome, Sir, to any advantage 
 you may be able to derive, from the authority of such a 
 writer. 
 
 18. I persuade myself I have now shown, that your 
 objection to the Catholick doctrine, founded on its sup- 
 posed Platonisra, and your argument for what I shall 
 call the Arianism of the Platonizers from Athenagoras, 
 are well entitled to the places which they hold among 
 my specimens of insufficient proof, of which the one is 
 the sixth, and the other the eighth in order. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XIV. 
 
 LETTER FOURTEENTH. 
 
 In Reply to Dr Priestley 9 s eighth. The archdeacon's 
 supposition, that the first Ebionites worshipped Christ, 
 defended. His supposition, that TJieodotus was the 
 first person who taught the Unitarian doctrine at 
 Home, defended. 
 
 DEAR SIR. 
 
 OF all ray nine specimens of insufficient proof, se- 
 lected from the first book of your History, the fifth is 
 the only one, about which any doubt is likely to remain 
 (except with yourself) that it was properly alleged : for 
 the seventh and the ninth, you give up ; and the other 
 six have been considered. 
 
 g. My fifth specimen, was your misrepresentation of 
 Eusebius, a writer of acknowledged veracity and can- 
 dour, whom you very rashly charge with inconsistency, 
 and even with unfairness ; because, in his account of 
 Theodotus the hsBresiarch, who appeared at Rome about 
 the year 190, he cites another writer, who says, that 
 this Theodotus was the first who taught the mere hu- 
 manity of Christ ; whereas it appears from his own 
 history, that the Ebionites, who held the mere human- 
 ity of Christ, were far more ancient than Theodotus. 
 Admitting the antiquity of the Ebionites, I maintain, 
 that Eusebius is so easily reconciled with the author 
 
LET. XIV. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 whom he cites, that the difference between them, is no 
 just ground to tax the veracity of either. It is very cer- 
 tain, that Theodotus maintained the mere humanity of 
 Christ in the grossest sense : in that gross and shocking 
 sense, in which it is at this day taught by yourself and 
 Mr Lindsey : It is not certain that the Ebionites, before 
 Theodotus, had gone further than to deny our Lord's 
 original divinity : they probably, like Socinus, admitted 
 some unintelligible exaltation of his nature after hii 
 resurrection, which rendered him the object of worship j 
 if this was the case, Theodotus might justly claim the 
 honour of being the first assertor of our Lord's humani- 
 ty, being indeed the first who made humanity the whole 
 of his condition : by this very natural supposition, that 
 the Ebionites were Unitarians of a milder sort than 
 Theodotus, Eusebius might have been reconciled with 
 himself, had it been his own assertion, that Theodo- 
 tus was the first, who taught the mere humanity of 
 Christ.* 
 
 3. But this is not the assertion of Eusebius, but of 
 another writer cited by Eusebius : now, since Theodo- 
 tas broached his heresy at Rome, it is very probable, 
 that the writer cited by Eusebius was a Roman, and 
 that ho treated of the state of religion in the western 
 church, and especially at Rome, where Theodotus was 
 probably the first, who, in any sense, taught the mere 
 humanity of Christ, f 
 
 4. You tell me, in your eighth letter, that the differ- 
 ence which I put between Theodotus and Ebion, is ad^ 
 
 * Soe Charge I. sec. .10. . Charge, r, 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XIV. 
 
 vanced upon my own authority :* truly, Sir, I think 
 that a supposition, which reconciles a writer of estab- 
 lished credit with himself, or, which is nearly the same 
 thing, with another writer whom he cites with appro- 
 bation, should need no great authority to support it ; 
 unless it be contrary to known fact, in which case in- 
 deed no authority might support it, or in itself impro- 
 bable : Now, Sir, can you prove, that Christ was not 
 worshipped by the original Ebionites ? Can you prove 
 this, I would ask, by explicit evidence ? For as for that 
 kind of proof, in which you so much delight, which is 
 drawn by abstract reasoning from general and precari- 
 ous maxims ; it is of no more significance in history, 
 than testimony would be in mathematicks ; to think to 
 demonstrate a fact by syllogism, is not less absurd, than 
 to go about to establish a geometrical theorem by an 
 affidavit : excuse me, if I insist upon the difference, in 
 the nature of things, between historick certainty and 
 scientifick truth: I apprehend, an inattention to this 
 distinction hath misled many, and hath been the cause 
 of much fruitless labour in many subjects. Scientifick 
 truth can only be established by abstract reasoning 
 testimony can, in science, produce nothing more than 
 probability in history, it is quite the reverse ; abstract 
 reasoning can never go beyond a probability : proof 
 must arise from evidence : and the reason of this is plain 
 the principles of scientifick truth are all within the 
 mind itself : the truths of history, are the occurrences of 
 the external world : neglecting this necessary distinc- 
 tion, the great Berkley questioned the existence of the 
 
 * Letters to l)r Horsley, p. 103. 
 
LET. XIV. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 material world, because he found it incapable of demon- 
 stration ; and I have known many seek a confirmation 
 of geometrical theorems from experiment. Now to re- 
 turn to my subject : have you evidence, for that is the 
 only proof to which, in this case, the judicious will 
 attend ; have you evidence, that Christ was not wor- 
 shipped by the Ebionites ? If you have none, my sup- 
 position is not contrary to known fact : is it in itself 
 improbable, since all innovations have a progress, and 
 the divinity of Christ was the belief, and the worship of 
 Christ the practice, of the first ages, that presumptuous 
 men would begin to question the ground, on which his 
 right to worship might be thought to stand, before they 
 abandoned the worship to which they had been long 
 habituated ? Hath not this been the progress of the cor- 
 ruption (you will call it reformation, but I must speak 
 my own language) in later times ? Socinus, although he 
 denied the original divinity of our Lord, was neverthe- 
 less a worshipper of Christ, and a strenuous assertor of 
 his right to worship : it was left to others to build upon 
 the foundation which Socinus laid ; and to bring the 
 Unitarian doctrine to the goodly form, in which the pre- 
 sent age beholds it. 
 
 5. But, Sir, my supposition is not only free from im- 
 probability ; it is highly probable : Ebion, in his notions 
 of the Redeemer, as 1 have already had occasion to 
 observe, seems to have been a mere Cerinthian Epi- 
 phanius and Iren^us say, that he held the Cerinthian 
 doctrine of a union of Jesus with a superangelick being. 
 The Cerinthian doctrine was, that this union com- 
 menced at our Lord's baptism ; was interrupted during 
 the crucifixion and at the time of our Lord's interment, 
 but restored again after his resurrection; and beiug 
 
LETTERS IN REf IA LET. XII" 
 
 restored, it rendered the man Jesus an object of divine 
 honours. As Epiplianius says in general of Ebion, 
 that he held the Cerinthian doctrine concerning Christ, 
 without specifying parts that he received, and parts that 
 he rejected ; the probability is, that he received the 
 whole ; and of consequence, that he worshipped Christ 
 as a deified man, notwithstanding that he denied his 
 original divinity. This supposition of mine hath, you 
 see, a probability of its own ; which is quite distinct 
 from that which accrues to it, from its use in reconciling 
 Eusebius with the historian that he quotes ; and is 
 founded on the acknowledged agreement of Ebion with 
 Cerinthus. 
 
 6. For my other supposition, that Theodotus might be 
 the first person who taught the Unitarian doctrine at 
 Rome, you think it highly improbable, " because Ter- 
 tullian says, that in his time, the Unitarians were the 
 greater part of believers :"* at Home therefore, " where 
 there was a conflux of all Religions and of all sects," 
 the probability is little, that there should be no Unitari- 
 ans. Sir, I will grant I am liberal, I am sure, in my 
 concessions I will grant, that Rome swarmed with Uni- 
 tarians in the time of Tertullian : not for the reason which 
 you assign ; that Tertullian says, the Unitarians were 
 the majority of believers ; for this Tertullian hath not 
 said ; with whatever confidence you may ascribe to him, 
 the dreams of Zuick^r and his credulous disciples ; I 
 must take the liberty to say, Sir, that a man ought to be 
 accomplished in ancient learning, who thinks he may 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horatey, p. Ktf. See also p. 121 ; and Sccoad Letter;*. 
 
LET. XIV. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 escape, with impunity, and without detection, in the at- 
 tempt, to brow-beat the world with a peremptory and 
 reiterated allegation, of testimonies that exist not : but, 
 Sir, although I deny that Tertullian says, that the Uni- 
 tarians were in his time the majority of believers ; yet 
 I will grant, that they were numerous at Rome in the 
 time of Tertullian ; I profess 1 know not how numerous, 
 or how few they were ; but to show the strength of my 
 cause, since you are pleased to have it so, let them bo 
 numerous ; how will their numbers affect my supposi- 
 tion, that Theodotus was the iirst person who, at Rome, 
 taught the Unitarian doctrine ? Might not this be, al- 
 though the Unitarians swarmed at Rome in the time of 
 Tertullian ? Believe me, Sir, it well might be ; for the 
 times of Tertullian, were the very times of Theodotus : 
 about the year of our Lord 185, Tertullian embraced / 
 Christianity about the year of our Lord 190, came 
 Theodotus the apostate, the tanner of Byzantium, 
 preaching at Rome the doctrine of Antichrist. 
 
 7. My learned ally has a third conjecture, for the 
 reconciling of Eusebius and his author. It is by no 
 means necessary to our argument, that either of my sup- 
 positions, or that his, or that any particular conjecture 
 which may be made upon the subject, should be brought 
 to a certainty ; you tax Eusebius with want of candour 
 and consistency the charge rests upon an assumption, 
 that what Eusebius relates of the antiquity of the Ebion- 
 ites, and what his author affirms of the first assertion of 
 our Lord's mere humanity, by Theodotus, cannot be in- 
 terpreted but in contradictory senses : if we have shown, 
 by a variety of probable conjectures, that the two asser- 
 tions admit consistent interpretations, that each may be 
 true in the sense ia which each writer understood him. 
 
LETTERS IX REPLY LET. XIV. 
 
 self, without contradiction of the other, the whole evi- 
 dence of your accusation is demolished, and the charge, 
 of temerity and presumption, lies heavy on yourself, for 
 an attack which you cannot support with proof, upon 
 the character of a grave and respectable historian. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
LET, XV. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 LETTER FIFTEENTH. 
 
 In Reply to Dr Priestley's seventh. The metaphysical 
 difficulties stated by Dr Priestley, neither new nor 
 unanswerable. Difficulties short of a contradiction, 
 no objection to a revealed doctrine. Difficulties in 
 the JLrian and Socinian doctrine. The Father not 
 the sole object of worship. Our Lord, in what sense 
 an image of the invisible God, and the first-born of 
 every creature. Not the design of the evangelists, to 
 deliver a system of fundamental principles. The 
 doctrine of the Trinity, rests on the general tenor of the 
 sacred writings. The inference, that Christ is not 
 God, because the apostles often speak of him as man, 
 invalid. The inference, from the manner in which 
 he sometimes speaks of himself, invalid. The Atha- 
 nasians of the last age, no Tritheists. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 AFTER the declaration which I have made, that I 
 will not enter into a regular controversy with you, upon 
 the subject of the Trinity ; you will not wonder, if you 
 receive only a general reply to some parts of your sev- 
 enth letter. A particular answer to the several objec- 
 tions which it contains, would lead me into metaphysical 
 disquisitions, which I wish to decline, because, in that 
 subject I foresee, that we should want common principles 
 and a common language. The questions, which you 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. %V< 
 
 propose in the second and the fourth sections of this let- 
 ter, are not new, and have been answered : but if they 
 were unanswerable, what would be the inference ? The 
 inference would ohly be, that the doctrine of the Trinity 
 hath its difficulties ; and is it possible, that any doctrine 
 concerning the nature of the Deity, should be without 
 its difficulties? When the infinite distance is considered 
 between man and his Maker, it seems reasonable to 
 presume, that there must be mysteries, far above the reach 
 of the human understanding, both in the nature of God, 
 and in the plan of his government ; that the fullest dis- 
 covery that could be made, of God and of his ways, to 
 the human intellect, must be imperfect ; because, how- 
 ever perfect in itself, it could be but imperfectly appre- 
 hended. No difficulties, therefore, short of a contradic- 
 tion, can be allowed to constitute an objection, to a doc- 
 trine claiming divine original ; on the contrary, it should 
 rather seem, that to involve difficulties, must be one 
 characteristick of a divine revelation ; and its greatest 
 difficulties, may reasonably be expected to lie in those 
 parts, which immediately respect the nature of God, and 
 the manner of his existence : if you would suppose the 
 contrary, if you would insist, that a divine revelation, 
 being intended for the general information of mankind, 
 must be perspicuous and free from difficulty ; 1 would 
 ask, is Christianity clear of difficulties in any of the 
 Unitarian schemes ? hath the Arian hypothesis no diffi- 
 culty, when it ascribes both the first formation, and the 
 perpetual government of the universe, not to the Deity, 
 but to an inferior being ? can any power or wisdom, 
 less than the Supreme, be a sufficient ground for the 
 trust we are required to place in Providence ? Make 
 the wisdom and the power of our ruler what you please; 
 

 TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 y upon the Ariau principle, it is the wisdom and the 
 power of a creature : where then will be the certainty, 
 that the evil which we find in the world, hath not crept 
 in through some imperfection in the original contrivance, 
 or in the present management ; since every intellect, 
 below the first, may be liable to error, and any power, 
 short of the supreme, may be inadequate to purposes of 
 a certain magnitude ? But if evil may have thus crept 
 in, what assurance can we have, that it will ever be 
 extirpated ? In the Socinian scheme, is it no difficulty, 
 that the capacity of a mere man should contain that wis- 
 dom, by which God made the universe ? AVhatever is 
 meant by the Word in St John's gospel, it is the same 
 Word of which the evangelist says, that all things were 
 made by it, and that it was itself made flesh : if this 
 Word be the Divine attribute, Wisdom ; then that at- 
 tribute, in the degree which was equal to the formation 
 of the universe, in this view of the Scripture doctrine, 
 was conveyed entire into the mind of a mere man, the 
 son of a Jewish carpenter a much greater difficulty, in 
 ray apprehension, than any that is to be found in the 
 Catholick faith.* 
 
 * Ir reply to this, DP Priestley says to me, in the thirteenth of his Second 
 Letters, s*-c. 3. "Pray, Sir, what Socinian ever maintained, that the Divine 
 attribute, Wisdom, in the degree which was equal to the formation of the uni- 
 verse, was conveyed entire into the mind of Jesus Christ ?" I say, that St John 
 maintains it, if St John was, what Dr Priestley believes him to have been, a 
 Socinian. -It is maintained iu the beginning of St John's gospel, if the evangel- 
 ist's words be expounded in the true sease by the Unitarians the Word, which 
 was with God from the beginning, according to St John, was made flesh : if the 
 Word, which was made flesh, was not the same Word which was in the begin- 
 ning with God, by which all things were made, there is no meaning in the evao 
 felist's words, literal or figurative. The Word's being made flesh, according to 
 the Socinians, was only a communication of the Word to the mind of Christ : 
 tht was communUated to the mind of Christ ? that Word whih was from the 
 
 32 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XV 
 
 Q. In the third section of your seventh letter, you 
 build an argument for the sole deity of the Father, upon 
 an assumption that he is the sole object of worsbip. To 
 this argument I have replied.* I deny tbe assumption 
 I cite the example of St Stephen, whose last act of wor- 
 ship was addressed to Christ : you allege, on the other 
 side, the example of our Saviour, who himself prayed 
 to the Father, the authority of Origen ; and, I know not 
 what, early and universal practice : I reply, that our 
 Saviour, as a man, owed worship to the Father: I 
 maintain, that neither the authority of Origen, nor any 
 universal practice of a later age, can outweigh the ex- 
 ample of St Stephen, were it single ; much less, sup- 
 ported as it is by other examples of equal weight : the 
 worship addressed to Christ, by St Stephen and the 
 apostles, either proves the divinity of Christ, or it justi. 
 fies the worship of the saints and martyrs in the Roman 
 church ; and they who live in countries, where the papal 
 superstition is established, may without scruple, invo- 
 cate St Michael, St Raphael, St Abel, St Abraham, 
 St Stephen, St Sebastian ; and all the saints, angelick 
 and human, Jewish and Christian, of the Roman cal- 
 endar. 
 
 3. The text of St Paul (Col. i. 15.) was produced 
 by me,f not as the most explicit assertion that may be 
 
 beginning, which made the world Dr Priestley says, this is more than the 
 Unitarians believe : " what we believe is that a portion only, of the same 
 wisdom which formed the universe, was communicated to Christ." It may be 
 so. Far be it from roe to tax Dr Priestley, or his brethren, with a larger faith 
 than they profess ; but if they believe no more than Dr Priestley in this passage 
 acknowledges, they believe much less than St John asserts, in the most reduced 
 a^nse of his expression!. 
 * Lette XL t s Charge p. 15. 
 
LET. XV. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 found in Scripture, of our Lord's divinity : but as au 
 explicit assertion, that he is at least something much 
 more than man, and that the universe was made by him. 
 If the dignity of his nature were mentioned, only in this 
 single passage, or were no where described by higher 
 titles than those which the apostle uses here ; u the 
 image of the invisible God, and the first-born of every 
 creature," divinity might seem more than is implied in 
 them : but when we recollect the stronger expressions, 
 which occur in other places ; in particular, St Paul's 
 assertion, that he was originally in the form of God, of 
 which he emptied himself to take the form of a servant, 
 i. e. of a man ; and when to all other proofs of the high 
 dignity of his nature, we add St John's explicit doc- 
 trine of his eternity and Godhead ; it must be very evi- 
 dent, that it could not be the intention of St Paul, 
 in this passage, to sink the Son of God into the rank of 
 a creature, or to separate him from the Divine nature. 
 The force of St Paul's description, in both its branches, 
 lies rather in the adjectives, invisible and jirst-born, 
 than in the substantives, image and creature : the first 
 branch of the description, that " he is the image of the 
 invisible God," points to a circumstance, upon which 
 the early fathers dwell, as one of the principal person- 
 al distinctions : that it is in- the person only of the Son, 
 that the glory of the Godhead can be rendered visible 
 For God, in the person of the Father, no man hath seen 
 at any time.* The Son, is therefore an image of the 
 Invisible Deity ; not as a likeness formed in a distinct 
 substance, but as he, who, in every instance of an ira- 
 
 i. 18; and vi. 4C. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLS LET. AT. 
 
 mediate intercourse between God and man, bath been 
 tbe appearing person.* The second branch of the des- 
 cription, holds out a distinction between birth and crea- 
 tion, which implies, that the Son's existence is depen- 
 dent on the Father's, in some other manner than that, in 
 which any creature's existence is dependent on its Ma- 
 ker's. You must know, that the words in the original 
 text, irpololouoe TTOLWC jc7wtr are equivalent to these : 
 e re^S-c/f 57^0 -TTWW ttlurtuf, he who was born or begotten 
 before any creation, or before any thing was made. 
 " It is observable, says Dr Clarke, that St Paul does 
 not here call our Saviour irfulo*TKov TTOLWC xVtwc, the 
 first created of all creatures, but TTfuloloKo* irawc Klicwr, 
 the first born of every creature; the first begotten be- 
 fore all creatures." 
 
 4. I allow, that " there is nothing that can be called 
 an account of the divine nature of Christ, in the gospels 
 of St Matthew, St Mark, or St Luke :"t But, every 
 one of the gospels abounds with passages, in which it is 
 so evidently implied, that no room is left to doubt, that 
 the four evangelists, had but one opinion upon the sub- 
 ject : I cannot admit your position, that " each of the 
 gospels, was intended to be a sufficient instruction in 
 the fundamental principles of the doctrine of Christian- 
 ity ;"f nothing seems to have been less the intention of 
 any of the evangelists, than to compose a system of fun- 
 damental principles instruction in fundamentals, in 
 that age, was orally delivered ; the general design of 
 
 * image of the invisible God. " A lively description of the person of 
 
 Christ ; whereby we understand, that in him only God ahowcth himself U> he 
 seen." Marginal note, in Barker's quarto Bible, 1599. 
 
 f Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 91. * Ibid. 
 
LET. XV. TO DR. PRIESTLEY. 
 
 the evangelists, seems to have been nothing more than 
 to deliver in writing, a simple, unembellished narrative 
 of our Lord's principal miracles ; to record the occur- 
 rences and actions of his life, which went immediately 
 to the completion of the ancient prophecies, or to the 
 execution of the scheme of man's redemption ; and to 
 register the most interesting maxims of religion and 
 morality, which were contained in his discourses. The 
 principles of the Christian religion, are to be collected, 
 neither from a single gospel, nor from all the four gos- 
 pels ; nor from the four gospels, with the acts and the 
 epistles ; but from the whole code of revelation, consis- 
 ting of the canonical books of the Old and New Testa- 
 ment : and for any article of faith, the authority of a 
 single writer, where it is express and unequivocal, is 
 sufficient. Had St Paul related what be saw in the 
 \ tbird heaven, 1 hope, Sir, you would have given him 
 implicit credit, although the truth of the narrative, must 
 have rested on his single testimony. 
 
 5. I cannot however grant, that the general tenor of 
 fe'cripture, supposes not such a Trinity as I contend 
 fo\\* I contend, that your doctrine is what stands upon 
 particular texts ; while the Catholick faith, is supported 
 by the general tenor of the sacred writings, and by the 
 consent of those writings, in many parts, with an uni- 
 versal tradition of unexplored antiquity. 
 
 6. You ask me, " why the doctrine of the Trinity, if 
 it be a truth, was not taught as explicitly in the New 
 Testament, as the doctrine of the Divine unity, both in 
 Old and New ?"| and you say, that many passages in 
 
 * Letters to D? Horsley, p. 87. Ibifi. p. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XV- 
 
 Scripture, inculcate the doctrine of the Divine unity, in 
 the clearest and strongest manner :"# be pleased, Sir, to 
 produce one of the many : I know of no doctrine of 
 the Divine unity, taught either in the Old Testament or 
 in the New, but the doctrine, that Jehovah, the God of 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; the Creator of heaven and 
 earth ; is the one true God, in opposition to the variety 
 of imaginary gods worshipped by the heathen :| con- 
 cerning the metaphysical unity of the Divine nature, the 
 Scriptures are silent ; except that, by discovering a Tri- 
 nity of persons, they teach clearly what the unity is not ; 
 namely, that it is not personal : if you imagine, that the 
 absolute unity of the Divine substance, is more easy to 
 be explained than the Trinity ; let me entreat you, Sir, 
 to read the Parmenides : it is indeed in Plato's school^ 
 if any where, that a man's eyes are likely to be opened 
 to his own ignorance. Read the Parmenides you will 
 then perhaps perceive, that that unity, which must be 
 the foundation of all being, is itself, of all things, the 
 most mysterious and incomprehensible. I must know 
 more of it than I do, before I can pretend to perceive, 
 what is so clear to you, that you think that I cannot 
 deny it, " that the doctrine of the Trinity, looks like an 
 infringement of the unity."J 
 
 7. The argument contained in the seventh section of 
 your seventh letter, splits, I think, into three, resting 
 on the three different assumptions. The apostles, both 
 in the book of Acts, and in their epistles, usually call 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 93. 
 \ To yuiv yat^ Stsv o^to?.c^v evai, TJ^ 
 
 $duw Trade;. Euseb. Ecc. Theol. lib. i. c. 2. 
 Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 92. 
 
XV. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 355 
 
 Christ a man ; therefore they knew not that he was 
 God ; for the discovery would have changed their Ian- 
 guage.* 
 
 8. They speak of him as a man, in reasoning and ar- 
 gumentation. Therefore he was a man.f 
 
 9. They behaved to him as a man, in their ordinary 
 intercourse with him ; therefore they had no apprehen- 
 sion that he was God.J 
 
 10. To the two first arguments, it is an answer, that 
 according to the faith which I defend, Christ is truly a 
 man as well as God : it is no wonder therefore, that he 
 should be mentioned as a man, when nothing in the 
 narrative, or in the argument, requires that his divinity 
 should be particularly brought to view. 
 
 11. To the first argument in particular, it is a further 
 answer ; that it was the style of all the sacred writers, 
 and it is the style of all writers, to name things rather 
 after their appearances, than their internal forms : the 
 tempter you know, in the Mosaick history of the fall, is 
 called the serpent ; and is not once mentioned by any 
 other name : the three angels, who appeared to Abra- 
 ham in the form of men, are called men, throughout the 
 story. 
 
 12. To the second argument in particular, it is a fur- 
 ther answer ; that, as the scheme of man's redemption, 
 required the incarnation of the Son of God ; the apos- 
 tles, would often find it necessary in reasoning upon 
 that scheme, and in argumentation in defence of it, to 
 insist on his humanity. 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 93. f Ibid. 
 
 t Ibid. 93, and 94. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XV, 
 
 IS. The third branch of the argument, cannot be al- 
 lowed to have any force at all, even though the assump- 
 tion upon which it rests should be admitted, if we have 
 the authority of the apostles, in their writings, for the 
 deity of Christ ; the most that could be inferred, were 
 the assumption true, would be something strange in 
 their conduct ; and even this might be a hasty infer- 
 ence the singularity of their conduct might disappear, 
 if the accounts which they have left of our Lord's life 
 on earth, and of their attendance upon him, were more 
 circumstantial : but the truth is, that the foundations of 
 this argument are unsound : it may be gathered from 
 the evangelical history, imperfect as it is, that the beha- 
 viour of the apostles to our Lord during his life, posses- 
 sed as they were with an imperfect, wavering belief in 
 him as the Messiah, and with indistinct notions of the 
 Messiah's divinity, was the natural behaviour of men 
 under these impressions : they treat him, upon all occa- 
 sions, with a very distant reserve : sometimes they in- 
 voke him as a deity ; as St Peter, when he was sinking 
 in the sea, and all the disciples, in the storm. Jf the 
 angels, Michael or Gabriel, should come and live among 
 us, in the manner which you suppose,* I think we 
 should soon lose our habitual recollection of their an- 
 gelick nature ; it would be only occasionally awaked by 
 extraordinary incidents : This at least would be the 
 case, if they mixed with us upon an even footing, with- 
 out assuming any badges of distinction, wearing a com- 
 mon garb, partaking of our lodging and of our board, 
 suffering in the same degree with ourselves from hunger 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 9i. 
 
LET. XV. 
 
 TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 and fatigue, and seeking the same refreshments. The 
 wonder would he, if angels, in this disguise, met with, 
 aujr other respect, than that which dignity of character 
 commands, with something of occasional homage, whea 
 their miraculous help was needed. This was the res- 
 pect which our Lord met with from his followers. You 
 say, "he could not divest himself of his superior and prop- 
 er nature : ?? * but St Paul says quite the contrary, that 
 he emptied himself, and assumed a form, which set out 
 of sight the transcendent dignity of his nature, and de- 
 prived him of the homage due to it. The scheme of 
 man's redemption required this humiliation, which made 
 'a part of the sufferings by which our guilt was to be 
 atoned. 
 
 14-. In the eighth section of this seventh letter, you argue 
 against our Lord's divinity, from " the manner in which 
 be speaks of the power by which he worked miracles, 
 as not his own, but the Father's ;"f and from the 
 manner in which he speaks of himself, saying, My Fa* 
 ther is greater than I. If from such expressions, you 
 would be content to infer, that the Almighty Father is 
 indeed the fountain and the centre of divinity; and that 
 the equality of Godhead is to be understood, with some 
 mysterious subordination of the Son, to the Father ; you 
 would have the concurrence of the ancient fathers, and 
 of many advocates of the true faith, in all ages. If you 
 would infer any other inferiority, than what is necessa- 
 rily implied in the relation of a Son, some of the very 
 passages to which you allude, will serve to your confu- 
 tation : such are those sayings of our Lord, recorded in 
 
 Letter? * Dr Hersley, p. 24. f Rud. p. 9$. 
 
 33 
 
258 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XV. 
 
 St John's gospel, that the Son can do nothing of 
 himself* the word which you hear, is not mine, but the 
 
 Father's which sent mef the Father which dwel- 
 
 leth in me, he doeth the works :' ? J refer the expressions 
 to the context, and it will appear, that, with something 
 of a subordination on the part of the Son, they assert 
 the most perfect identity of nature, the most entire unity 
 of will, and consent of intellect, and an incessant coop- 
 eration in the exertion of common powers to a common 
 purpose. You are, Sir, very positive in the assertion, 
 that Dr Waterland in particular, and all the strict Atha- 
 nasians of the last age, maintained, " that the Trinity 
 consists of three persons, all truly independent of eack 
 other :"|| upon this opinion, which you ascribe to the 
 strict Athanasians, you remark in your History,^ that 
 to make three proper distinct persons, independent of 
 each other, is to make three distinct gods. I concur 
 with you in this remark, in which you have been anti- 
 cipated by the Roman Dionysius ; whose judgment you 
 know, upon certain persons of his own time, who, ia 
 their zeal against Sabellius, ran into this error, " is 
 quoted with approbation by Athanasius himself ;"T[ but, 
 Sir, I deny, of Dr Waterland in particular, and of thft 
 strict Athanasians of the last age in general, that they 
 fall justly under this censure. 
 
 15. Bishop Bull, in his defence of the Nicene faith, 
 spends a whole chapter, and a very long chapter it is, 
 upon the subject of the Son's subordination ; which he 
 
 John v. 19. f Ibid - xir - 24 * Ibid - xiv> 10 ' 
 
 j Letters to Dr Hortley, p. 80. Vol. i. p. 147, 
 
 U See Dr Priestley's Hist. vol. i, p. 65 ; and the first of these Letters, 
 
LET. XV. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 maintains to be as much a branch of the true faith, as 
 the doctrine of the Sou's eternity or consubstantiality. 
 
 16. The same thing is asserted by Bishop Pearson, 
 in his exposition of the apostles creed : he observes, 
 that " in the very name of Father, there is something of 
 eminence, which is not in that of Son ; and something 
 of priority we must ascribe unto the first, in respect of 
 
 the second person."* " We must not therefore 
 
 so far endeavour to involve ourselves in the darkness of 
 this mystery, as to deny that glory which is clearly due 
 unto the Father he is God, not of any other, but of 
 
 himself 5 there is no other person who is God, but is 
 
 God of him : it is no diminution of the Son to say, he 
 is from another but it were a diminution of the Father 
 to speak so of him ; and there must be some preemi- 
 nence, where there is a place for derogation the first 
 person is a Father indeed, by reason of his Son, but 
 he is not God by reason of him ; whereas, the Son is 
 not only Son in regard of the Father, but also God, by 
 reason of the same."f Upon this preeminence of the 
 Father, the learned Bishop founds the congruity of the 
 Divine mission ;J and he maintains, that " the dignity 
 ef the Father appears, from the order of persons in the 
 blessed Trinity, of which he is undoubtedly the first. 
 Although in some passages of the apostolical discourses, 
 
 the Son may be first named and in others the Holy 
 
 Ghost precede the Son yet, where the three persons 
 
 *re barely enumerated, and delivered unto us as the 
 frule of faith, there that order is observed, which is pro- 
 per to them this order hath been perpetuated in all 
 
 * Pearson on the creed, f . 34. -j- Ibid. i Ibid. p. 37. 
 
260 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. J\T, 
 
 confessions of faith, and is for ever to be inviolably ob* 
 served :"* and this order being so generally acknowl- 
 edged by the Fathers, the bishop remarks in a note, 
 that, " when we read in the Athanasian creed, that in 
 this Trinity none is afore or after other, we must un- 
 derstand the negation of the priority of perfection or 
 time."f 
 
 17 To the same purpose, the learned Mr William 
 Stephens, author of some able discourses on the Trini- 
 ty, in his sermon On the Eternal Generation of the 
 Son of God, preached before the university of Oxford, 
 August 5th 172S, affirms ; that " on the communication 
 of the Godhead from the Father to the son is founded 
 and established, all that subordination which we assert 
 among the persons of the Trinity" he adds, that " un- 
 less some subordination be maintained, we run into 
 Tritheism." For he agrees with you and me, that 
 " three co-ordinate persons, would be manifestly three 
 gods." 
 
 18. The same sentiments are acknowledged by Dr 
 Waterland, in his commentary on the Athanasian creed : 
 When it is said, none is afore or after other, we are 
 not to understand it of order ; for the Father is first, the 
 Son second, the Holy Ghost third in order. Neither 
 are we to understand it of office ; for the Father is 
 supreme in office, while the Son and Holy Ghost, 
 condescend to inferior offices : but we are to understand 
 it, as the creed itself explains it, of duration and dig- 
 nity."} 
 
 * Pearson on the creed, p. 37". 
 4 Watt-viand on the Athanasian creed, p. 144. 
 
. AT. TO R PRIESTLEY. 6l 
 
 19. From these passages it appears, that you misre. 
 present the strict Athanasians of the last age, when you 
 charge them with asserting such a separation and inde- 
 pendence of the three persons, as would amount to Tri- 
 theism : and you misrepresent me, when you insinuate, 
 that I would set the three persons at a greater distance, 
 than the Athauasians of the last age allowed : I main. 
 tain, that the Three Persons are one Being ; One by 
 mutual relation, indissoluble connexion, and gradual 
 subordination : so strictly One, that any individual 
 thing, in the whole world of matter and of spirit, pre- 
 sents but a faint shadow of their unity. I maintain, 
 that each person by himself is God ; because each pos- 
 sesses fully every attribute of the Divine nature; but I 
 maintain, that these persons are all included in the very 
 idea of a God ; and that for that reason, as well as for 
 the identity of the attributes in each, it were impious 
 and absurd to say, there are three Gods for, to say 
 there are three Gods, were to say there are three Fa- 
 thers, three Sons, and three Holy Ghosts : I maintain 
 the equality of the three persons, in all the attributes of 
 the Divine nature I maintain their equality in rank 
 and authority, with respect to all created things, what- 
 ever relations or differences may subsist between them- 
 selves : Differences there must be, lest we confound the 
 persons, which was the error of Sabellius : but the dif- 
 ferences can only consist in the personal properties, lest 
 we divide the substance, and make a plurality of inde- 
 pendent gods. It will not put me out of conceit with 
 the arguments, which I have brought to support these 
 sacred truths, or with the illustrations which I have at- 
 tempted, that you pronounce them equal in absurdity to 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XV- 
 
 any thing in the Jewish cabala,* (of which I suspect 
 you hardly know enough to judge with certainty of 
 this pretended resemblance,) or that you imagine, 
 when you read me, that you are reading Peter Lom- 
 bard, Thomas Aquinas, or Duns Scotus :f perhaps, 
 Sir, though a Protestant divine, I may sometimes con- 
 descend to look into the Summa^ and may be less mor- 
 tified, than you conceive, with this comparison. It was 
 well meant however, and is one of those general depre- 
 ciatory insinuations, which are apt to catch the vulgar, 
 and may serve the purpose of a reply, upon any occa- 
 sion, when a real reply is not to be framed. 
 I am, &c. 
 
 * letters to Dr Horslcy, p. 80. f Ibid. p. 99. 
 
 $ no Protestant, I imagine, will ever thiuk it worth his while to read 
 
 roany sections to that work the Summa. Hist, of Corrup. vol. i. p. 119. 
 
LET. XVL TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 LETTER SIXTEENTH. 
 
 TJie Unitarian doctrine, not well calculated for the 
 conversion of Jews t Mahometans, or Infidels of any 
 description. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 You express in your history, and in your letters t 
 me, a very charitable anxiety about Jews, Mahometans, 
 and Infidels : it is one of your great objections to the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, that it is, as you conceive, an 
 obstruction to their conversion ; which you think might 
 be speedily effected, by reducing Christianity to the 
 Unitarian creed. My notion is, that it is our duty to 
 adhere to the letter of the gospel ; and to leave it to 
 God to open the eyes of Jews, Mahometans, and InfL 
 dels, in his own time, and in his own way. Your de- 
 vice of bringing them to believe Christianity, by giving 
 the name of Christianity to what they already believe, 
 in principle, exactly resembles the stratagem of a cer- 
 tain missionary of the Jesuits, of whom I have some, 
 where read ; who, in his zeal for the conversion of an 
 Indian chief, on whom the sublimity of the doctrine of 
 the gospel, and the purity of its moral precepts, made 
 little impression, told him, that Christ had been a 
 valiant and successful warrior, who, in the space of 
 three years, scalped men, women, and children, with- 
 out number : the savage was well disposed to become 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LEV. XVt 
 
 a disciple of such a master he was baptized, with 
 his whole tribe, and the Jesuit gloried in his numerous 
 converts. 
 
 2. Pardon me, Sir, if I express a doubt whether your 
 stratagem promise equal success : for the Jews, when- 
 ever they begin to open their eyes to the evidences of 
 our Saviour's mission, they will still be apt to consider 
 the New Testament, in connexion with the Old : they 
 will look for an agreement, in principle at least, between 
 the gospel and the law : when they accept the Christian 
 doctrine, it will be as a later and a fuller discovery : 
 they will reject it, if they conceive it to be contradictory 
 to the patriarchal and the Mosaick revelations. Suc- 
 cessive discoveries of divine truth may differ, they will 
 say, in fullness and perspicuity ; but in principle they 
 must harmonize, as parts of one system : they will re- 
 tain some veneration for their traditional doctrines ; and 
 in their most ancient Targums, as well as in allusions 
 in their sacred books, they will find the notion of one 
 Godhead in a Trinity of persons ; and they will per- 
 ceive, that it was in contradiction to the Christians, that 
 their later rabbin abandoned the notions of their forefa- 
 thers. The Unitarian scheme of Christianity, is the 
 last therefore, to which the Jews are likely to be con- 
 verted, as it is the most at enmity with their ancient 
 faith. 
 
 3. With the Mahometans indeed, your prospects may 
 seem more promising ; as the whole difference between 
 you and them, geems very inconsiderable. The true 
 Mussulman, believes as much, or rather more of Christ, 
 than the Unitarian requires to be believed ; and though 
 the Unitarians have not yet recognized the divine mis- 
 sion of Mahomet, there is good ground to think, they 
 
LET. XVf. TO DR. PRIESTLEY. 
 
 will not long stand out :* in Unitarian writings of the 
 last century, it is allowed of Mahomet, that he had no 
 other design than to restore the belief of the unity of 
 God of his religion, that it was not meant for a new 
 religion, but for a restitution of the true intent of the 
 Christian of the grand prevalence of the Mahometan 
 religion, that it hath been owing, not to force and the 
 sword, but to that one truth contained in the Alcoran, 
 the unity of God. "With these friendly dispositions 
 towards each other, it should seem, that the Mahometan 
 and the Unitarian might easily be brought to agree but 
 the experiment hath been very seriously tried, without 
 any event answerable to the expectation : you may not 
 know it, Sir, but so it was, that in the reign of Charles 
 the Second, a negociation was regularly opened, on the 
 part of our English Unitarians, with his excellency 
 Ameth Ben Ameth, ambassador of the emperor of Mo- 
 rocco at the British court, in order to form an alliance 
 with the Mahometan prince, for the more effectual 
 propagation of the Unitarian principles : The two Uni- 
 tarian divines, who undertook this singular treaty, ad* 
 dress the ambassador and the Mussulmen of his suite,, 
 as " votaries and fellow -worshippers of the sole supreme 
 Deity." They return thanks to God, that he hath pre. 
 
 * Dr Priestley, in his Second Letters, p. 1C3, wittily remarks, " that I might 
 almost as well assert, that alt the Unitarians in England are already so far Mahom- 
 etans, that, to my certain knowledge, they are actually circumcised." Upon this 
 occasion, I cannot but remind him of what history records, of an elder brother 
 of our modern Unitarians. In the latter end of the sixteenth century, Adan* 
 Neuser, pastor of the church of Heidelberg, the first, or among the first propa- 
 gators of the Socinian heresy in the Palatinate, began in Sociniaaism, and finish- 
 ed his career with turning Mahometan, and submitting to circuracinion, at' 1 "' 
 Uintinople. 
 
266 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XVI. 
 
 served the emperor of Morocco, and his subjects, in the 
 excellent knowledge of one only sovereign God, who 
 hath no distinction nor plurality of persons ; and in 
 many other wholesome doctrines : they say, that they, 
 with their pens, defend the faith of one supreme God, 
 and that God raised up Mahomet to do the same with 
 the sword, as a scourge on idolizing Christians they 
 therefore style themselves, the fellow-champions with 
 the Mahometans, for these truths they offer their as- 
 si stance, to purge the Alcoran of certain corruptions and 
 interpolations ; which, after the death of Mahomet, had 
 crept into his papers, of which the Alcoran was com- 
 posed ; for, of Mahomet they think too highly, to sup- 
 pose that he could be guilty of the many repugnancies, 
 which are to be found in the writings that go under his 
 name. This work they declare themselves willing to 
 undertake, for the vindication of Mahomet's glory : they 
 intimate, that the corrections which they would propose, 
 would render the Alcoran more consistent, not with 
 itself only, but with the gospel of Christ : of which, 
 they say, Mahomet pretended to be but a preacher 
 they tell the ambassador, that the Unitarian Christians 
 are a great and considerable people : to give weight to 
 the assertion, they enumerate the hseresiarchs of all age* 
 who have opposed the Trinity, from Paulus Samosaten- 
 sis, down to Faustus Socinus, and the leaders of the 
 Polonian fraternity : they celebrate the modern tribes 
 of Arianizing Christians, as asserters of the proper 
 unity of God ; and they close the honourable list, with 
 the Mahometans themselves. " All these (they say) 
 maintain the faith of one God : and why should we 
 forget to add you Mahometans, who also consent with 
 us m the belief of oue only supreme Deity ?" Such ig 
 
LET. XVI. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 the substance of a letter, which they presented to the 
 ambassador, with some Latin manuscripts, respecting 
 the differences between Christianity and the Mahome- 
 tan religion, and containing an ample detail of the Uni- 
 tarian tenets ; they apply to the Mussulman as to a per- 
 son of " known discernment in spiritual and sublime 
 matters ;" and they intreat him, to communicate the 
 import of their manuscripts, to the consideration of the 
 fittest persons of his countrymen. This singular epistle 
 may be seen entire, in Dr Leslie's Sociman Controver- 
 sy Discussed an hundred years are almost elapsed, 
 since these overtures were made to the Moor ; and as 
 no effect hath yet followed, it should seem, that the 
 conversion of the Mahometans to the Unitarian Chris- 
 tianity, is as unlikely as that of the Jews. 
 
 4. For the unbelievers, Sir, Mr Gibbon, as you seem 
 yourself to intimate, hath given you but slender hopes :* 
 unbelievers indeed are of two descriptions the sober 
 Deists; who, rejecting revelation, acknowledge howev- 
 er the obligations of morality ; believe a Provideuce ; 
 and expect a future retribution : and the Atheists ; who* 
 have neither hope nor fear beyond the present life ; 
 deny the Providence of God ; and doubt at least of his 
 existence. 
 
 5. Infidels of the first description, will hardly become 
 your disciples ; because you have nothing to teach them, 
 but what they think they know : " We think, they will 
 say, no less reverently than you of the moral attributes 
 of God : upon our notions of his attributes, we build an 
 
 * Mr Gibbon has absolutely declined to discuss with me, as I pro- 
 posed to him, the historical evidences of Christiaaity." Preface to Reply to 
 JWnthIr Review, for June, p. 8. 
 
268 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XVt, 
 
 expectation of a future existence ; and we look for a lot 
 of happiness or misery, in our future life, according to 
 our deserts in this. The whole difference between you 
 and us is this : that we believe the same things upou 
 different evidence ; you, upon the testimony of a man, 
 who, you say, was raised up to preach these truths ; we, 
 upon the evidence of reason ; which we think a higher 
 evidence than any human testimony : we think, that a 
 revelation is pretended with a very ill grace, when no- 
 thing hath been actually revealed. Revelation is dis- 
 covery : the doctrines of a God, a Providence, and a 
 future state, were known to the Jews before Christ ; to 
 the patriarchs before Moses ; they have been known to 
 thinking men in all ages ; and there can be no place 
 for discovery, where there hath been no concealment." 
 If you would say, that the end of revelation is, to ex- 
 tend to all mankind that useful knowledge, which must 
 otherwise have been enjoyed but by a few ; to convey 
 information by testimony, to those who are incapable of 
 informing themselves by abstract reasoning; that the 
 gospel is therefore a revelation^ because, to the bulk of 
 mankind it is a discovery, and a discovery of sufficient 
 importance to claim a divine original ; they will reply, 
 that whatever weight this argument might carry, if it 
 were urged by those, who take the Scriptures in their 
 literal meaning, and conceive that the revelation is con- 
 veyed in a plain undisguised language ; it is a feeble 
 weapon in the hand of an Unitarian. " If your method 
 of inter pi etaf ion be the true one, the first preachers of 
 Christianity, they will say, differed not from other 
 moralists, otherwise than by the wonderful obscurity of 
 their language, and the air of mystery, which they have 
 contrived to throw over the simplest truths ; their enig- 
 
LET. XVI. TO DU PRIESTlEV, 
 
 inatick language, is as little adapted to popular appre- 
 hension, as the abstruse reasonings of philosophers : the 
 success of their doctrine hath been such, as might have 
 been well foreseen : they were studious of obscurity- 
 they have attained their end : they have been misunder- 
 stood by a great majority of their followers, for almost 
 two thousand years they professed to teach the pure 
 worship of the true God the language in which they 
 conveyed their doctrine, hath been the means of intro- 
 ducing the grossest idolatry. We will not trust our- 
 selves to such dangerous guides, who, as you expound 
 their writings, never spake upon the most interesting 
 subjects, without figure and equivocation." 
 
 6. For the Atheistick infidels, who are in the first 
 place to be convinced of the existence of a Deity ; your 
 doctrine, that there is no mind in man, but what results 
 from the organization of the brain, will never lead 
 them to conclude, that mind is older than body, in the 
 universe. " You would persuade me, the Atheist will 
 say, that there is an higher intellect than mine, the 
 cause of all things : but if intellect in me, be the result 
 of motion, why not in any other intelligent ? You only 
 confirm my incredulity, and multiply my doubts you 
 make me doubt of my own intellect, while you would 
 account for its production ; and you confirm the suspi- 
 cion, which I have long entertained, that the material 
 world is older than its supposed maker : that mind, if 
 indeed such a thing exist, hath, like all other things, 
 started spontaneously from a corporeal chaos ; and, in- 
 stead of being the first cause and the governing princi- 
 ple, is the youngest of all nature's productions." Your 
 principle, that death is an utter extinction of the man, 
 your Atheistical pupil will easily admit ; but it is little 
 
LETTERS IN 21EPLY LET. XVI 
 
 likely to awaken him to the hope of a future existence : 
 the hope which you hold out of a resurrection, he will 
 tell you,, is no hope at all, even admitting that the evi- 
 dence of the thing could, upon your principles, he indis- 
 putable. " The atoms which compose me, your Athe- 
 ist will say, may indeed have composed a man before, 
 and may again ; but me they will never more compose, 
 when once the present me is dissipated I have no 
 recollection of a former, and no concern about a future 
 self. 
 
 Et nuna nilul nd nas de nobis attinet, ante 
 Qui fuimus ; nee jam de illis nos afficit angor, 
 Quos de materid nostra nova proferet setas. 
 
 Inter enira jecta est vital pausa, vageque 
 Deeraruut passim motua ab sensibas omnes." 
 
 7. It should seem, Sir, that your doctrines are ill 
 calculated for the conversion of Jews or Infidels : upon 
 the Mahometans, their efficacy hath been tried without 
 success. The Unitarians, therefore, are not likely to be 
 the instruments of these conversions. 
 
 I am, &G. 
 
 N. B. The story of the negociation on the part of the 
 English Unitarians, in the reign of Charles the Second, 
 with the ambassador of the emperor of Morocco ; Dr 
 Priestley, in the fifteenth of his Second Letters, is plea- 
 sed to treat with great contempt, as an invention, that is 
 to say, a lie or forgery, of Dr Leslie's : fortunately, the 
 evidence of this extraordinary fact, is yet extant in 
 the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth. Among the 
 Codices Manuscripti Tenisoniani, is a thin folio, mark- 
 ed with the number 673, and entered in the catalogue, 
 
LET. JTF/. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 under the article Socinians, by the title of Systema 
 Theologice Sociniance. It contains four tracts : the first, 
 is the very letter to Ameth Ben Ameth, published by 
 Dr Leslie, written in a very fair hand ; on the prece- 
 ding leaf, are these remarks. " These are the original 
 papers, which a cabal of Socinians in London, offered 
 to present to the Embassadour of the King of Fez and 
 Morocco, when he was taking leave of England, Au- 
 gust 1682. The said Embassadour, refused to receive 
 them, after having understood that they concerned reli- 
 gion. The agent of the Socinians was Mun&ieur Verze : 
 Sir Charles Cottrell, Kn. Mr of the Cerem. then prse- 
 gent, desired he might have them ; which was graunted : 
 and he brought them and gave them to me, Thomag 
 Tenison, then Vicar of St Martin'g in the Fields, 
 Middl." 
 
 The second tract is in Latin, entitled, Fpistola 
 JLmcth Benundula Mahometani ad Jluriacum Princi- 
 pem Comitum Mauritium, et ad Emmanuelem Portu- 
 allicB Prindpem. 
 
 The third tract is again in Latin, entitled, JLnimad- 
 versiones in pr&cedentem Epistolam. These two tracts 
 are the Latin letter, and the remarks of the Unitarian 
 divines upon it, which are mentioned in the English 
 letter to Ameth Ben Ameth, and of which Dr Leslie, in 
 his preface, says he had seen a printed copy. 
 
 The fourth tract, I take to be the preface to the print- 
 ed edition, or intended edition : this also is in Latin, 
 and is inscribed TJieognis Irenwus Christiana Lectori 
 salutem. 
 
 I do most solemnly aver, that 1 have this day, Jan. 
 15, 1789, compared the letter to Ameth Ben Ameth, as 
 published by Dr Leslie, ia his Socinian Controversy 
 
LETTERS IN REPJLY iET. AT/ 
 
 Discussed, with the manuscript in the Archbishop's 
 Library, and find that the printed copy, with the ex- 
 ception of some trivial typographical errors, which in no 
 way affect the sense, and are such as any reader will 
 discover and correct for himself, is exactly conformable 
 to the manuscript, without the omission or addition of a 
 single word : I do moreover aver, that the remarks in 
 the leaf, at the beginning of the manuscript, giving an 
 account of its contents, and of the manner in which these 
 papers came into the possession of Dr Tenison, were 
 this same day copied verbatim from the manuscript by 
 myself, upon the spot. 
 
 If Dr Priestley should mistrust my veracity in these 
 assertions, (which I think he will not,) I promise him 
 that I will at any time use my endeavours to procure 
 him a sight of the manuscript, that he may satisfy him* 
 self. 
 
LET. XV II TO DR PRlESTLflT. 
 
 LETTER SEVENTEENTH. 
 
 The archdeacon takes leave of the controversy. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 IT might be but consistent with the pride, which 
 you impute to me as a churchman, and with the co?i- 
 temptuous airs, which I am apt to give myself with 
 respect to dissenters ;* were I to close our present cor- 
 respondence, without any notice of your animadversions 
 upon that part of ray Charge, which regards the studies 
 of the younger clergy, and what you are pleased to call 
 my terms of communion. It might be a sufficient, and 
 not an unbecoming reply, to remind you, that I spoke 
 ex cathedra, and hold myself accountable for the advice 
 which L gave, to no human judicature, except the KING, 
 the Metropolitan, and my Diocesan. This would in- 
 deed be the only answer, which I should condescend 
 to give to any one for whom I retained not, under all 
 our differences, a very considerable degree of personal 
 esteem ; but as Dr Priestley is my adversary, in some 
 points, I could wish to set him right, and in some I 
 desire to explain. 
 
 * "If your pride as a churchman, and the contemptuous airs you give yourself 
 with respect to tlisaenters, kc." Letters to DrHorsley, p. 113. 
 
 Q* 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XVII. 
 
 3. If I have any where expressed myself contemp- 
 tuously, the contempt is not of you, but of your argument 
 upon a particulr subject, upon which I truly think you 
 argue very weakly ; and of your information upon a 
 point, in which I truly think you are ill informed : this 
 hinders not, but that I may entertain the respect, which 
 I profess, for your learning in other subjects ; for your 
 abilities, in all subjects in which you are learned ; and 
 a cordial esteem and affection for the virtues of your 
 character, which I believe to be great and amiable. 
 Your attack being made, upon those parts of the esta- 
 blished faith, which I conceive to be fundamental 
 principles of the Christian religion, I hold it my duty 
 to show the weakness of your reasoning ; to expose 
 your insufficiency in these subjects ; and to bear my 
 testimony aloud, against your doctrine. Between duty 
 to God and to his church, and respect for man, it were 
 criminal to hesitate. Upon any occasion, wherein com- 
 plaisance might be allowed to operate, you are the last 
 person, whose feelings I would have wounded. 
 
 8. You seem to think, that 1 secretly suspect you of 
 artifices, which are incompatible with that purity of in- 
 tention, which I would seem willing to allow.* la 
 your last pamphlet, you complain, that 1 have charged 
 you with several instances of gross disingenuity.f f 
 am sensible, that, in these letters, you will find more, 
 and stronger instances of charges, which you will ba 
 apt to interpret as unfavourably ; and this, I fear will 
 heighten the suspicion which you express, that even 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 12. 
 
 f Remarks on Monthly Review p. 12, note. 
 
r. XVlt TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 the compliments I sometimes pay you, are ironically 
 meant** 
 
 4. Indeed, Sir, in quoting ancient authors, when you 
 have understood the original, which in many instances 
 is not the case, you have too often heen guilty of much 
 reserve and management: this appears, in some in- 
 stances, in which you cannot preteml, that your own in- 
 advertency, or your printer's, hath given occasion to 
 unmerited imputations : I wish that my complaints upon 
 this head had heen groundless ; but, in justice to my 
 own cause, I could not suffer unfair quotations to pass 
 undetected : I am unwilling to draw any conclusion 
 from this unseemly practice, against the general probity 
 of your character; but you must allow me to lament, that 
 men of integrity, in the service of what they think a 
 good end, should indulge themselves so freely as they 
 often do, in the use of unjustifiable means. Time was, 
 when the practice was openly avowed ; and Origen 
 himself was among its defenders the art which he 
 Tecommended, he scrupled not to employ : I have pro- 
 duced an instance, in which, to silence an adversary, 
 lie had recourse to the wilful and deliberate allegation 
 of a notorious falsehood : you have gone no such length 
 as this, I think you may believe me sincere, when I 
 speak respectfully of your worth and integrity; not- 
 withstanding, that I find occasion to charge you with 
 some degree of blame, in a sort, in which the great 
 character of Origen was more deeply infected : would 
 God it had been otherwise would God I could with 
 truth have boasted, " To these low arts stooped Origen : 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horslejr, p. J 10. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XVII. 
 
 but my contemporary, my great antagonist, disdains 
 them." How would it have heightened the pride of 
 victory, could I have found a fair occasion to be thus 
 the herald of my adversary's praise ! 
 
 5. I am not sensible, that I have spoken contemptu- 
 ously of dissenters in general ; a fair and conscientious 
 dissent, is not the object of contempt ; neither is a petu- 
 lant hostility against establishments respectable ; the 
 praise which I give the Church of England, that she is 
 the first in consideration of all the Protestant churches, 
 is no more than liberal dissenters have themselves al- 
 lowed : I have heard, from very good authority, of a 
 conversation that passed between the late Dr Chandler, 
 and a clergyman of the Church of Scotland, in which 
 Chandler was a warm advocate for the constitution of 
 the Church of England, in preference to any of the re- 
 formed churches : you will remember, that I make the 
 learning and the piety of her clergy, of which ample 
 monuments are extant, the basis of her preeminence ; 
 to which, however, another circumstance hath in soma 
 degree contributed ; namely, that she had the discretion 
 to observe some decency and moderation, in the business 
 of reforming. I cannot admit, that mere distance from 
 the Church of Rome, is the true standard of purity 5 
 and when you recollect, how strongly that maxim sa- 
 vours of Jack's spleen against Lord Peter, I am apt to 
 think you will regret, that such a sentiment should staia 
 your page.* 
 
 6. It is still my opinion, that any young clergyman, 
 who will diligently apply to the course of studies, which 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsey, p. Itfl. 
 
LET. XV1L TO DR PRIESTLEY. 77 
 
 I took the liberty to recommend, may do without Dr 
 Whitby'a Disquisitions, or Dr Clarke's Scripture Doc- 
 trine :* the last treatise, contains indeed a very full 
 collection of the texts relating to the Trinity the compi- 
 lation from the fathers is incomplete ; the learned author 
 having carefully selected those passages, which, taken by 
 themselves in detachment from their contexts, seem fa* 
 vourable to his own opinions. I will not however deny, 
 that, to students of a certain description, the book may 
 have its use : I myself perhaps owe something to it ; 
 which, as you recommend it to my particular attention, 
 it seems incumbent upon me to declare : I believe, Sir, 
 that few have thought so much upon these subjects, as 
 you and I have done, who have not at first wavered : 
 perhaps, nothing but the uneasiness of doubt, added to 
 a just sense of the importance of the question, could 
 engage any man in the toil of the inquiry ; for my own 
 part, I shall not hesitate to confess, that I set out with 
 great scruples, but the progress of my mind, hath been 
 the very reverse of yours. It was at first my principle, 
 as it is still yours, that all appearance of difficulty in 
 the doctrine of the gospel, must arise from misinterpre- 
 tation ; and I was fond of the expedient of getting rid of 
 mystery, by supposing a figure in the language : the 
 harshness of the figures, which I had sometimes occa- 
 sion to suppose, and the obvious uncertainty of all 
 figurative interpretations, soon gave me a distrust of this 
 method of expounding ; and Butler's Analogy, cured 
 me of the folly of looking for nothing mysterious, in the 
 true sense of a divine revelation. By this cure, 1 way 
 
 * Letters t Dr Horsier, p, s. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 prepared to become an easy convert to the doctrine of 
 atonement and satisfaction ; which seemed to furnish 
 incentives to piety, that no other doctrine c<mld supply : 
 1 soon perceived, how the value of the atonement was 
 heightened, and what a sublimity accrued to the whole 
 doctrine of redemption, by the notion, clearly conveyed 
 in the Scriptures literally taken, of a Redeemer de- 
 scending from a previous state of glory, to become our 
 teacher, and to make the expiation. Thus I was brought, 
 to a full persuasion of our Lord's preexistent dignity : 
 Having once- admitted his preexistence in an exalted 
 state, 1 saw the necessity of placing him at the head of 
 the creation : " for a derived preexistent being, sup- 
 posed to animate the body of Jesus, who is not also the 
 maker of the world, is, as you well observe, a mere 
 creature of the imagination, whose existence is not to be 
 inferred,, with the least colourable pretext from the 
 Scripture :* since it is not to be found, either in the 
 literal, or in the figurative meaning. Not in the literal 
 confessedly : not in the figurative ; because, if the texts 
 which speak of Christ, as the maker of the world, ad- 
 mit a figurative construction ; much more those which 
 refer only to his preexistence."f I thank you, Sir, for 
 expressing my own sentiments with so much perspicuity, 
 and for proving them with so much evidence : being 
 thus convinced, that our Lord Jesus Christ is indeed 
 the Maker of all things ; I found, that I could not rest 
 satisfied with the notion, of a Maker of the universe not 
 1 saw, that all the extravagancies of the 
 
 * Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 84. 
 f Hist, of Cornip. Yol. i. p. liS. 
 
LET. XY11. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 ticks, hung upon that one principle : and 1 could have 
 little opinion of the truth of a principle, which seemed 
 so big with mischief I then set myself to consider, 
 whether I knew enough of the divine unity, to pronounce 
 the "Trinity an infringement of it :" upon this point, 
 the Platonists, whose acquaintance I now began to cul- 
 tivate, soon brought me to a right mind. It was in this 
 stage of my inquiries, while I was wavering between 
 the Arian tenets in their original extent, and the true 
 faith ; that I first opened Dr Clarke's Scripture Doc- 
 trine of the Trinity: I sat seriously down to the perusal 
 of the book I rose a firm and decided Trinitarian. 
 And why not recommend to others, you will say, a book 
 which had so principal a share in your own conversion ? 
 I will tell you. It is one of those books, which may 
 either instruct or mislead, according to the previous 
 attainments and habits of the student : I was much at 
 home in the Greek language ; I had read the ecclesi- 
 astical historians ; and T had been many years in the 
 habit of thinking for myself, upon a variety of subjects, 
 before I opened Dr Clarke's book. There is in most 
 men, a culpable timidity ; you and I, perhaps, have 
 overcome that general infirmity ; but there is in most 
 men a culpable timidity, which inclines them to be 
 easily overawed by the authority of great names : and, 
 much as we talk of the freedom and liberality of think- 
 ing and inquiry, it is this slavish principle, not, as is pre- 
 tended, any freedom of original thought, which makes 
 converts to infidelity and heresy. Fools imagine, that the 
 greatest authorities, are always on the side of new and 
 singular opinions ; and that, by adopting them, they get 
 themselves into better company, than they have niturally 
 any right io keep : and thus, they are secretly worshippers 
 
280 USTTERS IN REPLY LET. XV1L 
 
 of authority, in that very act, in which they pretend to 
 fly in the face of it they worship private authority, 
 while they fly in the face of universal : they deride au 
 old and general tradition, hecause they have not sa- 
 gacity to trace the connexion of its parts, and to perceive 
 the force of the entire evidence : and while they thus 
 trample on the accumulated authority of ages ; with an 
 idiot simplicity, they suffer themselves to he led, by the 
 mere name of the writer of the day, a Bolingbroke, a 
 Voltaire, a Gibbon, or a Priestley ; as if they thought to 
 become wise and learned, by taking a share and an 
 interest in the follies, or the party-views, of men of 
 abilities and learning : and, where a secret conscious* 
 ness of ignorance, is not accompanied with the vain am- 
 bition of being thought wise ; still, an undue deference 
 to private authority, in prejudice of established opinion, 
 seems to be the side upon which, even modest men, are 
 liable to err : insomuch, that every man may be suppo- 
 sed to partake of this infirmity, in subjects in which 
 he feels himself unlearned. To those, therefore, who 
 are qualified to use Dr Clarke's book as a digest, which, 
 though incomplete, may assist them in forming a judg- 
 ment for themselves ; to those who can and will turn it 
 to this use, it may be serviceable : but they who, from a 
 modest sense of their own insufficiency in the learned 
 languages, and in ecclesiastical history, may be dispo- 
 sed to listen to the opinion of the writer ; will be more 
 misled by his authority, than they will be informed by 
 the compilation. In a word, it is a book of which a 
 scholar may make his use ; but I cannot recommend it 
 to young divines, in the beginning of their studies. 
 
 7 In the conclusion of your seventh letter, you speak 
 of a certain defence of Bishop BulFs, of the damna- 
 
LET. JT/7. TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 tory clause in the Athanasian creed ; of which, inasmuch 
 as I have recommended the writings of Bishop Bull, 
 without exception, you " presume, you tell me, that I 
 approve :" and, to correct these expressions, which state 
 as a presumption only, or an inference, what might be 
 directly proved upon me by my own words, you add in 
 a parenthesis, that I have mentioned this, among tha 
 most valuable works of that learned prelate.* Of what- 
 ever importance, Sir, I may conceive it to be, that the 
 faith which was first delivered to the saints, should be 
 preserved whole and undefiled ; whatever I may think 
 of the folly and the crime, of setting up private judg- 
 ment for the rule of publick opinion, in opposition to a 
 tradition traced to the first ages ; and by consequence, 
 of the same authority with that, on which the credit of 
 the canon rests ; 1 am no lover of damnatory clauses : I 
 am an enemy to any application of damnatory clauses to 
 particular persons : I am hopeful, that there is more 
 folly in the world than malignity ; more ignorance than 
 positive infidelity ; more error than heretical perverse* 
 ness. How is it then, that I recommend a defence of 
 the damnatory clause, among the most valuable of a 
 learned Bishop's works ? Sir, did you write this in your 
 sleep ? Or is it in a dream only that I seem to read it ; 
 Bishop Bull's defence of the damnatory clause ! From 
 you, Sir, I have now my first information, that Bishop 
 Bull ever wrote upon the subject the writings of Bi- 
 shop Bull, which I have particularly recommended, are 
 these three Latin treatises : Defensio Jidei Nicenw : Ju~ 
 dicium Ecclesice Catholicce de necessitate credendi Je- 
 
 * Letters to Dr Honley, p. 100, 
 
 36 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XTII. 
 
 sum Christum esse verum Deum : Primitiva et Apos- 
 tolica traditio de Jesu Christi divinitate. To which I 
 might have added a fourth, of less importance, Jlnimad- 
 versiones in brevem tractatum Gul. Clerke, &o. These 
 are all his writings upon the Trinitarian controversy, 
 which are contained in the edition of his Latin works, 
 by Grabe : in these treatises, there is no defence of the 
 damnatory clause ; nor, that I recollect, any mention of 
 the Athanasian creed : there is no defence of the damna- 
 tory clause, in the sermons and English tracts published 
 by Mr Nelson : nor, can I find any such tract mentioned 
 by Mr Nelson, among the Bishop's lost works ; for 
 many small pieces, which it was known that he had 
 written, were never found after his death. Where have 
 I mentioned, Sir, with such high approbation, a work 
 which I declare I have never seen ; and of which, you 
 will forgive me, if I still doubt the existence ?* 
 
 * Dr Priestley is reduced to the necessity of confessing, in the sixteenth of his 
 Second Letters, that he knows no more than I, in what library any work of Bishop 
 Bull's, upon the damnatory clause in the Athanasian creed, is to be found ; and 
 yet, he aftects to be indignant, that I should presume to resent a false accusation ; 
 a calumny, founded on my pretended admiration of a work that never existed- 
 It seems, when he spoke of this defence, he had in his mind the Judiciwn Eccle- 
 *i<e Catholic*, but, "not looking into the title-page of the book," lie described it 
 by a wrong name : but unfortunately, his description is not more erroneous in the 
 name, than in the subject: the occasion and manner of his error, may easily be 
 divined : having no acquaintance with Bishop Bull's writings, but what his contro- 
 versy with me hath occasioned, when he wrote his First Letters; he made a guess 
 about the particular subject of each work, from the titles enumerated by me : 
 among these, he found the " Judicium Eccksice Catholic*? &c. He guessed that 
 this judgment of the Catholick church, which Bishop Bull defended, was a judg- 
 ment founded on the damnatory clause in the Athanasian creed : so he guessed, 
 that Bishop Bull, defending that judgment, must have defended the damnatory 
 clause : and he chose to guess further, that I, the professed admirer of Bishop Bull, 
 Of all parts of his writings, the most admired that defence. 
 
 Dr Priestley hath tiuce, indeed, looked further into thja matter : and, at the 
 
LET. XVII TO DR. PRIESTLEY. 
 
 8. Had I been aware of the offence which I find the 
 word conventicle hath given, I would have avoided the 
 use of it : we are engaged in a subject, in which I hold 
 it my duty to display my argument in its utmost force ; 
 and even to use pretty freely that high seasoning of con- 
 troversy, which may interest the reader's attention ; but 
 I would not wilfully give offence by harsh words, from 
 which the reasoning may acquire neither force nor lustre. 
 You say, that the word conventicle usually signifies, an 
 
 time when he drew up his Second Letters, he had discovered, that the judgment of 
 the church, defended by Bishop Bull, is the anathema of the Nicene council, 
 against those, wh should in any way impugn the article of our Lord's divinity ; 
 this, Bishop Bull indeed defends ; thut is, he maintains the historical fact, that the 
 fathers of the Nicene council enforced the belief of that article, under the solemn 
 auction of a publick sentence ; which fact Episcopius had denied. 
 
 J)r Priestley, being now informed of the real subject of Bishop Bull's treatise* 
 says, " that the damnatory clause in the Athanasian creed, and the anathema annex- 
 ed to the Nicene, are things exactly of the same nature." Were I te undertake 
 the defence of the damnatory clause in the Athanasian creed, it should indeed be 
 upon this principle, that it is a thing somewhat of the same nature with the 
 anathema annexed to the Nicene : the anathema, is no part of the Nicene creed ; 
 it is only a sentence of the church, against the impugner of a particular article t 
 what is called the damnatory clause, is no part of the Athanasiau : it is a clause, not 
 of the creed, hut of a prefatory sentence, in which the author declares his opinion 
 of the importance of the rule of faith he is about to deliver. But in whatever 
 degree, the damnatory clause may he capable, or incapable, of apology, Dr Priestley 
 is, I believe, the only writer, who ever confounded two things so totally distinct, 
 is an anathema, and an article of faith; which he conceives the damnatory clause 
 to be. An anathema, is simply a sentence of excommunication : the church of 
 England anathematizes those, who speak disrespectfully of her Book of Common 
 Prayer, (see the IV th Canon) : but, that every person, who shall incur the anathe- 
 ma of the IV th Canon, shall perish everlastingly, is no clause of the church of 
 England's creed. 
 
 Dr Priestley hath lengthened his sixteenth letter, with a recital of several pas- 
 sages from Bishop Bull's works, which, he thinks, must compel me to acknowledge, 
 that, whatever I may be, Bishop Bull at least was a friend to damnatory clauses : 
 the sentiments expressed by Bishop Bull, in the passages produced by Dr Priestley, 
 I would be understood to cherish and embrace, with the most entire unqualified 
 approbation. If to cherish such sentiments, and to be a friend to damnatory clauses, 
 t the sae thing, I stand convicted. Hab<A conjitentem reitm. 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XVlt. 
 
 Unlawful assembly : for my own part, I thought it bare- 
 ly equivalent to the old Greek word <ruyifxv<r;c, which was 
 the name for certain irregular assemblies, not as illegal ; 
 for the word was brought into use, in an age, when all 
 assemblies of Christians were, in the civil sense, equal- 
 ly illegal ; but it was the name for assemblies, meeting 
 for the purpose of religious worship, without authority 
 from the bishop : such assemblies, in the primitive ages, 
 were thought to be spiritually unauthorized ; and in this 
 sense, the word conventicle is applicable at this day to 
 many religious meetings, which are not liable to any 
 legal penalties. I could have wished, that the use of it 
 had been considered as one of the mere archaisms of 
 my style, in which nothing of insult was intended; I 
 must however declare, that it would give me particular 
 pleasure to receive conviction, that Mr Lindsey's meet- 
 ing -house, and your own, are not more emphatically 
 conventicles, in your sense ; that is, in the worst sense 
 of the word. From personal respect for you and him, 
 I should be happy to be assured, that you stand not 
 tvithin the danger of the 35th of Eliz. c. i ; or the 17th 
 C. ii. c. 2. to the penalties of which, and of other sta- 
 tutes, I must take the liberty to tell you, you are obnox- 
 ious, notwithstanding the late act of the 19th of His 
 present Majesty, in favour of dissenters, unless at the 
 quarter. sessions of the peace for the county where you 
 live, you have made a certain declaration,* which is 
 required by that act, instead of the subscription to ar- 
 ticles required by the former acts of toleration. I am 
 sorry, Sir, to inform you, that I find no entry of Mr 
 
 Appendix, No. TI. 
 

 LET. XVll TO BR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 Lindsey's declaration, in the office of the clerk of the 
 peace, either for the county of Middlesex, or the city of 
 Westminster : could I make the same inquiry concern- 
 ing you, (which the distance of your residence pre- 
 vents,) I fear I should have the mortification to find, 
 that you have, no more than your friend, complied with 
 the laws, from which you claim protection. A report 
 prevails, that you both object to the declaration, from 
 conscientious scruples : a very sufficient excuse for not 
 making it ; but no excuse at all, for doing what the law 
 allows not to be done, except upon the express condi- 
 tion, that the declaration be previously made. Had you 
 made the declaration, you might indeed be entitled to 
 the same indulgence, by virtue of the late act, to which 
 you would have been entitled, by a subscription to cer- 
 tain articles, under former acts of toleration ; but not 
 without the performance of certain other conditions, re- 
 quired by the 1st of William and Mary, c. 18, from 
 which other conditions, dissenters are not released by 
 any subsequent statutes : for the single operation of the 
 19th of our present gracious Sovereign, c. 44, is to sub- 
 stitute a short and general declaration, instead of a more 
 particular subscription : all other limitations of the in- 
 dulgences granted by the first of William and Mary, 
 stand as they were. Had you therefore made the de- 
 claration, which the law demands, still to entitle your 
 meetings to the benefit of the toleration, it would have 
 been necessary that the places of them should be certifi- 
 ed, (according to the last clause of 1st of William and 
 Mary, c. 18,) either to the bishop of the diocese, or to 
 ihe archdeacon of the archdeaconry, or to the justices of 
 the peace at the general or quarter- sessions of the peace 
 for the county, city, or place where such meeting inaj 
 
LETTERS IN REPLY tW. XT'//. 
 
 be held.* I have searched the registers of the epis- 
 copal court of London, of the archdeacon's court of Mid- 
 dlesex, and the records of the sessions for the county of 
 Middlesex, and for the city of Westminster, for an 
 entry of the house in Essex-street, without success :f 
 about your meeting-house I am precluded, as before, 
 from making a regular inquiry ; but I fear you have not 
 taken the proper measures for your legal security ; be- 
 cause the professed ground of your dissent from the 
 church of England, is not a mere disagreement about 
 particular articles, but a general denial of the magis- 
 trate's authority, either to prohibit or to tolerate ;J still, 
 Sir, were you ready to comply with the requisitions of 
 the law in these two particulars, the declaration of your 
 own belief in the holy Scriptures, and the notification of 
 the place of meeting, to the ecclesiastical or the secular 
 magistrate, Mr Lindsey and you, by the doctrines which 
 you publickly maintain,!] are excluded from all benefits of 
 the acts of toleration : your meeting-house and his, contra- 
 ry to your imagination, are illegal; UNKNOWN to the laws, 
 and UNPROTECTED by them. If this be the definition of a 
 conventicle, they are CONVENTICLES by the express letter 
 of the law, and in your own construction of the word : still, 
 Sir, I had no thought to insult over your miserable un- 
 protected state : the extravagant outcry which you have 
 made, and the arrogance with which you presume, to set 
 
 * Appendix, No. V. 
 
 f See the seventeenth of Dr Priestley's Second Letters, and my Remaika upon 
 the Second Letters, Part II. cap. iv. sec. 6. 
 
 $ " Exclusive of every thing contained in the religion of the churoh of England> 
 it is chiefly the authority by which it is enjoined, that dissenter* object to in it" 
 Hist, of (Jorrup. vol. ii. p. 357. 
 
 | Appendix, No. IV. 
 
LET. XYU, TO DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 your conventicles upon a footing with our own churches,* 
 have provoked me to salute you with these unwelcome 
 truths. Respect for individuals, in Mr Lindsey's con- 
 gregation and in yours, as well as for you and him, 
 would have restrained me from the use of a word which 
 I had perceived to be any otherwise reproachful, than 
 as it might contain a strong disapprobation and censure 
 of your doctrine, and a serious disavowal of your au- 
 thority to exercise the sacred function ; if this is to be 
 deemed reproach, I am not at liberty to abstain from it : 
 your doctrine 1 must disapprove and censure ; because I 
 conceive it to be a gross, I trust not a wilful, corruption 
 of the word of God. If your authority, 1 speak not 
 now of the authority which derives from human laws ; 
 but even in that you are deficient ; for a mere exemption 
 from civil penalties, which still is more than you enjoy, 
 differs from authority, just as the king's pardon differs 
 from his favour : if your spiritual authority, as ministers 
 of the word and sacraments, is wrongfully called in 
 question, you must bear with the prejudices of a church- 
 man, who, when he reviews the practice of the primitive 
 ages ; when he ponders our Saviour's parting promise, 
 to be always present with the apostles, the delegated 
 preachers of the gospel, even to the end of the world ; 
 when he connects it with the history of the first ordina- 
 tions, and with the great stress laid upon the Bishop's 
 authority, by Clemens, the fellow labourer of St Paul ; 
 by Ignatius, the disciple of St John ; and by the whole 
 church for many ages ; allows himself to be easily per- 
 
 * '* ' our places of worship are as legal as yours equally knovn ti the 
 Uwn, and protected by them." Letters to Or Horsier, p. \\2. 
 
288 LETTERS IN REPLY LET. XVlt 
 
 suaded, that the authority of the commission, under 
 "which he acts, is something more than mere human le- 
 gislation can convey ; and, while he would abhor to en- 
 force civil penalties, may think it his duty occasionally 
 to protest against a spiritual usurpation. Indeed, Sir, 
 when I revolve in my thoughts, the various disorders 
 and distractions, which I have seen in my own country, 
 within the compass of my own life, arising from the ir- 
 regular zeal of self-constituted teachers of religion ; when 
 I reflect, how the unity of the church hath been torn, 
 how tender consciences are every day disturbed with 
 groundless scruples, and melancholy tempers driven to 
 insanity ; how the simplicity of the vulgar hath been 
 first abused, and their principles in the end unsettled ; 
 when I recollect, how eminently the state hath been 
 lately endangered, and the Protestant cause disgraced, 
 by a combination of wild fanaticks, pretending to asso- 
 ciate for the preservation of the reformed religion ; whea 
 1 consider, how by these scandals, the true religion hath 
 itself been brought into discredit ; how it hath been in- 
 jured, by attempts to inflame devotion on the one hand, 
 and by theories, fabricated to reduce the mystery of its 
 doctrines on the other ; when I consider, that the root of 
 all these evils hath been, the prevalency of a principle, 
 of which you seem disposed to be an advocate ; that 
 every man who hath credit enough to collect a congre- 
 gation, hath a right, over which the magistrate cannot, 
 without tyranny, exercise control, to celebrate divine 
 worship according to his own form, and to propagate 
 bis own opinions ; 1 am inclined to be jealous of a prin- 
 pie, which hath proved, I had almost said, so ruinous ; 
 and I lean the more to the opinion, that the commission 
 of a ministry, perpetuated by regular succession, i* 
 
LET. XV1L TO Dtt PRIESTLEY. 
 
 something more than a dream of cloistered gownmen, or 
 a tale imposed upon the vulgar, to serve the ends of 
 avarice and ambition. For whatever confusion bumaa 
 folly may admit, a divine institution must have within 
 itself a provision for harmony and order ; and, upon 
 these principles, though I wish that all indulgence 
 should be shown to tender consciences, and will ever be 
 an advocate for the largest toleration that may be con- 
 sistent with political wisdom, being indeed persuaded, 
 that the restraints of human laws must be used with the 
 greatest gentleness and moderation, to be rendered 
 means of strengthening the bands of Christian peace 
 And amity ; yet I could wish to plant a principle of se- 
 vere restraint, in the consciences of men : I could wish, 
 that the importance of the ministerial office were consid- 
 ered ; that the practice of antiquity were regarded ; and 
 that it might not seem a matter of perfect indifference 
 to the laity, to what house of worship they resort. I 
 cannot admit, that every assemby of grave and virtuous 
 men, in which grave and virtuous men take upon them 
 to officiate, is to be dignified with the appellation of a 
 church ; and for such irregular assemblies, which are 
 not churches, I could wish to find a name of distinc- 
 tion void of opprobrium. As such, I used the word 
 conventicle, as expressing great irregularity, (which 
 1 must express, wo ! is me if I express it not,) bub 
 no infamy of the assemblies to which I applied it. 
 If you are still disposed to be indignant about this 
 harmless word, recollect I beseech you, with what re- 
 spect you have yourself treated the venerable body to 
 which I belong, the clergy of the establishment you 
 divide it into two classes only : the ignorant, and the 
 
 37 
 
ggg LETTERS IN REPL\ LET. XVII. 
 
 insincere.* Have I no share in this opprobrium of my 
 order ? Have I no right to be indignant in my turn ? 
 
 9. Still looking forward to the time, when after all 
 that is past, we shall mutually forgive, and be ourselves 
 forgiven, I remain, 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 Your very humble Servant, &c. 
 
 Fulham Palact t 
 June \5th t ir84. 
 
 * Dr Priestley, in his History of Corruptions, vol. i. p. 147, says of the Trinita- 
 rians of the present age, under which denomination it is evident he alludes to the 
 clergy of the established ehurcb, for he afterwards describes these Trinitarians, as 
 persons " to all of whom the emoluments of the establishment are equally accessi- 
 ble ;" he says of these persons, that " they are all reducible to two classes, viz. 
 that of those, who, if they were ingenuous, would rank with Socinians, believing 
 that there is no proper divinity in Christ besides that of the Father ; or else with 
 Tritheists, holding three equal and distinct God's." The first class, surely muit 
 be insincere, as not believing what they profess ; the second ignorant, as not per- 
 ceiving what it is that they believe. In the conclusion of his History, vol. ii. p. 471, 
 he says, that all that is urged in defence of the present system, by men of the 
 greatest eminence in the church, who have appeared as its advocates, " is so palpa- 
 bly weak, that it is barely possible they should be in earnest in thinking their 
 arguments have that weight in themselves, which they wish them to have with 
 others :" and he speaks of this insincerity of the defenders of the establishment, 
 as a thing so notorious, that it maybe reckoned "one of the worst symptoms of 
 the present times." After all this, in his appendix to his Second Letters, he denies 
 that he ever intended to make that division of the whole body of the established 
 clergy, which I ascribe to him, into the two classes of the ignorant and the insin- 
 cere: he treats the charge as a calumny, from which he justifies himself, by 
 producing a long passage from one of his sermons, in which he professea to ho!8 
 the churoh of Eoglajad io ao less estimation than the church of Rome. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 Gentleman's Magazine, for October, 1783, p. 842. 
 
 U7? URBAN, 
 
 I WAS formerly a pupil of Dr Harwood, and read 
 with my learned and worthy master, Thucydides, 
 Sophocles, and the life of Moses, in a magnificent 
 edition of Philo, printed by the learned Mr Bowyer ; 
 and wonder that Dr Horsley should assert, as he is 
 represented to do by the learned and ingenious Mr 
 Maty, in his New Review, that Jroc is spoken of 
 persons only ; when it is applied to any thing of which 
 the writer is speaking, that happens to be of the mas- 
 culine gender. For instance, it is predicated of bread 
 turice in John vi. 50, 58, vroe en o />7c, and of a stone, 
 Luke xx. 17* the same ; viz. stone, wroc is become head 
 of the corner. Controversialists are apt to overshoot 
 the mark, 
 
 GRJECULUS. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 Gentleman'* Magazine, for November, 1J '83, p. 944. 
 
 MR URBJUf, 
 
 BE pleased, Sir, to inform your correspondent, Grce- 
 culus, that Dr Horsley has not asserted of the Greek 
 pronoun *rot, that it is spoken of persons only. He 
 renders it indeed, in the second verse of the first chapter 
 of St John's gospel, by the \ <>rds " This Person," and 
 he says, in a parenthesis, that < l this is its natural 
 force :" and this, Sir, may be, although by the usage of 
 the Greek writers, it is applicable, as Grceculus with 
 great truth remarks, to any thing of which the writer is 
 gpeakiug, that happens to be of the masculine gender ; 
 for few words, in any language, are confined to their 
 natural and primary meaning. But, since the applica- 
 tion of the word is confessedly so general in the best 
 Writers, Grceculus will perhaps be apt to put the ques- 
 tion, how should Dr Horsley know, that " This Per- 
 son," is more the natural sense of *roc, than " This 
 Loaf," or this any thing ? Perhaps Dr Horsley has ob- 
 served, that it is peculiar to the two pronouns wVoc, and 
 aVta, to be used of any one of the three persons; which 
 is one argument, that their proper sense is personal. 
 Perhaps Dr Horsley has observed, that the pronoun 
 vTOf , when it is demonstrative of any thing which has no 
 person, and which the writer would not personify, is 
 often put in the neuter gender, although the noun, which 
 it represents, be masculine - tTrulotv S rcti/l* xtW?e 
 after you have abrogated these LAWS - ro^v? . Demosth. 
 Olynth. iii. rv/Ie en TO fftop* p.v. this p. e. this bread, 
 
293 
 
 fcpta] is my body. Matt. xxvi. 6. This is another ar- 
 gument, that *V*c is naturally demonstrative of a person : 
 for there are but three causes, to which the various ano- 
 malies of speech may be referred ; ignorance, negli- 
 gence, design. Those, which are frequent in the best 
 writers, can be ascribed to neither of the two first 
 causes ; they must have arisen therefore from the third: 
 but the third, design, implies an end : and what should 
 be the end of this anomaly of gender, in the word VTOC, 
 but that it was the means of avoiding an appearance of 
 a prosopopoeia, where no prosopopoeia was intended. 
 
 2. Perhaps Grceculus, though perfectly right in his 
 remark, that vrc may be demonstrative of any thing of 
 which the Greek name is masculine, has been unfortu- 
 nate in his selection of passages in proof of it. Perhaps 
 of the three, which he has produced, two are nothing to 
 his purpose. Perhaps *TK />1c, &c. in both the 
 texts in Bt John, should be rendered " This person is 
 the bread, *c." i. e. I am the bread, &c. It may be 
 supposed that our Lord pointed to himself, when he 
 said this ; as the Baptist points to himself, when he 
 says, 'oujcc y*f er/r o 'f *Swf , &c. ** For this person is the 
 person spoken of, &c." i. e. For 1 am the person 
 spoken of, &c. Matt. iii. 3. For that these are the 
 Baptist's, not the historian's words, is evident from the 
 form, in which the following sentence is begun. Avfa 
 It o luamrc. " Now this same John, &c." a form which 
 marks the writer's resumption of his narrative, inter- 
 rupted by the insertion of John's words. 
 
 3. Perhaps Dr Horsley had not erred, had he affirm. 
 ed, that, in John i. 2. *c must necessarily be render- 
 ed by " This Person." The utmost liberty of choice, 
 which the context leaves, is between two expositions 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 only : This Person," or " This Word." If the latter 
 be adopted, the second verse will be only a useless 
 repetion of what had been before affirmed ; whereas, in 
 Dr Rorsley's view of it, it contains an explicit assertion 
 of the personality of the Logos, which, with great pro- 
 priety and significance, precedes the mention of his 
 agency in the next verse. 
 
 4. Perhaps, to have read some two or three difficult 
 authors with a master, may have made Grceculus al- 
 most a match for the brightest boys in the upper forms 
 of our publick schools. Perhaps something more should 
 be done in the study of the Greek language, before a 
 man begins to play the critick in it. 'H y*f ruv 
 r/ Triipoit TtAt/?ior tTriyiwnua. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient, 
 
 PERHAPS* 
 
 No. III. 
 
 Short strictures on Dr Priestley's Letters to Dr Hors- 
 ley, by an unknown hand. 
 
 LETTERS to Dr Horsley, page 9. Jesus Christ is 
 come in the flesh. Dr Priestley should produce an in- 
 stance, where the whole phrase of coming in the flesh, 
 is applied to the birth or appearances of any mere man. 
 The instances alledged by him, prove nothing to his 
 purpose. 
 
 Page 13. The epistles of Ignatius. Dr Priestley 
 is certainly in the right to reprobate these epistles, 
 if he can; they subvert all his theology and his^ 
 
APPBNDIX. 
 
 tory :* but, who are these learned in general, that have 
 given them up as spurious ? There are the names of 
 great criticks on the other side, of whose arguments 
 Archbishop Wake has given a judicious summary, in 
 his preliminary discourse : and till they are refuted, 
 Dr Horsley has an undoubted right to appeal to these 
 epistles, as containing the sentiments of an apostolical 
 father. 
 
 Page 14. If Dr Priestley could prove, that the Na- 
 Tarenes held the same doctrines with the Ebionites, 
 what would it avail his cause ? Could he prove by this 
 medium, that the Nazarenes continued in the doctrine 
 of the apostles, and that the reputed Catholick church 
 fell off from it ? Did the Ebionites learn from the apos- 
 tles, that John the Baptist came preaching in the days of 
 Herod the king of Judea ; that Christ descended into 
 Jesus, in the form of a dove, at his baptism ; cum mult is 
 vliis ? See Epiphan. Hseres. xxx. sec. 14. 
 
 24. Here, and throughout, Dr Priestley supposes the 
 Unitarian doctrine, to have had a general prevalence 
 among the Gentile Christians, and universal among the 
 Jewish. Does this well agree, with respect to the Gen- 
 tiles, with his quotation from Origen, at the bottom of 
 page 20 ? 
 
 The much controverted passage of Justin Martyr, in 
 his Dialogue with Trypho,f and the meaning of 'H/XIT^ ou 
 yivovc , are well illustrated by Mr Bingham in his Vindi- 
 cation of the doctrine and liturgy of the Church of En- 
 gland, printed at Oxford, 177*, page 23. There were 
 
 * The chief of them are mentioned by Care, under Ignatius. 
 | Sec Priestley, pag 127". 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 according to Justin, SOME countrymen of his, Jews, anil 
 Samaritans, " who confess him to be the Christ, yet 
 affirm him to be a mere man." The same Justin says 
 in another place, First Apol. p. 78> Ed. Thirlby, that 
 he had observed more and truer Christians, from among 
 the Gentiles, than from among the Jews and Samari- 
 tans. This passage, (which helps to confirm Mr Birig- 
 ham's translation of 'H^e/iov yewc?) compared with the 
 other, contains the testimony of Justin, that there were 
 only SOME of the Jews and Samaritans, and still fewer 
 of the Gentiles, professing to believe in Christ, who af- 
 firmed him to be a mere man. 
 
 Page 39. Dr Priestley, who seems to be very mo- 
 derately skilled in Greek, may give a faulty translation 
 sometimes, through inadvertency : but what shall we 
 say for his rendering dirtav tuxoyox, a specious pretence ? 
 Can he really think, that Athanasius meant to speak in 
 this style, of the conduct of the apostles ? 'AIT/CC t'v/^ycf 
 occurs in Chrysostom on Matt. xxiv. 42. (torn, ii, p. 
 448. Ed. Savil,) where though a/I/a signifies somewhat 
 differently, eWoycc bears the same sense, as here, of wise 
 and reasonable. 
 
 In the same passage tfxt<rQau is mistranslated. As 
 the present infinitives, have sometimes a future sense in 
 the best classick authors, it here means a Messiah TO 
 COME, as the next sentence evinces, where Christ already 
 come, is said ewuOerai. 
 
 49. Another inaccurate version of Athanasius. 
 
 50. Another of the like kind from Chrysostom. Dr 
 Priestley makes him say, our Saviour never taught 
 his own divinity in express words. Chrysostom, I ap- 
 prehend, says, that he did not every where, or, on all 
 occasions, y a-a/J*;^, speak plainly of his own divinity. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 the Judgment of Chrysostom, he sometimes did so. 
 on John vi. 35, 36. viii. 58, x. 80. 
 
 56. Last paragraph Caiaphas adjures our Saviour, 
 by the living God, to tell them, Whether thou be the 
 Christ^ the Son of God f Our Lord avows, these char- 
 acters, and adds, Nevertheless (rather, moreover) / say 
 unto you, Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting 
 ton the right hand of power. How can Dr Priestley ba 
 sure, in what sense Caiaphas understood our Lord's 
 answer, when he rent his clothes, and accused him of 
 blasphemy ? Was the notion of a Son of God superior 
 to all created beings, then unknown among the Jews ? 
 See, besides Bishop Bull's Defens. Fidei Nicsense, cap. 
 i. sect, i, 16, p. 13, a remarkable passage quoted from 
 Philo Jud. by Dr Randolph, Vindication of the doc- 
 trine of the Trinity, part I. p. 29. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 DR PRIESTLEY makes the fathers acknowledge, 
 that the apostles did not preach the divinity of Christ 
 early, and confidently supposes them never to have 
 taught it. 
 
 According to the more general opinion, St Matthew 
 wrote his gospel early, and for the Jews. In the open- 
 ing of this gospel, he applies the name Emmanuel to 
 our Lord, and gives his own interpretation of it, God 
 icith us : by which, plain people conceive him to mean 
 what St Paul expresses, God manifest in the flesh ; and 
 the apostolical Ignatius, God appearing in the form of 
 a man. Ad, Eph. xix. If we are led into an error, it 
 
APPENOIX. 
 
 is by taking St Matthew's words in their literal and ob- 
 vious sense : and was he less solicitous about the truth 
 than even Dr Priestley himself? If Dr Priestley had 
 been to write a gospel, according to his own theology, 
 would he have set out with such an application and 
 interpretation of the name Emmanuel? Quod tu non 
 feceris, Ego fed? might St Pauljisk; who writes with 
 the greatest simplicity, and never uses any amplification 
 of any subject treated by him : and, as we may justly 
 conclude, would not here have spoken of Christ as he 
 has done, but because he had very different notions of 
 his dignity, from those of Dr Priestley : to declare which 
 notions, he was not afraid of Jewish prejudices and 
 clamour. 
 
 In the same gospel, our Lord is introduced declaring, 
 "No one knoweth the Son but the Father; neither 
 knoweth any one the Father, save the Son, and he to 
 whomsoever the Son will reveal him." Here, the ne- 
 gative ouSi/c being universal, we seem to be told, that the 
 Father and Son are incomprehensible to all created in- 
 telligences ; and that all they can really know of the 
 Father, must be in and through the Son, by his illumi- 
 nating spirit. Does such a declaration consist with Dr 
 Priestley's plan, with what our Lord says of himself 
 in the next verse but one, " I am meek and lowly in 
 heart?" Utique parum modeste (sit verbo veniaj de 
 seipso locutus est Christus, aut alias loquentes audivit, 
 si nihil interea prceter merum hommem se esse noverit. 
 Burnet de Fide et Officiis, p. 20.* 
 
 * This is quoted by Dr Randolph, Vifid. Part II, p. 42, where a similar passnge 
 in cited from St Chrysostom. 
 
APPENDIX. 99 
 
 The same Saviour, in the concluding paragraph of 
 this gospel, commands his apostles to evangelize all 
 nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Gftiost. Dr Priestley con- 
 siders the Holy spirit as an attribute of the Father, not 
 a person : but does our Lord, if he had only an exalt- 
 ed humanity, thrust himself in between the Most High, 
 and one of his incommunicable attributes ? or does he 
 join two persons with an attribute, in a most solemn 
 form of words, which leads us almost inevitably to be- 
 lieve, that the third is a person also ? Would such a 
 conduct appear suitable to his care and tenderness, to 
 guide his flock into the whole truth? The supposition, 
 seems impossible; and nothing can be more certain, 
 than that the very first evangelist, in full harmony with 
 all the succeeding sacred writers, exhibits to us the 
 divinity of Christ, in the beginning, middle, and end of 
 his gospel. 
 
 It is objected to this form of baptism, that the use of 
 it does not appear any where in the Acts of the apos- 
 tles. This objection is, I think, well answered by 
 Mr Bingham, Vindicat. p. 37 41. particularly from 
 Acts xix. 
 
 Page 63. Towards the end of the first paragraph,, 
 Dr Priestley seems to betray some suspicions, that St 
 Paul did in truth teach the divinity of Christ. 
 
 Page 69. Last paragraph. The reasoning appears 
 rather extraordinary on the passage of Athanasius, who 
 seems made, by Dr Priestley, to consider things in the 
 same light, between, which he is- studious to point out 
 au eternal difference. 
 
APPENDIX! 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 Page $2. IF the doctrine of the Trinity be true, 
 it is no doubt in the highest degree important and inter- 
 esting." So Dr Priestley can say, when it serv r es iiis 
 purpose. But how does this agree with his previous 
 observations. No. IV. p. 85, &c. ? 
 
 Page 133. It is somewhat hard to discover, how the 
 remark on Eusebius, and his treatment of the Unitari- 
 ans, at that time very numerous, agrees with the obser- 
 vation in the preceding paragraph. 
 
 Page 135. Was the hymn, which as Pliny tells us 
 in his noted epistle, was sung to Christ quasi Deo, novel, 
 in the time of Paul of Samosata? 
 
 Page 136. Dr Priestley should, I think, have pre- 
 fixed that which seems to be his ruling maxim, that the 
 human mind is competent to search all things, even the 
 deep things of God. 
 
 Whether he, or Mr Burgh, in the first chapter of his 
 Scriptural Confutation, lays down the province of reason 
 in the better way, let others determine. 
 
 No. IV. 
 i W. 8f M. c. 18. 
 
 PROVIDED always, That neither this act, nor any 
 clause, article, or thing herein contained, shall extend 
 - to give any ease, benefit, or advantage to any 
 person that shall deny in his preaching or writing, the 
 doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, as it is declared in the 
 aforesaid articles of religion. 
 
301 
 
 PROVIDED always, That no congregation or as- 
 sembly for religion, shall be permitted or allowed by 
 this act, until the place of such meeting shall be certified 
 to the bishop of the diocese, or to the archdeacon of the 
 archdeaconry, or to the justices of the peace, at the gene- 
 ral or quarter- sessions of the peace for the county, city, 
 or place in which such meeting shall be held, and regis- 
 tered in the said bishop's or archdeacon's court respec- 
 tively, or recorded at the said general or quarter-sessions. 
 
 No. VI. 
 19 G. IU. c. 44. 
 
 be it enacted, That every person dis- 
 senting from the church in holy orders, or pretended 
 holy orders, or pretending to holy orders, being a preach- 
 er or teacher of any congregation of dissenting Protes- 
 tants, who shall take the oaths, and make and sub- 
 scribe the declaration against popery, required by the 
 said act, (1 W. & M. c. 18,) and shall also make and 
 subscribe a declaration in the words following, videlicet. 
 
 " I A. B. do solemnly declare, in the presence of 
 Almighty God, that 1 am a Christian and a Protestant, 
 and as such, that I believe that the Scriptures of the Old 
 and New Testament, as commonly received among Pro- 
 testant churches, do contain the revealed will of God ; 
 and that I do receive the same as the rule of my doctrine 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 and practice." Shall be entitled to all the exemp- 
 tions, benefits, privileges and advantages granted to 
 Protestant dissenting ministers, by i W. & M. c. 18, 
 
 and by 10 A. c. and every such person, qualifying 
 
 himself as aforesaid, shall be exempted from serving in 
 the militia of this kingdom, and shall also be exempted 
 from any imprisonment or other punishment, by virtue of 
 the act of uniformity, &c. 
 
SERMON 
 
 ON THE 
 
 INCARNATION, 
 
 PREACHED IN THE 
 
 PARISH CHURCH 
 
 OP 
 
 ST MARY NEWINGTON, 
 
 IN SURREY, Dec. 25, 1785. 
 
SERMON, 
 
 fife. 
 
 LUKE i. 28. 
 
 Hail ! thou that art highly favoured, the Lord to 
 with thee : Blessed art thou among women. 
 
 THAT she, who in these terms was saluted by au 
 angel, should in after ages become an object of super- 
 stitious adoration, is a thing far less to be wondered, 
 than that men, professing to build their whole hopes of 
 immortality on the promises delivered in the sacred 
 books, and closely interwoven with the history of our 
 Saviour's life, should question the truth of the message 
 which the angel brought. Some nine years since, the 
 Christian Church, was no less astonished than offended, 
 by an extravagant attempt* to heighten, as it was pre- 
 tended, the importance of the Christian revelation, by 
 overturning one of those first principles of natural reli 
 gion, which had for ages been considered as the basis. 
 
 * Disquisition* relating to Matter and Spirit, kc. Lgodoa 1777. 
 2Q 
 
306 A SERMON 
 
 upon which the whole superstructure of revelation stands. 
 The notion of an immaterial principle in man, which, 
 without an immediate exertion of the Divine power, to 
 the express purpose of its destruction, must necessarily 
 survive the dissolution of the body ; the notion of an 
 immortal soul, was condemned and exploded, as an in- 
 vention of heathen philosophy. Death was represented 
 as an utter extinction of the whole man, and the evan- 
 gelical doctrine of a resurrection of the body, in an im- 
 proved state, to receive again its immortal inhabitant, 
 was heightened into the mystery of a reproduction of the 
 annihilated person. How a person once annihilated 
 could be re-produced, so as to be the same person which 
 had formerly existed, when no principle of sameness, 
 nothing necessarily permanent, was supposed to enter 
 the original composition ; how the present person could 
 be interested in the future person's fortunes ; why / 
 should be at all concerned for the happiness or misery of 
 the man, who some ages hence shall be raised from my 
 ashes ; when the future man could be no otherwise the 
 same with me, than as he was arbitrarily to be called , 
 the same, because his body was to be eomposed of th& j 
 same matter which now composes mine : these difficul- 1 
 ties were but ill explained. It was thought a sufficient j 
 recommendation of the system, with all its difficulties, j 
 that the promise of a resurrection of the body seemed 
 to acquire a new importance from it, (but the truth is, 
 that it would lose its whole importance, if this system 
 could be established, since it would become a mere pre- 
 diction concerning a future race of men, and would be 
 no promise to any men now existing,) and the notion of 
 the soul's natural immortality, was deemed an unseemly 
 appendage of a Christian's belief, for this singular re ft- 
 
ON THE INCARNATION. 307 
 
 son, that it bad been entertained by wise and virtuous 
 heathens, who had received no light from the Christian, 
 nor, as it was supposed, from an earlier revelation. 
 
 It might have been expected, that this anxiety to ex- 
 tinguish every ray of hope, which beams not from the 
 glorious promises of the gospel, would have been accom- 
 panied with the most entire submission of the under- 
 standing to the letter of the written word ; the most anx- 
 ious solicitude for the credit of the sacred writers ; the 
 warmest zeal to maintain every circumstance in the his- 
 tory of our Saviour's life, which might add authority to 
 his precepts, and weight to his promises, by heightening 
 the dignity of his person. But so inconsistent with itself 
 is human folly, that they who at one time, seemed to 
 think it a preliminary, to be required of every one who 
 would come to a right belief of the gospel, that he 
 should unlearn and unbelieve what philosophy had been 
 thought to have in common with the gospel, as if reason 
 and revelation could in nothing agree ; upon other oc- 
 casions, discover an aversion to the belief of any thing, 
 which at all puts our reason to a stand : and iu order to 
 wage war with mystery, with the more advantage, they 
 scruple not to deny, that that Spirit which enlightened 
 the first preachers in the delivery of their oral instruc- 
 tion, and rendered them infallible teachers of the age 
 hi which they lived, directed them in the composition 
 of those writings, which they left for the edification 
 of succeeding ages.* They pretend to have made 
 
 * I have frequently declared myself, not to be a believer in the inspiration of 
 e evangelists and apostles as writers." Dr Priestley's Letters to Dr 
 
308 A SERMON 
 
 discoveries of inconclusive reasoning in the epistles ;* 
 of doubtful facts in the gospels : and appealing from 
 the testimony of the apostles to their own judgments, 
 they have not scrupled to declare their opinion, that the 
 miraculous conception of our Lord, is a subject, " with 
 respect to which, any person is at full liberty to think, 
 as the evidence shall appear to him, without any im- 
 peachment of his faith or character as a Christian."! 
 And lest a simple avowal of this extraordinary opiniou 
 should not be sufficiently offensive, it is accompanied 
 with ceHain obscure insinuations,! the reserved meaning 
 of which we are little anxious to divine, which seem ill- 
 tended to prepare the world not to be surprised, if some- 
 thing still more extravagant, if more extravagant may 
 be, should in a little time be declared. 
 
 We are assembled this day, to commemorate our 
 Lord's Nativity. It is not as the birth-day of a prophet 
 that this day is sanctified ; but as the anniversary of that 
 great event, which had been announced by the whole 
 succession of prophets, from the beginning of the world ; 
 and in which the predictions concerning the manner of 
 the Messiah's advent, received their complete and literal 
 accomplishment. In the predictions, as well as in the 
 corresponding event, the circumstance of the miraculous 
 conception, makes so principal a part, that we shall not 
 easily find subjects of meditation, more suited either to 
 the season, or to the times, than these two points ; the 
 importance of this doctrine, as an article of the Chris* 
 
 * Hist. f Carrap. TO!, ii. p. 370. 
 
 Jr Letters to Dr Horsley, Part L p. 132; 
 
 * Ibid. p. 54. 
 
ON THE INCARNATION. 
 
 LU faith, and the sufficiency of the erideuce by which 
 the fact is supported. 
 
 First, for the importance of the doctrine, as an article 
 of the faith ; it is evidently the foundation of the whole 
 distinction between the character of Christ, in the condi- 
 tion of a man, and that of any other prophet. Had the 
 conception of Jesus been in the natural way ; had he 
 been the fruit of Mary's marriage with her husband, his 
 intercourse with the Deity could have been of no other 
 kind, than the nature of any other man might have 
 equally admitted : an intercourse of no higher kind than 
 the prophets enjoyed, when their minds were enlighten- 
 ed by the extraordinary influence of the Holy Spirit. 
 The information conveyed to Jesus, might have been 
 clearer and more extensive, than any imparted to any 
 former prophet ; but the manner and the means of com- 
 munication, must have been the same. The holy Scrip, 
 tures speak a very different language : they tell us, that 
 the " same God who spake in times past to the fathers 
 by the prophets, hath in these latter days spoken unto 
 us by his Son ;"* evidently establishing a distinction 
 of Christianity from preceding revelations, upon a dis- 
 tinction between the two char-.tcters of a prophet of God, 
 and of God's Son. Moses, the great lawgiver of the 
 Jews, is described in the book of Deuteronomy, as su- 
 perior to all succeeding prophets, for the intimacy of bis 
 intercourse with God, for the variety of his miracles, and 
 for the authority with which he was invested. " There 
 arose not a prophet in Israel like unto Moses, whom 
 Jehovah knew face to face : in all the signs and wonders 
 
 Hebrews i, 1 5 
 
310 A SERMON 
 
 tyhich Jehovah sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to 
 Pharoah, and all his servants, and to all his land : and 
 in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror, 
 which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel."* Yrt 
 this great prophet, raised up to be the leader and the 
 legislator of God's people ; this greatest of the prophets, 
 "with whom Jehovah conversed face to face, as a man 
 talketh with his friend ; bore, as we are told, to Jesus, 
 the humble relation of a servant to a son :f and lest 
 the superiority on the side of the Son, should be deem- 
 ed a mere superiority of the office to which he was ap- 
 pointed, we are told, that the Son is " higher than the 
 angels," being the effulgence of God's glory, the express 
 image of his person/ ? J the God ft whose throne is for- 
 ever and ever, the sceptre of whose kingdom is a sceptro 
 f righteousness :"|| and this high dignity of the Son, is 
 alleged as a motive for religious obedience to his com- 
 mands, and for reliance on his promises. It is this in- 
 deed which gives such authority to his precepts, and 
 such certainty to his whole doctrine, as render faith in 
 him the first duty of religion : had Christ been a mere 
 prophet, to believe in Christ had been the same thing as 
 to believe in John the Baptist. The messages indeed, 
 announced on the part of God by Christ, and by John 
 the Baptist, might have been different ; and the impor- 
 tance of the different messages unequal ; but the princi- 
 ple of belief in either, must have been the same. 
 
 Hence it appears, that the intercourse which Christ, 
 as a man, held with God, was different in kind, from 
 
 Dent- XXXIT. 1012. | Heb - ' S * 
 
 * Heb. i. 36. 1 Heb. i. 8. 
 
ON THE INCARNATION. 311 
 
 that which the greatest of the prophets ever had enjoy- 
 ed : and yet how it should differ, otherwise than in the 
 degree of frequency and intimacy, it will not be very easy 
 to explain ; unless we adhere to the faith transmitted to 
 us from the primitive ages, and believe that the Eternal 
 Word, who was in the beginning with God, and was 
 God, so joined to himself the holy thing, which was 
 formed in Mary's womb, that the two natures, from the 
 commencement of the virgin's conception, made one per- 
 son. Between God and any living being, having a 
 distinct personality of his own, separate from the God- 
 head, no other communion could obtain, than what 
 should consist in the action of the Divine Spirit, upon 
 the faculties of the separate person. This communion 
 with God, the prophets enjoyed : but Jesus, according 
 to the primitive doctrine, was so united to the ever-living 
 Word, that the very existence of the man, consisted in 
 this union.* We shall not indeed find this proposition, 
 that the existence of Mary's Son consisted from the first, 
 and ever shall consist, in his union with the Word ; we 
 
 * So Theodoret, in the fourth of his Seven Dialogues about the Trinity, pub- 
 Bshed under the name of Athanasius. The persons in this dialogue, are an 
 Orthodox Believer, and an Apoilinarian. The Apollinarian asks, Oy* K tv tsv ly* t 
 , the Believer replies, *y <n Ac> *T mbparvt ewrov o*Sa. vmeaLilaL, w, -^ 
 iv au>r ty T r/ow T* Aa^x yvafi^a. To the same purpose Joannes Darnnsce- 
 BUS, * -yap <tffwrcfaLf x*6* tatulw <r&piu 
 y*c/n TC a>fctc <o-2$6*< A7rifacr]u(, ty T taunts UTTO&TU im er\iuv 
 
 ' t ATTO2 *O AOFO2 FENOMENO2 TH 
 De Fide Orthodoxa, lib. 3. cap. ii; and again, cap. vii. 
 <*< culm XjHfailtnu T o-apu wowm ' TV Qat Ao> i>T;?*<nr. So also Gregory 
 Nazianzen, u -r/c fatTrcr^a^tu TCV nrfl^arror, &' weftPvwaa *eyn Sy, txiautpflat. 
 
 2<r o( & (tfpa^nln ^:i **7* yjtfri KHpymttvoj, tAX* p* ttofl' army ffi 
 n xu <rwa.7fltt$Ai t <m xw <rn; 
 ad Cledton. I. 
 
31 1) A SERMON. 
 
 shall not find this proposition, in these terms in Scrip- 
 ture. Would to God the necessity never had arisen, of 
 stating the discoveries of revelation in metaphysical 
 propositions! The inspired writers delivered their sn- 
 blimest doctrines, in popular language, and abstained, 
 as much as it was possible to abstain, from a philoso- 
 phical phraseology. By the perpetual cavils of gainsay, 
 ers, and the difficulties which they have raised, later 
 teachers, in the assertion of the same doctrines, have 
 been reduced to the unpleasing necessity, of availing 
 themselves of the greater precision of a less familiar 
 language. 
 
 But if we find not the same proposition in the same 
 words in Scripture, we find in Scripture what amounts 
 to a clear proof of the proposition. We find the char- 
 acteristick properties of both natures, the human and the 
 divine, ascribed to the same person. We read of Jesus, 
 that he suffered from hunger and from fatigue ; that he 
 wept for grief, and was distressed with fear ; that he 
 was obnoxious to all the evils of humanity, except the 
 propensity to sin. We read of the same Jesus, that he 
 had " glory with the Father before the world began ;"* 
 that " all things were created by him,f both in heaven 
 and in earth, visible and invisible ; whether they be 
 thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers ; all 
 things were created by him, and for hira' ? J and " he 
 upholdeth all things by the word of bis power :|| and 
 that we may in some sort understand, how infirmity 
 and perfection should thus meet in the same person, 
 
 * John rvii. 5. f Ibid. i. 3. 
 
 * Coloss. i. 16. I) Heb. i. 3, 
 
ON THE INCARNATION. g J 3 
 
 we are told by St John, that the " Word was made 
 flesh." 
 
 It was clearly, therefore, the doctrine of holy writ, 
 and nothing else, which the fathers asserted, in terms 
 borrowed from the schools of philosophy, when they 
 affirmed, that the very principle of personality and in- 
 dividual existence, in Mary's Son, was union with the 
 uncreated Word.* A doctrine, in which a miraculous 
 conception would have been implied, had the thing not 
 been recorded ; since a man, conceived in the ordinary 
 way, would have derived the principles of his existence 
 from the mere physical powers of generation. Union 
 with the Divine nature, could not have been the prin- 
 ciple of an existence physically derived from Adam ; 
 and that intimate union of God and man, in the Re* 
 deemer's person, which the Scriptures so clearly assert, 
 had been a physical impossibility. 
 
 But, we need not go so high as to the Divine nature 
 of our Lord, to evince the necessity of his miraculous 
 conception : it was necessary to the scheme of redemp- 
 tion, by the Redeemer's offering of himself as an expia- 
 tory sacrifice, that the manner of his conception should 
 be such ; that he should in no degree partake of the 
 natural pollution of the fallen race, whose guilt he came 
 to atone, nor be included in the general condemnation 
 of Adam's progeny. In what the stain of original si 
 may consist, and in what manner it may be propagated, 
 
 O w tsc A> 
 
 7o, >.X* ewafo *att <v 
 
 euflx 
 
 ^vtfio T rttsxi u7r<x<tfftc. Joann. Daina- 
 n. De Fide Orthodoxn. lib. 3. cap. xi. 
 
 40 
 
A SERMON 
 
 it is not to my present purpose to inquire : it is suffi* 
 cieut, that Adam's crime, by the appointment of Provi- 
 dence, involved his whole posterity in punishment. " In 
 Adam," says the apostle, " all die :"* and for many 
 lives thus forfeited, a single life, itself a forfeit, had been 
 BO ransom : nor, by the Divine sentence only, inflicting 
 death on the progeny, for the offence of the progenitor ; 
 but by the proper guilt of his own sins, every one sprung 
 by natural descent from the loins of Adam, is a debtor 
 to Divine Justice, and incapable of becoming a mediator 
 for his brethren. " In many things," says St James, 
 
 *' we offend all."f " W we sa y tnat we nave no s ^% 
 we deceive ourselves," saith St John, " and the truth is 
 not in us : and, if any man sin, we have an advocate 
 with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous : and he is 
 the propitiation for our sins."} Even we Christians all 
 offend, without exception even of the first and best 
 Christians, the apostles. But St John clearly separates 
 the righteous advocate from the mass of those offenders 
 -~that any Christian is enabled, by the assistance of 
 God's Spirit, to attain to that degree of purity, which 
 may entitle him to the future benefits of the redemption, 
 is itself a present benefit of the propitiation which hath 
 been made for us : and he, who, under the assault of 
 every temptation, maintained that unsullied innocence, 
 which gives merit and efficacy to his sacrifice and inter- 
 cession, could not be of the number of those, whose 
 offences called for an expiation, and whose frailties 
 needed a Divine assistance, to raise them effectually 
 
 1 Cor. XT. 22. | James iiK 2. 
 
 4 1 John i. 8; *nd ,i t. 
 
ON THE INCARNATION. 
 
A SEKMUN 
 
 business ; and the supernatural conception, had been au 
 unnecessary miracle : He, therefore, who came in this 
 miraculous way, came upon some higher business, to 
 which a mere man was unequal. He came to be made 
 a sin-offering for us, " that we might be made the right- 
 eousness of God in him."* 
 
 So close, therefore, is the connexion of this extraordi- 
 nary fact with the cardinal doctrines of the gospel, that 
 it may be justly deemed a necessary branch of the 
 scheme of redemption : and in no other light was it con- 
 sidered by St Paul, who mentions it among the charac- 
 teristicks of the Redeemer, that he should be " made of 
 a woman :"f * n this short sentence, St Paul bears a re- 
 markable testimony to the truth of the evangelical histo- 
 ry, in this circumstance ; and you, my brethren, have not 
 so learned Christ, but that you will prefer the testimony 
 of St Paul, to the rash judgment of those, who have 
 dared to tax this " chosen vessel" of the Lord, with 
 error and inaccuracy. 
 
 The opinion of these men, is indeed the less to be 
 regarded, for the want of insight, which they discover, 
 into the real interests and proper connexions of their 
 own system : it is by no means sufficient for their pur- 
 pose, that they insist not on the belief of the miraculous 
 conception they must insist upon the disbelief of it, if 
 they expect to make discerning men proselytes to their 
 Socinian doctrine : they must disprove it, before they 
 can reduce the gospel to what their scheme of interpre- 
 
 * 2 Cor. v. 21. 
 
 f Gal. iv. 4. " There is no reference to the miraculous conception, either 
 in the book of Acts, or in ami of the Episttes." J)r Prie*Uey* Letters to Dr Hors- 
 P-y, p. 53. 
 
ON THE INCARNATION. 
 
 ion makes it, a mere religion of nature, a system of 
 best practical Deism, enforced by the sanction of 
 high rewards, and formidable punishments, in a future 
 life ; which are yet no rewards and no punishments, but 
 simply the enjoyments and the sufferings of a new race 
 of men, to be made out of old materials ; and therefore 
 constitute no sanction, when the principles of the mate- 
 rialist, are incorporated with those of the Socinian, in 
 the finished creed of the modern Unitarian. 
 
 Having seen the importance of the doctrine of the 
 miraculous conception, as an article of our faith ; let us 
 in the next place consider the sufficiency of the evidence, 
 by which the fact is supported. 
 
 We have for it, the express testimony of two out of 
 the four evangelists : of St Matthew, whose gospel was 
 published in Judea, within a few years after our Lord's 
 ascension ; and of St Luke, whose narrative was com- 
 posed, as may be collected from the author's short pre- 
 face, to prevent the mischief that was to be apprehend- 
 ed, from some pretended histories of our Saviour's life, 
 in which the truth was probably blended with many 
 legendary tales. It is very remarkable, that the fact 
 of the miraculous conception, should be found in the 
 first of the four gospels ; written at a time, when many 
 of the near relations of the Holy Family must have 
 been living, by whom the story, had it been false, had 
 been easily confuted : that it should be found again in 
 St Luke's gospel ; written for the peculiar use of the 
 converted Gentiles, and for the express purpose of fur- 
 nishing a summary of authentick facts, and of suppres- 
 sing spurious narrations. Was it not ordered by some 
 peculiar providence of God, that the two great braiu.1^3 
 the primitive church, the Hebrew congregations, for 
 
318 A SERMOK 
 
 which St Matthew wrote, and the Greek congregations, 
 for which St Luke wrote, should find an express record 
 of the miraculous conception, each in its proper gospel? 
 Or, if we consider the testimony of the writers, simply 
 as historians of the times in which they lived, without 
 regard to their inspiration, which is not admitted by the 
 adversary ; were not Matthew and Luke, Matthew, 
 one of the twelve apostles of our Lord, and Luke, the 
 companion of St Paul, competent to examine the evi- 
 dence of the facts which they have recorded ? Is it 
 likely that they have recorded facts, upon the credit of 
 a vague report, without examination ? and was it re- 
 served for the Unitarians of the eighteenth century, to 
 detect their errors? St Luke, thought himself parti- 
 cularly well qualified for the work in which he en- 
 gaged, by his exact knowledge of the story which he 
 undertook to write, in all its circumstances, from the 
 very beginning : it is said, indeed, by a writer of the 
 very first antiquity, and high in credit, that his gospel 
 was composed from St Paul's sermons ; " Luke, the at- 
 tendant of St Paul," says Irenseus, put into his book 
 the gospel preached by that apostle :" this being pre- 
 mised, attend I beseech you, to the account which St 
 Luke gives of his own undertaking : " it seemed good 
 to me also, having had perfect understanding of all 
 things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, 
 most excellent Theophilus; that thou mightest know 
 the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been 
 instructed." The last verse might be more literally 
 rendered "that thou might know the exact truth of 
 those doctrines, wherein thou hast been CATECHISED :" 
 St Luke's gospel therefore, if the writer's own word 
 may be taken about his own, work, is an historical ex. 
 
ON THE INCARNATION, 319 
 
 position of the Catechism, which Theophilus had learn- 
 ed, when he was first made a Christian. The two first 
 articles, in this historical exposition, are the history of 
 the Baptist's birth, and that of Mary's miraculous im- 
 pregnation : we have much more therefore, than the 
 testimony of St Luke, in addition to that of St Mat- 
 thew, to the truth of the fact of the miraculous concep- 
 tion ; we have the testimony of St Luke, that this fact, 
 was a part of the earliest catechetical instruction : a 
 part of the catechism, no doubt, which St Paul's con- 
 certs learnt of the apostle. Let this then be your an- 
 swer, if any man shall ask you a reason of this part of 
 your faith ; tell him, that you have been learning St 
 Paul's catechism. 
 
 From what hath been said, you will easily perceive, 
 that the evidence of the fact of our Lord's miraculous 
 conception, is answerable to the great importance of 
 the doctrine; and you will esteem it aii objoction of little 
 weight, that the modern advocates of the Unitarian 
 tenets, cannot otherwise give a colour to their wretched 
 cause, than by denying the inspiration of the sacred 
 historians, that they may seem to themselves at liberty 
 to reject their testimony. You will remember, that the 
 doctrines of the Christian revelation, were not original- 
 ly delivered in a system ; but interwoven in the history 
 of our Saviour's life : to say therefore that the first 
 preachers were not inspired, in the composition of the 
 | narratives in which their doctrine is conveyed, is nearly 
 the same thing, as to deny their inspiration in the 
 [general : you will, perhaps, think it incredible, thafc 
 icy, who were assisted by the Divine Spirit, when 
 icy preached, should be deserted by that Spirit, when 
 jy committed what they had preached to writing : you 
 
320 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 will think it improbable, that they, who were endowed 
 with the gift of discerning spirits, should be endowed 
 with no gift of discerning the truth of facts : you will 
 recollect one instance upon record, in which St Peter 
 detected a falsehood by the light of inspiration ; and 
 you will perhaps be inclined to think, that it could be 
 of no less importance to the church, that the apostles and 
 evangelists, should be enabled to detect falsehoods in 
 the history of our Saviour's life ; than that St Peter 
 should be enabled to detect Ananias's lie, about the 
 lale of his estate. You will think it unlikely, that they 
 who were led by the Spirit into all truth, should be 
 permitted to lead the whole church for many ages into 
 error: that they should be permitted to leave behind 
 them, as authentick memoirs of their master's life, nar- 
 ratives compiled with little judgment or selection, from 
 the stories of the day, from facts and fictions in pro mis- 
 cuous circulation : the credulity, which swallows these 
 contradictions, while it strains at mysteries ; is not the 
 faith which will remove mountains. The Ebionites of 
 antiquity, little as they were famed for penetration and 
 discernment, managed however the affairs of the eect, 
 with more discretion than our modern Unitarians ; they 
 questioned not the inspiration of the books which they 
 received ; but they received only one book, a spurious 
 copy of Bt Matthew's gospel, curtailed of the two first 
 chapters. You will think it no inconsiderable confir- 
 mation of the doctrine in question, that the sect which 
 first denied it to palliate their infidelity, found it ne- 
 cessary to reject three of the gospels, and to mutilate 
 the fourth. 
 
 Not in words therefore and in form, but with hearts 
 full of faith and gratitude, you will join in the solemn 
 
ON THE INCARNATION 
 
 321 
 
 service of the day, and return thanks to God, " who 
 gave his only begotten Son to take our nature upon him, 
 and, as at this time, to be born of a pure Virgin." You 
 will always remember, that it is the great use of a 
 sound faith, that it furnishes the most effectual motives 
 to a good life. You will therefore not rest in the merit 
 of a speculative faith. You will make it your constant 
 endeavour, that your lives may adorn your profession 
 
 that " your light may so shine before men, that they, 
 
 seeing your good works, may glorify your Father which 
 is in heaven." 
 
REMARKS 
 
 UPOX 
 
 DR PRIESTLEY'S 
 
 SECOND LETTERS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 ARCHDEACON OF ST ALBAN'S, 
 
 WITH 
 
 PROOFS OP CERTAIN FACTS ASSERTED BY THE 
 ARCHDEACON. 
 
PABT FIEST. 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
REMARKS UPON PART L 
 
 sentment and virulent invective ; carried with it, as I 
 thought, its own confutation to unprejudiced readers of 
 all descriptions : to the learned reader, by the proof 
 which it furnishes of the author's incompetency in the 
 subject ; to the unlearned, by the consciousness, which 
 the fierceness of his wrath betrays, of a defect of ar- 
 gument. 
 
 2. To mention a few instances: it gave me great 
 satisfaction to perceive, that the whole confutation of the 
 proof, which 1 had built upon the epistle of St Barna- 
 bas, of the orthodoxy of the first Hebrew Christians,* 
 was to consist in an insinuation, that " doubts had been 
 entertained by many learned men concerning the genu- 
 ineness of that epistle ;"f and in an assertion of my an- 
 tagonist's, that it is most evidently interpolated ; and 
 that the interpolations respect the very subject of which 
 we treat :"J the genuineness of the epistle, as a work 
 of St Barnabas the apostle, had been expressly given 
 up by me ; its age, being the only circumstance of im- 
 portance to my argument : for the notion, that it is evi- 
 dently interpolated, particularly in what respects the 
 subject of which we treat; the evidence by which the 
 assertion is supported, is of that sort, which every one 
 who engages in controversy, must rejoice that his ad- 
 versary should condescend to employ. Some passages 
 in the Greek text, which allude to our Lord's divinity, 
 are not found, it seems, in the old Latin version ; others 
 relating to the same subject, appear in the old Latin 
 
 See Letter eighth in Reply to Dr Priestley. 
 
 f Second Letters to the Archdeacon of St AlbanY p. 7. 
 
 * Ibid. 
 
PART 1. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 version only, and arc not found in the Greek text :* that 
 both the Greek text and Latin version, carry evident 
 marks of the injuries of time : that defects, sometimes of 
 a single word, sometimes of many words, sometimes of 
 whole periods, abound in both, is known to every one 
 who hath ever looked into the work : it is doubtless 
 therefore, a very rational conclusion, that whatever is 
 not found both in the original, and in the version, is in 
 either an interpolation. That the hand of time must 
 always have fallen upon the corresponding passages in 
 the two copies, may be taken as a self-evident proposi- 
 tion ! If any assertion therefore, of our Lord's divinity, 
 occur in either copy, which is not found in both, the 
 Suspicion must be but too well founded, that some 
 wicked Athanasian hath been tampering ! 
 
 8. I was well pleased to find, that the two passages 
 which my antagonist hath produced from the Greek 
 text, as evident instances of interpolation, are not among 
 those which 1 have cited. In these two passages, the 
 divinity of our Lord is briefly alluded to : in every one 
 -of the four, cited by me, it is distinctly asserted, or 
 strongly implied : of these four, two are found with in- 
 considerable varieties, both in the Greek and in the 
 Latin ; the other two in the Latin only : but that I lay 
 the chief stressf upon either of the two, which are in the 
 Latin version only, is a mere imagination of my ad- 
 versary. 
 
 4. The satisfaction, which this confutation of my ar- 
 gument from Barnabas afforded me, was not a little 
 heightened, by the manner in which I am convicted of 
 
 * Second Letters, p. 7. f Ibid. p. 8. 
 
328 REMARKS UPON 
 
 an error, in the appeal, which, in my sixth letter to Dr 
 Priestley, 1 made to the authority of Grotius, among 
 others, in support of the opinion, which 1 maintain, of 
 the orthodoxy of the Nazarenes, in the article of our 
 Lord's divinity. Dr Priestley, in his First Letters to 
 me, said, that I was singular in asserting this : to 
 show that I was not singular in the assertion, (not to 
 prove the thing asserted ; for the proof of that I build 
 entirely upon what is to be found in ancient writers ; 
 but to disprove the pretended novelty of the assertion,) 
 I alleged the authorities of Grotius, Vossius, Spencer, 
 and Huetius : " having examined," says my antagonist, 
 in the third of his Second Letters, " the most respecta* 
 ble of these authorities, viz. Grotius, I find him entirely 
 failing you, and saying no such thing as you ascribe to 
 him :"* then, to prove that Grotius fails me, and says 
 no such thing as I ascribe to him, Dr Priestley produces 
 a passage from Grotius, to which I never meant to al- 
 lude, and which is indeed nothing to the purpose, but 
 he takes no notice of the, passage upon which my asser- 
 tion was built, and to which the margin of my publica- 
 tion referred him. 
 
 5. The satisfaction, which it gave me to find myself 
 thus confuted, was still increased, by the retractation of 
 this confutation in my adversary's Appendix, No. IIL 
 A retractation, which, in effect, is little less than a con- 
 fession of the fraudulent trick, which, had not the ad- 
 vice of friends seasonably interposed, it is too evident, 
 he meant to put upon the publick 1 say upon the pub- 
 lick ; for upon me he could not think that it would 
 
 * Seond Letters p. 30. 
 
PART I. SECOND 
 
 pass ; whatever may be bis opinion of my learning ; 
 he has, I believe, had some experience of my vigilance, 
 in watching the movements of an enemy ; and he could 
 not imagine, that the passage which he produces, would 
 pass with myself for that which I cited. But he has 
 heard perhaps from those who know me, of the consti- 
 tutional indolence which domineers in my disposition ; 
 and under this circumstance, and the declaration which 
 1 had made of my intention to give him no reply, ha 
 thought himself secure against detection. 
 
 6. I must acknowledge another gratification which I 
 received from this same No. III. of Dr Priestley's Ap- 
 pendix ; I K'rtrntfrom it, that Grotius, t( when he speaks 
 of the Nazarenes, as holding the common faith of other 
 Christians, with respect to Christ ;" meant only that they 
 held something, which was not the common faith of 
 other Christians :* and that Sulpitius Severus, when 
 he says that " all the Jewish Christians till the time of 
 Adrian, held that Christ was God, though they observ- 
 ed the law of Muses, (Christum D?um sub legis obser- 
 vatinne credebant.J is to be considered as having said 
 nothing more, than that almost all the Jews of Jerusa- 
 lem were Christians, though they observed the law of 
 Moses. "f Certainly, the learned commentator and the 
 historian, are to be so understood : for were they to be un- 
 derstood in the plain meaning of their words, they would 
 flatly contradict Dr Priestley ; which however, if they had 
 done, it would have been no great matter : for any writer, 
 who may contradict Dr Priestley, is little to be regarded. 
 
330 REMARKS U*0;N PART 1. 
 
 7. Dr Priestley has been reading the Parmenides !* 
 Having taught the Greek language several years at 
 Warrington, he conceived himself well qualified to en- 
 counter that profound book. The benefit, which he has 
 received from the performance of this knotty task, exact- 
 ly corresponds with my notion of his abilities for the 
 undertaking : he has found the whole treatise unintelli- 
 gible !f Perhaps he has, 'ere this, looked through the 
 Enneads of Plotinus, with the like emolument : he must 
 therefore be well qualified to illustrate the history of the 
 Platonick doctrines, in the most mysterious parts : and 
 in the GREAT WORK, with which the press now labours, 
 his promise will, I dare say, be fulfilled, of teaching 
 the world many things respecting them, of which his 
 antagonist is ignorant. He can produce hundreds of 
 passages to prove, that the " divinity which the ortho- 
 dox Christians ascribed to Christ, was the very same 
 principle, which constituted the wisdom and other pow- 
 ers of God the Father ; and he can prove, that this 
 was agreeable to the principles of those Platonists, from 
 whom Philo and the Christian fathers derived their 
 opinion.":]: That the second person in the Platonick 
 triad was, according to the theology of that school, the?; 
 principle of intelligence in the Godhead, he will find 
 indeed not difficult to prove ; but, unless he can show*; 
 that this principle of Divine intelligence was not suppo- 
 sed, by the Platonists, to have had from all eternity a] 
 personality of its own, distinct from the personality of 
 either of the two other principles ; he will prove notbu 
 
 Second Letters, p. 145. 
 t Ibid. * Ibid. p. 124. 
 
JPJRT. I SECOND LETTERS. 331 
 
 ing, but what is already known to every child in Pla- 
 tonism. 
 
 8. The GREAT WORK, will probably abound in new 
 specimens of the proficiency which he has made in 
 logick, under the tuition of the great Locke : it was not 
 unpleasant to me, to find this great logician, confounding 
 being, substance, and substratum:* that is, ignorant of 
 the distinctions of uVr<*cr/f (which seems to be Being in 
 his language) wi* and uVoKt^ew : to find him unapprized 
 of that great principle, without which a logician will 
 handle his tools but awkwardly, that the genus cannot 
 be predicated of the specifick differences! (a) ; and, 
 from an ignorance of this principle, falling into an error, 
 into which indeed greater men than he have fallen, that 
 Being is the universal genus, under which all other 
 genera rank as species. 
 
 9. These, and many other glaring instances of unfin- 
 ished erudition, shallow criticism, weak argument, and 
 unjustifiable art to cover the weakness, and to supply 
 the want of argument, which must strike every one, who 
 takes the trouble to look through these Second Letters ; 
 put me quite at ease, with respect to the judgment, which 
 
 * Second Letters, p. 138. 
 
 | " The former [being] is the genus, and the latter [person] the 
 
 | species," &c. p. 140. 
 
 (a) In the sixth of his Third Letters, sec. 3. Dr. Priestley courageously encoun- 
 |ters this principle. To proTe the fallacy of it, he says, " According to it, since 
 n are divided into WMte and Blacks, kc. &c. it would follow, that it cannot 
 h propriety be said of any Whites or Blacks, that they are men.'" A more 
 c'H'ious instance of logical accuracy will not easily be found, than this deduction. 
 The common genus of White men and Black men, I take to be Man, Tlc 
 specifick difference between them lies in colour. Of this I apprehend manhood 
 cacnot be predicated. But how does this lead to Dr Priestley's inference, that 
 hnacSx)<i is not prcdicable of any subject in which colour is found. 
 
REMARKS UPON PART L 
 
 the publick would be apt to form between nay antagonist 
 and me ; and confirmed me in the resolution of making 
 no reply to him, and of troubling the publick no more 
 upon the subject, except so far as might be necessary, 
 to establish some facts, which he hath somewhat too pe- 
 remptorily denied ; and to vindicate my character from 
 aspersions, which he hath too inconsiderately thrown 
 out. 
 
 10. The matters of fact which I mean to prove are 
 these. 
 
 J. Origen's want of veracity in disputation. 
 
 11. The existence of orthodox Hebrew Christians at 
 Jerusalem, after the time of Adrian. 
 
 III. The decline of Calvinism, amounting almost to a 
 total extinction of it, among the English dissenters. 
 
 11. The slander, which I mean to repel, is contain- 
 ed in my adversary's insinuation, that I have spoken 
 with contempt of the doctrines of Calvin. 
 
 13. As for the outcry which he makes about my in- 
 tolerance, and my bigotry to what he calls high-church 
 principles, it gives me rather pleasure than uneasiness* 
 1 consider it, as the vain, indignant struggle of a strong 
 animal^ which feels itself overcome ; the mere growling 
 of the tiger in the toils ; and I disdain to answer : I 
 glory in my principles ; I am proud of the abuse, which 
 they may draw upon me ; nor shall I pretend to apolo- 
 gize for the severity and warmth of my present Ian. 
 guage, or of any which I may think proper to employ 
 in the ensuing pages. After the avowal which Dr 
 Priestley has made, in his last publication,* of the 
 
 Sec the Animadversions on Dr White's Sermons, annexed to Dr PristlejJ 
 'fli$cfmrs upon the Importance of Free Inquiry, p. 78. 
 
PART /. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 spirit iii which he has drawn his polemical sword ; it i* 
 time, that on our part also, the scabbard, should be 
 thrown away. 
 
 13. Dr Priestley's Second Letters to the Archdeacon 
 of St Alban's are, at this instant, lying open before me, 
 at the 53d page : my eye is attracted to a passage near 
 the bottom, distinguished by a mark, which, in the first 
 perusal of the work, 1 had set against it in the margin ; 
 Which reminds me, that it is one of those, in which I 
 was the most captivated with the justness of the reason- 
 ing, and the frankness of the writer's declarations. Al- 
 though I have already spent more time, than when I 
 first took up my pen I thought to do, in culling th 
 flowers of my adversary's composition, I cannot resist 
 the temptation of stopping (although it delay for a few 
 moments the business to which 1 hasten) to pluck this 
 delicious blossom, which 1 had well nigh overlooked, 
 sensible how much it will add to the brilliancy and fra- 
 grance of my posey. 
 
 14. Bishop Pearson alleges, that Ignatius, in his 
 epistles to Polycarp, to the Ephesians, Magnesians, 
 and Philadelphians, refers to the doctrine of the Ebion* 
 ites as an heretical doctrine : these references, would 
 demolish Dr Priestley's notion, that the Ebionites were 
 not considered as hereticks, so early as in the times of 
 Ignatius ; Dr Priestley therefore " finds no such refer- 
 ences," iu these epistles, " except perhaps two passa- 
 ges/"' Two clear references are just as good as two 
 thousand : how then shall we dispose of these two pas- 
 sages ? Very easily " they may easily be supposed to 
 have been altered" yes : suppositions are easily made ; 
 and for that very reason, they are not easily admitted 
 by wavy men, without some other recommendation than 
 
33$ HEM ARKS UPON PARTI 
 
 the bare ease of making them, joined to the considera- 
 tion of the service, which a particular supposition may 
 render to a party- writer, as a crutch for a lame argu- 
 ment. Upon what ground then may we build this sup- 
 position, which is so easily made, of an alteration in 
 two passages in the epistles of Ignatius, which, as they 
 now stand, contradict Dr Priestley ? Upon the firmest 
 ground imaginable : when CORRECTED by an UN IT A- 
 RIAN, nothing is wanting to the evident purpose of the 
 writer" Corrected by an Unitarian ! The Unitarians, 
 if they are not shamefully belied by the ecclesiastical 
 historians, have ever indeed, been ready at this business 
 of correction : the Arians took the trouble to correct a 
 treatise of Hilary of Poictou, in which, the heretical 
 confession of the council of Ariminum was the subject : 
 they corrected, and corrected, till the work became a 
 novelty to its author. They, or the Macedonians, did 
 the same good office for St Cyprian's epistles ; and to 
 circulate their amended copies more widely, they sold 
 them at Constantinople, at a low price ; similar liberties, 
 were taken with the works of the two Alexandrians, 
 Clemens and Dionysius : they, who thus corrected, were 
 not deficient in the kindred art of forging whole trea- 
 tises, under the names of the brightest luminaries of the 
 church, in which the holy fathers were made to support 
 heritical doctrines : the holy Scriptures were not unat- 
 tempted, as appears by the testimony of those,* who 
 lived at the time when the amended copies were extant 
 in the world ; who, in proof of the heavy accusation, 
 appeal to the notorious disagreement of different copies^ 
 
 * See Euseb. Ecc. Hist. lib. T: 
 
FART I. 
 
 SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 335 
 
 which had undergone the revision of different heresi- 
 arcbs. This is indeed, the confutation of the Unitarian 
 doctrine, that both the primitive fathers, and the holy 
 Scriptures, must be corrected iu every page, before they 
 ean be brought to give evidence in its favour. It is be- 
 cause the Unitarians themselves have always understood 
 this, that they hare ever been ready to apply the needful 
 corrections, when they thought the thing might be done 
 without danger of detection ; but the modern Coryphceus 
 of the company, is, 1 believe, the first who ever had 
 the indiscretion to avow the practice, and confess that he 
 could not otherwise stand his ground, than by an appeal 
 to the testimony of CORRECTED FATHERS ! He is himself 
 indeed a master of the art of correction : his attempt 
 upon a passage in St John's first epistle, will never be 
 forgotten.* 
 
 15. Will he dare to recriminate? He will. The 
 orthodox, he says, as they are commonly called, have 
 tampered with the New Testament itself, having made 
 interpolations favourable to the doctrine of the Trinity, 
 especially the famous passage concerning the thre that 
 lear record in heaven."^ The great name of NEWTON 
 is brought up, to give weight to the accusation : " New- 
 ton, among others, has clearly proved, &c." and this he 
 imagines, I myself will acknowledge : Dr Priestley, 
 even before the inditing of these Second Letters, must 
 have found himself deceived in so many instances, in 
 his imaginations about me ; how I would acknowledge, 
 
 * Sec the charge to the clergy of the arohdeacorrry of St Alban's, I. sec. 5. 
 f Second Letters p. 13. 
 
REMARKS UPCXN 
 
 and how I would recant; how my eyes would be opened, 
 by the information which he had to give me ; that I 
 wonder he should venture to imagine any more, in a 
 suhject in which he hath found himself so liable to 
 error : he imagines, that I must acknowledge, that New- 
 ton hath clearly proved, that the record of the three in 
 heaven in St John's first epistle, is an interpolation, 
 made by some of those, whom I call the orthodox. 
 No: I acknowledge no such thing: Suppose I were to 
 make the first part of the acknowledgment, that the 
 passage is an interpolation ; what consequence would 
 bind me to the second, that the orthodox have been the 
 wilful falsifiers ? Is it because their purpose might have 
 been served by the pretended falsification ? Truly, their 
 purpose had been poorly served by it : it is not agreed, 
 among the orthodox themselves, that this text relates to 
 the consubstantiality of the three persons in the God- 
 head : it is my own opinion, that it does not : and this 
 I take to be the reason, that it is so seldom alleged by 
 the ancient writers in proof of the Trinity. But why 
 must I acknowledge, that the passage is at all an inter- 
 polation? Because Newton and others have clearly 
 proved it to me, the proof is not clear : were the defect 
 of positive proof in favour of the passage much greater, 
 than Newton and others have been able to make out, it 
 would still be with me an argument of its authenticity, 
 that the omission of it breaks the connexion, and wonder- 
 fully heightens the obscurity, of the apostle's discourse. 
 Dr Priestley perhaps imagines, that I hold myself 
 bound to acknowledge whatever Newton hath attempt- 
 ed to prove : in his letters to me, and in his animadver- 
 sions upon Dr White's celebrated discourses, he is 
 
AHT I. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 often pleased to boast of the probability* of what he 
 knows, more than his antagonists ; and that too, in sub- 
 jects, in which he hath been convicted of the greatest 
 want of knowledge : I hope I may say, without arro 
 gance, that it is probable that Sir Isaac Newton's 
 talents in demonstration, are as well known to me, as 
 to Dr Priestley : it is probable too, that after the pains 
 which I have taken, to examine the principles and the 
 authorities, on which his ancient chronology is founded; 
 I am as well qualified as Dr Priestley, to judge of his 
 talents in other subjects, which are not capable of de- 
 monstration : now in these, I scruple not to say, with a 
 writer of our own times, that the great Newton went 
 out like a common man ; for the exposition, which, to 
 complete his argument against the record of the three 
 in heaven, he gives of the context of the apostle's dis- 
 course, I hold it to be a model of that sort of para- 
 phrase, by which any given sense may be affixed to auy 
 given words : but that even the external evidence of the 
 authenticity of the passage, is so far less defective, than 
 Newton and others have imagined, will be denied, I 
 believe by few, who have impartially considered, the 
 very able vindication of this celebrated text, which hath 
 lately been given by Mr Travis, in his Letters to Mr 
 Gibbon. Dr Priestley perhaps hath not found leisure 
 to look through that performance ; or, if he have, he 
 hath formed, I suppose, " no very high opinion of the 
 author's acquaintance with Christian antiquity : ? 'f for 
 
 * Second Letters, p. 135, 146, 200, 202. Animadversions on Dr White, p 
 66, 72. 
 t See Remarks on MrHowes's discourse, 
 
 43 
 
REMARKS UP01* P.WT I. 
 
 in this, all who oppose the Socinian tenets, are misera- 
 hly deficient. 
 
 16. Here I close my remarks upon my adversary's 
 reasoning ; and I now proceed to the proof of my own 
 facts, and the vindication of my own character. 
 
PABT8ECG N 
 
 PROOFS. 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 Of Origen 9 s want of veracity. Of the Fathers in ge- 
 neral. Of the passages in which St Chrysostom is 
 supposed to assert, that the apostles temporized. A 
 specimen of correction by an Unitarian. 
 
 THE first fact that comes in question is, the want 
 of veracity in disputation, which 1 impute to Origen. 
 
 2. In the second book against Celsus, near the be- 
 ginning of the book, Origen asserts of the Hebrew Chris, 
 tians of his own times, without exception, that they had 
 not abandoned the laws and customs of their ancestors ; 
 and that, for that reason they were called Ebionites. 
 Dr Priestley sets a high value upon this testimony of 
 Origen, as clearly establishing his great point, that the 
 
BEMARKS UPON PART 1L 
 
 Bbionitcs were nothing worse, than the Christiana of 
 the circumcision : I maintain, that if the truth of Ori- 
 gen's assertion were admitted, still his testimony would 
 be less to Dr Priestley's purpose, than he imagines it 
 would prove, indeed, the Hebrew Christian, and the 
 Ebionite, to be the same ; but it would equally prove, 
 that the disbelief of our Lord's divinity, was no neces- 
 sary part of the Ebionsean doctrine. But I go further : 
 I deny the truth of Origen's assertion in both its bran- 
 ches : I deny, that it is universally true of the Hebrew 
 Christians, in his time, that they had not abandoned 
 the Mosaick law ; and I deny that it is true, that they 
 were all called Ebionites : 1 say, that Origen himself 
 knew better, than to believe his own assertion ; and I 
 say, that it was a part of Origen's character, not to be 
 incapable of asserting, in argument, what he believed 
 not. 
 
 3. Dr Priestley ill brooks this open attack, upon the 
 credibility of one, whom he considers as a principal 
 witness : he defends Origen, by retorting a similar ac- 
 cusation upon me ; and, with the utmost vehemence of 
 indignant oratory, he arraigns me at the tribunal of the 
 publick, as a falsifier of history, and a defamer of the 
 character of the dead.* From assertions which I have 
 not rashly made, it must be something more terrible to 
 my feelings, than the reproaches of Dr Priestley, loudly 
 re-echoed by his whole party, that shall compel me to 
 recede. 
 
 4. I say> then, that in the particular matter in ques- 
 tion, Origen asserted a known falsehood : 1 say, in ge- 
 
 * Second Letters, gee. Preface, p. xviii. p; 47, 192. 
 
11. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 neral, that a strict regard to truth, in disputation, was 
 not the virtue of his character. 
 
 5. With respect to the particular matter in question : 
 if I prove, that Origen knew the falsehood of his own 
 assertion in the first branch of it, in which he avers, 
 " that the Hebrew Christians in his time had not aban- 
 doned their ancient laws and customs ;" no great stress, 
 I presume, will be laid upon the second, <4 that they 
 were all called Ebionites :" for, according to Origen's 
 account of the reason of the name, (which yet I believe 
 not to be the true one,) the two branches of his assertion, 
 must stand or fall together. 
 
 9. It is an inconvenience which attends controversy, 
 that it obliges both the writer and the reader to go 
 frequently over the same ground : I must here repeat, 
 what I observed in the seventh of my letters to Dr 
 Priestley, that it is in answer to a reproach upon the 
 converted Jews, which Celsus had put in the mouth of 
 an unbelieving Jew, that by embracing Christianity, 
 they were deserters of their ancient law ; that Origen 
 asserts, that the Jews believing in Christ had not re- 
 nounced their Judaism. This assertion is made at the 
 beginning of Origen's second book. Now at no greater 
 distance than in the third section of the same book, the 
 good father takes quite another ground to confute his 
 adversary : he insults over his adversary's ignorance, 
 for not making the distinctions, which he himself, in the 
 allegation in question, had confounded. " It is my pre- 
 sent point," says Origen, "to evince Celsus's igno- 
 rance, who has made a Jew say to his country men 3 to 
 Israelites believing in Christ, Upon ivhat motive have 
 you deserted the laic of your ancestors? But how have 
 they deserted the law of their ancestors, who reprove 
 
342 REMARKS UPON PART ft. 
 
 those that are inattentive to it, and say, Tett me ye 
 $c. ?"* Then, after a citation of certain texts from St 
 Paul's epistles, in which the apostle avails himself of 
 the authority of the law, to enforce particular duties ; 
 which texts make nothing either for or against the Jew'g 
 assertion, that the Christians of the circumcision had 
 abandoned their ancient law ; but prove only, that the 
 disuse of the law, if it was actually gone into disuse, 
 could not be deemed a dissertion ; because it proceeded 
 not from any disregard to the authority of the Lawgiv- 
 er : after a citation of texts to this purpose, Origen pro- 
 ceeds in this remarkable strain. " And how confused- 
 ly does Celsus's Jew speak upon this subject? when 
 he might have said more plausibly, SOME of you have 
 relinquished the old customs upon pretence of exposi- 
 tions and allegories SOME again expounding, as you 
 call it, spiritually, nevertheless observe the institutions 
 of our ancestors but SOME, not admitting these exposi- 
 tions, are willing to receive Jesus as the person foretold 
 by the prophets, and to observe the law of Moses ac- 
 cording to the ancient customs, as having in the letter 
 the whole meaning of the Spirit."f In these words, 
 Origen confesses, all that I have alledged of him : he 
 confesses, in contradiction to his former assertion, that 
 
 THV TX 
 
 .Ttv mi TOV IWKV, TO. T< <a - at6ov7t? Kx/7re Toy irt,{fov vo/uev > 
 xcu T* t?. Ilcnf <Js x&l&hfroiTrauri TOV ts-tti^tsv VOJULOV 01 e7nfyu*/7ec TO/; fM autxxo-n u/7, 
 
 KtU *>OyTf. Xl)*7 f*Sl G/ TOV VO^OV, &C. 
 
 J- _ Ksu f ffuyx.t%y/MvaK yt Tetvff o <vrttpx. TU KiXo- Ix&a; 
 
 ry, CTI TINE2 ^cw vpotv KOLlKtxovrturt TA 9, tf^su 
 T1NE2 ft xeu furytsptvoi, f rr*^/tMft7-&t t /ary3w/u*7iJtaf, fty t7ov TO. 
 TINE2 (Tt, zJt SotyxfAtvot, /SxXkrfii KM TOV IHTXV <vrx%*tt<iurQ*i oet 
 
 TOV MtK/noc V/*Cr THTtU KOil*. Tit, <Vofl>M W & TH Mft t^9vlt( TVt 
 
fJIJRT n. SECOND LETTERS, 
 
 he knew of three sorts of Jews professing Christian- 
 ity one sort adhered to the letter of the Mosaick law, 
 rejecting all figurative interpretations ; another sort ad- 
 mitted a figurative interpretation, conforming, however, 
 to the letter of the precept ; but a third sort (the first in 
 Origen's enumeration) had relinquished the observance 
 of the literal precept, conceiving it to be of no impor- 
 tance, in comparison of the latent figurative meaning. 
 
 7. But this is not all : in the next sentence he gives 
 us to understand, though I confess more indirectly, but 
 he gives us to understand, that of these three sorts of 
 Hebrews professing Christianity, they only, who had 
 laid aside the use of the Mosaick law, were in his time 
 considered as true Christians : for he mentions it as a 
 further proof of the ignorance of Celsus, pretending, as 
 it appears he did, to deep erudition upon all subjects, 
 that in his account of the heresies of the Christian 
 church, he had omitted the Israelites believing in Jesus 9 
 and not laying aside the law of their ancestors : " but 
 how should Celsus," he says, make clear distinctions 
 upon this point ; who, in the sequel of his work, men- 
 tions impious heresies altogether alienated from Christ, 
 and others, which have renounced the Creator, and 
 hath not noticed [or knew not of] Israelites believing 
 in Jesus, and not relinquishing the law of their fa- 
 thers ?"* What opinion is to be entertained of a wri- 
 ter's veracity, who, in one page, asserts that the Hebrews 
 professing Christianity had not renounced the Jewish 
 law ; and, in the next affirms, that a part of them had 
 
 XXtt y&p 4ttv *Airc TO. x*7<x ray <rsTcy <r*ya*, 
 
 I3Tf tfdLvJit O&t.tfftlUV tV Tilt ti>( fftVHfAOV&ff-fy H.3U atA/.MV 
 
 ' 
 
REMARKS UPOtf PJIPT If. 
 
 renounced it, not without an insinuation, that they, who 
 Lad not, were hereticks, not true Christians? EGO HUIC 
 
 TEST!, ETIAMSI JURATO, QUI TAM, MANIFESTO FUMOS 
 VENDIT, ME NON CREDITURUM ESSE CONFIRMO. 
 
 8. I flatter myself, that I have established ray charge 
 against Origen, with respect to the particular fact iu 
 question : that a strict regard to truth in disputation, 
 was not the virtue of his character, I shall now show by 
 another strange instance of prevarication, which occurs 
 in these same hooks against Celsus. Celsus, to deprive 
 the Christian cause of all benefit from Isaiah's prophecy 
 of the Virgin's conception, makes his Jew say, what 
 hath since been said by many Jewish criticks without 
 the least foundation, that the Hebrew word in Isaiah 
 vii. 1*, which is rendered by the LXX, a virgin, de- 
 notes only a young ivoman : Origen, in justification of 
 the sense in which Christian interpreters understand tha 
 passage, cites* the law against the incontinence of be- 
 trothed virgins, in Deut. xxii. &3, 24, the word ncVy, 
 which Christians understand of a virgin in Isaiah, be- 
 ing allowed, as Origen will have it, to denote a virgin 
 in this passage of the law : but in this passage accord- 
 ing to our modern Hebrew text, the word is not noty, but 
 rfyru : Were it certain, that npty had been the reading in 
 the copies of the age of Origen, a suspicion might arise, 
 that the text had been corrupted by the Jews, for the 
 purpose of depriving the Christians of one argument, in 
 vindication of their interpretation of Isaiah ; but there is 
 something so suspicious, in the manner of Origens ap- 
 peal to this text, that he is rather to be, suspected of 
 
 Contra CeU. lib. i. sec. 34. 
 
SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 prevarication, than the synagogue of fraud. 
 
 At?/?- *' AA^It W 01 (JLiV tX*/4X/!<X ptltlMfOKTl GTfOC 1 
 
 it\\oi Se /f THr reaur, xt/Ja/, JH2 $A2I, xct/ cy TW 
 
 err srafOtrv, &c. " The word nnVy which the LXX have 
 translated into the word <sr*fluo<; [a virgin], but other 
 interpreters, into the word nar/c [a young woman], is 
 put too, AS THEY BAY, in Deuteronomy, for a virgin. V 
 What is this, Jls they say ? Was it unknown to the 
 compiler of the Hexapla, what the reading of the 
 Hebrew text, in his own time was ? If he knew that 
 it was, what he would have thought it to be ; why does 
 lie seem to assert upon hearsay only ? Tf he knew 
 not; why did he not inform himself? that he might 
 either assert, with confidence, what lie had found upon 
 inquiry to be true; or not assert what could not be 
 maintained. EGO HUIC TESTI, ETIAMSI JURATO, QUI 
 
 TAM MANIFESTO FUMOS VENDIT, ME NON CREDITURUM 
 ESSE CONFIRMO. 
 
 9. So much for Origen's veracity in argument, so 
 unjustly aspersed by rae> so completely vindicated by 
 Dr Priestley.* 
 
 10. I will here take the liberty to remark upon the 
 early fathers in general, whose memories are neverthe- 
 less to be revered, for their learning, and the general 
 sanctity of their characters ; that, in their popular dis- 
 courses, and in argument, they were too apt to sacrifice 
 somewhat of the accuracy of fact, to the plausibility of 
 their rhetorick ; or, which is much the same thing, they 
 
 "I hare completely vindicated the character of Origeo, which fott have 
 endeavoured to blot." Second Letters, fcc. p. 189. See a further defence of 
 Origen's veracity, in the first of Dr Priestley's third Letters, and my Reply to that 
 further defence, in the fifth of the Supplernntal Disquisition*. 
 
 44 
 
IIBMAWKS UPON PART I& 
 
 were too ready to adopt any notion, which might serve 
 a present purpose, without nicely examining its solidity 
 or its remote consequences. For this reason, the great 
 profit which may arise from the study of their works, is 
 rather that we may gather from them, what were the 
 opinions and the practice of the whole body of the 
 church, in the times wherein they lived ; than, that any 
 one of these writers is safely te be followed in all his 
 assertions : instances of precipitation, in advancing what 
 occurred at the moment, and served a present purpose, 
 may be found, I believe, in the writings of no less a 
 man than St Chrysostom : I shall mention one instance 
 which occurs to me, which is very remarkable, though 
 perhaps of little consequence. In his homilies upon 
 the second epistle to the Corinthians, Chrysostom re- 
 lates, that it was not agreed, in his time, who the 
 person might be, who is described by St Paul as the 
 brother whose praise is in the gospel in all the 
 churches :" that some thought St Luke was meant 
 under this description ; others St Barnabas : and, for 
 a reason which he mentions, he gives it as his own 
 opinion, that St Barnabas was probably the person 
 intended but, in his first homily upon the Acts of 
 the Apostles, he no less than three times brings up 
 this text, as an attestation of St Paul to St Luke's 
 merit : for no other reason, but that this application of 
 it, served the purpose of a rhetorical amplification of 
 St Luke's praise. 
 
 11. Upon this circumstance, the notorious careless- 
 ness of the fathers in their rhetorical assertions, I should 
 build my reply to the several passages which Dr Priest, 
 ley hath produced from St Chrysostom, to prove that it 
 was allowed by St Chrysostora, that the doctrine of the 
 
TJIRT U. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 Trinity had never been openly taught by the apostles ; 
 if those passages appeared to me, in the same light in 
 which they appear to my antagonist : as for the particu- 
 lar passage in Athanasius, if any Unitarian, who reads 
 the entire passage, thinks that the Jews there mentioned 
 were converted, not unbelieving Jews, I must apply to 
 him, what Dr Priestley remarks of those whom 1 esteem 
 as orthodox, that " the minds of a few individuals may 
 be so locked up, that no keys we can apply will be able 
 to open them."* For St Chrysostoin, I cannot find 
 that he says any thing, but what I myself would say ; 
 that the apostles taught first what was easiest to be 
 learned, and went on to higher points, as the minds of 
 their catechumens became able to bear them : if I could 
 allow that he hath any where said, what Dr Priest- 
 ley thinks he finds in his expressions, that the apostles 
 had been reserved and concealed upon an article of 
 faith ; I should say, that it was a thought that had 
 hastily occurred to him, as a plausible solution of a 
 difficulty, which deserved perhaps, no very diligent dis- 
 cussion in a popular assembly; and that he had hastily 
 let it escape him. 1 am well persuaded, that any priest 
 in Chrysostom's jurisdiction, who should hare maintain, 
 ed this extraordinary proposition, that "the apostles 
 had temporized, in delivering the fundamentals of the 
 Christian faith," would have met with no very gentle 
 treatment from the pious Archbishop of Constantinople : 
 had the priest, in his own vindication, presumed to say; 
 " Holy father, if I am in error, you yourself musfc 
 answer for it ; upon your authority I adopted the opin- 
 
 * Importance of Free Inquiry, p. 5$. 
 
REMARKS UPON PART II. 
 
 iou, which you now condemn ; you have repeatedly said 
 in your commentaries upon the sacred books, that the 
 apostles and the evangelists stood in awe of the preju- 
 dices of their hearers" St Chrysostom would have re- 
 plied : " Faithless monster ! is it thy stupidity, or thy 
 baseness, that interprets, as an impeachment of the 
 sincerity of the first inspired preachers, my encomium 
 of their wisdom ? But why should 1 wonder, that he 
 should not scruple to slander his bishop, who spares 
 not the apostles and evangelists !" Had the priest been 
 able to prove against St Chrysostom, that he had in. 
 deed given countenance in his writings to such an error, 
 the good father would have repented in sackcloth and 
 ashes. 
 
 12. As the mention of Dr Priestley's quotations from 
 St Chrysostom hath occurred, I must not omit to do jus- 
 tice to a passage, which hath suffered a little in the 
 hands of this emeritus professor of Greek* in the late 
 academy at "Warrington. I speak of the passage cited 
 by Dr Priestley, in his Second Letters , page 91, from 
 the first homily on the epistle to the Hebrews : in the 
 Greek, as Dr Priestley gives it, it is rank nonsense ; 
 and not very intelligible, in Dr Priestley's English : 
 Dr Priestley, to get it into English at all, has had re- 
 course to an emendation an " * must be turned into xw 
 
 I . taught it nine years, the last six of them at Warrington." Se- 
 cond Letters, p. 202. 
 
 Ad summum, non Maurus ernt, nee Sarmata, nee Thrax, 
 
 Qui sumpsitpennss, mediis sed natus ^itheniiy. 
 
 But "the elements of the language, it seenu, were not taught there." [Ibid.] 
 The professor indeed, had the elements been to be taoght, had been ill qualified 
 for hi> chair 1 . 
 
PART. II. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 or something else." Suppose turned into x<u, what 
 \vill be the antecedent of the pronoun aV7? in the Greek, 
 or of himselfm Dr Priestley's English ? Had Dr Priest- 
 ley consulted any good edition of St Chrysostom, either 
 the Paris edition of 1735, or the old Paris edition, of 
 Fronto Ducseus, or the Eton edition, he would have 
 
 found that j y<x.f inru Stsc should be ya.f tivw Xf/rtff 
 
 and that v should keep its place : " Observe," says St 
 Chrysostom, " the apostle's prudence in the choice of 
 his expressions for he hath not said, Christ spake, 
 although he [i. e. Christ] was the person who spake ; 
 but because their minds were weak, and they were not 
 yet able to bear the things concerning Christ, he says, 
 God spake by him." 
 
 13. The particular notion, that Christ was the Jeho- 
 vah of the Old Testament, the person who conversed 
 with the patriarchs, talked with Moses in the bush, dis- 
 played his tremendous glory at Sinai, and spake by the 
 prophets ; is what St Chrysostom thought the Hebrews 
 not far enough advanced in the theory of revelation to 
 bear : if he thought them too weak to bear the general 
 doctrine of our Lord's DEITY, his judgment would be of 
 little weight, since St Paul thought otherwise ; for, in 
 the second verse of the first chapter of this epistle, the 
 apostle enters upon that abstruse subject, which, in the 
 first verse, according to Dr Priestley's interpretation of. 
 St Chrysostom, he is supposed to shun ; in the third 
 verse, he goes deep into the mystery ; and, in the eighth, 
 lie applies to Christ what the Psalmist says of God, 
 that " his throne is forever and ever, the sceptre of his 
 kingdom a sceptre of righteousness :" and the manner, 
 in which the words of the Psalmist are introduced, shows 
 that the apostle thought; that they, to whom he wrote^ 
 
REMARKS UPON PART 11 
 
 could not but join with him in this application. Dr 
 Priestley, 1 suppose, thought it as well to keep it out 
 of the reader's sight, that St Chrysostoin, in this very 
 passage, speaks of Christ as the Jehovah of the Old 
 Testament : he thought it best to keep the true meaning 
 t)f the passage out of sight ; and for this reason, he 
 chose to take up the corrupt and senseless reading of 
 the Heidelberg edition, (a bad copy of the Veronese 
 text, in a very small part only, collated with the Pa- 
 latin and Augustan manuscripts,) and rejecting an emen- 
 dation unanimously received by later editors, who took 
 the pains to rectify the text by a laborious collation of 
 many manuscripts ; to make the best of the passage for 
 himself, by correcting in the wrong place : thus indeed, 
 we have a beautiful specimen of an ancient father c0r- 
 rected by an Unitarian ! 
 
 14. I must not quit the subject of these quotations, 
 without observing, that the learned reader, in this first 
 homily of St Chrysostoin upon the epistle to the He- 
 brews, will find St Chrysostom's own confutation of 
 the proof, which Dr Priestley attempts to bring from 
 his works ; that it was a thing known and admitted in 
 his time, that the apostles had been silent upon the sub- 
 ject of our Lord's divinity ; and that the orthodox, to 
 account for this acknowledged fact, were reduced to 
 the necessity of supposing, that they temporized. What 
 the silence of the apostles, upon this subject was, may 
 be learned from the epistle to the Hebrews : what St 
 Chrysostom's opinion of their temporizing caution was, 
 may be learned from his first homily upon that epistle : 
 whoever reads only the two first sections of that homi- 
 ly, will perceive, that the prudence, which St Chrysos- 
 toui ascribea to the apostles, was a prudence in the 
 
PART 1L SECOND LETTERS, 
 
 manner of preaching mysterious doctrines, not a dis- 
 honest caution in dissembling difficulties : bad lie ascri- 
 bed to them any such base art, the epistle to the He- 
 brews had been his confutation : his first homily on that 
 epistle, is the confutation of those, who, in ignorance, 
 or in art, would ascribe to him so unworthy a notion of 
 the founders of our faith. 
 
REMARKS UPON i\UiT Ui 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 Of the church of JElia, or Jerusalem, after Adrian. 
 Mosheinfs narration confirmed. Christians not in- 
 eluded in Adrian's edicts against the Jews. The 
 return from Pella, a fact affirmed by Epiphanius. 
 Orthodox Hebrew Christians existing in the world 
 long after the times of Adrian. 
 
 THE next fact that comes in question, is the ex- 
 istence of a body of orthodox Hebrew Christians at 
 Jerusalem, after the final dispersion of the Jews by 
 Adrian. 
 
 2. In the seventh of my letters to Dr Priestley, I 
 stated briefly, what I take to be the true account, of 
 the changes which took place in the ecclesiastical state 
 of Palestine, upon the banishment of the Jews by Adri- 
 an. The ecclesiastical history of those times, is sa 
 very general and imperfect, that whoever attempts to 
 make out a consistent story, from the ancient writers 
 which are come down to us, will find himself under 
 a necessity, of helping out their broken accounts, by his 
 own conjectures. In the general view of the transac- 
 tions of that time, I agree almost entirely with Mo- 
 sheira ; who, in my judgment, hath, with great pene- 
 tration, drawn forth the whole truth ; or what must 
 seem to us the truth, because it carries the highest air 
 of probability, from the obscure hints, which the histo? 
 
P.JRT II. SECOND LETTfiBS. 
 
 yian Sulpitius furnishes, connected with other hints, 
 which, though unobserved by Dr Priestley, are to ba 
 found in other writers of antiquity: Dr Priestley speaks 
 of a series of facts,* and of many circumstances, which, 
 he says, I have added to Mosheim's account, and " must 
 know that I added :" if Dr Priestley consulted that 
 part of Mosheim's work, De Rebus Christianorum ante 
 Constantinum, to which the margin of my letters refer* 
 red him (but in Mosheim, as in Grotius, it is likely that 
 be turned to the wrong place), if he opened Mosheim in 
 the place to which I referred, he must know, that I 
 have added no circumstance to Mosheim's account ; but 
 such as every one must add, in his own imagination, 
 who admits Mosheim's representation of the fact in its 
 principal parts : he must know, that three circumstances 
 in particular, which he is pleased to mention among my 
 additions, are affirmed by Mosheim : the conflux of He* 
 brew Christians to JElia ; the motive, which induced 
 the majority to give up their ancient customs ; namely, 
 the desire of sharing in the privileges of the ^Eliaa 
 colony ; and the retreat of those, who could not bring 
 themselves to give their ancient customs up, to remote 
 corners of the country.f These were Mosheim's as* 
 sertions before they were mine : and Dr Priestley either 
 knows this, or, pretending to separate Mosheim's own, 
 account from ray additions, he hath not taken the trouble 
 4o examine what is mine, and what is Mosheim's. 
 
 3. It may seem, however, that to convict my adver* 
 sary of the crime of shameful precipitance, in asserting 
 what he hath not taken the pains to know ; or of the 
 
 * Second Letteri, p. 1?2. f Ibid. p. 39, 
 
REMARKS UPON PJIPT 11 
 
 crime, of asserting the contrary of what he knows, 
 absolves not me of the imputation, that I have related 
 upon the authority of Mosheim, what Mosheim related 
 upon none ;* I will therefore briefly state, the principles 
 which determine me, to abide by Mosheim's account of 
 the transactions in question. I take for granted, then, 
 these things. 
 
 I. A church of Hebrew Christians, adhering to the 
 observance of the Mosaick law, subsisted for a time at 
 Jerusalem, and for some time at Pella ; from the begin- 
 ning of Christianity, until the final dispersion of the 
 Jews by Adrian. 
 
 II. Upon this event, a Christian church arose at 
 
 ILL The church of ^Elia, often, but improperly, 
 called the church of Jerusalem, for Jerusalem was no 
 more ; the church of JFAm in iU external form, that 
 is, in its doctrines and its discipline, was a Greek 
 church ; and it was governed by bishops of the uncir- 
 cumcision : in this, my adversary and I are agreed 
 the point in dispute between us is, of what members 
 the church of Mlia, was composed : he says, of converts 
 of Gentile extraction ; I say, of Hebrews ; of the very 
 same persons, in the greater part, who were members 
 of the ancient Hebrew church, at the time when the 
 Jews were subdued by Adrian. For again, I take for 
 granted, 
 
 IV. That the observation of the Mosaick law, in the 
 primitive church of Jerusalem, was a matter of mere 
 habit and national prejudice, not of conscience: A 
 
 Scond Letters, p. 192. 
 
PART //. SECOND LETTERS. 355 
 
 matter of conscience it could not be ; because the decree 
 of the apostolical college, and the writings of St Paul, 
 must have put every true believer's conscience at ease 
 upon the subject. St Paul, in all his epistles, main- 
 tains the total insignificance of the Mosaick law, either 
 for Jew or Gentile, after Christ had made the great 
 atonement ; and the notion that St Paul could be mis- 
 taken, in a point which is the principal subject of a 
 great part of his writings, is an impiety, which I cannot 
 impute to our holy brethren, the saints of the primitive 
 church of Jerusalem.* Again, I take for granted, 
 
 V. That with good Christians, such as I believe the 
 Christians of the primitive church of Jerusalem to have 
 been ; motives of worldly interest, which would not 
 overcome conscience, would nevertheless; overcome mere 
 habit. 
 
 VI. That the desire of partaking in the privileges of 
 the /Elian colony, from which Jews were excluded ; 
 would accordingly, be a motive that would prevail with 
 the Hebrew Christians of Jerusalem, and other parts of 
 Palestine, to divest themselves of the form of Judaism, 
 by laying aside their ancient customs. 
 
 4. Dr Priestley asks me, Where, Sir, do you find in 
 this passage (a passage of Sulpitius Severus which he 
 cites) any promise of immunities to the Jewish Chris- 
 tians, if they would forsake the law of their fathers ?"f 
 Nowhere, 1 confess, in this passage ; nor in any other 
 passage of Sulpitius ; nor in any passage of any ancient, I 
 
 * Br the primitive church of Jerusalem, I mean the Hebrew church, before 
 Adrian: the retreat to Pella was temporary; and, I am inclined to think of 
 short tfci ration ; and the bishop, while he sat there^ was still willed the Bishop cf 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 cowl Letters, p> 4S, 
 
HEM ARKS UPON PART U. 
 
 may add, nor of any modern writer but the question, 
 implies a false and fraudulent representation of my ar- 
 gument : I never spake, 1 never dreamed, of any pro- 
 mise of particular immunities to Jewish Christians 
 tipon condition that they renounced the Mosaick law : 
 I spake only of the general immunities of the ./Elian 
 colony, of which Christians might, and Jews might not 
 partake.* 
 
 5. Dr Priestley alleges, that, "the historian (Sulpi- 
 tius) says, that the object of Adrian was to overturn 
 Christianity :"f but whatever the emperor's dislike to 
 Christianity might be, there is little probability that, 
 upon this occasion, he would be disposed to treat Chris- 
 tians with severity. The historian Sulpitius nowhere 
 says, that the emperor's edicts against the Jews extend- 
 ed to Christians; and the historian Orosius, says express* 
 ]y, that to Christiaus they extended not : } Was Orosius 
 too late a writer to give evidence about these transac- 
 tions ? The historian of Corruptions is, 1 believe, some 
 
 * Notwithstanding the explanation which 1 have here given, of what 1 said in 
 the seventh of ray Letters in Reply, of the exclusion of Jews, and of Jews only, 
 from the privileges of the JElian colony; Dr Priestley, in his Third Letters, hai 
 the assurance to tell me, " You say, that the Jews were allowed to remain iti the 
 place, and enjoy the privileges of the JElian colony, on condition of their b- 
 coraing Christians :" as if I had mentioned this, as an article of capitulation be- 
 tween the emperor and the Jews : I conceive, that I have expressed my mean- 
 ing too plainly to be misapprehended, by those who choose to understand I 
 never conceived, I have nowhere said, "that Adrian was so well disposed to 
 Christianity, as to permit the Rebellious Jews to remain in Jerusalem, on condition 
 ef their embracing it :" but I suppose, that the emperor might distinguish be- 
 tween rebels and those who had been good subjects. The Hebrew Qhristians 
 had taken no part in the rebellion ; and yet, had they not discarded the Jewish 
 rites, they might hare been mistaken tor Jews. 
 
 f Second Letters, p. 42. 
 
 $ pnecepitque ne eui Judseo introeundi Hierosolymam esset licentia, 
 Christiania tantum chritate permissft. Oros. Hist* lib. 7. cap. xiii. 
 
PART 12. SECOND LETTERS. 357 
 
 centuries later ; His means of information therefore, are 
 fewer ; and, were he well informed, his precipitance in 
 assertion, and his talent of accommodating his story to 
 his opinions, should annihilate the credit of his evi- 
 dence. The testimony of Orosius, however inconsider- 
 able, might of itself therefore outweigh the opinion of 
 Dr Priestley ; if a feather only, in the one scale, be more 
 than a counterpoise for a nothing in the other. 
 
 6. The testimony however, of Orosius, is not without 
 some indirect confirmation from other writers ; and, what 
 is more, from its consistency with other circumstances in 
 the history of those times, with which the assertion of 
 Sulpitius, that Adrian meant to wound Christianity 
 through the sides of Judaism, will not easily accord. 
 Jt is a notorious fact, that Adrian was not unfavourable 
 to the Christians : the church, in his reign, obtained a 
 respite from persecution ; the fury of its persecutors was 
 restrained, by the imperial rescripts to the provincial 
 governors ; who were directed, not to proceed against 
 the Christians, except by way of regular trial, upon the 
 allegation of some certain crime : and when nothing 
 more was alleged than the bare name of Christianity, 
 to punish the informer as a sycophant : a rescript to this 
 effect, addressed to Miuucius Fundanus, proconsul of 
 Asia, is preserved by Justin Martyr in his first apology ; 
 and after Justin, by Eusebius in his history.* (a) This 
 equitable disposition of the emperor towards the Chris- 
 
 * Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. c. 8, 9. 
 
 (a) Dr Priestley, in the second of his Third Letters, contends that these 
 rescripts meant nothing more, than that no one should be punished as a Chris- 
 tian, until he was proved to be such ; but this had been no indulgence ; for every 
 Christian might have been proved to be a Christian, bj his own conl'esaitm ; the 
 writers of the times, bout of these rwcripts as indulgence*. 
 
REMARKS UPON PART IL 
 
 tians, is ascribed by Eusebius to tbe eloquent apologies 
 of Quaclratus and Aristides, and to the remonstrances of 
 Serenius Granianus, the predecessor of Fundanus in the 
 Asiatick Proconsulate.* When the Jewish war broke 
 out, reasons of state, immediately took place, which 
 would greatly heighten the effect of any impressions, 
 previously made upon the emperor's mind by the plead- 
 ings of the Christian apologists, and the intercessions of 
 what friends they might have among his courtiers : the 
 Christians of Palestine refused to take any part in the 
 Jewish rebellion ; and they smarted under the resent- 
 ment of Barchochebas, the leader of the insurgents : the 
 earliest testimony now extant of this fact is, I believe, 
 that of Eusebius in his chronicle :f but the known im- 
 piety of Barchochebas, which renders it incredible that 
 the Christians should enlist under his banners, suffi- 
 ciently avouches the truth of the chronologer's assertion : 
 the thing therefore, in itself, is highly probable, that the 
 emperor should make the distinction which, Orosius 
 says, he made between the seditious Jews and the harm- 
 less Christians; who had, indeed, been sufferers by 
 their loyalty. The probability is still increased, by 
 certain circumstances mentioned by historians, which 
 indicate a particular antipathy in the imperial court, at 
 this time, to the rites of Judaism; which the refractory 
 manners of the Jews might naturally excite : Spartian 
 says, that a prohibition of circumcision was one of the 
 pretences of the Jewish rebellion : J Modestinus the 
 
 Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. c. S; and in Chron. ad. aim. MMCXLII. 
 t Ad annum MMCXLIX. 
 
 * Movebant ei tempesUte et Judei bellum, quod vetabantur mutilare genitalia. 
 Spartian in Adiiano. 
 
fJIRT 21. SECOND LETTERS. $59 
 
 lawyer, as he is cited by Cassaubon, alleges a rescript 
 of Antoninus, granting a permission to the Jews, to cir- 
 cumcise their own children : this rescript of permission, 
 as it plainly implies, that the practice had been forbid- 
 den by some preceding emperor, in some measure con- 
 firms Spartian's relation : all these circumstances put 
 together, create, as the thing appears to me, the highest 
 probability of the truth of Orosius's assertion : that 
 Christians were not included in the edicts of Adrian, by 
 which the Jews were banished from Jerusalem ; and, 
 although no author that I know of, beside Orosius, ex- 
 pressly mentions the distinction ; the contrary, that the 
 Christians were included, is affirmed by no ancient 
 writer : the distinction indeed, though not mentioned, is 
 clearly implied in Epiphanius's assertion ; that the He- 
 brew Christians, after Adrian's settlement of the jElian 
 colony, returned from Pella, whither they had retired 
 from the distresses of the war, to ^Elia ; for it happens, 
 that this fact, of which Dr Priestley does me the honour 
 to make me the inventor, is asserted by Epiphanius : 
 Epiphanius, having related that Aquila, the same per- 
 son, who afterwards made a translation of the scriptures 
 of the Old Testament into Greek, was employed by 
 Adrian, as overseer of the works at ^Elia, proceeds in 
 these words : i nnvv Axuxctf, S/aywx iv TYI lefva-ax^, xa; opuv 
 TUY {taQiflw TOY aVr*xa>r arfafoc ry , xai 
 tuyaxa fyyafo^utrvf icuriar xai axxay Sav^ua/ar 
 'YnOSTPE^ANTES' AHO DEAAH2 rti( 
 
 xai Moitei1c* Sfaut'fyif i//e\xv 
 
 VTTO TX Pw^a/wy, rj)ot^f)j / aa / //o-9>?(7aK VTTO dyft\v era/ltc 01* 
 ^t?a5-?ya/ aVo m croxewc, ^exxvcr^f dfiw dyro^v^ot 
 floe/ ^tlaraj-ai ytvopirot eilWHtt tv HtM.y TV trpoyi-ypoLftpiw 
 
 x 
 
liEMARKS UPO^ PART 1L 
 
 'EIT AN A2TPE ANTES, we t<f;r, <nj,ufc; 
 o TOIVVV AK^xaf , K T *. Kplph. /)e Pond 
 et JMens. Whether this return of the Christians of Je- 
 rusalem from Pella, took place in the interval, between 
 the end of Titus's war and the commencement of Adri- 
 an's, or after the end of Adrian's, is a matter of no 
 importance : it is sufficient for my purpose, that these 
 returned Christians were residing at Jerusalem, or more 
 properly at ^Elia, at the same time that Aquila was re- 
 siding there as overseer of the emperor's works : let not 
 the publick therefore be abused by any cavils, which 
 ignorance or fraud may raise, about the chronology of 
 the return.* To this assertion of Epiphanius, Mosheiin, 
 
 * Dr Priestley, in the third of his Third Letters, has treated this testimony 
 of Epiphanius just as I expected, and indeed predicted : he first endeavours to 
 embarrass the argument with some chronological difficulties ; and then gets rid of 
 it in his own peculiar manner, by making positive testimony submit to his owa 
 theory. "What can be more evident," he says, "than that the return of the 
 Jewish Christians from Pella, mentioned in this passage by Epiphanius, is that 
 return which followed the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus ?" Be it BO. It i 
 granted (hen, that some of the Jewish Christians, who fled to Pella during Titus's 
 war, returned to Jerusalem afterwards : but the question is, not at what time the 
 Jewish Christians, whom Aquila found at JElia, had returned thither; but at 
 what time he conversed with them : Epiphanius says, he conversed with them at 
 the time that he was superintendent of Adrian's works at JElia : at that time 
 therefore, there were Hebrew Christians settled at JElia, or they could not then 
 have conversed with Aquila. I maintain, that there is no reason to believe, that 
 the Hebrew Christians quietly settled at JElia, before the Jewish rebellion, were 
 included in Adrian's edict for the banishment of the Jews. 
 
 But Dr Priestley remarks further, upon the authority of Cave, that Aquila's 
 translation of the Old Testament, was made ia the llth or 12th year of Adrian : 
 then, since that translation was undertaken in consequence of his apostacy, and his 
 apostacy was some considerable time after his conversion ; Dr Priestley infers, 
 that his conversion " was probably prior to the reign of Adrian ;" and so, the 
 whole story of his intercourse with the Jewish Christians at JElia, while he was 
 residing there in the time of Adrian, is discredited. 
 
 Perhaps, to assign the exact year of Aquila's translation, would prove a task of 
 no less difficulty to any who should attempt it, than to determine the dy of the 
 
JL SECOND LETTEB9. 
 
 relating the fact, refers : relating the same fact to Mo- 
 eheiiu, 1 referred* to the very passage,! where Dr 
 Priestley, had lie known what it is to examine authori- 
 ties before he pronounces upon them, might have found 
 the reference to the original author : the confidence with 
 which he mentions this, as a fact forged hy me, is only 
 one instance, out of a great number, of his own shame- 
 less intrepidity in assertion. 
 
 7- Hut, to return from the detection of Dr Priestley'* 
 fictions, to the historical discussion. It may seem, that 
 my six positions go no further, than to account for the 
 disuse of the Mosaick law, among the Christians of 
 Palestine, upon the supposition that the thing took 
 place ; and that fhey amount not to a proof, that a church 
 of Hebrew Christians, not adhering to the rites of Juda- 
 ism, actually existed at JE*\ia. : to complete the proof 
 therefore, 1 might appeal to Epiphanius's assertion, of 
 the return of the Christians of Jerusalem from Pella: 
 but I will rather derive the proof, from a fact which I 
 
 week, and the hour of the day, when the last word of that work was written : the 
 learned Cave had, as far as t know, no reason for fixing Aquila's translation to 
 Jie llth or 12th of Adrian; hut that Epiphanius says, that in the 12th year of 
 Adrian, " Aquilu first became known : but if Epiphanius is to be believed, Aquila, 
 first became kuo*-n by Adrian's appointment of him to so considerable an office, 
 as that of overseer of the pub.ick works at JElia. This was in the 12th year of 
 Adrian : his conversion to Christianity was some time subsequent to that apoint- 
 sncnt ; his apostacy, at some considerable distance of time, subsequent to his con- 
 version, and his translation of the Old Testament subsequent to his apostacy : so 
 that, the lime of that translation, can be no otherwise defined than thus : that it 
 certainly was not earlier than the 12th of Adrian, and probably, was later by 
 an interval of many years. 
 
 My argument therefore from Epiphanius, stands its ground, and the caution 
 which I gare the publick, not to be abused by cavils which might be raised about 
 the chronology of the return from Pella, is but too much justified by the event. 
 
 * Letters to Dr Priestley, p. 61. 
 
 t De, Rebus Christianorura ant Constantinura. So. fl. e. 58. note*. 
 
 46 
 
363 REMARKS UPON PJIRT Tl. 
 
 think more convincing than the testimony of Epipha- 
 nius ; a tact, by which that testimony is itself indeed 
 confirmed. I affirm then, 
 
 VII. That a body of orthodox Christians of the 
 Hebrews, were actually existing in the world, much 
 later than in the time of Adrian. 
 
 8. The testimony of Origen I hold too cheap, to avail 
 myself of his triple division of the Hebrew Christians, 
 to prove the existence of the orthodox set, in his time ; 
 it must be observed, however, that, were his evidence 
 at all admissible, his distinction would be somewhat a 
 stronger proof for me, than his general assertion, of 
 which the generality is discredited by the distinction 
 afterwards alleged, can be allowed to be for my anta- 
 gonist. But 1 give him Origen. I will rest the credit 
 of my seventh position, upon the mention which occurs 
 in St Jerome's commentary upon Isaiah, of Hebrew* 
 believing in Christ as distinct from the Nazarenes : St 
 Jerome relates two different expositions of the prophe- 
 cy, concerning Zabulon and Naphtali, delivered in the 
 beginning of the ninth chapter of Isaiah ; of which ex- 
 positions he ascribes the one to the Hebrews believing 
 in Christ ; the other, to the Nazarenes the character 
 given of these Hebrews, that " they believed in Christ," 
 without any thing to distinguish their belief from the 
 common belief of the church, without any note of its 
 error or imperfection, is a plain character of complete 
 orthodoxy : for it was neither the disposition of St Je- 
 rome, nor the fashion of his age, to miss any opportu- 
 nity of proclaiming the vices of those, who were deemed 
 hereticks ; unless upon occasions, when some rhetorical 
 purpose might be answered by concealing them ; but no 
 rhetorical purpose was to be answered, in these notes 
 
PART 11 SECOND LETTERS. 363 
 
 upon Isaiah, by a concealment of any error, that had 
 been justly to be imputed to these Hebrews; nor was 
 St Jerome at all concerned to maintain the particular 
 exposition which he ascribes to them : he had therefore 
 no inducement to conceal their errors but he taxes them 
 with none : he had therefore no harm to say of them : 
 they were orthodox believers; and the distinction of them 
 from the Nazarenes, made by St Jerome, is a plain proof 
 that they were not observers of the Mosaick law : for al- 
 though the Mosaick law was observed, in the orthodox 
 church of Jerusalem, until the time of the suppression of 
 the Jewish rebellion by Adrian ; it was after his time, by 
 my adversary's own confession, confined to the Naza- 
 renes and the Ebionites : if then the Hebrews believing 
 in Christ, observed not the Mosaick law in the time of 
 St Jerome, since the Mosaick law had been observed 
 by the first race of believing Hebrews ; it follows, that 
 the practice of the Hebrew congregations had undergone 
 a change, at some time before the age of St Jerome. 
 Dr Priestley says, that great bodies of men change not 
 their opinions soon : I say, they never change their old 
 customs and inveterate habits, but from some powerful 
 motive : now, in what period of the history of the church, 
 shall we find a posture of affairs, so likely to induce the 
 Hebrew Christians to forsake the Mosaick law, as that 
 which obtained in Palestine, upon the final dispersion 
 of the Jews by Adrian? If the orthodox Christians of 
 the Hebrews, actually existing somewhere in the world, 
 from the reign of Adrian to the days of St Jerome, 
 were not members of the church of JElia, dwelling at 
 ylia, and in the adjacent parts of Palestine, Dr Priest- 
 ley, if he be so pleased, may seek their settlement : it 
 is no small difficulty upon my adversary's side, that lie 
 
HEM ARKS UPON PART II. 
 
 can neither tell " what became of the Christian Jews," 
 upon his supposition, that with the unbelieving Jews 
 they " were driven out of Jerusalem by Adrian ; i? * nor, 
 from what quarter the Greek church of ^Elia was fur- 
 Dished with its members. 
 
 9. Upon these foundations, which a stronger arm 
 than Dr Priestley's shall not be able to tear up, stands 
 " the church of orthodox Jewish Christians at Jerusa- 
 lem :"f to which the assertors of the catholick faith will 
 not scruple to appeal, in proof of the antiquity of their 
 doctrine, whatever offence the very mention of the or- 
 thodox church of Jerusalem, may give to the enraged 
 hseresiarch.J 
 
 10. He asks me, what evidence I can bring that this 
 church, even before the time of Adrian, was Trinitari- 
 an : I brought evidence in my letters, || which he hath 
 not been able to refute : upon his own principles, the 
 acknowledgment of their orthodoxy in later times, by 
 writers who would have acknowledged no orthodoxy of 
 any Unitarian sect, might be a sufficient evidence of 
 their earliest orthodoxy : the evidence which I have 
 brought, is nothing less than an attestation of a member 
 of this earliest Hebrew church, to the belief of himself, 
 und his Hebrew brethren, in our Lord's divinity. But 
 "7f they were Nazarenes, (says Dr Priestley,) Epi- 
 phanius represents them as Unitarian, when John 
 
 * "What became of the Christian Jews who were driven out of Jerusalem by 
 Adrian, does not appear." Second Letters, Sec. p. 45. 
 
 t "Thus ends this church of orthodox Jewish Christians at Jerusalem, &c.'' 
 Second Letters, p. 44. 
 
 \ " I hope, ( id populus curat scilicet J I hope, however, we shall hear 
 no more of them as an evidence of the antiquity of the Trinitarian doctrine." 
 Second Letters, p. 45. 
 
 [| See particularly Letter VIII. 
 
11 SECOND LETTERS. 3(55 
 
 wrote."* I have said, and I will never cease to say, 
 that Epiphariius's representation justifies no such opin- 
 ion : but what is Epiphanius's account of the Naza- 
 renes, or, what is any account of the Nazarenes to the 
 purpose, if the Hebrews of the church of Jerusalem were 
 no Nazarenes ? With St Jerome, the Hebrews believing 
 in Christ, and the Nazarenes, are different people. 
 
 N. B. Dr Priestley's objections to the evidence 
 brought from St Jerome, in proof of my seventh po- 
 sition, which he hath advanced in the fourth of his 
 Third Letters, are answered in the sixth of the Sup- 
 plemental Disquisitions. 
 
 * Second Letters, p. 45. 
 
HEM ARKS UPON P.1&T II- 
 
 CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 Of the Hebrew church, and its sects. 
 
 IT must strike the learned reader, that the Naza- 
 renes mentioned by St Jerome, in the passage to which 
 I now refer, of his annotations on Isaiah ; must have 
 been a different people from those, mentioned by him 
 with such contempt in his epistle to St Austin, and de- 
 scribed by Epiphanius. The Nazarenes, here men- 
 tioned by St Jerome, held the scribes and pharisees in 
 detestation ; their traditions in contempt ; and the apostle 
 St Paul in high veneration :* and yet these Nazarenes, 
 of the best sort, were still a distinct set of people from 
 the Hebrews believing in Christ ; that is, from the or- 
 thodox church of Jerusalem, divested, in consequence of 
 Adrian's edicts against the Jews, of what, until the 
 time of those edicts, it had retained of the exterior form 
 of Judaism. These remarks lead, I think, to a more 
 distinct notion of the different sects of Hebrews, pro- 
 fessing the Christian religion, than I have met with in 
 writers of ecclesiastical antiquity ; a much more distinct 
 one, I confess, than I had myself formed, when I deli- 
 yered the Charge to the clergy of my archdeaconry, 
 which gave the beginning to this controversy ; a notion 
 however, perfectly consistent with every thiug which 1 
 
 * See St Jerome in Is. is. 1, 2, 3, ct via. 14, 1922. 
 
PART. II. SECOND LETTERS- 867 
 
 then maintained ; and tending to establish the points, in 
 which I differ from Dr Priestley : as the question ahout 
 the Hebrew sects is of great importance, I shall here 
 briefly state the sum of what I have found concerning 
 them in ancient writers, and then propound my own 
 conclusions. 
 
 2. The Nazarenes are not mentioned by Irenseus : 
 Irenaeus says of the Ebionites,* that they acknowledged 
 God for the maker of the world ; that they resembled 
 not Cerinthus or Carpocrates, in their opinions ahout 
 Christ; that they used only the Gospel by St Mat- 
 thew ; were over curious in the exposition of the 
 prophets ; disowned the apostle Paul, calling him an 
 apostate from the law ; circumcised, and retained the 
 Jewish laws and Jewish customs. This description of 
 the Ebionites occurs, in that part of the great work of 
 Irenes, which is extant only in a barbarous Latin trans- 
 lation : in the passage which relates to their opinions 
 about Christ, Cotelerius suspects a corruption ; and fur 
 non similiter, he would read consimiliter ; supposing 
 that Iren.EUS must have affirmed, that he could not deny, 
 their resemblance of Cerinthus and Carpocrates in that 
 article ; and this indeed is agreeable, as will appear, to 
 the descriptions given of the Ebionites by other writers. 
 
 3. Iren^us in another place insinuates, that for 
 wine, in the Eucharist, the Ebionites substituted pure 
 water.f 
 
 4. Tertullian says, that Ebion made Jesus a mere 
 man, of the seed of David only, that is, not also the 
 JBon of God ; in some respect, higher in glory than the 
 
 * Irenseos, lib. i. c. 26. 
 T Ibid. lib. v. c. 2, 
 
368 REMARKS UPON PART If. 
 
 prophets :* in another place f he says, that Ebion was 
 the successor of Ceriuthus ; not agreeing with him in 
 every particular, inasmuch as he allowed that the world 
 was made hy God, not by angels : that, as a conse*. 
 cjuence of Christ's mere humanity, he maintained th* 
 lasting obligation of the Mosaick law ; because it \ 
 written, that the disciple is not above the master, nor 
 the servant above his lord : Tertullian says nothing 
 expressly, about the agreement, or disagreement of 
 Ebion and Cerinthus, in their notions of Christ ; but 
 the impiety of maintaining that he was a mere man, the 
 son of Joseph, he ascribes to Carpocrates and Cerinthus 
 as well as Ebion ; which renders the emendation, pro- 
 posed by Cotelerius, in the Latin version of Irenaeus, 
 consimiliter for non similiter, very probable : especially, 
 as a further agreement of the Ebionites and Gnosticks, 
 in their notions about Christ, is maintained by other 
 writers. Tertullian again, in another place, having 
 mentioned " that St Paul, writing to the Galatians, in- 
 veighs against the observers and defenders of circumci- 
 sion and the law," adds, <tf this was Ebion's heresy :"J 
 this, however, is no argument that Ebion lived when 
 that epistle was written ; Tertullian means only to re- 
 mark, that Ebion's tenets, in this article, were clearly 
 confuted by St Paul's writings. In the same place, he 
 mentions the denial of the resurrection of the body, by 
 Marcion, Apelles, and Yalentinus, as an error reproved 
 in St Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians : but no one, 
 I imagine, would thence conclude, that Marcion, Apel- 
 les, and Valentinus, were contemporaries of the apostle, 
 
 * De carne Christ), c. 14. | Oe Prescript. Hseret. c. 48. 
 
 Hseret. c. S3. 
 
SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 5. Origen, in the second book against Celsus, seems 
 to comprehend the whole body of the Hebrew Chris- 
 tians under the name of Ebionites ; and affirms, that they 
 adhered to the law of their fathers :* but in another 
 place, where he professes to describe the Christianity of 
 the Hebrews with the greatest accuracy, he divides the 
 whole body into three sects : the first, like other Chris- 
 tians, entirely discarded the Mosaick law ; the second, 
 retained the observation of the law in the letter of tha 
 precept, admitting however the same spiritual exposi- 
 tions of it, which were set up by those who discarded 
 it ; the third sort, not only observed the law according 
 to the letter, but rejected all spiritual expositions of 
 it.f 
 
 6. Eusebius divides the Ebionites into two sorts, 
 both denying our Lord's divinity ; but the better sort, 
 believing the miraculous conception :J both rejected the 
 epistles of Ht Paul, whom they called an apostate from 
 the law : they used the Gospel according to the He- 
 brews, and held the canonical gospels in little esteem : 
 they kept both the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian 
 Sunday. Origen and Eusebius, like Irena&us, mention 
 aot the Nazarenes by name. 
 
 7. St Jerome, in his commentary upon Isaiah, men- 
 tions Hebrews believing in Christ ;|| and, as a distinct 
 set of people from these believing Hebrews, he men- 
 tions Nazarenes who observed the law, but despised 
 the traditions of the Pharisees, thought highly of St 
 Paul,*[T and held the doctrine of our Lord's divinity : 
 for, by an exposition of Isaiah viii. 13, 14, which St 
 
 Contra Cels. lib. ii. sec. 1. f Ibid. 3. t Hist. Ecc, lib. iii. o. 27. 
 
 In Ii. ix. 1, 2, 3. Ibid, and viii, 14, 1921 . fl Ibid. 
 
REMARKS UPON PART II. 
 
 Jerome ascribes to them, it appears that they acknow- 
 ledged in Christ the n^* np> [the Lord God of hosts] 
 of the Old Testament. In his epistle to St Augustin,* 
 St Jerome describes Nazarenes of another sort, " who 
 believed in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin 
 Mary, in whom the orthodox believe ;" but were, ne- 
 vertheless, so bigotted to the Mosaick law, that they 
 were rather to be considered as a Jewish sect than a 
 Christian. In the same place, he speaks of the Ebion- 
 ites as a sect anathematized for their Judaism, and 
 falsely pretending to be Christians ; and in his commen- 
 tary upon St Matthew xii. he says, they acknowledged 
 not St Paul's apostolical commission. 
 
 8. Epiphanius describes the sect of the Nazarenes, 
 as a sect of people hardly to be distinguished from 
 Jews ; he expresses a doubt, whether they acknow- 
 ledged our Lord's divinity : but the terms in which his 
 doubt is expressed, argue that it was groundless.! He 
 describes the Ebionites as resembling the Samaritans, 
 rather than the Jews ; as maintaining that Jesus was 
 the son of Mary, by her husband ; that the Christ, 
 descending from heaven in the figure of a dove, entered 
 into Jesus at his baptism. He says, that the Nazarenes 
 and the Ebionites, had each a Hebrew gospel, (the only 
 one which they received,) which they called the gospel 
 by St Matthew ; that the copies received by the two 
 sects were different : compared with the true gospel 
 by St Matthew, which the church receives, the Ebio. 
 ns&an copy was the least entire, and the most corrupt : 
 he speaks of the Ebionites, as a sect which branched 
 
 * Hieron. Op. torn. ii. f. 341. A. edit. Froben. 
 -* Uiurge to the clergy of the archdeaconry of St Alban'a. I. sec. 10, 11. 
 
PART II. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 off from the Nazarenes, and appeared not till after the 
 destruction of Jerusalem.* 
 
 9. From the testimony of an ancient writer, cited by 
 Eusebius, it appears, that one Theodofcus, a native of 
 Byzantium, a tanner by trade, at the very end of the 
 ^second century, was the first who taught the mere hu- 
 manity of Christ, f He preached at Rome. His doc- 
 trine was an extension of the impiety of the first Ebi- 
 onites: for, with them, the humanity of Christ, was 
 over at his baptism. f He was then deified ; or, at 
 least, exalted above humanity, by the illapse of the 
 Christ. 
 
 10. Now, from all this, I seem to gather, that after 
 the destruction of Jerusalem, the Hebrew church, if 
 wilder that name we may comprehend the sects which 
 separated from it, was divided into five different sets of 
 people. 
 
 I. St Jerome's Hebrews believing in Christ : these 
 were orthodox Christians of Hebrew extraction, who 
 had laid aside the use of the Mosaick law. They are 
 the same with the first set, in Origen's threefold division 
 of the Hebrew Christians. 
 
 11. Nazarenes of the better sort, orthodox in their 
 creed, though retaining the use of the Mosaick law : 
 as they were admirers of St Paul, they could not es- 
 teem the law, generally necessary to salvation. If 
 these people were all heretical, I should guess that it 
 was in this single point, that they received the gospel of 
 the Nazarenes, instead of the canonical gospels. 
 
 9 Epiph. Her. 30. 
 
 Hist. Ecc. lib. v. c. 28. 
 
 more upon this point; m Mr Howes'* (ermon, 
 
REMARKS UPON PART If- 
 
 III. Nazarenes of a worse sort, bigotted to the Jewish 
 law, but still orthodox, for any thing that appears to 
 the contrary in their creed : these were the proper Na- 
 zarenes, described under that name by Epiphanius, and 
 by St Jerome in his epistle to St Austin. These two 
 sects, the better and the worse sort of Nazarenes, make 
 the middle set in Origen's threefold division. 
 
 IV. Ebionites denying our Lord's divinity, but ad- 
 mitting the fact of the miraculous conception. 
 
 V. Ebionites of a worse sort, denying the miraculous 
 conception, but still maintaining an union of Jesus with 
 a divine being, which commenced upon his baptism. 
 These two sects, the betttr and the worst sort of Ebion- 
 ites, make the last set in Origen's threefold division. 
 
 11. Thus we find a regular, and no unnatural grada- 
 tion, from the orthodox Hebrew Christian to the blas- 
 pheming Ebionite. It appears, however, that the im- 
 pious degradation of the Redeemer's nature, though it 
 took its rise among the Hebrew sects, was not carried 
 to its height among them : a sect of proper Unitarians, 
 holding the perpetual undeified humanity of the Saviour, 
 made its first appearance at Rome, and boasted for its 
 founder, Theodotus, the apostate tanner of Byzantium, 
 if, indeed, it was not the growth of still later times, 
 which seems to be the opinion of the learned Mr 
 Howes, to whose judgment 1 am inclined to pay great 
 regapd. These two points, however, seem certain : that 
 the Nazarenes, even of the best sort, were a different 
 people from the Hebrew brethren of the orthodox church 
 of Jerusalem ; and that the Nazarenes, even of the worst 
 sort, were believers in the divinity of our Lord. In what 
 extent they believed it, may, perhaps, seem to some a 
 question in some degree still opeu to discussion : at prc- 
 
PA11T II. SECOND LETTERS. 373 
 
 sent, I see no reason to recede from the opinion, which, 
 with great authorities upon my side, I have hitherto 
 maintained, of their entire orthodoxy upon that article; 
 if, upon that particular point, I should, at any time 
 hereafter, see cause to think myself mistaken, my con- 
 viction is not likely to come from Dr Priestley, but from 
 a very different quarter : Mr Howes's 9th number is 
 just fallen into my hands ; that learned writer, I per- 
 ceive, thinks that it was but a subordinate divinity, 
 which the Nazarenes acknowledged in our Lord ; for 
 bis opinion, I feel all the deference which one scholar 
 owes to the sentiments of another ; but not without the 
 strongest prepossessions, I confess, at present, in favour 
 of my own. 
 
REMARKS UPOS fJtRf tt. 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTH, 
 
 Of the decline of Calvinism. Of Conventicles, 
 
 I NOW pass to the third fact, which I have taken 
 upon me to establish : the decline of Calvinism, amount- 
 ing almost to a total extinction of it, among our English 
 dissenters, who, no long time since, were generally Cal- 
 vinists. 
 
 2. This fact is of no great importance in our contro- 
 versy ; as it is hut very remotely connected with the 
 question, about the opinions of the first ages. The ra- 
 pid decline of Calvinism here in England, was alleged 
 by me as an instance, in which Dr Priestley's theortm, 
 about the rate of velocity, with which the opinions of 
 great bodies of men change ; would lead, in the practi- 
 cal application of it, to very erroneous conclusions. If 
 my instance was ill-chosen, it will not immediately be a 
 consequence, that Dr Priestley's theorem is a false 
 principle for the reformation of the history of the primi- 
 tive church, in defiance of the testimony of the earliest 
 writers extant. It would give me great pleasure to find 
 myself in an error with respect to this fact ; and to see 
 reason to believe Dr Priestley, in his assertion, that the 
 great body of our dissenters at this day are Calvinists. 
 60 many Calvinists as are among them, so many 
 friends there are to the Catholick faith in all its essen- 
 tial branches ; for the peculiarities of Calvinism, affect 
 
PART 1L SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 not the essentials of Christianity : but I am sorry to 
 say, that 1 must still believe, that the genuine Calvinists 
 among our modern dissenters, are very few ; unless, in 
 a matter, which hath so lately fallen under the cogni- 
 zance of the British legislature, I could allow Dr Priest- 
 ley's assertion, to outweigh the plain testimony of facts 
 of publick notoriety. 
 
 3. If the great body of the dissenters are, at this day, 
 Calvinists ; upon what pretence was it, that the dissent- 
 ing ministers, who, in the years 1772 and 1773, peti- 
 tioned Parliament to be released from the subscriptions, 
 to which they were held by the 1st of William and 
 Mary, arrogated to themselves the title, of the GENERAL 
 BODY of dissenting ministers, of the three denominations 
 in and about London ? No true Calvinisl could c<ncur 
 in that petition. For, although I cannot admit, that tha 
 articles of our church, in the doctrinal part, affirm the 
 strict tenets of Calvinism; yet they are in this part, 
 what, as I conceive, no true Calvinist would scruple to 
 subscribe ; and, with respect to the great doctrines of 
 the Trinity, the Incarnation, Justification, and Grace, 
 every genuine Calvinist, would start at the very thought 
 of being supposed, even tacitly to concur in a request, 
 to be released from a confession of his faith : for none 
 better understands, than the genuine Calvinist, the force 
 of that sacred maxim, " with the heart man believeth 
 unto righteousness, and \\itk the mouth confession is 
 made unto salvation." Would Dr Priestley insinuate, 
 that his brethren of the Rational dissent, approached 
 the august assembly of the British Parliament, with a 
 petition founded upon false pretensions ? Will he say, 
 that they were, in fact, the minority of the body, of 
 which they called themselves the generality ? Will he 
 
REMARKS UPON PART U. 
 
 gay, that the Thirteen,* who in the meeting of the Ge- 
 neral Body at the Library, in Red-cross Street, on 
 Wednesday, December the 23d, 1773, divided against 
 the vote for an application to Parliament to remove the 
 restraints, which the wisdom of our forefathers, by the 
 Act of Toleration, had imposed ; were the representa- 
 tives of a more numerous body, than the Fifty-five who 
 gave their suffrages for the motion :f who at a subse- 
 quent meeting, suffered not the protest of the thirteen 
 orthodox ministers, to be recorded in the minutes of the 
 business of the day ; and with difficulty permitted their 
 reasons to be read ?J A proceeding, by the way, which 
 clearly shows, how cordially these pretended friends of 
 general toleration, would delight, were they in power, 
 to tolerate opinions which might differ from their own ; 
 and evinces the propriety of the prayer, which a sense 
 of such wrongs, drew from a member of the orthodox 
 minority, "From the power of such pretenders to supe- 
 rior reason, may GOD and THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT 
 ever defend the orthodox dissenters." || These thir- 
 teen, spake only the sentiments of every Calvinist, when 
 they said, " We believe the doctrines of the articles to 
 be both true and important : We dare not therefore con- 
 sent, to be held up to view as those, who indulge any 
 doubts respecting their truth, or at all hesitate about 
 
 * See a pamphlet entitled, A Collection of the several Papers, relating to 
 the Application made to Parliament, in 1772 and 1773, by some of the Protes- 
 tant Dissenters, for Relief in the matter of Subscription, &c." London, printed, 
 for J. Wilkie, No. 71, St Paul's Church-yard. MDCCLXXIIT. 
 
 | See Wilkie's Collection, No. IH. 
 
 * Ibid. No. n. 
 
 || See Candid Thoughts on the late Application of some Protestant dissenting 
 ministers, &c. By an Orthodox dissenter." London, printed for W Goldsmith, 
 No. 20, Paternoiter-Row, 1772. 
 
SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 their importance. We consider them as the basis of 
 eur hope, the source of our comfort, and the most power- 
 ful incentive to, a course of sincere, steadfast, cheerful 
 obedience."* It were injustice to these worthy men,, 
 to let pass any occasion, of mentioning their names with 
 the reverence which is due to them. David Muire, 
 John Rogers, Thomas Towle, Samuel Brewer, Ed- 
 ward Hitchin, Thomas Oswald, John Potts, John Trot- 
 ter, John Macgowan, George Stephens, Joseph Popple- 
 well, Henry Hunter, John Kello ; these were the vene- 
 rable confessors, who, on the 23d of December, 177 s * 
 and on the &7th of January in the following year, in 
 meetings of the General Body of the three denomina- 
 tions, stood for the faith once delivered to the saints. 
 " They thought themselves bound, they said, to contend 
 earnestly for it, against all who should oppose it." For 
 this purpose they formed, as I gather from the docu- 
 ments of the times, f into a distinct association. When 
 the petition of the Rationalists was laid before the Par- 
 liament, they were firm and active in their opposition 
 to it ; considering the request as little less than a blow, 
 craftily aimed at the very vitals of the reformed religion^ 
 and, indeed, of Christianity itself. They presented a 
 cross petition,^ signed, as they themselves said, by the 
 ministers as well as the laity, of the most respectable 
 congregations of real Protestant dissenters in town and 
 country : but, when they wished to give credit and auu 
 thority to their opposition, by boasting of their numbers, 
 the most that they could say, of the number of ministers 
 
 * Bee Wilkie's Colleotion, No. U sec. 3. 
 \ M, No. HI. and IV. * Ibid. No. V. 
 
REMAIUtS UPON PART 11. 
 
 who had signed the cross petition, was this : that they 
 were " upwards of Fifty." The number of dissenting 
 ministers in the whole kingdom, was reckoned at that 
 time to be about 3000, of which 50 is just the fortieth 
 part: when Dr Priestley therefore affirms, that the 
 " majority of the dissenting ministers are still Calvin- 
 ists," he must be understood to use the same rhetorical 
 figure, by which, in the Postcript of his First Letters to 
 me, he swelled a few periods of Clemens Alexandrinus 
 to the size of a whole book. By a computation formed 
 upon that instance, I concluded the proportion of the 
 Priestleian to the vulgar whole, to be that of i to 
 48; from this new instance, it turns out somewhat 
 larger. 
 
 4. Thus, from the evidence of publick facts, 1 hare 
 the mortification to find Dr Priestley's sentiments con- 
 futed, and my own confirmed, concerning the present 
 state of Calvinism among the English dissenters : and, 
 however it may now serve Dr Priestley's purpose, to 
 magnify the numbers of the Calvinists ; his Rational 
 brethren, in the year 177S, spoke of their own majority, 
 in terms which implied, that the Calvinists were, ift 
 their judgment, a very inconsiderable part of the whole, 
 body of the dissenters. " It is admitted," say the Ra- 
 tionalists, in the Case of the Protestant dissenting Mi" 
 nisters and Schoolmasters, " that the greater part of the 
 dissenting ministers have not complied, and cannot in 
 conscience comply, with the subscription required by 
 the Act of Toleration : the dissenting ministers in gene, 
 ral are, consequently, liable to the penalties abovemeu- 
 tioned." After stating the relief which they desired to 
 obtain, they allege, that the " generality of Protestant 
 dissenting ministers, together with their people, are hap- 
 
VART Ji SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 pily united in the object of the present application."* 
 The petitioning dissenters, it seems, in the year 177^> 
 thought the Calvinists so few and inconsiderable, that 
 the ministers, who could not in conscience comply with 
 the 1st of William and Mary, and were happily united 
 in the object of the application at that time made to Par- 
 liament, seemed to them the generality of Protestant 
 dissenting ministers. These gentlemen knew, it is to 
 be presumed, the state of the dissent. They meant not 
 to impose a lie upon the three estates of the British le- 
 gislature for they were W, all honourable men ! If 
 then my notion of the decline of Calvinism is errone- 
 ous, Dr Priestley will at least confess, that I am coun- 
 tenanced and supported in my error, by a very respecta* 
 ble authority. 
 
 5. I am not ignorant indeed, that this authority was 
 treated with little respect by the protesting Calvinists ; 
 who allowed no superiority of numbers on the side of 
 the Rationalists:! it was pretended, that many Calvin- 
 ists concurred in the petition : some in mere tenderness 
 for scrupulous consciences ; many more upon that good* 
 ly principle, the source of all that orderly submission 
 to the higher powers, which hath ever been so conspi- 
 cuous in the Puritans of this country ; that even a true 
 faith, is not to be confessed at the requisition of the 
 magistrate. I bear that good will to Calvinism, that it 
 gives me real concern to remember, that it hath ever 
 been disgraced by a connexion with such a principle ; 
 I am inclined however to believe, that the Calvinists, 
 
 * See Wilkie's Collection, No. I. 
 
 t Sec "Candid Thoughts, Sic. by au Orthodox Diwenter," MC. U. 
 
JlEMAttKS ii'PON PART II. 
 
 who, upon puritanical principles, concurred in the peti- 
 tion of the Rationalists, in the year 177&* were very 
 few ; and that the orthodox dissenters were deceived, 
 in the idea which they had formed, of the numbers of 
 their own party. The requisition of the magistrate 
 is now removed, and no pretence exists for a puri- 
 tanical reserve ; I would ask then, what is now the 
 state of the dissenting ministry ? Are they at this time 
 a majority? Are they any considerable part of the 
 dissenting ministers, who have qualified under the 1st 
 of William and Mary ? Every dissenting minister hath 
 now the alternative of qualifying, either by subscri- 
 bing the doctrinal articles, or by a declaration, which, 
 by the 19th of his present Majesty, is accepted in- 
 stead of subscription : but the Calvinist, even of the 
 puritanical cast, holds himself bound to an open de- 
 claration of his faith ; except in that extraordinary 
 case, when the interference of the magistrate, makes it 
 a duty to disown his usurped authority, by refusing 
 to confess with the mouth what the heart believes : 
 every true Calvinist therefore, will now qualify under 
 the old Act of Toleration ; and if they are but an in- 
 considerable part of the dissenting ministry, who have 
 qualified in this manner, it is but too plain, that Cal- 
 vinism, among the dissenters, is almost extinguished. 
 Inconsiderable, however, as I fear their numbers are, 
 the Calvinists, for the soundness of their faith, are the 
 most respectable part of our modern dissenters ; and 
 though few, in comparison with the general mixed 
 body of the Rationalists, I hope they are more numer- 
 ous than the proper Unitarians. 
 
 6. So much for the principal facts which 1 engaged 
 to establish: it may, perhaps, be expected, that J 
 
PART. //. SECOND LETTBKS. 
 
 should take some notice of another, in which I have 
 been charged with misrepresentation. Dr Priestley, in 
 his First Letters to me, expressed high resentment, at 
 the use which I had made in my Charge, of the word 
 conventicle ; as descriptive of meetings in which he, and 
 friends of his, preside. To inform myself how far this 
 resentment might be well founded, aud for no other 
 purpose, 1 searched the registers of certain courts, for 
 such an entry of the house iu Essex- Street, and for a 
 record of such declarations on the part of the minister, 
 as, by the 19th of his present Majesty, are requisite to 
 make a meeting upon the pretence of divine worship, 
 not a conventicle in the strict sense of the word : I told 
 Dr Priestley, that I had found neither entry of the 
 house, nor record of the minister's declaration : Dr 
 Priestley replies, that I could, indeed, find no record 
 of declaration ; for none was ever made : but that I 
 ought to have found an entry of the house ; for the entry 
 was duly made. Now the truth is, that I employed 
 the clerks at the different offices to make the search, for 
 which I paid the accustomed fee I trusted to their re- 
 port, which I find was not accurate I believe the fact 
 to be, as Dr Priestley states it : the house is entered ; 
 but the minister hath never declared his principles, as 
 the law requires. The defence of a strong word, which 
 hath been taken personally, would be to me the most 
 unpleasant part of the controversy, were it not thai the 
 style of Dr Priestley's Second Letters, and of some 
 other publications upon that side, hath put an end to 
 all ceremony between me and the leaders of the Uni- 
 tarian party ; I therefore still insist, that all meetings, 
 under ministers who have not declared, whether the 
 place of meeting be entered or be not entered; are illegal; 
 
REMARKS UPON PART It 
 
 and that the word conventicle, as it was used by me in 
 my Charge, was not misapplied.* 
 
 N. Ji. The preceding chapter gave occasion to a 
 pamphlet, entitled, The Calvinism of the Protestant 
 Dissenter's asserted: in a Letter to the Archdeacon of 
 St JMban's. By Samuel Palmer, Pastor of the Inde- 
 pendent Congregation at Hackney. London, Printed 
 for J. Buckland, &c. 1786. 
 
 The sum of Mr Palmer's argument, is contained, 
 I think, in these three propositions. That of the thir- 
 teen ministers, who signed the protest against the re- 
 solution for the application to Parliament, six were 
 Scotsmen, true members of the Kirk, and therefore not 
 properly among our English dissenters : that the cross 
 petition was not presented by the thirteen ; that the 
 fifty who signed it were chiefly lay- preachers, not be- 
 longing to the body of the London ministers ; Metho- 
 dists ; unacquainted with the fundamental principles of 
 the Protestant dissenters. That a great body of Cal- 
 vinists concurred in the application to Parliament, upon 
 a general principle of Liberty, disliking any interference 
 of the magistrate in religious matters. 
 
 Of these three propositions, the two first seem to mill- 
 
 Dr Priestley, in his Third Letters, insists that his own meeting-house, and Me 
 Lindsey's, cannot be brought under the denomination of conventicles, merely be- 
 cause they, who preach in them, are not authorized by law. He thinks, " that if, 
 by any accident, an unauthorized dissenting minister, like himself, should preach 
 in a parish church, it would not on that account become a conventicle" But 
 whatever he may think, an assembly in a parish church to hear Dr Priestley 
 preach, or even to assist at divine worship, performed by a priest of the church 
 of England, otherwise than according to the form prescribed by the Book of 
 Common Prayer, would be a tonventicle / and all persons resorting to it, would 
 be liable to the penalties which th laws denounce, against persons frequenting 
 conventicles. 
 
PART 11. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 tate strongly on my side, heightening the appearance at 
 least of a paucity of Calvinists among our dissenters, 
 since six of the thirteen who protested, and all the fifty 
 who petitioned, according to Mr Palmer, were not 
 English dissenters : as for the third, if the fact be as Mr 
 Palmer states it, 1 can only lament that a republican 
 principle, should so strongly have infected so respecta- 
 ble a branch of the Christian church, as the CalviuisU 
 are in my estimation. I believe however, that the truth 
 is, and is pretty notorious, that Calvinism is gone among 
 the dissenters of the present times ; though, for what 
 reason I presume not to say, the dissenting teachers 
 dislike to be told of its extinction. 
 
384* REMARKS VP&y PMTSI. 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTH, 
 
 Of the doctrine of Calvin. Of Methodists* 
 
 I NOW proceed to reply to Dr Priestley's insinua- 
 tion, that I have spoken with contempt of the doctrines 
 of Calvin^ which at the same time he presumes, I really 
 believe.* He was in good humour with me, when he 
 drew up this concluding paragraph of his third letter ; 
 for his reason for presuming that I believe what, he im- 
 agines, I speak of with contempt, is, that he is unwil- 
 ling " to tax me with insincerity."-}- 
 
 2. If any where, I seem to speak with contempt of 
 the doctrines of Calvin, I have certainly been unfortu- 
 nate in the choice of my expressions ; it is one thing not 
 to assent to doctrines in their full extent, quite another 
 to despise them : I am very sensible, that our articles 
 affirm certain things, which we hold in common with 
 the Calvinists : so, they affirm many things which we 
 hold in common with the Lutherans ; and some things, 
 which we hold in common with the Romanists. It can- 
 not well be otherwise ; for as there are certain princi- 
 ples which are common to all Protestants, so the essen- 
 tial articles of faith are common to all Christians : per* 
 haps, in points of mere doctrine, the language of out 
 
 * Second Letters, p. 35. t Ibid. 
 
PART II. SECOND LETTERS, 385 
 
 articles agrees more nearly with the Calvinistick, than 
 with any other Protestant confession, except the Luthe- 
 ran ; but I never was aware, till Dr Priestley informed 
 me of it, that 1 am obliged, by my subscription to the 
 thirty-nine articles, to believe every tenet that is gene- 
 rally known by the name of Calvinistick:* and, till the 
 obligation is enforced upon me by some higher authority 
 than his, I shall, in these matters, " stand fast in my 
 liberty :" nevertheless, I hold the memory of Calvin ia 
 high veneration ; his works have a place in my library ; 
 and, in the study of the holy Scriptures, he is one of 
 the commentators whom I frequently consult : I may 
 appeal to my own congregation at Newington, and to 
 other congregations to which, by my situation, I am oc- 
 casionally called to preach, to witness for me, that I 
 never mention the Calvinistick divines without respect ; 
 even when I express, what 1 often express, a dissent, 
 upon particular points, to their opinions. The respect 
 with which they are mentioned in my Good-Friday ser- 
 mon, in which I asserted the doctrines of Providence on 
 the one hand, and of Free-agency on the other, is, per- 
 haps in Dr Priestley's own recollection. In the passage 
 to which he alludes, in my seventh letter to himself, he 
 will find no contempt expressed of Calvinists, or of their 
 opinions : the severity of the reflection falls on those, 
 who have so speedily deserted a doctrine to which, for 
 a long time, they were not without bigotry attached ; 
 while they not only maintained Calvin's tenets without 
 exception, but seemed to think there could be no ortho- 
 
 * Second Letters p. .^ 
 
 49 
 
38ft BBMAUKS UPON f^RT 1L 
 
 doxy out of Calvinism : I consider it as the reproach of 
 the dissenters of the present day, that a genuine Calvin- 
 ist is hardly to be found; except in a sect, conspicuous 
 only for the encouragement which the leaders of it seem 
 to give to a disorderly fanaticism. The rational dissen- 
 ter, hath nothing in common with the Calvinist, except 
 it be an enmity to the episcopal establishment of this 
 country ; and this he hath not so much in common with 
 the Calvinistick churches, as with his own ancestors; 
 the factious Puritans, 
 
 3. It was, perhaps, an omission, that when the scarci- 
 ty of Calvinists among the English dissenters was men. 
 tioned, a distinct exception was not made in favour of 
 natives of Scotland, formed into Calvinistick congrega- 
 tions, under respectable pastors of their own country, 
 and of the true Calvinistick persuasion, here in London, 
 and perhaps in other parts of England : but I consider 
 these as no part of our English dissenters : they are 
 members of another national establishment ; who, resi- 
 ding here, may think that a conformity with the church 
 of England, might be interpreted as a desertion of their 
 own communion : the rational dissenter, may take no 
 credit to himself for their adherence to their old princi- 
 ples ; nor are they involved in the reproach of his dege. 
 neracy. 
 
 4. While I thus repel my adversary's slanderous in. 
 sinuation of contempt, expressed by me of Calvin's doc- 
 trines, the reflection, I doubt not, is arising in his breast, 
 and with much secret satisfaction he says within him- 
 self, " He is making his peace, I see, with the Calvin- 
 ists ; but how will he get over my remark, upon the dis- 
 respectful language in which he hag spoken of the Me- 
 
9ART If. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 thodists, his brother churchmen ?"* To the burden of 
 that crime, my shoulders, I trust, are not unequal: 
 \vhat if I frame my reply in terms which Dr Priestley's 
 late publication furnishes that whenever occasions shall 
 arise, which may make it my duty, as a minister of the 
 gospel, to declare my sentiments, I shall not wait for 
 Dr Priestley's leave to " express my contempt of what 
 I think to be despicable, and my abhorrence of what I 
 thiiik to be shocking?"! The Methodist, I am sensible, 
 professes much zeal for our common faith. Many of 
 his follies, I am willing to believe, proceed more from 
 an unhappy peculiarity of temperament, than from any 
 thing amiss in the moral dispositions of his heart ; let 
 him then renounce his fanatical attachment to self-consti- 
 tuted, uncommissioned, teachers : let him show his faith 
 by his works ; not the formal works of superstition and 
 hypocrisy, but the true works of everlasting righteous- 
 ness ; the works of fair-dealing, charity, and continence : 
 let him do this, and churchmen will turn to him, and 
 eall him brother. 
 
 Se*ft4 tatters, p. 35, -J- Importance of Free Inquiry, p. 
 
REMARKS UPON PART II 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTH. 
 
 Of the general spirit of Dr Priestley's Controversial 
 Writings. Conclusion. 
 
 I HAVE replied more largely than I thought to do, 
 to more than is deserving of reply, in Dr Priestley's 
 Second Letters : but, as the controversy between him 
 and the advocates of the Catholick faith, is now brought, 
 by his own declarations, to a state resembling that of 
 a war, in which no quarter is to be given or accepted ; 
 I think myself at liberty to strike at my enemy r without 
 remorse, in whatever quarter I may perceive an open- 
 ing; and I think myself called upon, by the present situ- 
 ation of the controversy, not to suppress the remarks, 
 which have spontaneously arisen in my own mind, upon, 
 the perusal of his late writings. 1 fear he is too little 
 read, but by his own party ; and it is fit, that it should 
 be generally known what spirit he is of. 
 
 S. He avows, indeed, with the greatest frankness, 
 that the great object of his essays upon theological sub- 
 jects is, to spread opinions among his countrymen, from 
 the press and from his pulpit, which he iiatters himself, 
 must end in the total demolition of the polity of his 
 country in the ecclesiastical branch ; the only branch 
 against which he thinks it prudent,, as yet, to declare 
 his antipathy. In his Vieieofthe Principles and Con- 
 duct of the Protestant Dissenters, with respect to the 
 
PART n. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 Civil and Ecclesiastical Constitution of England, a 
 pamphlet first published in the year 1769, after a pic- 
 ture, highly exaggerated I hope, of certain abuses among 
 the clergy, which he refers to the principles of our 
 hierarchy, but which, so far as they are real, are easily 
 traced to very different causes ; he, in the true spirit 
 of patriotism, points out the remedy. His salutary ad- 
 vice is conveyed in the form of a prediction. He fore- 
 tells, that in some general convulsion of the state," 
 such as he might hope our disputes with the American 
 colonies, which were then visibly tending to an open 
 rupture, might in no long time produce, " some bold 
 hand, secretly impelled by a vengeful providence, shall 
 sweep down the whole together."* In later publica- 
 tions, he discovers no aversion to be himself the hand 
 employed in that vindictive business ; although his in- 
 discretion which he avows, and which seems indeed to 
 be very great, when the glorious prospect of state con- 
 vulsions warms and elevates his patriotick mind, should 
 render him, it may be thought, unfit to have a part in the 
 execution of any project, in which the success may at 
 all depend on secresy. In the dedication of his late 
 History of Corruptions to Mr Lindsey, he tells his 
 friend (what might be fitting for an associate's ear, but 
 it is a strange thing to be mentioned in publick) "that 
 while the attention of men in power, is engrossed by the 
 difficulties which more immediately press upon them ; 
 the endeavours of the friends of reformation [that is, of 
 those concealed instruments of vengeance on their devo- 
 ted country], their endeavours in points of doctrine pass 
 
 * View of the Principle*, See, j>. E? 
 
REMARKS UPO PART 11. 
 
 with less notice, and operate without obstruction."* In 
 his last publication, he has thrown out many acute re- 
 marks, upon the efficacy of "small changes in the poli- 
 tical state of things, to overturn the best compacted 
 establishments ;"f upon the certainty, with which the 
 exertions of himself and his associates operate, to the 
 ruin of the ecclesiastical constitution ; upon the violence 
 with which, causes that lie dormant for a time at last 
 act. " We," he says, " are, as it were, laying gunpow- 
 der grain by grain, under the old building of error and 
 superstition, which a single spark may hereafter inflame, 
 so as to produce an instantaneous explosion."! H* 
 shows, with great ability, that all measures of govern- 
 ment, to support the ecclesiastical constitution, will be 
 of no avail, if once a great majority of the people can be 
 made its enemies. || And, for this good purpose, he de- 
 claims in his conventicle, to " enlighten the minds and 
 excite the zeal" of the mechanicks of the populous 
 town of Birmingham, with respect to the doctrines in 
 dispute, between himself and the assertors of that faith, 
 which the church of England holds in common with the 
 first Christians. The avowal of these sentiments iu 
 himself, of hostility to the political constitution of his 
 country ; the attempt, to excite similar sentiments in the 
 breasts of the " commonest people," in whose breasts 
 they cannot be expected to lie inactive, quietly expecting 
 the event of literary discussion ; such avowal, and such 
 attempts are more, I should think, than can be justified 
 by the right of private judgment upon speculative ques- 
 
 Dedication of History of Corruptions p. vri. 
 
 Importance of Free Inquiry, p. 39. 
 
 Ibid. p. 40. || Ibid, p. 41^-44. Ibid. p. 
 
PART 11. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 tions. Not that I would insinuate, that they, in any 
 degree, deserve the attention of our governors ; for I 
 nm well persuaded, that neither his doctrine nor his 
 principles, are gaining that ground among the people, 
 Which he seems to imagine. I am inclined indeed to 
 think, that the advancement even of his Unitarian doc- 
 trine is but slow, except in his own head ; in which it 
 eems to be making hasty strides. In his good wishes 
 to the constitution, I think better of many of his Unita- 
 rian friends, than to believe that they concur with him : 
 and while trade and manufactures flourish at Birming- 
 ham, we may safely trust to the inducements, which 
 every man there will find to mind his own business, to 
 defeat the success of Dr Priestley's endeavours to en- 
 lighten and excite :" it seems therefore unnecessary at 
 present, to think of " raising the dam or of making it 
 stronger" it will be the better policy of government, to 
 let the brawling torrent pass. The attempt to provoke 
 severities by audacious language, in order to raise a cry 
 of persecution, if sedition, making religion its pretence, 
 should meet with a premature check from the secular 
 power, is a stale trick, by which the world is grown too 
 wise to be taken in. If Dr Priestley ever should at- 
 tempt to execute, the smallest part of what he would 
 now be understood to threaten, it may then indeed be 
 expedient, that the magistrate should show that he 
 beareth not the sword in vain : but, whatever Dr Priest- 
 ley may affect to think, of the intolerance of churchmen 
 in general, and of the Archdeacon of St Alban's in 
 particular, a churchman lives not in the present age so 
 weak, who would not in policy, if not in love, discour- 
 age, rather than promote, any thing that might be called 
 
REMARKS UPON PART U.' 
 
 a persecution of the Unitarian blasphemy, in the person 
 of Dr Priestley, or of any of his admirers. A church- 
 man lives not, so weak as not to know, that persecution 
 is the hot-bed, in which nonsense and impiety have ever 
 thrived : it is so friendly to the growth of religion, that 
 it nourishes even the noxious weeds, which carry but a 
 resemblance of the true plant in the external form. Let 
 us trust, therefore, for the present, as we securely may, 
 to the trade of the good town of Birmingham, and to the 
 \vise connivance of the magistrate, (who watches, no 
 doubt, while he deems it politick to wink,) to nip Dr 
 Priestley's goodly projects in the bud ; which nothing 
 would be so likely to ripen to a dangerous effect, as 
 constraint excessively or unseasonably used. Thanks, 
 however, are due to him, from all lovers of their coun- 
 try, for the mischief which he wants not the inclination 
 to do, if he could find the means of doing it. In grati- 
 tude's estimation, the will is ever to be taken for the 
 deed. 
 
 8. In his First Letters to me, and in former publica- 
 tions, Dr Priestley professed to disbelieve an inspiration 
 of the apostles and evangelists, in any greater extent, 
 than might be consistent with the liberty which he uses, 
 of criticising their reasonings and their narrations. I 
 had a hope, that denying, as he does, our Lord's divini- 
 ty, he still admitted, in some figurative sense, that " all 
 the. fullness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily:" I 
 had a hope, that he believed, at least, an unlimited in- 
 spiration (since he disbelieves any nearer communion 
 with the Godhead) of him to whom " the Spirit was 
 not given by measure." I perceived, with concern, by 
 hi late publication, that " the plenary inspiration of 
 
fJRT. //. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 Christ"* is to be disbelieved, no less than that of the 
 apostles : the assertion, indeed, is qualified, by confi- 
 ning it to cases, * with respect to which, the object 
 of their mission did not require inspiration" the ob- 
 ject of their mission required, that the first preachers 
 of Christianity should be infallible, in whatever opin- 
 ions they maintained, either about the nature of God, 
 or the principles of his moral government; in what- 
 ever they taught, concerning the terms or the means of 
 man's acceptance and salvation ; and in the facts which 
 they have related of the Redeemer's life. If in these 
 things they were not infallible ; if an appeal lies from 
 their assertions, to any man's private opinions ; who 
 shall draw the line, where the truth of their preaching 
 ends, and their error commences? If their inspiration 
 was complete upon these subjects, it was to all in- 
 tents and purposes plenary : If it gave them no light 
 about the true system of the world, the circulation 
 of the blood, or the properties of the Leyden Phial, it 
 was not upon that account defective as a religious in- 
 spiration : the distinction, therefore, between a plenary 
 inspiration, and an inspiration extending only to cases, 
 in which the object of their mission required it, is vain 
 and imaginary : and it is a mere pretence, to profess 
 a belief in the one, when the other is openly denied. 
 
 4. In his First Letters to me, Dr Priestley disavow- 
 ed his belief of the inspiration of the apostles as writers 
 only.f Our blessed Lord left no writings. When, 
 therefore, the fullness of his inspiration is denied, the 
 denial must be understood of his inspiration as an oral 
 teacher : Dr Priestley, therefore, must extend his dis- 
 
 * Importance of Free Inquiry, p. 35. f First Letters, p. 132. 
 
 50 
 
HEMARKS UPON PART II. 
 
 belief of the inspiration of the apostles to their oral doc- 
 trine ; unless he would be guilty of the folly of setting 
 the disciple above his Lord. 
 
 5. It is some time since it was told me, that an 
 admirer of Dr Priestley's tenets, in conversation with a 
 divine of the church of England, high in station and in 
 learning, had maintained, that our dying Lord's pro- 
 ttise to the thief, that he should be with our Lord that 
 day in Paradise, was founded on a mistaken notion 
 of him who gave it, about the state of the dead : Dr 
 Priestley's disciples well know, that the thief at this 
 time is no.where, and will not be in Paradise before the 
 resurrection. The leader of a party, is not answerable 
 for the absurdities of all his followers : 1 was unwilling, 
 therefore, to make the conclusion, that Dr Priestley 
 himself ever would maintain, what he now maintains, 
 the fallibility of Christ ! I shudder, while 1 relate these 
 extravagancies, though it be only to expose them. 
 
 6. Dr Priestley hath given free scope to the powers 
 of his eloquence, upon the subject of my pretended in- 
 justice to illustrious characters, living and dead : if in- 
 justice may be committed, by praise bestowed where it 
 is unmerited, no less than by censure injuriously appli- 
 ed, Dr Priestley may find it more difficult than I have 
 done, to refute the accusation. A character now lives, 
 not without its eminence, nor, I hope, without its moral 
 worth, which Dr Priestley seems to hold in excessive 
 admiration, and upon which he is too apt to be lavish 
 of his praise. Few, who are acquainted with his wri- 
 tings, will be at a loss to guess that the character 1 
 speak of is HIMSELF. As the analyzer of clastick 
 fluids, he will be* long remembered : but he sometimes 
 seems to claim respect as a GOOD CHRISTIAN, and a 
 GOOD SUBJECT. If, upon any branch of Christian 
 
PART II. SECOND LETTERS. 
 
 399 
 
 duty, my conscience be at perfect ease, the precept, 
 " Judge not," is that which, I trust, I have not trans- 
 gressed : the motives by which one man is impelled, 
 are, for the most part, so imperfectly known to any 
 other, that it seems to me cruel to suppose, that the evil 
 which appears in men's actions, is always answered by 
 an equal malignity in their minds : I have ever, there, 
 fore, held it dangerous and uncharitable, to reason from 
 the actions of men to their principles ; and, from my 
 youth up, have been averse to censorious judgment : 
 but when men declare their motives and their princi- 
 ples, it were folly to affect to judge them more favoura- 
 bly than they judge themselves. I shall, therefore, not 
 hesitafe to say, that after a denial of our Lord's divinity, 
 his pre-existence, and the virtue of his atonement; after 
 a denial, at last, of our Lord's plenary inspiration ; after 
 a declaration of implacable enmity to the constitution 
 under which he lives, under which he enjoys the license 
 of saying what he lists, in a degree in which it never 
 was enjoyed, by the tirst citizens of the freest democra- 
 cies ; the goodness of his Christianity, ana his merit as 
 a subject, are topicks, upon which it may be indiscreet, 
 for the encomiast of Dr Priestley to enlarge. 
 
 7. For eighteen months, or more, it hath been the. 
 boast of the Unitarian party, that the Archdeacon of 
 St Alban's hath been challenged to establish facts 
 which he had averred ; that ho hath been insulted in 
 his character, as a scholar and a man ; charged with 
 ignorance, misrepresentation, defamation and calum- 
 ny:* and that under all this, he hath continued speech- 
 less. f He hath at last spoken, in a tone, which, per- 
 
 * Second Utter*, &c. Preface, p. xviii. p. I, 39, 47, 160, ICI, 163, 208, 
 <t aUbi piusini. f Sec Animadversions on Mr White, p. 84, 
 
fefiiMARKS UPOtf PART 1L 
 
 Imps, will little endear him to the Unitarian zealots* 
 It matters not. The time seems yet so distant, when 
 the train which they are laying, may be expected to 
 explode, that the danger is exceedingly small, that 
 he will ever be reduced to the alternative of renoun- 
 cing his faith, or relinquishing his preferments ; or, to 
 the harder alternative which Dr Priestley seems ta 
 threaten,* " of a prison, with a good conscience, or 
 his present emoluments without one." If those happy 
 times, of which Dr Priestley prophecies, should over- 
 take him ere his course is finished, when an Arian or 
 Socinian parliament f shall undertake the blessed bu- 
 siness of a second reformation, and depose archbi- 
 shops from their thrones and archdeacons from their 
 couches of preferment, he humbly hopes, that he may 
 be supplied with fortitude to act the part, which may 
 not disgrace his present professions. The probabili- 
 ty, however, seems to be, that ere those times arrive, 
 (if they arrive at all, which we trust they will not,) 
 my antagonist and I shall both be gone, to those un- 
 seen abodes, where the din of controversy and the din 
 of war, are equally unheard. There we shall rest 
 together, till the last trumpet summon us to stand be- 
 fore our God and King. That whatever of intempe- 
 rate wrath and carnal anger, hath mixed itself, on 
 either side, with the zeal with which we have pursu- 
 ed our fierce contention, may then be forgiven to us 
 both, is a prayer which I breathe from the bottom of 
 my soul ; and to which my antagonist, if he hath any 
 part in the spirit of a Christian, upon his bended knees 
 will say, AMEN. 
 
 * Second Letters, p. 88. | Ibid. p. 87- 
 
SUPPLEMENTAL 
 
 DISQUISITIONS 
 
 UPON 
 
 CERTAIN POINTS 
 
 IN 
 
 DR PRIESTLEY'S 
 SECOND AND THIRD LETTERS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 ARCHDEACON OF ST ALLAN'S, 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL, 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF ST DAVID'S. 
 
DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 DISQUISITION FIE8T. 
 
 Of the phrase of coming in the flesh," as used by St 
 Poli/carp in his epistle to the Philippians. 
 
 DR PRIESTLEY, in the fifth of his Second Let- 
 ters to me, to prove that the phrase of " coming in the 
 flesh" asserts nothing more than our Lord's manhood, 
 without any reference to a prior state of existence, al- 
 leges, that the phrase is so used hy St Polycarp, the 
 disciple of St John, in his epistle to the Philippians. 
 The passage in which Dr Priestley imagines that he 
 hath found this use of the phrase, stands thus in Arch- 
 bishop Wake's translation, from which Dr Priestley 
 makes his quotation : 
 
 " Whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ is 
 come in the flesh, he is antichrist ; and whosoever does 
 not confess his suffering upon the cross, is from the 
 Devil ; and whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord 
 to his own lusts, and says that there shall be neither 
 any resurrection nor judgment, he is the first-born of 
 Satan." 
 
 By an argument, the force of which will, I believe, 
 be perceived by few but his Unitarian brethren, Dr 
 
DISQUISITIONS* JDIS: 1' 
 
 Priestley persuades himself, that the blessed martyr, in 
 this passage, is not describing three different sects, but 
 that " he alludes to no more than one and the same 
 kind of persons, by all the three characters," i. e. by 
 the denial of our Lord's coming in the flesh, the denial 
 of his sufferings, and the denial of the general resurrec- 
 tion and the future judgment. 
 
 Hence he would infer, that the phrase of " coming in 
 the flesh" predicates the manhood of our Lord, and 
 nothing more ; as I conceive for this reason : (for he 
 hath not stated his argument very clearly.) The denial 
 of our Lord's coming in the flesh, must be something 
 that might consist with the denial of his sufferings; 
 gince the, two errors (by Dr Priestley's hypothesis) were 
 found in the same persons. They who denied the re- 
 ality of our Lord's sufferings, denied his manhood; and 
 in that sense they might, and they did, deny his coming 
 in the flesh : but his divinity they denied not; on th 
 contrary, they strenuously asserted a nature in him, 
 superior at least, to the human. Any allusion, there- 
 fore, which may be supposed in the phrase of his "com- 
 ing in the flesh," to an original nature in him more 
 than human, they denied not. His manhood therefore, 
 which is all that they who are charged with a denial 
 of his "coming in the flesh" denied, is all that the 
 phrase imports. 
 
 This is the very most that I can make of my adver- 
 sary's argument : and in this state of it, (if I have mis- 
 represented it, I most seriously declare it is without 
 design) I confess myself too dull to perceive the con- 
 nexion of the premises and the conclusion. . We of tlie 
 orthodox persuasion, conceive that the phrase of " com- 
 ing in the flesh" expresses the INCARNATION ; that is to 
 
D1S. f. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 say, it contains this complex proposition, that a Being 
 originally divine assumed the human nature. This 
 complex proposition, they who denied the reality of 
 our Lord's sufferings, denied ; not in that part wh.ch 
 affirms his divinity, hut in that part which affirms his 
 assumption of the manhood ; and the denial of this, 
 was the foundation of their error about the sufferings on 
 the cross. These three characters of error, therefore, 
 mentioned by St Polycarp, might helong to one and 
 the same sort of persons, as Dr Priestley supposes that 
 they did, and yet the phrase of " coming in the flesh" 
 in its natural sense may, for any thing that appears 
 from St Polycarp's own words, allude not to the 
 manhood simply, but to the Catholick doctrine of the 
 incarnation. 
 
 It must be observed however, and the fact is too 
 well known to the learned in ecclesiastical history to 
 require proof, that a great variety of sects, differing 
 from each other in the wild and impious opinions which 
 they severally maintained, were comprised under the 
 general name of GNOSTICKS : to say, therefore, that the 
 one and same kind of persons, alluded to by St Poly, 
 carp under all these three different characters, was the 
 Gnosticks, is to say, that this one and same kind of 
 persons, was many different kinds : of the various sects 
 that went under this common name, the Doceta, who 
 denied our Lord's genuine matdiood, were one general 
 branch, itself subdivided, if I mistake not, into many 
 distinct denominations ; the Cerinthians, who denied 
 his original divinity, were another : both these equally, 
 though in different ways, denied the proposition that 
 " Jesus Christ was come in the flesh/' in the sense in 
 which the orthodox understand it ; and I confess I am 
 
 51 
 
402 
 
 DISQUISITIONS. DIS. 1. 
 
 not sure, though Dr Priestley says we we sure of it, 
 that the denial of the resurrection was not to be found 
 in a third class, distinct from either of these two, and 
 from every branch of the Gnosticks. The two ancient 
 hereticks mentioned by St Paul, (2 Tim. ii. 17, 18,) 
 who said that the resurrection was past, and in that 
 assertion, as St Chrysostom observes, denied a resur- 
 rection to come and the general judgment, are not num- 
 bered, by the writers of antiquity, among the Gnostick 
 teachers : (See Dr Whitby's note upon 2 Tim. ii. 17> 
 18.) The future judgment, was more explicitly denied 
 by these than by the Gnosticks, who only denied the 
 resuscitation of the body ; and I think it not unlikely, 
 that they might be the persons to whom St Polycarp, 
 in his third character of damnable heresy, alludes : be 
 that as it may, it seems clear to me, that St Polycarp, 
 in the passage alleged by Dr Priestley, describes three 
 different sets of people ; and I should paraphrase the 
 whole passage thus : 
 
 " Whoever confesses not that Jesus Christ, the ever 
 blessed and only begotten Son of God, the brightness 
 of his glory and the express image of his person, the 
 eternal Word by whom he made the worlds, is come 
 in the flesh ; he is antichrist : and if any one, pretending 
 to confess this, shall yet deny the reality of his suffer- 
 ings, in his own proper and entire person, on the cross ; 
 he also, notwithstanding he confess the truth in the 
 former article, is of the Devil. Again, if any one, 
 confessing both our Lord's coming in the flesh, and his 
 sufferings and death, shall however pervert the oracles 
 of God, accommodating the divine doctrine to his own 
 prejudices and conceits, and say that there shall be 
 neither resurrection nor judgment ; this man, notwith- 
 
J)1S. J. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 standing bis confession of our Lord's incarnation and 
 passion, is the first-born of Satan." 
 
 But whether St Polycarp, in this passage, describe 
 three different sort of hereticks, or one sort by three 
 characters, it is not very material to. dispute: the blessed 
 martyr is not enumerating sects, as aa ecclesiastical 
 historian ; but, as a preacher of the truth, he is warning 
 the faithful against errors : he mentions three j any one 
 of which would avail, in his judgment, to the perdition 
 of him who should maintain it for I contend, that noth- 
 ing in the words of St Polycarp himself, nor any known 
 and admitted fact in the history of the heresies of his 
 times, makes it necessary to apply the description in the 
 whole to one sect, rather than in the parts of it to three: 
 I contend, that the coming of our Lord in the flesh, his 
 passion, and the general resurrection, are three distinct 
 things : the two first, for aiiy thing that appears from 
 St Polycarp's words, as distinct from each other, as 
 either is from the third ; so distinct therefore from each 
 other, that a person admitting the one, might possibly 
 not confess the other : I contend therefore, that for any 
 thing that appears from the words of St Polycarp, a 
 person, confessing that our Lord came in the flesh, 
 might still deny his sufferings : the phrase, therefore, of 
 "coming in the flesh/' for any thing that appears from 
 St Polycarp's own words, may denote something more 
 than our Lord's mere manhood : and I contend yet 
 further, that although it could be proved, that St Poly- 
 carp alludes to one sect, so that the coming in the flesh 
 must necessarily be so understood, that the denial of that 
 coming, and the denial of the sufferings, should be con. 
 sisteut errors ; still, it will not follow that the coming in 
 tfee flash, must be understood as descriptive simply of 
 
DWQtnsrnoxs*. DIS. L 
 
 the manhood. If any one sect indeed singly be descri- 
 bed, the Docetae must be that one, since their character- 
 istick error makes an explicit part of the description. 
 But with their error, the denial of the incarnation was 
 perfectly consistent: Dr Priestley thinks, that St Poly, 
 carp condemns the Docetse, because they admitted not 
 that Christ was a mere man : but if L say that St Poly- 
 carp condemns them, not for maintaining that he was 
 more than man, but for denying that, being more than 
 man, being indeed God, he was made man ; and that for 
 this reason he made choice of the phrase of " coming in 
 the flesh," that he might not seem to condemn more of 
 their doctrine than he really disapproved. What is 
 there in St Polycarp's words to prove, that I, rather 
 than Dr Priestley, misinterpret ? 
 
 It may seem, that if, for any thing that appears from 
 the writer's words, the phrase may be interpreted in 
 either sense, the true inference is, that it is ambiguous : 
 this conclusion indeed follows, with respect to the use 
 of the phrase in this particular passage ; and it is upon 
 this very ground, that I maintain the total insignificance 
 of the passage to decide the matter in dispute. In the 
 fourth of my letters in reply to Dr Priestley, I have 
 considered the natural and internal force of this phrase 
 of " coming in the flesh ;" I have shown, that it con- 
 tains such evident allusion to a prior condition of the 
 person who came, and to the power that he had of coin- 
 ing in various other ways, had it pleased him other- 
 therwise to come ; that if the sacred writers really meant 
 to affirm, that our Lord was a mere man, and nothing 
 more, no reason can be devised, why they should make 
 choice of such uncouth, mysterious words, for the enun- 
 ciation of so simple a proposition, which they might 
 
DIS. /. DISQUISITIONS. 405 
 
 easily have stated in plain terms, incapable of miscon. 
 struction. Dr Priestley appeals from this reasoning 
 of mine upon the natural sense of the words, to the 
 usage of writers ; which indeed, when it is clear and 
 constant, must be allowed to outweigh all reasoning 
 from general principles, because the particular sense 
 of a phrase is a question about a fact ; and in all such 
 questions, external evidence, when it can be had, must 
 overpower theory : to prove that the usage of the wri- 
 ters of antiquity, settles the sense of the phrase in his 
 favour, he alleges this passage of St Polycarp's epistle, 
 as an instance <* that might satisfy me :" but I say, 
 that no one who thinks the meaning of the phrase du- 
 bious, will be satisfied by this instance : for, not to 
 insist that the usage of writers is very insufficiently 
 proved by a single instance, I maintain, that if the 
 phrase in question were in itself equally capable of 
 the two senses, the low sense to which the Unitarians 
 would confine it, and the sublimer sense in which it is 
 generally understood, it certainly might be taken in 
 cither in this passage of St Polycarp ; and that, in 
 whatever light the passage be considered, whether as 
 descriptive of three sects, as I believe it to be, or of 
 one only, as Dr Priestley understands it. This pas- 
 sage, therefore, is of no significance in the argument 
 since no passage can be alleged, as an instance of 
 any particular use of any phrase, in which various 
 senses of the phrase may equally suit the purpose of 
 the writer. 
 
 To this neutral passage of St Polycarp, I have on 
 my side to oppose a very decisive passage of St Bar- 
 nabas; in which the allusion to a prior condition of 
 our Lord, which I contend to be the natural import 
 
nts. * 
 
 of the phrase, is manifest ; and is so necessary to the 
 writer's purpose, that if the phrase he understood with- 
 out such allusion, the whole sentence is nonsense. " For 
 if he had not come in the flesh, how should we mortals, 
 seeing him, have been preserved, when they who be. 
 hold the sun, which is to perish and is the work of his 
 hands, are unable to look directly against its rays ?" 
 Let Dr Priestley find a passage, in which the allusion 
 to our Lord's original glory, is as necessarily excluded 
 from the import of the phrase, as it is included in ife 
 in this passage of St Barnabas : and even then, the 
 only just inference will be, that the phrase is used va- 
 riously, in a more restrained or larger signification, as 
 may suit the particular occasion on which it is intro- 
 duced ; but that in its full and natural import, it affirms 
 the incarnation. 
 
 But in truth, Dr Priestley seems to deal by St Poly- 
 carp as by St John ; by the disciple as by the master : 
 devoted himself to the Unitarian doctrine, he takes ifc 
 with him as a principle in the study of St Polycarp, 
 as of the New Testament, that the creed of St Poly- 
 carp, as of all the primitive Christians, was Unitarian : 
 then, whatever expressions occur, alluding to opinions of 
 a different cast, he interprets in the sense in which he 
 and his Unitarian brethren would use them : from these 
 expressions, so interpreted, he goes back to his original 
 prejudice, that St Polycarp held and taught an Unita- 
 rian creed, as to a conclusion which he hath drawn, and 
 can teach others to draw from St Polycarp's own wri- 
 tings. Alas ! the sum of all such reasonings is no mora 
 than this : I JOSEPH PRIESTLEY am an Unitarian ; there- 
 fore such was Polycarp and the basis of this argument 
 is, the supposed infallibility of JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, 
 
. n DISQUISITIONS. 407 
 
 
 DISQUISITION SECOND. 
 
 Of Tertullian's testimony against the Unitarians, and 
 his use of the word IDIOTA. 
 
 DR PRIESTLEY has made it an occason of great 
 triumph to himself and to his party, that he has caught 
 me tripping, as he thinks, in my Greek and Latin, in 
 the translation which 1 have given, in the ninth of my 
 Letters in Reply, of a certain passage in Tertullian'g 
 book against Praxeas, which is produced hy him as an 
 acknowledgment of Tertullian, that the Unitarians were 
 in his time the majority of Christians, and is represent, 
 ed hy me as an assertion of the contrary. None but an 
 idiot, as Dr Priestley conceives, in the learned langua- 
 ges, would imagine that the English word "idiot/* 
 which I have used in my translation of that passage, 
 might in any sense render the iS/o/ta of the Greek or 
 the Idiota of the Latins, which is the name by which, 
 with other adjuncts, Tertullian describes the Unitarians 
 of his time. Dr Priestley says, in the nineteenth of hig 
 Second Letters, sec. 3. What will be said of the 
 man who can translate Idiota, idiot?" He hath now for 
 some considerable time, been receiving the incense of 
 bis own applause, and the triumphant acclamations of 
 his party, on the occasion of this victory gained over 
 bis daring adversary, on the very ground, on which the 
 enemy had taken his stand with particular security. But 
 it will be tims enough to bind the laurel ou their chief- 
 
40$ DISQUISITIONS. &IS. 11. 
 
 tain's spear, when they are sure he is in possession of 
 the field. 
 
 In the seventh of his Second Letters, Dr Priestley 
 says to me, " 1 will venture to say, that it properly 
 signifies [the word Idiota in Latin, or lWc in Greek 
 properly signifies] an unlearned man, or a person who 
 has not had a liberal education :" this Dr Priestley 
 ventures to affirm, and this I venture to deny. The 
 word iSiwfof hath ten distinct senses ; which I shall re- 
 cite in order. 
 
 I. Jl private person ; L e. a person in private life, 
 in opposition to a person in publick office or employ- 
 ment, civil or military. In this sense the word is chief- 
 ly used by orators and historians, and by all writers 
 who treat of popular subjects ; and this is its first and 
 proper sense, as it is of all its senses, the most im- 
 mediately connected with the sense of the adjective 
 lW, from which the substantive iltolnc is immediately 
 derived. 
 
 II. JL person in low life, one of the common people, 
 in opposition to persons of condition. This is nothing 
 more than an extension of the former sense ; private life 
 in the extreme becoming obscure and low. 
 
 III. JL laicJc, as distinguished from a clerk. This 
 sense the Greek fathers easily grafted upon the first ; 
 the church being considered as a polity of its own kind, 
 in which the clergy bear the publick offices, the laity 
 are citizens in private life. In a sense nearly allied to 
 this, the word seems to be used by St Paul, 1 Cor. xiv. 
 16, to denote a private member of a congregation, as 
 distinguished from the minister. 
 
 IV. Jl person unskilled in any particular science or 
 art, in opposition to the professors of it. The word; 
 
J)IS. It. DISQUISITIONS, 
 
 thus used, rather expresses the want of professional 
 skill than of ordinary knowledge in this sense, tha 
 word is sometimes constructed by the Attick writers 
 with a genitive of the thing, and by ordinary writers 
 with an accusative, either with or without a prepo- 
 sition. *Je/c fiialw i/l*. Plat, in Tim. iltttlnt M, *o? 
 M, or at 5rfc Mo. 
 
 V. person deficient in any particular talent, Jidbit, 
 9T accomplishment. In this sense the word is some- 
 times constructed with a dative of the thing. iSiwJnc ru 
 Ay, Cor. xi. 16. In this sense the word is used by 
 St Paul, 1 Cor. xiv. S3, 21, to denote a common Chris, 
 tian, not endowed with any of the extraordinary gifts 
 of the Holy Spirit, as distinguished from persons so 
 gifted. 
 
 VI. Jl person generally unlearned; one who hai 
 not had a learned and liberal education. In this sense, 
 in conjunction with the epithet Aftdftpjfa, the word 
 is applied to the apostles by the rulers of the Jews. 
 Acts iv. 13. 
 
 VII. The plural, iSi7ai, signifies individuals ; citi- 
 zens, individually considered, as distinguished from tha 
 collective body, the state. 
 
 VIII. The plural iWti, is a collective name for the 
 illiterate vulgar, in particular reference to their gene- 
 ral want of accomplishment in literature, the sciences 
 and the arts. O 5rA.vc IJUKOC, wc fiuflttt t ffoyti xatocr/* 
 Lucian. 
 
 IX. Hence among philosophers and sophists, and 
 pretenders to that sort of taste which is now called 
 virtu, it became a name of reproach which they gave 
 to those whom they thought disgracefully deficient in 
 those accomplishments; which they valued aud adma-ad 
 
 M 
 
4 |Q DISQUISITION V. J>1S. 11. 
 
 in themselves. Thus the great Roman peculator, seek- 
 ing to hide his avarice under a mask of affected taste 
 for the works of the Greek masters, reproached lug 
 accusers with idiotcy in this sense of the word. Erat 
 
 apud Heium sacrarium perantiquum, in quo signa 
 
 pulcherrima quatuor quce non modo istum f hominem 
 
 ingeniosum et intelligentem, verum etiam quemvis nos- 
 trum, quos iste idiotas appellat, delectare possent. Cic. 
 in Verrera. Act. 2. lih. iv. c. 2. 
 
 X. And because the faculties are apt to be dull, 
 when they have not been sharpened by exercise upon 
 any subject whatsoever, I Wai, from its use in the sense 
 of illiterate and uncultivated, comes to be an opprobri- 
 ous name for the dull and stupid, without any reference 
 to the want of education as the cause of the stupidity. 
 It never indeed, as far as I know, refers to that consti- 
 tutional defect of the faculty of reason, which is the 
 peculiar sense of the corresponding word of our lan- 
 guage in our statutes and law books ; but it denotes, 
 the goodly qualities of stupidity and ignorance in the 
 gross, like our vernacular words, dunce, booty, and 
 their synonymes. 
 
 That this last is the sense in which it is used by 
 Tertullian, in the passage in question, is sufficiently 
 evident from the very structure of the sentence : Who- 
 ever knows the force of the phrase, pwne dixerim, 
 which is probably as little understood by Dr Priestley 
 as St Jerome's quid Aicam; but whoever knows the 
 true force of this phrase, will allow, that the epithets 
 imprudentes and idiotce, which are introduced by it, must 
 contain some high intension and aggravation of the qua- 
 lities, whatever they may be, which are contained in 
 the notion of the preceding adjective, simplices; an 
 
IT. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 aggravation in such degree, that the writer thinks it 
 necessary to apologize, for the strength and severity of 
 the terms which he finds himself obliged to employ. 
 This is the force of the phrase pcene dixerim : to take 
 away what may seem too much in the terms which a 
 writer is ahout to employ, when he fears they may seem 
 excessive, notwithstanding that they are the lowest which 
 will convey his full meaning, and do justice to his ar- 
 gument. The imprudentes therefore of Tertullian, are 
 a sort of people in discernment and information many 
 degrees below his simplices ; and his uftotorare still 
 below his imprudentes. All this is evident, to those 
 who have any real knowledge of the Latin language, 
 from the bare structure of the sentence, whatever th 
 proper use of each of the three words may he, among 
 the polite writers of the Augustan age. As equivalent 
 to the Latin idiotce, as it is used by Tertullian in this 
 passage, I employed our English word idiots : I em- 
 ployed the English word, to express that extreme de- 
 gree of ignorance and stupidity, for which our language 
 furnishes no other word sufficiently contemptuous, of 
 which Tertullian affirms the Unitarians of his day, like, 
 their younger brethren in our own, exhibited a notable 
 example. It was little to be apprehended, that even* 
 Unitarian prejudice, would render any one so much an 
 idiot in style and phraseology, as not to perceive, that 
 I used not the word in what in English is its foreusick 
 sense, especially when, in an exposition of the passage, 
 which at the distance of a few lines follows my transla- 
 tion, I explain it by the words " dull," and *< persons of 
 mean attainments." 
 
 Dr Priestley asks me, in the seventh of his Second 
 Letters, *' Pray, Sir, in what lexicon or dictionary, or- 
 
DISQUISITIONS. J)IS. It. 
 
 dinary or extraordinary, did you find this sense of the 
 term idiota in Latin, or lWc, in Greek?"' Dr Priestley 
 is venturesome in propounding questions like this, and 
 seems to be one of those, whom repeated miscarriagei 
 cannot render wary and discreet : I certainly consulted 
 no lexicon, for the purpose of making my translation of 
 that plain passage of Tertullian ; and it is within these 
 very few days, that I have taken the trouble to consult 
 lexicons, in order to discover what ground my adversa- 
 ry may have found in their defects, for the confidence 
 which the question bespeaks : 1 will now refer him to 
 certain lexicons, never known perhaps in the academy 
 at Warrington, but such as a late Greek professor tiiere 
 might occasionally have condescended to consult, with 
 advantage to himself and to his pupils. The first is 
 that old glossary, which was found annexed to some 
 copies of St Cyril, and is published by Henry Stephens, 
 in the appendix to his Greek Thesaurus. In this glos- 
 sary, the word iS/a/Iu? is expounded by pn vovpur, words 
 which express not the want of education, but dullness 
 of the natural faculties. The second is Hobert Ste- 
 phen's JJictionarium Latino- Galliciim, in which the 
 word idiota is rendered Ung lourdault, qui n'estpas des 
 plus fins du monde, qui n'ha pas grand esprit, Idiot. 
 The third is the learned Calepini's Dictionarium Octo- 
 lingue, in which the author gives the French words 
 lourdaut, sot, ignorant, and the English words, an idiot, 
 a fool, as rendering the Latin idiota. The fourth is the 
 Thesaurus of our learned countryman Cooper, in which 
 idiota is thus expounded : One that is not very fine, 
 witted; an idiot. If my adversary demand the author- 
 ity of an ordinary dictionary, I will refer him to a very 
 ordinary dictionary indeed ; to a dictionary in every 
 

 If, 
 
 DISQUISITIONS, 
 
 413 
 
 school-boy's hand. Let him turn to the word idiota 
 in Aiasworth 5 he will find among its first senses, an 
 idiot. 
 
 I abide therefore by my assertion, that this passage 
 of Tertullian, which Dr Priestley mistakes for a tes- 
 timony of the popularity of his favourite opinions in 
 Tertullian's time, is no such testimony, but a charge 
 of ignorance against his party ; of such ignorance, as 
 would invalidate the plea of numbers, if that plea 
 could be set up. 
 
 And that this is the true representation of Tertul- 
 lian's meaning, may be proved, without insisting upon 
 any particular force of the word idiotce, from the neces- 
 sary indisputable sense of the adverb semper, which 
 extends Tertullian's proposition, concerning the majority 
 of believers, from his own time in particular, to all time: 
 he says not what were or what were not, the prevailing 
 opinions of his own times; but he says, that those persons 
 who come under the characters of simplices,imprudente8, 
 and idiotce, that is, according to Dr Priestley's own 
 translation, (which yet I admit not otherwise than dis- 
 yutandi gratia, for I have still " the assurance" to call 
 my own an exact translation) but according to Dr Priest- 
 ley's own translation, Tertullian says, that persons who 
 come under the character of " the simple, the ignorant, 
 and the unlearned," whatever their opinions at one time 
 or another may be, are, in all times, the greater part of 
 believers ; as indeed they must be of every society col- 
 lected indiscriminately, as the church is, from all ranks 
 of men. Tertullian alleges, that persons of that descrip- 
 tion, in his time, meaning to assert what they little un- 
 derstood, the Divine Monarchy, were startled at the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, which they as little understood. 
 
DISQUISITIONS. JMS. ft. 
 
 This is the only sense in which Tertullian's words 
 can be taken, unless some Unitarian adventurer in 
 criticism shall be able to prove, that the adverb semper 
 is equivalent to nunc, expressive of present time ex- 
 clusively. 
 
 Dr Priestley " wonders at my assurance" in another 
 circumstance ; namely, that I should limit, as he says, 
 what Tertullian affirms, as he would have him under- 
 stood, of the whole body of the simplices and idiotce to 
 some of them. In this limitation, he says, I am alto* 
 gether unwarranted. But when Turtullian says, that 
 simple persons and idiotce are startled at the economy, 
 the natural sense of the words is, that this scruple was 
 incident chiefly to persons of that description ; not that 
 it was to be found in the whole body of the common 
 people : he insinuates, that persons of that weak char- 
 acter only were liable to that alarm had he meant to 
 speak of the whole body of the common people, he must 
 have used phrases of another cast, as vulgus indoctum^ 
 or genus homimim simplex: Dr Priestley's complaint 
 against me, might have seemed to have some founda- 
 tion, had the word " some" been prefixed to simple 
 persons" in my translation but it only appears in an 
 exposition of the passage, which follows the translation ; 
 and surely, having translated the passage exactly, I 
 took no unwarrantable liberty in adding an explanatioa 
 of the author's sense (or of what I take to be his sense) 
 in my own words. Had Dr Priestley's loose exposi- 
 tions of the passages in ancient writers, which he cites, 
 been always accompanied with exact translations, the 
 world would have had less reason to stand aghast at 
 his assurance and ill-dissembled management. But to 
 what purpose can it be ; to hold au argument with a, 
 
IMS. II. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 man, who is too hasty to distinguish between what pro- 
 fesses to be paraphrase, and what pretends to be exact 
 translation ; who has the vanity to play the critick in 
 languages, to the idioms of which he is a stranger ; and 
 the audacity to challenge the production of authorities, 
 without taking the pains to iuform himself, in which 
 scale the weight of authority may preponderate? "Pray, 
 Sir, in what lexicon or dictionary, ordinary or extraor- 
 dinary, do you find idiota in Latin, or iWc in Greek, 
 rendered idiot?" Vide Glossarium Vetus, R. Steph. 
 Calepin. Cooper, Ainsworth. 
 
4(8 BISQU1SIT10NS. SIS. lit 
 
 DISQUISITION THIRD. 
 
 On what is found relating to the Ebionites in the writings of 
 Irenaeus, in confutation of an argument advanced by Dr 
 Priestley in favour of the Ebionites, in the third of his 
 First, and the fourth of his Second Letters^ from the wri~ 
 tings of Irenceus in particular. 
 
 THE particular argument in favour of the Ebionites, 
 which Dr Priestley, in the third of his First Letters to 
 me, attempted to draw from the writings of Iren^EUS, 
 was so ably, though concisely answered in the Monthly 
 Review for January 1781, by Mr Badcock, who, taking 
 facts as Dr Priestley chose to state them, showed, even 
 upon his own statement of the facts, the utter futility 
 of his conclusion, inasmuch as the contrary conclusion 
 might be drawn with equal probability from the same 
 assumptions, that when I wrote my Letters in reply, 
 I thought I might be excused if I passed by this argu- 
 ment without any other notice, than a slight reference to 
 Mr Badcock's confutation. But in the sixth of his Se- 
 cond Letters, Dr Priestley hath attempted to refit this 
 shattered piece of his artillery, and to bring it agaiu 
 into action. 
 
 He says to me, " It is truly remarkable, and may 
 not have been observed by you, as indeed it waa 
 not by myself till very lately," (It had indeed been 
 strange, if any sagacity of remark in me had outrun Dr 
 Priestley's !) that Iren^us, who has written so large 
 
. in. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 & work on the subject of heresy, after the time of Justin, 
 in a country where it is probable there were fewer Unita- 
 rians, again and again characterizes them in such a man- 
 ner, as makes it evident, that even he did not consider 
 any other persons as hereticks besides the Gnosticks. 
 He expresses a great dislike of the Ebioiiites, but he 
 never calls them hereticks."* 
 
 Freely 1 resign to Dr Priestley the honour of having 
 been the first to made this remark ; at least, 1 shall put 
 in no claim for myself, or for my friends : if any plagiar- 
 ism hath been committed, which I pretend not in this 
 particular instance to assert, the depredation must have 
 been made upon some of his own party : for I will ven- 
 ture to affirm, that the remark, so far as it extends to 
 Irenseus's acquittal of the Ebionites from the imputatiou 
 of heresy, could have occurred to none, that had not becu 
 in some good degree an IDIOT in the writings of Irense- 
 us : it could have occurred to none, that had known more 
 of the work of Irenseus, than is to be learned from an 
 occasional reference to particular passages, by the help 
 of an index. 
 
 The great object of Irenseus in his work against 
 heresies, is, to assert the Scripture doctrines of the 
 unity of God, and the incarnation of the Divine Word, 
 in their original simplicity, against the numerous secta- 
 ries of his times, who, from various views and motives, 
 had variously disfigured and disguised them. Some 
 thought, that they gave a clear solution of the dark 
 question about the origin of evil, when they maintained^ 
 that the world is the work of one or more intelligences, 
 far interior to the First Mind : some, to account foe 
 
 * Second Letters p, 56. 
 
 68 
 
. in 
 
 some circumstances of contrariety, that may appear upon 
 a superficial view of the Old and the New Testament, 
 taught that the God of the Jews was a distinct being, 
 from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ : some, to 
 solve the difficulties in the great doctrine of the incarna- 
 tion, indulged in a most criminal wantonness of specu- 
 lation, concerning the person of Christ : some, affecting 
 a deep mysterious wisdom, endeavoured to explain, in 
 obscure and ill-imagined allegories, the procession of 
 the different orders of intellect and life from the Divine 
 Mind, and the production of the visible world : some, 
 the most profane and hardened, artfully availed them- 
 selves of certain mysterious points of the Christian doc- 
 trine, to give personal consequence to themselves, and 
 to gain credit among the vulgar to the most impious 
 pretensions. To guard the faithful against these vari- 
 ous seductions, and to establish them in the belief of the 
 true Scripture doctrine of ONE GOD, absolute in power 
 and in all perfection, who, by his Eternal Word, crea- 
 ted all things in heaven and in earth, visible and invisi- 
 ble ; and, having in time past spoken to the fathers by 
 the prophets, hath spoken in the last days by his Son, 
 the same Divine Word incarnate, and hath reconciled 
 mankind to himself, through him, who, to effect this 
 reconciliation, united the manhood to the Godhead in 
 his own person, to establish the faithful in this doc- 
 trine, Irenaeus undertakes the confutation of those ex- 
 travagant conceits, by which it is either contradicted, 
 or perverted and disgraced, never losing sight of his 
 two cardinal points, the unity of God, and the incar- 
 nation of the Word. 
 
 His whole work consists of five books : of these, the 
 first is historical, exhibiting a general view of hereti 
 
&!S. HI. 
 
 DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 419 
 
 cal opinions, in those points in which they differed 
 most essentially from genuine Christianity ; reciting the 
 names of the principal haeresiarehs, describing their 
 characters, and relating the varieties of opinion, by 
 which the different sects were distinguished. 
 
 In the second book, the author professes to refute the 
 extravagant opinions recited in the first, by general ar- 
 guments, exposing the incoherence and intrinsic k absur- 
 dity of each. In the third, he engages to bring a con- 
 futation of the same opinions from Scripture in general ^ 
 in the fourth, from our Lord's own discourses in par- 
 ticular; in the fifth, from our Lord's own words, and 
 the writings of St Paul. 
 
 In the first book, after a general recital of the princi- 
 pal extravagancies offthe Valentinians, the author under* 
 takes to show, that Simon Magus was the parent of all 
 heresy, and that the distinguishing conceits of every 
 sect, attached to one point or another of his doctrine : 
 for this purpose, he gives a list of hseresiarchs and sects, 
 from Simon Magus, in succession, to his own time, 
 specifying the particular doctrines of each : in this list, 
 the Ebionites have the honour to have the name of their 
 sect, enrolled * between the Corinthians and Nicolait- 
 ans. If Irenxus deemed them not here ticks, he has 
 surely put them in bad company. At no great distance 
 from the Ebionites, he introduces Marcionif this Mar- 
 cion was a most distinguished heretick, not only for the 
 extravagance and impiety of his doctrine, but for the 
 liberty which he took with the books of the New Tes- 
 tament, altering or expunging whatever he disliked, till 
 he made the holy Scriptures, as he thought, speak his 
 
 * lab. I. cap. xx ti. 
 
 f Ibid, xxix, 
 
DISQUISITIONS. JO IS. lit. 
 
 own sentiments. Irenseua promises a particular confu- 
 tation of the opinions of Marcion, from the Scriptures, 
 as Marcion himself received them : but notwithstanding 
 this design, he found it necessary, he says, to mention 
 him in this place, in order to make out his assertion, 
 " that all whe adulterated the truth, and impugned tho 
 publick doctrine of the church, were disciples of Simon, 
 the Samaritan sorcerer;"* intimating, that having in 
 his contemplation a particular work upon the heresy of 
 Marcion, he would have omitted the mention of him in 
 this place, but that the omission would have rendered 
 the list of haeresiarchs, descending from Simon Magus, 
 defective. Here then, we see both the author's atten- 
 tion to the accuracy of his list, and his own notion of 
 what sort of persons they were who had a right to a 
 place in it : the accuracy of his list, had certainly been 
 as much vitiated by an improper insertion, as by an 
 emission : where then is the probability, that an author, 
 \vho declares he would have omitted Marcion, but from 
 a scrupulous attention to the accuracy of his catalogue 
 of hseresiarchs, in defiance of any such scruple, would 
 have inserted the Ebionites, had not their notorious 
 heresy, and their affinity with Simon Magus, given 
 them an equal claim with Marcion, and with their next 
 neighbours, the Cerinthians and Nicolaitans, to admis- 
 sion ? Again, the author's notion of the sort of persons 
 that were to be included in his list, namely, " adultera- 
 
 * Sed hnic quidem seorsum contradicemus ; ex ejus scriptis argtieotes 
 cum, et ex iis sermonibus, qui apud eum observati sunt, Domini et Apostoli, 
 qnibus ipse utitur, evcrsioncm ejus facientes prsestar.te Deo. Nunc autem neces- 
 sario meminimus tjus, ut scires quoniam cranes, qui quoqno modo adulterant 
 veritatem, et prseconium Ecclesije ladunt, Simonis Samaritan! Magi discipuli et 
 accessores sunt. Lib. I cap. xjix. et xxx. 
 
. in. 
 
 DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 421 
 
 tors of the truth, impugners of the publick doctrine of 
 the church, and disciples of Simon the Samaritan sor- 
 cerer," clearly proves what the publick character of the 
 Ebionites was, whom he hath enrolled among these 
 worthies. To have registered among the sects, allied 
 to Simon Magus, persons who lay under no publick 
 imputation of heresy, however in bis own private judg- 
 ment he might see reason to reprobate their tenets, had 
 been a very awkward proof of the general affinity be- 
 tween heresy and Simon Magus : to the proof of this, a 
 consent or resemblance of opinion, between Simon Ma- 
 gus and those who were no hereticks, or not generally 
 deemed such, could little contribute it would rather 
 indeed conduce to the acquittal of Simon, than the con- 
 demnation of an innocent sect said to resemble him ; 
 the Ebionites, therefore, having a place in this list, bj 
 which Simon is to be proved the common parent and 
 founder of all heresies, unquestionably partook of that 
 character, which Irenaeus makes the peculiar mark of that 
 family. They were adulterators of the truth, not bare- 
 ly of what was truth in the private judgment of Irenasus, 
 but they were impugners of the publick doctrine of the 
 hurch : if such persons were not hereticks, I have yet 
 to learn the meaning of the name. 
 
 I am well aware, that a laudable concern for the re- 
 putation of his ancestors, will incline Dr Priestley to 
 put the question, in what circumstance the Ebionites 
 resembled Simon Magus ? Some resemblance, he will 
 say, according to Irenseus's notions, was necessary to 
 constitute a heresy : for if all hereticks resembled Simou 
 Magus in some circumstance or another, they who re- 
 eembled him in none, were no hereticks. 
 
 To this it may be answered; that Epiphauiu, whea 
 
uisQUfsmoNs; JOTS, m 
 
 he tells us that Ebiou's Judaism was of the Samaritan 
 cast, says what may be thought to imply a resemblance, 
 in many circumstances, between this sect and the Sama- 
 ritan sorcerer : but the principle in which Irenseus, I 
 doubt not, placed the resemblance, was no other than 
 the cardinal doctrine of the Ebionites, of the mere hu- 
 manity of our Lord. This, as it was taught by the 
 Cerinthians and the first Ebionites, was indeed nothing 
 more than a refinement upon the older error of the Do- 
 cetae, of which Simon was the first teacher. The Do- 
 cetse, thinking it beneath the dignity of a celestial being 
 to undergo the life of a man, and to submit to a violent 
 and painful death, maintained, that the body of Jesut 
 was a mere illusion, and the whole scene of his suffer- 
 ings phantastick : or, if any of them admitted the reality 
 of the sufferings, they denied, however, that Jesus was 
 the sufferer. The Cerinthians, whose doctrines the 
 first Ebionites followed in what related to the person of 
 our Lord, thought it more reasonable to admit that Jesua 
 was a real man, the subject of real sufferings : they 
 maintained, that he was a mere man ; and they suppo- 
 sed a superangeliek being, which they called the Christ, 
 to have been through life the guide and guardian of the 
 man ; something more perhaps than a Socratick demon, 
 but yet distinct from the man, and exempt from all par- 
 ticipation of his sufferings. This is evidently a refine- 
 ment upon the doctrine of the Docetaa. Both doctrinei 
 had a common object, to give the doctrine of the incar- 
 nation such a turn, that a divine or superangeliek nature, 
 might not be involved in the miseries of mortality : for 
 this purpose, the Docetse denied the reality of the man- 
 hood ; and the Ebionites, with the Cerinthians, main- 
 tained a separate personality, and distinct conditions of 
 
///. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 the man and the superior being : thus the affinity be- 
 tween the Ebionites and the Simoiiians is manifest ; and 
 the derivation of the one from the other, easy and natu- 
 ral : and 1 cannot but remark, that as the ancient Ebi- 
 onsean doctrine passes by a single step, the dismission 
 of the superangelick being, into the modern Unitarian, 
 that too is traced to its source in the chimeras of the 
 Samaritan sorcerer : and thus, both the Ebionites of 
 antiquity, and the Unitarians of our own time, are in 
 truth branches, or the offspring at least, of Gnosticism 
 and in this extended meaning of the word I am ready 
 to allow, that Irenseus knew of no hereticks, but what 
 are included under the general name of Gnosticks. Be 
 that as it may, I maintain, that the first book of Irenaeus, 
 by the enrolment therein made of the Ebionites, in a 
 list, in which the author had done disservice to his own 
 argument, had he inserted any but known hereticks 5 
 affords a clear argument, that the Ebionites were he- 
 reticks in the judgment of the church, in the time of 
 Iren^us. 
 
 In the second book of Irenseus, no mention of the Ebi- 
 onites occurs, either by Dame or by description ; nor is 
 this, indeed, the place where any mention of that sect 
 might be expected : the argument of the second book, is 
 a confutation of heretical opinions from principles of 
 mere reason ; from general views of their intrinsick ab- 
 surdity and incoherence : but the error of the Ebionites, 
 is not of the number of those that may be so confuted ; 
 the great mystery of godliness, the incarnation of the 
 Divine Word, was no discovery of natural reason. 
 [Reason, therefore, whose natural powers, upon this 
 subject, gave no knowledge of the truth, is insufficient, 
 without the aid of revelation, to the refutation of the 
 
DISQUISITIONS. D1S. III. 
 
 contrary falsehood : the conviction of the Ebiunites, 
 must rest entirely upon holy writ. 
 
 Accordingly, in the third hook, in which the confuta- 
 tion is drawn from Scripture, the Ebioniles are thus 
 mentioned : " They again who say, that he was merely 
 a. m*n engendered of Joseph, die; continuing in the 
 bondage of the former disobedience, having to the last 
 no conjunction with the word of God the Father, nor re- 
 ceiving freedom through the Son, according to that 
 saying of his own, If the Son give you manumission, 
 ye shall be free indeed. But not knowing him, who ia 
 the Emmanuel of the Virgin, they are deprived of his 
 gift, which is eternal life : and not receiving the incor- 
 ruptible word, they continue in the mortal flesh, and are 
 liable to the natural debt of death, not accepting the an- 
 tidote of life."* 
 
 That the Ebionites are the persons intended in this 
 passage, we need not be solicitous to prove, since a part 
 of the passage is cited by Dr Priestley himself, in the 
 appendix of his First Letters, as unquestionably relating 
 to that sect. In this passage, their error and their 
 crime is placed in their assertion, that our Lord was a 
 mere man, the son of Joseph : this error, is called a re- 
 jection of the incorruptible word, a refusal of the anti- 
 dote of life : these are phrases, evidently descriptive of a 
 hardened infidelity, which listens not, with a due sub- 
 
 Rursus autem qui nude tantum hominem eum dicunt ex Joseph generatma, 
 persererantes in servitute pristinte inobedientie rnoriuntur, nondutn commix ti 
 verbo Dei Patris, neque per Filium pevcipientes libertatem, quemadmodum ipse 
 ait ; si Filius vos manwniserit, vere liberi eritia. Ignorantes autem eum qui ex 
 Yirgine est Emmanuel, prirantur raunere cjus, quod est vita aeterua : non reci- 
 picnics autem verbum incorruptionis perseverant in carne mortal!, et sunt debi- 
 tores mortis, autidotum vitae non accipientes. Lib. 3. cap. xxi. 
 
BIS. Ill, DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 mission of the understanding, to the evangelical doctrine. 
 The Ebionites therefore, by their wicked doctrine of our 
 Lord's mere humanity, seemed to Irenaeus to be mere 
 infidels ; and in consequence of this infidelity, " to die 
 in the bondage of the former disobedience, having to the 
 last, no connexion with the word of God the Father, 
 continuing in the mortal flesh, and liable to the natural 
 debt of death." These expressions, describe the miser- 
 able condition of the unconverted and impenitent ; who, 
 notwithstanding what the Son of God hath done and 
 suffered for those who will believe in him, remain ob- 
 noxious to the guilt and punishment of their own sins, 
 as well as to all the dreadful consequences of the first 
 transgression. Such, Ircnecus doomed tho dangerous 
 situation of these infidel Ebionites : he says further, that 
 for their ignorance of him who is the Emmanuel of the 
 Virgin, and in consequence of the infidelity and impeni- 
 tence of which that ignorance was, in his judgment, a 
 sure symptom, " they are deprived of the gift of that 
 Emmanuel, which gift is eternal life." To be depri- 
 ved of that life eternal, which is the gift of the Emman- 
 uel, is the same thing in the phraseology of the ancient 
 writers, as to be under a sentence of eternal damnation : 
 these Ebionites therefore, who said that our Lord was 
 a mere man, convicted by that wicked assertion of an 
 evil heart of impenitence and unbelief, in the opinion of 
 Irenaeus, lay under a sentence of eternal punishment, 
 which nothing but a renunciation of their error, and a 
 sincere repentance, might avert. Nothing can be clear- 
 er, than that, in this passage, they are taxed with infide- 
 lity and impenitence, and threatened with the doom 
 which awaits such crimes : but Dr Priestley can find no 
 such sentence of damnation in this passage, passed upon 
 
 5* 
 
DISQUISITIONS: &rs. ni. 
 
 the Ebionites. " Irenaeus must have meant, not that 
 the Ebionites in particular, but that mankind in general, 
 could have had no resurrection, if the Ebionaean doc- 
 trine had been true."* That is, Irenaeus, expressly 
 speaking of the Ebionites in particular, must be under- 
 stood of mankind in general : speaking of their particu- 
 lar punishment, he must be understood to speak of a 
 general calamity. The ground of the necessity is ob- 
 vious in no other way of interpretation, can what Ire- 
 naeus hath actually said of the Ebionites, be brought to 
 agree with what Dr Priestley, for the interest of his 
 cause, must wish he had said about them. The learn- 
 ed Feuardentius, who lived not to be enlightened by 
 the new revelations of our modern Unitarians, and 
 above all, by Dr Priestley's ingenious expositions of the 
 Scriptures and the fathers, was blind to this necessity : 
 Irenaeus contends in this chapter," says Feuardentius, 
 " that they who make Christ the son of Joseph, attain 
 neither remission of sins, nor the adoption of the sons 
 of God, nor so much as the right of a blessed resurrec- 
 tion,"! 
 
 In the fourth book, after a confutation of many here- 
 tical opinions, Irenaeus lays down this maxim : J that 
 the believer, who steadily adheres to the great principle 
 of one God, wfio created all things by his word, and 
 studies the Scriptures with the assistance of the presby- 
 ters of the church, who were in possession, as Irenseus 
 says, of the doctrine of the apostles; will extricate him- 
 
 * First Letters, p. 118. 
 
 f Cpntendii autem hoc capite Iren&iiSj illos nee peccatorum remissionem, nee 
 adoplionem filiorum Dei, imo nee jus beatx resurrei-.tionis assequi, qui Christum 
 ftlium Joseph constituuiit. Feuarilentius ad laudalum loeum /re<. 
 
 $ Lib. 4. cap. hi. 
 
X>JS. III. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 self from the difficulties, which were the stumbling- 
 blocks of hereticks : in particular, he will perceive 
 the connexion and affinity between the Old Testament 
 and the New, and will understand, that the same God 
 was the author of both : " such a disciple," he says, 
 "being truly spiritual, inasmuch as he receiveth the 
 Spirit of God, who, under all the dispensations of God, 
 was present with men, and announced the future, and 
 showeth the present, and relateth the past ; [such a spi- 
 ritual disciple] judgeth all, but is judged himself of 
 none."* He judgeth all : that is, he discerns in what 
 point the error of any erroneous doctrine lies, and he can 
 evince its inconsistence with the truth : but he himself, 
 Laving the written word and the doctrine of the apostles 
 for his guide, and enjoying the secret illumination of the 
 Spirit, is inconfutable : Irenseus illustrates and amplifies 
 this aphorism, by an application of it to different sects; 
 showing how and upon what principles, the spiritual dis- 
 ciple will judge them; L e. expose and refute their errors : 
 this amplification of the general sentiment, makes a very 
 long period, which some of the early editors (Grynaeus 
 I believe) hath broken into no less than nine chapters, 
 prefixing to each a proper title. This spiritual disciple, 
 Irenaeus says, will judge the Gentiles,t will judge the 
 Jews,J w 511 judge the Marciouites,|| will judge the 
 V r alentinians.$ "He will also judge the vain bab- 
 blings of wicked Gnosticks, showing them to be the 
 
 * Tails discipnlus vere spiritalis, recipiens Spiritum Dei, qui ab initio, in uni 
 versis dispositionibus Dei, affuit horatnibus, et tutura annuntiavit, ct prsesentL os- 
 tendit, et prseterita enarrat, judicat qiiidem oranes, ipse autem a nemine judicatur. 
 Lib. 4. cap. liii. 
 
 | Lib. 4. cap. Hv, i Cap. Iv. ft Cap. hii. Cap. hiii. 
 
DISQUISITIONS. DIS. Ill 
 
 disciple* of Simon Magus.* He will also judge the 
 Ebionites : how can they be saved, unless he, who 
 wrought iheir salvation upon earth, be God?"f Dr 
 Priestley imagines, that Irenseus says of the Ebionites, 
 that *" God will judge them :"f this mistake, of putting 
 God's judgment for the sound believer's judgment, is 
 indeed of no importance in the argument ; I mention it 
 only as one instance, of that practice of which I accuse 
 Dr Priestley, of taking short detached passages, in the 
 sense which may first occur to him, without knowing, 
 and without examining, with what they may be con- 
 nected in the context of the author's discourse. Tails 
 discipulus vere spiritalis, is the subject of the verb Jw- 
 dicabltf from the Lllld. chapter to the end of the 
 LXIId : Irenaeus says then, that the spiritual disciple 
 will judge the Ebionites :" and this is the principle 
 upon which he will judge them, " that they could not 
 be saved, unless he, who wrought their salvation upon 
 earth, be God." But this, Dr Priestley says "is no sen- 
 tence of damnation passed upon them in particular for 
 holding their doctrine, but an argument used by him to 
 refute them ; and is the same as if he had said, mankind 
 in general could not be saved, if Christ had not been 
 God as well as man."|| This shall be granted. What 
 Irenseus says in the passage now under consideration, 
 is nothing more than an argument for the refutation of 
 the Ebionites ; and the principle of this argument is 
 rightly stated by Dr Priestley : but by whom is this 
 
 * Judicabit autem ct vaniloquia pravorum Gnosticorum, Simonis eos Magi 
 discipulos ostendens. Cap. Iviii. 
 
 J- Jndicabit autem et Ebionitas; quomodo possunt salvari, nisi Deus est qni 
 s-Uutem eorum super terratn operatus est ? Cap. lix. 
 
 t First Letters, p. 33. U Ibid. 
 
J)1S. III. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 argument used ? By Irenaeus : not simply by Irenseus 
 in his own person ; it is the argument which Irenseus 
 puts in the mouth of the spiritual disciple : the spiritual 
 disciple that is, every spiritual disciple, every sound 
 believer is the person, who upon these principles, will 
 confute the Ebionites : Irenseus therefore, distinguish- 
 ing the Ebionites who are confuted, from every spirit- 
 ual disciple who confutes, sets the former out of the so- 
 ciety of spiritual disciples, of sound believers, and puts 
 them in the class of those who are not spiritual ; that is, 
 of those who have not the spirit : for were they spiritual, 
 they could not be the objects of the spiritual disciple's 
 opposition and confutation ; but the class of those, who 
 are not spiritual, is the choice society of hereticks and 
 infidels for he, who hath not the spirit of Christy is none 
 of his. In this passage therefore, the Ebionites are 
 clearly ranked with hereticks. 
 
 It deserves particular notice, that one circumstance in 
 Irenseus's description of the spiritual disciple who jud- 
 ges these Ebionites, is, that " he is a follower of the 
 publick doctrine of the church;"* whence it might seem 
 no unnatural conclusion, if other proof of the thing were 
 wanting, that the publick judgment of the church, no 
 less than the sentiments of Irenseus, was against the 
 Ebiouites ; that they were opposers of the publick doc- 
 trine, and of course, in the publick estimation, hereticks : 
 but the same thing indeed, is sufficiently implied in the 
 representation given them, as maintainers of an opinion 
 which struck at the very root of the doctrine of redemp- 
 tion, and lay open to every sound believer's confutation. 
 
 * Si et scripturam diligenter legerit, apud eos tiui ia fictlesia sunt presbytet , 
 quos est aj-ostoHca tioetrina. Cap. lii. 
 
430 DISQUISITIONS. BIS. Ill' 
 
 In the fifth book, the Ebionites arc mentioned among 
 hereticks whose doctrines fall all together, when the great 
 scheme'of man's redemption is rightly understood. " Our 
 Lord, redeeming us by his own blood, and giving his 
 own soul for our soul, and his body for our bodies ; 
 and pouring out the spirit of the Father for the ad union 
 and communion of God with men, bringing God down 
 to men by the spirit ; and again, by his incarnation, 
 raising man to God ; and in his advent, actually and 
 assuredly conferring on us incorruptibility, by commu- 
 nion with God ; the doctrines of hereticks fall altogeth- 
 er ; for they are vain, who say that his appearance was 
 phantastiek. The Valentinians therefore are vain, who 
 hold this doctrine, the Ebionites also are vain, not re- 
 ceiving the union of God and man by faith, &c."* 
 
 The only use which Dr Priestley makes of this pas- 
 sage is, to take the clause relating to the Ebionites by 
 itself, and to remark, that " the harshest epithet which 
 Irenaeus here applies to that sect, is that of Vani; which, 
 considering the manner of the ancients, he says, is cer- 
 tainly very moderate :"f but however moderate he may 
 think this epithet, had he attended to the context, he 
 would have seen that it is the very same epithet, which 
 Irenseus in this same place applies to the Docetss, the 
 Valentinians, and the most impious of the Gnosticks : 
 
 * Suo igitur sanguine redimente DOB Domino, et dante animam suam pro nostril, 
 aniraa, et carnem suam pro nostris carnibus, et effundente Spiritum Patris in ad- 
 unitionem et communionem Dei et hominum, ad homines quid cm deponeute Deum 
 per Spiritum, ad Deum autem rursus imponente hominem per suam incarnationem, 
 et firme et vere in soo adventu donante nobis incorruptelam, per communionem 
 qux est ad Deum ; perierunt omnes hreticorum doctrinse. Vaoi autem sunt qui 
 putative dicunt eum apparuisse Vani igitur qui a Valentino sunt, hoc dogma- 
 
 tizantes Vani autem et Ebionsei, unitionem Dei et Hourinus per fidem nen re- 
 
 cipientes in suam animam. Lib. 5, cap. i. 
 
 | First Letters, p. 33. 
 
$rs. m. DISQUISITIONS, 
 
 it should seem therefore, that it is a term of more severe 
 reproach than Dr Priestley apprehends : it imports 
 indeed, that they to whom it is applied, were persons 
 lecome vain in their imaginations; cherishing opin- 
 ions void of foundation in Scripture and in truth; such 
 as arose out of a misapprehension of the whole scheme 
 of revealed religion. And whatever the particular sense 
 of this epithet may be, the manner in which the men- 
 tion of the Ebionites is introduced, shows that they arc 
 mentioned, as affording one instance of hereticks of that 
 description. 
 
 In another passage of this fifth book, Irenseus says of 
 hereticks in general, that " they are unlearned ; ignorant 
 of the divine dispensations, particularly of the scheme 
 respecting man ; blind to the truth ; and that they con- 
 tradict their own salvation." This general charge, he 
 illustrates and confirms, by specifying the particular 
 absurdities of different sects ; " Some," he says, " in- 
 troducing another Father beside the Demiurgus : some 
 again, saying that the world and the substance of it, 
 were made by certain angels : some, that the substance 
 of the world sprang up from itself, and is self- produced, 
 far separate from him who, according to them is the 
 Father : some, that it took its substance from corruption 
 and ignorance, being among the things within the Fath- 
 er : some treat the doctrine of our Lord's visible advent 
 with contempt, not admitting the incarnation : some, ig- 
 norant of the dispensation of the Virgin, say, that he 
 was begotten by Joseph, Some, 5fc."* 
 
 * Indocti omnes hseretici, et ignorantes dispositiones Dei, et inscii ejus qu est 
 aecundum hominem dispensations, quippe ccecutientes circa veritatem, ipsi SUK 
 oatrRdicttUt wduti, alii quidem alterum intcoducentes, prseter Demiurgum patrem. 
 
DISQUISITIONS. 1S. Iff. 
 
 Dr Priestley " once thought"* that in this passage 
 the Ebionites were included in the appellation of here- 
 ticks ; as indeed any one would think, who could ex- 
 plain the grammatical construction of the sentence, in 
 every clause of which heretici [hereticks] is understood 
 as the substantive to be joined with Mil [some] : they 
 therefore, who maintained that our Lord was literally 
 and naturally Joseph's son, are here expressly called 
 *' Some hereticks :" but Dr Priestley has reconsidered 
 the passage ; and perceiving how strongly the natural 
 sense of it makes against him, he has found himself mis- 
 taken in that construction of it: he says, " as Cerinthus 
 and Carpocrates, and other Gnosticks, denied the mira- 
 culous conception as well as the Ebionites ; and all the 
 rest of this description, both before and after this cir- 
 cumstance, evidently belongs to the Gnosticks only ; and 
 as in no other place whatever, does he comprehend 
 them in his definition of heresy ; it is natural to con- 
 clude, that he had no view to the Ebionites even here, 
 but only to those Gnosticks who, in common with them^ 
 denied the miraculous conception."! This conclusion 
 might indeed be somewhat more natural than it is, if 
 the passage really were, what Dr Priestley, when he 
 calls it this description," would represent it to be, 
 a description of one sect by various characters : for, in 
 that case it might be said, that all the parts of the de- 
 scription must be united, to make up the complete char- 
 
 Alii autem ab angelis quibusdam dicentes factura esse munduwa, et substantiana 
 ejus. Alii quidem porro et longe separatum ab eo, qui est secundura ipsos, patrr, 
 a semetipsa floruisse, et esse ex se natam Alii autem in his quce continentur a 
 patre, de labe et ignorantia substantiam habuisse. Alii autem manifestum adven- 
 turn domiui content nunt, incartionem ejus non recipientes. Alii autem rursus igno- 
 rantes rirgmis dispensationem, ex Joseph dicuut eum generatum. Lib. 5. cap. \\\. 
 * Second Letters, p. 57. f Ibid, p. 58. 
 
J0/,y. 777. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 acter of an heretick. But the passage is plainly au 
 enumeration of different sects, to which the name of 
 hereticks, and the charge of ignorance and blindness 
 belong in common ; an enumeration describing each 
 by its particular error. This appears, not only from 
 the grammatical structure of the period, in which the 
 repetition of Alii, Alii, Alii, *c. Some, Some, Some ; 
 distinguishes and enumerates, and hath no other force ; 
 but still more evidently from this circumstance : that the 
 opinions mentioned in the different clauses are, in some 
 instances, manifestly repugnant ; insomuch that they 
 could not all be maintained by the same persons : thus 
 the second, third, and fourth clauses, mention contra- 
 dictory opinions about the origin of the visible world ; 
 and the " some hereticks" who held any one of these 
 opinions, must have been a different set from the " some 
 hereticks" who held another : and indeed that they were 
 different, is clearly expressed in the Latin words ; for 1 
 have been favourable to Dr Priestley, in rendering the 
 repeated Alii, Seme, and Some, and some, : the proper 
 rendering would be, Some, Others, Others, &c. In this 
 enumeration of heresies, the error ascribed to each, is 
 alleged as an instance of the ignorance of that sect, of 
 their blindness to the truth, and their opposition to their 
 own salvation. The enumeration being made in proof 
 of that general charge, it is natural to suppose, that each 
 sect is described by that error, which, of all their absurd 
 opinions, was the fittest for the purpose of that proof, 
 the clearest instance of their ignorance and blindness, 
 and their contradicting of their own salvation : the par- 
 ticular error therefore mentioned in each clause, is not 
 indeed by itself a definition of heresy, but it is by itself 
 a sure mark of a heretick ; by which, every oni main. 
 
 55 
 
DISQUISITIONS. SIS. Ill- 
 
 taining that opinion, might be known to come under that 
 general character. One of these marks of a heretick, is 
 the opinion, that our Lord was literally and naturally 
 the son of Joseph : all therefore were hereticks in the 
 judgment of Irenseus, upon whom that mark was to be 
 found ; whether they were Oerinthians, Carpoc ratiaus, 
 or Ebionites If this was a mark that might, in the 
 judgment of Irenseus, convict a Carpocratian or Oerin- 
 thian, why should it not equally in his judgment, con- 
 vict the Ebionites? because, in the Cerinthians and 
 Carpocratians, Dr Priestley will say, this opinion was 
 blended with impieties which were indeed heretical : 
 But this is to place the mark of the heresy in the judg- 
 ment of Irenseus, not in the circumstance which he ex- 
 pressly mentions as the mark, but in others which he 
 suppresses : a mode of interpretation, by which every 
 writer may be brought to say, whatever his expositor 
 shall be pleased to say for him. 
 
 " If there be any other passage in Irenseus, in which 
 he calls, or seems to call, the Ebionites hereticks,"* Dr 
 Priestley declares he hath overlooked it : he hath then 
 overlooked a very remarkable passage in the third book, 
 the mention of which I have reserved for this place. 
 Irenseus, speaking of the universal credit and author- 
 ity of the gospels, says, that " even hereticks bear wit- 
 ness to it, since each of them endeavours to confirm 
 his own doctrines by proofs from those writings : for the 
 Ebionites, using only the gospel according to St Mat- 
 thew, are by that convicted of error in their notions 
 of our Lord : Marcion, cutting off much of the gospel 
 according to St Luke, may be proved a blasphemer 
 
 * Seond Letters p. 58. 
 
DIS. in, WSQUISITIONS. 435 
 
 against the only God, from the parts "which he re- 
 tains, #c.* 
 
 As Dr Priestley mentions a definition of heresy given 
 by Irenaeus, in terms which exclude, or at least com- 
 prehend not the Ebionites,f I shall just take the liberty 
 to suggest, that he might confer an obligation upon the 
 learned world, if he would be pleased to give informa- 
 tion, in what part of the whole work of Irenseus that 
 definition may be found. 
 
 Meanwhile it appears, that the Ebionites are repeat, 
 edly mentioned by Irenaeus, and never mentioned but 
 as hereticks : when any heavy charge against heretickc 
 is to be confirmed by particular instances, the Ebionitec 
 seldom are forgotten : in the first book, they appear in a 
 list of heretical sects, as one instance among many, con- 
 firming the author's general assertion, that all the here- 
 lical sects of his own and the preceding age, had their 
 root and origin in the doctrines of Simon Magus : in the 
 third book, they are mentioned as one instance of here- 
 ticks, who, rejecting the greater part of the four gospels, 
 contribute to the general evidence of the authenticity 
 and credit of those writings, by their solicitude to build 
 their particular opinions upon the parts which they re. 
 ceivc, and yet are convicted of error in those opinions by 
 those very parts to which they appeal. In another pas- 
 sage of the third book, they are described as persons in a 
 
 * Tanta est autem cirea evangelia hc firmitas, ut et ipsi hrretici testimonium 
 reddant eis, et ex ipsis egrediens onus quisque eorum conetur suam confirmare 
 doctrinam. Ebionsei etenim, eo evangelic quod est secundum Matthseum solo 
 Utentes, ex ilio ipso convincuater non recte presumentes de domino. Marcion 
 autem id quod est secundum Lucam eircumcidens, ex his qute adhuc servantur 
 penes eum, blaspheraus in solum existeRtem Deura ostenditur. Lib. 3. cap. xi. 
 
 t Second Letters, p. 58. 
 
pis m 
 
 state of impenitence and hardened infidelity, lying 
 the dreadful sentence of eternal damnation : in the fourth 
 book their sect is mentioned among those, whom the spi- 
 ritual disciple, i. e the sound believer, will judge : in the 
 fifth book, they are mentioned among hereticks whose 
 doctrines are demolished all in the lump, and at one blow, . 
 by being contrasted with the scheme of man's redemp- 
 tion truly stated : and in another passage of the same 
 book, their distinguishing tenet of the mere humanity of 
 our Lord, is alleged as an instance of the ignorance and 
 blindness of hereticks, and of the forwardness of such 
 persons to oppose their own salvation. 
 
 Of the truth of that remark of Dr Priestley's which 
 provoked this long disquisition, that the Ebioniles in 
 Jrena&us's large work " are again and again character- 
 ized by him, in such a manner as makes it evident, that 
 even he did not consider them as hereticks, and that ha 
 never calls them by that name ; of the truth of this re- 
 mark, and of the qualifications of the man who could 
 make it, and take credit to himself that he had been the 
 first to make it, to enlighten the age upon points of eccle- 
 siastical antiquity ; let the intelligent reader now form kis 
 own judgment. 
 
#is. ir. BisQuismoNs. 4.37 
 
 DISQUISITION FOURTH. 
 
 Of the sentiments of the fathers and others, concerning 
 the eternal origination of the Son, in the necessary 
 energies of the paternal intellect. 
 
 IN a subject so far above the comprehension of the 
 human mind, as the doctrine of the Trinity must be con- 
 fessed to be in all its branches, extreme caution should 
 be used, to keep the doctrine itself, as it is delivered in 
 God's word, distinct from every thing that hath been 
 devised by man, or that may even occur to a man's ovva 
 thoughts to illustrate it, or explain its difficulties. Every 
 one who hath ever thought for any length of time upon 
 the subject, cannot but fall insensibly and involuntarily 
 upon some way or other, of representing the thing to 
 bis own mind : and if a man be ever so much upon his 
 guard, to check the licentiousness of imagination, and 
 bridle an irreverent curiosity upon this holy subject ; 
 yet, if he read what others have written, orthodox or 
 hereticks, he will find opinions proposed with too much 
 freedom upon the difficulties of the subject ; and among 
 different opinions, he cannot but form some judgment, 
 of the different degrees of probability with which they 
 are severally accompanied ; nor can he so far command 
 himself, as not in some measure to embrace the opinion 
 which seems the most probable. In this manner, every 
 one who meddles at all with the subject, will be apt to 
 form a solution for himself, of what seem to him the 
 
438 DISQUISITIONS. ns. w. 
 
 principal difficulties : but since it must be confessed, 
 that the human mind in these inquiries, is groping in the 
 dark every step that she ventures to advance, beyond 
 the point to which the clear light of revelation reaches ; 
 the probability is, that all these private solutions are in 
 different ways and in different degrees, but all in some 
 way and in some degree erroneous ; and it will rarely 
 happen, that the solution invented by one man, will 
 suit the conceptions of another. It were therefore to be 
 wished, that in treating this mysterious subject, men 
 would not in their zeal to illustrate what, after their 
 utmost efforts, must remain in some parts incomprehen- 
 sible, be too forward to mix their private opinions with 
 the publick doctrine. Many curious questions were 
 moved, by the hereticks of antiquity, and are now re- 
 vived by Dr Priestley, about the nature and the limit of 
 the Divine generation : why the Father generates but 
 one Son? Why that Son generates not another? Why 
 the generation is not infinite ? Instead of answering 
 such questions, it seems to me that, except when the ne- 
 cessity may arise, as indeed it too often will, of " an- 
 swering a fool according to his folly," it should be a 
 point of conscience with every writer to keep any parti- 
 cular opinions he may have formed, as much as possi- 
 ble out of sight, that divine truth may not be debased 
 with a mixture of the alloy of human error, and that 
 controversies may not be raised upon points, in which 
 no man or set of men can be authorized or qualified, to 
 prescribe to the belief of others. Upon these principles, 
 I should wish to decline all dispute upon the metaphy- 
 sical difficulties of the subject, even with an adversary 
 better qualified than 1 take Dr Priestley to be for such 
 discussions : I should think indeed, that I had already 
 
DIS. IT. DISQUISITIONS. 439 
 
 been guilty of an indiscretion, in the avowal that I have 
 made in my Charge,* of my own opinion about the 
 manner in which the Son's eternal existence, without 
 any diminution of its own necessity, may be connected 
 with the Father's, were it not, that what 1 am there at- 
 tempting to illustrate, is not so much the Scripture doc- 
 trine itself, as the manner in which that doctrine was 
 understood by the Platonizing fathers. 
 
 I said, and I still say, that it was their common pria- 
 ciple, " that the existence of the Son flows necessarily 
 from the Divine Intellect exerted on itself :f I showed 
 how the Son's eternity will follow from this principle ; 
 and I discovered, what indeed I might have concealed, 
 that I myself concur in this principle with the Plato- 
 nists ; for I said, that " it seems to me to be founded in 
 Scripture'':): by which I meant not to assert, that it is 
 go expressly declared in Scripture, that I would under- 
 take to prove it by the Scriptures to others, in the same 
 manner that I would undertake to prove that the world 
 was created by Jesus Christ ; or that the one, like the 
 other, ought to be made a branch of the publick confes- 
 sion of the church ; or that the belief or disbelief of this 
 particular principle, is a circumstance that may in the 
 least affect the integrity of any Christian's faith ; it was 
 not alleged as a principle, on which I meant at all to 
 rest the credit of the Scripture doctrine ; it was mention- 
 ed only as a principle which, true or false, was embra- 
 ced by a certain set of writers, and serves to explain 
 certain things said by them, which without it are unin- 
 telligible, or at least liable to misinterpretation. At the 
 same time, I discovered my own opinion about this prin- 
 
 * Charge IV. sect 5. f Ibid. $ Ibid. 
 
DISQUISITIONS. DIS. IT 
 
 ciple, that I think it true, or likely to be true ; for it 
 seems (that is the word I used) to be founded in Scrip- 
 ture : many phrases of holy writ seem to me to allude 
 to it ; and to those who first thought of it, I doubt not, 
 but that the same allusions seemed couched in the same 
 phrases : yet I will not undertake to teach every one, to 
 read the same sense in the same expressions. When I 
 showed, that from this principle once admitted, a strict 
 demonstration might be drawn of the eternity of tha 
 second person, it was not that I set any value upon that 
 demonstration, as adding in the least degree to the cer- 
 tainty of the Scripture doctrine upon such points, the 
 evidence of Holy Scripture is, indeed, the only thing 
 that amounts to proof : the utmost that reasoning can 
 do, is to lead to the discovery, and, by God's grace, to 
 the humble acknowledgment of the weakness and insuf- 
 ficiency of reason ; to resist her encroachments upon tha 
 province of faith; to silence her objections and cast 
 down imaginations, and prevent the innovations and re- 
 finements of philosophy and vain deceit. Had philoso- 
 phical reasoning, upon points of express revelation, 
 been held as cheap by Dr Priestley as it is by me, the 
 present controversy never had arisen : but this demon- 
 stration of the Son's eternity was produced, for no other 
 purpose, but to show the disagreement beetween the im- 
 mediate consequences of the principle, from which it 
 was deduced, and certain notions which Dr Priestley 
 would ascribe to those who held that principle : but Dr 
 Priestley, mistaking for an illustration of Scripture, 
 what is only an illustration of writers whose meaning 
 had been perverted by him, conceiving that the whole 
 Catholick doctrine of the Trinity would be confuted, 
 if a certain principle, which, being admitted, might 
 
. IV. DISQUISITIONS, 
 
 441 
 
 furnish a demonstrative proof of a particular part of it, 
 might be shown to be without foundation, calls upon me 
 in the seventh of his First Letters,* to " show what it 
 is in the Scriptures, or indeed in the fathers, that gives 
 any countenance to that curious piece of reasoning." 
 In another part of the same letter he tells me, that " in 
 reading my attempt to explain the doctrine of the Trin- 
 ity [so he calls it], he fancies himself got back to the 
 darkest of the dark ages, or at least, that he is reading 
 Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, or Duns Scotus."t 
 In his Second Letters, waxing confident by my neglect, 
 which he interpreted as a cowardly desertion of my ar- 
 gument, he is louder in his challenge, and more stout 
 in his defiance : upon every occasion of these challenges 
 and calls, of which sometimes the Dean of Canterbury, 
 sometimes I)r White, sometimes Bishop Prettyman, 
 sometimes I myself have the honour to be the object, 
 upon every such occasion, but particularly on this, his 
 tone reminds me of the strutting actor on the stage : 
 
 Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls, 
 And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear, 
 Now, when the angry trumpet sounds alarum ; 
 Clifford, I say, come forth and fight \vith rue* 
 Proud Northern Loixl 
 
 Warwick is hoarse with calling thee to arms. 
 
 " I challenge him," he says, " to produce any au- 
 thority whatever, ancient or modern, for that opinion of 
 the origin of the Son from the Father's contemplation of 
 his own perfections."! In another place, he speaks of 
 it as " my own peculiar notion." He expresses "great 
 mortification/' that in my Letters in Reply to his First 
 
 First Letters, p. 78. : >>J. p. 99. . s, p. 31, 
 
'. /Jr. 
 
 Letters, " lie found not one gleam more of light on this 
 curious subject."* He reminds me of his most mag- 
 nanimous " CHALLENGE to produce any authority for it, 
 except what may exist in my own imagination."! He 
 makes no doubt but that, had it been possible for me to 
 give an answer, I should have answered.J 
 
 As for the question about the opinion itself, how far 
 it may be reasonable or unreasonable, how far the al- 
 lusion to it may be real or imaginary, which I think I 
 perceive in some scriptural phrases, no challenge of Dr 
 Priestley's, no call, taunt, defiance, insult, will move 
 me from my vow of silence. But upon the question of 
 fact, concerning my own exclusive property in whatever 
 there may be of truth or falsehood in the notion, I think 
 myself more at liberty, and feel more stomach for the 
 contest : I cannot indeed resist the temptation which Dr 
 Priestley's challenge " to produce any authority what- 
 ever, ancient or modern," presents, to seize the occasion 
 of strengthening the proof of my main point, by ex- 
 hibiting in its true light an instance, which, more per- 
 haps than any other singly taken, evinces Dr Priest- 
 ley's ignorance of the religious opinions of every age, 
 and shows how much the oldest things, to him, are 
 novelties. 
 
 The fathers, it must be confessed, were in general 
 very properly reserved and shy, when they were di- 
 rectly pressed with questions, about the manner in 
 which the existence of the three Divine Persons is con- 
 nected : at the same time, the analogy, which the Pla- 
 tonizing fathers in particular, suppose between the rela- 
 tion of the Father to his Word, and the relation of every 
 
 * Second Letters, p. 135. f lbid - t lbid - P- 13 * : 
 
JT- DISQUISITION. 
 
 man's mind to its own thoughts, so necessarily implies 
 this principle concerning the Son's origination, that with 
 this principle, as a key, what they say upon the subject 
 is very intelligible ; and without this key, impenetrably 
 obscure : insomuch, that to me it is matter of astonish- 
 ment, that any one can read some of the passages, which 
 Dr Priestley himself hath produced from Athenagoras, 
 Tatian, Tertullian, and others, and not perceive that 
 this notion was common to all those writers, and is 
 the principle upon which, all they have said upon the 
 subject rests. But if the sentiments of the fathers upou 
 this abstruse point, were not to be collected with certain- 
 ty from the tenor of their reasoning, and from their lan- 
 guage, St Basil and St Cyril are sufficiently explicit : 
 St Basil, when he says that the Son of God is called 
 the Aoyf, " to show that he came forth from intellects :"* 
 which he endeavours to illustrate by the example, so 
 generally in use among the writers of antiquity, of the 
 human mind producing an image of itself in its own 
 thoughts. St Cyril, when he says, that " if any one 
 would investigate the manner of that generation, he 
 ought to consider the fructifications of intellect, and to 
 endeavour rather to compare with them [than with 
 physical propagations] the generation of the Word ; 
 and not to say, that God is less capable of generating 
 ihan body, because he generates not in a corporeal 
 way : that the human intellect generates good thoughts, 
 must necessarily be confessed : if it be impious to sup- 
 pose that the human intellect is unfruitful, how much 
 more absurd to think, that the Supreme Intellect should 
 
 ts* f&jfitt c?<s fit N# 7r3/tf.v---. Ho mi I. in verba ilia w In Prm- 
 era*: mbum." T<?m. i. p. '<">$, 
 
DISQUISITIONS. j)lft. W. 
 
 be unproductive, and to deprive it of its proper fructifi- 
 cation/ 7 * In these words, St Cyril evidently places 
 the generative faculty (if the expression may be allow- 
 ed) of the Divine nature, in the necessary fecundity of 
 intelligence. In another part of the same discourse he 
 says, that it is to be conceived, that " the Son is in 
 such sort begotten of the Father, as wisdom of intel- 
 lect."! And again, in another place, he illustrates the 
 intimate union of the Father and the Son, by its analogy 
 to the union between the human intellect, and its internal 
 
 operations.^ 
 
 From the fathers, if we pass to the schoolmen, we 
 shall find among them in this, as in most subjects, more 
 philosophical subtlety, and much less of a laudable re- 
 serve. With them, the question was expressly agita- 
 ted, whether the Divine generation was affected by in- 
 tellect or by will : if by intellect, there arose a second 
 question, from which they had not the modesty to ab- 
 stain ; what the object of the intellect might be ; wheth- 
 er the Divine essence simply, as Scotus maintained, or 
 the totality of the Divine nature, in the essence, the per- 
 sons, and the works of creation which was the notion 
 of Thomas and his followers : and for this unbounded 
 curiosity of speculation, they are justly censured by Si- 
 mon Episcopius ;|| whose censure is a testimony, which 
 
 Sttv TVS 
 
 a>f jra/xat ytvvet. rvvv ^ujy yctp )utt 
 TV; AvS^ceTrivw vxv HW?C tv o^ucXo^yjUjusy <ftaiMyi7(*w? a.yci&ix.~ti TOIVUV ttff&e TK> 
 TC/V etv&o&xivcv vav x.Zf>irGV ax. t%w- Tag ZK eOsTTov TGV V7rt Trufix, vav AHA^' 
 ;.j>{A-, Km rnt vrgmms auflco nai^refo^kt? ean&gty. Cyril in Thesauro. torn. v. p. 45. 
 edit. Auberti. 
 
 t -- Ntt?SSV J/7 7^VVT-8-A/ T6J> vliV IX. TV TTtt]^, 9S ffOtyAV Hi VW. 
 
 ^ E* o rd > ^wnyec vf &cc. p. 31. 
 
 || Episcop. lust. lib. ir. sec. 11. c. 3S. 
 
&1S. IF. DISQUISITIONS, 
 
 Dr Priestley perhaps will regard, that such opinions 
 were maintained, and such questions agitated. 
 
 After the council of Trent, this peculiar notion of 
 mine, this singular conceit, for which no authority what- 
 ever can be produced, ancient or modern, became the 
 publick doctrine of the church of Rome, being expressly 
 asserted in the rule of publick teaching, set forth by the 
 authority of that council, for the assistance and direction 
 of the parochial clergy, under the title of Chatechismus 
 ad Parochos. The first part of that work, is an expo- 
 sition of the apostles' creed : in the explanation of the 
 first article, the comment upon the word "patern," is 
 closed with an exhortation to the true believer, to pray 
 without intermission, " that being at some time or other 
 admitted into the eternal tabernacles, lie may be thought 
 worthy to be allowed to see what that wonderful fecun- 
 dity of God the Father is, that contemplating and ex- 
 erting his intelligence upon himself, he should beget a 
 Son the exact counterpart and equal of himself.*'* In 
 the exposition of the second article, upon the words 
 " Filium ejus wilcum," it is said, " That of all simili- 
 tudes that are usually brought, to explain the manner 
 and way of the eternal generation, that seems to come 
 the nearest to the thing, which is taken from the reflec- 
 tion of our own mind ; upon which account St John 
 calls the Son the Word : for, as our mind, exercising 
 its intelligence upon itself, forms as it were an image of 
 itself, which divines have called its word ; so God, so 
 far as human things may be put in comparison with cli- 
 
 , Orct sine intermissione ut aliquando in seterna tabernacula recepliis dignnr, 
 sit qui videat, quse tantn sit Dei Patris fcecunditas, ut seipsum tntitens atque inte!li* 
 gen* parcm et tequaletn sibi Filium gignat. Artie. Prim, sec, xiv. 
 
DISQUISITION^ ])1S. IV. 
 
 vine, exercising intelligence upon himself, generates the 
 eternal Word."* 
 
 This however, was not so peculiarly the doctrine of 
 the Roman church, but that it had its advocates among 
 the most eminent of the Protestant divines. Philip Me- 
 lancthon, that great luminary of the reformation, was 
 its constant and strenuous assertor ; and he repeatedly 
 resorts to it as a principle, for the explanation of the 
 phraseology of Scripture. Philip Melancthon, a man 
 with whom it were more honourable to err, than to be 
 in the right with Socinus or Dr Priestley, thought as I 
 think, that the notion was founded in holy writ : he 
 thought it indeed so clearly implied in the Scripture 
 phrases, that he was less scrupulous than I would be, in 
 asserting it as a part of the Scripture doctrine. 
 
 In his Loci Theologici, he says, <* the Son therefore 
 
 is an image generated by the Father's Thought 
 
 The eternal Father, contemplating himself, begets a 
 thought of himself [or a conception of himself in his 
 own thoughts] which is an image of himself never van- 
 ishing away, but subsisting, the essence being commu- 
 nicated to the image. He is called the Word, 
 
 because he is generated by thought. He is called the 
 Image, because thought is an image of the thing thought 
 iipon."f 
 
 * Ex omnibus autem, quce ad indicandum modum rationcmque seternse gene- 
 rationis similitudines afteruntur, ilia propius ad rem ridetur accedere, qux b animi 
 nostri cogitatione sumitur; quamobrem sanctus Joannes Filium ejus verbum ap- 
 pellat. Ut enim mens nostra, ae ipsum quodam modo inteliigens sui cffingit ima- 
 ginem, quam verbum Theologi dixerunt ; ita Deus, quantum tamen divinis hu- 
 mana conferri possunt, seipsum intelligens, verbum selenium geuerat Artie. 
 Secund. sec. xv. 
 
 | Est igitur imago cogitatione Patris genita. Pater seternus sese iiitueiis 
 giguit cogitatioaem sui, qu est imago ipsius non evauescens, sed subsisted, Cdii- 
 
. tV. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 Let me by the way entreat the learned reader, to 
 compare these sentences of Melaucthon with Tertul- 
 lian's fifth chapter against Praxeag, and judge for him- 
 self, whether Tertullian and Melancthon had not the 
 same view of the subject. 
 
 Again, in the form of examination of candidates for 
 holy orders, Melancthon says, " The eternal Son is the 
 second person of the Divinity, which person is the sub- 
 stantial and entire image of the eternal Father, which 
 the Father, contemplating and considering himself, ge- 
 nerates from eternity."* The same thing is repeated 
 nearly in the game words, in his definitions of appella- 
 tions,f and again, in his second exposition of the ISiccnc 
 creed. J 
 
 In his first exposition of the Nicene creed, he says, 
 " The eternal Father is a divine person, eternal, not 
 sprung of any other, but by thought upon himself gene- 
 rating from eternity the coeternal Son, his own image. 
 
 The Son is a divine person, begotten by the Fa- 
 
 ther thinking upon and contemplating himself. "\\ 
 
 In the second exposition, he says, " To be born, 
 is of the intelligent power ; because the Son is born by 
 thought."^ 
 
 municata ipsi essentia. Dieitur As>cr, quia cogitatione generatnr. DicitQr 
 imago, quia cogitatio est imago rei cogitatse. Op. Melanct torn. i. p. 152. 
 
 * Filius aeternus est secunda persona divinitatis, quse est substantialis et Integra 
 imago caterni Patris, quam Pater sese intuens et conriderans ab aetcrno gignit. 
 Opera Melanct torn. i. p. 307. 
 
 t Tom. i. p. 350. 4= Tom. ii. p. 213, and p. 315. 
 
 |j Pater setermis est persona divina, seterna, non nata aliunde, sed cogitatione 
 sui gignens ab jeterno Filium coxternum, imaginem suara. Filius est per- 
 sona divina genita a Patre cogitante ac iutueute seipsum. Symp. Nicen. De Tri- 
 bus pcrsonis. 
 
 Nasci est a potentia jntelligente ; quia Filius cogitatione nascitur. Tom. ii. 
 p. KS. 
 
DISQUISITIONS. DIS. iv. 
 
 Ill his annotations upon the gospel for the feast of 
 the nativity he says, " Basil and others say, that the 
 Son is called the Word, because he is the image of the 
 Father, generated by the Father thinking upon him- 
 self. For the Father contemplating himself, generates 
 a thought, which is called the Word ; which thought is 
 the image of the Father ; into which image the Father, 
 if we may so speak, transfuses his own essence."* 
 
 So possessed was Melancthon with this notion, which 
 Dr Priestley, learned only in his own imaginations, 
 conceives to have been first hatched in my brain, ages 
 since the good Melancthon fell asleep, that upon every 
 occasion, when he mentions the generation of the Son, 
 lie introduces this notion of the manner of it : and Me- 
 lancthon, the learned reader will observe, never dream- 
 ed that in this he was setting up a notion of his own : 
 he thought, as I do, that the fathers entertained the 
 same view of the subject ; and that this view of the 
 subject, was countenanced by the phraseology of holy 
 writ. 
 
 Zanchius, indeed, an orthodox writer of great piety 
 and learning, speaks of this same notion in terms, as 
 it may seem, of strong disapprobation : " What some, 
 he says, as the schoolmen write, that God the Father, 
 by seeing and considering himself, begot the Word, 
 and that the emanation of the Son from the Father, 
 is after the manner of an emanation of intellect, and 
 other things of that kind, which have no proof from 
 the word of God, we must reject them as rash and 
 
 * Basilius et alii dicunt, Filium dici Aoyov quia sit imago Patris, genita a Patre 
 sese cogitante. Pater enim intuens $e, gignit cogitationem, quse vocatur verbum } 
 qu;e cogitatio est imago Patris, in quaiu imaginem Pater, ut ita dicamus, transfun- 
 dit auara essentiam. Tom. iii. p. 12. 
 
J)IS. IV. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 vain ; that is to say, if the thing be positively asserted 
 to be."* Zanchius therefore, were he now living to be 
 a witness of this controversy between Dr Priestley 
 and ine, would have taxed me, it seems, with rashness 
 and presumption, had he found me propounding this 
 notion of the Divine generation, as the way in which the 
 thing must certainly be ; but he would have little ad- 
 mired my adversary's learning, or commended his mo- 
 desty, when he upbraids me as a setter forth of new 
 doctrines of my own coinage, and challenges me to pro- 
 duce any authority ancient or modern, in support of this 
 opinion : Zanchius well knew, though the thing is un- 
 known to Dr Priestley, that the authority of the school- 
 men, and of others, is on the side of the opinion : and 
 in the very censure which he passes upon the doc- 
 trine, he acquits all of his own, or later times, of the 
 invention. 
 
 But in truth, this learned Calvinist seems to have 
 thought no worse of this opinion, than I myself think 
 of it, that it is not a thing to be too positively asserted 
 so to be. In itself, he seems to have thought it not 
 improbable : for, in another part of his w r orks, lie men- 
 tions it as a notion, furnishing the best answer to 
 those who would deny the Son's eternity, upon the 
 principles so frequently alleged by the Ariaus and 
 other Antitrinitarians, that that which is begotten, must 
 always have a later beginning of its existence than 
 that which begets ; and that all generation is effected 
 
 * Cseterum quod quidam, ut scholastic), scribunt, Deum patrem se videndo et 
 considerando genuisse Aoyzv t et quod cinauauo Filii a Patre est secundum etnana- 
 tionem intellectus, et alia id genus, qu nullura habent ex verbo Dei testimonium. 
 rejicienda uobis sunt tanquam temeraria et vana ; nempe si res ita se$e ! 
 asseveretur. Zanchius De Tabus Elohim. Lib. v. c. 8. 
 
 57 
 
DISQUISITIONS. DJS. if. 
 
 by motioQ arid change. Such objections he says, may 
 be answered by analogies taken from the material 
 world : the sun at all times generates rays from his 
 own body : these rays are emitted without any change 
 in the sun himself " But a clearer refutation/' he 
 says, " may be drawn from the example of our own 
 
 incorporeal intellect. Intellect, in the energy of 
 
 intelligence generates another quasi-intellect, as tlw 
 philosophers call it, like unto itself; which for this 
 reason is called by us, a conception of the mind ; by 
 the Platonists, mind generated of mind ; and by the 
 fathers, the word and Aoy#c of the mind. And this 
 it begetteth within itself. And there is no such thing 
 as intellect actually intelligent, that is, which is truly 
 intellect, without this other generated intellect; and 
 the parent intellect generates, without suffering in it- 
 self any change."* Zanchius suggests these philoso- 
 phical topicks of reply, to philosophical arguments 
 against the eternity of God the Son. This analogy 
 therefore, between the Father's generation of the Son, 
 and the mind's generation of a conception of itself in 
 thought, he esteemed an hypothesis philosophically pro- 
 bable ; which might be very properly employed to con- 
 vince those who, upon philosophical grounds, made a 
 difficulty of the only begotten Son's eternity, that what 
 they called in question might easily be, though he 
 
 * Clarius etiam hsec refutari possunt exemplo intellectus nostri incorperei. 
 Intellectus, dum intelligit, gignit (ut philosophi vocant) aliura quasi intellectum, 
 sibi similem, quern hanc ob causam nos conceptum mentis, Platonic! mentem 
 genitam a mente, Patres verbum et A.oyov mentis appellarunt. Et ilium gignit 
 intra se ; et nunquam iutellectus est actu intelligens, et ideo vere intellectus, sine 
 hoc genito altero intellectu : et quidem erne ulla sui mutatione gignit. Zanchh'-s 
 DC Natura D^i. Lib. ii. c, T. 
 
D1S. I?. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 thought it presumptuous in any one to assert too pos- 
 itively, that this analogy represents the way in which 
 the thing actually is. 
 
 If the Calvinists have been shy of resorting, in their 
 disputes with Antitrinitarians, to the arguments which 
 Zanchius suggests and recommends, 1 take the reason, 
 of this to be, that the analogy on which those arguments 
 were founded, seemed repugnant to an opinion which 
 Calvin himself was thought to hold : Calvin, in the 
 heat of his disputes with Valentinus Gentilis and Blan- 
 dratta, was carried to the use of some unguarded ex- 
 pressions which seemed to imply, that the existence of 
 the Son was entirely independent of the Father's : he 
 went indeed, so far, as to question the propriety of the 
 expression in the Niccne creed, " God of God." This 
 notion was considered as a dangerous novelty, and gave 
 much alarm to some of the most eminent divines of those 
 times, as necessarily terminating in one or the other of 
 two horrible extremes : Sabellianisra on the one hand, 
 or Tritheism on the other : it was treated with great 
 severity by writers of the Roman church, and was 
 strenuously opposed, though with much moderation and 
 candour, by my illustrious predecessor Bishop Bull, 
 among ourselves, and in Holland, by Arminius. Beza, 
 in his preface to Athanasius's dialogues, makes the 
 apology of Calvin ; confessing that he had not been 
 sufficiently circumspect in the choice of expressions, and 
 alleging, that his expressions had been misunderstood ; 
 which I take indeed to be the truth. It seems to me, 
 that Calvin meant only to deny that the Son was a 
 contingent being, the creature of the Father s will ; to 
 assert that he is, strictly speaking, God ; and that the 
 existence of the three persons, of the second and third 
 
DISQUISITIONS. &1S. IV- 
 
 no less than of the first, is contained in the very no- 
 tion of a God, when that notion is accurately devel- 
 oped. However, his words were otherwise understood 
 by many of his followers; his authority gave credit 
 and currency to an error, which was supposed to be 
 his doctrine, and the notion of the Son's origination 
 in the necessary energies of the paternal intellect, is 
 rejected by many of the Calviuists, more peremptorily 
 than by Zanchius. 
 
 The church of England, with her usual caution, hath 
 abstained from giving her sanction to any particular 
 opinion, concerning the manner of the Divine genera- 
 tion. Of her divines, some have embraced the opinion 
 which I have acknowledged for my own, (particularly 
 Dr Leslie, in his Socinian Controversy Discussed,) 
 and a great majority acknowledge a dependence of the 
 Son's existence on the Father, strenuously asserting 
 in the language of the Nicene creed, that the Son is 
 " God of God," But some of no inconsiderable name, 
 have adopted what was thought to be Calvin's doctrine, 
 in an extent to which I think with Beza, Calvin himself 
 never meant it should be carried. 
 
 Upon the whole, I trust it appears that this singu- 
 lar conceit of mine, this invention for which I am chal- 
 lenged to produce any authority ancient or modern, is 
 a principle that was tacitly assumed by many of the 
 fathers ; openly maintained by some ; disputed about 
 by the schoolmen ; approved by the church of Rome ; 
 maintained by the greatest of the Lutheran divines ; 
 objected to by the Calvinists as a point of doctrine, 
 but received by some of the most learned of that per- 
 suasion, as at least a probable surmise. About the 
 truth of the opinion, I have declared that I will not 
 
DIS. IV. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 dispute ; and I shall keep my word : but Dr Priestley's 
 rash defiance, I may place among the specimens with 
 which his history and his letters to me abound, of his 
 incompetency in this subject, and of the effrontery of 
 that incurable ignorance, which is ignorant even of its 
 own want of knowledge. 
 
DISQUISITION*. BIS. y. 
 
 N FIFTH, 
 
 Of Origen's want of veracity. 
 
 THE defence of Origen's veracity, which Dr Priest- 
 ley hath attempted to set up in the second of his Third 
 Letters, is in some parts so weak, and in others so dis- 
 ingenuous, that it would deserve no serious reply, if 
 the reader might be considered as a judge before whom 
 Origen was arraigned, who would be obliged by his 
 office to canvass the arguments, and weigh the evidence 
 on both sides with a scrupulous attention, in order to a 
 solemn condemnation or acquittal of the accused party : 
 but it may be expected of a controversial writer, to save 
 trouble to the reader, who is bound to no such official 
 duty, to assist him in forming a final judgment upon 
 the evidence produced on either side, and to expose 
 the futility of argaments, and the fallacy of assertions, 
 which, in a criminal process before any of his Ma- 
 jesty's judges of assize, might safely be trusted to ex- 
 pose themselves. 
 
 The work of Celsus against Christianity being lost, 
 neither the plan nor the matter of it is otherwise to be 
 known, than by what may be gathered from Origen's 
 answer. It appears from Origen, that it was a com- 
 position of much art, and highly laboured : many of 
 Celsus's objections were delivered in the person of a 
 Jew, who is supposed to address his discourse, first to 
 Jesus, and afterwards to the Hebrew Christians : in the 
 
VIS. V. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 discourse addressed to the Hebrew Christians, Celsus 
 makes his Jew upbraid them with a desertion of the 
 Mosaick law : to this reproach, Origen, in vindication 
 of the Hebrew brethren, gives a double answer, which 
 1 have shown to be inconsistent with itself in the two 
 different branches :* first he asserts, that the Jews be- 
 lieving in Christ had not renounced their Judaism : upon 
 occasion of this assertion, he goes into a discourse of 
 some length, about St Peter's adherence to the Mosaick 
 law, and the information which was conveyed to that 
 apostle, in a vision concerning the extinction of its au- 
 thority : from this discourse, he runs into a second upon 
 a saying of our Lord's, which he expounds as an nig- 
 matical allusion to the intended abrogation of the law : 
 and when, in this digressive way, he hath written "about 
 it and about it," till he had himself forgotten, or might 
 reasonably trust that his reader would have forgotten, 
 the position with which this prolix discourse began, he 
 enters upon the second branch of his defence of the He- 
 brew brethren, in which he flatly contradicts his first 
 assertion, insulting over Celsus's ignorance, who had 
 not made his Jew distinguish the different sects of the 
 converted Hebrews, two of which observed the law, 
 and one of which had to all intents and purposes 
 abandoned it. I have given this passage at length in 
 my Remarks on Dr Priestley's Second Letters'! and 
 shall not tire my reader's patience with a needless re- 
 petition of it. 
 
 Dr Priestley, to vindicate Origen.from the charge of 
 Self-contradiction in this instance, hath recourse to a 
 
 * Remarks on Dr Priestley'f Second Letter*, P. II. chap. i. sec. 6. 
 t Ibid. 
 
DISQUISITIONS. D1S. V. 
 
 very curious piece of criticism. He bids me observe, 
 that Origen contends not that Celsus's Jew, had he 
 said what Origen says he should have said, would 
 have said what was true, but what was plausible :* the 
 same critical sagacity that struck out this distinction, 
 might have perceived, that the want of plausibility with 
 which Celsus's Jew is taxed, consisted in the confound- 
 ing of distinctions which actually existed ; and that the ex- 
 isting distinctions which Celsus's Jew confounded, were 
 the distinctions between the Hebrew sects, two observ- 
 ing the law, and one disusing it : for this is the lan- 
 guage of Origen's reproach c How confusedly does 
 Celsus's Jew speak, when he might have said, fc." 
 and by saying so have avoided the imputation of con- 
 fusion. 
 
 The plausibility, of the want of which Origec com- 
 plains in the discourse of Celsus's Jew, is what may be 
 called poetical plausibility : It is that general air of 
 truth, which a writer of judgment and good taste, con- 
 trives to give to the fable of a drama, by an attention to 
 the peculiarities of times, places, manners, and charac- 
 ters ; a neglect of which, stamps a manifest character of 
 clumsy fiction on what ought to seem reality ; as would 
 be the case in any serious play, in which the Maid of 
 Orleans should be seated on the Delphick tripod, or 
 Hugh Peters introduced, maintaining the divine rights 
 of kings and bishops : this is the want of plausibility, 
 with which Origen taxes Celsus ; he says, that Celsus, 
 with all his great pretensions to learning and taste, 
 knew not the common rules of art about maintaining 
 character in the fiction of persons : T* 
 
 * Third Letters p. 10. 
 
DIS. r. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 xa/aror TOTTM TYIC sr/waTOTo/ac. He made Ills Jew say 
 
 what no real Jew would have said, that the Hebrew 
 Christians in general had deserted the law of their an- 
 cestors : this no Jew would have said, because it was a 
 downright falsehood, which every Jew must have known 
 to be such. Had Origen stopt short here, he would not 
 have himself betrayed the want of truth in his first as- 
 sertion, that the whole body of the Hebrew Christians 
 retained the observation of the law : for the two propo- 
 sitions concerning the Hebrew Christians, that they had 
 all forsaken their law, which was Celsus's Jew's asser- 
 tion ; and that none of them had forsaken it, which was 
 Origen's ; are so completely opposite, that the en'ire 
 falsehood of the one, \vere perfectly consistent with the 
 entire truth of the other : but Origen, unfortunately for 
 his own credit, goes on to tell his reader what Celsus's 
 Jew might have said with more plausibility, i. e. with 
 more propriety of character more consistently with a 
 Jew's knowledge of the truth that is, more truly : so 
 that plausibility and truth, in this use of the word plau- 
 sibility, are the very same thing. Had Celsus made his 
 Jew reproach the Hebrew converts, not as he did, with 
 a general desertion of their law, but with great disagree- 
 ments among themselves about the extent and duration 
 of its authority, and the respect due to it under the 
 Christian dispensation ; he would have made his Jew 
 speak more in character, because he would have spoken 
 more consistently, with what every Jew must have 
 known to be the real state of opinions, among the Chris- 
 tians of the circumcision. Had Celsus's Jew talked 
 like a Jew upon this subject, he would not have said, 
 that all the Hebrew brethren were deserters of their 
 law ; but he might, it seems, with great propriety have 
 
 58 
 
DISQUISITIONS. DIS. V. 
 
 said, that some of them had forsaken it. This had 
 been very consistent with that accurate information, 
 which a Jew might be expected to possess ; consequent- 
 ly, it appears that Origen should not have said that 
 they all adhered to it ; and his own representation of 
 the fact, when he comes to state it accurately, betrays 
 the falsehood of that first assertion. 
 
 That the distinctions which Origen says Celsus's 
 Jew might have put between the Hebrew Christians, 
 were differences really subsisting in that body at the 
 time, is strongly implied in the form of the expression, 
 Iwtptnt \i7Tnv ; the force of which is very imperfectly 
 rendered in my translation of the passage, by the words 
 " when he might have said" it had been better render- 
 ed, when he had it to say :" the Greek words IwHptnc 
 Im/x, like the English " he had it to say," are applicable 
 only to substantial facts, which might safely be averred 
 without danger of refutation. 
 
 Dr Priestley indeed seems willing to concede, that 
 Origen, in this second branch of his reply to Celsus's 
 Jew's reproach, " may allude to a few" of the Hebrew 
 Christians, " who had abandoned their ancient cus- 
 toms ;"* so that the question at last comes to this : how 
 many of the Hebrew Christians had abandoned those 
 customs ? for that some had abandoned them, is at last 
 confessed : These some were, by Origen's account, 
 enough to be reckoned a sect : but Dr Priestley hath 
 taken care, to settle the proportion to the advantage of 
 his own argument. "There might be," he says, "a 
 few Jewish Christians who had deserted their former 
 customs, which would have given Celsus a plausible 
 
 * Third Letters, p. 10. 
 
JJIS. V. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 pretence for making such a division of them, as to make 
 these one of the classes, yet the great body of them had 
 not."* But there is nothing in Origen's expressions 
 which should imply, that either of the two sects of the 
 Hebrew Christians which retained the law, was a great- 
 er body than the sect which had abandoned it : Some 
 and Some and Some, is the word by which the mention 
 of each class is introduced ; in what proportion the first 
 " Some" might fall short of, or exceed the second or the 
 third, it exceeds my skill in computation to investigate : 
 Dr Priestley perhaps solved the problem, in that early 
 period of his life, when he was addicted to mathema- 
 tical pursuits.f 
 
 But 1 have maintained, that Origen, in the sentence 
 which follows this division of the Hebrews professing 
 Christianity into three classes, gives us to understand, 
 that of these three sorts, they only who had laid aside 
 the observation of the Mosaick law, were in his time 
 considered as true Christians : for he mentions it, as a 
 further proof of Celsus's ignorance, that in his account 
 of the heresies of the Christian church, he had omitted 
 the Israelites believing in Jesus, and not laying aside the 
 law of their ancestors : I refer the reader to an exact 
 translation of Origen's words, in my Remarks upon Dr 
 Priestley's Second Letters. J 
 
 Upon this, Dr Priestley says to me in the first of his 
 third Letters, " From this construction of the passage, 
 a person might be led to think, that Origen represented 
 Celsus as having undertaken to give an account of the 
 heresies in the Christian church, and as having in that 
 account omitted the Israelites believing in Christ, and 
 
 Second Letters, p. 191. f Ibid. P. IT. chap. i. sect. 7. 
 
DISQUISITIONS. I) IS. V> 
 
 not laying aside the rites of their ancestors ; and upon 
 110 other ground can your insinuation stand."* On no 
 other ground I declare, does my insinuation stand : but 
 1 am confident, that with the exception of Dr Priestley 
 and his associates and admirers, ev r ery person who will 
 take the trouble to consider the passage as it stands in 
 Origen's discourse, will perceive that mine is the plain 
 and natural construction of it : every unprejudiced per- 
 son who can construct the passage for himself, will per- 
 ceive, that Origen hath indeed thus represented Celsus, 
 as pretending to give an account of the heresies among 
 Christians, and in that account, inserting some who had 
 not a right to be inserted, and omitting others who had : 
 of Celsus's work, as hath been before remarked, we 
 know not the contents, but so far as they may be gath- 
 ed from Origen's reply : it should seem from this pas- 
 sage in Origen, that Celsus, in some part of his work, 
 had found it to his purpose to enumerate the principal 
 sects, of which he would have it believed the general 
 body of the Christians was composed : it is not difficult 
 to conceive, how it might be to his purpose to enumerate 
 sects, and make as many of them as he could ; he might 
 intend by this, to throw discredit on Christians in ge- 
 neral, as disagreeing among themselves, and broken 
 into parties about the particulars of the revelations, 
 which they professed in common to believe. Origen 
 says, that in the execution of this design, he numbered 
 among the heresies of the church, impious sects, which 
 \vere not to be deemed in any degree Christian, and pas- 
 sed unnoticed, or knew not of the real heresy of the Ju- 
 daiziug Hebrews : this is, in itself, a very just and perti- 
 
 * Thii-d Letters p. 13. 
 
DIS. V. INQUISITIONS. 
 
 nent objection to Celsus's enumeration ; but then it is a 
 confession, that the Judaizing Hebrews were an hereti- 
 cal sect, and of consequence, that Origen asserted what 
 was false, when he said of the Hebrew Christians in 
 general, that they Judaized ; for that the great body of 
 the Hebrew Christians was deemed heretical, is what 
 I believe no adventurer in ecclesiastical history hath 
 ever yet affirmed. 
 
 Another instance which I produced * of Origen's dis- 
 position to prevaricate, is his answer to Celsus's Jew's 
 objection to the famous prophecy, of the miraculous 
 conception contained in Isaiah vii. 14. Celsus's Jew 
 maintains, that the Hebrew word in that text which the 
 Christians, with the old Greek translators, understand 
 to signify a virgin, properly renders, not the condition 
 of virginity, but the season of youth ; not a virgin, but a 
 young woman : Origen, to prove on the contrary that 
 this word properly renders a woman in the state of vir- 
 ginity, cites a text in Deuteronomy, where he would 
 have it believed, that the word in question is clearly 
 used in that sense : but, according to our modern copies 
 of the Hebrew text, the words which correspond to the 
 Greek Tra^tro? in the two passages in Isaiah and Deu- 
 teronomy, arc two different words ; and there is much 
 reason to believe, as 1 have shown in my Remarks on 
 Dr Priestley's Second Letters, f that the same two dif- 
 ferent words occurred in the two passages in the copies 
 of Origen's time, and that Origen himself was apprised 
 of the difference : the text in Deuteronomy therefore, as 
 it stands in the modern Hebrew text, and as it probably 
 stood in the more ancient copies, affords DO illustration 
 
 * Remarks on Dr Priestley's Second Letters, P. II. chap. i. sec, 8. 
 t Jbiil. 
 
DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 of Isaiah's words ; and Origen's expressions give the 
 greatest cause to suspect, that he well knew the in- 
 firmity of his own argument ; and by consequence, that 
 in the use of such an argument, he was guilty of pre- 
 varication. 
 
 Dr Priestley says to me, in the first of his Third 
 Letters, " The question hetween Origen and the Jews, 
 was not what was the word in the Hebrew, but what 
 was the meaning of it in a particular place."* It is 
 true : the main question between Origen and Celsus's 
 Jew, was about the meaning of a word in a text ; but 
 then, the question was not indefinite about one or anoth- 
 er of different words in different places : it was about a 
 particular word in a particular place about the mean- 
 ing of the word no^p in Isaiah vii. 1-4. This was indeed 
 the question between Origen and Celsus's Jew ; but 
 the question between Dr Priestley and me is, by what 
 sort of argument Origen attempted to sustain his own 
 opinion, upon the matter in debate between him and the 
 Jew ? Whether, by such an argument as might have 
 been employed by an honest disputant, who had pre- 
 ferred general truth to victory in a particular question. 
 Origen, to justify the sense in which he understood the 
 word, resorts to a critical argument : he appeals to a 
 passage in Deuteronomy, in which he would have it 
 believed, that the word was indisputably used, in the 
 same sense in which he understood it to be used, in the 
 text in question in Isaiah : now it is evident, that this 
 critical argument, rests entirely upon the identity of the 
 word in the two different texts ; and Origen's good faith 
 in the use of that argument, rests on his knowledge or 
 belief of the identity : 1 remark, that Origen takes not 
 
 Third Letter*, p. 14. 
 
J)1S. V. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 upon him to affirm positively this identity of the word, 
 upon which his whole argument depends, but speaks of 
 it as from hearsay only : I remark, that from the pre- 
 sent state of the Hebrew text, there is great reason to 
 think that this hearsay was a false report ; for, in the 
 text in Deuteronomy, we find not ncty but n^ns : nor did 
 Dr Kennicott find nnVy in the text cited by Origen from 
 Deuteronomy, in any one of the innumerable copies 
 which he collated. Now I say, that the confessed 
 sense of the word rtona in Deuteronomy, can never settle 
 the disputed sense of the word nc^y in Isaiah : and I 
 say, that the doubtful manner in which Origen speak* 
 of the identity of the two words in Isaiah and Deutero- 
 nomy, creates a vehement suspicion, that the words 
 were different in the copies of his time, as they are in 
 those of the present day ; and that Origen well knew, 
 that his argument w r as founded on a misrepresentation 
 of the text in Deuteronomy.* 
 
 Dr Priestley adds, " admitting that the dispute was 
 about the true reading in the original, what great mat- 
 ter was there in Origen's saying the Jews said so, when 
 he knew that what they said was true ?"f Here again, 
 we have a beautiful specimen, of our Greek professors 
 readiness in the Greek language: The Jews said so ! 
 Origen says nothing of what the Jews said : there is 
 no mention of Jews, more than of Cherokees, except 
 of Celsus's fictitious Jew, in this part of Origen's dis- 
 course. The nominative of the verb 9^1 is not the 
 Jews, but the indefinite plural understood ; which is 
 usually expressed in the English language by the pro- 
 
 * Remarks on Dr Priestley's Second Letters, P. n. chap. i. sec. . 
 | Third Letters, p. 14, 
 
DISQUISITIONS. VIS. V. 
 
 noun they used indefinitely, and in the French by on ; 
 but in the Greek and the Latin languages, is always 
 understood, never is expressed : wV <paor/, ut aiunt. " As 
 they say," i. e. " As is generally said." Origen af- 
 firms no, that what was generally said was true : that 
 he should shelter himself under the authority of a vague 
 report, in a point so essential to his argument, in which 
 he was so competent to judge how the case really 
 stood; is a strong presumption that he knew, not that 
 this report was true, but that it was the reverse of truth : 
 that it was the reverse of truth, is in the highest degree 
 probable, from the present state of the Hebrew text : that 
 Origen knew it to be the reverse is highly probable, from 
 the suspicious manner in which he appeals to it : and, 
 upon the ground of this strong presumptive evidence, my 
 impeachment of his veracity in this instance stands. 
 
 Dr Priestley, in relating my remark upon Origen's 
 critical argument, hath taken care to omit that very ma- 
 terial part of it, that in our modern copies of the Hebrew 
 Bible, the word which, by the consent of all interpre- 
 ters, denotes a virgin in the text cited from Deuteronomy, 
 is a different word from that which the LXX with great 
 propriety render a virgin in Isaiah : this art, which Dr 
 Priestley is so apt to employ, of reducing an argument 
 which he would refute, by well-managed abridgments, 
 to a form in which it may be capable of refutation, indi- 
 cates so near a resemblance between the characters of 
 Origen and his Hyperaspistes in the worst part of Ori- 
 gen's, that perhaps I might not be altogether unjusti- 
 fiable, were I to apply to the Squire the words which 
 Mosheim so freely uses of the Knight, EGO HUIC TESTI, 
 
 ETIAMSI JURATO, QUI TAM MANIFESTO FUMOS VENDIT, 
 ME NON CREDITURUM ESSE CONFIRMO. 
 
sis. n DisQuismoxs. 4,63 
 
 DISQUISITION SIXTH. 
 
 Of St Jerome' ft orthodox Hebrew Christians. 
 
 IN the fourth of his Third Letters, Dr Priestley 
 Jesses to consider the evidence from Jerome, in favour 
 of the existence of a church of orthodox Jewish Chris- 
 tians at Jerusalem, after the time of Adrian.* The 
 learned reader will be pleased to recollect, that my 
 proof of the existence of such a church rests in part 
 only, upon St Jerome's evidence : the entire proof rests 
 upon seven positions, laid down by me in my Remarks 
 upon Dr Priestley's Second Letters, P. II. chap, ii ; 
 and St Jerome's evidence goes barely to the proof of 
 the last of those positions, the seventh : namely, " that 
 a body of orthodox Christians of the Hebrews, was ac- 
 tually existing in the world much later than in the time 
 of Adrian :"f St Jerome's evidence is brought for the 
 proof of this position singly ; and this proved by St 
 Jerome's evidence, in conjunction with six other prin- 
 ciples previously laid down, in the proof of which St 
 Jerome is not at all concerned, makes the whole evi- 
 dence of the main fact which I affirm ; that a church of 
 orthodox Christians of the Hebrews existed at jElia, 
 from the final dispersion of the Jews by Adrian, to a 
 much later period.J 
 
 * See the title of the fourth Letter. Third Letters, p. 25. 
 
 f Remarks on Dr Priestley's Second Letters, P. II. c. ii. sec. 7. 
 
 * Ibid. c. ii. 
 
 59 
 
DISQUISITIONS. VIS. TL 
 
 Dr Priestley tells me, that " before I can show tbat 
 the passage in Jerome, on which I lay so great a stress, 
 is at all to my purpose, I must prove the three following 
 things : first, that the Hebrews believing in Christ were 
 different from the Nazarenes ; secondly, that the for- 
 mer were completely orthodox ; and thirdly, that those 
 orthodox Jewish Christians resided at Jerusalem."* 
 
 Certainly, it must be an argument of little significance, 
 that cannot be applied to the matter in question, till the 
 thing to be proved by it hath been previously proved 
 from other principles : Dr Priestley hath confessed, that 
 he sometimes condescends to amuse himself with the 
 fabrication of such arguments ;f but I would not wil- 
 lingly be detected in the use of them : I contend, that 
 the passage in St Jerome's commentary on Isaiah, to 
 which 1 refer in my Remarks on Dr Priestley's Second 
 Letters, (Part II. chap. ii. sec. 8.) which Dr Priestley 
 hath given at length, in the fourth of his Third Letters ; 
 I contend, that this passage itself contains a clear proof, 
 that the persons there mentioned under the description 
 of " Hebrews believing in Christ," and under the name 
 of " Nazarenes," were different persons : I contend, 
 that this same passage affords a strong presumptive ar- 
 gument, that the former were completely orthodox. The 
 existence of these Hebrew believers in the time of St 
 Jerome, being thus proved by St Jerome's evidence ; the 
 probability of the fact that they resided at ^llia, and that 
 such a body had been settled at jElia from the time of 
 Adrian downwards, rests upon my six former positions. 
 
 St Jerome relates, as I have observed, (Remarks^ 
 
 * Third Letter, p. 28. 
 
 f First Letters, p. 130 ; aud see my Letterg in Reply, Letter ninth. 
 
 4 Third Letters, p. 2$. 
 
DIS. VI. DISQUISITIONS, 
 
 Part II. chap. ii. sec. 8.) two different expositions of 
 the prophecy delivered by Isaiah in the beginning of 
 the ninth chapter, concerning Zabulun and Naphtali: 
 the first of these expositions he ascribes to " the He- 
 brews believing in Christ," the other to the Naza* 
 renes, whose opinion he had given above." Dr Priest- 
 ley thinks, that by these Nazarenes St Jerome " did 
 not intend any other, than the Hebrews believing in 
 Christ, but only meant to vary his mode of expres- 
 sion :"* This might seem probable, if the difference of 
 name were the only note of difference between the peo- 
 pie ; and if the Nazarenes had not been mentioned be- 
 fore by their proper name, and a particular opinion 
 mentioned, as peculiar to the person so named ; but to 
 suppose, that under all these circumstances, St Jerome 
 Lath described the same people under different names, 
 merely for the sake of varying his mode of expression, 
 is to suppose, that he hath varied his expression when 
 it ought least of all to have been varied, and when a 
 variation could serve no purpose but to create confusion : 
 an imputation to which St Jerome is too good a writer 
 to be liable. The Nazarenes are twice mentioned by 
 St Jerome under their proper name, in his commentary 
 on the next preceding chapter of Isaiah's prophecies : 
 the eighth. Upon the passage in lapidem autem of- 
 fensionis et petram scandali daubus domibus Israel. 
 St Jerome remarks, that the Nazarenes who so re- 
 ceive Christ, that they discard not the rites of the an- 
 cient law, interpret these two houses of the two schools 
 of Samraai and Hillel, from which sprang the Scribes 
 and Pharisees, and that these are the two houses that 
 
 * TMrd Letters, p. co. 
 
DISQUISITIONS. j)is. rf> 
 
 received not the Saviour," &c. Again, upon the pas- 
 sage at the conclusion of the same chapter, cum dixe- 
 Tint ad vos qucerite a Pythonibus, he remarks, that the 
 Nazarenes expound this passage also to the disadvan- 
 tage of the Scribes and Pharisees. The persons whom 
 he mentions under the same name in his commentary 
 upon the ninth chapter, put, as he affirms, a similar 
 sense upon the first verses of that : expounding the dark- 
 ness and shadow of death, which overspread the land of 
 Zabulon and Naphtali, of the load of Pharisaical cere- 
 monies, from which they were delivered by the gospel : 
 certainly, these persons mentioned by the same name, as 
 expounding passages so near to each other, in the 8tli 
 and 9th chapters of Isaiah, so much to the same purpose, 
 were the same persons ; and when St Jerome in his 
 commentary on the ninth rhapter mentions " the Naza- 
 renes, whose opinion he had given above" he refers to 
 that opinion of the Nazarenes, which he had actually 
 related just above in his commentary on the eighth chap- 
 ter. But " the Hebrews believing in Christ," gave, 
 according to St Jerome, an exposition of this prophecy 
 concerning the land of Zabulun and Naphtali, very dif- 
 ferent from that which is ascribed by him to the Naza- 
 renes : they imagined that the prophet, in the miseries 
 which he describes of those northern provinces, alluded 
 to the miseries of the captivity, which they were the first 
 to undergo ; as in compensation, they were the first who 
 enjoyed the light of our Lord's own preaching. What 
 similitude can Dr Priestley find between these two ex- 
 positions ? What connexion between the miseries of the 
 captivity, and the load of Pharisaical ceremonies ? To 
 say as Dr Priestley says, that the Nazarsean exposition, 
 
&1S. VL DISQUISITIONS. 400 
 
 was only a farther illustration"* of this of the Hebrew 
 Christians, is as if any one should say, that Dr Priest- 
 ley's exposition of the beginning of St John's gospel, is 
 only an illustration of mine. 
 
 Here then, two different expositions of one and the 
 same prophetick text, are ascribed to expositors descri- 
 bed under two different names : the necessary inference 
 is, that these expositors, differing in their names and in 
 their sentiments, were different persons ; or, to speak 
 more accurately, since they are names of bodies by 
 which they are severally described, two different sects : 
 This is St Jerome's evidence, that the Hebrews be- 
 lieving in Christ, were different people from the Na- 
 zarenes. 
 
 Dr Priestley thinks it a presumptive argument, that 
 these Hebrew Christians were the same with the Naza- 
 renes, and indeed with the Ebionites ; that St Jerome 
 introduces their interpretation of the prophecy, " after 
 giving a translation of the passage by Aquila and Sym- 
 machus, both Ebionites."f Due regard being paid to 
 this circumstance, Dr Priestley thinks this passage of 
 St Jerome, " furnishes an argument that, in the idea of 
 Jerome," these Hebrews " were the very same people" 
 with the Nazarenes ; " if it does not also prove, that 
 their opinions were the same with those of Aquila and 
 Symmachus, or of the Ebionites." J 
 
 The fact however is, that these Hebrew Christians, 
 as it should seem from their exposition of the prophecy, 
 in this passage at least, followed not the translation 
 cither of Aquila or Symmachus, so far as we know what 
 their translations of this passage were, from the in- 
 
 Third Letter*, p. gd. f Ibid/ * Ibid. 
 
BISQUISITIOXS. 
 
 formalion which St Jerome hath given : the Hebrew 
 Christians took the word w* to be the proper name of 
 the region of Galilee ; whereas both Aquila and Sym- 
 machus, as St Jerome tells us, took it for an appellative ; 
 and this circumstance, their different interpretations of 
 that single word, with Symmachus's interpretation of 
 another single word in the first verse, is all that 8t Je- 
 rome hath " given" us, of the translations of this passage 
 by Aquila and Symmachus ; though Dr Priestley hath 
 thought proper to speak as if St Jerome, in his commen- 
 tary, had given their entire translations of the prophecy, 
 and would lead his readers to believe, that the exposi- 
 tion of the Hebrew Christians, was founded on those 
 translations. 
 
 The probable argument, that the Hebrew Christians 
 were orthodox, is this : that the character given of them 
 by an orthodox writer is simply this, " that they believed 
 in Christ," without any tiling to distinguish their belief 
 from the common belief of the church, without any note 
 of its error or imperfection. This argument acquires 
 great weight from the well known temper of St Jerome 
 and his times.* 
 
 Dr Priestley thinks it remarkable, that having be- 
 fore maintained, that those whom Jerome called Chris- 
 tians in his epistle to Austin, were orthodox, I should 
 now allow, that by the same term he here means here- 
 ticks ; and that the phrase believing in Christ, should 
 now be a character of complete orthodoxy, when in that 
 epistle it is predicated of the heretical Ebionites :"f I 
 never maintained, that the Nazarencs mentioned by St 
 
 * Remarks on Dr Priestley's Second Letters, P. II. chap. ii. sec. 
 f Third Letters p. 26. 
 
vis. r/. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 Jerome ID his epistle to St Austin, were orthodox Chris, 
 tians I maintained the contrary :* I only maintain, 
 that, upon the particular article of our Lord's divinity, 
 they were certainly orthodox ; and so far as we know, 
 in most other articles of their creed : but, by their bigot- 
 ted attachment to the law, they were hereticks. 1 have 
 given my reasons f why I think the Nazarenes mention- 
 ed here, a different set of people from the Nazarenes 
 mentioned in the epistle to St Austin ; and still less, if 
 at all, heretical : of the Ebionites, the belief in Christ is 
 not predicated in that epistle simply, as here of the He- 
 brews, without any thing to distinguish their belief from 
 the common belief of the church without any note of 
 its error or imperfection : St Jerome, when he speaks 
 of the belief of the Ebionites, marks and reprobates 
 their misbelief in the distinctest and severest terms. At 
 this day, the word believer, in its common acceptation, 
 signifies a sound Christian : but, with certain additions 
 to qualify and restrain its meaning, I, uncharitable and 
 intolerant as I am, might apply it even to Dr Priestley : 
 but it would hardly be understood, that by such an appli- 
 cation of it, I could mean to allow that Dr Priestley is a 
 believer in the full sense of the word it would certainly 
 be in very different senses, that I should apply this same 
 word to Dr Priestley, and to the Dean of Canterbury, 
 Professor White, or Mr Parkhurst. 
 
 If there be any thing in Dr Priestley's Letters which 
 I receive with particular complacency, it is the kind con- 
 cern which he sometimes discovers, lest, in my heedless 
 aeal to oppose his opinions, I should suffer my own foot 
 
 Charge L sec. 12. 
 
 t Remarks OR 9r Priestley's Second Letters, P. II. chap. u. sec. 
 
DISQUISITIONS. DIS. Ti- 
 
 to slip from the straight line of orthodoxy : in reply to 
 my reasoning, for the orthodoxy of one branch at least 
 of the Nazarenes, from the exposition ascribed to them 
 by St Jerome of Isaiah viii. 13, 14*,* by which it clearly 
 appears, that they thought the Saviour of the world de- 
 signed in that passage by the title of nwa* nin>, he tells 
 me, that " he wonders that this mode of interpreting 
 Scripture, should not stagger even myself: He thought, 
 that the most orthodox of the present day had believed, 
 that the person characterized by the title of the Lord of 
 hosts, had been, not the Son but the Father."! So he 
 may have thought : that he hath so thought, only proves, 
 that he is as little acquainted with the orthodoxy of the 
 present, as of past days : the orthodox of the present 
 day well know, that the Son no less than the Father, is 
 often characterized in the Old Testament by the word 
 Jehovah, put absolutely : they hold it one irrefragable 
 argument of the Son's divinity, that the writers of the 
 New Testament usually mention Christ, by the title of 
 Kuf/of, " the Lord ;" which is the word that, throughout 
 the Old Testament, in the Greek version of the LXX, 
 is used as equivalent to the Hebrew Jehovah. Him 
 whom the apostles and evangelists called K^/o f , writing 
 in the Greek, they must have called nm> (Jehovah) had 
 they written in the Hebrew language the orthodox of 
 the present day believe, because they know St John be- 
 lieved it, that Christ Jesus is the JEHOVAH, whom the 
 prophet saw upon the throne the year that King Uzziah 
 died, whose praises were the theme of the Seraphick 
 Song, whose glory filled the temple. 
 
 * Remarks on Dr Priestley's Second Letters, P. H. chap. iii. sec. 
 f Tliird Letters, p. 34. 
 
VT. DISQUISITIONS. 
 
 The disturbed foundations of the church of JElia, are 
 again settled : I could wish to trust them to their own 
 solidity, to withstand any future attacks. I could wish 
 to take my final leave of this unpleasing task, of hunt- 
 ing an uninformed, uncaudid adversary, through the 
 mazes of his blunders and the subterfuges of his sophis- 
 try. But I have found, by the experience of this con- 
 flict, that a person once engaging in controversy, is not 
 entirely at liberty to choose for himself to what length 
 he will carry the dispute, and when he will desist : I 
 perceive that I was guilty of an indiscretion, in disco- 
 vering an early aversion to the continuance of the con- 
 test: my adversary perhaps, would have been less hardy 
 in assertion, and more circumspect in argument, had I 
 not given him reason to expect, that every assertion 
 would pass uncontradicted, and every argument uncan- 
 vassed : unambitious therefore as I still remain, of the 
 honour of the last word, be it however understood, that 
 if Dr Priestley should think proper to make any further 
 defence, or any new attack, I am not pledged either to 
 reply or to be silent. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 BISHOP HORSLEY has declared, that in pub- 
 lishing the preceding Tracts, his object was not to bring 
 forward any new argument in support of the divinity of 
 our Blessed Lord, or of the Catholick doctrine of the 
 Trinity; but to destroy the credit of an author by whom 
 these doctrines had been attacked, by showing, that as 
 an ecclesiastical historian and Greek scholar, he had no 
 claim to such deference as had been generally paid to 
 him, in the character of a chemical philosopher. That 
 the Bishop has incidentally added strength to the argu- 
 ments, by which others had defended the Catholick 
 doctrine, against the insults of infidelity and the sophis- 
 try of Unitarianism ; has been gratefully acknowledged 
 indeed, by every lover of the truth as it is in Jesus; but 
 his main object was to show, that a man may have made 
 valuable discoveries in physical science, without being 
 entitled to implicit belief, when professing to have made 
 discoveries likewise in Christian theology. 
 
 To a superficial thinker this may appear an object, 
 tinworthy of the talents and erudition which the Bishop is 
 universally allowed to have possessed ; but he who re- 
 flects, how large a proportion of mankind are implicit 
 believers, whether in the truth or in error, will view it 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 in a different light. We talk much of the right of pri- 
 vate judgment, and we talk well ; for every man has 
 an unquestionable right to judge for himself, of the truth 
 or falsehood of what is proposed to his helief : But with 
 respect to the questions discussed in this volume, the 
 only judgment which the illiterate multitude can form, 
 is, whose report is best entitled to be implicitly adopted 
 by them as the truth : their education does not enable 
 them, by consulting the records of Christian antiquity, 
 to discover for themselves what was the faith of the pri- 
 mitive church : they must rely therefore, with unbound- 
 ed confidence, on the testimony of such as, having con- 
 sulted those records, make their report of that faith ; and 
 they will always place, as they ought to place, the great- 
 est confidence in those who appear to them best entitled 
 to it, by their reputation for learning, integrity, and the 
 love of truth. 
 
 Dr Priestley's natural talents were unquestionable ; 
 his successful experiments had raised him high in the 
 republick of letters, or rather of philosophy ; by those 
 who were attached to him, he was extolled for his kind- 
 ness and benevolence ; and he took care on all occasions 
 to boast, that as his theological opinions led neither to 
 honour nor to emolument, he was induced to publish 
 them, solely by his love of truth. That the mere name 
 of such a man must have decided the faith of many, 
 cannot be doubted. The vulgar know not, that the love 
 of novelty, and the ambition of becoming the founder 
 of a sect, which sometimes steals insensibly even into 
 the most vigorous and upright minds, are as apt to per- 
 vert the judgment, as the love of money or the ambition 
 of rank : nor is it among the vulgar only, that the au- 
 thority of names supplies too often, the place of argu- 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 t : Philosophers themselves are all more or less, 
 partial to their own pursuits and their own theories ; and 
 the chemist who is desirous to know, what was the faith 
 of the earliest Christians, and who has not leisure to 
 read the voluminous writings of the fathers of the church, 
 Laving found that Dr Priestley's reports of his own ex- 
 periments on air are entitled to the fullest credit, even 
 when his inferences from those experiments have been 
 untenable and absurd, not unnaturally concludes, that 
 the same confidence may be placed in his reports of the 
 doctrine of the early church. 
 
 Such being the case, it is of the utmost importance to 
 the diffusion of truth, that the authority of celebrated 
 names be duly appreciated ; and Bishop Horsley could 
 not have employed his time or his talents to better pur- 
 pose, than in bringing down the name of Dr Priestley to 
 its proper level. Since the first publication of the Tracts, 
 which are now offered a third time to the church of Christ, 
 no man until very lately has presumed to boast, of the 
 weight of Dr Priestley's name in theological controver- 
 sy ; and thus has one bias been removed from the youth- 
 ful mind, when entering 011 the investigation of Catho- 
 lick truth. 
 
 Of all this, Mr Belsham appears to be fully aware ; 
 and therefore, in the appendix to the twelfth section of 
 his late work entiled, .2 Calm Inquiry into the Scrip- 
 ture Doctrine concerning the Person of Christ, he sets 
 himself in good earnest to destroy the authority of Bi- 
 shop Horsley's name, as his Lordship had destroyed 
 the authority of Dr Priestley's. He probably thinks, 
 that as one of those names sinks the other will rise, and 
 that, when the equipoise between the two shall be re- 
 stored, the weight of his own mime thrown into the scale 
 
478 APPENDIX. 
 
 of I)r Priestley's, will instantly make the Bishop's kick 
 the beam : with this view he lays hold of one or two 
 passages, certainly not of the greatest importance to the 
 question at issue, between the Catholicks and the Uni- 
 tarians, but where he may most easily employ all the 
 arts of modern controversy ; and when, by partial quo- 
 tations and contemptuous language, he imagines that he 
 has thrown a sufficient quantity of dust into the eyes of 
 his readers, he claims to himself, what he will not allow 
 to his "Redeemer, the divine attribute of searching the 
 heart, and declares, " that both the contending parties 
 retired from the field well satisfied with the result of the 
 conflict, Dr Priestley with his VICTORY, and Dr Hors- 
 ley with his MITRE." 
 
 Affecting, after his master in theology, a great rever- 
 ence for the character of Origen ; he begins his attack of 
 Bishop Horsley, with accusing him of defaming, either 
 ignorantly or wilfully, that learned presbyter of the an- 
 cient church, for the purpose of falsifying history re- 
 specting the faith of the Hebrew Christians. 
 
 Dr Priestley," he says, " having asserted upon the 
 authority of Origen, that the Jews who believed in Je- 
 sus were called Ebionites ; that these Ehionites were 
 of two sorts, one of them believing the miraculous con. 
 ccption, the other not, but all of them considering Christ 
 as a mere man ;* Dr Horsley in reply, after endea- 
 vouring to show that Origen's words might be interpre- 
 ted differently, proceeds in a very triumphant tone to 
 remark, " Let his words be taken as you understand 
 them 5 and so far as the faith of the Hebrew Christians 
 of his own time is in question) let him appear as an evi> 
 
 * Belshara, p. 422, 
 
APPENDIX. 479 
 
 dence on your side. I shall take what you may think 
 a bold step ; 1 shall tax the veracity of your witness 
 of this Origen." 
 
 This is part of a quotation from the seventh of Dr 
 Horsley's Letters to Dr Priestley ; but the clause which 
 is here printed in the Italick character, Mr Belsham has 
 prudently omitted : the quotation proceeds to the end of 
 the fifth section of that letter ; to the whole of which the 
 reader is requested to pay particular attention : if he 
 comply with this request, he will find, that in the four 
 first sections, Dr Horsley has not only enletnxnuKsi to 
 show that Origen's words might be differently interpret- 
 ed, but actually proved that they will not admit of the 
 sense, in which Dr Priestley has chosen to interpret 
 them : convinced however of the goodness of his own 
 cause, and knowing how little Origen is to be relied on 
 when writing controversy, Dr Horsley made a conces- 
 sion to which he could not have been driven, and which 
 he probably would not have made, could he have fore- 
 seen the unfair advantage of it that was to be taken by 
 his adversaries. To deprive Mr Belsham of that ad- 
 vantage, in which he vain-gloriously affects to triumph, 
 it is proper to inform the reader, that in the quotation 
 which he has made from the Bishop's letter, there is 
 another prudent omission of no fewer than three sen- 
 tences, which all affect the question at issue, of Origeu's 
 veracity. 
 
 The object of the Bishop was, to tax the veracity of 
 Origen in what he says only of the faith of the Hebrew 
 Christians of his own time ; but the object of Mr Bel- 
 sham seems to be, to charge the Bishop with taxing the 
 veracity of Origen on every question : he is probably 
 aware ; that Origen being strongly attached to the phi- 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 >phy of his age, which led her votaries to contend in 
 controversy for victory rather than for truth, might rea- 
 dily be believed to have asserted a falsehood, in answer 
 to the invective which his antagonist had put into the 
 mouth of a Jew ; but he is aware at the same time, that 
 the character of Origen stands so high in the learned 
 world, that he who should charge him with disregard to 
 /r///// in general, would excite against himself the indig- 
 nation of every man of letters. Whether all this occur- 
 red to Mr Belsham's mind, and induced him to omit the 
 sentences to which I allude, is unknown to me, who 
 possess not the faculty of discerning the secrets of other 
 men's hearts ; but he could not have acted otherwise 
 than he has done, if it had occurred to him and influen- 
 ced hi* conduct. 
 
 If the reader has turned to the fifth section of the Bi- 
 shop's seventh Letter to Dr Priestley, he has found him 
 modestly saying, " All this 1 affirm with the less hesita- 
 tion, being suppoi*ted by the authority of Mosheim : 
 from whom indeed I first learned, to rate the testimony 
 of Origen in this particular question at its true value." 
 
 This sentence Mr Belsham has not omitted ; but he 
 draws from it an inference which, by all the arts of con- 
 troversy, it cannot be made to support. " One would 
 conclude," says he, "from the manner in which Dr 
 Horsley appeals to the testimony of Mosheim, that, hav- 
 ing first from his own extensive researches into ecclesi- 
 astical history, made this notable discovery of a Jewish 
 church at jElia, he was confirmed in his judgment by 
 finding, that Mosheim had also made the same discove- 
 ry : but the truth is, that the learned dignitary, placing 
 Implicit confidence in Mosheinv's testimony, having bor- 
 rowed all the circumstances related by that celebrated 
 
APPENDIX. 481 
 
 historian, and mixed up a little of his own, has stated 
 with great parade and as an incontrovertible fact, a nar- 
 rative most improbable in itself, and utterly destitute of 
 foundation in ecclesiastical antiquity."* 
 
 I have been told by a learned friend of mine, much 
 conversant in works on the laws of reasoning, that Mr 
 Belsham published some years ago a Compendium of 
 Logick, remarkable for such definitions as the world 
 had never before seen. It must be by the aid of such 
 definitions, that one would artificially conclude from the 
 manner in which Bishop Horsley appeals to the testi- 
 mony of Mosheim, that he had first by his own re- 
 searches discovered a church of Jewish Christians at 
 jElia, and was afterwards confirmed in his judgment by 
 finding that Mosheim had made the same discovery be- 
 fore him ; for by the laws of such logick as is known in 
 the Schools, a conclusion directly contrary to this must 
 naturally be made from the Bishop's words. He says 
 expressly, " that it was from Mosheim that he first 
 learned to rate the testimony of Origen in this particu- 
 lar question at its true value ;" and though he was a 
 greater master than most men, both of the Aristotelian 
 and of the Baconian logick, I am persuaded that he 
 could not have conceived it possible, to draw from his 
 own words such a conclusion as Mr Belsham has drawn 
 from them. 
 
 With respect to what the same original logician here 
 calls the truth, I can only say, that it was not Bishop 
 Horsley's practice to put implicit confidence in any un- 
 inspired testimony ; but I cannot affirm as an unques- 
 tionable truth, that on this occasion he did not deviate 
 
 * Belsham, p. 423. 
 
 6i 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 from his usual practice. What that practice was, no 
 man not possessing the faculty of discerning the secrets 
 of his neighbour's heart, could have better opportunities 
 of knowing than I enjoyed ; and although I may not 
 Lave derived from them all the advantages which I 
 might and ought to have done, yet I was sufficiently at- 
 tentive to the Bishop's mode of investigating the truth, 
 to be able to say, that it was exactly what to ordinary 
 readers his words declare it to have been on this parti- 
 cular occasion. When he found anything of importance 
 asserted by a modern writer on ancient authority, far 
 from placing implicit confidence in the modern testi- 
 mony, he did not rely even on modern criticism ; nor 
 had he ever recourse to an English or French transla- 
 tion of a Greek or Latin author of antiquity, as is the 
 common practice of the most arrogant polemicks of the 
 Unitarian school : It was Bishop Horsley's practice, to 
 consult the authorities referred to, with his own eyes ; and 
 to draw from them, whatever conclusion his own reason 
 and critical sagacity enabled him to draw ; though, not 
 deeming himself infallible, he was happy, as every man 
 Dot lost to all sense of modesty would be, to have his 
 own judgment supported by the concurrence of a scho- 
 lar so eminent as Mosheim. 
 
 But, says Mr Belsham, " the learned dignitary, pla- 
 cing implicit confidence in Mosheim, borrowed all the 
 circumstances related by that celebrated historian, and 
 mixed up (with them) a little of his own." At the dis- 
 tance of two pages indeed, the same Mr Belsham, after 
 representing a very common book as not easily to be met 
 with in England, affirms, that the Bishop had in fact 
 advanced nothing but what he had borrowed from Mo- 
 sheim : both these assertions cannot be true : whether 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 either of them be entitled to the fullest credit, the reader 
 will judge for himself, when he has read with attention 
 the first and second chapters of the second part, of the 
 Bishop's Remarks on Dr Priestley's Second Letters to 
 the Archdeacon of St Alban's, and compared them with 
 the following extract from Mosheim's work. 
 
 " Quum HADRIANUS Hierosolymam ex cineribus suis 
 paullatim renascentem denuo funditus evertisset, seve- 
 rasque in Judaicam gentem leges tulisset, maxima Chris- 
 tianorum in Palsestina degentium pars a lege Mosis, 
 cui antea paruerat, descisebat, atque antistitem sibi 
 MARCUM creabat, non Judaeum, sed alienigenam, quo 
 nihil sibi cum Judseis commune esse doceret. Quod 
 factum indigne fe rentes illi, qui Mosaicae legis immode- 
 rato studio ducebantur, secedebant a fratribus, atque in 
 ilia Palsestinae parte quae Peraea dicebatur, vicinisque 
 locis peculiarem coBtum condebant, in quo caeremoniis 
 a MOSE prsescriptis vetus sua dignitas incolumis mane* 
 bat. Familia haec, exigua sine dubio, claritatem nun- 
 quam adepta est, quumque per aliquot saecula in Pa- 
 laestina vixisset, post CONSTANTINUM M. paullatim esse 
 desiit." 
 
 To this passage, which is part of the text of his work 
 entitled J)e Rebus Christianonun ante Constant inum 
 Magnum Commentarii, Mosheim subjoins the following 
 important note. 
 
 " Eximius est hac de re SULPITII SEVERI locus Histor 
 sacr. Lib. II. cap. xxxi. p. 245. Et quia Christiani 
 (in Palsastina viventes) ex Judceis potissimum putaban- 
 tur (namque turn Hierosolymce non nisi ex circumcisions 
 habebat ecclesia sarcerdotem) militum cohortem custodias 
 in perpetuum agitarejussit, quce Judceos omnes Hiero- 
 aditu arceret. Quod quidem Christiance jidei 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 pntjiciebat ; quid turn ptene omnes Christum Deum sub 
 li'^is observatione credebant. Nimirum id Domino or- 
 dinante dispositum, ut legis servitus a liliertate Jidei. 
 a ft/ ue ecclesice toller etur. It a turn primum Marcus ex 
 gentibus apud Hierosolymam episcopus fuit." 
 
 This is the passage which furnishes the basis of Bi- 
 shop Horsley's reasoning, in that part of the preceding 
 Tracts to which we have immediately referred ; and it 
 is on the same passage, that Mosheim makes the fol- 
 lowing observations. 
 
 " Etsi nee lucis, nee ordinis satis habet hie SULPITII 
 
 locus, clare tamcn origines ostendit illius inter Christian- 
 
 os ecclesisB, quse Christum ita sibi colendum esse censuit, 
 
 ut Mosis tamen legibus simul obtemperaret. Constat 
 
 enim (I) ex eo Christianos in Palastina viventes Judaic! 
 
 generis, quamdiu spes erat, fore, ut Hierosolyma post 
 
 primum excidium instauraretur, ritus a MOSE imperatos 
 
 cum CHRISTI cultu conjunxisse. (II) Repudiasse max- 
 
 imam partem horum Christianorum legem Mosaicam sub 
 
 HADRIANO quum spes omnis, fore, ut Hierosolyma re- 
 
 surgeret, occidisset, atque MARCUM, alienigenam, epis- 
 
 copum elegisse. Hoc ideo sine dubio fiebat, ne forte 
 
 episcopus gente Hebrseus, innato patrise legis amore 
 
 ductus, abrogatas cairemonias paulatim reduceret. (Ill) 
 
 Causam sublatse hos inter Christianos legis Mosaicae 
 
 fuisse HADRIANI, Imperatoris severitatem, qui milite 
 
 cingebat spatium, quod urbs Hierosolyma quondam oc- 
 
 cupaverat, omnesque Judseos ab ejus aditu cohiberi ju- 
 
 bebat. In hac re explicanda minus est, quam decebat^ 
 
 perspicuus et luculeutus SULPITIUS, multaque retinet 
 
 animo, quse rectius enuntiasset. At liquet tamen in 
 
 universum, quid sibi velit, nee difficile est addere, qujp 
 
 omissa sunt ab eo. Christiani Palaestinse quamdiu le;i 
 
APPENDIX. 485 
 
 Mosaics serviebant, a Romanis pro Judaeis habebantur : 
 nee temere prorsus. HADRIAKUS igitur quum Judceis 
 aditum ad loca, quse Hieorosolyraa quondam occupa- 
 verat, occlusisset, Christianis pariter non licebat ad illud 
 spatiura accedere. Atqui Christian! hi facultatem sibi 
 dari cum maxime cupiebant Hierosolymam proficisceudi, 
 quum vellent, ea ergo ut potirentur, csereinonias legis 
 Mosaicae dimittebant, atque, ne Romani dubitareut, se- 
 rione hoc fecissent, an simulatae, gubernationem co3tus 
 sui non JudsBO, sed aliengense, comaiittebant. Post hoc 
 apertum cum lege Judteorum divortium, patiebantur eos 
 Romani regionem illam ingredi, a cujus aditu milites 
 Judreos arcere jussi erant. Ha^c omnia ex SULPITIO, 
 valde licet negligenter scribat, mediocri attentionc adhi- 
 bita eliciuntur." 
 
 Mosheim then inquires into what was probably the 
 moti\ 7 e, which induced the greater part of the Jewish 
 Christians to cherish so strong a desire to return to Je- 
 rusalem, as, for the attainment of that object, to abandon 
 the laws and rites of their fathers : after stating several 
 possible motives, and rejecting them all as in the highest 
 degree improbable, he says, 
 
 (t Alia ergo sine dubio his Christianis ratio fuit, cur 
 facultatem Hierosolymam adeundi niajorem patriis suia 
 cseremoniis et institutis esse, putarent, atque illam legis 
 Mosaic* coutentione redimere non dubitarent. Neque 
 magno, ut opinor, Lahore opus erat ad earn investigan- 
 dam. Construxerat HADRIANUS non longe ab illo loco, 
 quo steterat Hierosolyma, novam urbem, cui JElice 
 Capitolince nomen dederat, quamque magnis juribus 
 donaverat. Huic novae coloniae adscribi valde cupie- 
 bant Christiani, qui partim Pellse, exiguo oppido, par- 
 tim in agris, parum eomraode et liberalitcr vivebant. Ex- 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 cluscrat vero Impcrator a nova urbe sua gentem Judai 
 cam ; cujus portio qiium Christian! esse viderentur, qui 
 legi Mosaics obcdiebant, ad eos quoquc lex HADRIANI 
 de Judseis non in civitatem recipiendis pcrtincbat. (|uo- 
 rirra maxima corum pars, quo jus civitatis JFA'r& conse- 
 qui, domicilinmquc suum Pella JEliam transfcrre libere 
 posset, cjcremoniaruin legem a MOSE prascriptam abro- 
 gahat. Auctor hujus consilii, quod in primis verisimilo 
 est, is ipsc MARCUS erat, quern episcopum sibi prjcticie- 
 bant, homo, quod nooieii docet, Romanns et sine dubio 
 Romanis in Pal&stina dominantibus non ignotus, forte 
 principem quemdam inter Romanos virum cognatione 
 attiugcns. Suse igitur gentis hominem quum caput Chris- 
 tianorum praefecti Romanorum viderent, timere desinc- 
 bant, ne quid novae civitati periculi ex Christianis orire- 
 tur, neque amplius Judserum eos in numero habebant: ex 
 quo consequebatur, ut facultas illis concederetur, in no- 
 vam Imperatoris urbem migrandi etcivium ejus juribus, 
 quse eximia erant, frueudi. Nihil est in his difficile cre- 
 ditu : omnia vero egregie ex eo, quod diserte scriptum 
 legitur apud EPIPHANIUM de ponderibus et mensuris 
 XV. p. 171 confirmautur, Chnstianos, lege Judaica 
 dimissa, Pella Hierosolymam migrasse. Hierosolymae 
 vero nomine nova HADRIANI urbs intelligi debet, quae 
 post CONSTANTINI M. setatem verum nomen suum amit- 
 tebat et Hierosolyma vocabatur. Vid. HENR. VALES lus 
 fldnot. ad Eusebium, p. 61. Quauiquam si vel hoc 
 memorise non esse proditum, omni tamen vacaret contro- 
 versia. Certissimum enim est, JEAix, Christianorum ab 
 HADRIANI jam setate celebrem extitisse ecclesiara, atque 
 episcopos, qui vulgo Hierosolymitani nominantur ; 
 enses revera fuisse." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 a Non addit SULPITIUS cujus locum illustramus, non 
 omnes Christiaaos in Judsea viventes insignem lianc 
 mutationem probasse, verum par tern eorura legis Mosa- 
 ic* studium retinuisse, atque a societate eortim, qui legi 
 nuntium miserant, recessisse. Sed nee opus erat, ut 
 hoc adderet, quum in vulgus notum esset. Extitisse in 
 Palsestina ccetum Christianorum legis cultura cum Chris- 
 dan a religione conjungentium, aliurn item ccetum Mosai- 
 cis caeriraoniis nihil loci et honoris tribuentem, testatis- 
 simmum est. Divisio hsec Christianorum ex Judteis 
 ortorum non contigit ante tempora HADRIANI ; scimus 
 enim, ante hunc oinnes Christianos in Palsestina commo- 
 rantes in servandis majorum caeremoniis Concordes fuisse. 
 Quocirca sine dubio discidium hoc turn extitit, quum, 
 duce MARCO, sub HADIUANO plerique eorum jugum ri- 
 tuum abjicerent, quo securius vivere, atque inter cives 
 novae urbis, ^Elise Capitolinse, recipi possent." 
 
 The reader who attentively compares this long ex- 
 tract, with those parts of the preceding Tracts to which 
 I have already referred, as relating to the same sub- 
 ject ; will perceive with what justice Mr Belsham 
 charges Bishop Horsley, with the intention of passing 
 off Mosheim's discoveries for his own, presuming upon 
 security from detection by the scarcity of Moslieim's 
 book ; he will likewise perceive the modesty of Mr Bel- 
 sham, when he affirms, that the Bishop was "nothing 
 more than the humble, and we may charitably hope, 
 the ignorant plagiary of the falsehood and defamation 
 of another.''* Bishop Horsley ignorant, and Mr Bel- 
 sham learned ! 
 
 The Bishop must have been ignorant indeed, if he 
 
 Belsham, p. 427. 
 
APl'KXDLV 
 
 presumed on the scarcity of Moslieim's book entitled 
 f)( Helms CJirixh'duwiini ante Constantinum Magnum 
 ComiHcnlurii; for though I brought it not with me into 
 Scotland, I found it in the libraries of the two first cler- 
 gymen to whom I applied for the loan of it : but what 
 detection had the Bishop to dread ? He expressly de- 
 clared, that Mosheim first pointed out to him the ground 
 over which he afterwards travelled, and taught him to 
 rate the veracity of Origen, on a particular question, at 
 its true value. He boasts of no discoveries of his own, 
 nor attempts to defraud Mosheim of his : he consulted 
 the same ancient authors which had been consulted 
 by Mosheim before him, and by Cave before Mo- 
 slieiin; and as a lover of truth, he could not pass 
 them by without examination ; but, though from the 
 facts recorded by Sulpitius and Epiphanius, he draws 
 most of the conclusions which had been drawn by his 
 learned predecessors in this investigation, he does not 
 infer from these facts, every thing which Mosheim had 
 inferred from them ; in a passage of that historian's long 
 note, which 1 thought it not worth while to transcribe, 
 he says that " without doubt Marc, the roman bishop of 
 the church of Hebrew Christians at jElia, demonstrated 
 to those Christians, before they left Pella, that the ritual 
 law of Moses was abolished by Christ :" this seems to 
 have been said, 1 know not on what authority, with the 
 view of vindicating the Hebrew Christians, from the 
 charge that might otherwise be brought against them, of 
 having abandoned the customs of their ancestors from 
 mere worldly motives : Mosheim has not the smallest 
 doubt, but that the arguments of Marc amounted to de- 
 monstration : "Minus vero (he adds) argumenta ejus 
 valuissent apud homines a teneris legi Mosaicse adsue. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 tos, uisi desiderium accessisset ad ea M\\& habitan- 
 di, civiumque ejus commoditatibus et juribus fruen- 
 di," &c. * 
 
 Bishop Horsley, though he professedly goes over the 
 same ground, with the justly celebrated Chancellor of 
 the university of Gottingen, does not with him, attribute 
 the merit of weaning the affections of the Hebrew Chris- 
 tians from the ritual law of Moses, to this Bishop Marc, 
 but to the writings of St Paul, and the decree of the 
 apostolical college, which, as he justly observes, must 
 Bave put every believer's conscience at ease on the sub- 
 ject. He admits however, that the desire of enjoying 
 the benefits of the Jlian colony would have its effect : 
 " I take it for granted (says he) that with good Chris- 
 tians, motives of worldly interest, which would not 
 overcome conscience, would nevertheless overcome mere 
 habit ;"f an( l ^ }ls ne wight surely take for granted in 
 the present case, since the most important parts of the 
 ritual law, to which the Christians at Pella were habit- 
 ually attached, the severity and vigilance of Adrian, had 
 rendered it impossible for them to observe : sacrifices 
 could be offered only on the site of the Temple, of 
 which Titus had ploughed up the very foundations ; but 
 the site of the temple was, by Adrian's command, sur- 
 rounded by a cohort of soldiers ; stationed there, for 
 the very purpose of driving away every person who 
 should approach it, with the view of offering sacrifice. 
 
 In confirmation of the inferences drawn from the nar- 
 rative of Sulpitius Severus, Bishop Horsley appeals to 
 the same passage in the writings of Epiphanius, to 
 
 * Mosh. De Reb. Chris. Ant. Con. Mag. Com. XXXVIII. p. .327. 
 f Sec Ucmarks upou Dr Priestley's Second Letters, Part, II. chap. ii. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 which Mosheim bad appealed before liitn ; but lie does 
 what Mosheim did not do : He analyses that passage, ; 
 vindicates it against the cavils of Dr Priestley ; shows 
 the full force of the evidence which Epiphanius, in con- 
 junction with Sulpitius, affords, for the existence of a 
 church of Hebrew Christians at JR\ia. ; and the testimo- 
 ny of these two ancient authors he confirms, by the tes- 
 timony of Orosius and of Jerome, to neither of whom 
 Mosheim had made any appeal : he was not, therefore, 
 a mere humble and ignorant plagiary of the German 
 historian ; but surely his inferences from the united tes- 
 timony of three or four ancient authors, cannot be enti- 
 tled to less regard, for their being nearly the same, 
 which other men of such learning as Mosheim and 
 Cave, had drawn before him. 
 
 The perversion of the sense of the Bishop's words in 
 some parts of his disquisitions on this subject, by Mr 
 Belsham, who represents him, as TAKING EVERY THING 
 FOR GRANTED, because he occasionally makes use of 
 that phrase, where there is no room for difference of 
 opinion ; is scandalous, because it must have been wil- 
 ful. It can deceive no man however, who will take the 
 trouble to have recourse to the Bishop's Tracts, in order 
 to discover what he really took for granted ; though the 
 humble Unitarians, who place implicit confidence in Mr 
 Belsham, may take it for granted, on his report, that 
 the editor of the works of Newton, knew nothing of the 
 laws of reasoning or of demonstration. 
 
 But, according to Mr Belsham, the reasonings and 
 criticisms of Bishop Horsley can derive little support, 
 from their coincidence with those of Mosheim : " this 
 migration of the Hebrew Christians from Pella to M\'m, 
 is stated, says he, by Mosheim in his Ante-Coustantine 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 History ; but upon more mature reflection and letter 
 information, it had been omitted in the General Eccle- 
 siastical History, which alone Dr Priestley had con- 
 suited.* 
 
 This is an assertion, at least as precipitate as any 
 that Dr Priestley himself ever hazarded. As I have 
 not, in tli is remote corner, access to the first edition 
 of what Mr Belsham calls the General Ecclesiastical 
 History, I cannot say with confidence in what year it 
 was first published ; but 1 know from the testimony of 
 Mosheim himself now lying before me, that the work 
 entitled De Rebus Christianorum ante Constantinuut 
 Magnum Commentarii, which suggested to Bishop 
 Horsley what he has said of the church at jElia, was 
 first published in the end of the year 1753 ; the preface 
 and the dedication being both dated at Gottingen, on the 
 6th day of September in that year. 
 
 I know from the same testimony, that Mosheim em- 
 ployed two years on his General Ecclesiastical Histo- 
 ry ;f an( l Dr Maclaine, the learned translator of that 
 history, informs us J that the author died at Gottingen 
 in the year 1755 ; the General history therefore, must 
 have been begun the instant that the other work was 
 published ; so that there could not have been time for 
 much mature reflection, or the acquisition of better in- 
 formation between the publication of the one work and 
 the commencement of the other ; even on the supposi- 
 tion, that the General History was first published after 
 the other, a fact of which 1 am very far from beiug 
 certain. 
 
 It was indeed published many years after the Insti- 
 
 * Belsharo, p. 433. f See his Preface to that History. * See his Preface. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 tntioncs Historian Christlance Major es , and as that 
 work is bound up in the same volume, with the edition 
 of the De Rebus Christianorum ante Constantinum 
 Magnum Commentarii now lying before me, I think it 
 not improbable that Mr Belsham, with the usual heed- 
 less ness of his master, has looked at the date affixed to 
 the first work in the volume, when he should have look- 
 ed at the date of the second ; and finding the former 
 dated IV. Kalend. Octobr. 1739, hazarded the assertion 
 that Mosheim, after mature reflection and better infor- 
 mation, had omitted in his General History a detail 
 which he had published in his Commentaries. 
 
 But lias he omitted this detail in his larger history ? 
 No ; he has given the detail as fully as was possible in 
 such a work,* and refers, as he had done in his Com- 
 mentaries, to Sulpitius and Episcopius as his authors ; 
 but he has omitted the critical disquisition on the words 
 of Sulpitius, which in the Commentaries was published 
 in a long note, too long to be inserted in a compendium 
 of general history. He probably thought indeed, that 
 there was no occasion for such a disquisition ; for Dr 
 Priestley had not then appeared ; and before him, I am 
 not aware that any writer of name, had called in ques- 
 tion the existence of a church of orthodox Hebrew Chris- 
 tians at Jerusalem, though many were ignorant that 
 what was called Jerusalem, was in fact jElia. 
 
 I have already observed, that the Bishop vindicated 
 the united testimony of Sulpitius and Epiphanius against 
 the cavils of Dr Priestley : the cavils to which I more 
 particularly alluded, refer chiefly to Epiphauius, and 
 
 * See Machine's translation of Mosheim's Eceles. Hislor. Cent. II. Part I chap. I. 
 * XI ; and Part II. ehap. V. $ I. fccc. 
 
APPENDIX. 493 
 
 were founded in chronological difficulties ; but they are 
 Revived by Mr Belsham, and brought into view in the 
 following triumphant manner. 
 
 " The FACT is, and the Archdeacon does not deny it, 
 that the desolation of Jerusalem of which Epiphanius 
 speaks, was that by Titus, A. D. 70, MORE TIIAX SIXTY 
 
 YEARS BEFORE THE COLONY OF llA\ EXISTED. < Bllt this, 
 
 says the learned dignitary, is a matter of no importance : it 
 is sufficient for my purpose, that these returned Christians 
 were residing at Jerusalem or, more properly, at ^Elia, at 
 the same time that Aquila resided there as overseer of the 
 Emperor's works.' So then, we are now to believe that 
 these Hebrew Christians, who returned in great numbers 
 to^lia after Adrian's settlement of the ^Elian colony, who 
 abandoned the rites of Moses, and placed themselves un- 
 der a Greek bishop (a Roman bishop), and worshipped 
 in an unknown tongue,* that they might be qualified to 
 partake of the valuable privileges of the ^Elian colony, 
 were the very same persons who had quitted Jerusalem to 
 avoid the calamities of the siege by Titus, SIXTY YEARS 
 before ! Now if we allow, that at the time of their re* 
 
 * Why in an unknown tongue ? Has Mr Belsham forgotten that Greek, Latin, 
 and the dialect of Hebrew which was then vernacular, were all spoken by every 
 man of learning, whether Jew or Roman, who had been for any time resident in 
 Judea ? During the trial (if trial it may be called) of our Saviour before Pilate, 
 ire never hear of the governor making use of an interpreter ; and may not Marc, 
 the bishop, have been as much master of Hebrew as Pilate the governor? Nay, 
 may not the Hebrew Christians, from their long residence among the Gentiles at 
 Pella, have acquired such a knowledge of the Greek tongue, as enabled them to 
 read the whole New Testament in that language, in which by far the greater part 
 of it was written, as well as to bear their part in the same language in the publick 
 devotions of the church ? 1 am unwilling to charge a man, probably much older than 
 myself, with ignorance ; but what Mr Bolsham says of abandoning the forms of pub" 
 lick worship, to which the Hebrew Christians had been accustomed, would lead one 
 to imagine that he is not aware, thai in the primitive church every diocese had it? 
 own iiturgy, t!.e mere forms of which were liable to bt altered by every Bishop in 
 succession, according to his own ta?.te and judgment. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 (rout, they were upon an average twenty years of age, 
 they must have hecn fourscore at the time of their return : 
 and it is really quite edifying, to figure to one's self 
 these illustrious Octogenaries, 'our holy brethren the 
 sv/ ; ///.s- of 1 lie primitive church of Jerusalem,' upon the 
 first intelligence of the good news, hasting away from 
 Pella and the North of Galilee, where they had been 
 passing threescore years in obscurity and tranquillity, 
 and in heroick deliance of the most inveterate attach- 
 ments, and of the habits and prejudices of fourscore, aban- 
 doning at once the rites of their forefathers, and the 
 forms, and even the language, of the devotions to which 
 they had been ever accustomed, in order to obtain 
 what ? the valuable privileges and immunities of the 
 /Elian colony ! And how gratifying must it be to every 
 pious mind to learn, upon the high authority of Epipha- 
 nius, that after all the fatigues and hazards of their jour- 
 ney, they were still in a flourishing state, teaching and 
 working miracles with great effect, at the time when 
 Aquila, who was converted by them, was superintend- 
 ent of Adrian's works !"* 
 
 Whether Mr Belsham was restrained, by any pru- 
 dential motive, from making these observations on the 
 reasoning of Bishop Horsley, during that prelate's life, 
 is probably known to Mr Belsham himself ; but 1 will 
 venture to assure him, that the Bishop, were he now 
 alive and possessed of all his youthful ardour, would 
 not deign to take the smallest notice of them : even I, 
 however inferior to him, will not condescend to make a 
 serious reply to such a tissue of petulance and absurdi- 
 ty : I think it but fair however to observe, that Mr Bel- 
 
 * Belaham, p. 435. 
 
APPENDIX. 495 
 
 sham has not employed this mode of reasoning, so suc- 
 cessfully as he might have employed it, in confirmation 
 of his favourite doctrine of Unitarianism ; and to con- 
 vince him that I have a greater regard for the truth, than 
 even for the memory of my ever-honoured father, I will 
 here supply what he has so strangely omitted. 
 
 In the year 1682, the English Unitarians expressed 
 a strong desire to convert the Mahometans to their creed 
 of Christianity ; arid with that view presented an ad- 
 dress on the subject, to the Ambassador of the Emperor 
 of Morocco, who refused to receive it.* About the same 
 period, the English Unitarians distributed gratis among 
 the people, an immense number of pamphlets, printed 
 on a public k stock, of which one object was to prove, 
 that the Scriptures of the New Testament had been iu- 
 icmolated by the Trinitarians, to support their own doc- 
 trines.f When they were performing these notable ex- 
 ploits, the English Unitarians cannot on an average have 
 been less than twenty years of as;? ; and yet we find the 
 very same persons, the English Unitarians, a full cen- 
 tury afterwards doing the very same things, publishing 
 Unitarian pamphlets by subscription^ expressing the 
 same earnest desire for the conversion of Mahomet, || and 
 accusing the Catholicks of having wilfully interpolated 
 the Greek Scriptures.^ True indeed it is, that they 
 had so completely forgotten their address to " His Illus- 
 trious Excellency AMETH BEN AMETH, Ambassador of 
 
 See Bishop Horsley's sixteenth letter to Dr Priestley. 
 f See Pref. to Leslie's Sos Cont. Discussed. 
 
 * See Dr Priestley's Memoirs of himself. 
 
 U See Dr Priestley's History of the Corruptions of Christianity, and the first 
 series of his Letters to Dr Horsley. 
 
 See the writings of the Unitarians in general, and of MrBelsham in particular, 
 wice the commencemeut of the nineteenth eenuuy. 
 
4,0,6 APPENDIX. 
 
 the Mighty Emperor of Fez and Morocco, to Charles 
 the Second King of Great Britain," that in the year 
 1784, they denied that such an address had ever exist- 
 ed :* this however was not wonderful, in men nhundred 
 and twenty-two years old ; for the memory is the faculty 
 which generally decays first through age : but it is really 
 quite edifying %1 to see, with what condescension these 
 aged Unitarians have adapted their style, to the varying 
 tastes of the several generations that have passed away, 
 since they addressed AMETH BEN AMETH ; and how 
 gratifying must it be to every lover of the truth to learn, 
 on the high authority of the New Testament in an im- 
 proved version, with a corrected text, and notes critical 
 and explanatory, that these Unitarians have retained 
 all their other faculties in such perfection, as to be able, 
 when no less than one hundred and thirty-eight years 
 old, to perform what they ventured not to promise 
 in their youth: They have now expunged from the 
 Christian Scriptures the Trinitarian interpolations, and 
 brought those Scriptures to teach that faith which, ia 
 their address to the Morocco Ambassador, they say God 
 had raised up Mahomet to defend with the sword. If 
 the Trinitarians be of opinion, that the preservation of 
 their holy brethren, the saints of the primitive church of 
 Jerusalem, in so flourishing a state as, at the age of 
 eighty, to be able to teach with great effect, be any proof 
 of the Catholick doctrine (and if this be not the opinion 
 of the Trinitarians, it is not easy to conceive for what 
 purpose a calculation was made by Mr Belsham of 
 the age of their holy brethren), how much stronger is 
 the proof of the Unitarian doctrine, from the preservation 
 
 * See the fifteenth of Dr Priestley's second series of Letters to Dr Horsley. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 of the fellow-worshippers with the Ambassador of Mo- 
 rocco, in a state so flourishing as, at the more advanced 
 
 age Of ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-EIGHT, to he able to COt- 
 
 rect the ORACLES of GOD with great effect ! 
 
 If the extract which I have made from Mr Belsham's 
 confutation of Bishop Horsley, be of any importance iu 
 the Unitarian controversy, this addition which I have 
 proposed to it, is of so much greater importance, that I 
 really expect Mr Belsham's thanks for having suggest- 
 ed it : if its effect go to prove, that there could be no 
 English Unitarians in the reign, both of Charles the Se- 
 cond and of George the Third ; then has Mr Belsham 
 succeeded in proving, that there could be no church of 
 Hebrew Christians at Pella in the reign of Titus, and 
 afterwards at jElia in the reign of Adrian ! Or should it 
 be impossible, as I think it is, to deny that there were 
 English Unitarians in the reign of Charles the Second, 
 then, though it must be granted, that there were likewise 
 Hebrew Christians at jElia under a Roman bishop in 
 the reign of Adrian, I have at least deprived the Trini- 
 tarians of the argument which they might draw for the 
 truth of their doctrine, from the miraculous preservation 
 of their orthodox Octogenaries, and have transferred that 
 argument, in all its force, to the English Unitarians of 
 the nineteenth century. 
 
 Of the remainder of Mr Belshanvs arguments against 
 Mosheim and the Bishop, I confess that I can make 
 nothing : he goes over the same ground with Dr Priest- 
 ley, from whom he occasionally differs ; but these differ- 
 ences certainly add nothing to the force of the Doctor's 
 original reasoning. He contrives however to weaken 
 the Bishop's, by making him occasionally say what he 
 has not said, and quoting partially what he has said ; 
 
 63 
 
APPENMX. 
 
 and upon those implicit believers, the Unitarians, this 
 will have as good an effect, as if he had raised the con- 
 jectures and arguments of Dr Priestley, to the height of 
 demonstration : to such however, whether Trinitarians 
 or Unitarians, as do not repose implicit confidence in Mr 
 Belsham, I have only to recommend the old adage audi 
 alteram partem ; and if they pay attention to it, I am 
 under no apprehension of injury to my father's fair fame 
 from this rude attack, even in the judgment of candid 
 Unitarians. 
 
 The man who can burlesque the Scriptures, for the 
 purpose of turning into ridicule arguments which he 
 does not fairly state, and cannot answer ; is not, I hope, 
 likely long to retain implicit credit, with serious Chris- 
 tians of any denomination. 
 
 " Whether the easy simplicity" he says, of the Ro- 
 man magistrates, was really imposed upon by the spe- 
 cious artifices of our * holy brethren/ or whether their 
 good-nature, at the hazard of incurring the Emperor's 
 displeasure, winked at the pious frauds, or finally, 
 since by the testimony of the Bishop's great authority, 
 St Epiphanius, miracles had not yet ceased in the Je- 
 rusalem church, whether their eyes might not be holden so 
 that they did not know them, does not appear."* 
 
 To the admirers of the improved version of the New 
 Testament, this may, for aught that 1 know to the con- 
 trary, appear genuine wit and sound reasoning, against 
 the possibility of such a church of Hebrew Christians as 
 the Bishop contends for, enjoying the privileges of the 
 Lilian colony ; but those who do not admire that ver- 
 sion, will probably consider such a ludicrous application 
 
 * Belsham, p. 437. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 of one of the proofs of Christ's resurrection, as a mere 
 subterfuge, nay, as a profane artifice, for withholding 
 the reader's attention from arguments, which Mr Bel- 
 sham is conscious that he could not have answered. 
 
 But, says Mr Belsham in the words of his master, 
 " My Lord the foundations of your church of Trini- 
 tarian Jews at Jerusalem (^Elia) after the time of Adri- 
 an, were attempted to be laid on the grossest calumny, 
 and on the ruins of the fairest character that Christian 
 history has to exhibit ; and therefore they could expect 
 no better fate, than to be overturned for ever."* 
 
 Foundations laid in this manner, certainly deserve no 
 better fate than to be " overturned for ever ;" but how 
 comes Origen to be such a favourite with the present race 
 of Unitarians, that his character should be deemed fairer 
 than the character even of Christ Jesus ? According to 
 the creed of Dr Priestley and Mr Belshara, Jesus and 
 Origen were both men, and nothing more than men ; the 
 characters of both are exhibited in Christian history; and 
 here we are solemnly told, that the character of Origen 
 is the fairest which that history has to exhibit ! That 
 Origen was a man of great talents and of most extensive 
 erudition, is universally admitted ; but that he asserted 
 at one time the very reverse of what he had taught at 
 another, and was, in controversy, more earnest to van- 
 quish his antagonist than to maintain the truth, without 
 being very scrupulous about the means by which the 
 Yictory was to be gained ; is known to all who know any 
 thing of his writings : of all this, Bishop Horsley has 
 given specimens from his works, and I shall add another 
 from Dr Cave, because Cave was one of his most learn- 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ed and ardent admirers, and has made, perhaps, the best 
 apology possible for his tergiversation in controversy. 
 
 66 Whilst Origen continued at Athens, (which was not 
 long) he returned an answer to a letter which he had 
 received from Julius Jlfricamts concerning the history of 
 Susanna, which dfricanus, by short, but very forcible 
 arguments,* maintained to be a fictitious and spurious 
 relation : Origen undertook the case, and justified the 
 story to be sincere and genuine, but by arguments, 
 which rather manifest the acuteness of his parts than 
 the goodness of Ids cause ; and clearly show, how much 
 men, of the greatest learning and abilities are put to it, 
 when engaged to uphold a weak side, which has no 
 truth of its own to support it"\ 
 
 The learned biographer attributes this disregard of 
 truth in controversy, to Origen's delight in argument, 
 \vhich led him according to his apologist in Photius to 
 write and say many things yu^a^/ac x*'? ir which, in his 
 cooler and more considering moments, he would not 
 have advanced ; and this again lie attributes to the na- 
 tural ardour of his mind, impelling him to write on a 
 variety of subjects which he had not thoroughly studied,^ 
 and to his attachment to the philosophy of his age, of 
 which the very essence was the spirit of disputation. Of 
 any thing more than this, Bishop Horsley has not accu- 
 sed Origen. He has not insinuated, that he would not 
 have been entitled to, at least, as much credit as either 
 
 * The substance of these arguments, which are indeed unanswerable, may be 
 seen in Cave's Historia Literaria, in the short biographical account of Julius 
 Africanus. 
 
 t Cave's Lives of the Fathers, fourth edition, folio, p. 159. 
 
 * Was it for this conduct that Dr Priestley considered the character of Origen as 
 the fairest that Christian history has to exhibit? It is conduct in which he himsctf 
 certainly imitated the teamed and ingenious presbyter of Alexandria. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Sulpitius, Epiphanius, or Jerome, had be, like tbem, 
 been coolly writing history or criticisms on the Old 
 Testament; but the Bishop has accused him, of mis- 
 representing facts through design or inattention, when 
 writing controversy ; and I am afraid that such an accu- 
 sation, might be brought against zealous controvertists 
 in every age. 
 
 Thus Dr Buchanan in his zeal, a laudable zeal cer- 
 tainly, to have Christian missionaries sent into our do- 
 minions in the East, has said in some of his late wri- 
 tings ; that missionaries of all denominations, live in 
 perfect harmony with each other in India, and know not 
 those distinctions which are the sources of dissension 
 among Christians in Europe. Nay, he says that even 
 the distinctions between Papists and Protestants are, in 
 the East, considered as sectarian ; the only controversy 
 there, being between the true God and an idol. Others 
 again, who have come from India as well as he, who 
 have had the same opportunities of making observations, 
 and of whose zeal for religion there appears to be no 
 room for doubt, give a very different account, of the light 
 in which the various missionaries view one another in 
 the East ; and represent the preaching of uusent enthu- 
 siasts, as in the highest degree prejudicial to the propa- 
 gation of genuine Christianity. Which of these accounts 
 are we to believe ? Probably neither of them to its full 
 extent ; for the authors of both, have each a favourite 
 object in view, as Origen had in his controversy with 
 Celsus ; and these objects have got such complete pos- 
 session of their respective minds, as to make them view, 
 through different mediums the very same matters of fact, 
 or overlook those facts entirely. That the distinction 
 between Papists and Frotestauts is well known in the 
 
East, and deemed of great importance, Dr Buchanan 
 himself has furnished complete proof, in the account 
 which he gives of the Syrian Christians ;* though, like 
 Origen in his book against Celsus, he has expressed 
 himself so very differently within the compass of one 
 small volume. 
 
 Even Mr Belsham himself is not free from this weak- 
 ness, to which controvertists of every description are in- 
 deed very liable : though I am as far from suspecting 
 him of a disregard to truth in general, as my father was 
 of suspecting Origen of such a disregard, it is impossi- 
 ble to doubt but, that in the heat of controversy he has, 
 through inattention no doubt, asserted at least one false- 
 hood as notorious as that of which the Bishop accused 
 Origen In his zeal to degrade the Son of God, from 
 the dignity of the Creator to the rank of a mere man in 
 the creation, he finds the epithet pofoywc, which is appli- 
 ed to him by St John, so much in his way, that to get 
 rid of it, he supposes it to be employed by that apostle 
 in no other sense, than as equivalent to *yat7nfloc, which 
 he boldly affirms does not occur in St John. As he is 
 one of the authors of the improved version, we cannot 
 suspect him of having never read the original, or of hav- 
 ing read it with so little attention, as to have totally 
 overlooked any thing of importance which it contains ; 
 we can only suppose, that his mind was so completely 
 occupied by the object of the controversy in which he 
 was engaged with the celebrated Dr Clarke, as to make 
 him lose sight at the instant, of at least six different sen- 
 tences, in which St John employs the word etywrtfltt ir 
 
 * See his Christian Researches in Asia: 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 the sense in which it is commonly employed by other 
 Greek writers.* 
 
 Having discussed the questions agitated by Mr Bel- 
 sham, concerning the veracity of Origen, and the exist- 
 ence of a church of Jewish Christians at JElia ; the ques- 
 tion respecting the sera of the epistle of Barnabas, the 
 only thing remaining on which he has chosen to enter 
 the lisis with Bishop Horsley, will be easily disposed of. 
 
 "W hoever has paid to the Bishop's Tracts that atten- 
 tion, to which the questions discussed in them have so 
 powerful a claim from every Christian ; must be aware, 
 that the epistle of Barnabas was quoted, merely as evi- 
 dence of the faith of the first Hebrew Christians ; and 
 until I met with Mr Belshara's book, I did not think it 
 possible that any man could have insinuated, that the 
 Bishop had attributed to that epistle any authority, to 
 which even an apocryphal book, written with no obvi- 
 ously wicked intention, may not be justly entitled. Mr 
 Belsham does not directly charge him with having at- 
 tributed to it any undue authority ; but the manner in 
 which he labours to set aside its evidence, must lead the 
 unthinking multitude who have never looked into the 
 Bishop's Tracts, to imagine, that he considers it as the 
 work of an inspired apostle. 
 
 " The venerable Archdeacon (says Mr Belsham) hav- 
 ing pledged himself to prove, that the divinity of our 
 Lord was the belief of the very first Christians, appeals 
 
 * See the British Critick for January 1812, to which I am indebted for pointing 
 out to me this blunder, as Mosheim pointed out to my father the passages in Sulpi- 
 tius and Epiphanius. I hope however, that even Mr Belsham will ghe me credit 
 for having sonsulted my Greek Testament myself, though I admit, that it is at lear-t 
 as probable that I should have relied with implicit confidence on the British Critick, 
 as that Bishop Horsley relied with implicit confidence on the Chancellor of the 
 University of Gottingen. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 in liis eighth letter to a work of great antiquity, under the 
 title of < The Epistle of Barnabas,' which, though it is 
 admitted not to have been written by the companion of 
 St Paul, the learned writer contends to have been a pro- 
 duction of the apostolick age, and addressed by a He- 
 brew Christian to his Jewish brethren ; from this epistle 
 he cites the following passage : ' The Lord submitted 
 to suffer for our souls, although he be the Lord of the 
 whole earth, unto whom he said the day before the world 
 was finished, Let us make man after our image and our 
 likeness/ He adds two or three other passages of the 
 same import : he then remarks, that the writer mentions 
 this doctrine as an article of their common faith; he brings 
 no arguments to prove it ; he mentions it as occason oc- 
 curs, without showing any anxiety to inculcate it, or any 
 apprehension that it would be denied or doubted, and 
 he triumphantly concludes ; < This, Sir, is the proof 
 which I had to produce : it is so direct and full, that if 
 this be laid in one scale, and your whole mass of evi- 
 dence, drawn from incidental and ambiguous allusions, 
 in the other, the latter will fly up and kick the beam.' To 
 this argument Dr Priestley replies in the second of his 
 second series of Letters to Dr Horsley, by reminding 
 his antagonist of the doubts entertained by many learn- 
 ed men (and by his antagonist among them) of the genu- 
 ineness of this epistle, and of the certainty of the numer- 
 ous interpolations, and those such as respect the very 
 subject in question : adding, I must see other evidence 
 than this from Barnabas, before I can admit, that the 
 divinity or pre- existence of Christ, was the belief of the 
 apostolick age."* This reply sufficiently impeaches the 
 testimony of the pseudo-Barnabas. 
 
 SeeBelsham, p.440. 
 
APPENDIX. 505 
 
 It does so, if by the word impeaches Mr Belsham 
 mean challenges:* Dr Priestley might, in this sense, 
 impeach any testimony whatever even the testimony of 
 the apostles, that they " had eaten and drunk with Je- 
 sus of Nazareth after he rose from the dead :" and Mr 
 Belsham, if it seemed good to him, might have joined in 
 that impeachment; but he would claim to himself and 
 his master, a degree of deference which surely is not due 
 to them, were he to expect even Unitarians to admit, on 
 their bare impeachment unsupported by proof, that the 
 apostles were false witnesses ! Just so it is in the present 
 case with respect to the testimony of Barnabas : he may, 
 or may not be a false witness ; but as the Bishop did not 
 expect the publick to believe on his aV?cc i$n that Barna- 
 bas bears testimony to the faith of the very first Chris- 
 tians in the divinity of ou r -ord, so neither will the 
 publick believe Barnabas t^ a false witness, on the 
 impeachment of his veracity by Dr Priestley and Mr 
 Belsham ! It would be very unjust however to the me- 
 mory of Dr Priestley, not to apprise my readers, that he 
 expects from the publick no such implicit confidence, in 
 what Mr Belsham calls his impeachment of the testimo- 
 ny of Barnabas : he assigns his reasons, not for zw- 
 peaching that testimony (which he does not) but for con- 
 tending, that it will by no means bear the stress that his 
 antagonist had laid upon it ; and to be satisfied whether 
 those reasons have any validity, the reader has only to 
 compare them with Dr Horsley's reply in this volume.f 
 
 Mr Belsham himself seems to have instantly discover* 
 
 * See Johnson's Dictionary nnder the word IMPEACH. 
 
 f See the eighth of Dr Horsley 's Letters to Dr Priestley, the first of Dr Priest, 
 ley's second series of Letters to Dr Horsley, and Fart L sect. 2, 3, of Dr Horsley '& 
 Remarks on Dr Priestley's Second Letters to the Archdeacon of St Alban's, 
 
 64 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ed, that bis mode of impeaching ancient testimonies is 
 not alone sufficient to destroy them; he proceeds therefore 
 to give an answer "still more satisfactory" he says, from 
 the learned Jeremiah Jones, and begins with correcting 
 some mistakes into which Dr Horsley had fallen, with 
 respect to that gentleman's pedigree and private history. 
 What this has to do with the question at issue about the 
 deference due to the testimony of St Barnabas, or of the 
 author assuming that name, 1 confess myself unable to 
 imagine. We are next informed, that Mr Jones was 
 the relation and pupil of the very learned Samuel Jones, 
 who was also tutor to Dr Lardner, Maddox bishop of 
 Worcester, Butler bishop of Durham, Seeker archbishop 
 of Canterbury, and Dr Samuel Chandler, many years, 
 the able and admired pastor of the highly respectable 
 Presbyterian congregation of the Old Jewry."* 
 
 This is somewhat more to the purpose, as it shows 
 that Jeremiah Jones had the best opportunity of being 
 well educated : and I have not a doubt, but that he de- 
 rived every advantage which could be derived, from 
 the tutor of so many eminent men : still, the circum- 
 stance of Mr Jones having been well educated, does 
 not tend in the smallest degree to destroy the evidence 
 given in the epistle of Barnabas, that the divinity of 
 our Lord was the belief of the first Christians : Seeker, 
 and Butler, and Maddox, and Chandler, were all con- 
 vinced that the " divinity of our Lord was the belief of 
 the very first Christians ; and since they were all educa- 
 ted by the same tutor, and all possessed of eminent abili- 
 ties, why should not we pay as much deference to their 
 judgment as to the judgment of Jeremiah Jones? The 
 
 Belaharo, p. 4*1. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 evidence possessed by us, of what was the belief of the 
 first Christians will lose something, I do not thiuk much, 
 but it will lose something of its weight, if the testimony 
 of Barnabas be set aside ; and no orthodox Christian will 
 allow it to be set aside without proof, by the ipse dixit of 
 Mr Jones, merely because he was a man of learning, and 
 the fellow pupil of three eminent English bishops, of 
 one very learned Socinian, and of one eminent Presby- 
 terian divine ! 
 
 Mr Belsham seems to be aware of this, and therefore 
 gives, in the following words, the answer supplied by the 
 learned Jeremiah Jones, which he says is still more 
 satisfactory, than the impeachment of the testimony of 
 Barnabas by himself and Dr Priestley. 
 
 "In the second volume of his admirable treatise ou 
 the canon of Scripture, republished a few years ago by 
 the University of Oxford, Part III. ch. 37, after a very 
 full and impartial inquiry into the subject, Mr Jones 
 states it as his opinion, which he substantiates by abun- 
 dant evidence, that the epistle was written, not by Bar- 
 uabas nor by any other Jew, but by some person who 
 was originally a pagan idolater; that it is an apochryphal 
 book, and was never read in the churches till the time 
 of Jerome ; that it contains many assertions which am 
 absolutely false, and a great number of trifling, silly, 
 and idle things : and upon the whole, he concludes from 
 its having been cited only by Clemens JLlexandrimis 
 and O-rigen 9 * that it was forged at Alexandria ; and 
 because there are so many pious frauds in it, that it vt as 
 
 * That it was cited bj other ancient writers besides Clemens and Origen, the 
 reader may easily satisfy himself by perusing the Veterum Testimonia de JZptstsfa 
 St Barndbtfy prefixed to Cotelerins's edition of the apostolical fathers. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 the forgery of some such person as corrupted the books 
 of the Sybils, and that it was written about the middle 
 of the second century."* 
 
 But all this is only the opinion of Mr Jones, and 
 learned as I doubt not he was, I am not bound, nor is 
 the publick bound to adopt his opinions without proof, 
 in preference to the opinions of those who think differ- 
 ently of the epistle of Barnabas : that the epistle contains 
 several trivial, silly, and idle things, and was not writ, 
 ten by Barnabas the apostle, was the opinion of Bishop 
 Horsley as well as of Mr Jones ; and the Bishop assigns 
 the reasons on which his opinion was founded : but that 
 the epistle is the work of some apostolical writer, and 
 no forgery of a converted heathen about the middle of 
 the second century, is the joint opinion of Bishop Hors- 
 ley and Dr Priestley :f now, throwing the Bishop's 
 opinion out of the scale, whether is the opinion of the 
 learned Jeremiah Jones, or of the learned Dr Joseph 
 Priestley to preponderate on this occasion ? If Mr Bel- 
 sham think that two such names must keep the balance 
 in equipoise, what is to happen when we throw into the 
 Doctor's scale, the opinions of Archbishop Wake, Dr 
 Cave, Cotelerius, and Bishop Pearson,} whose opinion 
 alone is, on questions of this sort, of greater weight than 
 the opinions of twenty Jones's and of as many Bel- 
 shams, of greater weight indeed than the opinion of any 
 other modern, with whose writings I am at all ac- 
 
 Belsham, p. 441. 
 
 } See the fifth section of Dr Priestley's History of the Doctrine of Atonement, 
 in his Appeal to the serious professors of Christianity, and the eighth of Dr Hots- 
 ley's Letters in the preceding Tracts. 
 
 } Tliis prodigy of learning says, (Lect. II. in act App. 10.) Nemo certe fuit 
 (reterum) qui hanc epistolam Baroabae non tribuerit, ueque in ea quidquam ap- 
 parct, quod cam tctatera noo ferat. 
 
APPENDIX. 509 
 
 quainted. But they are not modern opinions only, that 
 must be thrown into the scale of Bishop Horsley and 
 Dr Priestley. 
 
 Origen himself, " the fairest character which Christian 
 history has to exhibit," quotes this epistle, not barely as 
 the writing of some apostolical men, but as the genuine 
 writing of the apostle whose name it bears : in answer 
 to an objection which Celsus puts into the mouth of his 
 Jew, to the characters of those whom our Lord called to 
 the apostleship, that they were infamous wretches, pub- 
 licans and fishermen ; Origen, after observing that Cel- 
 sus seems willing enough to believe the writings of the 
 evangelists, when they furnish matter for detraction, but 
 not in matters of importance, least he should be obliged 
 to confess the Divinity openly preached in their writings, 
 adds TiyfcLT/loit Stf iv TV Bapa'Ca Ka^ox/x^ '] 
 
 Jr Toc^a t/Ver, eT^a/ tT/^flvf xiti 
 
 o1ii%tKt$oi1o TVf id/wf oLTroroKvf I(rvf, eV/af virif craaaf 
 dro/4iat dto/tolifvt . Kt/ tr TU traiyyiKtQ &e T xa?a AOUKOLV <p)f<ri 
 
 N * , , *l->^ fl ' ' "/I * * 
 
 TOY 1BC'K JltT^Of, E^iXOi OL7T ^Uj 0/1 CCKWf a^ 
 
 That the epistle of Barnabas which is here cited by 
 Origen, is the epistle which Messrs Jones and Belsham 
 think unworthy of all credit, is unquestionable ; for the 
 very words quoted, are in the fifth chapter of that epistle 
 published by Cotelerius : It is true Barnabas adds, that 
 our Lord chose for his apostles the greatest of sinners, 
 
 and Origen, after citing several passages from 8t Luke 
 and Ht Paul, acknowledging the apostles to have been 
 great sinners, assigns a similar reason, for our Lord 
 
 * Vid. Orig. contra Celsum, lib. I. p. 49. ed. Cantab. 165. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Laving made choice of such men to be the first preach- 
 ers of his gospel. 
 
 Here then we have Origen bearing testimony, not 
 barely to the antiquity of the epistle ascribed to Barna- 
 bas, but even to its genuineness as the work of that 
 apostle himself ; and quoting it as of equal authority, 
 when relating a matter of fact, with the gospel of St 
 Luke. In ascribing it to the apostle, I think indeed for 
 the reasons assigned by Bishop Horsley, that Origcn 
 was mistaken ; but into such a mistake, an inquirer into 
 the records of the church so indefatigable as Origen, 
 could not possibly have fallen, had the epistle been for- 
 ged by a converted heathen in the very city in which 
 he was born, and within thirty or forty years of his birth. 
 At any rate Mr Belsham must admit, that if Origen was 
 liable to fall into such a mistake as this, he is no com. 
 petent witness respecting the church of orthodox Jew- 
 ish Christians at JElia during the reign of Adrian ; for 
 though he was more than once at JEt\m or Jerusalem, 
 he was not so long there as he was at Alexandria ; nor 
 had be equal opportunities of making himself acquaint, 
 ed with the original state of the Mlmn church. Indeed, 
 the epistle itself bears internal evidence little short of 
 demonstration, that it could not have been composed by 
 a converted pagan as Mr Jones alleges ; for .as Bishop 
 Horsley observes, " none but a person bred in Judaism 
 could, in that age, possess such a minute knowledge of 
 the Jewish rites as is displayed in that book." 
 
 Here then we have a number of eminent men, Bishop 
 Horsley, Dr Priestley, Archbishop Wake, Dr Cave, 
 Cotelerius, and Bishop Pearson, himself a host, besides 
 Origen " the fairest character that Christian history has 
 to exhibit/ 7 all opposed to the learned Jeremiah Jones. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 and the learned Thomas Belsham ; and if the question 
 is to be decided by authority or by votes, the Catholick 
 epistle of Barnabas must be deemed, a writing of the 
 apostolical age. 
 
 " No," says Mr Belsham, it is not of the apostolical 
 age, for Jeremiah Jones substantiates his opinion by 
 abundant evidence ;" but where is that evidence? Mr 
 Jones has indeed cited a great variety of testimonies 
 all, it is to be supposed that he thought of any weight, in 
 deciding the authenticity of the epistle, and among these 
 not one is found to favour Mr Jones's own opinion. 
 Three out of the four ancient authorities produced by 
 him, Clemens Alexandrimis, Origen, and Jerome, con- 
 tend that the epistle is genuine the work of the apostle 
 whose name it bears and the fourth, Eusebius. though 
 he ranks it among the books which are spurious, be- 
 lieves it to have been written in the apostolick age : of 
 the eighteen modern writers, whose sentiments upon 
 the subject Mr Jones has detailed, eight* agree in the 
 opinions of Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, and Jerome, 
 and the remaining tewf IQ that of Eusebius : in the con- 
 jecture therefore, that the epistle of Barnabas was writ- 
 ten " originally by a pagan, about the middle of the 
 second century, and was the forgery of some such per- 
 on as corrupted the books of the Sybils," Mr Jones 
 stands single ;J or at least, stood single till the appear- 
 
 J-Vosius. Dr Bernard. DuPin. Dr Cave. Archbishop Wake. Dr S.Clarke. 
 Mr Le Clerc. Dr Jenkin. 
 
 f Archbishop Usher. Hugo Menardus. Archbishop Laud. Cotelerius. Bi- 
 hop Fell. MrDodwell. Mr Toland. Dr Mill. Mr Eachard. Mr Whiston. 
 
 $ It must be confessed by every candid man who consults Mr Jones's work oil 
 the Canon of Scripture, that the author has displayed great ingenuity and con- 
 siderable powers of reasoning in support of his conjecture ; ("for Mr Jones too* 
 really a fearned man, and dealt nut in contemptuous but argumentative fan* 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ance of Mr Belsham ; and how unreasonable it would 
 be, to suffer the opinion of a single writer, to decide the 
 authority of any book in opposition to the general sense 
 of the learned world, cannot be more forcibly illustrated 
 than by applying, with a slight verbal alteration to Mr 
 Jones's conjecture, the observations which he himself 
 makes on the opinions of Clemens Alexandrinus. 
 
 " Suppose then that one writer (Jeremiah Jones) had 
 too low an opinion of a book, are we to be governed in 
 determining its authenticity by the private opinion of 
 one single writer, contrary to the Icnown sentiments of 
 every other writer f Must one man judge for the whole 
 Christian world? And must his rejection of a book 
 prove its insufficiency, when it appears to have been 
 received by every Christian writer besides, and admit- 
 ted on its own internal evidence, to have been the work 
 of the apostolick age by every one who has mentioned 
 it ? I shall add no more here, but repeat what 1 ob- 
 served Vol. I. Prop. v. that we are not to determine the 
 authority of any book or books, upon the credit of any 
 one or two particular writers, but the WHOLE BODY or 
 
 THE. WRITERS OF THE CHURCH."* 
 
 The reader is by this time satisfied, I trust, with 
 what propriety Mr Belsham has applied to Bishop 
 Horsley such epithets as ignorant and pitiful ! Of this 
 modern champion of Unitarianism 1 know nothing, but 
 from his inquiry into the person of Christ, and his share, 
 whatever it may be, in the merits of the improved ver- 
 
 jT/o-e") But if the reader will take the trouble to compare the arguments of 
 Dr S. Clarke, Bishop Pearson, and Bishop Horsley, upon the point at Usue, with 
 the reasoning of Mr Jones, he will find the latter completely refuted. 
 Jones's Can, of Scrip. Vol. 1J. Part IU. cap. XI<. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 sion of the New Testament : but from these specimens 
 of his literature and powers of reasoning, it seems not 
 too much to say, that he is at least as inferior to Dr 
 Priestley, as 1 readily acknowledge myself to be to Bi- 
 shop Horsley : J)r Priestley, as the Bishop always de- 
 clared, was, in the departments of physical science, to 
 which he had devoted his attention, a great man. though 
 he had no pretensions to superiority as a Greek scholar, 
 or a Scripture critick : there may be departments in 
 science, in which Mr Belsham too is great ; but what 
 they are I have not heard : I have therefore treated him 
 without ceremony ; though I trust that 1 have never ex- 
 pressed myself in language unworthy of a gentleman or 
 a Christian. If 1 acknowledge that I have sometimes 
 felt it difficult to repress my indignation, and that I 
 have treated with ridicule what, being unsupported by 
 argument, admits not of an argumentative reply; I am. 
 persuaded, that by the candid part of the publick, I 
 shall be forgiven ; and the sentiments of ]\lr Belsham 
 himself, will give me no concern. T/V nf>cc xa< n'n r*lw 
 
 TI Troll Tr'tTrfMTCLi pv\ pihoipi : ti/t)f It rV dyM( KOH T\STOIG 
 
 CKpiihoijui uvliri AwXer lilt W?e 
 r*1o xa?a</la/V ybot% pot ra^/al 
 Amoipi rf ayaOc d^otuf. fiw^oyor I 
 
 65 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. A CHARGE to the Clergy of the Arch- 
 
 deaconry of St Alban's, ...... 15 
 
 II. Letters from the Archdeacon of St JUban's 
 
 in Reply to Dr Priestley, ..... 89 
 
 III. A Sermon on the Incarnation, .... 303 
 
 IV. Remarks on Dr Priestley's Second Let- 
 ters to the Archdeacon of St Allan's, 
 with proofs of certain facts asserted by 
 the Archdeacon, ........ 
 
 V. Supplemental Disquisitions on certain 
 points in Dr Priestley 9 8 Second and 
 Tftird Letters to the Archdeacon of St 
 
 Mban's, ........... 
 
 66 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ILetters in Reply to Dr Priestley. 
 
 LETTER FIRST. 
 
 <THE Archdeacon of St Alban's declines a regular contro- 
 versy with Dr Priestley. Produces new instances of 
 Dr Priestley* s inaccuracies and misrepresentations^ . 91 
 
 LETTER SECOND. 
 
 A recapitulation of the Archdeacon's Charge ..... 101 
 
 LETTER THIRD. 
 
 In Reply to Dr Priestley's introductory, and to fitirt of his 
 first letter. His defence of his argument from the clear 
 sense of Scripture confuted. Of the argument against 
 our Lord's pre -existence to be drawn from the materiali- 
 ty of man. Of the Greek pronoun STO?, 10$ 
 
 LETTER FOURTH. 
 
 In Reply to Dr Priestley's first letter. His defence of 
 his argument from St Joh?i's first epistle confuted. The 
 phrase " come in the flesh" more than equivalent to the 
 word " to come." St John's assertion that " Christ 
 fame in the flesh' 9 not parallel with St Paul's that ht 
 partook offleth and blood" ' 1 ^ 
 
CONTEXTS. 
 
 LETTER FIFTH. 
 
 PAGI. 
 
 The Archdeacon's inter fir elation of Clemens Romanus de- 
 fended. The shorter epistles of Ignatius genuine ). . . 133 
 
 LETTER SIXTH. 
 
 In Pefily to Dr Priestley's second. The difference of the 
 JEbionites and A'azarenes no singular or new opinion of 
 the Archdeacon's. The same thing maintained by Mo- 
 shrim and other criticks of great name. Dr Priestley's 
 arguments from Origen and Kustbius not neglected in, 
 the Archdeacon's Charge. Dr Prii-sttey's conclusions 
 from the several passages cited by him from Epipha- 
 nius confuted. The Nazarenes no sect of the apostolick 
 age. JKbion not contemporary ivith St John. The an~ 
 tiquity of a sect not a Jiroof of its orthodoxy^ .... 131 
 
 LETTER SEVENTH. 
 
 Continuation of Reply to Dr Priestley's second. Of the 
 argument from Origen. That it rests on two pasnages 
 in the books against Celsus. The Jirst misinterpreted 
 by Dr Priestley in a -very important point. JVo argu- 
 ment to be drawn from the two passages in connexion. 
 Origen convicted of two false assertions in the Jirst 
 passage. The opinions of the Jirst age not to be con- 
 cluded from the opinions of Origen, 1 >4 
 
 LETTER EIGHTH. 
 
 A positive proof still extant that our Lord's divinity was 
 the belief of the -very Jirst Christians. The epistle of 
 St Barnabas not the ivork of an apostle but a produc- 
 tion of the- apostoiick age. Cited as such by Dr pr 
 
CONTENTS: 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 ley. The author a Christian of the Hebrews a be- 
 liever in our Lord's divinity writes to Christians of 
 the Hebrews concurring in the same belief, 166 
 
 LETTER NINTH. 
 
 The ftroofofthe orthodoxy of the first age overturns Dr 
 Priestley's arguments from Hegesififms and Justin Mar- 
 tyr. Hegesijijius a voucher for the Trinitarian faith. 
 Dr Priestley's own principles set aside his interpreta- 
 tion of Justin Martyr. Dr Priestley himself gives it 
 up. Tertullian makes no acknowledgement of any popu* 
 larity of the Unitarian tenets in his own time , . . . . Ifl 
 
 LETTER TENTH. 
 
 In Reply to Dr Priestley's third letter, in which he would 
 prove that the primitive Unitarians were not deemed 
 hcreticks. His arguments from Tertullian, Justin Mar- 
 tyr, and Irenxus, confuted by the Monthly Reviewer. 
 The insufficiency of Dr Priestley's reply. The argu- 
 ments from Clemens Alexandrinus and from Jerome 
 confuted, 180 
 
 LETTER ELEVENTH. 
 
 In Reply to Dr Priestley's fourth, in which he defends 
 his argument from a passage in Athanasius. The sense 
 of the words *** n'Myos mistaken by Dr Priestley. 
 The sense of the wird yMw^ mistaken by Dr Priestley. 
 Prudence and caution not synonymous. The matter 
 of fact as represented by Athanasius mistaken by Dr 
 Priestley. His grammatical argument refuted. That 
 Athanasius speaks of unconverted Jews proved from a 
 comparison of the two clauses in which Jews are men- 
 tioned. The Gentiles not uninterested in questions about 
 the Messiah. Of deference to authorities, 193 
 
CONTENTS. 519 
 
 LETTER TWELFTH. 
 
 PAG*. 
 
 In Refily to Dr Priestley's fifth, in which he moves cer- 
 tain chronological difficulties. Himself chiefly concern- 
 ed to Jind the solution. His question divided. The 
 divinity of our Lord preached from the -very beginning 
 by the apostles. Sf Stejihcn a martyr to this doctrine. 
 His dying ejaculations justify the worship of Christ. 
 Christ deified in the story of St Paul's conversion. The 
 divinity of Jesus acknowledged by the apostles from the 
 time when they acknowledged him for the Messiah. No- 
 tions of a Trinity and of the deity of the Messiah current 
 among the Jews in the clays of our Saviour, .... 206 
 
 LETTER THIRTEENTH. 
 
 In Refily to Dr Priestley's sixth. Dr Priestley's igno- 
 rance of the true principles of Platonism appears in his 
 disquisitions concerning matter and spirit. The equa- 
 lity and unity of the three principles of the Platonists. 
 Dr Priestley's peculiar sense of the word PERSONIFI- 
 CATION not perceived either by the Archdeacon or the 
 Reviewer. The outline however of Dr Priestley's work 
 not misrepresented by the Archdeacon. The conversion 
 of an attribute into a substance differs not from a crea- 
 tion out of nothing. Never taught by the Platonists. 
 The eternity of the Logos independent of any supposed 
 eternity of the world. Not discarded therefore by the 
 converted Platonists. Dr Priestley's arguments from 
 the analogy between the divine Logos and human reason 
 answered. The Archdeacon abides by his assertion that 
 Dr Priestley hath misrepresented the Platonick language. 
 The Archdeacon's interpretation of the Platonists rests 
 not on his own conjecture but on the authority of Athena- 
 goras confirmed by other authorities. Dr Priestley** 
 quotations from Tertullian considered from Lactantius 9 . 220 
 
LETTER FOURTEENTH. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Jn Rejily to Dr Priestley's eighth. The Archdeacon* s sup- 
 position that thejirst Ebionites worshipped Christ defend- 
 ed. His supposition that Theodotus was the first ficrson 
 tvho taught the Unitarian doctrine at Rome defended, . 240- 
 
 LETTER FIFTEENTH. 
 
 In Reply to Dr Priestley's seventh. The metaphysical 
 Difficulties stated by Dr Priestley neither new nor unan- 
 swerable. Difficulties short of a contradiction no objec- 
 tion to a re-veal fd dnr trine. Difficulties in the Arian 
 and Socinian doctrines. The Father not the sole object 
 of worship. Our Lord in what sense an image of the 
 in-visible God and the Jirst-born of every creature. Not 
 the design of the evangelists to deliver a system of fun- 
 damental principles. The doctrine of the Trinity rests 
 vn the general tenor of the sacred writings The infer- 
 ence that Christ is not God because the apostles often 
 speak of him as a man in-valid. The inference from the 
 manner in which he sometimes speaks of himself invalid. 
 The Athanasians of the last age no Tritheists^ .... 247 
 
 LETTER SIXTEENTH. 
 
 The Unitarian doctrine not well calculated for the conver- 
 sion of Jews , Mahometans, or Infidels of any description^ . 263 
 
 LETTER SEVENTEENTH. 
 
 The Archdeacon takes leave of the controversy, .... 273 
 Appendix, 291 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Remarks on Dr Priestley's Second Letters, 
 with proofs, V. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 Rcmarki, ................. 325 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 PROOFS. 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 Of Origen'a want of -veracity. Of the fathers in general. 
 Of the passages in which St Chrysostom is sufi/iosed to 
 assert that the afioatlea temporized. Ji xfiecimen of COR- 
 
 an Unitarian, ........... 339 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 Of the church of Mlia or Jerusalem after Adrian. MG- 
 theim's narration confirmed. Christians not included in 
 Adrian's edicts against the Jews. The re turn from Ptlla a, 
 fact affirmed by Efiifihanius. Orthodox Hebrew Chris- 
 tians existing in the world long after the times of Adrian, 352 
 
 CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 Of the Hebrew church and it* sects, ........ 366 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 
 Of the decline of Calvinism. Of conventicles, .... 3f4 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 
 Of the doctrines of Calvin. Of Methodists, ..... 3&4 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTH. 
 
 Of the general sfiirit of Dr Priestley's controversial wri- 
 tings. Conclusion^ ............. 388 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Supplemental Disquisitionf. 
 
 DISQUISITION FIRST. 
 
 Of the fihrase of co7ning in the flesh" as used by St Po- 
 
 lycarji in his cjiistle to the Philififiians, 399 
 
 DISQUISITION SECOND. 
 
 OfTertullian's testimony against the Unitarians, and hia 
 use of the word i Dior A, . 4d7 
 
 DISQUISITION THIRD. 
 
 Of what is found relating to the Rhinnitt* in the writings 
 of Iren&us^ in confutation of an argument advanced by 
 Dr Priestley in favour of the Ebionites, in the third of 
 his first, and the fourth of his second Letters, from the 
 writings of IT "en ecus in particular ', 416 
 
 DISQUISITION FOURTH. 
 
 Of the sentiments of the fathers and others concerning the 
 eternal origination of the Son in the necessary energies 
 of the jiatcrnal intellect, 437 
 
 DISQUISITION FIFTH. 
 
 Of Or ig en's want of -veracity, 454 
 
 DISQUISITION SIXTH. 
 
 Of St Jerome's orthodox Hebrew Christians, 465 
 
 475 
 
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