of Christ, is so far from calling the contrary opinion a heresy, that what he says on the subject is evidently an apology for his own: and when he speaks of heretics in general, which he does with great indignation, as no christians, and having no communication with christians, he mentions the Gnostics only. Maxim 12.

12. Irenæus, who was after Justin, and who wrote a large treatise on the subject of heresy, says very little concerning the Ebionites. Those Ebionites he speaks of as believing that Christ was the son of Joseph, and he makes no mention of those who believed the miraculous conception. Maxim 12.

13. Tertullian represents the majority of the common or unlearned christians, the Idiotæ, as unitarians; and it is among the common people that we always find the oldest opinions in any country, and in any sect, while the learned are most apt to innovate. It may therefore be presumed that, as the unitarian doctrine was held by the common people in the time of Tertullian, it had been more general still before that time, and probably universal in the apostolical age. Athanasius also mentions it as a subject of complaint to the orthodox of his age, that the many, and especially persons of low understandings, were inclined to the unitarian doctrine. Maxim 4. 10.

14. The first who held and discussed the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, acknowledged that their opinions were exceedingly unpopular among the unlearned christians; that these dreaded the doctrine of the trinity, thinking that it infringed upon the doctrine of the supremacy of God the Father; and the learned christians make frequent apologies to them and to others for their own opinion. Maxim 10.

15. The divinity of Christ was first advanced and urged by those who had been heathen philosophers, and especially those who were admirers of the doctrine of Plato, who held the opinion of a second God. Austin says, that he considered Christ as no other than a most excellent man, and had no suspicion of the word of God being incarnate in him, or how "the catholic faith differed from the error of Photinus," (the last of the proper unitarians whose name is come down to us,) till he read the books of Plato; and that he was afterwards confirmed in the Catholic doctrine by reading the scriptures. Constantine, in his oration to the fathers of the council of Nice, speaks with commendation of Plato, as having taught the doctrine of "a second God, derived from the supreme God, and subservient to his will." Maxim 11.

16. There is a pretty easy gradation in the progress of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ; as he was first thought to be a God in some qualified sense of the word, a distinguished emanation from the supreme mind; and then the Logos, or the wisdom of God personified; and this logos was first thought to be only occasionally detached from the Deity, and then drawn into his essence again, before it was imagined that it had a permanent personality distinct from that of the source from which it sprung. And it was not till 400 years after that time that this logos, or Christ, was thought to be properly equal to the Father. Whereas, on the other hand, it is now pretended that the apostles taught the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, yet it cannot be denied that in the very times of the apostles the Jewish church, and many of the Gentiles also, held the opinion of his being a mere man. Here the trans

ition is quite sudden, without any gradation at all. This must naturally have given the greatest alarm, such as is now given to those who are called orthodox by the present Socinians; and yet nothing of this kind can be perceived. Besides, it is certainly most probable that the christians of those times, urged as they were with the meanness of their master, should incline to add to, rather than take from, his natural rank and dignity. Maxim 9.

APPENDIX.

Extract of a Letter from a Friend.

DEAR SIR,

November 5, 1783.

I HAVE just been reading Dr. Horsley's charge against you, to which I doubt not you will make a proper reply. As he seems to triumph in your having, as he supposes, mistaken the sense of some Greek quotations; and as parallel passages are not always at hand, though common enough if we could wait for them till they occur, I take the liberty of sending you one that I have since met with in Demosthenes, and another from Thucydides.

In opposition to your interpretation of the beginning of John's gospel, he says, the natural force of outoç is this person. Very true, if the noun to which it belongs represent a person; but if the noun be only the name of a thing, then the natural force of oúros will be this thing, as appears from the following passage from Demosthenes, 1st Olynthiac, Νυνι δε καιρος ήκει τις οὗτος ; ὁ των Ολυνθίων αυτόματος τη πόλει. "Now

comes another conjuncture; what conjuncture? That which voluntarily offers itself to the republic from the Olynthians." FRANCIS.

The Doctor is much displeased with your translating oun aλλw Tiven nothing but. To be sure, if it were clear from other arguments that the λoyos and copia λογος σοφια in question were persons, his translation would be the true one. But that those words cannot always be un

derstood to mean no other person, will be manifest from the following passage of Thucydides, lib.iv. cap. cxxvi. p. 311.

Ουκ αλλῳ τινι κτησαμενοι την δυναστείαν, η τῳ μαχόμενοι κρατ TELY. Qui nulla alia ratione principatum sunt adepti, quam quod (hostes) præliando superarent.

As to the other passage from Theophilus, of which the Doctor takes notice in his 63d page, when you come to look at it again, you will perceive that you did not exactly hit on the meaning of the last line; and I think the Doctor was a little warped by his system, when he translated God the word, the wisdom, Man. I think it pretty plain from the preceding words, TOU θεου και του λόγου, και της σοφιας αυτου, that the words in question should be translated "that there might be God, his word, his wisdom, (and) man." But this I submit to your better judgement.