LETTERS

ΤΟ

DR. HORSLEY,

LORD BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S.

PART IV.

BY JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, LL.D.F.R.S.

Facta minis quantum distent.

Hæc qui sacrilegis ausit convellere verbis

Schismaticus sit, et hæreticus;

et in mentem quicquid tibi splendida bilis Suggeret. Huc omnes tonitrus, huc fulgura linguæ Congere, proque focis hic depugnetur et aris.

Animi non mores exuit atros

Vestis Hyperboreas superans candore pruinas.

OVID.

BUCHANANI FRANCISCANUS.

PREFACE.

HAVING undertaken the defence of the Unitarian doctrine, or rather of this one position, that unitarianism was the faith of the primitive church; but not being willing to trouble the Public unnecessarily on the subject, I proposed to make one annual reply to such publications of my opponents as should make their appearance in the course of each year. This I did for the years 1786 and 1787; but nothing of any consequence having been produced in the year 1788, I had no occasion to write at all. The case has been something different this year. For though it will sufficiently appear that the advocates for the doctrine of the trinity have published nothing that is in the least degree formidable, enough has been done to give me an opportunity of showing how little the cause of unitarianism has to fear from any thing that the keenest eyes of its adversaries can discover to its prejudice.

If any man was ever interested in the support of any cause, it is the present Bishop of St. David's in that of trinitarianism; and yet I think there is hardly an example in the whole history of controversy, of any man having made so poor a figure as he has done in this. Sparing nothing that the force of language could supply to bear down his adversary, (with what temper others will judge,) Į appeal to the impartial reader whether all his arguments have not only been totally without weight, but in general destitute even of plausibility.

Professing to prove my incompetency in the subject,

he has given most abundant proofs of his own, and even of his deficiency in the learned languages. He has shrunk from the defence of most of the articles which he undertook to discuss, and has totally failed in the few that he did select, especially with respect to his church of orthodox Jewish christians at Jerusalem after the time of Adrian, and the want of veracity in Origen, who appeared by his writings to know of no such church. Even these mistakes were borrowed from Mosheim; so that, in all probability, he was, before the commencement of this controversy, entirely unacquainted with all those original writers with which he ought to have been particularly conversant.

This, indeed, is most evident both with respect to himself and his late ally Mr. Badcock, from the manner in which they took up my quotation from Athanasius. It is clear that the very idea of the apostles' not choosing openly to teach the doctrine of the trinity, because it would give offence to their hearers, was absolutely new to them; though I have shown it to have been the opinion of all the christian fathers without exception, who mention the subject; so that my construction of this passage of Athanasius is abundantly confirmed by all the writers who either preceded or followed him; to say nothing of such men as Beausobre and Dr. Lardner having understood it exactly as I did, and of my antagonists being unable to produce the opinion of any writer whatever in favour of theirs. To call my conduct in this business, as they scrupled not to do, a fraud and an imposition, discovers, I will not say their own readiness to take such an unfair advantage themselves, (for I hope that no man is capable of such complicated folly and wickedness as in more

cases than one they have ascribed to me,) but such gross ignorance on the subject as is barely credible with respect to men who voluntarily undertook to criticize another.

On this subject (with respect to which I am willing to appeal to the most prejudiced of my readers, and which, when it is well considered, will appear to be, in fact, decisive in favour of the Unitarian doctrine having been taught by the apostles) the Bishop of St. David's, in both his last publications, has been absolutely silent; and I am persuaded he will continue to be so.

Mr. Badcock charging me with a wilful perversion of the passage in Justin Martyr, in which he is also countenanced by Bishop Horsley, is another instance of a premature triumph of the same kind; discovering both their ignorance of the subject of this controversy, and of a very common idiom of the Greek language. This charge I will also venture to say the Bishop of St. David's will not repeat.

I cannot help congratulating the friends of free inquiry on the attention that is given to the subject of this controversy, and the happy effects of this attention, indifferent, or distasteful, as it is to many. Though the superior orders of the clergy do not, for reasons that may easily be conceived, engage in the public discussion, it is frequently the subject of their charges to the clergy, of which that of the Bishop of Peterborough, noticed page 168, is one instance. But another proof of a singularly curious nature appears in a bill that was to have been brought into the House of Commons in favour of the Catholics the last session of parliament, For among the provisos in this bill, the seventh in