fairly interpreted, appears to be nothing less than the consent of the latest and earliest revelations."

Without troubling you with any remarks upon the 'joint worship of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the triad," as you call them, " of the Roman capitol," or the THREE MIGHTY ONES, in Samothrace, to which you say, p. 44. they may be traced; and the worship of which in that place you suppose, with Eusebius, to be earlier than the days of Abraham; I say, without troubling you with any remarks upon this most obscure part of heathen mythology, concerning which there are many opinions, and yours I think the least probable of them all, I will only ask you three questions, to which I beg your explicit answer.

First, If there be so many traces of the doctrine of the trinity in the heathen philosophy, and in the heathen worship, why are there no more of them to be found in the Jewish scriptures and in the Jewish worship? Secondly, If there be such traces of the doctrine of the trinity in the Jewish writings and worship, how came the Jews in our Saviour's time, and also the body of the Jewish nation to this day, not to discover these traces? Thirdly, If the Jews had been once in the possession of this knowledge, but had lost it in the time of our Saviour, why did not he, who rectified other abuses, rectify this, the most important of them all? Tertullian was so far from imagining that the worship of the trinity was known to the Jews, that, as I have observed, vol. i. p. 60, he makes the knowledge of the trinity peculiar to the christian dispensation. The same was the opinion of Athanasius, and I believe the fathers in general.

As to the trinity of Plato, whatever you or I may

know, or may not know, concerning it, it was certainly a thing very unlike your Athanasian doctrine; for it was never imagined that the three component members of that trinity were either equal to each other, or strictly speaking one.

Every attempt that has yet been made to explain the doctrine of the trinity I scruple not to call an insult on the common sense of mankind. When I read that of yours mentioned above, viz. that the Father is the fountain of deity, and that the second person in the trinity was produced by the first person contemplating his own perfections, I can hardly help fancying that I am got back into the very darkest of the dark ages, or at least that I am reading Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, or Duns Scotus.

You speak of the catholic doctrine of the trinity. There is also, Sir, a catholic doctrine of transubstantiation; and if you would try your skill, you would find that, with the same kind of arguments, from reason and scripture, you would be just as able an advo cate for the one as you are for the other. The learned catholics at the time of the Reformation thought that they trod on as firm and as sure ground in defending the latter, as you now do in defending the former. The two doctrines are so nearly akin, that they cannot bear a long separation. They differ only in this, that the doctrine of transubstantiation implies a physical impossibility, whereas that of the trinity, as unfolded in the Athanasian creed, implies a mathematical one; and to this only we usually give the name of contradiction.

I am truly concerned to find by your Charge, published at the request of the respectable body of Clergy

H

to whom it was delivered, that the doctrine of a trinity, in its most objectionable form, must be maintained at all events by the proper members of the church of England as its most sacred palladium. Other divines of your church have attempted to explain and palliate it, so that it might be hoped that, in time, it would have been explained away and lost, and at length have been struck out of your articles and forms of worship; whereas now, it seems, it is to be maintained in all its rigour; and as you recommend the writings of Bishop Bull, without exception, I presume you approve of his Defence of the damnatory clause in the Athanasian creed, (indeed you mention this among his most valuable works,) and this in my opinion is going back into all the darkness and horror of popery. But as you cannot bring back those times, your damnatory clauses and excommunications will now have little effect. Yet, as there are liberal sentiments in your performance, I am willing to hope that, on re-consideration, you will, at least, retract your recommendation of that piece of your favourite author.

However, next to the church's reforming itself in this important article, it is to be wished by all the true friends of reformation, that your terms of communion, p. 71, may be universally understood and adhered to; for then I am confident that a majority of the thinking clergy, whose sentiments on this subject are in general, I believe, those of Dr. Clarke, or Arian, and many of them Socinian, would quit your communion at once, And in that case I have little doubt but that the characters and abilities of those ejected clergy would be found to be such as you could not now bear the want

of; and then either a reformation, invitá ecclesia, or a total dissolution of the hierarchy, would immediately follow. I am, &c.

To vindicate Eusebius, or his author, in asserting that,

Theodotus was the first who advanced the doctrine of Christ being a mere man, you say, p. 37, " 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 Redeemer; 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 heretics however went no further, 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."

This, as far as I know, is advanced on your own authority only. I desire to know where you find that the Ebionites paid any kind of adoration to Christ after he was ascended to heaven, more than Theodotus did. As the extraordinary power communicated to Christ while he was on earth did not make his nature more than human, so neither could any power conferred upon him after his ascension; and if God alone is the proper object of worship, Christ, being still not God, is as improper an object of worship now as he was before. If any ancient unitarians worshipped Christ after his ascension (of which I believe there is no evidence), Theodotus might do it, and the Ebionites might not, for any thing that appears to the contrary. Socinus prayed to Christ, though he considered him as a mere man, in his present exalted state.

As to your supposition that Theodotus might be the first person who taught the unitarian doctrine in Rome, which is a second plea which you advance for the credit of Eusebius, he himself says nothing about it. And as Tertullian says that in his time the unitarians were the greater part of the believers, it is highly improbable that there should be none of them at Rome, where there was a conflux of all religions and of all

sects.

You here speak of the impiety of the unitarians. Before you repeat any expressions of this kind, I beg you would pause a little, and consider how such language might be retorted upon yourself. If it be impiety to reduce a God to the state of a man, is it not equally impious to raise any man to a state of equality with God, that God who has declared that he will not give his glory to another, who has no equal, and who