therefore to be supposed the best digested, pro duction of the Socinian school: it comes also from the hands of a writer certainly possessed of classical erudition, a quality of which few of his Unitarian fellow labourers in the sister country are entitled to boast."

But to add one instance more, of the inge nious mode of reasoning, employed by these writers on the subject of Christ's pre-existence: in the 8th chap. of John we find our Saviour arguing with the Jews; who, on his asserting that Abraham had seen his day, immediately reply, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I AM. The inference from this, that our Saviour here declared himself to have existed before the time of Abraham, appears not to be a very violent one; his answer being immediately and necessarily applied to the remark made by the Jews upon his age, which rendered it impossible that he could have seen Abra

Priestley be the more unintelligible, may consult Notes, &c. vol. iii. pp. 18, 19, compared with Mr. Wakefield's comment already referred to. In addition to this work, there has yet more lately been given to the public from the Socinian press, what the authors are pleased to call An improved Version of the New Testament. What new lights this improved Version has thrown upon this part of Scripture, will be seen when we come more particularly to notice this performance in another part of these volumes,

ham: so that this passage will be admitted to be one of those, that "seem directly to assert the pre-existence of Christ." Now in what way have Socinus, and his followers, got rid of this seeming contradiction to their opinions?" I Αβρααμ γενεσθαι, εγω ειμι, must be thus translated: Before Abram can be ABRAHAM, that is, THE FATHER OF MANY NATIONS, I must be~ THE MESSIAH, or Saviour of the world. This famous discovery, which belongs to Socinus, was indeed esteemed of a nature, so far above mere human apprehension, that his nephew Faustus Socinus informs us, he had received it from divine inspiration.-Non sine multis precibus ipsius, Jesú nomine invocato, impetravit ipse. (Socinus contr. Eutrop. tom. 2. p. 678.) This sublime interpretation has, it must be confessed, been relinquished by later Socinians, who in imitation of Grotius, consider Christ as asserting only, that he was before Abraham in the decree of God. But how this could serve as a reply to the objection of the Jews, respecting priority of actual existence; or how in this, Christ said any thing of himself, that was not true of every human being, and therefore nugatory; or why the Jews upon a declaration, so innocent, and so unmeaning, should have been fired with rage against him as a blasphemer; or (if the sense be, that Christ existed in the divine mind antecedent, not to Abraham's birth, but to his existence in

the divine mind likewise) what the meaning can be of a piority in the divine foreknowledge;I leave to Mr. Belsham and his assistant commentators to unfold. Indeed this last interpretation seems not to have given entire satisfaction to Socinians themselves, as we find from a paper signed Discipulus, in the 4th vol. of the Theol. Repos. in which it is asserted, "that the modern Unitarians, have needlessly departed from the interpretation given by Slichtingius, Enjidinus, and other old Socinians, and have adopted another in its stead, which is not to be supported by any just grammatical construction." This gentleman then goes on to furbish up the old Socinian armour, and exults in having rendered it completely proof against all the weapons of Orthodoxy.

Mr. Wakefield however seems to think it safer to revert to the principles of Grotius's interpretation: and accordingly having fortified it against the charge of grammatical inaccuracy, he presents it in somewhat of a new shape, by translating the passage, Before Abraham was born, I am HE-viz. the Messiah. By which, he says, Christ means to imply, that "his mission was settled and certain before the birth of Abraham." That Mr. Wakefield has, by this construction, not only avoided the mystical conceits of Socinus's interpretation, but also some of the errors chargeable on that of Grotius, cannot

be denied: but, besides that he has built his entire translation of the passage, upon the arbitrary assumption of an ellipsis, to which the texts quoted as parallel furnish no support whatever, it remains, as before, to be shewn, what intelligible connexion subsists between our Lord's answer, and the question put to him by the Jews. If he meant merely to say, that his mission as the Messiah had been ordained before the birth of Abraham, (which is in itself a tolerable strain upon the words even of this new translation,) it will require all Mr. Wakefield's ingenuity, to explain in what way this could have satisfied the Jews, as to the possibility of Christ's having actually seen Abraham, which is the precise difficulty our Lord proposes to solve by his reply. Doctor Priestley, in his later view of this subject, has not added much in point of clearness or consistency to the Socinian exposition. He confesses, however, that the "literal meaning of our Lord's expressions" in the 56th verse was, that "he had lived before Abraham," and that it was so considered by the Jews: but at the same time he contends that our Lord did not intend his words to be so understood: and that when he afterwards speaks of his priority to Abraham, his meaning is to be thus explained; "that in a very proper sense of the words, he may be said to have been even before Abraham, the Messiah having been held forth as the great object of hope and joy for

the human race, not only to Abraham, but even to his ancestors." (Notes, &c. vol. iii. pp. 329, 330, 333, 334.) Such is what Dr. Priestley calls the proper sense of the words, BEFORE ABRAHAM WAS, I AM.

I have here given a very few instances, but such as furnish a fair specimen, of the mode of reasoning, by which those enlightened commentators to whom Mr. Belsham refers, have been en→ abled to explain away the direct and evident mean→ ing of Scripture. I have adduced these instances, from the arguments which they have used relating to the pre-existence of Christ, as going to the very essence of their scheme of Christianity, (if such it can be called,) and as being some of those on which they principally rely. I have not scrupled to dwell thus long, upon a matter not necessarily connected with the subject of these discourses, as some benefit may be derived to the young student in divinity, (for whom this publication has been principally intended,) from exposing the hollowness of the ground, on which these high-sounding gentlemen take their stand, whilst they trumpet forth their own extensive knowledge, and the ignorance of those, who differ from them. These few instances may serve to give him some idea, of the fairness of their pretensions, and the soundness of their criticism. He may be still better able to form a judgment of their powers in scriptural exposition, when he