This caution, therefore, must necessarily have respected those persons into whose hands the gospels, &c. were most likely to come, and who would give the most attention to them; and these were certainly the believing Jews, and the christian world at large, and not unbelievers of any nation. We are authorised to conclude, that in the opinion of the writers who have spoke of it, of whatever weight that opinion may be, this caution in divulging the doctrine of the divinity of Christ was necessary with respect to the great body of christians themselves, and especially the Jewish christians. Consequently, they must have supposed, that at the time of these publications, which was about A. D. 64, the doctrine of the divinity of Christ was not generally held by christians, and that there would have been danger of giving them great offence if at that time it had been plainly proposed to them by the apostles themselves. At this period, therefore, it may be inferred, that, in the opinion of these writers, the christian church was principally unitarian, believing only the fimple fimple humanity of Christ, and knowing nothing of his divinity or pre-existence. From the acknowledgment which these orthodox Fathers could not help making (for certainly they would not do it unnecessarily) that there were great numbers of proper unitarians in the age of the apostles, it seems not unreasonable to conclude, that there were great numbers of them in the age immediately following, and in their own, And their knowledge of this might be an additional reason for the opinion that they appear to have formed of that prevalence in the apostolic age. Would these Fathers have granted to their enemies spontaneously, and contrary to truth, that the Jews were strongly prepossessed against the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, and that the unitarians were a formidable body of christians while the apostles were living, if it had been in their power to have denied the facts ? The consequence of making these acknowledgments is but too obvious, and must have appeared so to them, as well as it now does to others, which makes them so unwilling to make it after them. I cannot I cannot conclude this chapter without observing, in how unworthy a manner, and how unsuitably to their real character and conduct, these Fathers represent the apostles as acting. They were all plain men, far from being qualified, or disposed, to act so cunning a part, as is here ascribed to them. There is nothing like art or address in the conduct of any of them, as related in the scriptures, except that of Paul; and this was only with respect to his preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised Gentiles, before it was generally approved of at Jerusalem ; on which account, he informed the chief of the apostles only with what he had done. But this was no secret long, and indeed a thing of that kind could not, in ils own nature, have been much of a secret at any time. On all other occasions he failed not to inform those to whom he preached of the whole counsel of God; as he says that he had done with respect to the church of Ephesus, Acts xx. 27. Much less can it be supposed that he would have concealed a doctrine of so great magnitude and importance as that of the pre-existent dignity of his master ; and, communicating it only to a few, have left it to be taught after his death. For it is not to be supposed that the other apostles were in the secret of John's intending to do it after their deaths. Besides, the instructions of the apostles enjoined them to teach all that they knew, even what their master had communicated to them in the greatest privacy. Whereas upon this scheme, they must have suffered great numbers to die in the utter ignorance of the most important truths of the gospel, lest, by divulging it too soon, the converfion of others should have been prevented. To these observations I would add, that as among the twelve apostles, there must have been men of different tempers and abilities, it is not probable that they should all have agreed in conducting themselves upon this plan, viz. of not divulging the doctrine of the divinity of their master till their hearers should be sufficiently persuaded of his messiahship. Some of them would hardly have been capable of so much refinement, and would certainly have differed about the time when it was proper to divulge . divulge so great a secret. Besides, the mother of Jesus, and many other persons of both sexes, must have been acquainted with it. For that this secret was strictly confined to the twelve apostles, will hardly be maintained. And yet we have no account either of their instructions to act in this manner, or of any difference of opinion, or of conduct, with respect to it. Never, sure, was a more improbable hypothesis ever formed to account for any thing, than this of the christian Fathers to account for the late teaching of the doctrines of the pre-existence and divinity of Christ. But their circumstances left them no alternative. They must have had some very cogent reason for admitting that the teaching of these doctrines was so late ; and this could not have been any thing but the want of that general prevalence, which they would have had, if they had been taught with effect in the life-time of the apostles, and which would have continued to their own times. They must, therefore, have known that there were more unitarians in the church in the early ages than they could account |