cially if, as was often the case in former times, they had no alternative but a prison with a good conscience, or their present emoluments without one. I rather think they would contrive to keep both, and soon make themselves perfectly easy in their new situation.

With respect to the common people in general, settled as you may think them to be in the doctrines of the church of England, perpetually hearing of three persons and one God, and daily making their responses to the holy blessed and glorious trinity; yet could they, without any preparation or discussion, hear Mr. Lindsey's reformed liturgy read to them by their usual ministers, and no Archdeacon should sound the alarm, but they were to take it for granted that all was done by order of their superiors, and therefore right, I dare the peace of few parishes would be much disturbed

say

by it.

These considerations, which are founded on such a knowledge of human nature as we may learn from all history, and our own daily observation, may render it credible that the majority of the common people, the idiote of Tertullian, though not the ideots of Dr. Horsley, might be unitarians, and yet continue in communion with the church after its forms became trinitarian, especially as they would not become so all at once. In the most ancient liturgies, you know, there were no prayers addressed to Christ; and as the members of christian societies were not required to subscribe to any thing*, there was nothing that they were expected to bear a part in, concerning which they might not be able to satisfy themselves. I am, &c.

*In the times in which the doctrine of the trinity was most agitated, some of the more zealous bishops proposed the Nicene creed and other tests to those who were in communion with them; but even then this practice does not appear to have been general.

LETTER X.

Of the Quotation from Athanasius.

REV. SIR,

It is with very little effect, indeed, that you cavil at my quotation from Athanasius, and the defence I made of it. To every impartial reader it discovers how extremely averse the Jews were to the doctrine of the divinity of Christ; and, to borrow a word from you and Mr. Badcock, to what management the apostles were reduced in divulging this offensive doctrine to them. I have nothing to offer in addition to what I said on that subject, except that I have no objection to your rendering suλoyos aitia, a good reason, instead of a plausible pretence; for I doubt not that it appeared a very good reason to Athanasius, who had nothing better to suggest.

Athanasius, however, by no means stands single in his view of the prejudices of the Jews, and of the conduct of the apostles with respect to them. Epiphanius, as quoted above, shows how prevalent the doctrine of the simple humanity of Christ was at the time that John wrote. There are also passages in several of the fathers, and especially a great number in Chrysostom, by which we clearly perceive that their idea of the conduct of the apostles was precisely the same with that which I have ascribed to Athanasius; and as it is possible that, by a different kind of instinct, my rapid glances may have discovered more passages of this kind than have occurred to you, in the actual reading and study of all the authors, I shall here produce one of them from the preface to his Commentaries on the Book of Acts.

After treating pretty largely of the conduct of the

apostles with respect to their insisting on the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ, rather than that of his divinity, immediately after the descent of the Holy Spirit, he says, "As to the Jews, who had daily heard, and been taught out of the law, Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord, and besides him there is no other; having seen him (Jesus) nailed to a cross, yea having killed and buried him themselves, and not having seen him risen again, if they had heard that this person was God, equal to the Father, would not they have rejected and spurned at it." I want words in English to express the force of the Greek, in this place. The Latin translator renders it nonne maxime omnes ab his verbis abhorruissent, ac resilissent, et oblatrassent. "On this account," he adds, "they (the apostles) brought them forwards gently, and by slow degrees, and used great art in condescending to their weakness*.

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In how different a light do Chrysostom and you represent the same thing! According to you, the Jews were always fully persuaded that their Messiah was to be God, equal to the Father; and therefore, after the apostles had persuaded them that Jesus was the Messiah, they had nothing to apprehend from their attachment to the doctrine, of the unity of God, and had no occasion for any art or management with respect to it. However, their view of things, I doubt not, assisted

* Πως δε αν Ιουδαιοι, οἱ καθ' έκαστην ήμεραν μανθάνοντες, και ενηχούμενοι ὑπο του νόμου, Ακουε Ισραηλ, κύριος ὁ Θεος σου κυριος εἷς εστιν, και πλην αυτού ουκ εστιν αλλος, επί ξύλου σταυρου ίδοντες προσηλωμένον αυτον, μαλλον δε και σταυρώσαντες και θαψαντες, και ούδε ανασταντα θεασαμενοι, ακουοντες ότι θεος εστιν αυτος οὗτος, και τῳ πατρι ισος, ουκ αν μαλιστα παντων απεπήδησαν τε και απερ φαγησαν; Διατοι τουτο ηρέμα, και κατα μικρον, αὐτοὺς προσβιβάζουσι, και πολλή μεν κεχρηνται τη της συγκαταβασεως οικονομιᾳ. Chry sost. in Acta Apost. Hom. 1. Opera, vol. viii. p. 447.

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Athanasius, Chrysostom, and others, who lived.nearer to those times than the present Archdeacon of St. Albans, to account for the great number of unitarians among the early Jewish christians. Nor could they wonder at the same among the Gentiles, considering, as Athanasius does, that they could only learn christianity from the Jews; and it would have answered no end for the apostles to have spoken with caution to the Jews, and with openness to the Gentiles. Besides, according to Chrysostom, the Gentiles were not much better prepared to receive the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, than the Jews themselves.

In the same passage, part of which I have quoted above, after observing that, if the apostles had not conducted themselves in this cautious manner with respect to the Jews, their whole doctrine would have appeared incredible to them, he adds, "and at Athens Paul calls him (Jesus) simply a man, and nothing further, and for a good reason. For if, when they had heard Christ himself speaking of his equality to the Father, they would on that account have often stoned him, and called him a blasphemer; they would hardly, therefore, have received this doctrine from fishermen, especially after speaking of him as crucified. And why do I speak of the Jews, when at that time, even the disciples of Christ himself were often disturbed, and scandalized at him, when they heard sublime doctrines; on which account he said, I have many things to say to you, but ye are not yet able to bear them. And if they could not bear these things who had lived so long with him, and had received so many mysteries, and seen so many miracles, how could men from their altars, and idols, and sacrifices, and cats, and crocodiles;

for such was the worship of the heathens! But being first brought off from these abominations, they would readily receive their discourse concerning more sublime doctrines*."

But we find no trace of either Jews or Gentiles having received these sublime doctrines that Chrysostom alludes to in the age of the apostles. Nay he himself represents the apostle Paul as obliged to use the same caution with respect to the Jews, when he wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews, which was so late as A. D. 62, about two years before his death. And if the body of the Jewish christians were at that time unitarians, can it be thought probable that they became trinitarians soon afterwards? If the apostles themselves had not succeeded in this business, which required equal address and authority, who else can be supposed to have done it?

Chrysostom represents the apostle as beginning his epistle to the Hebrews with saying, that "it was God who spake by the prophets, and by his son, and not that Christ himself had spoken by them, because their minds were weak, and they were not able to bear the

* Εν δε Αθηναις, και ανθρωπον αυτον ἁπλως καλὲι ὁ Παυλος, ουδε πλεον ειπων. εικοτως. ει γαρ αυτον τον χριστον διαλεγόμενον περι της εις τον πατερα ισότητος, λιθασαι πολλακις επεχείρησαν, και βλασφημον δια τουτο εκάλουν, σχολη γαρ αν παρα των ἁλιεων τουτον τον λόγον εδέξαντο, και ταυτα του σταυρου προχωρησαντες. Και τὶ δει λεγείν τους Ιουδαίους; όπουγε και αυτοι τότε πολλακις οἱ μαθηται των υψηλοτέρων ακουόντες δογματων εθορυβούντο και εσκανδαλιζοντο. δια τούτο και έλεγε, Πολλα εχω λεγειν όμιν αλλ' ου δυνασθε βασταζειν αρτι. ει δε εκείνοι ουκ εδύναντο οἱ συγγενόμενοι χρονον τοσούτον αυτῷ, και τοσουτων κοινωνήσαντες απορρήτων, και τοσαυτα θεασαμε ναι θαύματα, πως ανθρωποι απο βωμων, και ειδωλων, και θυσίων, και αιλούρων, και κροκοδείλων, τοιαύτα γαρ ην των Ελλήνων τα σε βασματα, και των αλλων των κακων τοτε πρωτον αποσπασθέντες, αθρόον τους ὑψηλους των δογματων εδέξαντο λόγους ; In Acta Hom. 1. Opera, vol. viii, p. 447.