passages from Origen. "John describes the last sufferings [of Christ] as the other Evangelists; but he does not introduce Jesus praying that the cup might pass from him, nor does he describe his being tempted by the devil. The reason I apprehend to be this; that they treat of him more according to his human nature than his divine, but John more according to his divine than his human nature." Comment. Series in Matt. sect. 92; Opera, Delarue, vol. iii. p. 903. "None of them [the other Evangelists] manifested his Deity (axparas) unmixedly, as John who presents him saying, I am the Light of the world; I am the way and the truth and the life; I am the resurrection; I am the door; I am the good Shepherd;' and in the Revelation, 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.' We may then venture to say, that the Gospels are (anaрõǹ) the chief of all the Scriptures; and that according to John, the chief of the Gospels." Comment. in Johann. Procm. sect. 6. Op. vol. iv. p. 6.

ii. Justin does indeed say; "There are some of our race [i. e. gentiles,] who acknowledge him to be the Christ, but declare him to be a man born of human parents: with whom I do not agree; nor would the majority, who hold the same opinion with me on these subjects, say [so:] for we are commanded by Christ himself not to yield assent to the doctrines of men, but [only] to the doctrines preached by the blessed prophets, and taught by himself." Dial. cum Tryph. ed. Jebb, p. 142. And the preceding connexion plainly shews that Justin regarded it as far better to be a Christian of this defective kind, than to continue in Judaism or heathenism: but (if I do not misapprehend the clause, οὐδ ̓ ἂν πλεῖστοι, ταῦτά μοι δοξάσαντες, εἴποιεν,) he also declares that the MAJORITY held the opposite doctrine, upon the testimony of the Scriptures. Here I beg leave to say, that I cordially adopt the sentiment of the upright and candid martyr. Rather than that any man should be a blaspheming infidel, I should rejoice to see him an Antisupernaturalist Christian : still more should I be glad, if he adopted the system of the Calm Inquirer and more thankful still, were he to become, in mind and character, such as Dr. Priestley or Dr. Carpenter. Every approximation to truth is so far good and desirable. The errors of the Unitarians are rather of the negative kind than of the

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positive. They fall greatly short, and I must profess my painful conviction that they fall very awfully short, of receiving ALL THE TRUTH which the scriptures teach: but I am not aware of their laying any alien doctrines upon the basis of revelation; at least the principal exception is their belief of the restoration to purity and happiness, of all the wicked and impenitent. In this opinion, they appear to me, both flagrantly to contradict and to add to, the testimony of the holy oracles.

A fragment of Melito, a writer, says Lardner, of "great merit," and a contemporary of Justin though probably a younger man, may give some light to the question whether, at that time, the generality of Christians were ignorant of, or denied, the Deity of Christ. "To persons of understanding there is no necessity for establishing, from the actions of Christ after his baptism, the truth and reality [åpartiotov, alluding to the Docetæ,] of his soul and body, the human nature like unto us. The actions of Christ after his baptism, and especially his miracles, manifested his Deity hidden in the flesh, and gave proofs of it to the world. For being at the same time God and man both perfect, he gave evidence to us of his two (orías) conditions of existence: his Deity, by the miracles which he wrought in the three years after his baptism; and his humanity in the thirty years before his baptism, in which his mean condition according to the flesh concealed the signs of his Deity, though he was the true God existing from eternity." Ex Anastasii Sinaita Hodego, ap. Routh, Reliq. Sacr. vol. i. p. 115.

iii. The celebrated passage of Tertullian* certainly involves great difficulty. But there are some considerations which appear to me to present a bar to the conclusion, that he admits the majority of Christians in his time to be Unitarians. (1) It seems absolutely necessary to make sense of the passage, that quique should be taken as used for quidam: and the style of

* Adv. Praxeam, cap. iii. See the passage at length and a translation, with remarks, in Letters to Mr. Belsham, p. 110-114. Lardner, Priestley, and Mr. B. have quippe in the place of quique; but this is probably by a mistake; for the editions of Rigaltius and Semler, and that of this Treatise, in the Chrestomathia Patristica, published by Dr. Augusti of Breslaw, 1812, all read quique: and no other reading is mentioned in the ample Var. Lect. of the two former editions.

Tertullian, remarkable for its peculiar and obscure phraseology, may render such an irregularity not improbable. (2) The construction does not make the simplices quique to be co-extensive with the major credentium pars. (3) As the Treatise against Praxeas was written after the author joined the Montanists, when it was his custom to speak of the general body of Christians in severe and disparaging terms, may it not be supposed that his representation of these "simple" or "well-meaning" people, whom he scarcely refrains from calling (imprudentes et idiota) "thoughtless and ignorant," was overcharged, for the sake of holding up to contempt the low state of knowledge among those whom he had quitted? The objections made by some, he might not be unwilling to express so loosely as to leave an imputation upon the mass of common Christians. Of Tertullian, Dr. Jortin says, that " he was deficient in judgment, and had a partial disorder in his understanding, which excuses almost as much as downright phrenzy: he was learned for those times, acute and ingenious; and somewhat satyrical, hasty, credulous, impetuous, rigid and censorious, fanatical and enthusiastical." Rem. Eccl. Hist. vol. i. p. 353. This censure is, in my opinion, too severe. Tertullian, with all his affectation of point, his quaintness, harshness, and extravagance, has a rich abundance of good passages. He was a master of sentences, rather than a continuous discourser. (4) The concession which Dr. Priestley and Mr. Belsham suppose to be implied is contrary to other statements of this father, in which he maintains the pre-existence and Deity of Christ, as that which had been always the common doctrine of Christians. De Præscript. Hær. cap. 20, 21, 25, 28, 32, 36, 38, 53.

iv. Origen is appealed to, as bearing testimony that, in his time, all Jewish believers in Jesus as the Messiah, received him as merely a man. On this subject I must confess that, notwithstanding the animadversions with which I was formerly honoured by the Author of the Calm Inquiry,* I cannot satisfy myself

* In his Vindication &c. in Reply to J. P. Smith, Lett. iii. Among other things, my antagonist charged me with retailing some of Bishop Horsley's arguments. I can, however, declare that, whatever might be the weight or the weakness of my observations, they were not the work of plagiarism,

that the Alexandrine father stands completely free from the charge of disingenuousness. In my little volume,* I adduced some examples of argumentative artifice from the immediate connexion of the passage. But, if any should still doubt the justice of imputing to Origen, a compliance with the practice by some of the fathers avowed as innocent and even laudable, of using arguments the weakness of which he knew; I would ask their attention to the passage in which he affirms the continuance of miracles among Christians, and solemnly assures us that he himself had been an eye-witness of them. Contra Celsum, lib. ii. sect. 8. However, to afford my reader the means of forming his own judgment, I here subjoin every passage in the extant writings of Origen, that is at all important on this subject.

Celsus says, concerning the Christian Jews, "that they 'had abandoned their native law, having been wheedled by Jesus, most ridiculously imposed upon, and becoming deserters to another name and another way of life :' not considering that those who from among the Jews believe on Jesus, have not left their native law; since they live according to it, having acquired an appellation which expresses the poverty of their law. For Ebion in the language of the Jews, signifies a poor person; and those who from among the Jews, receive Jesus as the Christ, have the name of Ebionites." Contra Cels. lib. ii. sect. 3. This "Be it is the passage to which the preceding remarks apply. so, that there are some who receive Jesus, and on that account boast of being Christians, while yet, like the general mass of the Jews, they are desirous of living according to the law of the Jews; and these are the two sorts of Ebionites, the one acknowledging as we do that Jesus was born of a virgin, and the other maintaining that he was born, not so, but like the rest of men but how does this bear any charge against the general body of the church?" ib. lib, v. sect. 61. "When you

but were indeed the fruit of my own unaided attention to Dr. Priestley's argument and the passage in Origen. Whatever coincidence might exist with any thing advanced by the Bishop, it was an honest coincidence ; and perhaps such a fact may carry some degree of presumption that the observations were not totally destitute of foundation in truth and reason. * Letters to Mr. Belsham, Lett. vii.

consider the faith concerning the Saviour, of those who, from among the Jews, believe on Jesus, the one sort supposing him to be the son of Mary and Joseph, the other of Mary alone and [by the power] of the Divine Spirit, but not with the admission of his Deity; you will perceive -"&c. In Matt. tom. xvi. sect. 12. Op. vol. iii. p. 733. "A man may believe the same person in one respect and not believe him in another; as, for example, those who believe on Jesus as, under Pontius Pilate, crucified in Judæa, but believe not on him as born of the virgin Mary: these believe on him and yet bélieve not." In Joann. tom. xx. sect. 24, vol. iv. p. 347. "Not only are the carnal Jews to be reproved for the circumcision of the flesh, but also some of those who seem to have taken up the name of Christ, and yet think that the circumcision of the flesh should be retained; as the Ebionites, and others, if there be any, who err through a like poverty of mind." In Genes. Homil. iii. sect. 5. vol. ii. p. 68. "The carnal Jews accuse us as transgressors [for not observing the distinctions of meats,] and so do those who differ little from them, the Ebionites." In Matt. tom. xi. sect. 12. vol. iii. p. 494. "Even until now ——— the Ebionites smite the apostle of Jesus Christ with reproachful words." In Jerem. Homil. xviii. sect. 12. vol. iii. p. 254. "There are some sects which do not admit the Epistles of Paul the apostle; as the two classes of Ebionites : they do not, therefore, regard the apostle as a good and wise man." Contra Cels. lib. vi. sect. 65. vol. i. p. 628.

On the following passages also, Dr. Priestley and Mr. Belsham lay much stress, supposing them to assert the Unitarianism of the general mass of Gentile Christians. "Others there are, who know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified; supposing that [the doctrine of] the Word's being made flesh is the whole [doctrine] of the Word: they know Christ only after the flesh." In Joann. tom. ii. sect. iii. vol. iv. p. 53. "The Word is not such on earth as he is in heaven, having become flesh, and speaking by a shadow and types and resemblances: and the multitudes of those who are reckoned to have believed in the shadow of the Word, and not in the true Word of God, are made disciples." ib. p. 56.

The Inquirer also selects from Dr. Priestley a passage, representing Athanasius as complaining that "the multitude" was