confessions of antiquity appear to me to be entirely accordant with careful reasoning and with scriptural authority;---that the One Lord Jesus Christ is the Only-Begotten of the Father, before all ages; and that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father, equal to the Father and the Son in eternity, majesty, glory, and all perfection.

Obs. 2. I would submit a remark on the terms which were introduced by the early Christian writers, in treating on this subject; and upon which, as it appears to me, very unreasonable and unjust contempt has by some been cast. The principal of these are, Essence, οὐσία Trinity, τριάς" Subsistence, τρόπος υπάρξεως· Person, ὑπόστα σις and πρόσωπον Mutual Inexistence, ἐμπεριχώρησις. The propriety of employing these expressions rests upon the same foundation as the use of general terms in all scientific investigations; namely, that they are abbreviations of language, and serve as instruments of thought. Revelation, like physical nature, presents a vast collection of particular objects and facts: and, in both, the processes of com. parison, deduction, analysis, and combination, by which alone we can form comprehensive systems of knowledge, cannot be carried on, with convenience and perspicuity, without the use of general terms. It is unreasonable to object, that these identical words are not found in Scripture. The proper consideration is, whether the objects and facts for which they are used as a compendious notation, are not asserted and implied in the Scriptures. Only let us employ these or other terms with a kind and candid spirit towards such as decline the use of them, as Muntinghe and Ypey, just cited; let us not put our expressions and attempts at illustration into the place of divine authority; and let us study to "keep the unity of the spirit in the "bond of peace." On the abuse of such terms, the just use of them, and the unreasonable aversion from them, Calvin has some excellent observations, in his Institutes, Book I. ch. xiii. § 3.

If a thoughtful and candid Unitarian would read a tract of the great nonconformist divine, Mr. Howe,—the Calm Enquiry concerning the Possibility of a Trinity in the Godhead; it would probably have some effect in abating his objections; or it might, at least, convince him that imbecility of mind is not a necessary characteristic of a Trinitarian.

APPENDIX V.

ON THE SUPPOSED UNITARIANISM OF THE MAJORITY OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS.

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DR. PRIESTLEY conceived that he had elicited, from some hints and allusions of several of the Fathers, the concession, that "the great body of primitive Christians, both Jews and Gentiles," for the first two centuries and downwards, were Unitarians and believers in the simple humanity of Jesus Christ," and that the doctrine of the Deity of Christ was the invention of certain speculative persons, who were ambitious of relieving Christianity from the imputation of a mean and ignominious origin, and thus of rendering it more palatable to the gentiles, by representing its Founder as an incarnate God. Calm Inq. pp. 398, 420. Dr. Priestley's Hist. Early Op. vol. iii. pp. 158, &c. 233, &c.

The object of this work having been to investigate the testimony of the Scriptures, the sole rule of faith, I trust it will not be deemed improper to pass this topic with only a brief notice; for its importance, though great as a matter of history, and of very reasonable inquiry, is not that of authority. The Bible-testimony is that on which we stand; while we have abundant evidence that the stream, of both traditional and written proofs, decisively bears in favour of the doctrine maintained in these volumes. It is indeed the faith of our general Christianity, claiming in its favour a manifest prescription; a kind of evidence much resembling the common law of our country. But the positive fact, that the Christian Fathers, traced up to the very age of the Apostles, did hold the proper Deity of the Messiah and of the Holy Spirit, and consequently the Unity of the three Divine Subsistences in the Essence of Deity, has been amply demonstrated by many learned writers, whose works I earnestly recommend to my readers; in particular, those of Bishop Bull, Dr. Waterland, Mr. Burgh, Dr. Burton, and Mr. Stanley Faber.

i. It appears to me that the imputation to some of the Fathers, of having maintained that the doctrine of the Deity of Christ was absent from the earlier writings of the N. T., and was reserved to the later inspirations of St. John, is made on very partial and illunderstood grounds. Dr. Priestley and his followers have availed themselves of hyperbolical and ill-judged expressions; but which ought, in equity, to be compared with other passages of the same writers, and with the general tenor of their works. A fair and extensive induction of ALL that Origen, Athanasius, Chrysostom, &c. have advanced on this topic, would, I humbly think, present a result entirely different from that in which the Unitarians so exult. See Vol. II. p. 417. I add two 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 (aкpar☎ç) 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 (arapyn) the chief of all the Scriptures; and that according to John, the chief of the Gospels." Comment. in Johann. Proœm. 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 shows 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

1 Dr. Burton translates the clause; " With whom I do not agree, nor [would I agree] even if the majority of those who now think with me were to say

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 a nominal Christian, even of the Neological school: 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: while yet it makes our concern the more intense and painful, that any who advance so far should stop short of receiving the most vital parts of revealed religion. Certainly, also, it ought to awaken our own solicitude that we be not betrayed, through indifference or any other kind of prejudice, into even a slight neglect of any portion of "the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, the doctrine which is according to godliness;" and, equally also, that we may not content ourselves with a theoretical accuracy of belief, without those practical fruits which characterise a genuine faith.

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" [dpavriσròv, 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 (ovσías) 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 Sinaitæ Hodego, ap. Routh, Reliq. Sacr. vol. i. p. 115.

so."

iii. The celebrated passage of Tertullian' certainly involves great Ante-Nicene Fathers, § 27. But this translation equally supports my inference. That eminent Patristic scholar felt himself obliged to add, after citing Dr. Priestley's professed translation of the clause,—“we cannot acquit him of unfairness as well as inaccuracy."

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2 Simplices enim quique, ne dixerim imprudentes et idiotæ quæ major semper credentium pars est, quoniam et ipsa regula fidei à pluribus diis seculi, ad unicum et Deum verum transfert; non intelligentes unicum quidem, sed cum suâ œconomiâ, esse credendum, expavescunt ad economiam. Numerum et

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 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 coextensive 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 idiotæ) 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 dispositionem Trinitatis divisionem præsumunt Unitatis ; quando Unitas, ex semetipsâ derivans Trinitatem, non destruatur ab illâ, sed administretur. Itaque duos et tres jam jactitant à nobis prædicari, se verò unius Dei cultores præsumunt: quasi non et Unitas inrationaliter conlecta, hæresim faciat ; et Trinitas, rationaliter expensa, veritatem constituat. Monarchiam, inquiunt, tenemus. Et ita sonum vocaliter exprimunt etiam Latini, etiam opici, ut putes illos tam benè intelligere Monarchiam quàm enunciant. Sed Monarchiam sonare student Latini; Economiam intelligere nolunt etiam Græci." Adv. Praxeam. cap. iii.

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"For some simple persons (not to speak of the uninformed and ignorant who always constitute the greater part of believers) because the rule of faith itself leads us, from the many gods of the gentiles, to the only and true God, not understanding that he is to be believed in as one, but yet with his proper œconomy [i.e. relative arrangement], tremble at that œconomy. They take for granted that the number and disposition of the Trinity is a division of the Unity; whereas the Unity, deriving the Trinity from itself, is not destroyed but is supported by it. They now, therefore, reproach us with holding two or three, and fancy that they themselves are the worshippers of one God: as if, on the one hand, the Unity, improperly understood, did not make heresy; and, on the other, the Trinity, rightly considered, did not constitute the truth. We hold, say they, the Monarchy. And even Latins, even common people, so utter this sound that you would think they understood [the word] Monarchy as well as they pronounce it. Latins try to utter Monarchy, and even Greeks will not understand Economy." Lardner, Priestley, and Belsham, 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.