Badcock, capable of the things with which you charge me, I fhould not fay that " your virtues were either great, or amiable."

By way of foftening thofe charges, which materially affect my moral character, you fometimes (though it makes a poor compenfation for defects of a moral nature) introduce compliments (whether fincerely or ironically is equally indifferent to me) respecting merit of a philofophical kind. Thefe alfo, for want of information, I am unable to return. For if I were asked what improvements in science the world owes to you, I really could not tell; and I think it is very poffible, that, in fact, you are as much a stranger to my pursuits, as I am to yours.'

Though from the age of feventeen to twenty-feven, I believe, I read as much Greek as almost any man can be fupposed to have read in the fame time, and after that taught it nine years, the laft fix of them at Warrington, and chiefly the higher Greek claffics (for the elements of the language were not taught in that academy) I do not pretend ever to have been properly at home in the language. I mean fo as to read it with the fame ease, with which it is common to read Latin or French (indeed I have not yet met with any man who pretended that he could do this) and having given lefs attention to that language fince I have had the means of employing my time better, your Scotch correfpondent may be right in obferving, that I am but very moderately fkilled in it, and at my time of life, my acquaintance with it is not likely to improve. However, fuch as it is, I fhall make the best use that I can of it in the larger work on which I am now employed. It is poffible, however, that I might make but a bad exchange of the remains of my Greek literature for yours, or that of your Scotch correfpondent.'

As to yourself in particular, who are fo proud of being a church man, it would have been happy for the public, and likewise a parti cular fatisfaction to myself, if you had a greater fhare of that learning of which you think your church poffeffed. More information would then have been given to our readers by both of us; and at leaft I might have been able to fay, with the perfon who examined Dr. Clarke, Probe me exercuifti. All I can now fay is, that I have made fome ufe of your ignorance, though I fhould have made more of your knowledge, to throw light on the fubject of our difcuffion. My talk has been much too eafy; but I would willingly have done more, if there had been any occafion for it, or indeed a propriety in it.'

The following paragraph in our author's preface pleases by the union it prefents to us of found philofophy and moral rectitude.

As I now confider this controverfy as clofed, it is probable that till my larger work be printed, the public will hear no more from me on this fubject, But if any thing more plaufible than has yet been urged fhould appear, I fhall have an opportunity of noticing it in the Theological Repofitory, which I hope foon to open again; and if any perfon will give his name, and propofe any difficulty whatever relating to the prefent difcuffion, fo that I fhall fee reafon to think it proceeds from a love of truth, and a defire of information, I here promife that I will speak fully to it, and I fhall be as explicit as

I poffibly

I

poffibly can. But to be more fo than I have hitherto been is impoffible. Such as I have been, the public fhall always find me. I have no referve or concealment with respect to myself, and I fhall always endeavour to preferve as much candour as poffible with regard to others. But if I have been addicted to the artifices and des ceits that Dr. Horfley fo vehemently accufes me of, and if I have actually practifed them to the age of fifty, I fhall hardly lay them afide now. Let the public, therefore, be upon their guard against me, and "watch me as narrowly" as he fays, is neceffary, Great changes in character and habit seldom take place at my age.'

We now proceed to lay before our readers an extract of thofe paffages in Dr. Priestley's rejoinder, which seem to go the fartheft towards invalidating the objections of his opponents. We have always conceived it to be a part of the wifdom of a man who writes for the public, to leave something to be made out by the fagacity of his readers; and, in seve ral of the evidences adduced in this controverfy, we are perfuaded that the oppofition has already appeared (magnified probably, or diminished according to the preconceptions of the individual) fo nugatory or fo decifive, that no additional difquifition refpecting them could poffibly obtain either attention or fuccefs. And indeed this plan of concentration and abridgment is the only one, that can in any degree be reconciled to the nature of a publication fo miscellaneous, as that, in which we are engaged.

I.

1. You, Mr. Archdeacon, are pleased to deny the exiftence of the Ebionites in the times of the apoftles, contrary, I will venture to fay to the unanimous teftimony of all antiquity. In the opinion of Epiphanius (Hær. 29.) they were not at that time only a fect, but together with the Nazarenes a very formidable fect of Jewish Chriftians. Jerome, giving an account of the reafons that moved John to write his Gofpel, mentions the Ebionites as a flourishing sect in the time of that apoftle.' Opera, Catalogue of Ecclefiaftical Writers.

2. "How differently do we judge of things being remarkable, or extraordinary. I fee nothing at all extraordinary in the omiffion of the Cerinthians in this lift of heretics by Hegefippus, as they were only one branch of the Gnoftics, several of whom are in his lift; and it is not improbable that thefe Cerinthians having been one of the earlieft branches, might have been very inconfiderable, perhaps extinct in his time; I do not know that they are mentioned by any ancient writer as exifting fo late as the time of Hegefippus; and as they feem to have been been pretty much confined to fome parts of Afia Minor, and efpecially Galatia, which was very remote from the feat of the Ebionites, they might never have extended fo far; and therefore he might not have heard much about them. Whereas the Ebionites were at that very time in their full vigour, and though their opinions (being then almoft univerfal in what was called the catholic church) had not begun to give offence, they were afterwards the object of

the most violent hatred to the other Christians, and continued to be fo as long as they fubfifted.'

2. If after what I have feen in your charge, and in thefe Letters, I could be surprised at any thing you fay on thefe fubjects, it would be at your fo confidently maintaining, p. 79. that Justin Martyr had a view to the unitarians in thefe accounts of herefy in general, when any perfon, with a small portion of that reading of which you pretend to fo much, must know that every word and phrase in them, efpecially the charge of pride, atheism, and blafphemy, is appropriated to the Gnoftics, and the Gnoftics only. I must take the liberty to fay, that you know nothing at all of the ancient ecclefiaftical writers, if you can imagine that the unitarians are ever defcribed by them in this manner. I am even afhamed to argue with any man who, if he has read the early fathers at all, has read them to to little purpose.

To me it is indifputably clear, that Justin Martyr confidered no other clafs of perfons as heretics, unfit to have communion with Chriftians, but the Gnoftics only. Let any reasonable man but compare thefe paffages in which he cenfures the Gnostics with fo much feverity, with thofe in which he speaks of the unitarians (in which I ftill am of opinion he makes an apology to them for his own principles, but which certainly imply no cenfure) and I think he cannot but conclude with me, that unitarianifm was confidered in those times in a very different light from what it was afterwards, and is now.'

(3.) It is truly remarkable, and may not have been obferved by you, as indeed it was not by myself till very lately, that Irenæus, who has written fo large a work on the fubject of herefy, after the time of Juftin, and in a country where it is probable there were fewer unitarians, again and again characterizes them in fuch a manner, as makes it evident, that even he did not consider any other perfons as being properly heretics befides the Gnoftics. He ex• preffes a great diflike of the Ebionites; but though he appears to have known none of them befides thofe who denied the miraculous conception, he never calls them heretics.

(4.) One of your proofs, p. 83. that unitarianifm was profcribed in the primitive church in the time of Tertullian, is his faying that the regula fidei in his treatife De Præfcriptione was the belief of all Chriftians. But every writer, if we wifh not to cavil, but to understand his real meaning, must be interpreted in a manner confiftent with himself. It is a degree of candour that is due to all writers; and what you strongly plead for in the case of Eufebius. Now, concerning what we now call the atofties creed, Tertullian expreffes himself in fuch a manner (in his treatife De Virginis Velan dis) as gives us clearly to understand that this was all that was ne ceffary to the faith of a Chriftian. This creed might be fubfcribed by any unitarian who believed the miraculous conception. The other creed, therefore, which is not the apostles, must be his own comment or expofition of the proper regula fidei, or creed (and in deed it has all the appearance of a comment, as may be feen by the comparison) and all that we can conclude from it, is that it contains his own opinion, which is well known from his writings in general.

i

To prove that the regula fidei in the treatife De Prafcriptione was the belief of all Chriftians in that age, you must prove that it was the creed that all Chriftians gave their affent to; and this affent was only given at the time of baptifm. But that regula fidei (which fuppofes the pre-existence of Chrift) is no where to be found but in this particular paffage in the writings of Tertullian; whereas that which is called the apoftles creed is, with fome variations, frequently mentioned, and is known to have been the only creed that was used at baptifm in the time of Tertullian, and long afterwards.

That Tertullian alluded to none but the Gnoftics in the regula fidei of his treatise De Præfcriptione is evident from every claufe in it, and from the object of the work, which refpects the Gnoftics only, the unitarians being only occafionally and flightly mentioned in it. Though, therefore, a fingle feature in this account is found in the unitarians, as well as in the Gnoftics, it is the whole character that we are to attend to, and not that feature in particular.

In all other places in which I have found Tertullian to speak of berefy in general, it is most evident that his ideas went no farther than to the opinions of the Gnoftics, except that he once calls Hebion a heretic, and then he exprefsly makes his herefy to confist in his obfervance of the Jewish ritual.”

III.

10. I am ftill of opinion, that the paffage of Athanafius, ex. hibits fufficient marks of great caution, and of the apostles leading their converts to the knowledge of the divinity of Christ, by very diftant and uncertain inferences indeed, fuch as Jews, fo previously perfuaded as he represents them to have been, of the fimple humanity of their Meffiah, would not very readily understand.

great,

Now if this caution was requifite in the first instance, and with respect to the first converts that the apostles made, it was equally requifite with refpect to the reft, at leaft for the fake of others who were not yet converted; unless the first fhould have been enjoined fecrefy on that head. For whenever it had been known that the apostles were preaching not fuch a Meffiah as they expected, viz. a man like themfelves, but the eternal God, the difference was fo that a general alarm must have been fpread, and the conversion of the reft of the Jews (to a doctrine which must have appeared fo highly improbable to them) must have been impeded. We may therefore prefume, that the apostles must have connived at this flate of ignorance, concerning the divinity of Chrift in their Jewish converts, till there was little hopes of making any farther converts among the Jews, and till the gofpel began to be preached to the Gentiles.'

You fay," the expectation of a great deliverer, or benefactor "of mankind, was univerfal even in the Gentile world, about the "time of our Lord's appearance. This, however, I do very much question, and I should be glad to know the names of the candid infidels who have acknowledged it.

An expectation of a Meffiah certainly exifted among the Jews, and of courfe among their profelytes; but if any fuch idea had been univerfal among the Gentiles, fo as to intereft them in difcuffions about the nature of this great deliverer, as whether he was to be God or man, &c. we should certainly have perceived fame traces of

it

it in their writings. It might have been expected that on account both of the interesting nature, and of the obfcurity, of the subject, there would have been different opinions about it, that it would have been a common topic in their philofophical schools; and that their hiftorians would have given fome account of the origin and foundation of this univerfal opinion.

6

You will produce, I fuppofe, Virgil's fixth Eclogue. But, Sir, can you believe that even Virgil himself really expected any fuch perfon as he defcribes? The ufe that the poets might make of a vague report of a prophecy, brought probably from the east, and ultimately from the Jewish fcriptures (but serioully believed by no person that we know of) merely to embellish a poem, is one thing; but the actual and univerfal expectation of fuch a perfon, is another.' IV.

2. Struck with this extraordinary narration, of a tranfac tion of ancient times, for which you refer to no authority befides that of Mofheim, I looked into him; but even there I do not find all the particulars that you mention. He fays nothing of the Jewish Chriftians having obferved their law more from habit than any principle of confcience; nothing of their making no fcruple to renounce their law, in order to partake in the privileges of the Elian colony; nothing of any Jewish Chriftians removing from Pella and fettling in Elia; nothing of the retiring of the rest to the North of Galilee; or of this new origin of the Nazarenes there. For all these particulars, therefore, learned Sir, you must have fome other au thority in petto, befides that of Mofheim; and you ought to have produced it.

Alfo, as you adopt the affertions of Mofheim, I could wish to know his authority for fuppofing, that there was any fueh thing as a church, or part of a church, of Jewish Chriftians at Jerufalem, after the destruction of that city by Adrian. As to your additions, they are a series of fuch improbable circumftances, as hardly any hiftorian of the time could make credible. Bodies of men do not, whatever you may imagine, fuddenly change their opinions, and much lefs their customs and habits: leaft of all would an act of violence produce that effect; and, of all mankind, the experiment was the leaft likely to answer with Jews. If it had produced any effect for a time, the old cuftoms and habits would certainly have returned when the danger was over. You might just as well fuppofe that all the Jews in Jerufalem began to fpeak Greek, as well as abandoned their ancient cuftoms, in order to enjoy the valuable privileges of the Elian colony. And you would have this to alledge in your favour, that from that time the bishops of Jerufalem were all Greeks, the public offices were, no doubt, performed in the Greek language; and the church of Jerufalem was, indeed, in all respects, as much a Greek church, as that of Antioch.

As you fay, with refpect to myself," that a man ought "to be accomplished in ancient learning, who thinks he may escape "with impunity, and without detection, in the attempt to brow"beat the world with a peremptory and reiterated allegation of "teftimonies that exift not;" how much more accomplished ought that man to be, who now writes the history of tranfactions in the third century without alledging any testimony at all?

'Mofheim