fea of Galilee, you carry the opinions of the Ebionites, as univerfally held by the Jewish christians to the very age of the apoftles; for they retired into that country on the approach of the Jewish war, about which time the apoftles went off the stage.

Since all the Jewish chriftians were called Nazarenes or Ebionites, and all the writers that mention them speak of the doctrine of thofe fects in general, and not those of their own time in particular, as being that Christ was a mere man; the natural inference is, that thofe fects, or the Jewish chriftians, did in all times, after they became fo diftinguifhed (which is allowed to have been just before, or presently after the deftruction of Jeru, falem) hold that doctrine. And fuppofing this to have been the cafe, is it not almoft certain, that the apostles themselves must have taught it? Can it be supposed that the whole Jewish church should have abandoned the doctrine of the divinity of Chrift, within fo few years after the death of the apostles, if they had ever received it from them? As far as I yet fee, Jewish chriftians who were not Nazarenes, or Ebionites, or Nazarenes who held any other doctrine concerning Chrift than that he was a mere man, are unknown in hiftory, and have no existence but in imagination.

That thofe who were called Nazarenes were as far from thinking Chrift to be God as the Ebionites, is evident from the most unexceptionable evidence. Among others, is the teftimony of Thea

doret,

doret, though, not having the original, I am obliged to quote it at fecond hand. This I fhall do from Suicer's Thefaurus, under the article Ebion. Hẹ fays, "the Nazarenes are Jews, who refpect "Chrift as a righteous man*." And Theodoret lived in Syria, where he had the best opportunity of being acquainted with the ftate of the Jewish churches.

It is rather extraordinary that fuch a point fhould now be made of finding fome difference of importance between the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, when no critic, I believe, of any name in the laft age pretended to find any. The learned Jeremiah Jones, after difpofing in oppofite columns all that he could collect concerning them both, from the best authorities, concludes with faying, "It is plain there was a

very great agreement between these two an"tient fects; and though they went under dif"ferent names, yet they feem only to differ in "this, that the Ebionites had made fome addition "to the old Nazarene fyftem. For Origen tells us

they were called Ebionites, who from among the "Jews owned Jefus to be the Chrift+t." The running title of this chapter is, The Nazarenes and Ebionites the fame.

As to the general testimony of Eusebius, and other writers, themselves believers in the divinity • Οι δε Ναζωραίοι Ικδαίος εἰσε τον Χρίσον τιμωντες ως ανθρωπον δικαιον.

↑ Jones on the Canon, vol i. p. 386.

of Chrift, that the church of Jerusalem towards the close of the apoftolic age (for it is not pretended that the apostles taught that doctrine clearly, and therefore not with effect, at the opening of their commiffion) was orthodox in their sense of the word, it is not to be regarded, unless they bring fome fufficient proof of their affertion. They were, no doubt, willing to have it thought fo; and, without confidering it very particularly, might prefume that it was fo: but the facts which they themselves record, and the account which they give of the conduct of the apostles in divulging this doctrine to the Jews, make it highly improbable that the cafe fhould have been, as in general terms they affert.

They furnish as particular evidence against their own general teftimony, as we can expect to find at this distance of time, fuppofing the fact to have been the reverfe of what they affert; and the state of things in after times, and even in their own, was fuch as can never be acounted for, agreeably to the known principles of human nature, on the fuppofition that it was originally fuch as they reprefent it to be. The general prevalence of the unitarian doctrine among the common people in the Gentile world, and the univerfal prevalence of it among the Jews, from the time that they were diftinguished by the name of Ebionites, or Nazarenes (which was immediately after the age of the apoftles) is totally in: confiftent with the idea of the divinity of Chrift

having been the univerfal, or the general opinion in the time of the apoftles.

I am, &c,

LETTER

III.

That the primitive Unitarians were not confidered

DEAR SIR,

A

as Heretics.

MONG the extravagant affertions, as you call them, of D. Zwicker, and which you fay were adopted by Epifcopius, you mention, p. 7. that of " the opinion of the mere humanity

of Chrift having prevailed very generally in the "first ages, and having never been deemed here

tical by the fathers of the orthodox perfuafion, "at least not in fuch a degree as to exclude them "from the communion of the church." But you fay that Epifcopius, "from his charitable temper,

..

gave eafy credit to the unitarian writers, when "they reprefented the differences of opinion in the "early churches as much greater than ever really "obtained, and the tenderness for fectaries as "more than was ever practised."

If I was disposed to copy your ufual language to me upon this occafion, I might have full fcope';

as

as what you now advance is the very reverse of the fact; and how you came to misapprehend so plain a cafe, concerning which I believe no writers of ecclefiaftical history ever differed, I do not take upon me to say, but leave others to judge. That there were as proper unitarians in the very age of the apostles, as any who are fo termed at this day (myself by no means excepted) and differing as much from what is now called the orthodox faith, I will venture to fay was never questioned; and that these ancient unitarians were not then expelled from chriftian focieties, as heretics, is, I believe, as generally allowed. It was, as you fay, acknowledged by Epifcopius the Arian, and it is likewise allowed by Mofheim the trinitarian, who fays, vol. i. p. 191. "However ready many may have "been to embrace this erroneous doctrine, it does "not appear that this fect formed to themselves a "feparate place of worship, or removed themselves " from the ordinary affemblies of christians." But does it not alfo follow from the fame fact, that these unitarians were not expelled from christian focieties by others, as they certainly would have been, if they had been confidered as heretics?

At the fame time the Gnoftics were in a very different predicament, and had been so from the beginning. Mofheim fays, vol. i. p. 108. " From "feveral paffages of the facred writings, it evi"dently appears, that even in the first century, "the general meetings of chriftians were deferted,

and separate affemblies formed, in feveral places,