tirely approve. It would have been but fair to advertise his readers of so capital an emendation; an emendation for which no support is to be found in the Greek text, nor even in the varieties of any MSS."

I am sorry, Sir, that my printer, or my own mistake, should have given you all this trouble in consulting MSS. &c. I do assure you I had no knowledge of having made a change in a single word in copying that text, nor should I have wished to have made any change at all in it; thinking that, as it now stands, it is quite as much for my purpose as that which you suppose I have purposely substituted in its place. Had you thought me capable of an attempt of this kind, you should not have ascribed to me, as you have done, the greatest purity of intention in all that I have written on this subject.

I now proceed to remark on what you have observed from Clemens Romanus, concerning the pre-existence of Christ.

in

You think that, through my excessive zeal for an hypothesis, I make every thing to favour it but I hardly think that you can find any thing in my attempt to support the Socinian doctrine, that discovers more zeal than you manifest in support of the Athanasian one; and I think that excessive zeal has misled you as remarkable a manner as you suppose mine to have misled me. I can no otherwise account for your assert. ing, p. 16, that "The notion of Christ having had his choice of different ways of coming into the world, is explicitly expressed in a book little inferior in authority to the canonical writings, in the first epistle of Clemens Romanus, in a passage of that epistle which Dr. Priestley, somewhat unfortunately for his cause, has chosen for

the basis of an argument of that holy father's heterodoxy. The sceptre of the majesty of God, says Clemens, Our Lord Jesus Christ, came not in the pomp of pride and arrogance, although he had it in his power. Clemens, it seems, conceived that the manner of coming was in the power and choice of the person who was to come."

Of this I have no doubt; but the question is, from whence he was then to come. Clemens does not say that it was from heaven to earth. That is entirely your own interpretation, for which I see no ground at all; since the phrase is so easily explained by his entering upon his commission, as a public teacher; when, being invested with the power of working miracles, he never made any ostentatious display of it, or indeed exerted it for his own benefit in any respect.

Besides Clemens Romanus, you refer to the epistles of Ignatius, for a proof of the early knowledge of the doctrine of Christ's divinity. "The holy father," you say, p. 19, "hardly ever mentions Christ without introducing some explicit assertion of his divinity, or without joining with the name of Christ some epithet in which it is implied." All this is very true, according to our present copies of Ignatius's epistles. But you must know that the genuineness of them is not only very much doubted, but generally given up by the learned; and it was not perfectly ingenuous in you to conceal that circumstance. First prove those epistles, as we now have them, to be the genuine writings of Ignatius, and then make all the use of them that you

can.

I am, &c.

LETTER II.

Of the Distinction between the Ebionites and the Nazarenes.

DEAR SIR,

It has been imagined by some, that there was a dif

ference between the doctrine of the Ebionites and that of the Nazarenes concerning the person of Christ; the former disbelieving the miraculous conception, and the latter maintaining it; whereas I have said that I can find no sufficient authority for that difference; that which has been thought to have been the peculiar opinion of the Nazarenes, being expressly ascribed to one branch of the Ebionites, by Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, and perhaps other ancient writers.

And as to any Nazarenes who believed that Christ was any thing more than man, I find no trace of them in history; so that it is highly probable that the Nazarenes of the second century were the same people with those of the first, or the primitive Jewish Christians, and that they were called Ebionites by way of reproach.

To the arguments from Origen and Eusebius you say nothing, but with respect to that from Epiphanius your conduct is very particular indeed. On my saying that "Epiphanius expressly says that Ebion held the same opinion with the Nazarenes," you say, p. 77, "The only inference to be made from this assertion is this, that Dr. Priestley has never troubled himself to read more of Epiphanius's account of the Ebionites than the first eleven words of the first sentence. Had he read the first sentence to the end, he would have

found that Ebion, although he arose from the school of the Nazarenes, and held similar opinions, preached also other doctrines, of which he was the first inventor. Among these novelties, by the consent of all antiquity, though not with Dr. Priestley's leave, we place the mere humanity of Christ, with or without the miraculous conception."

I shall not return your offensive language; but had you yourself read the second paragraph in this section, you would have found that your remark had no foundation whatever. For it there appears, that though, according to this writer, the Ebionites and Nazarenes did differ in some other particulars, it was not with respect even to the miraculous conception, much less with respect to the doctrine of the mere humanity of Christ.

He says, in the middle of the first section, "that Ebion," whom in the 24th section he makes to be cotemporary with the apostle John, "borrowed his abominable rites from the Samaritans, his opinion (yvwμnv) from the Nazarenes, his name from the Jews*, &c." And he says, in the beginning of the second section," he was cotemporary with the former, and had the same origin with them; and first he asserted that Christ was born of the commerce and seed of man, namely Joseph, as we signified above," referring to the first words of his first section, "when we said that in other respects he agreed with them all, and differed from them only in this, viz. in his adherence to the laws of the Jews with respect to the sab

* Σαμαρείτων μεν γαρ έχει το βδελυρον, Ιουδαίων δε το όνομα, Οσσαίων δε και Ναζωραίων και Νασαραίων την γνωμην -και Χριστ τιανων βούλεται εχειν την προσηγορίαν. Hær. 30. sect. i. p. 125. Vol. i. edit. Paris. 1622.

bath, circumcision, and other things that were enjoined by the Jews and Samaritans. He moreover adopted many more things than the Jews, in imitation of the Samaritans *,” the particulars of which he then proceeds to mention.

In the same section he speaks of the Ebionites inhabiting the same country as the Nazarenes, and adds that, " agreeing together, they communicated of their perverseness to each other t." Then, in the third section, he observes that afterwards some of the Ebionites entertained a different opinion concerning Christ, than that he was the son of Joseph; supposing that, after Elxæus joined them, they learned of him "some fancy concerning Christ and the holy spirit ‡."

Concerning the Nazarenes, in the seventh section of his account of them, he says that they were Jews in all respects, except "that they believed in Christ; but I do not know whether they hold the miraculous conception, or not S.” This amounts to no more than

* Οὗτος γὰρ ὁ Εβιων συγχρονος μεν τουτων υπηρχεν, απ' αυτών δε συν αυτοίς ὁρμαται. τα πρώτα δε εκ παρατριβης και σπέρματος ανδρος, τουτεστι του Ιωσήφ, τον Χριστον γεγενησθαι ελεγεν, ὡς και ηδη ἡμιν προειρηται, ότι τα ισα τοις άλλοις εν άπασι φρόνων, εν τουτῳ μόνῳ διεφερετο, εν τῳ τῳ νομῳ του Ιουδαϊσμού προσανέχειν, κατα σαββατισμόν, και κατά την περιτομην, και κατά τα άλλα παντα όσα περ παρα Ιουδαίοις και Σαμαρειται επιτελείται. ετι δε πλείω οὗτος παρα τους Ιουδαίους ὁμοίως τοις Σαμαρειταις διαπράττεται. Hær. 30. sect. i. p. 125, 126.

+ Ενθεν αρχεται της κακής αυτου διδασκαλιας, ὅθεν δηθεν και οἱ Ναζαρηνοί οἱ ανομοι προδεδήλωνται. Συναφθεις γαρ ούτος εκείνοις, και έκεινοι τούτῳ, έκατερος απο της ἑαυτου μοχθηρίας τῳ ἑτέρῳ με τεδωκε. Ibid. sect. ii. p. 125, 126.

Η φαντασίαν τινα περι Χριστου διηγείται, και περι πνεύματος άγιου. Ibid. sect. iii. p. 127.

§ Περι Χριστου δε ουκ οιδα ειπειν ει και αυτοί, τη των προειρη μενων περι Κηρινθον και Μηρινθον μοχθηρια αχθέντες, ψιλον ανθρώ που νομίζουσιν η, καθώς η αληθεια έχει, δια πνευματος άγιου γεγενησθαι εκ Μαριας διαβεβαιούνται. Hær. 29. sect. vii. p. 123.