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posed to persecution himself, thought it to be a crime for which burning alive was no more than an adequate punishment; and almost all the christian world justified his using that rigour with respect to Servetus. Now, since the minds of men are in all ages similarly affected in similar circumstances, we may conclude, that the unitarian doctrine, which was treated with so much respect when it was first mentioned, was in a very different predicament then, from what it was at the time of the Reformation. The difference of majority and minority, and nothing else, can account for this difference of treatment.

You will say, if the great majority of christians in early times were unitarians, why did not they excommunicate the innovating trinitarians? I answer, that the doctrine of the trinity was not, in its origin, such as could give much alarm, as I have explained in my Reply to the Monthly Reviewers, p. 11; and before it became very formidable there was a great majority of the learned and philosophizing clergy on its side. However, that it did give very great alarm, as it began to unfold itself, I have brought undeniable evidence.

ταράσσειν,

What words, in any language, can express more alarm or dislike than expavescere and scandalizare, by which Tertullian describes their feelings on this subject? And Origen has some equally strong in Greek, as Taраσσ, &c. Had the unitarians in those times been writers, we should probably have heard more of their complaints. At present we know nothing of them besides what we are able to collect concerning them from their adversaries, who thought it necessary to make frequent apologies to them.

On the other hand, there is indisputable evidence that the unitarian doctrine, and even in its most obnoxious form, existed in the very time of the apostles. The Jewish christians in general, not only thought that Christ was a mere man, but even that he was the son of Joseph; and the gradation that you speak of, from the doctrine of the Ebionites in the time of St. John, to that of Theodotus in the time of Victor, has no existence but in your own single imagination. And yet these unitarians were respected, and not expelled from christian societies, by the orthodox of that age. Explain this fact, in consistence with their not being the majority of christians, if you can.

At this day, as the unitarian doctrine happily gains ground among christians, the horror with which it has been considered is manifestly very much abated. Your treatment of me, and of all who hold the same opinion,' is rather extraordinary, considering the times in which we live; but it is mild and moderate compared with the usual treatment of the same doctrine, even in this tolerant country, a hundred, or even fifty years ago.

At the time of the Revolution it was made blasphemy by act of parliament openly to avow what I now openly defend, and was punishable with confiscation of goods and imprisonment for life, if persisted in; and the law still remains unrepealed. But it is seen to be so arbitrary and unjust, (as directed against those who conscientiously believe in one God only, without acknowledging three persons to be that one God,) that no one dares to put it in execution; and the state, I am confident, only waits for that application which, I trust, will be made to relieve them, and to wipe off such a disgrace from our statutes.

LETTER IV.

Of the Inference that may be drawn from the Passage of Athanasius, concerning the Opinion of the early Jewish Christians relating to Christ.

DEAR SIR,

As one argument that the primitive church of Jerusalem was properly unitarian, maintaining the simple humanity of Christ, I observed, that "Athanasius himself was so far from denying it, that he endeavoured to account for it by saying that all the Jews were so firmly persuaded that their Messiah was to be nothing more than a man like themselves, that the apostles were obliged to use great caution in divulging the doctrine of the proper divinity of Christ."

This I maintain to be a short but true state of the case. Athanasius both expressly allowed that the Jewish christians were at first of the opinion that Christ was no more than a man ; and he accounts for the apostles conniving at it, without saying how long that prudent connivance continued. In my Appendix you will find a somewhat fuller state of the argument. I shall now distinctly consider all that you have advanced to invalidate the inference that I have made from this remarkable passage. I shall afterwards show that it was not Athanasius only, but Chrysostom also; and, as he says, the ancients, and the most distinguished fathers of the church, who gave the same representation of the state of things in the apostolical age.

You say, p. 22, that Athanasius is here speaking of the unbelieving Jews. The expression is of TOTE Ioudaol,

the Jews of that age; which includes both the believing and unbelieving Jews. Had he been speaking of the Jews of his own time, it would, I own, have been probable that he meant the unbelieving Jews; but speaking, as he does, of the Jews at the very first promulgation of christianity among them, it is most natural to suppose that he meant all the Jews. Paul, long after his conversion to christianity, called himself a Jew. However, it will be sufficiently evident from the whole tenor of the passage, that he must have meant the believing Jews principally, and in some respects the believing Jews only, exclusive of the unbelieving ones. And in this construction of the passage I am by no means singular, but have the sanction of

trinitarians themselves.

But admitting that the Jews here meant were unbelieving Jews, they were such as the apostles wished to convert to christianity, and many of them soon became christians. How the apostles conducted themselves with respect to these men, first unbelieving and then believing Jews, Athanasius thus informs us. Our readers may judge of the fidelity of the translation by consulting the original in the margin; and as I only abridged the passage before, I shall now give a larger portion of it at full length, for the whole is much too large to transcribe *. "Will they affirm that the

* Ουδεν γαρ αυτοις ατολμητον, ότι και αυτοι οί απόστολοι τα Αρείου εφρονουν. ανθρωπον γαρ αυτόν από Ναζαρέτ, και παθητον τον Χρίστον απαγγελλουσιν, εκείνων τοινυν τοιαυτα φανταζομένων, αρ' επειδη τοις ρήμασι τούτοις έχρήσαντο, μόνον ανθρωπον ήδεισαν τον Χριστον οἱ αποστολοι, και πλεον ουδεν; μη γενοιτο· ουκ εστιν ουδε εις νουν ποτε τουτο λαβειν· αλλα και τουτο ως αρχιτεκτονες σοφοί, και οικονομος μυστηριων θεου πεποιηκασι· και την αιτιαν εχουσιν ευλογον επειδη yap oi τοτε Ιουδαιοι πλανηθέντες τε και πλανήσαντες Έλληνας, ενο μιζον τον Χριστον ψιλον ανθρωπον, μόνον εκ σπερματος Δαβίδ ερχεσθαι, καθ ̓ ὁμοιότητα των εκ του Δαβίδ αλλων γενομενων τέκνων

apostles held the doctrine of Arius, because they say that Christ was a man of Nazareth, and suffered on the cross? Or, because they used these words, were the apostles of opinion that Christ was only a man, and nothing else? By no means: this is not to be imagined. But this they did as wise master builders and stewards of the mysteries of God; and they had this specious pretence for it. For the Jews of that age, being deceived themselves, and having deceived the Gentiles, thought that Christ was a mere man, only that he came of the seed of David, resembling other descendants of David, and did not believe either that he was God, or that the word was made flesh. On this account the blessed apostles, with great prudence, in the first place, taught what related to the humanity of our Saviour to the Jews; that having fully persuaded them, from his miraculous works, that Christ was come, they might afterwards bring them to the belief of his divinity, showing that his works were not those of a man, but of God. For example, Peter having said that Christ was a man who had suffered, immediately added, he is the prince of life. In the gospel he confesses, Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God; and in his epistle he calls him the bishop of souls."

Here, I think, are sufficient marks of great caution, and of the apostles leading their converts to the knowούτε δε θεον αυτον, ουδε ότι λογος σαρξ εγενετο επίστευον. τούτου ἕνεκα, μετα πολλής της συνέσεως οἱ μακαριοι αποστολοι τα ανθρω πίνα του σωτήρος εξηγούντο πρωτον τοις Ιουδαίοις, ἵν ̓ ὅλως πεις σαντες αυτούς, εκ των φαινομενων και γενόμενων σημείων, εληλυ θεναι τον Χριστον, λοιπον και εις την περί της θεότητος αυτου πίστιν αυτους αναγάγωσι, δεικνύντες ότι τα γενόμενα εργα ουκ εστιν ανα θρώπου, αλλά θεου. αμελει Πετρος ὁ λέγων ανδρα παθητον τον Χριστον, ευθυς συνηπτεν Ούτος αρχηγος της ζωης εστιν. &c. &c. De Sententia Dionysii, Athanasii Opera, Vol. i. p. 553, 554, edit, Colon. 1686.

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