own opinion; yet it may be worth a few words to state the ground of ours.-That St. Johu got his notions immediately from Jews, and Jewish writers, and Chaldee paraphrases, will scarcely, I think, be disputed: the question will be, whence did Jewish writers get their notions? We say, that Plato most probably borrowed from the Jews: waving particular passages, it seems best to observe, that this is more likely than that the Jews should borrow any of their more important doctrines from Plato:

1. Because Judaism had been established above a thousand years before Plato lived. 2. Because Judaism was a national religion, Plato's' only what may be called a personal one; it is more likely, that a private man should hear of and adopt the religion of a nation, than that a nation should hear of and adopt the tenets of an individual. 3. Plato was curious and inquisitive after different religions; the Jews were incurious. He travelled into Egypt on purpose to study religion; to such an inquirer, Judaism must have been always within reach in Egypt.-He travelled into Italy; and where the Pythagorean doctrines were so well known as they were in Magna Grecia, the Jewish would not probably be wholly unknown. 4. It is allowable to say, that, supposing any one con

vinced

a Dacier's Plato, Engl. p. 7. 8. 34. 72. 83. 94. (called Ægyptian) 100. 123. (woman made out of man) 141. 142, &c. 146. Pherecydes and his scholar Pythagoras mentioned as bringing wisdom into Greece from the East, and from Egypt; p. 67. Pherecydes a Syrian; Pythagoras's country uncertain.

Here might be placed Numenius's observation, Ti yap éσTi Πλάτων ἢ Μωσῆς ἀττικίζων; "What is Plato but Moses in Greek?" Numenius was a Pythagorean Philosopher: time uncertain he might live before Christ.-See Lard. Test. Chap. XXXV. (Works, vol. VIII. p. 168.) called by Porphyry a Platonic, Philosopher:-he used writings of Moses and the Prophets, and allegorized some of them; as seems clear from Origen. Ibid.

vinced of the divine origin of the Religion of Moses, such an one could not think that religion the borrower, in any thing fundamental; and, if ever religion could prove itself divine, by its mere subsistence, the Jewish did; a spiritual religion single in the midst of idolatries;—a religion founded on the unity of God, surrounded on all sides by various species of polytheism; its professors no higher in philosophy or arts, than their neighbours:-all Jews and Christians therefore must believe, that revealed Religion did not borrow its doctrine of a Trinity from Heathenism; and every proof of the truth of the Mosaic or Christian Religion, must operate as an argument on our side of the present question. But this is not the place for proving the truth of the Mosaic religion:-let us rather then observe, that, to require us to prove how Plato borrowed of the Hebrews, is unfair; he might, and yet it might be impossible for us to tell how, at this time. Neither is it at all likely, that we should be able to ascertain the manner, in which different religions in remote times mixed together; we do not say, Plato was a Jew, or adopted the Mosaic religion systematically we only say, he borrowed from that as well as other religions: but we do not pretend to point out the particular manner, in which the Ægyptian and Oriental philosophy, the tenets of Pythagoras and Plato, derived perhaps from Timæus, Parmenides, Pherecydes, and one knows not how many more, mixed themselves in Egypt :-an ingredient, more or less, might make a great difference; and each ingredient

b Something of this we had occasion to produce before. Book I. Chap. xvi. Sect. 8.

That the Egyptian and Oriental philosophy were much the same, was observed in the Appendix to the first Book. Sect. 12.

dient might be infused in a great variety of proportions: Religious tenets, and so also political opinions, get mixed and blended together before our eyes, in modern life, till we can analyse none of them exactly.-Nevertheless, we may conceive, that, if the Jews, in Egypt, or elsewhere, found that Plato, or his followers, admired, imitated, or in any part adopted their religion, they would be much inclined to favour his:-and his religion is of so noble and captivating a nature, as to tempt both Jews and Christians, of more lively imaginations and warm affections, to mix its tenets with their own.

The conclusion seems to be, that we may venture to proceed in our old path; and look upon Plato as having borrowed from Judaism, or, at least, on Judaism and Christianity as not having borrowed from Plato, though Jews and Christians have mixed some degree of Platonism with Judaism and Christianity. And this method of regarding the subject must make us consider our own doctrine of the Trinity as coming immediately from Heaven.

We may well claim it as our own, on the footing of its being a single one, and of a determinate sort; Plato was aiming at something", he knew not what; and made a number of different Trinities, as his ear or fancy led him; and, if we had followed the ear, or the imagination, we also should have had a multitude of Trinities; but ours is one, and only one. His were formed out of his imagination, ours arises out of the nature of the thing, according

a The Dissenters in England, popularly so called, have run through a great many variations in opinion: the expression "carried about by every wind of Doctrine," implies such unsteadiness.

b Dacier's Discourse on Plato, p. 9. expresses this prettily, relative to his aiming at something indistinctly.

according to principles of reason and utility. God would instruct and protect mankind, in their religious capacities; who are to appear as principals in such an undertaking ?-First, he who is the fountain of all good; next, that personage whom he commissions as actual instructor, who is to be of the same species with those he instructs; and lastly, a perpetual agent, who is to promote with constant assiduity the proper effects, the success of the instruction: the Sovereign, the Instructor, and the Resident, are the persons to be chiefly distinguished, according to all the dictates of common sense, whether their number pleased the ear, as a Triad, or not.

We have given into an argument relating only to St. John, as if he alone laid down the doctrine of the Trinity; as a Trinity, the other evangelists lay it down equally, and indeed proofs of the Divinity of the several persons are taken from St. Paul more than from St. John.-But, while we are only comparing the Christian with Heathen notions, the Divinity of the Persons does not seem to make a part of our considerations.-Yet the Divinity of the several persons is a principal matter in the Christian Religion, and that is signified in many parts of Scripture which, taken separately, give no idea of a Trinity.

4. We now come to the inquiry, whether in any sense it may be asserted, that the doctrine of

the

Suppose a Sovereign wanted to civilize a newly discovered Island, would not these characters or persons be natural? and supposing it practicable, not hindered by the perverseness and wickedness of man, for the Son of the Sovereign to go to the Island and make one with the Islanders, would not that be best? and every resident or vicegerent, though a common man, is conceived as constantly communicating with both Sovereign and subjects. See Sect. 20.

the Holy Trinity did not exist till the fourth century?-There can be no doubt but that, if we wave the dignity of the Persons, who composed the Trinity, and only speak of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as making a Triad, without considering them as in the Unity of the Godhead, there was a Trinity from the earliest times of Christianity. In the New Testament, these three are introduced jointly forty-eight times, according to Dr. Samuel Clarke's enumeration. And it does seem, that the word Trinity was at first used for mere convenience, to avoid a repetition of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; as the word Triumvirate was used to avoid the repetition of Pompey, Cæsar, and Crassus; or of Octavius, Anthony, and Lepidus.-The very early use of Doxologies confirms this, as well as the form of Baptism. Our question properly is, whether, before the fourth Century, the Divinity of the Son and Holy Ghost was acknowledged in that distinct and full manner, in which it is now acknowledged; and whether the Divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, was publicly, distinctly, and expressly recognized, and combined with the Unity of the Godhead, in the same manner, in which it is at present?

When I first read Lectures upon this Article, it appeared to me, that the Doctrine of the Trinity had scarcely reached such maturity, and got such general establishment in the Church, before the fourth Century: but a controversy between Dr. Priestley and some eminent persons of our Church, on the antiquity of Doctrines by which the Socinians are distinguished from us, occasioned some diffidence: I read some parts of it; but not the whole, so as to form a judgment of every argument made use of; however, I attended the more carefully

a In 1781.